Week 16 in Savonlinna (I'll rest when I'm dead. Or frozen solid. Whichever comes first!)

Dear everybody,

I'll be honest, it's been a rollercoaster of a week - lots of ups, lots of downs, and a few loops that make you really dizzy. My apologies for not being so diligent in my emailing - it's difficult when your recorder breaks. Oh darn. I'll get back to making weekly updates once I have one again. In the meantime, allow me to serenade you with our adventures:

Elder Scott and I cleaned out our entire church building! It's not as impressive as it sounds - our building is smaller than my house. We installed two brand-spanking-new windows computers - they're huge and TOUCHSCREEN! I had forgotten what those were! I love them, they're so fun. We also found our Family History Center materials - 'cause we're also Savonlinna's Family History Center - the materials consisted of a ton of old projector slides, full of indexing lists - census records, war draft records, niin pois päin(and so forth). Unfortunately, all of that material is now obsolete with the advent of, you know, internet... and I think we're going to organize a family history event here soon! 'Cause, you know, we have four computers now in our tiny little church!

Let me give you an update on our investigators: First, the bad news. Our 17-year-old Russian seems to have dropped off the face of the earth. She hasn't answered our texts/calls, and she lives in Kerimäki(it's technically in our proselyting area, but we only have bikes, and we're limited to 45-minute travel time, so we have no way to get to her house). Due to lack of contact, we've dropped her baptismal date - but we're still trying to contact her. Our 38-year-old Finnish dude is progressing so well, however! Elder Scott and I fasted with him on Sunday to help him quit his coffee addiction - and it's working! On Monday, he only drank half a cup! We decided to move his baptismal date(we're thinking early January), but we don't consider this a loss. He's basically part of the branch now, all the members love him, and he's really involved! We're so happy for him!

We also had zone conference yesterday(Monday) In Mikkeli. We learned a ton of things, but it was a bit discouraging - a lot of other areas have had tons of success in some of our initiatives(tracting student housing, community involvement, etc.) and we... haven't. Savonlinna's really small, and the work is pretty slow. We do the best work we can, though! I'm not feeling really down, because I know I'm doing my best.

That's about all for this week - hopefully in the future I'll have a recorder again! Well, until next time! Love you all!

-Vanhin Bolingbroke

Week 15 in Savonlinna (Gandalf's always watching you)

Good morning, brethren and sisters!

So guess what? I had a genius idea a few weeks ago, to start using my trusty voice recorder for my emails! It was going great, I was having fun with it, aaand, my recorder broke. Darn. On the flipside, I know what I'd like to ask Joulupukki for Christmas! Because the recorder's broken, I'll shortly go over this week, as well as a few quirks of the missionary life!

As you may know, we spent most of the week in Espoo(it's pronounced like snow), at the mission home! We had this thing called Return and Report! We went to the temple, and had lots of training - it was honestly so fun! President and Sister Aura are amazing people, and I learned so much!

We also had District Meeting in Mikkeli on Wednesday, during which we found a bunch of foam swords, and spent the next ten minutes beating each other to death with said foam swords! That was exciting - I learned that Elder Henderson is scary with a large foam sword.

Sunday was interesting - church was interesting! Unfortunately, our members are a bit at odds with us. They've been learning to trust us more, but we've been planning a concert, and they don't seem all that excited about it. I think they're very focused on traditional ways of doing missionary work - but Elder Scott and I truly believe that things like this concert will bring people to our church, and to this gospel! Our young, American style of doing things might be what Savonlinna needs right now!

Monday evening was awesome - we had another Kieli Kahvila! (English Cafe)

We got to talk with some really cool people - a South African entrepreneur living in Finland, a Finnish girl who knows 7 languages and plays 5 instruments, and a couple from France! Everyone seemed really interested in why we serve missions, and so we told them a ton about us! It was such a good opportunity!

As for missionary life:

We have a little grey santa dude who hangs around and watches us so we don't fall asleep during study. I call him Gandalf. ​

​I've also realized that dishes are the bane of my existence. They never end. Ever.

Honestly, that's kind of all for this week! I apologize, but the recorder's broken, and I didn't quite expect that - but I still love you all! Hope everything's going well at home! Stay strong, carry on, and remember, God loves you!

-Vanhin Bolingbroke​

Week 14 in Savonlinna (My life's like Disney On Ice, but without the Disney and with too much ic

The reason for that is I'm slipping and sliding all over the place. Road salt isn't a thing here, so they do studded snow tires instead! But our shoes don't have those... so yeah. My butt's a little sore. But, you know, it's all good! I've got the recordings for this week, and a few videos on the drive, but I'll shortly recap:

Our investigators are doing great! We've not been able to find many new investigators, and we're doing all we can to hold on to our already-progressing investigators! We've still got our two baptismal dates on December 2nd, so pray for us and for them.

Over the course of the week, we've set up appointments with our branch mission leader, talked with tons of people, and we've begun to put together a concert! We're having a few of the other elders and a bunch of the branch and investigators over, and we're gonna perform a bit and have food! It's gonna be great - more details to come next week!

We also saw fireworks - those were awesome.

I think that just about covers everything for this week! Love you all, keep strong in the gospel, don't have too much fun without me, and stay frosty!