Rain and the Birthday Packages

Hey!
so lets start off with Arica....Hey Arica, it's Trev. I wanted to wish you a "happy birthday". I promise I didn't forget it at all. I even have been searching for something to send you that you would actually like, but after a month I still haven't found anything. You are so hard to shop for especially because clothes are out of the picture now. Anyways Happy Birthday, I hope you enjoyed the festivities and all of your presents. Hmm, 24. thats pretty young still..:) I guess I better say that because before ya know it I'll be there myself. Anyways, I am still going to try and get something off to you, but it just might be a week or two late.... so it'll get there when it does.

So I got my birthday package this week....Tuesday in fact. It came pretty fast in my opinion. I wanted to thank you for all the gifts and other things in there.... such as the recipies I asked for and also the shirt and tie. I've already worn the tie, but it started to rain this weekend so no more short sleeves. Oh, funny thing. The CO alarm was a great gift. It was super thoughtful, and I even set it all up. the only thing is.. that in finland there aren't really any fire powered heating systems, unless you have a really old house. Its all industrially heated outside of town and then piped in. crazy huh?... but still it could come in handy if I burn something on the stove.:) Um, yeah also I got some american stamps in the box... I think you may have acidentally got those in..or did you actually have a specific purpose for them?

Elder May on the driving range...1st time golfing!!
Hmm, yeah so golfing last week was pretty fun. We went with Veli L (branch pres) to the private golf course and spent a couple of hours there. We ended up just doing some driving range, and then two rounds of a three holes three par courses. like 100 yrds average. I did pretty terrible because I topped every single driving shot. But after that, I played fairly well.(double bogey 5 strokes). I made sure that I taught Elder May how to play golf and then helped him with his swing as best as I could. It was his first time so it was a little hard for him to get it to move straight or far. ....but all the same we had fun. Brother L was a little surprised that I actually knew how to play. ...so that was a really fun experience.

This week we, unfortunately, have not been able to find anyone. We tried and tried, but still no one would meet with us. The Japanese girl that we had a meeting with even cancelled. Luckily, we got another meeting set up for later today, but she won't actually be an investigator because she is moving back to Japan at the weeks end.

Wow, I can not beleive that Kate is talking so well so early in her developement. Its too bad I can't really hear her on the tape though. I sort of got some little puffs of air from her breathing and a couple of dropped microphone sounds. lol. all the same it was way cool to have her on the tape recording. I'm glad Celeste and Kate liked the bracelet I sent Kate for her birthday.

Last bit of information about this week. I ended up buying an old typewriter at one of the flee markets for like 3 £. So I've been playing around with it in any free time and also using it for letters to my friends. I told grandma I used her money for my birthday gift to buy it, just fyi. I actually don't need anything at the moment, but I know you are trying to send off another package with the stuff you missed in the last package. Such as the sd card converter, and the burned cd woul be nice too. I 've been waiting for the converter so I can send you some more pictures from the past little while. Also I would like to get a testimony from you so that I can put it in the Book of Mormon you sent. I was a little surprised not to find it. lol. (Whoops, mom forgot to put it in....)

As for me and Elder May, we have been working on our companionship, and it has been going well. We are definately getting to know each other better and working better together to listen to the Spirit. We are both going to try and have more "Bradshaw" in our companionship and keep things fun. (Elder Bradshaw was Trev's former companion that was "wild and crazy" and made tracting/missionary work "fun".)

Elder Bradshaw and Trevor with their Missionary Warrior Masks (made from the bottom of Elder Bradshaws old suit pants) and "Mission Power" Rings

Well um, I'll talk to you next week. Thankyou all for your prayers and thoughts. I miss you all.
love Trev

PS... tell Steven "good luck" with Missy and to go right over if she calls him if she "gets scared". Jill told me about a little test that Missy likes to try on the boys she dates.....lol. (maybe Steven needs to get the whole story from Trevor....lol)

