July 31, 2017 ~ Week 93

 Good day friends and family. This week was transfer week, though it came a little earlier than expected. we normally get our call on Friday and then leave on Tuesday, but I got my call on Thursday and left on Friday, just 24 hours later. it was quite the day! Thursday night we met with our most promising investigator and she accepted a baptismal date for September 2. It was very sad and difficult to have had to say goodbye. we have gotten to watch her grow a lot in testimony over the few weeks that we've known her. Then the next Friday morning we taught our other extremely promising investigator and he almost accepted a baptismal date. With him it's not if, but when he will be baptized. Both of these people are Finns so that is a great blessing! 

After is lesson the assistants picked me up and took me to my new area which boarders my previous one and is only a 15 minute drive by car from apartment to apartment. I was sad to leave my other two companions but I am very excited to work with Elder Smith. He is a younger missionary but a workhorse and genius. He's from Lehi, Utah. It appears that I will have started and finished my mission with an Elder Smith as my companion:) In speaking of Elder Smith, my trainer came back to Finland this past week, he tried to visit but things got a little busy for him. Turns out that his brother served in Holland and there he was with Rob and Amy Teske, my old baby sitter, cool connection:)

My new area is great, we live in Vantaa, the next county (if you could call it that) above Helsinki. We live in Myyrmäki and travel by bus and train. We had a large area to cover, geographically and population wise. We have endless amounts of work to do and we are grateful for that. We are always busy talking to someone. My biggest challenge this transfer will be to make sure that I take the time to enjoy my surroundings while going 100 mph. The ward that I am in is called the Helsinki Second Ward or the Haaga ward. It is the biggest ward in Finland members on record wise and it's a great one! 

This past week I got to go on exchanges in my old area where I served a year ago called Pasila. It was cool to be there but I was only there for 5 weeks so it didn't leave the deepest impression, other than it was my second city, but I am now serving in my 8th city. We went to Pasila because that is where the district leader is and he was giving a baptismal interview at the same time they were supposed to have had lessons so we came down to make sure the lessons happened. 

It was a great week! I am grateful for the revelation that President Aura received for me in assigning me to be here!  Have a great week!

Love,

Vanhin Robison

July 25, 2017 ~ Week 92

 Hey my family and friends, just when I thought that maybe we had used up all of our blessing that God could give us He still gives more. We found a lot of new investigators this week! A few of those include a mother and her 10 year old daughter, a man from Pakistan and a married couple with whom we set a baptismal date the first lesson. It was great but unfortunately we got a text from them right before church on Sunday saying that they were not going to make it to church because they were on a plane to the Philippines and return in 3 weeks. Needless to say that their baptismal date is postponed until they return.

I also had cool experiences where Heavenly Father has blessed me with answers to my prayers. One of the experiences was on Sunday when I got a call an hour before church asking if I could fill in for a speaker who was not going to make it to sacrament meeting. I gladly accepted and was given the topic of "my conversion". I immediately had a scripture come to mind and began searching for it but could not find it anywhere. I offered a quick prayer that I would be able to find it if Heavenly Father wanted me to use it and continued my search. I did not find it so I settled on Luke 22:32. As sacrament meeting was starting I quickly reviewed my jumbled thoughts and read Luke 22:32 in the Finnish Bible to make sure it was all in order when I realized the Finnish translation was not the same as the English Translation and that it no longer worked with my talk. So in literally a final minute attempt I found the original scripture that i was looking for 3 Nephi 9:20. The end of the verse describes my conversion " him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost, even as the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of their conversion, were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not".  That is how I see my conversion, little by little over time until I can say that i know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that this is His gospel. 

That was just one a few cool experiences that i had this week and unfortunately time restricts me from adding me to this. I love you and hope that you have a great week living the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Love,

Vanhin Robison

1. My district

2. All the glue we scraped off the chair after my companions tried to glue me to it

3. Another sunset picture

4. A rainbow 

July 18, 2017 ~ Week 91

 Hello family and friends! For those of you who participated in the annual Robison family reunion it looked like it was a blast! I hope that there was a warm spirit of unity and love abounding in the Spirit of the Lord. 

This week we got to teach a lot of people because last week we found a lot. It was  a great blessing to teach of the message of the restoration and say that I know it is true! I had a super cool experience this week in teaching too. I had been praying recently for an increased testimony of Joseph Smith and the restoration an this week Heavenly Father answered my prayers on multiple occasions. On one of the occasions we were teaching our new Finnish investigator about the pattern of dispensations and as were were coming up to Joseph Smith the spirit was building. I was blessed with the privilege of being able to teach about and recite the First Vision. The spirit filled the room, and I could see in her complexion that the Spirit touched her heart and oh how the spirit filled my heart and testified to me that what I was teaching is true. Since that lesson our investigator has progressed leaps and bounds particularly in reading the Book of Mormon.

