Weekly Email, Happy Memorial Day!!‏

Hey everybody!!! Solid week this week, we got to teach this new Investigator from Nepal that we found on the bus! His family is still living in Nepal and they were actually hit by the earthquake. His home back home is too damaged for his family to live in, so right now there trying to look for temporal housing.  I told him about how the Church is already giving relief there and told him to tell his family to look for our church! Its amazing how fast the church can respond to disasters, many many countries just know the church for there amazing help.  But pray for the people in Nepal!!  Anyway he is a great guy.  A lot of great things are going to be happening this upcoming week! My companion and I have come up with a lot of great contacting ideas that will hopefully get some results!! The summer is out now in Finland, and so the weather is super beautiful, so everybody is out now on the streets. Its super weird, the sun doesnt go down till about Midnight now, and then it raises at 5am, so we had to put a black sheet over the window just so that we can sleep haha.  

One of the pictures is of this Locomotive that my Friend Riku showed us!! He is super cool, one of my great friends Ive met in Finland. He is probably the best english speaker in a 50 km round up of here.  Its a super old locomotive train that was built in the 1920s.  Smells so vintage haha. 

But great things are happening in Finland the work is definately being moved forward here for sure! Its an honor to be apart of it all.  The Finnish is definately getting better, and Im blessed! In Jyväskylä the Finnish is super pure and clear, and in many other parts of Finland there is an accent, just like the US.

Im so thankful for a mission and all the blessings it brings! I hope everything is going great back at home!

One of my favorite quotes!  "All that we suffer, and all that we endure, especially when we endure patiently, builds our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy"

Love everyone!!

Vanhin Ford

Weekly Letter!‏

Hey Everybody!!!

Hey Everybody!!! super fast week, that is for sure! So I met this really cool family this past week. Vanhin Bascum was looking around in the area book and found this family from America! We called and they were more then happy for us to come over so we headed on over. They are such a cool couple! They have lived everywhere it seems like and they know Japanese. The scary part is he said that japanse is wayyyy easier to learn then Finnish haha.. Kind of a scary thought, but I guess its different for everyone. He is also a coach for the game League of Legends haha, and he gets paid to coach people. 
 Sometimes its super weird trying to remember happened the past week, because time on a mission kind of morphs together. Its super weird.  

Our investigator from china is leaving finland for an internship which kind of stinks, because she was progressing well, but were going to pass her information on so she can keep being taught.  She was a really cool person and I have learned a lot from her.

But this past week we had a Zone meeting which was really cool, talked and learned a lot about how important " the how to begin teaching" in the PMG is.

Other then than this week went by super quickly!! Great week! 

The below picture is a view from a watch tower in Jyväskylä!!

Love

Vanhin Ford

Transfers this week!!!!! Vanhin Ford‏

Hey everyone!!!

So this week has been super fast!! Transfers are finally here, I am going to be staying in Jyväskylä, my trainer Vanhin Findlay is going to Helsinki to serve as zone leader.  My new companion is Vanhin Bascom, hes from Georgia, just came from serving Zone Leader up in Tampere!  This is his last change before he goes home so me and him are going to do some work. But the reason why I am writing this on Monday instead of Tuesday is because all the transfers are happening tommorrow. So I havent met him yet, I am picking him up from the train station tommorrow.  Another in my district Vanhin Smith is leaving to Helsinki, really cool Elder. But one of the elders in my MTC group is coming, Vanhin Monterrosso to serve with Vanhin Kontinen!!!  Haha such a cool companionship. Vanhin Monterosso is El Savadorian, and Vanhin Kontinen is Finnish. So with that companionship they can speak Italian,spanish, english, and finnish haha. Just so crazy.  The two sisters in our district are leaving to and three new sisters are coming to Jyväskylä. So basically everyone left. But I am super stoked for the new district!

This week has been great! Our investigator from China is continuing to progess well! She has been coming to church every week which has been super cool!! We also have a lot of potentials were going to be starting up this week so hopefully are teaching pool is going to expand a ton!!  

Also a little side note, in most other places transfers are every 6 weeks, but here in Finland its 9 weeks. I dont really know the reason for this but we just have a little longer transfers.  

But last pday we got to go to some Finnish Fair and ride some rides which was sweet. They are pretty much exactly like the fairs in america, they even have American Hip hop songs playing haha. I really dont hear a whole lot of Finnish songs, especially in stores. Most Finns listen to American songs.  I was talking with a Finn, and for 10 years ago Finland has been rated the most like America european country. For everyone asking about a culture shock, there really isnt a huge culture shock. The only culture shock really is the language, but its weird, some stores have finnish signs, others have american. Finns just use english when and where they want haha.

But Friday was Vapuu, which is a Finnish Holiday. The only thing I really understand of it, is Finns made it up for an excuse to party and drink.  Other then that I dont see a huge point to it haha. But The ward threw a party for vapuu and the missionaries had to do a skit.  We all pretened we had sicknesses and the ward members had to guess what we had. I had dancing fever, so basically if anyone knocked at the door I would start dancing and the ward LOVED it haha. I even through a backflip in there which was nice, I havent flipped in a while.

But Super stoked for transfers, we have a lot of potential investigators we will be hitting up this week. 

Another cool thing is I have finally learned how to roll my r in finnish. American and english dont really roll  r. But in finland they roll there r a ton. Its weird, just the more I speak finnish it just naturally happened!

So I have been actually studying in the bible a lot recently. I hadnt done a whole lot of bible study before the mission and I actually really love the bible.  I have been reading in Job where Job was a perfect man before god and he had tons and tons of riches. But God gave him trials to test his faith, and basically took everything from him. Job never lost faith.  

Also this week was fast sunday and in church a Finnish lady bore her testimony about this really cool analogy.  Basically the catch line is "Would you crash your mercedes". Basically the analogy is do we look at the worlds praise, or gods praise first. Sometimes its a lot easier to put the worlds praise first, and for example do stuff on Sunday that would break the sabbath.  But its promised if we put god first then we cannot fail.  

Anyway, super excited for mothers day and to be able to skype!!

Thanks everyone for all the love!!!

Vanhin Ford