Baptism!

Howdy Y´all! How’s everybody doing? Things are great over here in the good ole´ Finland! Crazy week, saw a Ferrari, ate a Reindeer pizza, said goodbye to Jefferies and at the end of the week I got all wet! But more about that later!

Judee: Never be embarrassed about you hair. It looks good no matter what!

Grandma: love you too, keep having fun!

Mom: I can tell you are running around like a chicken with its legs cut off! ;) (anyone? anyone?) but its good that you are busy. Keep being that patient loving mother you always have been!

Dad: You’re a good man. Keep me updated on the tree. I hope mom lets you tear it down soon and do that circular driveway we talked about! And that SLC broadcast sounds sweet! We didn’t even hear about it! 70,000 missionaries is nuts!

Dallin and Aubree: You too are great. The hot air balloon ride sounds sick!

Taylor: Keep working hard at Rainforest. You have it good there!

Cameron: Put some sleeves on “for craps sake”! (Sons of Provo movie?) There gonna make guns illegal for that reason!

Devin: you stud you! Rainforest is pretty sweet to work at! Keep working hard and keep your sights on going on a mission!

Well I’m not gonna lie this was one of those weeks where I wanted to go into my room and cry for a solid 2 or 3 minutes. Jefferies left and I took over Mikkeli. My new companion is about 4 months older than me in the mission so our speaking is about the same. I organized baptismal interviews and a baptismal service all by myself! It was super hard to work with the members because I don’t speak very well yet. They are very patient though.

As far as the baptism goes, Jegan was baptized this week. I planned the whole service played the piano and did the actual baptizing! I really did want to cry by the end of this week! Also Jegan asked us about white underwear. We went to the church to check if we had any and we didn’t. Well it was a holiday this week and all the stores were closed. So, I called every single member in our ward and asked him or her if they had any. I then sat down wallowing in my failure to plan and said a prayer. Then literally the next person I called was Veli Ojalja and he met us at the church and we tore the place apart. Well, upstairs in the back of a random closet we found some white underwear! It was a huge miracle in my eyes!

For our last P-day together, Jefferies and I went to a Pizza place and we went half’s on a Perhe (family) size reindeer pizza! It was delicious! Quite a bit of food though and I’m not proud of the fact that I finished the whole thing! After that is when we saw the Ferrari. Also in this mission we do a thing called a vierraskirja which is basically a memory book that you get all you companions to sign and put pictures in it and stuff. It’s pretty sweet so I bought one so I can pass it around to companions and members while I’m on my mission.

We had quite a crazy week here as far as missionary work goes though. We found 8 new investigators! it was crazy! One was right after the interview with our baptizee. The district leader and I were on splits together and we were riding back from it when we passed a girl on the street. We kept riding but we got the impression to go back and talk to her. I knew it was gonna be super awkward but we did it anyway. Well we shared a little with her and we she became an investigator on the spot. We have an appointment with her on Wednesday!

We are preparing for a 4th of July celebration here with the district as well that of course you know I’m excited for!

Well even though I wanted to cry almost every day because i felt like it was all on me, it has still been one of the most exciting weeks of my mission. I don’t have much else to say other than this church has to be true. It has to be true or else we the missionaries would have destroyed it a long time ago! I hope everybody has a great week this week!

Love, your favorite missionary from Gilbert in Finland with the last name Tippetts!

Vanhin Tippetts!

What an incredible week!

What an incredible week!

Mom: you are the best cruise director in the world! nothing ever fails under you super vision. I received the package and it was sweet! I especially liked the short quick stuff. it really helps with reading the scriptures!

Dad: Lawn looks sweet but the screen shots didn’t work for some reason of the blog. Either way I’m sure it looks sweet.

Taylor: sweet birthday week for you. I’m jealous that you are working at rainforest. some of the most useful skills i use here in the mission I learned at rainforest!

Cameron: You stud. Happy birthday! Hope you enjoyed the chocolate. I mainly did it for you! Also I have seen quite a few sweet cars here. Everyone drives an Audi A8 here for some reason but in Helsinki there are lots of Bentleys and other European sports cars!

Dallin and Aubree: Love you guys lots and just thinking about you two is comic relief! Also Spencer is a sweet name for a little boy!

