Change week! 31/8/2015‏

Wow, cant believe 8 months ago I came out on my mission. Its incredible how fast time can fly out here. Some days feel like months. But some months feel like days. Super weird.

But the time for changes has come! My new companion is Elder Broadhead, who is from Ohio. He still isnt here yet, I will get him tomorrow but Im staying here in Helsinki which is pretty great! There is a lot of wonderful things in this area, and I love the ward.  This upcoming change is a 10 weeker so wish me luck!! This week has been great though. Wednesday there was a massive YSA barbecue that we had our German investigator at. He is such a cool and intelligent guy, hes a astrophysicist who studies the Auros up in Northern Finland (the northern lights). But he is so great to teach, he has already stared reading D&C.  But the barbeque was really fun and we had a massive game of American Football going on which was pretty sweet.  Right now we also have quiet a few investigators, the problem is that with the summer ending soon everyone is trying to squeeze out the last of it so there never home to meet. But the summer is ending soon so everyone is settling back down. Thats the one good thing about Finnish winters is everyone is home all the time because nobody wants to get frozen outside so we have the opportunity to meet a lot more often haha.  But other then that not to much has happened. We had some lessons with investigators, and found some new investigators, but the baptismal dates we had dropped so hopefully with the start of the new change things will pick up!  But I have definately seen the Lords hands in our finding! We have found a great many new people, and im so thankful for that!!  

Also, Saturday night there was this massive midnight run in Helsinki, and the street my apartment was on was one of the biggest parts of the race, and there was a huge DJ set up outside and thousands of runners, and thats all I could hear as im trying to go to sleep. Long night.  

Elder Ford

August 25th‏

Terve!

Dear Family and Friends,

Another great week in Neitsytpolku. Cant believe that this week is the last week of the transfer! Transfer calls are this saturday! But this transfer was a shorter one, 8 weeks, because of the new missionaries coming in, but the next one is going to be 10 weeks!! Whoo! But yesterday we had the opportunity to bring two of our investigators to a YSA activity and watch Meet the Mormons. It went really great, except I have literally seen Meet the Mormons 8 times now. Its getting a little ridiculous, but a good movie non theless.  It was our investigators Mikola`´s birthday, so we brought him some Good old fashion Rootbeer and star bursts haha. Those things arent easy to come across in europe, you have to go to import stores and buy them! Its super weird, in europe the Club soda is huge (carbonated water), and then the only other soda is Coke, Diet Coke, Orange Fanta, and Sprite Zero. Not sprite, but sprite zero. Thats it. Dont ask me why.  But the two that came to that were Mikola and Sonja, there both super cool. We met Sonja not to long ago, we tracted into her. she is this super cool 20 year old girl that served in the finnish army, and then backpacked a ton in South America... alone! She has a ton of sketchy stories that just remind me of the daily life I hear of missionary friends in south america haha.  We have had a ton of great lessons this week with several other investigators where the spirit was definitely present. The hard thing about finnish summers, is because the finnish summer is so short and the winter so long everybody takes advantage of the summer and travels everywhere and is always so busy, so consistent teaches with people is not easy haha. But the Lord has really blessed us this change and we have been teaching quite a bit which has been really great.  

Do great things. Be great. Everything is possible through the Lord.

Love

Elder Ford

Elokuunta 18/8/2015

Dear Family and friends,

Really great week this week. The Lord has really blessed us in downtown Helsinki, many mercies are everywhere..  We were able to set another baptismal date with one of our investigators in September. Its actually his birthday tomorrow to, so were making him some apple crumble, my companions own recipe!  It ll be great.  We also found 4 great investigators this week. One is from Germany, and the other is a gymnast from Finland, and then we have two more Finnish investigators.  

I also got to do Splits with my Trainer this week. He is a Zone Leader down here, and so we got to do splits for the day which was really great! We found a lot of potential investigators and ton 3 member present lessons that day, and taught a Finnish Class to english speakers. Crazy, but very productive day.  Then the next day we had Zone meeting which was very powerful and you could feel the spirit so strongly in there, especially when everybody bore there testimonies about the Book of Mormon.  

