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