Temples and trenches

Hey.

We are in Haaga and it has been a strange week. We needed a new couch, table and tons of other random stuff. But now we are pretty settled in and we just need to find people to teach. I really like the apartment. We have a huge window where you can see the sunrise in the morning. Its sick. Its also way fun having the sisters in our area, they are way cool and funny and have been a huge help to us. My new companion is Elder Pearson. He speaks Swedish but is from Utah. He was in the army and wrestled in H.S. He is funny and hard working, and although he does have a temper, I have learned the warning signs and can deal with it before it gets to big. He is a great guy and we are getting a lot of things done.

We did about 20 hours of contacting/tracting this week and got some potentials that we are going to teach. I am hopeful that Haaga will really explode. We had a sweet meeting with Pres Rawlings and he told us what he expects from the area having 2 companionships. He also is expecting the area to explode so that we can split the ward into 2. He is a spiritual giant and I love being around him. He is a great leader. We went to the temple this week. It’s so pretty and awesome. I love the Finnish temple.

It is definitely fall here in Finland. The leaves are turning and so pretty. We play a game while contacting called "Lehti Kuningas" or Leaf King. Whoever catches the most leaves wins. Haha. We try to be as secretive as possible so people don’t think we are crazy. This week we also found some old Finnish war trenches. I took some video on the camera. It was so pretty walking around the trenches in the forest with the leaves turning yellow and orange all around us. Dad would have really loved the trenches. We also found an old finnish rifle..... Just kidding, we didn't.

Wasn’t conference soo good. My favorite talk was Sister Dalton who just really hit it out of the park with how we raise our daughters is love her mother. I was hanging on her every word. There were tons of other good ones. I also liked Holland’s in the Priesthood session. It is funny being on a mission because so many things are different. For example, I was actually really excited for Conference and looking forward to it instead of the usual routine of "Oh its conference today, sweet, no church" jk Conference has always been good, but on a mission it is truly magical. Especially because we planned ahead and got a big bag of candy for the sessions. Here in Finland is a thing called Kandy King. It’s a whole row of candy and you can fill up your whole bag with any kind you want from chocolate to black licorice to gummy dinosaurs. Mmmm.... chocolatey licorice dinosaurs. And yes, at the end I felt like I had been punched in the gut. But if you asked me if I would do it again I would say yes before you even finished the sentence.

But. Im loving it. Haaga is really fun and we have a sweet ward. We had three investigators come to conference and one of them has a baptizmal date. The work is really going forward here and its fun to be a part of.

Keep being cool.

Love

Vanhin Merkley