Dear Family,
Lol... I'm definentally my mother's son... I forgot to share some pretty big news from last week. But Before all that... "HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARAH LIBBIE NIELSEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Paljon onnea vaan, paljon onnea vaan, paljon onnea vaan, paljon onnea vaan... (I won't give the finns props for orignality in their happy birthday song... 3 words repeated 4 times :) lol no names even included) Congrats sarah... I remember when I turned 10 years old and started attending 5th grade...man those were the days ;) eiku... you are turning 15 and from the sounds of it you beat me by 1 year in getting a special surprise (well... actually I probably better not spill the beans if you are reading this over pan-cake cake) I forget that we live in different time zones. I hope that you aren't too sick for your birthday... that makes for crummy times... If you are sick you can postpone it i'm sure ;) You should be getting Birthday package within the next week or so.. .sorry I sent it 2nd class which means they send it the other way around the world on a boat that can only go 5 knotts an hours.... :) And I also have to say somethings about the saapuva package... We are going to have to make so battle field adjustments (sorry whitney) I didn't know that it was jessica's Birthday yesterday so... There was a little something in the package for whitney (a reimbursement for her dog eaten birthday present) which is now jessica's birthday present... dun dun dun (Whitney...I'll get the reimbursement of the reimbursement sent out just as fast as I can... and I'll even write you a letter as a bonus for it.. thanks for being so patient... how do you spell patient?)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY YESTERDAY JESSICA!! lol... I apologize I didn't know that it was your birthday! Our family just keeps growing while I am gone (well just 2 additions) and The Birthday dates never seem to make it to finland...they seem to get stuck in the postal system (right mom? ;) lol) just kidding I probably should have asked for them... When is Julia's Birthday?In the summer sometime right?
Alright... so that is enough of my wierd humor which is probably really confusing in an email (sorry about that...no time to proofread) back to the big news which I totally forgot to share. I have a new companion! I forgot to share that last email because I was too excited about all the other stuff that happened in Espoo. His name is Elder Fuchs... you might remember him... He was my second companion in Jyväskylä. Pretty crazy that we are serving together again! Kyle knows how rare that happens.. he was in change board meetings and stuff. So it is good to be back together again to learn the things that heavenly father wants us to learn, because I guess we missed them the first time around ;) I'm really excited to work with him again. We had another Zone leader council last week which went very well. We had a lot of really good teaches and a couple heart breakers last week. I will share the big one... Ann-ma no longer has a baptismal date anymore and she is actually no longer even an in investigator :( We were at a teach with her last saturday and it was all going well, we were teaching the Word of Wisdom again to her and helping her understand the principles of God's laws (Coffee is a tough one for finns) and in walks her Lähihoitaja (a nurse that comes to people's homes) and she said that we can't teach her anymore :( she explained that even though Ann-ma is "all there" she isn't responsible and can't sign for herself for some wierd reason. It was pretty sad because we have been especially careful to look for that (with her being 70 years old) and have asked all the members what they think about her, just in case there was something we missed (being forigener (spelling?) and all) they all seemed to think that see was perfectly fine... Sad news... but what can you do... Elder Sharp and I will teach her in the next life :)
This week has gone by fast. Busy Busy Busy. I really enjoyed my time with Elder Sharp and I am looking forward to the time with Elder Fuchs again :D haha I am going to have to do some explaining with some of the pictures Elder sharp and I took together lol... but we will get there when we get there... haha
Life is great and the gospel is true! Sister Brow shared a really neat thing story that I want to share with you all. It is actually a true story, an experiment that some newspaper or someone lined up (I can't remember the details to well). In a busy subway in new york (or somewhere like that) a man goes to play his violin for the many many people that will be walking by. It was "rush hour" and it was estimated that some few thousand people heard the man playing his violin. He begins to play some wonderful music on his violin. 1 man stops to listen but after a little while he looks at his watch and realizes he is going to be late, so he walks away. a few children stopped to listen to the man play his violin, but as they stopped their parents nudged them forward because they were going to be late. 20 people dropped some money into his violin case and at the end of his 45 minutes it totalled 32 dollars. He stopped and left. This violinist was Josh Fraceli (I'm not to sure about the name) who was playing som of the most complex and beautiful pieces there are for the violin, not to mention he was playing on his violin which was worth 3.5 million dollars. He had just a couple weeks earilier sold out an entire stadium for one of his concerts with tickets averaging 100 dollars a piece. In a busy subway when people were in a hurry, no one stopped to see the beauty that was there. How often do we do that with the gospel, go from place to place and do the same things we have done and we forget the beauty and peace it provides.
Alright 23 seconds left... Love you family
Vanhin Thomas Neal NIelsen
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