wow

Well, you all can imagine the shock as I opened up my e-mails a few minutes ago. Wow. I didn't think it'd be so soon. But it's incredible the peace that has come over me in these few minutes. When I left on my mission I left knowing that there would be a chance that I would return without any living grandparents, but I know and I'm so eternally grateful that I will have the opportunity to hug them and see them again regardless. It's actually quite strange, just this past week I started drawing a picture of her with the intent of sending it to her before she passed away. Of course I haven't had the time to finish it, but when I do I'll send it anyways.

Well, on that note, I'll tell you a bit about what happened this past week. Joensuu is starting to get a lot of success. We were let in 4 times on two days from tracting. 2 of those times we taught two people present. We almost got let in 3 other times but for good reasons we didn't, but they are all comebacks. With all these people added together, we would have received about 10 new investigators this week!!!!!! That's huge . . . . .here, haha. But, for now only about 4 of them really count. But the Lord's blessings have been bounteous this week.

Our investigator 'N' is still doing well. STILL no baptismal date . . . . she said, 'it will come with time.' ug So the next teach we are going to teach a bit about procrastination, haha. Yesterday she fed us and then we were able to have a teach. Her member friend from Helsinki, the one who referred her, was also there, which was nice. So she is still a work in progress.

We traveled up to Oulu to hear from Elder Causse of the Area Presidency and a Seventy. It was a really good experience and we learned a lot. He talked a bit about Desires, Being Bold, working with members, and then he opened it up to Questions. He even talked a bit about the temple in Italy ( for you Shannon and Layne) because apparently everything is going a lot smoother than expected. :) At the very end he played a musical number on the piano . . . .wow, he is very good at it. He played a rendition of Come, Come Ye Saints. It was awesome. It's cool to see a general authority in action and seeing his talents. At our lunch break inbetween just a few of us ate with him and answered his questions and asked some as well. I'm not sure, but he was a stake president in Paris around the time that Lindsey served there. You know him sis? Anyways, that was fun. Literally right after the closing prayer we went to the train station to catch our train. We slept the night in Kajaani with the elders there, then caught the 6:20 am train to Joensuu the next morning. But that night it was Elder Bradshaw's birthday! A couple really recent converts through him a birthday party and we were able to tag along. This converts were literally baptized a couple months ago and they are awesome. They are mother and son. The son really likes old fashioned Rock n Roll, like Beatles, Elvis, etc, . . . .he even dresses like it too. He has a toddler son who was there and he had his mini guitar and was jumping around while his dad played us some songs. All in all it was very nice of them and we had a good time.

Now, back in Joensuu. It's HOT. It's been in the mid 80's for a while now. Without air conditioning or fans, we have all of our windows open all day . . .so I woke up with a few mosquito bites, haha. The other day, before we left to Oulu, we were tracting out in a farther away area, just walking along, when all of a sudden we heard a HUGE, LOUD BOOM and cracking and stuff. It lasted for a couple seconds, then it faded away. We looked at eachother scared out of our minds and realized that we were almost struck by lightning, haha. The tag protects I guess, haha. The next morning we decided to do some yard work at our church building before we hopped on our train, because the building was looking horrible: weeds everywhere, lawn not fully mowed, trees and bushes over-grown, etc. So we made it look nice. :)

Well, that's all I got for today. It was great hearing from you all this week. Safe travels to all, and tell everyone hi for me! Wish I could be there for the funeral, but I know I am supposed to be here.

-Vanhin Watson

p.s. Give the Audis a Kiss for me :P hahaha