Using Time Wisely/10 yrs No Baptisms

Dear Family,

OK… so update quick. I have been busting my butt this week. lol. I do every week…. it feels like. But this past week, me and Elder Slade have been doing the little extra that we can. We had a "using time wisely" district meeting so ... we were trying to do all the little extra stuff. Paying extra attention to how we could use time more effectively. So we did a lot of knocking doors and it actually payed off. We got some interested people to set up appointments with us this week. So yeah, I could really use some extra prayers this week to help us find some more people and to help us teach these people. I don't know if I told you about the ward here.... but suffice it to say that they haven't had a baptism in Savonlinna for 10+ years. We don't even have record …it’s been that long. So... we are really trying to break the cycle….thus the extra prayers needed. Thank you.

So yeah this week we have been still working with our only investigator, “P”. He hasn't been doing so well this past week with anything we told him to do like reading the BoM. But this week, we asked him if he will get baptized to see actually how serious he is. He told us that he would most likely get baptized but that it would just take a long time. That’s the Fins for you. Still though, it’s great that he sees the end goal of investigating. So we have been just been working with him, trying to get him to move along. Thanks for the package... I will look forward to it this next week, and I am glad that you got the tape.

Question... why is dad swapping to 10 hour days.? I think he'll like it. I loved having Fridays off. It just makes life easier with a longer week end. Tell me how he likes it.

I was quite amused to hear that Emily texted you for a “1/2 way mark congrats” because I wasn’t there. lol. Well, I'm glad she is still staying in contact with the family. I bet that is something you (Linda) are liking almost as much as me..;)

oh and yeah I didn't get a new companion.…still the same….Elder Slade.
I'm glad to hear that Jason was able to feel the spirit at the camp. I remember the APTC activities being quite boring sometimes and not totally fun…. not to mention cheesy. But I do remember the spirit making up for it, and being glad for that. In fact, I remember having the “runs” one day because of the chili, but the spirit made up for that too. Lol I'll try to send him a letter sometime soon. Maybe get it off this week or at least by the next one. Oh and would you tell him “good luck” on the golf tryouts for me this week. I'm afraid I won't be able to tell him myself.
Ok well, love you all and hope to see you in a year ;) long time....
Trev

PS Thanks for the cool pictures.

7/19/10 Tracting Grandmas

Hey, so let’s see…. this week I have been doing various things. This week started off looking really promising for our investigators and other people. Elder Slade and I had a whole bunch of appointments set up for the evenings. Practically every day, we had something going on…whether it was a teach or just something that was good… like a service project. On Tuesday, we found this older woman and started to teach her. She was really interested when we first got there, and almost right away welcomed us in. It was too good to be true..... and… it sort of was. Unfortunately, she was a little senile and didn't remember what we had talked to her about. So, that’s how the story went this week.

Some good news is that I did get to do a little bit of teaching this week. I wasn't completely just knocking doors all day. We had another older woman ( I don't know why grandmothers are so easy to get a teaching appointment) who was this time, sane. But she wasn't at all interested in searching out another church besides the Lutheran one. It reminded me of something Nathan had said in an email…”That a lot of the time people just won't change even if they know the church was true, because they have been so long in one religion and the culture is against it.” It was really quite the way with this woman. But she said she would pray about what we said, and I am going to call back in a couple of days to see how it went.

Other than that we had a service project with that less active who has a drinking problem. We ended up cleaning his apartment to help him repaint it. That was about my week.

As for the package not being sent off, don't worry about it. I should be staying here in Savonlinna just because I'm quite new in this area. As for Elder Slade, I'm not sure. He could be staying one more change, or he could leave next Tuesday. Yeah, this Saturday is change calls.
Did you get my tape I sent last week? It should be coming soon if not. I put a whole bunch of stuff on it that has happened in the past while. Well that’s about all for this week. Thanks for the updates and all. I hope Jason likes APTC…. it is a great place to feel the spirit and really enjoy it.

Love Trev

Email exchange--July 11, 2010

Trevor and I happened to be on email at the same time...our conversation was a bit disjointed but it was fun to feel like we were talking to each other. Here are some of the questions and answers we shared...no real news in the form of an email....but hopefully, Trevor will write a letter with more information. As you can see by the pictures he sent, Elder Slade seems to be a fun guy and they are enjoying the work in Savonlinna.

















