"So we taught _____ and her daughters three times again this week. The mother, she's always there, but Saturday was the first time we actually had all of them there for the whole lesson. Still, they're all planning on being baptized, they just have varying levels of understanding of what that actually means. She came to church though! That was so great. She came for Sacrament meeting with her 13 year old daughter. It was so great to see the ward rally around them. The bishop's wife and all of the young women took them on a tour of the building before they left. So, the first time I've seen an investigator I've found come to church. Really wonderful experience."
"Had my first experience with splits this week. That was fun. My companion had to go to a leadership conference in Helsinki on Friday, so I worked with one of the Vaasa elders all day. He was great. We only had one teach set up that day and it fell through, so we spent the whole day finding. We talked to so many people, but no one was interested. Got one phone number the whole day and that was it. Oh well. The really fun part was ward council without my comp. Yeah, been here three weeks and I had to go to ward council by myself. Well, not by myself obviously, but my companion for that day didn't know anything about the area so he couldn't help me report on anything. But....I did it. Only had to use English once actually, which felt great. The way to know how much you're progressing is to do something you've never done before. And usually, you can do more than you think.
"So, last Monday my companion and I were out contacting by the river. It was getting late so we turned around and started to head for home. We stopped one woman and started to talk about the purpose of life. We asked what she thought and she said, "well, actually I was talking about that with my fourteen year old son today, and I just didn't know what to tell him" GOLDEN. We went into a discussion on the Plan of Salvation, then on prophets, on Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and prayer. We opened and used the Book of Mormon while we talked. She said she felt something different, something new while we talked and we testified that this was the Spirit, telling her this was true. It was so wonderful. Easily the best conversation I've ever had with anyone about the gospel. At least, in Finland. She couldn't set up an appointment right then, so she got our number and promised to call. I was worried, because usually that means no, but she actually called! We're teaching her tomorrow. Then, a couple days ago we were walking in Turku and we saw her on the street and she waved to us! Apparently she's really excited for us to come over and teach her family. Please pray for us when we teach. These people need this gospel and the church needs these people.
"We've started teaching a couple really nice guys from Nepal. They're both really excited about the idea of prayer. The problem is, we haven't really been able to explain the notion of praying out loud to them well. We taught one of them this morning and when he said the closing prayer, he said 'Dear Heavenly Father.......there was about a minute and a half of silence......in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.' Hey, at least that's a start.
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