Hello, Mini MTC, Zone Meeting, McDonalds

This was a short email but even the short ones are awesome. Love to hear about the experiences he has each week! Never a boring week thats for sure!  Enjoy!

Dear Family & Friends,

Well everybody, sounds like a good week has happened at home! Here on the front everything is going well. 

This week was normal craziness. BTW I am writing now because we have interim training for all the 6 week new missionariestomorrow until Wednesday at the new mission home. We will be completely occupied with that starting tonight in one hour and all the way through wednesday! It is President Watson's first interim so we are helping alot with it as far as training the missionaries goes. 

Starting Monday we had a Mini MTC for all those people going on a mini mission. We taught an amazing class if I do say so myself! It was fun and they did super well with all the roleplays! Then we sent the kids off to their cities. 

So cool story, we got to the train station and I went in with all the kids to get them to there trains. I got everyone matched up with a ticket and a track except one. One was planned to go to a city that couldn't have a ticket purchased before hand. So, I didnt have a ticket for him. I did have a ticket to another city for one mini missionary that didnt show up. The mini missionary looked at me and said that he should go there to the city for which I had a ticket. I asked him if he was sure and we both agreed to pray about it. So, we prayed in a somewhat less busy corner and both felt strongly that he should go to Turku. So I sent him off on that train. I guess there was something for him to do in Turku so God called an audible! 

Then we had a meeting with president and we talked about the next transfer. Huge stuff was talked about! Like crazy stuff that I literally can't tell you about!!! It's pretty nuts but will likely create a nightmare for us on change day! Fun anyway though!

We had a zone meeting on what a successful missionary is. I needed it because I have been breaking myself down like crazy this week trying to figure out how I can be better! 

This week we went to McDonalds and it was delicious. But a new guy was being trained and forgot to put a straw in my bag. I was saying the words when I realized I didn't know the word for straw. So... I learned the word for straw. 

We had a DA with the Määttä family and it was delightful. We ate outside on there patio. Brother Määttä is the former Stake President of Helsinki and is a super stud. He is now the ward missionary leader. It was fun.

Now we are leaving to go shuttle people around until 10pm then we will do mission numbers! Yay!

The church is true everyone! 

Love,

-- 

Elder Spencer Tippetts

Finland Helsinki Mission

Neitsytpolki 3 A 4 

Fi-00140 Helsinki

Finland 

Wow, never a boring week!

Happy Missionary Sunday Email Night!  Oh man was this an awesome email.  You will love his stories this time.  The energy he has is so electrifying.  I can't believe the things he accomplishes each week.  Spencer is on fire and their isn't anything going to stop him. Only 7 more Fast Sundays but who is counting!! :)  Enjoy!

Dear Family & Friends,

Wow, you guys literally never have a boring week! 

And apparently neither do we! 

I tell you this story for historical documenting purposes.

We ran a Mini MTC at this years "Festinord". Festinord was held in a nice little city called Naantali, which is 20 minutes outside of Turku where we have 4 sets of missionaries. After a long monday of meetings and minimal Pday stuff and a tuesday of saying goodbye to members for Elder Heaney we left tuesday evening for Turku to stay the night so we would be ready for Wednesday. We arrived in Turkuat 10:00 pm and were getting ready for bed when we called the Turku district leader who was in charge of all the logistics of the event. He asked us, "hey you brought three cars for the mass splits mania were gonna do after right?" We looked at each other and said "WHAT?!?!" We literally never heard about three cars being needed. Well, after more discussion and prayer we determined that it was absolutely needed that we go get two more cars. Now this is not normal missionary work, this is the APs trying to make things smooth, so Cameron don't follow my example. We left back for Helsinki at 10:30pm and raced to the temple where we park all our unused cars. We arrived there at 12:30am and then all hopped in a seperate car and drove back to Turku where we arrived at 2:30am. We slept until 5:30am and then woke up and went and threw the best Mini MTC that ever happened! The participants loved it. And after the MTC we had a mass splits happen where they all got to go out with real missionaries in Turku and do work! Nobody had any idea that we had even done that! 

Small success. And don't worry the sun never went down so we were driving in light the whole time! 

Thursday we planned and said goodbye to more members with Elder Heaney and we sent him on his way that night. He had been here for 8 months! 