I had a similar experience with another investigator and her family later that week. Needless to say this week was full of spiritual experiences, helping me to solidify my testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Yesterday was a bit of a crazy day. We were going to Porvoo and a member called and said that he needed our help moving so we quickly adjusted plans and helped him. We moved his washing machine from his old house to his new one. We didn't have time to install it for him that morning but he said he would if we just left him the tools. We agreed to come back that night just before we had to be inside to collect our wrenches. When we came by that night they invited us in for cake because it had been his birthday a few days ago. We went in and also inside were his nonmember in laws. we sat down and had cake with them. Though they usually scatter before the missionaries can say hi we were able to visit with them and share a small message about the importance of families. During a ll of this the member whom we knew was inviting them to baptism all night haha. He is a bold member missionary! For me it was such a joy to be able to get to know 3 more people and consider them my friends. 

It was a great week for me, I hope it was the same for you! Have a great week!

Rakkaudella,

Vanhin Robison

1. The Finnish Bay

2. Overlooking the suburbs of Helsinki while tracking

3. The 3 stooges or musketeers, whichever you prefer

4. The days are getting shorter in Finland

July 11, 2017 ~ Week 90

 When I have a week like this I often sing one of my favorite songs from one of the best greatest musicals 'A Fiddler on the Roof'. The song has the familiar tune of 'wonder of wonders miracles of miralces'! The Lord truly worked miracles in our section of the vineyard this week! I feel that it was not because of anything that we did either, we were just in the right place at the right time "being lead beforehand, not knowing what [we] should do". 

Our major miracle day was on Saturday when in that day we got 3 new investigators but we really got 5 but we didn't set a return appointment with 2 of them. Of those 3, two are a part of a family. The story of how we found them goes like this. A month ago we got a referral from other missionaries in Finland and we followed up with it promptly. This referral which we will name 'E' lives next to a recent convert and our baptismal date investigator 'A'. We followed up with E but she told us that she would be out of town for a month so we thought ok we can wait until then to teach her. We just had her on the back of our minds as we went to teach A with our member who is from Italy. When our lesson with A fell through (which actually resulted in A and her less active roommate to come to church on Sunday) our member turned to us and said well now what are you going to do Elders? We shrugged our shoulders and said well we only have like 5 more minutes left of tracting time and he said "well get a move on it, you never know, a miracle could happen". So that's what we did. We turned back to the building where our recent convert and A lives and remembered that we had E living there as well. We decided to knock on E's door thinking that maybe her trip was cancelled or that we misunderstood. She opens that door to our surprise and even more to our surprise let's us in without really saying much other than our names. We came in where her husband and son were waiting on the couch. We sat down and got to know them , come to find out hat E's husband was baptized as a 10 year old and quickly became less active. We also realized that he was the nephew of a recently activated family in Espoo. We taught them all the restoration and now E with her 9 year old son are investigating and the father relearning the principles of the gospel. It was a miraculous event!

In addition to all of this we found more investigators and went to the zoo! It was a spiritual and crazy week! I love my mission!

Have a great week!

Love,

Vanhin Robison

July 4, 2017 ~ Week 89

 Hello family and friends! Happy 4th of July! I hope that you all have a great day and enjoy the freedoms of the country to which we belong!󾓦

We had a change in mission Presidents this week. After 3 years of extremely dedicated service and devotion President and Sister Watson have returned home and President and Sister Aura have come in their stead. We will get to see them tomorrow at a zone conference that will lst 2 hours for the purpose of meeting President and Sister Aura.

This week we had a lot of great things happen! We would have ended that week with 6 new investigators found, but not all were willing or able to set up a return appointment so we settled with just one. It was kind of a let down but from this we can see that Heavenly father is preparing his children to receive the gospel, we just need to work a little harder. We also had a strong start to this week finding a very promising investigator who has a wife and kids that are interested a well. My dream of teaching a family is about to come true! The husband is from Africa and the wife is a Finn so we teach them in Finnish too!

We had two exchanges this week, it was a crazy busy week! Lets just say that we are blessed to be able to serve with these missionaries here in Finland, we have gotten some of the best, most dedicated missionaries! It is true they come from all walks of life but it is awesome to see that when you start to get to know some one when you get to know their story you love for them instantly grows. It is amazing what understanding does!

