Week 85 in Mikkeli (One for the Money)

Man, I completely forgot to do a mass email this week... Let's blast through this.

Story time:

Well you see, I've got a pretty good story about being sick. Last Tuesday, I was feeling pretty rough - I actually couldn't work much that evening. It was fortunate that we only had English hour and some prep for EMLC and MLC, because I was really bad. You know me though - an iron will. Or an iron stubbornness. Whichever you want to call it. So we woke up on wednesday morning and I was just dead-set on going, rain or shine. I was feeling really rough on the train though - and we had a switch in Kouvola. While we were waiting for the train to come, I felt my stomach bubble, very nonchalantly meandered over to the trashcan, and very chalantly vomited into said trash can. When I looked up after heaving the contents of my stomach into the can, Elder Jordan was standing at the door to the train, holding it open so that it wouldn't leave, and beckoning to me to jump onto the train. So I did. I cleaned myself up in the bathroom on the train and then we had an amazing contact with a woman the whole way to Helsinki. I was pretty fine the next few days, and now I'm as good as can be!

Speaking of meetings:

EMLC!

MLC! Lots of missionaries, lots of temple, lots of inspiration!

Dinner = homemade pizza in the car in the middle of nowhere

The artillery unit has arrived

Lots of work, lots of inspiration this week. We also found a new friend! 

Pahoittelen kun en voi kirjoittaa paljon tällä viikolla, mutta tietäkää vaan että rakastan teitä, sekä tätä hyvää Herran työtä! Saan päivittäin innoitusta elämääni varten, sekä sitä varten, miten auttaa muita jotka ovat ympärilläni. älkää antautuko ja lukekaa, rukoilkaa ja valvokaa! 

Rakkaudellani,

Vanhin Bolingbroke

Week 84 in Mikkeli (Pretty Sick!!!)

Well, turns out I don't have a ton of time this time around. This new schedule thing is still weird. Let's let the pictures do the talking!

Hmm, that's a pretty cool water tower, we'd better take a nice picture with it - Elder, what are you doing?

We had inspections, during which we fixed our tiny bathroom shower curtai- Elder Bolingbroke, what are you doing??

ELDER JORDAN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY HAIR??(Yep, we left it that way)

We had a lesson with one of our friends, who taught us how to make a mean tikkerikakku!

Well, I'd better actually write something. We also had exchanges with the Joensuu Elders here in Mikkeli - and a bunch of miracles happened! It was Mikkeli's birthday(181, baby!), and the city was hosting a multitude of events, and we joined the bandwagon with a church open house! Seeing as the church building is located right next to the legendary näkötorni, we contacted like crazy and brought a multitude of 3 people to the church! We showed them the spiritually-filled premises, and had some amazing gospel discussions. Miracles do happen! 

Sorry I've got to get out of here, there's stuff to plan for, and an english hour to teach!

Love you all! Read your scriptures! Say your prayers! 

-Vanhin Bolingbroke

Question of the week: Are you expecting miracles?

Week 83 in Mikkeli (Sick days, patikointi, fun signs... it's great!)

Wow, it's been a crazy week. We had a few sickdays, but we used the time to do some deep-cleaning in the apartment. Here it was in the middle of everything:

Crazy. We did a ton of cleaning, and then one evening, decided to do a movie night - because why not? Break out the popcorn, grab some blankets and the tiny dvd player, and voila, you're going!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgp39TSCRoY

We did a ton of good work this week, though: I wrote this down about yesterday:

This one was fun. Yesterday morning, we set a little goal, as we left at 10.00, to have so many good conversations with people that we wouldn't even make it to the area that we were trying to get to! And we very nearly succeeded - as we biked, we talked with multiple people(including a man who had done sukututkimus with the church years ago, a young woman who had met with missionaries previously, and a young guy who had actually lived in Utah on a high school exchange trip!), and when we finally got to the area, there was only time for about 10 minutes of tracting. Funny, we didn't get a single answer during that 10 minutes, but on the way back again, we talked with even more people. It just strengthened my testimony that we need to talk to everyone, especially on the way to the places that we go to. So many people are willing to listen, but we don't know which ones - so we're pretty safe when we try to talk with everyone! And at the end, when we got back home, it felt so exhilarating - I wanted to just turn around and keep biking and talking!

Pretty good stuff! But, as in all good things, we work hard, and we play hard:

-we saw this gorgeous sunset:

-I made this fun little sign out of icicles on our parveke:

-aaaand, we went on a hike!

here's us in the car

us out of the car

neat

also neat

what do you do when you see a tree? climb it, of course.

Also, there was this little gem we found whilst tracting:

But, seeing as we don't have a ton of time left, I just hope that you all know that I love this work! we're jumping straight into it with all our power, and I enjoy it so much! Our current mission scripture is D+C 123:17 - Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed. I know that's true, and I hope you'll be able to apply it in your own life! 

Love, Vanhin Bolingbroke