Do you get the Ensign each month? Tell us something funny that happened this week.
cool stuff seemed to happen. Um, I actually do get the liahona every month, but not particularly the ensign. I am still trying to finish off the tape/start it, and yeah Ill try to get those picts to you soon. I'm going to email some here in a second. Well actually it won't let me do more than 25 megabytes so looks like I'll just send the chip via post.

Write a letter and tell me what the “cool stuff” is that seems to happen. Do you like the Savonlinna area better than Seinajoki?
yeah it is a lot more beautiful and nice to be at. but the people are just about the same. lol. ok so I'll write you a letter about all that's been going on....
ok i got to go now........ sorry, but the email time is only 15 min here. :(
hey I got another computer do you have any more questions for me.? I have like 20 more minutes

Can you send a picture of you and Elder Slade today? I’d love one for your blog. Gosh can you believe you’ve been out almost a year?
no I can't really except for the fact that It's blazing hot and that reminds me how long i'v been out. so a year is coming up this next week. the 22 nd. just think a year from two weeks ago and I'll be home.!! these are all the ones I have on the memory card at the moment so here you go.

Will you take some pictures of the chapel…a head shot picture of you and Elder Slade and some of your apt before you send the SD card. Is there anything you’d like in your next package (I’m sending another short sleeve white shirt (need it?) and some gum so far.
yeah I'll do that. and also I would like that same cd that you sent me only this time could you put it in a audio format or at least one that windows media player can read. It was from itunes and my cd player won’t play it. Maybe it needs wma format..... and for the gum could I get the orange trident.... thanks.

also I wanted to tell you thanks for continuing to write/talk with emily.. She told me about that in her email I printed off. so thank you i appreciate it.

ok time is really up now. ... got to go tracting doors. love you bye
and do you want to try this again next week?

Savonlinna News

Trevor at Savonlinna Castle Hey Family,

So yeah, first off, I got your package on this week's mission tour. We had Elder Causse of the 70 come to visit us and teach us just like we would have had a zone conference. It was pretty sweet to be able to get some more advice from a 70. Anyway, Elder May actually got the package like last Monday, but didn't let me know because he wanted it to be a surprise. lol. So I got both your letters and the card converter. I'll try to send some picts this week via email.

Lets see. the branch here has about 20 members, but they are all quite old. There is, however, one young family that is quite active in church and they pretty much run all of the sacrament meeting because they have all of the young preisthood... AND the father is the first counselor. By the way, our bishop is missing in action. He is moving away after his long summer vacation so..... this means that whenever the first counselor is gone Elder Slade is the bishop in a sense. We've been making some jokes up because of this. I 'm not too sure if they had me turn my drivers license in when I got a new one....so just don't worry about finding it. If it wasn't easy to find then its not at home. ... I actually had some of my stuff arranged when I left-- so it shouldn't have been too hard to find. I really don't need it anyway.... thanks for trying though.

Wow, Jason sang this week all by himself in church and you didn't have to coerce him? That is a really awesome thing. Tell him that is how you get all the girls, by singing.;) I sure hope that he can get his patriarchal blessing sometime soon. It should really help him in the immediate future. At least it did for me. well.

As for the drunk guy, we dropped him this last week because he couldn't be un-drunk when we went over. Sadly it's just not worth trying to teach him if he isn't in the right shape.

New email after 1st one: um, this week I've mainly just had the mission conference and travel. It was like 3 days of travel. Also this week, I was able to teach an old investigator. She is an older lady who has a grandson with bone cancer. She is really glad to have us over when she isn't busy or taking care of her grandson. I don't really know what will become of her in the next while, but I guess we will see. Also fyi, I am going to try to send you a tape that will tell about the last couple of weeks so that I can catch you all up in detail. Hopefully, I can get this off soon. Well, I have to go for now... . thanks for the prayers and faith in me. I sure hope that this week you all have a fun time.

Love Trev

ps. I am going to try to send a sd card to you all asap.