Elder Kiuttu and I took over the area and things are going quite well! We found 7 new investigators in 2 days no thanks to ourselves. They were all referrals! One we had a church tour with so we told her we would meet at the Metro and wal with her to the church building. She was late and when we called and asked she said I am bringing my friends. She brought 2 friends and all three of them were in church on Sunday! Then our Filipino member invited us over for dinner and she told us while we were eating that she had invited friends over! The friends arrived. We taught them. We got 4 new investigators... 

Referrals are the only way missionary work happens these days. I have found over 60 investigators in my time in this ward and not a single one is still being taught. 

Sunday was great. We had church and a few lessons then we headed for the office and did a ton of work in order to keep the mission going for a couple weeks! Seriously like 4 hours of straight office stuff. We killed it. Then we picked up my old companion Elder Christiansen from the train station. He will be leaving tomorrow to go home! Super weird

Today we will be running the Mini MTC for the Mini missionaries. After that we will be running around with our departer and see some things in Helsinki. Then we have dinner at the Watsons! We are also going to be doing some planing for transfers! We have to open 4 new areas next change so we are going to decide what they are. Super exciting!  

Its gonna be another long week without a real p-day but thats life! I feel like I am really being blessed. Earlier on my mission, I thought I would die without p-day. Now I don't have it almost ever but somehow I am still happy and have energy. Small blessing but makes a huge difference. The Lord has literally carried me through this far and I don't see Him stopping anytime soon! 

The church is true! 

Love, 

-- 

Elder Spencer Tippetts

Finland Helsinki Mission

Neitsytpolki 3 A 4 

Fi-00140 Helsinki

Finland 

Pretty Good Week

Yes it our favorite time of the week.  I love this son of mine.  I just can't believe how great the work is going in Finland.  Love what he is doing!  Enjoy!

Dear Family & Friends,

Well we had a crazy week. The kinda roller coaster week where it slower creeps to the first giant drop (Monday) and then doesnt stop throwing you around until it stops (Sunday night). Monday we had a meeeting with PResident. We got tons of stuff done. Tuesday we went to Kouvola to visit there district meeting. Afterwards my companions stayed to do exchanges in Kouvola and I went to Mikkeli to help out there. Before and during these exchanges I had been praying really hard that My companions and I could bring new life to the areas we were visiting. 

While I was in Mikkeli, they were explaining how hard it is to do work there and how they havent found anybody in weeks! Well, we got out of the apartment and I didnt stop praying the whole time but as we were walking we stopped a girl and asked her a question and one thing lead to another. She took a BoM and accepted a return appointment! Pretty sweet because due to transportation I only had 3 hours in Mikkeli. Also while walking we ran into Yogen, the man we baptized when I was there! It was soo special! 

That night I went to kouvola and spent the night there with both my companions. Then at 3:30 Wednesday morning Elder Kiuttu and I caught a train to Seinäjoki. We visited in there district meeting and then went on exchanges with Elder Chapman and Kelson on seinäjoki. My son and grandson! I went with Elder Kelson. While there we got in contact with an old potential investigator and he invited us in. After a powerful 30 minute lesson we invited him to baptism! So he will be getting baptized on the 30th of next month! BTW this is a city with 20,000 people in it and like 6 members. The church meets in an old bank! Long story short while we were there in this somewhat rough area we founf 5 new investigators and a baptismal date and over 10 lessons. It was sweet! 

Then we came back and did exchanges with the Oulu Elders and got ready for MLC on friday. Friday morning went to the temple and was about to go in for a session when for the second month in a row Brother Olila pulls me aside and asks me (because he "knows" me) if I would go be a witness for baptisms. Of course I say yes. While being a little dissapointed I went oddly by myself to the baptistry and meet the team there. It was the Latvian week so I couldnt comunicate with anyone so I just sat there and made sure everybody went under water. It was incredible though because there were around 8 kids there and they did over 100 family names! It was incredible! Well after everybody left I volunteered to clean the mens bathroom. That was really interesting. When I clean my own bathroom I am constantly fighting the thoughts of "its just gonna get dirty later" and "Thats clean enough!" But when I was cleaning the Temple bathroom I was soo motivated to make it perfect! and likewise I made it as clean as possible. Really cool experience. Then after that I took a nap in the lobby chairs! Fun fact the only drinking fountain in Finland is found inside the Finland Helsinki Temple! 

