1st of December

Wow, cant believe how fast time flies out here on the mission! Cant believe it is already December. So down in Helsinki we got our first snow, but it melted so not a big woop. The depressing this is that is that the sun goes down at 3 pm now haha, so you think its time to go in for  dinner, but its all lies.  Many of the finns are to big on the sun going down either I have found haha. 

But this week was super good. We found 3 new investigators, one being this cool girl who is a Jehovah Witness, but she is super open about religions and truth. 

I dont know if I am just attracted to Singers or what, because right now I am teaching another well known DJ in Finland haha, which would bump my singer investigator list up now to 3.  But hes really cool, he kind of looks like Ludacris.  

Funny story, this week we didnt have any Dinner appointments set up with anyone for thanksgiving, because obviously there are not that many americans here, and not many people will celebrate thanksgiving, so we decided to go to Mcdonalds to celebrate.  When we walked in they needed some people to do a taste test for there new burger and so we got to have this secret burger not on the menu, and got it for free and got free Big mac combos. Pretty big stuff when your a missionary. Free food is everything. Its either fight or starve our here.  But the burger was really good, and I had to fill this survey out in Finnish which was pretty ridiculously hard haha.  So yes. Mcdonalds did give a Dinner Appointment for thanksgiving.  

But if you havent seen it already the church rolled out a new video on Christmas.Mormon.org, its called #asaviorisborn, or in finnish #vapahtajasyntynyt. But me and my companion are coming up with some clever Christmas contact approaches which should be fun:)  But go check it out if you havent seen it.  

But thanks for all the love everyone! 

Elder Ford

November 24th 2015

Terve minun perheni ja ystavani. Olen kiitollinen siita etta minun perheni, hyvä ystavani, elävä profetta, Jeesuksen Kristuksen Sovitus, ja kaikkia han on antanut minulle.  

Hello, My friends and family. I am thankful for my family, my good friends, living prophet, Jesus Christs atonement, and all that he has given for me. Happy thanksgiving week to my friends and family back home!

This week has been really good.  We had a zone conference and there I overheard 2 elders  who gave out 60 book of mormons in a week, and so this week Elder Hansen and I are going to try to give out 60, so that should be fun.  Yesterday we got to give out 7, and we met a ton of cool people. We had a really good lesson with this guy that we tracted into and he is literally the perfect mormon setup family haha.  We showed the Because of Him video, and the Family video on beta.mormon.org.  If you havent visited that website you should.  Really good.  Anyway, we have had a ton of new potentials, we have been finding machines. Right now we have 7 lessons set up, and last week we didnt have any so its progress. Not much has happened besides that then finding. We also had Stake Conference which was really great. My President spoke at it, he still has his Finnish pretty good.  But it was a great stake conference and I got to see many friends from the Neitsytpolku ward. Flippin sweet.  We have been doing this new tracting approach I have been sculpting over the past few changes, its basically we give a Survey, and it works suuupppeeerr well. I have had countless investigators because of it.  

So I have been really pondering how Gods plan is set up and the psychology behind a lot of it lately, and when you get to the mechanics of Gods plan it truly is amazing.  The way the Gospel is set up, not only gives us an eternal prospective and hope, but it also allows us to be the very best we can be in a temporal sense, and reach our full potentials now. I have learned so much over my mission. Its really nice now because now I am to the point where I can understand most everything that people say to me in Finnish instead of struggling to follow along. Its weird seeing myself back in the MTC where finnish and chinese could have sounded the same, but now its just like there speaking English to me.  Anyway, the atonement is amazing, this gospel is amazing, and it transforms our lives.

Hope everyone has a great thanksgiving week, takes advantage of everyday that has been given them and have a wonderful week.

Also Fun fact the estimated cost of solving the world hunger problem is $195,000,000,000.

So the cost to end world hunger each month would be $16,250,000,000.

If 20% of the world population donated 13.54 dollars, and gave it to fast offerings the worlds hunger problem would be solved.

Rakaudella,

Vanhin Ford.

