June 21, 2010

Dear Family,

First off, Happy late Father's day! Sorry dad, I forgot because I guess they don't celebrate father's day in finland at least not on the same day lol...

So, Last week was another great week. I went to the Temple in Helsinki For the 2nd time, It was incredible! The last time I went was my very first change here in finland, Crazy how much has happend since then. There is so much power inside the temple... wow. Just yesterday the ward put on this Temppeli Tänään (the temple today) and they had it so that investigators could come and people could invite friends because the temple is such a great thing. They explained a little and the temple presidency and all their wives came and spoke to us. It was great and Meg was there... She is doing so great!

We have been very blessed here in Jyväskylä this week, I guess I will tell you of all the little miracles! It is incredible the things that fall into place, He is the master of timing. A lot of things just keep falling into place, like this teach with one of the new investigators. His name is Vance and he was an investigator about 3 years ago. We finally got a hold of him as he was a referal from sweden. His phone number hadn't worked for the longest time and then finally it worked and we got a hold of him and we had an appointment last wednesday. Earlier that day Larry, who had just recently returned from the Moscow Russia mission (2 days before) ran into us on the street. He asked if there was anything he could do to help us, and we said sure, there is a teach with this former investigator today, and he said ok. We ended up giving Vance a very desrciptive tour of the church and the main focus was the sacrament. Larry did spectacular and I guess they had met eachother about 2 and half years ago in Turku by some little miracle. Vance asked as we were in the Chapel, "So can anyone come to these meetings, like for example can I?" and we said a very emphatic YES! Little miracles

We got 2 other investigators and they are both from africa and they don't speak english the daughter is fluent in finnish and the mom is not quite as good, but she speaks french and so did the member who was there (another small miracle) .They are a mom and her 18 year old daughter. When we taught the whole overview of the restoration they really liked that we believe that the Godhead is 3 seperate beings. They loved the Book of Mormon as well.

Jan and Meg are doing soo well. Meg went with the young single adults to sister muurmäki and brother muurmäki's cabin for the weekend and they had a lot of fun and Sister muurmäki said they had 3 non members there. Wow! Our young single adults are so great, we have a coordination meeting with them every week, but we had an opportunity to talk with them all sunday and to just inspire them to do missionary work, they are doing great work! The spirit was strong in that meeting.

Random cool things this week: So we were at a teach with Meg, Just before they were all going to go to the Möki (cabin) and these two strangers walk into the church and they said they are americans and they are jehovah's witnesses and they just have a few questions to ask us. In my head I wanted to cry because I was like no way are these two jehovah's witnesses going to ruin our teach with minna. But we were courteous and talked a little bit, turns out he was a missionary here about 40 years ago... they weren't really jehovah's witnesses... They did get my blood pressure going though :) His name is Layne Rassmusen and he served in Jyväskyä before the chapel was built here. I got a picture with him, he was very nice! I even gave him your email mom so you might be seeing a random email from him someday.

Also, Do you guys know Blake Christensen? I guess a couple members from Jyväskylä stayed at his house in tremonton like a month ago (I forgot to include this in my email forever ago) I wish I would have known they were going to tremonton or I would have sent them your way :) Oh well, what do you do?

Other cool story of the week (Kinda Prideful... but I needed a boost) lol I had a doctors appointment in order to get my drivers license and I was pretty nervous because I didn't think I would know the vocab (I mean doctors are pretty tough in english ;) ) anyways It went well and the Doctor was very impressed at my finnish, He said he has friends who have lived here for almost 20 years and they don't speak as well... Gift of toungue my friend... and Prayer.. A lot of prayer!!! (haha probably delete this before anyone else reads this... I feel stupid even sharing it... But it was a much needed boost for me :) )

Miracles happen and God is a loving and merciful God. I love this work with all my heart, even the tough times teach you! We are seeing so many miracles among these trials... It is such a great learning process! I hope all goes well this week for you trekers and recepients of surgery! I Love everyone else too!

Love,

Elder Thomas Neal Nielsen