Week 34 in Helsinki (Ah, who needs shoes anyways?)

Firstly, here's​ this! (Recording) It covers the last few days, but let me go over them again:

-Yesterday, we set 2 baptismal dates! Our man Markus, and Ainah, we had lessons with them Sunday, and we've been talking to them for a while, and they both think that they're ready! We'll see how that goes in the coming weeks, and we've got high hopes!

-Yesterday we also went to a dinner that some of our Polish members(can't remember how to spell their name) hosted - we got to talk to a ton of investigators, less-active members, and all-around good people there! Also they have a perfect view of the Helsinki Bay which is gorgeous.

-Saturday morning, we spent 4 hours helping Veli Sohkanen and his wife move. A bunch of us carried their stuff all the way to the next building.. it was hard. And glorious.

-Last Tuesday, we went to the Temple! It was quite amazing - and don't trust the pictures, it looks much, much better in person.

-Every Saturday, we play Soccer(or Football, I guess) at the church gym, and my running shoes are still in Kouvola... let's just say I have a few nice bruises on my feet(don't tell my mom).

-On some P-days, we also play Sähly(basically hockey without the ice) with the other Elders, and I again didn't have my shoes...(No Mom, I'm not playing in my nice church shoes.)

Well, that's all for this week, folks! Love you all, stay strong, and keep me updated on things at home!

Love,

Vanhin Bolingbroke

Week 33 in Helsinki (Doesn't everyone exercise with Motab in the background?)

Dear everyone,

The summary of my pictures for this past week are as follows:

(I'm sorry Mom I'll take more pictures next week I promise. I don't want to take pictures of the apartment 'cause we're in the middle of a massive cleaning session and when we're outside, we're doing missionary work)

Exchanges are awesome. We spent Monday(yesterday) in Haaga, and taught some awesome lessons there, whilst learning from Elders Crump and Kester. Love those guys.

Let's go over this week quickly:

-Tuesday: Visited Helsinki Main, tried to find some coathangers and a huge library. We found the coathangers.

-Wednesday: District Meeting! The Zone Leaders stopped by, we had great discussions, and had two great lessons with a cameroonian man and an arab guy!

-Thorsday: Gave a class of students a church tour! They had a ton of questions, but we answered all of them quite well! We also taught Finnish hour(yeah, the Americans who have been here for 5 months are teaching Finnish to foreigners, ha!).

-Friday: This was an interesting one. We had weekly planning, but this time, we've come up with a ton of great ideas for missionary-member relations(I mean, Neitsytpolku is only the largest ward in Finland, so that may be important).

-Saturday: We taught a man, with whom we set a baptismal date! We hope the best for him - we also taught a young asian man(awesome lesson, he has a fantastic outlook on life), and had sports night(My shoes are still in Kouvola, so that's a bit of a problem, but I liked getting my toes smashed by everyone in the room anyways)!

-Sunday: We gave talks! With our plans to improve member-missionary relations/work, we gave a joint talk about shepherds and our role in helping others come back to Christ.

-Monday: Splits in Haaga(Already mentioned this one)! (Also, Dinh, one of our member friends, was waiting for us to walk into the apartment building, and he scared all of us half to death)

-Tuesday(Today): As soon as we get done with emailing and shopping, we'll be heading to the temple(!!!!!), because we live close enough that we're allowed to go once a transfer!(Yes mom, we'll be sure to take plenty of pictures). We also hope to find that big library in Helsinki again, and to find a place called Ekberg(I've heard from multiple people, in Finland and out, that it's a legendary bakery!)(We also hope to clean out our apartment, it's quite messy.)

Well, that's all for this week, folks! Hope the best for you all, and stay strong(and warm!)!

Love,

Vanhin Bolingbroke

Week 32 in Helsinki (Can anybody else say they're serving in their country's capital city?)

Well well, welcome to Helsinki, everyone! Let me hit you with all of our pictures first (and here's a link to a video):

Let's sum up real quick:

- I'm in Neitsytpolku, which includes most of the downtown of Helsinki!

- My companion is Elder Jordan, from Georgia! He's absolutely awesome!

- We have like 17 investigators, I haven't even met them all yet...

- Our district is so fun! I didn't get pictures(mostly because we saw our bus pass right by the church building after district meeting and we had to do a dead sprint to catch it), but more will be forthcoming!

- Speaking of running to catch the bus, I discovered that I can, in fact, run as fast as your average suburb-running bus - with a half-full box of Books of Mormon in my arms. Boom.

- The transit systems in Helsinki run ridiculously fast. We get passes to all of the area, so we've got all of the buses and trains in our hands!

- We gave a school presentation on Monday, it was quite fun!

- I discovered that some missionaries(not sure who) had left a bunch of stuff(I guess they had too much?) in the Neitsytpolku apartment, so I've got a nice new coat and nice new shoes!(At this point, I should be able to survive my entire mission just by filching clothes off of Elders who just leave stuff behind. Hah.)

- Neitsytpolku means 'virgin path.' Not sure why.

- Out here, we teach people Finnish instead of English. A ton of the city is foreigners, so they already know pretty good english. Also, Helsinki is basically an English city already. So the American kids teach foreigners Finnish. Obviously!

- Saturdays are Sports Night(a.k.a. the missionaries and their investigators wildly run around the church gym playing some demented form of musical-chairs-plus-soccer), and Elder Jordan accidentally kicked the soccer ball right into the face of one of our member's kids(scott sterling!).

- There are so many people to talk to here, it's fun beyond belief!

- Our ward is the biggest in Finland, but there are a ton of less-active members, so bishop has commissioned us with working on that(Seriously, there's like, 150ish less-actives. wow.)!

- Although we live in the biggest city in Finland, parts of it are still quite rural! Our apartment is surrounded by trees, you'd never know we were in a metropolitan part of the country!

But yes! Wow, it's been a crazy week. Long story short: I'm sad that I left Kouvola, but I'm opening the gates and seizing the day here, and I intend to do my best work!

I love all of you! Let me know how you're doing! Stay strong, stay warm, and talk to you next week!

Love,

Vanhin Bolingbroke