This week I got to see a sad sight, a poor young woman who has had her life over taken by drugs and alcohol and at that moment being escorted by her boyfriend who was also caught up in the same life style, but he was more sober than she was. We met them on exchanges as we were coming home. They were on the sidewalk in front of us making their way home and she collapsed passing out. We rush over to go and help out, but we couldn't really do much. We probably should have called an ambulance for them they were in that bad of shape. However seeing them just made me so happy for the principles of the gospel and gave me a desire to share it more with others. i would have taught them right there an then but they were not in a state to hear and act on it seeing as they couldn't even act for themselves at the moment.

Anyways have a great week! 

Love,

Vanhin Robison

Some of the missionaries from my MTC group

Us with President and Sister Watson

The tripanionship

The essence of Finnish summers

June 26, 2017 ~ Week 88

 

Good Morning, we welcome the sunshine here in Finland as it's been hiding for the past few days behind dark billowy clouds! But we had a great week of finding as well of getting to know other missionaries better and our companions better. Friday and Saturday we were in the apartment all day because of Juhannus (midsummers), which is a holiday as sacred as Christmas in Finland. On this Holiday we celebrate the midnight sun, meaning that the sun doesn't go down all day in the northern parts of Finland. Here in Helsinki it goes down, but in the north it doesn't. It was also kind of a bummer too because you wouldn't be able to see it due to all the clouds. But for this holiday all the Finns leave town and go to their summer cottages and won't be coming back until the end of July.

This week we went to Espoo for exchanges and had a fun time there with those Elders. A tri-panionship on exchanges is always a bit awkward to deal with. Oh yeah, I may not have mentioned this last week but we got another companion in our companionship. Elder Jaccard from Pleasant Grove, Utah is with us now. We had some mid-transfer transfers because a missionary waiting for his visa finally came into the country after serving in St. George for a week of 2 waiting for it.

In our ward we have started a sports  night as an activity to strengthen ward relationships as well as to find new investigators and to just get people to the church. We weren't planning on playing because we were on a tight schedule s we showed up in our suits, and then ended up getting roped into playing a game of sähly (floor hockey) and it got pretty hot pretty fast.

Well that has been my week this week, not the most exciting week but a busy one going from place to place. Also President and Sister Watson leave this week on Saturday Morning at 6:30 am and President and Sister Aura come in that morning to take over. It will be a crazy time, just happy that I am not an assistant! 

Have a great week! Love you!

June 20, 2017 ~ Week 87

 Hello Family and Friends, I am writing you this nice rainy Tuesday day but next week I will be writing you on Monday because that is when preparation day will be. This week was full of fun and adventure. We got a call from President Watson on Saturday informing us that we will be having another missionary join our companionship, Elder Jaccard will be coming here today to be with us for the remainder of the transfer, we are excited about that! Although time goes by much much faster in a tri-companionship which is defiantly not something that I need to speed my mission along.

Also this week we had pur last zone conference help y President and Sister Watson, it was great. I was upliften edified and blessed by that training. I felt as if I was illuminated all night pondering the doctrines taught about baptism and repentance. I loved the training and have loved being under their leadership these past 1½ years. Luckily they live in Orem so it won't be the last time that ii see them! President and Sister Aura, Finland's first Finnish Mission President and Wife will take over on July 1st.

The work in Finland moves ahead, we got 4 new investigators this past week. 2 in Helsinki and 2 in Porvoo. We consider ourselves very blessed. The 2 in Porvoo are two seperate older ladies, both having their mother tongue of Swedish having lived in the Swedish speaking parts of Finland during their childhood, but also they speak perfect Finnish too. The other 2 in Helsinki are 2 African woman, I was not on the lesson when they became knew investigators because I was on exchanges with another missionary at that time, but I have met them before. We are very excited for the blessing of finding these people to teach and to help the work in Finland move forward!

We celebrate Juhannus or Midsummers this week. Wednesday night is the longest day of the year (sunlight wise). In the north where I came from weeks ago the sun will not go down all night, but unfortunately that will not be the case here in the south, although it will still be bright outside. This means that after Wednesday the days get short (the sun goes down sooner) but we wont really see the effects of that until September due to our sleep schedule as missionaries. Also this means that all of Helsinki leaves for the week going to their summer cottages and hanging out at the lakes and what not. We have received to instruction to be inside during these days unless we are visiting members and teaching investigators.

Anyways it was a great week! Thank for all of your prayers, we can feel them here in Finland as we continue to work hard! Have a great week!

Love, 

Vanhin Robison

June 13, 2017 ~ Week 86

 This week had a few days of the most perfect weather, only to be chased out by the summer rain storms a few days after it's arrival. It was nice though because we have to wear suits all day on Sundays out of respect for the Sabbath and it would have been very uncomfortable in warm humid weather.