Hey Fam! New area

Well I have to write this super quick because it has been a very busy Pday so I dont have a lot of time, but thats ok because not much has happened this week, because my companion has been sick for 3 days so I have been stuck inside the house... But good news is I got a lot of gospel study in! So my new area were basically starting from scratch which is always exciting, right now we dont have any investigators but hopefully that will change soon. Tomorrow we have zone conference which will be good, and then we have a dinner appointment thursday with a nice member family.  Works going good, press forward, have faith in the Lord!

Love 

Elder Ford

3/11/2015 Ups and Downs

Well this week definitely had its ups and downs. Unfortunately our investigator Urs baptism didnt go through. He felt like he wasnt ready yet even though he was pretty confident before so that was kinda of a bum. BUT, this week we also did find a new investigator. His name is Tilson, and he is a rapper that grew up here. He is SOO cool.. He has a baptisimal date of November 28th, and he says that he believes the Book of Mormon to be true and he feels gods love and light from it. His rapper name is Toinen Kadunpoika, which basically means another kid from the street. You can find him on wikipedia. He is SO cool, I have never heard any finnish rap, or any finnish music I have liked except  his. He has it bumpin. But he says he wants to be baptized sooner then the 28th so well see how things go. So even with the slump of our investigator the Lord has continued to bless us for our work.  So kinda funny that I keep running into all these music artists and getting the opportunity to teach them. Also I havent been teaching Andy cause right now hes in Australia Touring so havent been able to get in contact with him.    Also Jean Louis baptisimal date is now for November 21st and hes feeling really good about that.  

But Halloween was really good. We got to go with our investigator to a cool Halloween display and I got a genuine fur hat which is so warm at a yard sale thing they call kirpis here for 10 euros. Normally its 150 euros. Its made in Finland. No china crap.  SO WARM. except it looks like there is road kill on my head.  

Raukadella,

Elder Ford

27/10/2015

Really Solid week this week!  Going to the Helsinki Temple was really great and doing endowments was awesome, the temple is so beautiful here.  

So Urs set baptism is this week. Were running into a few issues so pray that everything goes well! The whole ward knows about it, and hes going great for it, but of course when people are about to go to baptism the adversary works hard on them.  He is doing so great, he came to church last week and some of his insights in the Book of Mormon are so deep!  Jean Louis is going to get baptized in November. We had to push his date back not because of testimony issues but some Visa issues hes running into and he wants more time to prepare. He said though his goal is to get married in the temple which is what all of our goals should be. But this past week we got three of our investigators to church which was great. Were in the biggest ward in Finland with about 150-175 come every week, and it gets SO full.  So its hard keeping track of everyone.  

Another really cool thing happened this week. I got to give one of my investigators a priesthood blessing of comfort because right now hes going through a REALLY hard time so that was really great to do. You could really feel a peace come over the room, it was really great. We also found a new investigator this week. Her name is Olga and we tracted into her using a tracting method I call the survey tracting. Basically you just do a survey of 8 questions about the gospel and she said she wanted to learn more about the pelastussunnitelma, or the plan of salvation. Another great blessing is I have really felt my ability to speak and understand finnish go up this transfer, and I am able to much more easily and fluently speak which has been a great answer to my prayers.  

Thanks for the prayers, love, and support!

Rakaudella,

Elder Ford

20/10/15

Great week this week. Sorry I dont have to much time to email today because I am going to the temple for my Pday. But it has been a great week. Yesterday we had Zone Conference which was great, lot of great discussions, and we have a Senior Couple in our ward who is from California who is AWESOME and we helped Sister Brazer (the senior sister), help make a lot of the food. She is like the grandma I never had, and she cooks amazing to.  

Urs and Jean Louis are both continuing to do good. They were both planning to get baptized on halloween. We pushed Urs baptisimal date a week back because he was in the Netherlands at a Computer conference for the weekend and he wants to finish the whole BOM before he gets baptized.  We had several lessons with other investigators and they continue to do awesome also.  We had a finnish investigator come to church yesterday.

