Wow, the start of the last transfer! My mission has gone by so fast. I cannot believe it is already this time. This past sunday I saw a missionary give his homecoming talk. He served in Sweden and was in the MTC when I was there. I still remember seeing him on my very first day.
My new companion is named Elder Pauole. He is from Nephi Utah. It has been fun to train again. I forgot how much patience it requires. I have already learned somethings in our first week together. We are opening an area in South Espoo. There are two wards in Espoo and I was just in the north ward for the past 6 months. Now we are in the other one. I told the members that I liked this new one better and they loved it. On sunday there was a member that gave us two baguettes and another that invited us to dinner, and then one gave us some chocolate. We shall be taken care of here.
I have really loved this new area so far. We dont have a car so we travel with bus and metro very often...or we walk. It has been good though. Always an opportunity to be talking to someone. A day ago while we were talking with this older fellow and his dog in the park. We had nice chat about being people's friends and serving people and then we said bye and I turned away and his little weenie dog ran up and bit the back of my calf. That is the first time that has ever happened to me. It was bizarre. but the work continues onward. There is this really cool woman here from Estonia that we are teaching named Anneli. We gave her a baptismal date for mid september. And she is really excited, so hopefully it can move along forward. She has a 2 week old cat that is really cute. It ran around The floor during our entire lesson.
One way crazy thing that is going on right now is that there is a company making a "district 4" type video/documentary thing of the missionaries in Finland. They selected 4 of the new missionaries and have been following them around before the mission and at the MTC and now here in the field. My trainee is one of the 4!! It is SO crazy! We had 16 people plus the camera crew to drive to and from the airport, so I stayed as an AP for an extra day and got to go pick all the missionaries up! I got to drive sister Aura's car home. It was awesome. None of the camera crew or people making the movie are members of the Church...at least not yet....they keep feeling the spirit really strongly and the camera man actually started crying during the filming and he could not see what his camera was pointing at. I think it is really cool. One thing I do not like though is when the camera gets like a foot away from your face and you are supposed to act like it is not there and just keeping talking normal. One of the trainees asked me for a funny story that happened to me in finland, and out of the corner of my eye come the camera man zooming in and this person holding the fluffy pillow thing on a stick. Wow, that was a high stress two minutes. The crew will be staying with us in a couple weeks again so we need to plan some antics to get on film. just kidding...
But we had a way cool spiritual experience. The day after we picked up the trainees we were going to go to the Temple with all of them and the crew was going to be there. But the bad part was that it was the WORST thunder and lightning storm I have seen in Finland. But we all got into the cars hoping that the rain would stop. I just kept praying and praying that the trainees would be able to see the temple and walk around. The camera crew then sends us a text saying that it is impossible for them to film in the weather and they must pull out. But we were 2 minutes away from the temple, so we kept driving (they were already there). Right when we pulled into the parking lot everything stopped. No rain. What a miracle! You could see the Camera crew run from the shelters and start the filming again. After 10 minutes and right after we took the final picture, the rain started falling again harder than before. Wow. Everyone was way stunned. I think especially the camera man and the crew chief. In the car on the way back home, me and President and sister Aura sent them a text saying "Your crew has a chief director who has the grander vision." Heavenly Father really wanted to have the missionaries at the temple and for that to be in the film. Soak that one in. But, that ended my 6 months as AP. now I am back to the streets. It is going to be an awesome transfer!
One really cool verse I found while reading the Old Testament this week was : 1 Samuel 15:22
"And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken is better than the fat of the rams." What an important lesson. There is no replacement for being obedient to the Lord! I know that is true!
love Elder Christensen
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