THINK, before it comes out the Tube.

Well Terve!

We had another busy week! It was a good one for sure though. Not as interesting as last week though. We have been in the office from Friday till today (thursday) everyday. But it has been really good. The last week and the first week of transfers are always pretty busy. We just had transfers yesterday and it went well. We got our first call of a train being missed at 7:20 AM as me and elder Krause were playing some tennis. So we were in the office for a couple hours in our gym shorts and T's. There is a court actually right by our house so we go play every morning now days. Elder Krause is learning well. It is really fun. This past transfer was the first time that I have played on my mission. It is good to see that my serve is still hanging in there.

We had that promised grill out with Veli Rosenberg! It was so awesome. We had so much fun. We made some shish-kabob things. chicken and veggies on a stick. And then grilled some sausages. It was super fun. He is like our best friend now. He came to church with us on sunday as well! Everything is going well with him. We met last night and talked about coming back to church and how it would help him in his life. Aren't we so lucky that we can go to church every single week! I really do have a testimony of church attendance and that I can feel the influence of the Holy Ghost at church on sundays and during the rest of my week! 

Me and Elder Krause are going to be staying together for another transfer so we are excited to keep going hard. We also dont have enough missionaries right now so we are going to be district leaders also for a transfer. We had to combine quite a few areas. Zone Conference tour is next week, so we will be traveling sunday night - friday sometime. We are going to make a stop in this place called kajaani and do some splits there with the elders! We are very excited!

One really cool scripture I found today while studying was Proverbs 21:23 "Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles." i really like that message. It would profit us to always think about what we are saying and what effects it might have before it comes out the tube. It can be easy at times to lash out when you are bugged, but as Elder Holland says "there is no situation so bad that complaining about it wont make it worse!" 

Have a great week! Love you!

Tons of Grillouts!

Hey!

Wow, what a busy week! We were running all over the place! Like, Every single day! That is why we are emailing today :) The next couple days are going to be crazy too, we are finalizing transfers tonight with President and the next 3 days we are going to be buying travel and then calling every missionary in the mission to tell them their travel. Also this Friday and Saturday are huge holidays in Finland. They are called Juhannus. The mid summers day. That is going to be the brightest day of the year! Everyone has a nice grillout and it is awesome. Lots of people get drunk though as well, so missionaries are not allowed to proselyte on the streets or go knocking, so they will be spending time with members and teaching friends. We shall be in the office both of those days, except we are going to take an hour our of office work to go grill with a less active (find story below). But we are excited for sure! 

It all started with working with Missionaries in Mikkeli. It is a nice little city in Eastern Finland. We left last Tuesday during dinner time, and arrived at around 9:30. It was a nice trip. The next day we had such a good time working with the Elders. They are zone leaders, and our good buds. Elder Bolingbroke and Jordan. We saw so many miracles during that day! I got thinking after working with them, why are exchanges with other missionaries so energizing? Why are they so spiritual and why does everyone go hard? Why dont we do that everyday? I think one reason is that during exchanges you have a goal in mind...not a numbers thing but a personal goal, something that you are working on. As we tried to help them with their goals, and to apply into their work, I really saw so many times when the Holy Ghost was leading us to opportunities to work on our goals. When we set goals that will make us better and push us, we will have more access to Heaven's Power. I really believe that! Also during the exchange we had a nice grillout with some of their investigators and members. It was a grand time.

The next morning, we left Mikkeli for this place called Joensuu. It was a 3 hour bus ride away. Super pretty ride. Joensuu is up in central finland closer to the border of Russia. We wanted to work with a couple of young missionaries. Joensuu is labeled as a hard place to find people that are interested, so we wanted to go get it fired up. It was crazy, even more Miracles than the day before! It was so fun to work with the young elders and give them some new ideas and to show them another side of missionary work. There was one point when me and one of the young guys were tracting and we were just having so much success. Three doors in a row were interested to meet, we taught one lesson and set up two return dates. This elder I was with started laughing in disbelief after the third one and asked "Elder Christensen, are we still in Finland?" "Yes my son, This is how missionary work goes in Finland." I am so thankful that i was able to be with them and learn from them!

The next day we took a train ride home, like 6 hours or something and went and drove throughout Helsinki picking up these big poster things showing Jesus Christ from missionary apartments. Next morning we woke up and picked up our big blue bus/Van and got all of the missionaries in Espoo and drove everyone to this city called lohja. Lohja just got a branch, so it is pretty small still. The leader there asked President if they could borrow the missionaries to help them raid Lohja for the day. It was awesome. There was 8 of us in total and we were placed in different parts of the city with a couple members each and just talked to everyone. IT was really cool. I really got to see the power of member missionary work. You could really tell the difference between when I would stop someone or when a member just dressed in his shorts and t shirt would stop someone. There is already that bond there between them and it was super cool to see. We all can do missionary work!