Yesterday we got to play Flashlight tag on Suomenlinna (old military fort island) with the YSA which was really fun.  We also got to go to an amusement park with one of our investigators which was really fun, and we had a great lesson about the Plan of Salvation.  I forgot my camera, I was going to send some pics home so sorry. 

 I have a testimony that this Gospel is true. Jesus is the Christ. Prayer works. The atonement is real. Trials are meant to strengthen us and draw us closer to god. 

Rauha Ulos

(peace out)

Elder Ford

13/10/15

Crazy week this week. Vanhin Broadhead and I have been so busy its been crazy. This week we had 17 member present lessons it has been crazy trying to organize it all. The most member presents in this area for any set of companionships has been 8 haha.   Both of our investigators who are getting baptized in the next 2 weeks are both doing very, very well. Urs is planning on getting baptized on the October 24th, and then we have another baptism the next week, his name is Jean Louis. We have been meeting with them both regularly and the transformation I have seen in both of them is amazing. Urs our astrophysicist investigator recently got back from a trip in Germany because he was teaching people how to fly space ships, but he got to watch General conference on his phone on the plane.We also got to have a 2 Dinner appointments for Jean Louis and Urs over at Members homes. We first had a Dinner over at a members house, there the Goodrich family. There both from Utah, but they work here for a government contracting company. There SUPER cool. Then we had another dinner over at Sister Yu*s house. She is a super cool girl from China who was baptized 5 years ago, served a mission in california and is now going to school here. She has a super strong testimony.  

Other then that we have been super busy teaching all of our other investigators. The ward here in Neitsytpolku is really awesome and has really stepped up big time helping coming to lessons and fellowshipping.  Funny story. We met this guy on the street last week who was the south african ambassador for Finland, and he didnt want us coming to his home so we just went to the south african embassy. We then taught him there and gave the Book of Mormon to all the other workers there so we ended up handing out like 5 Book of Mormons and everyone was really excited to read it. 

Also there has been a lot of protests in Finland because there are so many immigrants fleeing to Finland because of all the unrest in the middle east and people arent happy about it.  

But the Lord has really blessed our efforts in this area, we have been able to Find people on our way to teaching lessons so Im really grateful for that.  

Rakaudella

Elder Ford

6 October 2015

So it got a lot colder this week. A LOT. It kinda stinks, but hey, what mother nature wants to do it wants to do.  Wow, Conference was so great, there were a lot of great talks and calling of 3 new apostles! Not going to lie, I was hoping that one of the new apostles was going to be black, but o well. Also, keep praying for President Thomas S Monson, not going to lie, he wasnt looking to hot and in the morning session of general conference he looked like he was going to pass out. But our prophet and all the great apostles and seventies had great talks. I especially liked President Uchtdorf talk about the Simplicity of the Gospel. Living this simple and beautiful gospel really is the key to happiness and overcoming heartaches and pains!  Its how we reach our highest potential. I had a lesson with my Investigator Urs a couple days ago, and was explaining how the gospel is a way for all of us to reach our highest potential. Its the secret to eternal life, and its so plain and precious for all of us to live by.  Whats even better is we had 3 investigators come to conference. Saturday session we had our investigator Juha drive us and another one of our new investigators to the conference, and then Sunday we had a man named George come to the sunday conference. They really loved it!

Also this week we were able to find a new investigator whos name is John Louis! He is from Guadalupe, which is an American owned colony in the Caribbean! He is a really cool guy!!! We have already had several lessons with him and he has a baptismal date of October 31st. He said after conference he cried because loved it so much, and after that he gets a call from his 10 year old daughter who lives in France, and apparently she has been investigating the church with her mother and has been going to Church and really loving it. So that was insanely awesome.  Hes doing really good. 

We havent been able to meet with our other investigator Urs because he has been in Germany teaching people how to fly space ships. So if that isnt cool enough, I dont know what is. But we were able to locate Chapels in Berlin that he could watch conference at.  All of our other investigators are doing great, some are hard to meet with, but we continue to find and find a lot of success!  Thanks for all the love and letters from home, and I hope everyone was able to apply things from conference because they give us the spiritual nourishment we need for the upcoming 6 months!

