Great Week!

I love missionary Monday except this week it was missionary Sunday. Because he is so busy on P-day he writes on Sunday these days.  I get worn out just reading all the things he is doing.  Makes my heart happy though to see how hard he is working! This week when he picks up the new missionaries one of them is our very own Elder Hatch from Gilbert, AZ.  I know he will take great care of Elder Hatch. 

Dear Family & Friends,

Well, I hear a baby is on its way! crazy! I am an uncle! Congrats Dallin and Aubree! 

This week has been the ultimate preface to the most ridiculous week of my life coming up next week! First off, it has been raining and its been around 8 degrees all week. No fun at all! 

This week we were in Oulu for two days (which requires a plane ride) and Kemi. (Kemi is the farthest north I have ever been) We did exchanges with some elders up there. Then we came down here to Helsinki and tried to do work but there is a huge Juhannus or mid summer party that happens so we can't do work on these days. So we tried our best to be productive.

Then the change calls were made and the whole mission received all their new cities. The change board looked great and we all felt great about it but what we didn't look at was that every companionship in the mission but 2 were moving in some way. We have to buy all the train tickets and arrange it so that no one is alone during the whole proccess. It is literally soo confusing. We bought over 50 tickets and not a single person is ever alone! Yay! We sacrificed though. We started on saturday at 4pm and finished on Sunday at 3am. It was awful! Now everything starts being put into motion today then tomorrow is crazy. 

During all the transfer madness, will be going to the airport at 4:30am to pick up the new missionaries! We then take them to the mission home and we have dinner. Then we can go on splits with select new missionaries. 

Wednesday we do a trainers meeting for all the new trainers and then we do a meeting with the new missionaries and the trainers before they leave and when they get their new companion. Then we shuttle people to the train station and rush to get to presidents house for the departing dinner. (Elder Jefferies will be in this group. My trainer is dying!) Then Thursday we get to sleep in because we are averaging 3-4 hours of sleep a night right now so we are gonna catch up on Thursday. Then Friday is MLC with all the sister trainer leaders and zone leaders. We will be making an appearance at this meeting and by an appearance I mean will will be conducting it. We also have the temple that day and then after the MLC we my companions and I will go to the airport with the the Rawlings and pick up President and Sister Watson. Then Saturday we do work and Sunday we do more work then the week after we go on a mission tour with President Watson! Yay! 

Oh and I almost forgot! We had a wedding this week! Our investigator got married so now he is living the Law of Chastity and can be baptized in two weeks! Pretty cool to see people get married to accept the Gospel. 

This week is gonna be fun! 

Have a good week everybody! 

Love,

Elder Tippetts

Another crazy week in the bag!

Mondays are the best days to wake up and see Spencer's email waiting.  He continues to work hard and is just loving his mission.  I can only imagine how hard these next 2 weeks are going to be with his mission president whom he adores leaving and the new mission president arriving.  The experiences Spencer is having is just monumental for him.  Enjoy!

Dear Family & Friends,

Well sounds like a great week for everyone back home. I totally forgot that it was Fathers day. In Finland Fathers day is in November. 

I still sometimes am shocked that I actually live here. Every Sunday night we drive to the mission office where we put in the mission numbers. On the way we drive right through downtown Helsinki. There is a harbor with super nice Yachts and bridges and cruise ships, tall european buildings and cobble stone streets. It is seriously a dream. And whats great is its 10>30 at nigt and its still bright as day outside! 

We are coming up on the longest day of the year ehich means everybody is gonna be drunk! not good for us... dont worry we are prepared.

We are making all the final arrangments for President Watsons arrival. We have our second to last meeting with President Rawlings today so no Pday this week! President Watson will arrive on the 27 of june and president leaves on the 1 of julyand President Watson will take over at midnight. 

Everything should be still moving to Espoo. We saw the final signing papers for the new mission home. Espoo is a way nice city. Its where the Temple is. In fact the mission home is supposed to be 5 minutes away from the temple. There is also a huge possibility that we get switched to that ward so we will be closer to the mission home. We have no idea yet though because it is up to President Watson. President Rawlings decided not to move us. 

I have been writing Derek Hatch. He is in the MTC and will be coming next week. He sounds super stoked! 

This week we had the Helsinki Zone Conference and the Tampere Zone Conference. Both were incredible. We drove to all the zone conferences so we have had some fun rode trips recently. 

Cool story was the day after we got back from the last conference in Tampere, we looked at our schedule and every single thing had fallen through... We had commited to follow every small prompting that came to mind that day. It was just Elder Kiuttu and I for this day because Elder Heaney was on exchanges in Turku. We prayed that the Lord would guide us through this blank day scenerio. Well after choosing a few names form the area book Elder Kiuttu looks up and says I think we should go to the X family. We really had no reason to go there because it was a little out of the way and the sisters were teaching them. But, we picked up some chocolate to bring over to them and offer some help. Well, we did that and it was super nice. Then the very first person right outside of the apartment of the X family catches our eye. So, we stop him. Long story short we have an appointment with him on thursday! The Lord can really direct us when we approach every moment prayerfully.

This week Elder Kiuttu and I will be going to Oulu and Kemi which are the 2nd and 3rd northernmost cities in Finland. We have 2 days there and then we come back to do eork for a day when everything shuts down because of the crazy holiday then we buy tickets for the next transfer which means we have to pull an all nighter to get them all in time. 

We are haveing tons of fun! the church is true. 

Have a wonderful week. 

Love,

Vanhin Tippetts

Clip from Mother's Day Skype

WOW!

Dear Family & Friends,

Well, I could die...

Just to explain last night and tomorrow morning. Last night we entered all the mission data and had to write a report. That lasted until 2AM... I didnt get to bed until 2:30! It was nuts. Before we did this we had our corelation meeting with president and it was good.

The next two months are going to be the craziest days of my life. We will be setting up a mission tour for the area president, we have a ysa function called festinord where 500 people from all over Europe will be coming to Finland. We are in charge of a piece of it.

We also will need to accompany our new president to all his meetings with local leaders and area authorities. In our meeting, we coordinated a ton of stuff.

This week is the 6 week interim training. It lasts 3 days and we are there helping president run it all. Today was day 1 and thats why Pday was off schedule.

Well tomorrow, we need to take someone to the airport but the flight leaves at 6:30am so, we need to pick up from the mission home at 4:00am... I want to cry! haha its super fun though.

My companions are Elder *** from texas. He goes home in three months. Elder *** is the same age in the mission as me.

Last week we had MLC or mission leadership council. I conducted. haha Then we went to the temple! It was super fun.

Well, after Thursday when all the people here for interim leave, we will then start on a road trip for 6 hours to Vaasa. We have a zone conference there for the north zone. We will be driving to Tampere and spending the night there with the Zone leaders there and then waking up early to finish the drive to the north zone.

After that we drive home have a normal weekend and then we turn back around to Tampere for their zone conference then back to Helsinki for that Zone conference. Its gonna be busy! But way fun because my companions are so cool!

I really am loving my mission. Its super hard but I feel like I am actually accomplishing something. This is the Lords work.

Love you all!

Vanhin Tippetts