Mini Melons....

Good morning everyone! I hope that you all had a great two weeks! Sorry that i could not email last week..i went to the temple and right when i got back we had to go help a family move...but they took us out to a really nice burger/mexican resaurant. it was probably one of the best burgers i have had. So much has happened in these last two weeks i cant really remember all of it.

But we had a really great first lesson with this woman from belarus. (but before that, we had called over 40 members (and like 10 who werent in our ward) to come with us to the lesson...we were 2 minutes away from canceling the lesson but i convinced a less active member to come with us who previously said no. If the church is ever going to get baptisms, it is going to need to come through the help of the members. Joyfully help the work go forward! But anyway the lesson was so good. She is really looking for truth in her life. we taught the restoration and after she said "i dont think that it is coincidence that right when i told my husband i wanted to find the true church, God sent me these two boys and the jehova's witnesses." she has also been meeting with the JW's. I also dont think it is coincidence. God really does know us. He knows what we need and is willing and wanting to give it to us. He also allows us to use our agency though. Not that other chruches are bad, but satan also knows what is going on. he is going to try to use anything that he can, good or bad to distract us from following God. I am pretty sure that she will choose the right though.

We also helped an old grandma pick berries from her bushes for like 30 minutes the other night. They looked kind of like mini watermelons. I dont really know what they are...not sure they tasted that good either, but still pretty cool!

Trump came to finland recently to visit putin! The day he arrived was pretty crazy. My area is the closest to the airport and all the helicopters and planes were flying around right over our heads. we were chatting with this other old grandma and it was getting pretty intense. These two helicopters basically just parked in the air right above us. 

Elder jones and I are working hard. He goes home in two weeks! He is pretty excited. We have been helping this member named miki set goals and make plans for his life. He is really trying to change his life around. It just shows how important planning is. If we as missionaries didnt make plans our set goals, we wouldnt be able to get as much as we do done. If we dont set goals and make plans for our lives..we can reach short of our potential. We created for him 5 topics: relationships, health, skills, spiritual, and fun. It has been working really well. He has been coming to church like the pst 7 weeks now and realy wants to get to the temple! Our ward is having a temple day in september, so that is our goal! 

We have also been teaching this man named panu! we is so cool. We met him the other day and taught him in the hospital and then once at a cafe. he really is a truth seeker. he asked at the end of our last lesson "what now, what do you want me to do?" well, we want you to follow jesus christ!

i love you all, and hope that you have a great week!

Love Elder Christensen

Kebab Rules!

what a week!

We are about to go visit a man in the hospital soon, so i dont have much time. But we are willing to give up some pday time for the work of the Lord. It must go forth. 

I will start off this email by saying that we ate Kebab twice this week! If you dont know what kebab is, well i dont either, but it is some kind of mystery meat that is way good. There is like a kebab shop on every main street here. People from the middle east specialize in it. There is this one that we go to that a Bangladesh man owns and we really like it. We took this less active young adult fellow named miki there. He really likes kebab. it was pretty sweet. Usually , you put kebab on french fires or eat it in a wrap. Thats what i got. it is called rullakebab. 

Then also last night, we helped a family move and after they took us to the same kebab shop and we got some more kebab and some pizza that had fried eggs on top of it. I have never eaten of that sort of pizza before, but i must say it wasnt too shabby. The elders quorum president was with us (from the phillipines) and we had a great meeting on how to pump up the ward. He is a stud. We talked about the difference between being an active member, and being actively engaged. We can go to church and do all the right things. We can read scriptures and say our prayers....but there is so much more that we can do to be actively engaged. I heard that it was said here by an apostle: That the wards will only get baptisms when the ward it self is ready for them. We are all part of different wards. We can do more to be actively engaged in the work...to fulfill our callings more diligently...to be more than just an active church member.

We had a investigator in church this week! Pretty cool. I think sometimes I focus so hard on trying to get people to come to church that i sometimes forget that their experience in church matters even more! One of the reasons that we go to church is to be nourished by the good word of God. Our investigator kept falling asleep...so i dont know how much nourishment he got. Hopefully he will come back again and give it another try. I hope that everyone greets the investigators that the missionaries bring to church...That is something that everyone can do and that everyone needs to do. 

We have been teaching this older couple too, and they are progressing. We are taking it really slow with them so that they can best understand. Last time we were there their dog got let out and he attacked us and shredded a whole bunch of pillows. But they are a way cool family. we have another lesson with them tonight. We are going to talk about church!

Finland is great. it has been rainy recently...but still better than the winter.  I hope everyone is having a great time.

 

love you all!

LOVE + BOLDNESS = Just Right.

Terve!

What a jolly week we just had.

Elder Jones and I are going way hard right now. We just got off splits a couple hours ago with our district leader. We had been waiting for this day for a while now. Splits means that there will be 4 missionaries in our area, because they come to see how we are doing and to teach and improve your skills and such. But it is also the time to go way hard in finding. (of course we should always go way hard, but now we have 4 people and can go even harder) We set the goal to find 20 potentials and get 2 let in lessons. That is a pretty hefty goal. Usually, elder jones and I on our own usually get like 2 potentials a day...so this was a high goal...but in the end, We got 13 potentials and 3 let in lessons. It was awesome. the work must go on. Also during splits, we made pulled pork sandwiches and black currant muffins. 

Another great thing that happened this week was zone conference. We got to learn a lot about being bold, but not over bearing. It is so easy to not be bold enough in missionary work...but then again sometimes you can just be too loving and no boldness. At zone conference i was part of a skit that taught this. I was a kid that forgot to do something...grandma was to bold but had no love. grandpa showed a lot of love, but no boldness..mom was just right. We need to have both boldness and love if the people around us are going to accept and follow through on commitments. I have been working on this stuff during the past week and have already seen improvements. One of the reasons that this has helped me is when we do train contacting. We split up and go our separate ways to find the elect on the trains. Sometimes at the end of my contact i am not very bold. It is just me...what if they say no...my finnish isn't good...and what usually happens is that they say no. But when you can go in and be bold with some love, then they see that it is really important to you and that maybe it can even help them too! Also, not everyone is going to say yes to our message...we are going to get some no's..so just be bold anyway. 

After this, we will be going sock shopping. all of my socks are getting holes in them. pretty crazy. Thats about it. we found this really awesome potential named emmanuel. he lives with our african friend Roman. we showed up for a lesson with roman, but he wasn't there, so we taught this guy instead. He is a stud. Way promising. He asked to go to church with us on sunday...(he didn't come) but thats a good start. hopefully we can find out why he didnt come this week!

I ate musta makkara this week. it is basically blood sausage- my comp really likes it. I didnt think it was that good...but not too shabby. I will never eat it of my own free will though. 

love you all! Have a happy 4th of july!