This week we got to me with a man from Syria. We had to make sure that he was safe to teach becomes he comes from a Muslim country and we would hate to baptize him and then tat cause never repercussions on him or his family. He told us that if ISIS ever found out that he was baptized his family would be killed back home. He said also that ISIS is only 25 kilometers from his house. It's sad that we lose that teaching opportunity but we need to keep these people safe.

We also got let into a home where people from Egypt were living. When I received my call to Finland, I never ever imagined meeting people from as many countries as I have. Europe is becoming a melting pot. They were fun though, we also have to make sure that they are safe to teach due to their home country.

We got to go to the temple this week, that was a blessing. I love the temple and it is even more beautiful in the summer. I have been plenty of times in the winter, but summer is a whole-nother experience! Although I left my camera at home so I couldn't take any pictures.

We met with a lady from the Philippines this week, she is very desirous to join the church but work is a barrier for her as she has to work on Sundays. Her name is also the name of a Book of Mormon prophet so that is cool. Any guesses on which one? But teaching her just brings me so much joy. I receive the spirit and emotions that I expected on my mission while teaching her. Maybe it's because it is in English and I understand it all, I don't know, but it is awesome! 

It was a great week, I hope that you can say the same.

Love,

Vanhin Robison

Nice dirt roads to a members house

This truck straight from America, confused my companion and I so bad

At the top of these apartment buildings in Helsinki you can see forever. Also you 

can see that you don't have to be very far from the biggest city in Finland and be in the thick of a forest!

June 5, 2017 ~ Week 85

 Hey there family! I am now here in Helsinki and let me tell you, it was weird to be on the train coming down from the north looking out the window just watching summer blossom as we came more south. I hoped off the train in Helsinki and it was hot haha, It was crazy! I am liking it in Helsinki, despite my initial thoughts about this transfer call. We also cover an area called Porvoo that is 35 minutes to the east of Helsinki due to the shortage of missionaries in our mission. So we spend 3-4 days in Helsinki and then move to Porvoo, spend 3-4 days there and come back. It makes meeting with people and laundry and grocery shopping a little tricky, but we make it work. Porvoo is beautiful though, maybe the prettiest city that I have been in in Finland. It is also over looked by a ski hill, which in the summer is a down hill mountain biking course and it makes me a wee bit trunky, but not much:) we will visit it one preparation day and see how it is, but probably won't be able to ride it.

The area that we have is nice, HUGE and full of those ready to receive the gospel. we don't tract here because there are so many people to follow up with so we talk to people as we go and follow up with potentials and former investigators. My first day in the city we found 5 or 6 really solid potentials and set up return appointments with them on the street so we will see how those all go. We also have some great members who are itching to help out in the work so we are blessed there as well. They also put me to work right away and had me bare my testimony in sacrament meeting and then gave me a talk assignment for next week in Sacrament meeting, on of the adult ones too that lasts for 20 minutes... scary. I have only given 2 or 3 talks on my mission because I have stayed in the larger wards and branches in Finland.

We have a few investigators right now, a young Finnish couple with a baptismal date in Porvoo (found and taught by the previous elders), a young Filipino lady who is preparing for baptism as well in Helsinki and that is really about it. Our numbers are few right now but they are strong. We will be adding quite a few more people to our teaching pool this week too!

It was a great week, thank you for all your support and prayers, it really helps out here in the mission field!

Love,

Vanhin Robison

May 30, 2017 ~ Week 84

 Hello my family and friends! Transfer calls came in this week and I am leaving this beautiful land of Oulu and I am going to Helsinki! I was in Helsinki earlier in my mission but that was in the north side of Helsinki and I will now be in the east of Helsinki. I am pretty excited to be able to go down there and serve with Elder Peay who is two months younger than me in the mission. Although I am pretty sure that he is older than me, which is funny because I have been older than only one of my companions, the rest have been older than me. That means I get to learn a lot from them which is great! But anyways I will be leaving on a train tomorrow mid day to go down to Helsinki. I love Oulu, I love the members here and the people that I have come in contact with. This has defiantly be a peaceful smooth sailing few transfers here in Oulu.

This week, as all last weeks of transfers go we found some really cool people to teach. We got let in this week which was awesome! It doesn't happen that much so i am glad that i got to be apart of this one. We knock on this door and a young father answers who just seems like he has it all figured out, a nice put together man. We taught briefly about God's plan for us at the door and what is required for us to fulfill that plan. we asked if we could come in and share more and he let us in. we taught him very simply and briefly what our message is all about, and that is fulfilling our Loving Heavenly Father's plan for us and returning to receive all that he has for us. He was answered everything right, asked great questions and really seemed like the 'golden investigator'. We invited him to baptism and he said no. However we have faith that as we teach restored truths to him and as he acts his heart will change. It was just cool to meet him and teach him. Too bad I am leaving.