Rakaudella,

Elder Ford

29/9/15

Wow another week flown and gone by. Cant believe September is already over, and its already starting to get cold in Finland! So funny all the finns said this summer was terrible weather but I felt like it was just like a summer back home, but o well. 

This week was great, we were able to set a Baptisimal date with our investigator Urs who is from Germany. He is SO cool, he is an astro-physicist and is so smart. Probably one of the most interesting people to talk to. But he is doing very very well.  Our investigator Andy who is the rock star actually posted a thing on his twitter about the Book of Mormon and he has a ton of followers. Advertising at its finest right there.  Also our other investigator who had a baptismal date, Mikola has been having a lot of concerns lately, so we had a meeting with him last night and addressed a lot of them and he has recommited to keep reading the Book of Mormon which is great.  

We also found a new investigator this week, his name is Juha, and he is one of the most sincere humble Finns I have met. He is very open to God and other religions and he actively goes to church every week. Its very hard to find a finn like that, because most of the time when you say the word Jesus Christ on the street people go running for the hills. I cant tell you how many times I have asked someone if there Christian and they say yes, and ask if they believe in god and Jesus and they so no. Such a big culture thing here just to say your christian. But he is a great guy.

Its been hard to meet with all our investigators lately, not for the lack of time on our part, but for theirs. I feel like finns have the same mentality as the joker in "The Dark Knight". The Joker says "If everyone follows the plan everyone is all safe and happy, but if you take the plan away EVERYONE LOSES THEIR MINDS". Most finns have there schedule so set that they know when there doing laundry so I will text and be like hey, can we come over and teach a quick lesson, and Ill get a text back saying "O sorry, im really busy now Im putting my laundry in the washer". Oh, and dont get me started with Sauna night. NEVER mess with finns sauna night, that is sacred to them. No time for anything else when there is sauna night.  

But we have been able to meet with most of our investigators which is good and our two less actives that we got to reactivate came to church again so its been great. The work continues to go forth.  

Make sure your prayers go out to the Apostles and Prophet during this time, especially for General Conference because there is a lot of big decision to be made in this upcoming conference! 

Rakaudella!

Vanhin Ford

I'm famous! The Lords hand in the Work 22/9/2015

So sorry I am running out of time emailing, even my 101 words per minute cant make up for the time. This week has been insane. Right now we have 13 investigators were teaching, and we could have 3 more new investigators by tonight. However, we will probably be dropping some by the end of the week. But we are always busy, busy busy.  We also got our Less active in our area to come to church this week, she is a super sweet single mother of 6. She brought all of her kids and it was wonderful and then last night we had Family Home evening with her. If you think controlling a family home evening back in America is hard, try it with 6 kids screaming in Finnish haha! But we did a really cool analogy with a rubix cube which helped keep the kids focused. we had another lesson who was a less active we reactivated. But this week we found 5 new investigators, each with a wonderful story on how we found them. The coolest is a guy, he is from India, and converted to christianity 10 years ago. We foudn him after having a really good dinner appointment with a Sister who is from China, but came here to Finland for college, got baptized here, served a mission in California and just got back. She is so cool. But we found her after leaving the Chinese restaurant.  The work right now is going really great! The hard part right now is meeting with all of our investigators consistently. Its really hard for them to meet more then 1 or 2 times a week, but our teaching pool is so big right now that we still have a ton of lessons. The Lord has truly blessed our efforts, and whats more exciting is general conference is coming up! 

Also another funny thing happened. We were teaching our famous investigator in the park, turns out the paparazzi found us and he called us up last night telling us that we were in the Finnish magazine with him. He was so mad it was hilarious. They blurred me and my companions face, but pretty funny stuff.

The pic: The article in the Tabloid about us. Basically what its talking about is two young dressed handsome (yes they said handsome) mormons are converting him. Haha! Funny stuff.  

The other pic: We do a foreigner food challenge once a week and have to try something new, and we were also mixing a ton of sodas together to see what it tasted like. Banana soda is super gross.