"Golf-peli & Palvelu" - Golf & Service

May 17, 2010

Hey Mom and family,

hmm, well this week has been a little dead. We haven't gotten any investigators yet and are still doing a lot of searching. I'm sure your prayers have been helping and I think they might need to continue. This last week we were able to get some service done for a member family, and we have been trying to get some more for non-members as well. Good news is that we found a Chinese girl who agreed to meet with us on Tuesday. She doesn't speak (Finnish or English?) very well, but I have a certain feeling about her. I think she will be our next investigator.
I have met Elder Slade once, but next time I see him I will have to talk to him more. Thanks for the heads up (Elder Slade is from Cache Valley). Sometimes, Elder Bradshaw and I talk, but only a little maybe every 3rd week. I have not heard anything about “P”. But I'm pretty sure he is doing well. Maybe I can send him a letter or something and see how he is doing.

It’s good to hear that Kate is speaking and Garret likes to have you around.,..lol. By the way, you are going to have to teach me how to take care of children when I get back. I know so little and I was always afraid to hold little newborns. Yikes, I feel like I would break them on accident, they are just so fragile.

As for me and Elder May, we are working on our relationship. Elder May is still a little quiet but we thought we would work on our team working skills. Tell Dad thanks for the pictures. I am planning on sending some pics via email soon.
Love, Trevor.
PS We went golfing this morning with the bishop. So I'll tell you about it in a letter or next week.

Elder May, Bishop in Seinajoki, Elder Christensen

Elder May: “Finland is full of surprises, in the winter it can get to -30 Celsius, and +30 Celsius in the summer, and last week we were in jackets one day and the next we were putting on our short sleeve shirts - it was crazy. The Finns are telling us that it never gets this hot in May, and it will last about a week then go back down, but it has been pretty warm and we have been sweating bullets. But we are having a blast and it is getting so beautiful, the leaves have started to grow and flowers are blooming. Every now and then, Elder Christensen and I can smell the ocean when a big tropical storm blows in. I love Elder Christensen. This week we have really focused on strengthening our companionship unity and it's doing wonders. We are both happy and more excited to do the work. At the moment we still do not have any new investigators, but we have a couple of potential people… it’s just extremely difficult to set something up with them. And we have district meeting with President Brown this week and we are figuring he will have some magic bullets he can give us …in other words, words of counsel and advice.

So a little about the pictures, last week Elder Christensen asked our bishop if there were any golf courses in the area… he was just curious. And before I know it, we are going with our bishop golfing on p-day for an hour and half. And me, never having been golfing was a little hesitant, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. We went and drove some balls first while Elder Christensen taught me some tips, then we did a short 3 hole course, and we can say that I still need lots of practice but it was fun to spend time with our bishop and strengthen our relationship with him. And I testify that only through the gift of tongues are we able to speak this language, we hear and learn new words every day, it just seems to be like the never ending story. And I love summer because it is so much easier to speak to people than in winter.

Last Friday, we had splits with the district leader and his companion who was Elder Bate. I learned some great things from Elder Karlsson, such a blessing it is to be able to work with other missionaries. See how they do things, talk to people etc.

And so this convention thing we went to in our city's center didn't really go the way we thought it would. When we got there we found out that preaching was forbidden so the only things we could really talk about /advertise was food storage and the service the church does around the world with all the catastrophes. But I felt that the most success came from our tent neighbor - Elder Christensen got to talk to her for a while and tell her about our church and the Book of Mormon. Even though she didn't want to take a book, it was a great opportunity and who knows, maybe down the road she will be more interested.” Elder May

Mother's Day in Finland

We talked to Trevor on Mother's Day. He sounded great and was very excited to talk to everyone in the family. Grandparents from both sides were here for Garrett's baby blessing, so they were able to talk to Trevor as well. He mostly wanted to talk to Nathan and get ideas about finding people to teach and how to gain trust with the Finns. He was very sweet and sang a Mother's Day song to Linda in Finnish (I tried not to cry...but wow!) He seemed a little homesick, but not sad....and didn't want to hang up...so we talked for almost 2 hours (unplanned on our part) What a fun day! Missionary Calls and Baby Blessings!!!!

Hey Fam,
We wrote to Trev: "Looks like we ran out of minutes on the phone card and that is what cut us off." His response: "So that's why the phone call got cut off. lol. I was wondering if I hit a button....or something."