We did tons of service this week too for members. One is building a deck and the other is taking his deck down so we got to play in the dirt a little this week! I got sunburned, that wasn't something I expected to experience in Finland but it happened haha. It felt like i was at duplex week all over again, but it was awesome! I never thought that I would miss manual labor. Although I probably really liked it because it was service:)

Last P-day we played soccer and I was sore for a solid 4 days. It was just my companion and I but I felt the effects of no real sporting for 1½ years and not warming up before. It was a feeling I haven't had in a long time but it was also really fun! I got sunburned during that too. i now have really weak skin.

I hope all is going well at home wherever you maybe! Have a great week!

Love,

Vanhin Robison

May 23, 2017 ~ Week 83

 Hey hey, spring has finally fully sprung in Finland! We worked this week so far without jackets because its so nice outside! Although I can tell that i have acclimatized to Finland because it hasn't even broken 60 degrees Fahrenheit all year but it still feels so hot! If I were back in Utah I would be one roasted kid that is for sure! But the weather has been absolutely unreal these past few days, blue skies, nice cool breeze. You could close your eyes and you'd feel like you were on the beaches in Hawaii.

Along with the great weather we have had some great work done in the mission here! The mission has had 2 big weeks having 5 baptisms on each of those weeks, that's 10 for month with more lined up and that is incredible. We haven't had success like that in a long long time! The mission is doing well. The work in Oulu is doing great! We found some new investigators that came to church this week for which we are so grateful and excited! Also one of our investigators who hasn't been doing so well recently just accepted a baptismal date today so that is super awesome! We are pumped about that!

We also had zone conference this week, so President and the assistants came up to give us some training. Their flight was an hour late though so we got a call from President telling us that we would need to run the meeting until he got there. It wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that we didn't have the meeting agenda so we didn't know what was going to be covered. So we gave some training on the doctrine of finding trying to kill time until the big guns showed up. I'd say it went pretty well though. President and his assistants gave some great training )two of which are my former companions=. Unfortunately we had to leave during the meeting to run home and grab our winter tires for our car, so that we could give them back the car and all it's parts. Once we got we switched keys and they gave us a new car. We were pretty excited about that one! It's nothing special just a new version of our old car, the Toyota Yaris.

It was a great week! We had a lot of success this week and are seeing the blessings of the Lord in our life! I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Vanhin Robison 

We found the biggest bike known to man

Our cool new car named LNX pronounced Lynx 

Super cool foggy morning

Walking the streets of Finland 

May 16, 2017 ~ Week 82

 Hello everyone. First allow me to start off with a shout out to all of the Mother's day to all of those who are or will be mothers in the future. Especially to my own personal mother who has and continues to sacrifice so much for me! I am eternally grateful for her and her goodness! Also for my two grandmothers, they are tremendous examples of perseverance and hard work. It was great to be able to Skype with my family this week and see that all is well, not just hear about it. I have defiantly forgotten how awesome my family is too, getting off the call sure wasn't easy but it made me want to serve even harder to make them proud.

This week has come and gone in the blink of an eyes with many lessons learned. Over the course of my mission I have noticed that there are just times where you need to take a step back and reanalyze what should be getting done and is getting done and then reset goals and make new plans. I don't know if it is a good or bad thing but that moment where a step back is required seems to been happening more and more frequently. This week I experienced another one and saw some tremendous resulted from it today. Over the past few weeks, even transfer I have had kind of a mission low in finding which is weird because this is one place where there are so many prepared people. So I took a step back and reanalyzed and moved forward that night with my new plans. One thing that wasn't getting done that should have been was sincere prayer, seeking for those that are prepared to receive the restored gospel, and the other lacking matter was diligent actions to follow through with the prayer. So last night was a heart filled prayer along with this morning and through out the day, coupled with the determination to be exactly obedient and diligent outside and inside. In return we got a ton of new potential investigators that are really solid which we are super happy about and have lessons scheduled for the next few days. It was great to see that hand of the Lord in the work today!

Also this week we were in Vaasa for exchanges, it's Finland's sunniest city, and while we were there I was with one of the Elders and we visited a potential investigator and set up a return appointment with her for the next day. I heard the lesson went well, she came to church and then yesterday they set a baptismal date with her. That was really fun to hear, even though I did almost nothing in her conversion.

Great things are happening here in Finland and great things are being learned! I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Vanhin Robison