I love hearing about all the adventures you guys are having back home! I think about you often! This week has been busy and i have never been so tired in my life. at the start of the week we went down to Helsinki for a zone conference. I picked up my package while i was down there as well. We stayed with Elder Jefferies old companion Elder Adams and Adams new companion Elder Galling the night before because we are about a 3-hour train ride away from Helsinki. We also stayed with them when we were down there for a week for my language training. Who we stayed with is important later on! It was a good meeting. we came back and got right back to work. We did some yard work for a member that required 4 hours and lots of shoveling! You know how i love shoveling! We were extremely sore after that.

But! the time for some sad news has come! We received change calls this week! Elder Jefferies and I will be splitting up! yes, what the members referred to as the Dream team, will be changing! my new companion will be Elder Galling! the guy we stayed with for a week and i went on splits with him 5 days in a row! He and i will be having a great time here in Mikkeli! As for Elder Jefferies he is moving to Espoo, the city where the temple is, and he will be the Zone leader over the Helsinki zone! Its sweet because he is now my Zone leader! There are 3 zones in this mission. Helsinki, Tampere and Oulu zones.

Church was fun also. I gave the opening prayer and received the assignment that I will be giving a talk on the 30th.

Elder galling is coming at a great time! We have a super busy week this week that we have planned for Elder Gallings arrival on Wednesday! We even planned a baptism for him to help us with! Our friend Jegan will be being baptized on Saturday! He is very excited and we are too. I will be speaking at it about the Holy Ghost! This will be the first baptism in Mikkeli in 3 years! We are being very blessed here!

Elder Jefferies and I have been trying to enjoy our last few days together. One of these things included eating an entire 2-liter bin of ice cream! We also took pictures by a sweet graffiti wall that I will try to send!

I’m sorry I haven’t written much. As i write this letter we are having a discussion with a man across from us!

What it comes down to everybody is if the Book of Mormon is true. If you read it and pray sincerely and ask God if its true and He says it isn’t, then it isn’t and we are just wasting a bunch of time here. However, that will never happen because that book is true. It works beautifully with the Bible to testify of Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon is the proof that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that Gods priesthood authority to act in his name has been restored. Going on missions isn’t just something we do because its nice and fun, we do this because this book and this knowledge is what changes lives. It changes my life everyday. I hope that you all will allow the Book of Mormon to change your life everyday. Its true, His church is back and the Book of Mormon is the proof.

I love you all and love hearing about everything. Keep being good and remember none of us are perfect so that’s why we make mistakes!

Love,

Elder Tippetts

"I'm not from hell, I'm from Arizona!"

What’s up everybody?

We are on fire over here in Mikkeli! Things have just been amazing this week!

Lunch at McDonalds

We have had a super fun week. Last P day we had almost run out of food. We literally had no money left because we were waiting for some reimbursements and so we were scraping. But the first of the month came and we got some more money and we stocked up the kitchen! We even bought 2; 1 liter buckets of Finnish ice cream and ate that for lunch! It was super fun! We have been all over the city this week. Most days we had to pack our lunch and our dinner because we were so far away from home! Weird thing happened to, I like hard-boiled eggs now! I bring them with me on those kinds of days! We are teaching an average of 21 lessons every week.

Srylankan friends

We have quite a few friends from Srylanka (I really don’t now how to spell that!) but there are three fathers we are teaching and their families are coming in a few months! Its sweet! A problem though is we didn’t have any Books of Mormon in their language, Tamil. We called into the office to order more so we could pick them up on Wednesday and they said they didn’t have any. This morning we got a call that said they had 11! We are stoked to start getting those handed out! It was a mini miracle for the day! These friends we have barely speak English and absolutely no Finnish. So, we organized a Finnish class that is held at the church every Saturday! We keep inviting people to it and then we try to give a church tour after! Its super fun!

Teaching Finnish classes

A cool experience we had this week. I was ordering our train tickets to Helsinki last week and the clerk asked me a question and I wasn’t really sure so I asked him to repeat it and a man behind me explained it to me in English. Then after that he told me that I spoke very good Finnish for an American and he asked me how long I have lived in Finland and I said "8 weeks!" he was stunned! He said that he knew people that have lived here their whole lives and don’t speak finish that well! He added, "I heard that Finnish was a hard language but apparently not if you are fluent after 8 weeks!" Fluent! Ha ha I’m just super good at faking it! But it was a huge confidence booster! Then we traded contact info and he said he would take us out to lunch next time he was in Mikkeli! Super cool guy!

