drunks

It's been another good week and I can't believe that I am already back here writing you again. Since time is always short, i'll try to fill you in as best as I can . . .

- We had a few funny encounters with some drunk people this past week. The first one was when we walked in someones backyard . . . because in Finland, most of the front doors are in the backyard. . . and there were 2 HUGE ladies sun-bathing in bikinis . . . muchs to our disgust. We soon found out they were both drunk. One of them hurried and offered us frozen strawberries and beer, and then out of nowhere, gave me a huge, squeezing hug. I was soo grossed out. But what happened next was even funnier, she then hugged my companion, and gave him a couple kisses on his neck. Yeeeah . . . we got outta there. haha The other encounter was yesterday, just before we were going to head in for the day, I stopped a nice looking lady carrying her groceries. Immediately after we stopped her we noticed that she was drunk. She did some weird motions and told us that she hopes we go to heaven, then went behind us and out of nowhere, kicked us in the butt. After she finally let go of our hands we left, but not before she gave my companion a kiss on his hand, haha.

- Well, while I'm telling you random stuff . . haha. . . . we were at McDonalds in our visiting city the other day and we saw a group of young boys, probably 12 years old, that bought literally around 20+ cheeseburgers and piled them up in front of them and chowed down. . . . I almost took a picture. They still had 9 left before they picked them up and left.

- It was graduation weekend here in Finland this past week, so there were parties everywhere. 2 members in the branch had their parties and invited us and anyone in the branch that wanted to come. It wasn't really a party, more like a luncheon, but it was good missionary opportunities and we had fun. I've never had so much cake in one week of my life . . . and they gave us more to take home with us.

Despite my rambling, we did have quite a spiritual week. We had 2 really good teaches with our college roommate investigators. I already told you about the blessing we gave one of them, then, when we met again, we used an object lesson involving 3 cups. The inside of the 1st of the cups was dirty. The outside of the 2nd of the cups was dirty, and then the last cup was clean, in and out. Just like How Elder Robbins of the 70 talked about in Conference, we related BEing and DOing to this object lesson. The first cup represented a DOer, just going through the motions, but doesn't have their heart in it. The second cup was a BEer, a hypocrite who knows truth but doesn't live it. Then the last cup was both, just like Christ, our goal. All in all they really liked our lesson and we had a few scriptures like 3 Nephi 27:21,27 and so on. Then, right at the climax of it all we switched it and related it to them and baptism. It definitely opened their eyes, but they still won't set a date, but they are closer!

Church was also quite spiritual. The branch presidents baby boy got his baby blessing so a TON of members and guests came from around the country, literally doubling or tripling our branches size . . it was packed and it was awesome! The whole meeting just felt more powerful and spiritual. It made me wonder what it is like back in America, where the wards are even bigger! In testimony meeting, our investigator, Olavi, was the first one to stand and went up!!!!!! He shared that he wasn't a member yet, but he wanted to share his testimony about the power of the priesthood. He went on to share about a recent priesthood blessing he received because he messed up his knee skiing. He told how his knee healed miraculously much to the surprise of his doctor, and now, his other doctor that monitors his diabetes is even telling him that tests are showing it's looking as if he doesn't even have diabetes anymore!! He's had it for years!!!! My comp and I were about to stand up and explode in excitement, thinking the next thíng he was going to say in front of everyone was that he wanted to be baptized, but, not so . . . .yet. :) We have some awesome investigators! and an awesome branch!

We've done lots'o'findin recently, we need to keep finding, need new investigators. It's been great weather though! The missionary tan is back, haha.

One last experience I'll share before I must go. In Kotka, we were sitting in front of a library studying when a man approached us and let's just say he's somewhat of an Athiest missionary. He tried to get us to put God aside and all these 'books' and just live life and trust oneself and be happy. He must've tried for 20 minutes, but we testified that we know what we have is true and we cannot deny it. He got our phone number and still wants to discuss, but we told him it'd be on our terms, we'd do the teaching. The experience only did the opposite to me than what was intended. My testimony grew. I am so thankful that I know we have a loving Heavenly Father, and everlasting happiness is available to all who turn to Him.

Love you all! or should I say Y'ALL like like my southern companion, haha.

Rakkaudella,

Vanhin Watson