Saturday we went on exchanges with the Tampere Zone leaders. I went with Elder Durrant so we had tons of fun! 

Sunday was good and also Elder Heany´s last sunday here in Marjaniemi. He will be going to Vaasa for his last month before he goes home. We bought his ticket today! It will be my first time in a normal companionship in 3 months! Ever month we send out a misison newsletter and there is a letter from the APs and they always use the name of there companionship (ours was The Omega 3, get it? Vitamin D?) Next months will be Kiuttipps! haha

Now we have another crazy week ahead of us. We will be going to Nantali to run a missionary seminar at Festinord. Festinord is like EFY for YSA´s in Scandonavia but every body from all over goes to it! We will be there for two days. 

We keep busy. I am being taught more than usual lately and its pretty great. I am so humbled by my experience so far. 

Have a great week!

-- 

Elder Spencer Tippetts

Finland Helsinki Mission

Neitsytpolki 3 A 4 

Fi-00140 Helsinki

Finland

Spencer's Weekly Letter

Love Sunday evenings!  Spencer sounds so busy and so happy! Couldn't ask for anything better! Sure love our missionary!  He even included some fun pictures! Enjoy!

Dear Family & Friends,

Actually our responsibility as the assistants is to have, basically, the best area in the mission. We are baptizing roughly monthly in our area. After we have done serious work in our area is when the AP tasks come in to the priorities. We havent had under 20 lessons in almost a year. 

Swedish is a germanic language so it sounds like english with some rocks in your mouth. It is completely different than Finnish. Finnish is such a different animal its crazy! 

Pretty crazy about Rexburg! I cant believe that.

This week we had a pretty solid week. Due to the summer a lot of our investigators have excuses for why they cant meet. Our really solid mother son combo is in estonia for vacation. So we have been in contact with the missionaries in Estonia. Kinda fun I talked with my old friend Elder Brown from the MTC!

We had a lot of time in our area this week which was exciting. 

However on friday, we were contacting a referral and she was talking for like 30 minutes and then rejected us! So we were a little tired after that so we found a nearby bench and sat down. We started sharing some concerns with each other about how the people we find our going inactive so fast. It makes sense because we baptize a lot of people from other countries and its almost impossible for them the get friends here because they cant speak Finnish. So we thought if we want to baptize kingdom builders they would need to come from the members. So after idetifying the thing that made us understand the importance of missionary work and the restoration, we decided that we would hold a stake wide MTC experience for the members. So we waved our title around and got some of the leaders in Helsinki to sit down with us. (we did that because sometimes members dont really take us seriously) We are now in the proccess of putting together a committee to plan and throw this thing off! 

Pretty fun. 

We had to send an Elder Home this week for a health reason. It was super hard because he was legit. He should be coming back though he had only been out for a couple months. 

This week we will be on exchanges every day. Tomorrow we are going to Kouvola and I will be going to Mikkeli!!!! Then Wednesday, Elder Kiuttu and I will be in Seinäjoki, then Thursday we will be in our area with the Elders from Oulu. Then friday we go to the Temple and have the MLC meeting. Then on saturday the Elders from Jyväskylä will be with us in our area. It should be fun but lots of traveling this week. 

Great stuff, thanks for the letters and encouraging words! 

Love,

Vanhin Tippetts

A few fun photos!

This is called Herttoniemi.  Its basically in the middle of Helsinki.

This was the wedding of their last investigator.  They got married so he could get baptized.  He had investigated the church for years.

Fun Week

Love Mondays!  Spencer had a great week of getting to do actual missionary work! Enjoy!

Dear Family & Friends,

Wow what a great and fun week you all have had! Not much here too much more exciting than for you guys! 

This week we had our pday eatin up with little tasks, and we were really dissapointed because we had a really slow start to the week. Well long story short we ended the week with 30 lessons! haha

We had a zone meeting that was really good. It was about remembering what it was like when we were in the MTC and what we can do to have that kind of faith again. Afterwards we met some missionaries who are serving in the Russia Vladvostak (not sure on spelling) Mission who were here renewing visas. They had to stay for three days so they stayed at the temple guest house. We met up with them and did exchanges! Good thing we ran into a bunch of Russian people that day that I wouldnt have been able to talk to! 