Spencer's desk at the apartment

We have discovered a sweet cookie recipe that people here love. So, we have been making these cookies by the dozens and delivering them to less actives or investigators! It is really helping us talk to people who have previously rejected us coldly! Now, we are trying to organize what we call a "Mass Cookie Drop!" We are gonna make a ton of cookies with the ward and then split up into teams and go to every Less-active person in Mikkeli and bring them cookies and invite them back to church! It should be pretty sweet and we are excited to see how it goes!

Elder Jeffries, Spencer's companion

Yesterday we had a broadcast from Sweden for church. President Monson was going to speak at it but he stayed home this time. I heard his wife passed away. Bishop Cause and Elder Ballard spoke to us. They are great! It was super fun because we got to watch it in English with our Srylankin friends. President Monson was not able to be there but he recorded a video and they played that. When he came on we told our Srylankin friends that that was the prophet and they were stoked! It really is pretty sweet to be blessed with the knowledge that there is a prophet here on earth!

Splits with Elder Wessman

We also found a man on a bench earlier this week that was clearly drunk but we talked to him anyway. While trying not to inhale while he spoke, he asked us why we are here and we told him that he didn’t know? There’s a prophet! And its true! It was really fun to break that fact down to the bones and realize that the church has been restored! He then later went on to tell us that we were sent from Hell and I replied, "I’m not from Hell, I'm from Arizona!" He laughed. Also on that note, when people find out we are Mormon they ask us "So, you are from Utah?" and we always respond "Actually we are from Arizona and Virginia!". Then their perspective of Mormons only living in Utah is shattered! Its great!

Christ’s church is back on the earth and it requires all of our help to tell everybody about it! We are privileged to be a part of it and because we have been given much, much is required! Call the missionaries and have them teach you about this church and the Book of Mormon if you haven’t heard about yet. Once you are baptized tell more people about it!

I know its true!

I love you all!

Love,

Vanhin Tippetts

We have been doing some serious work over here!

Well all is well over here in Maliki Finland. We have been super busy lately! We just set up our new investigator classroom at the church building! We also secured a computer so it could double as a family history center as well! It has been super hot here lately and we have made the transition to short sleeve shirts! I only have one so I wash it every night!

So let me take you through a day here... I wake up totally soaked with sweat, then I work all day completely sweaty and then I go to bed sweaty and start all over again! The humidity is drastically different than home is and my body isn’t used to it yet! But I am always well hydrated!

We had a great week this week! We went down to Helsinki for a mission conference! President Patrick Kearon of the Europe area presidency came and spoke to us! He told us "we need to work faster, eat faster, think faster and pray slower in order to call down the powers of heaven!" It was intense! He is from England and has the Mormon message about the scorpion!

We have been seeing miracles here lately as well! On Thursday night we prayed and asked what our new investigator would look like. We felt like we should look for someone wearing pants and a watch, a mom with a kid, and a man with a drinking problem. We went to our visiting city and went to work. One of our lessons fell through and we took our member with us. We asked him where we should go and he led the way.

We then met this lady playing with her daughter in the grass and set up an appointment with her. She is now an investigator. We then knocked on a door and a drunken man stumbled out onto the porch. We bore our testimonies and taught about the word of wisdom and he cried then we set a baptismal date with him! He is now an investigator. Also we didn’t realize this till after but on our way to the train station we found another investigator wearing pants and a watch! It was a pretty miraculous day to say the least!

  

Elder Jefferies is kind of a health nut so I’m trying to follow his example. I know how to exercise but eating is hard for me. Especially when you have the greeny hunger as bad as I do! Don’t worry though, I haven’t gained any weight! Also the ward doesn’t call me the “greeny” they call me the “golden”! I appreciated that. When all the snow melted we found this sweet public track and field stadium! It has every track and field thing imaginable so we go there and work out in the mornings now!

Well I always felt like I would be at a disadvantage learning a language but I have really been being blessed! Elder Jefferies is a legend of a trainer and we are doing some serious work over here!

Thank you all for your support!

Love,

Elder Tippetts

From the balcony of their apartment

Helsinki train station leaving for first area

Loading up to go to the first area