Its 9 degrees outside...

... but dont worry thats in Celcius! so more like 45 or so! Still, freezing! Raining all week.

To start out we will complete the question and answer session.'

Yes my pictures are backed up.

I dont have a ton of time to package the card up but ill get it done soon.

I write religously in my journal. My emails dont even come close to telling all the adventures that happen here.

I use the iPod set up everyday!

New coat is sick. water proof and all.

I got the books thanks! There is an old story from the Finland Helsinki mission newsletter in the book I heard and it brings me to tears almost every time!

I really apreciate how you all think Im super amazing and stuff! If im good at anything its fluffing these emails up! but thanks fpr the package. Those listerine things are the best ever!!! I love them!

Weird how everyone is getting married! Tell Marin good luck and that she will never regret it [going on a mission]! Also My friend Joonatan Sohkonen is going to that mission. He is from Mikkeli! He is an absolute stud! I went on splits with him a bunch!

This week we literally did a million things and I dont even know where to start. After our short pday last wednesday we had our addiction recorvery class. That is always fun. Our investigator who was being baptized on saturday was in it and he told us he had smoked so we post poned his baptism until after general conference. It should be really good for him to watch it.

This week we have also been making preperations for the East Conference here in Kuopio. President Rawlings and Elder Jooenatus (not sure if thats how you spell it, he is an area authority over Finland) will be speaking at it next sunday. Elder Durrant and I are in the Choir for it and we will be singing there is a green hill far away in Finnish. We also are in charge of picking President up from the airport in Kuopio. Im super scared because I am the Driver! but that also means we need to wash our car! We also get to have interviews with President, yay!

I hope everyone else thinks these things are cool but this stuff gets me fired up! We developed a new form of planning this week called skelotoning! We use graph paper and make kind of like a bar graph with all the hours of the day and each bar is a day of the week. We then pencil everything on to that exactly how we would want it if everything went our way. Them as we double check each appointment it moves into the planner. We also are trying to make sure our investigators have daily contact with the church in some form so, we made calendars for each of them with every single thing that will happen everyday to accomplish that. Then we made a calendar for each member that will be helping us achieve that. So, we now know what we will do to be in contact with these people every day for the next month and a half! I get goosebumps just thinking about it!

We were so busy this week because we didnt get back to missionary work until wednesday evening. We still some how managed to teach 26 lessons! I want to get 30 in one week so bad its killing me! This is the week for sure due to better planning.

In the midst of the crazy week, we had church. While I was standing at the door like we usually do greeting people as the come in, The first counselour in the branch presidency comes up and says, "youve got the talk ready for today right?" I replied, "I didnt know I was speaking but yeah... I got it..." I was the last speaker in sacrament and I had 20 minutes. So, I said a prayer and decided to tell the white underwear story. It ended up being quite funny and spiritual thank goodness and it took up all the time! The white underwear story is a good one that will have to wait for me to tell you in person. Ive gotten good at telling it in English but telling it in Finnish was a little bit of a challenge!

Then after church we had nothing planned so we prayed about an area to go to and we went out to tract the whole thing. It was the first time we had some free time to find people. In two hours we taught 5 people and got 4 return appointments! 3 of which are families! We are super excited to Teach them!

I never thought I could be where I am now. Its crazy how the Lord can take raw materials such as Spencer Tippetts, teach him Finnish and then give him the reigns. Ive got a long way to go and its quite daunting how far it is but when I look back I can see where the Lord has carried me. I took some of Dallins advice though, Never look too far forward or else youll go crazy! Just focus on what you can do good right now!

I love you all and will see you next week!

Vanhin Tippetts