Well here is the weeks update…this week I went over to a less active’s house out in the booneys and did some service work. It was pretty good to have a change up in the rougtine (sp?) but all in all, not a whole lot happened. Yeah, we taught her at the end but she still gave us some excuses as to why she couldn't come.... anyways not important. Um, other than that, my time was filled with knocking doors and hitting the streets. In our mission, it doesn't seem like we have a problem finding investigators. As of right now, we don't really have anyone to work with, but I think we will be able to find someone this next week to start teaching.I'm glad to hear that the baby blessing went well. (Garrett was blessed on Mother’s Day) Too bad I couldn’t'be there for it.

Thanks for the great advice and also the encouragement. I'll try to remember it and use it throughout the mission. By the way, I would still like some of those stories you told about me and Jason when we were younger. If you have time, make a tape of some of them in the coming months. No rush. Thank you also for the pictures I enjoy getting those...well, tell me how next week goes for everyone.

Love, Trevor

From Elder May: “So yes here in Finland, it was truly Mothers Day - Finnish flags out and everything, no stores were open so it was really nice. (I asked in our email if it was also a Finnish holiday or just one in the US - since I didn't ask that during our phone call. We found out Father's Day isn't until November in Finland.) Church was really nice and a good spirit was there. Elder Christensen and I sang in Finnish ''Army of Helaman'' and all the members loved it. The spirit was really strong, I love being with Elder Christensen, he has a great voice, and we sound really good together, since he can cover the high stuff for me and I got the lower notes - we cover each other's backs. We are really focusing on working and strengthening the members, by teaching them from preach my gospel and helping them understand how they can bring up the gospel with their friends.

They have these activities every now and then where it's a movie night usually or something like an informational about the church, and they have refreshments. So they had one last Friday where they were watching the movie the Ten Commandments, which is super old, and they invited us to it. So Elder Christensen and I went hoping the members had invited some friends which we could talk to, but they didn't show up and we were watching the movie, and into the beginning I decided ''oh boy, this is not missionary appropriate,'' but I didn't want to offend the members. The spirit was like ''you need to go now'' and so I talked to our bishop and he said '' oh yeah that will be fine'' so we left and went tracting.

And last Monday was Elder Christensen's birthday and I made a banana cream pie and oh, it was so good, and we sang to him and it was a fun little small thing to do as missionaries. So this week we have a ton going on - We have district meeting in Pietarsaari which is where Elder Karlsson (MTC companion) serves and then on Wednesday we have a thing in the center of our city were we will set up a booth with our members and try to advertise the church, almost like a convention that dad goes to, but an all around one - pretty much anyone can have a table, so hopefully it works for our favor and we can find some new investigators through it.

Then on Friday Elder Karlsson and his companion are coming down for splits and that should be really good. I love Elder Karlsson, we are both excited that Elder Quinn (the other MTC companion) is our new Assistant to the President.” Vanhin May

20th Birthday for Trevor

Hey Fam,
Yeah, I'm still in Seinäjoki with Elder May so the Mother’s Day call should work out like you planned. I sent our cell phone # home with Jason’s b-day package, so it should get there before next Sunday. This week has been interesting. We have no investigators at the moment because our last one we dropped. The older lady we were teaching told us she would never join the church because it's soo small. She still wants us to come and teach her though, so we'll see how it turns out. She is actually having a hard time with joining because she is taking care of her aging mom and can’t get out much. Elder May thinks if she could go to church she would feel the spirit. We are actually planning on going back this week. We went to Vaasa this past week and I took some pictures for you, Mom. So, I’ll try to send those home in the near future. And I can’t believe it’s my birthday. It’s pretty crazy to be 20. I swear I still feel like I’m 17…. young, underage, and not knowing what I'm doing. But at least I feel a little more mature in a different way.
I would like a burned CD of Enya in my package… as well as some trident gum, preferably the orange flavor. Well, hey thanks for everything, especially the emails and care packages. I can’t wait to talk to you next Sunday. I love you all and hope everything goes well. Tell Arica and Jordan and Garrett “hi”. I hope they have a good baby blessing.
Love, Trev