Transfer calls this week!!

Hey everyone!!

Great week this week!!  Crazy to think that transfer calls are happening this week, I cant believe how fast this second transfer has gone by! Vanhin Bascom is going home in 9 days!! Crazy, but I have learned so much from him and am so thankful for the opportunity to serve with him!!   For those of you that dont know, in Finland we do 9 week transfers instead of the normal 6. So crazy stuff.  This week we found this cool girl from China who says shes super interested in religions and for some reason christianity just draws her.  We had been tracting an old investigator and I decided to knock this random door when we were walking out. Right as I knocked on it the door knob turned and out came this Chinese girl giving her a heart attack haha!!  But she is very interested so were excited to begin teaching her! Yesterday we also found this old investigator in the area book that we decided to call, and he said we could come and teach him more! So after we had a DA at this awesome ward family we went over to his place and we had a great teach getting to know him, and testifing about the truthfullness of the Book of Mormon. He believes in God, but hes not quite sure why he actually needs God.  That brought me thinking, why do we need God. Obviously there are multiple reasons, but do we each have our own personal meaning to that in our own testimonies and conversions? Just food for thought!  

We also found this REAL cool graffitti wall, and we met this really cool guy who was doing some spraypainting! He is super cool! He just finished medical school here in Finland, and is a doctor, but decided he wanted to start going to art school because hes interested in that to! You can do that in Finland with the free college haha... Im actually quite suprised to see how many americans come here for the free education. There is an american lady in our ward who comes here for school! Shes super cool!!  

One of our coolest investigators also set up this firestation tour which was super cool!! Jyväskylä has this brand new firestation with all sorts of top of the line equipment. However, I was lost most of the time in the tour because I have no idea medical and firefighter terms in Finnish haha..  But super cool none the less!!!  

This week I have been studying a lot on the atonement and the amazing power it is, both through cleansing, and the enabling power. It really is a lifelong pursuit of learning. But the three main points that I try to focus on is the cleanings, the healing, and the sanctifing. All equally important and I testify that each one of us can feel that no matter where we are in life if we have Faith in Jesus Christ and try our best. 

Raukaudella

Vanhin Ford

Johannus Paiva!! Elder Ford.‏

Hey everyone!!! 

Crazy week this week!! So the total count of Book of mormons we handed out last week was 40!! Thats a huge jump from the daily goal we had before of 1 a day haha..  It helped though because last monday the Zone leaders did splits with us and we handed out 22 that day. But last Wednesday we handed out 10 when we went on splits with the other Elders in our District. One of the Elders is Elder Monterrosso, who I was in the MTC with, and Elder Kontinen, who has been in my district since I got here and is a native Fin. Super fun day! We also met a lot of potentials this week. One family we met was this African family from Rwanda. The super hard part is here in Finland we meet a lot of refuges, but many of them speak very little finnish, no english, and they speak some sort of African Dialect that the book of mormon is not in so it makes it difficult haha. Same with burmese families in Finland, we were teaching a couple, but the book of mormon isnt in Burmese yet(even though I heard its being translated into Burmese in the MTC) but it isnt out yet.  But we have been talking with everyone, it has been great.  

This week was this week called Johannus paiva, or mid summer day. So basically its this holiday, where everyone abandons the city and goes to there summer cottages and chill there, so basically in Jyväskylä, its a ghost town.  But last weekend the three longest days in Finland happened, so basically the sun never set, AT ALL. super weird sometimes, but it can be kind of nice! But the stake president (the same stake president that visited you in Utah dad) invited us over for dinner that day. We couldnt do any work that day, it was a "red" day.    

Are investigator has been progressing good from Kenya. Hes reading on his own now from the Book of Mormon which is good. Other then then we are finding, finding, finding!!  

Raukaudella!! 

Vanhin Ford.  

PS the picture is of the summer flowers here, and the other picture is we are at a summer barbeque with one of our friends!!

Elder Ford Suomi

Hey everyone!

