Wow!

I am literally speechless about how well things are going at home! Just remember to say your prayers!

How did the family mission council go?

This week I learned my shapes in finnish. Its fun getting to a point where you dont have to learn words just to get through a conversation but that I can learn whatever! Finnish is the most daunting thing ever! Just when I think im getting a leg up on things I realize that I am literally no where near fluency!

As far as investigators go one of them that was trying to get baptized will not be making it so, no cigar yet... actually thats the problem! We are working on it! The other that was supposed to be baptized on saturday wants to wait a little longer before he joins.

We noticed a big problem this week. Our ward loves us but not our investigators. We bust our tails every day to get these people in church and then no one even says hi to them! Also we realized that our friends who have addictions have more friends who want them to smoke and drink then they do in church so logically they will want to go hang out with them on sunday! So, this is the week of changing that. We are trying to get our members to be friends with our investigators. We had no idea really how to give this a good kick start but a miracle happened!

We had a baby blessing in church on sunday. Baby blessings are a huge deal here in Finland. In fact the parents of the baby dont tell anyone the name of the baby until the actual prayer! So, we had tons of visitors and even a family from Mikkeli! Afterwards there was a huge lunch thing that we got to eat at! whoo! Then among the roar of people this one member Veli Pärkä came to us and asked when our investigator and us could eat at his house! It was perfect! Then while the investigator was talking to Veli Pärkä we went around asking members to introduce themselves to the investigaotrs. It was great!

Tonight we start splits with the Elders from Savonlinna but we wont be here to receive them becasue we have a lesson on the other side of Kuopio. So, we arranged for a member to meet them at an investigators house where they can go to him and teach him without us! Im a little proud of myself for arranging it. Its kinda hard for other people to come to our area because it is so huge!

Oh dear, I have only talked about missionary stuff in this email! Im going crazy!

Lets talk about some cool things we did! We had district meeting in Savolinna this week. Afterwards, we went to the Castle in Savonlinna! Its called Olavinlinna. Its an ancient Swedish castle they built to defend against russia! Ill send pictures!

Its getting super dark here in Finland and cold as well! I want to cry a little bit every day before we go outside! But during the dark hours, I ran up to a man on a bike, stopped him and said, "I need your help!" he asked with what and I explained in Finnish "In America we do this thing called a high five, how do I say that in Finnish?" He replied, "yli viitonen" I said back, "Kiitos, yli viitonen!" (gave him a high five) and then rode away back into the darkness while he stood there confused! haha it was one of my favorite moments this week!

One more funny story. We were super tired on wednesday right before our addiction recovery class. We were positive we would fall asleep if we didnt do something. Brief explanation, In Finnish they say "Tuota" and "No niin" as "um" and "like". So, Elder Durrant and I decided to count how many times those two words were said! We counted over 50 of each!

It was kind of dumb but we stayed awake for sure!

Well I hope everybody remembers Heavenly Father in all this success. He can take it away as quick as he gave it! You are all the best and I love you tons!

Love,

Vanhin Tippetts