One more week

Hey Fam,
lets see.. the planes don't seem to be too delayed because of iceland's volcano thing. I think they are just being extra precautious and telling everyone that mail could be delayed. Elder May just got a letter from someone in America, so I wouldn't worry about it. Thanks for remembering to send my birthday gift...... i'll be sure to look for it.
That sounds great for the Mother's Day calls and everything, 5-6 will work for me and it should work out for Elder May as well.

Language school was good. It was just one day, but it went really fast. We ended up using a couple of hours discussing how we were learning the language and what helped us to learn it faster. I got some good ideas like mimicking the members at church, and thinking in my head in Finnish so that I didn't have to rely on translating all the time. I actually didn't get to go to the temple with Elder May.... they changed the way language school works since I got in the mission. So I went to my language school while he went to the temple with other elders' companions. Hopefully, I will get to go sometime in the future. I hear so many cool things about the temple here from other elders, sort of sad that I haven't gone yet.
Exercising in their apartment!!
Weather is good its finally sunny, but sometimes still quite windy. How's the weather in Logan? Is the snow all gone there too? The investigators.... well 'J' is still having troubles meeting with us. I'm not quite sure why, but I think its just because we are new missionaries and he doesn't have that friendly relatioship with us yet. Oh and he is back from Spain, and has been since 2 weeks ago, apparently he has been busy or something. Our other investigators have been let go.... the young couple wasn't too interested this past week when we taught them...they wouldn't do anything like even pray. Maybe they will start to search for answers later in life, but for now they aren't progressing. We do still have that old lady as an investigator. She is also hard to get ahold of, but has been reading and praying about the BOM. We are hoping to meet again this week with her.

Its good to hear from you, and especially about Kate and Garrett. I love you all.
Trev
P.S. I'm planing to send a b-day gift to Jason. I hope it gets there in time....

Update from Elder May-no email from Trev

Wow, what a roller coaster week, we have had amazing experiences and then some disapointing ones - such is the life of trying to find the elect. On Tuesday, we found a new investigator - YES, we were looking up some comebacks (which means that they didn't have time to talk the 1st time we meet them, but said we could come back later). Not a whole lot was going on and usually people aren't home around that time so we go to the center and talk to people. Then I had an idea (holy ghost) that this one comeback might be home since she was a little older. So Elder Christensen and I walked to her apartment complex and knocked on her door, and she was home. So she let us in and we taught her the restoration and she already had a Book of Mormon from the previouis missonaries. And she told us '' yeah this all sounds pretty clear '' and we asked to set up a return appointment, and she told us that she doesn't really know when she is free, that she can't promise anything, but we asked her to say the closing prayer. With some encouraging from Elder Christensen, she gave a beautiful prayer, and after she prayed, she turned to us and said, "when do you want to come back?" and her mind had like changed or switched completely. And then later her daughter called her and when we came back she was so excited, she told us that her daughter hasn't talked to her in a really long time and she had tears in her eyes and she told us that it was an answer to her prayers. And she was just soooo happy and it was really neat for us to see these miracles take place. So we have a teach with her on Tuesday and we have a member coming, but we found out that she was an investigator about a year ago, ( Elder Henderson taught her when he was a greenie in Vaasa and Seinäjoki was his visiting city). But we have faith and we will see what happens.

Then we had another teach later Tuesday afternoon with S and M. This was our second teach, the first was in an activities building (coffee shop, not the best atmosphere) but we got a return appointment and scheduled it to their house. I have a feeling that they are elect, they just don't know it. So on Tuesday we taught them the plan of salvation, and they thought it was interesting. M is really open to praying to see what happens or if he gets an answer, but S doesn't really believe in God. She feels that alot of churches just oppress and force you to do things - some of the religions here have missionaries that can be pretty fire and brimestone like.

