Running for the train

This week was pretty interesting. Vanhin Rogers had Kieli Koulu (a missionary class for people who have been in the country for 6 months) so we headed down to Lahti to stay the night. When we got there, there was a note on the elevator saying something like "Be alert Marines" and from that point on it just got weirder and weirder. We got to their floor and there were 2 nerf guns and a recorder. We played the recorder and it made a sound like some sort of Halo game, where we needed to take the guns and go shoot the aliens (the missionaries). At that point, I was just hoping nobody would see us. We open the door and they flip the lights off and then all at once we are getting shot at by one missionary, while the other missionary had a bike helmet over his face and was running around us making piggy squeals. After the shootout we turned the lights back on and made slightly awkward comments like "Wow. That was... cool." The missionaries were really nice though and we had a good time. It turns out that the missionary from Missouri is quite a nerf player. He had about 5 or 6 expensive looking nerf guns, which looked sweet but then again.... its nerf, come on. There are so many interesting characters you meet as a missionary. Haha I love it.

The next night we slept in a place called Laapenranta. (I’m pretty sure it was Steve Harris first city.) In the morning though, we were walking to the train station with all our bags and supplies and Vanhin Rogers noticed that he had left his ticket. We had to make a mad dash back to the apartment at which time we only had 15 minutes to get to the train. The only way we could make it was if we ran. We ran almost the whole way (which was way chaotic because of all our stuff) and right when we got to the parking lot, the train pulled away. If we were only 30 second faster we would have made it. But, I don’t think that would have been possible because after, Rogers told me that if we went any faster, he would have passed out. Haha It was a bummer to miss the train, but we caught the next one (3 hours later.)

We also had some funny incidents tracting: A lady answered but didn’t have a man at home so we said we would come back. But she was a bit drunk so she kept trying to trick us into coming in. She kept saying things like: Boys, come here. Come, come on. We will talk about Jesus, come. Come now. Haha Eventually we had to gently ease the door shut and run away.

Another one was a russian lady who found out we didn’t believe in the trinity. The rest of the conversation she did say anything but "misled, misled boys, oh, misled boys....." The conversation was like this: Us- "So would you like to meet with us and discuss about this?" Her- "Misled, oh, your misled" Us- "Ok, thanks anyways" Her- "misled boys, oh, your misled..." Us- "Uh... ok. Thanks" Her- "misled, misled, misled...." and so on. Haha Good memories though.

Thanks for everything. I love you guys. Have a good week.

Vanhin Merkley