Solid week this week!!!  Yesterday I had the opportunity to go on splits with Vanhin Richards and it was super solid.  Together with the Elders we got to pass out 22 Book of Mormons, and met tons of potentials ! We worked super hard and talked to everybody! It was cool, we basically went through an entire box of Books of mormon and now were nearly out! One thing I forgot to mention is the mission office is moving, so if you send any letters the NEW address is

Upseerinkatu 3 C, 02600 Espoo, Finland.  <---------- So if you could update that, that would be great.

But since the office is moving we cant get a hold of any new book of mormons for a while which kind of stinks, but its all good.  We found two more boxes of book of mormons in the storage room we have downstairs in our apartment, so thatll last us for a few days.   The man in the picture is super cool!  He speaks finnish, french, english and swahili! We have been working with him recently and it has been super good!!  

When love is out motive we are neither complacent in success nor discourage in the face of failure.

God does not begin by asking our ability, only our availability. If we prove our dependability, he will increase our capability

Love you all!!

Vanhin Ford

Finally can take off the suit coat!! Elder Ford‏

Hey everyone! Solid week this week!!  Things are going good in Jyväskylä!! The summer has also officially begun here to! One thing I found out in Finland when the summer rolls around that for some reason everybody abandons the cities and move to there summer cottages or what there called here in Finland is "mökki". There are so many lakes in Finland, basically everybody has a summer cottage that they escape to haha.  So here in Jyväskylä it has really emptied out, and most of the college students have gone back to there home countries. However, one of our investigators who is from Kenya made us this HUGE kenyan meal last sunday. It was soooooooo good.  He is such a cool guy and has said he was going to read half of the BOM by the end of this week so hopefully that happens!  But he has some funny stories from back in Kenya, like the time he was lured into this fake get rich quick scheme, that involved over a month worth of the robber slowly stealing money! Super cool story.

We also found this new investigator which Im pretty happy about. He had been investigating the church some months back but got dropped, but he contacted us again and we had a really cool lesson with him!! He seems really excited and really wants to know if this is the true church or not!!!  Super cool!!!  Love it!  

Other then that we have a zone conference coming up this week which is super good!! Last sunday a multistake broadcast happened, which was basically 58 stakes across the northern europe area, and scandanavia was broadcasted.  Elder Holland was the man speaker, and of course he delivered a VERY powerful testimony. Everytime Elder Holland gets up to speak, you have to buckle yourself into your seat or you will literally be blown out of your seat haha.  

Also, found out a really cool stat this week which really reastablishes why member referrals are so important. The church did a study out of a 1000 member referrals and found out that if a member brings there friend and introduces them to the church they have a 665/1000 chance of getting baptized.  Thats 66%!!!! Just remember, everyone is a missionary!!

Rakaudella,

Vanhin Ford.  

Summmmeeerr is here in Finland!!‏

Hey everyone! Been a really solid week with a lot of cool things happening!  So the Green family thats from America moved back to america for the summer unfortunately which makes me really sad because they were such a cool and nice family! The husband actually coaches professional teams in the League of Legends game, and gets paid a lot to do it! So cool, he is a sports psychologist.  But there a really nice family that has lived in Finland for the past 5 years. The wife went to Harvard back home, so both of them are really smart! Im going to miss them for sure.  

Another one of our investigators is from Kenya, and unfortunately this week we found out that there was an accident back in Kenya and his brother got his legs amputated, so hes been sad about that. So me and my companion brought over some cookies to liven his spirits up! Nutella brownie cookies! Sooo good! Really fun to talk to him about all the stories he has in Kenya, including one time he got scammed out of 800 euros over a 3 week scam period, crazy story.  We also met this full hippie man, as he referred to himself as, that told us how he was once in a reggae band and toured all over south america.  He then went and lived in the Finnish wilderness for 5 years. He was a real cool guy though, and he looked into my eyes and said that I have much happiness and opportunity in me haha!  

We also got to go to the Stake President sons graduation party this week, which was really cool! He is such a cool kid, and hes going to be a future missionary.  This is the same son and stake president that came and visited you at our house Dad!  There really really cool.  

We also got to teach a class about missionary work in church this week. There was a Finnish sister that got home from the Temple square mission and she got to bear a really cool testimony! 

Found Jack sparrow binoculars

Terve!

Vanhin Ford