Well it was me and Elder Riggs (from the russian mission) and he is from Mesa. We talked to everyone and had a great time talking about the differences in our missions. Then we had to ask for directions so we asked an old lady. She didnt know so she called for two girls from across the street to help us. They didnt know but a group from across the street shouted and told us where to go. So we said thank you and turned around to head that way when we saw a women so we stopped her. Then as I was talking to her in Finnish, three other Finns walked up and waited behind her to talk to us. Then Another man, who spoke english, came up to us and Elder Riggs started talking to him. then I started to talk to all four of my people. It was crazy because I felt like we were in the old times where we talk to big groups! It was fun but goes to show that there are people that want to talk. 

After we walked away from that group after maybe 30 minutes, We stopped another lady and said hello. Then she answered in Swedish to try to throw us off so we would leave her alone. But When she started talking in Swedish, so did I! I asked her how she was doing and told her what we were doing. Then once she realized I could speak swedish she switched to Finnish to see how I would do there (Thank goodness Im a lot better at Finnish!) Then I had her! haha she listened for a minute but then walked away... Anyway. That day we taught a total of 9 lessons and only 4 were on the street and 2 of the 5 sit down lessons were from following promptings to call people. 

We are making preparations for the September Mission conference with Elder Bednar. Elder Bednar and Elder Uchtdorf are coming to Scandinavia and there is a rumor that they will be splitting the Helsinki stake. Big deal! Also a story about the Espoo ward. It had 190 people in church every sunday. so the Stake decided to split it. The sunday after the split each ward had 150 people in it! How is that possible? once they realized the wards were gonna be smaller they went out and started filling the chapel with less actives and friends! Pretty cool success story. 

I had my first interview with president Watson. It went really well. 

Well pretty good week. Im still alive and ready to work! 

Thanks for all the letters! 

Love 

Vanhin Tippetts 

Wow! New President

Love missionary Monday!  Spencer sounds like he had a much better week and is loving his new president!

Dear Family & Friends,

Well pretty insane week again! We had to wrap some things up from last weeks crisis at the beggining of the week which really helped us calm down about it all. BTW I dont have any problems it was just things that were happening. So dont worry about me, just pray that we can keep strong in the work and hasten it! 

We had a series of Zone conferences called Meet the President. Everybody got to meet him through these meetings. In order to help him get around and know certain things about the areas one of us went with him to each of the conferences. Since I served in Oulu I went with him there. We took a plane Thursday night. While on the plane I gave a BOM to the lady next to me. It felt super good to just do normal missionary work for a change! Then we arrived in Oulu and I arranged for a ride to pick us up and take the Watsons to their hotel and me to the Church where all the Elders where sleeping. Boom that was that. Then in the morning we picked them up and we had a meeting. It was awesome. Then we flew back. Due to the situation we had some sit down time so I basically had an hour long question and answer session with President Watson. It was cool. 

Then we had some normal stuff happen... like a baptism on Saturday and stuff nothin crazy! It was with Esko the man we threw a wedding for. He had been investigating for 11 years and finally sealed the deal! Fun stuff. 

Our goal is to have 1 baptism a month. So we have July down and now we are looking forward to August. We now have three people preparing for a date in August. One of them is a mother son combo. The son is 9 years old and went to primary for his first time yesterday. He loved it! We are super excited! 

Yesterday we had a huge fireside where the Watson's intoduced themselves to the country. It was broadcast all over. Sister Watson gave her testimony in Finnish and it was incredible!!! She killed it. President Watson also had a great talk! 

When I was on the airplane I talked with that lady for an hour straight without ever using any English. I was even explaining that my ears were popping! Part of that means I have been here for sometime but also people study Finnish for 20 years and don't speak like that. The Lord really helps us learn. I felt completely fluent when I was talking to that lady. Hopefully I can keep getting better in the next few months! Its way fun being able to speak a different language. I can literally have thoughts that others can't because I can think in Finnish! Weird right? 

Well the church is true, Thank you to everyone who helped me through letters Aunt Judee and Trav (Brother McBeth!) and the Fish family. You all rock! Thanks so much! 

Have a great week! 

Love 

Vanhin Tippetts

Sending home President & Sister Rawlings whom he adored.

A baptism of a man that investigated the church for 11 years.

Spencer's new glasses.  Definitely our Spencer!

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