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