On Sunday (this is where we meet the less active to grill with) we went tracting to try and get in contact with this member that we have been knocking for a month now. We knocked his door again, but after about 2 minutes, no answer...but as we were walking away he opened up the door so we ran back! He is a super cool guy named kari. It was so cool to talk and get to know him. It was even cooler to see that he still had a testimony of the gospel, he wants to come back to church and to start attending the temple again! We set some goals with him and talked about how to get him to church. He was super happy that we stopped by. We also asked him if he wanted to grill with us on Juhannus and he said "totta kai!" of course!. So we will be bringing our grill to his place for a grillout on saturday :)

Then monday - Wednesday we were running errands for president Aura. We had to do some emergency stuff with missionaries and took a 9 hour total road trip from our place to a city called Lahti, from there to a place called hämeenlinna. In Hämeenlinna we got to see a castle that is older than America by 500 years. It has never been beaten in battle. Finnish Strong :) But we are back now. 

I forgot to mention, that monday night before we began our journey, a house in the village burned down due to some an accident making fondue in the kitchen. It was a member's cousin, so they called us and asked us to go help. so me and elder Krause gathered another companionship as aid, and we charged to the scenery. We got to wear these nice suits. I felt like a scientist. 

Bob is doing good, we set a new date with him for the 13th of July. We read Mosiah 18:8-10 with him and he really realized that he is ready, and that this is what he wants!

I love you all! Enjoy the Week! 

Sweet Reunion.....

Hello all, 

Sorry that I havent written for a couple weeks. We have not had the opportunity to email or have pday...but we at least have some email time today.

We just got done with a lesson with Bob. He is our very good friend. Last time I emailed i think I probably said that he was going to be baptized by the next week, but it ends up that he told his parents that he wanted to be baptized and they were not happy. He felt really bad and did not want to break their hearts, so the baptism did not end up going through. We are super grateful though that we are in contact with him now, because there were about 5 days were he was completely gone, he didnt show up to his baptism interview, and then didnt answer any of our calls for the next 4 days and we dont know where he lives...so he was gone for good. But then one night he gave us a call and said that he felt so so bad that he didnt answer any of our calls because he didnt know what to say. He was super sad and really wanted to be baptized but just couldn't do it. We are super happy he is back and that we can keep helping him. We asked him today to think about goals that he has and what he wants to work towards. 

Other than that we have had a lot of meetings! We had MLC I think two weeks ago. That is a meeting with all of the leaders in the mission. Then we had "Return and Report" this last week with all the trainers and trainees. That is a really fun one. 3 days where we talk with them and help them learn and apply so that they can grow up and become great missionaries. We took some pretty sweet pics at the temple during the MLC. I will try to put them on here.

Tonight we are heading to the east of Finland to do some work with missionaries in Mikkeli, and then the next day in this place called Joensuu. I am really excited. I havent really been to either place so it is going to be a good one. We had a splits this week with elders from Tampere. They came to our place and we had a grand time. Really hot that day. We wore short sleeve shirts for the first time i think it was. We woke up early and played some tennis for our morning exercise. My first time my whole mission! It felt so good! I was rusty for sure though. 

Probably the best thing that happened these past two weeks was that Oona, my friend from Pori, the one that I baptized. She came down to Espoo to visit her boyfriend. He was super cool. It was a surprise too! I did not know she was coming until the day before. I was way excited. It was fun to sit with them in church (boyfriend not a member but i think really soon!) again. After, I invited them to come to the temple with us so we can show them around the outside and give them a little tour and teach them about it. We are so so lucky that we have the temple in our area. We drive past it everyday. no one else has this! Her boyfriend really liked it and I had a blast teaching her again. Soon she will be able to go inside :) 

Last story, we called Bob on friday and he said he was coming to church, but it turns out that he sold his phone right after that for 100 euros. but 50 of those were fakes. so he went to the store and the police came and took him to jail. But it turns out everything is ok, and we had no idea, but he walked into church as the closing hymn was being sung :) Church really cheered him up! I am so glad that we have a loving Father in Heaven! I can see everyday so so many blessings all around us. He really does have our best interests in mind! 

I love you all! Have a great week

!