Then on wednesday we felt prompted to go tracting in a certain area and on the second door, this door opened and their was a little boy and we asked if we could talk to his mom. He went to get her, and the door opened wider and there were so many kids in there, dont know if they were all family, but alot of them were. Then the mom came and we started talking about families and her kids in the background were laughing at us and their mom, so the mom closed the door (in Finland they have two doors - an inside door and then an outside door where the post slot is) and so she closed the inside door and stepped into the hallway and told us that she was sorry about her children, and she asked us ''so what exactly are you here for?'' And I just told her "we believe that this is Chirst's True Church on the earth and it has blessed our lives and we want to share that with you and the knowledge that families can live for eternity gives us alot of peace in this life'' and she started getting teary-eyed and on the inside I am like ''yes, yes, yes,'' - you know fist pumping it, ( in missionary work, we like to make people cry, or the holy ghost does) . And so she was telling us ''you don't know, you don't know how much this means to me, you are an answer to my prayers''. But at the moment she was busy with her family and so we gave her a pamphlet about the family proclamation to the world, and she was all over that. We scheduled an appointment and asked to bring a member and we were leaving and both of us were exstatic.

So we went back for our appointment and she wasn't there. We were pretty disapointed, and the member who came along, this has been the second teach that she was coming on when they cancelled or weren't home, so I hope that she didn't feel like she was a curse to us. So we swang by her house the day after and she answered the door and we asked her if she still wanted to meet with us and if we could reschedule an appointment since we didn't know why she wasn't home, but her whole countenance had changed. She told us a tragedy or catastrophe had occured in her family and she said she would get in contact with us in the future. So we will see what happens there.

So mom, Elder christensen and I were talking and we think that we will be together another change , and since mothers' day isn't until next change, you and his mom can discuss when you would like to call us and then when we get the numbers we can send them to you .

So on Thursday we went down to Helsinki for elder christensen's language school, and it was fun, but also stressful, well for me that is. So we left the mission office in Helsinki at ten and had an hour to get to the temple in espoo, so we left but the train, tram and bus schedule some how wasn't on our side. But it took longer to get there than I thought and we only had about 5 minutes to change in the temple before the session started - I wasn't happy with myself, since we could have taken a bus and gotten there early, but it happens sometimes, and in the end everything worked out. One thing though since all our companions were in language school, we didn't have companions, we were just in a group. Zone Conference is this week, I am soo stoaked - I get to see elder bailey and elder henderson and my beloved oulu. I am sooo excited to learn from president brown and my leaders. Oh mom I got your package, elder christensen was excited their was extra andes mints.

All my love, Rakkaudella, Missionary4Life, Vanhin May

Finnish Laws

Hi Everyone,

FYI: Pres. Brown sent letters to Finnish missionary parents indicating that it is illegal for anyone to post/publish Finnish citizen's names on blogs, etc. So we will be using the first initial of Trev's investigators or member's names in his blog postings to comply with the Finnish laws.

As always, thanks for your support. Trevor loves hearing from everyone.

General Conf in Kokkola + New Investigators

Ok, so this week has been quite interesting like I said it would be. At first, this week was really slow. We knocked doors and were on the streets quite a bit because there weren't very many investigators who were available. On Wednesday, we had splits with Elders Jones and his companion. We did a lot of tracting while they were here and ended up teaching a whole lot. We got let in, about two times. One was an old investigator who agreed to start hearing the lessons again. Then we were able to teach a less active member. We also had another teaching appointment later in the day. If you add Elder May's finds, all in all, we found quite a few people to teach (7). Hopefully, they will all keep their next appointments and continue to meet with us. Friday afternoon, we went up to Kokkola for General Conference. It was pretty nice to be there with some of the other missionaries and to be able to just hear from our prophet and other leaders. Unfortuantely, we weren't able to do much other missionary work once we got into Kokkola because we only had time for meals in between. Altogether, it has been a great week and I really enjoyed watching conference. In Kokkola, there is a chapel but not a stake center.
I didn't get your package yet but I'm sure it will arrive soon. Also I sent off some pictures just this last week.

Elder May and I are doing well. Thank you for your reassurance that I am in the right place. Sometimes, it definitely doesn't feel like it, but deep down I know it to be true. Thank you for prayers and support. Pray for our investigators. Well I should go.. thanks again and I love you all. Hope you all had a great spring break.
Trevor