My companion and I also taught in Sunday school the Adult class in Finnish which was a bit nerve wrecking haha, and on top of that it was on last second notice.  We had to teach about the Priesthood for 45 minutes, but we put a lesson together last minute and all went well.  

I just want to leave with my testimony saying I know this Church is the true Church of Christ. True, this the gospel of Jesus Christ may not solve temporal short challenges here on earth, it has promised us with eternal happiness if we are true and faithful to the covenants we have made. There is no greater promise then that. God gives us challenges, hardships, and trials because he knows that it is really through the refiners fire that we can become our potentials.  The Book of Mormon is the true word of God. Through it we can know and come to understand the Fullness of Jesus Christ Gospel. I love how in the first few chapters of Nephi, when Nephi said "Being led by the spirit, not knowing beforehand the things I must do." So to, it is with our lives sometimes, we don t always know what to do perfectly, but if we look to the Book of Mormon, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ it has given us a map. Sometimes on the journey we may not know exactly what may happen, however we know the path we must take.  Its all possible because of a loving Savior, Jesus Christ. The atonement is real. It changes lives.

I love you all

Elder Ford

11th august 2015

Dear friends and family,

This week has been great. We have found 3 new investigators we are teaching and we were able to set up a baptismal date with our investigator from Eritrea, and she came to church!  We also had a really good lesson with another of our investigators whos from Canada, Mikola, and had a Dinner appointment over at Bishops house, where there was a great lesson about the Plan of Salvation, or Pelastussuunnitelma in Finnish. We also found a 3 new investigators from our area book. The first one named Maiju we got to have a really great lesson about Gods love for us, and we got to do it with a Former Finland missionary named Dave Rogers, who is going to UVU!  It was a really great lesson, and you could feel the spirit so strongly.  The next we have been calling this guy named Mikko from the area book for weeks who has been in the hospital and we keep asking if we can come over to the hospital just to check up on him and he kept saying no. Finally, when he left the hospital he called us and set up an appointment for last Saturday. But he ended up canceling a few hours before.. So we decided to do some tracting with that open time. As we were walking I saw this random door that was off away from the others in an apartment complex and we decided to knock it. Turns out it was this man who we were trying to meet with, and he let us right in where we taught the first lesson. His friend was also there and became a new investigator! Gods hand was definitely present!  

So lately I have been doing some studying up in the bible to get myself even more friendly with it. In Finland, everyone has "read" the bible. Most dont know the bible that well but everyone has opened its front covers at some point, but everyone translates the bible different here, so in personal study I have been making this quick reference guide for myself for key scriptures in the bible for easy to access scriptures. So many people here in Finland think you are saved simply through Gods grace, but its simply put in Mark 16:16, you need baptism haha! So I have been working on that a lot lately. 

Also the summer in disappearing!! Its starting to get dark at 11:00 pm, instead of 1am haha!  Crazy how short the summers last here. Apparently this has also been the coldest summer in 50 years in Finland, but it just feels like a Utah summer back home, but apparently Im told there much better then this! But cant complain, its still really good.

The lords work is moving well here! 

Thanks for the support everyone!

Raukaudella

Elder Ford

Kakara

Dear Family and friends,

The title of the email is titled kakara. That is my new word I learned this week in Finnish.  It means brat. You learn new things every day. 

I dont have a ton of time to write this email because Im going to the temple right after this! But it has been a good week!  We continue to work hard and find new people! We found this awesome guy that was born in the Ukraine, but lived in Canada, and moved here and married a finnish woman.  He is super open and nice. Other then that nothing crazy. The other elders in our area baptized a way awesome guy from the Ivory coast! He is 20 years old and one of the coolest guys I have ever met!

Love you all! Sorry for the short email, but the temple calls my name!!  

Elder Ford