July 12, 2016 ~ Week 41

Hello family and friends! This week was great! I learned so much about the atonement of Jesus Christ and the power thereof! At the first part of my mission when people would just go "oh it's just Jesus people" and at first I didn't really like it because those kind of people where always super passionate and a little weird, but I realized how wrong I was! I mean everything we do is for Jesus Christ and because of Jesus Christ! I don't think that those people on the street know just how right they are. In my opinion LDS missionaries are the most 'Jesus people' that I know of! He is the center point of all we do and this week I felt that I have grown much closer to him and one way that Heavenly Father will help us do that is by trials. This week wasn't the easiest week but I can surely see it forming me into the person that I have been praying for that I would become but more importantly the person that Heavenly father wants me to become! Its amazing how when we step back take a new look on things we can see how he is sculpting us and fine tuning us! He likes to knock off big chunks at first, but the fine tuning is where we truly become something! But the fine tuning is a process, little chips at a time are taken off of the statue and we become better people with every hit of the hammer! I can truly say that Jesus is the Christ and the Lord is working ever so slowly in changing those around us and us. He is there, we just need to take a step back a look form a different view to see the work he is doing and to see why. Opposition in all things in so crucial! The more I study the gospel and teach it the more I love it and the more it just makes sense! The Church is true Jesus is the Christ. I apologize if this doesn't make any sense!
 
Have a great week! 
Love,
Vanhin Robison

July 5, 2016 ~ Week 40

Hey all family and friends! How are you today? I hope all of you enjoyed the 4th of July in memory of our free country and I hope we remembered those who fought to make it free as well! Also special shout out to my old older brother Austin! Happy Birthday!

This week was pretty awesome! We received a lot of blessings from the Lord including 2 less active families came to church! We decided that we had better go and visit them and we talked with them earlier in the week, challenged them to come to church and they came! That was such a big blessings from the Lord in our eyes! It was super cool to see them their back in the fold of God!

Elder Nelson and I also sang a song in sacrament meeting for the branch here and it was really cool for us to be able to share our testimonies through song to the branch and let the spirit make up for our short comings in our singing abilities! 

Also we were walking home on Friday night when we feel something hit us like a rain drop, but after further examination we noticed that this was an odd looking rain drop that appeared on our suits and we were saddened to have learned that a bird had flown over head and decided to drop a care package on us. We were so angry because it go our suits, but also it was so funny that we just laughed so we laughed it off and now looking back, it's quite comical! 

The Lord just loves to bless us! especially when we give him a reason to bless us! It's o cool how when we try out best the grace of God kicks in and our short coming are made up! I love this church and it's doctrine of eternal progression, just becoming better and better everyday! 

The church is true! 

Have a great week  to one and all!

June 28, 2016 ~ Week 39

Hello family and friends! This week I am writig you from Kokkola, a far cry from Helisnki, because I have been transferred! Yeah I was pretty bummed when I found out but wow, Kokkola, such an amazing place! I have had so much fun here and my new companion Elder Nelson form Alpine, Utah is so great! he has taught me so much! it is a bummer that he is going home in 3 weeks! I will miss him! He's already influenced my mission so much! 

But this week was Juhannus (a big Finnish celebration celebrating the mid summer mark) and we were not allowed to go tract so that was a bummer but we made our time worth it in the apartment, doing lots of role plays and practicing teaching and such! But backing up, we got the call on Wednesday Morning that we would be transferring and we would be leaving on Friday Morning, so Elder Johnson and I said good bye and off we went! But wow I have learned the importance of setting goals this week! The weather has been beautiful here! Nice and sunny mixed with some rain! Anyways my time has been cut short, but know that I am in Kokkola and loving my mission, finding true joy in talking to people! 

Love, 

Vanhin Robison

June 14, 2016 ~ Week 38

Boy oh boy what a miraculous week this week has been! But first things first, happy birthday to my grandma Walker, the one who really holds my high school diploma, not me! She edited every single one of my essays that I wrote in high school, and some of those must have been painful to read , trust me I know. 

But buckle up because the description of my week will sound like I'm in South America, but I'm not, I'm in Finland! So to get things going I will start off with a bold power statement like we use in contacting. This week culminated in 6 new investigators and the addition of one other investigator yesterday and someone actually called us back! That last line right there makes any missionaries jaw drop. But believe it or not they (investigators) were all found through the area book! When I first got here we decided to do tons of area book work and follow up with or attempt to follow up with them many times. Our system is start with the former investigator, call 3 times, after no answer or response send them a text and if still no response visit them when possible. This of course is spread out over a monthish. We had set up 2 lessons from the area book for Thursday when we had splits with the zone leaders (Elders Suorsa adn Nissen) and a lot of names to follow up on. So we we split up, Elder Nissen and I took on one area while Elders Suorsa and Johnson took on another area. In their area we had a potential family which we found through following up on a former who had no longer lived in the same building so we tracted it and ran into them there as we knocked on their door. AS they followed up with them they let them in and taught a lesson with a return appointment set up. Boom, 2 new investigators (husband and wife). After them Elder Suorsa had a thought to follow up with a different former he had in that area back when he served there. As they went there they came to find out that they no longer lived there, but someone else was now living there and invited them in. There were two people, both listened and they invited them back. Boom, 2 more new investigators. Then both of our lessons went through that night totaling to 6 new investigators, in one day. But it gets better. 

We got a few pretty solid contacts it seems from our finding efforts that day as well. Any ways, skip ahead to Sunday where we go back to teach the two friends again, although they weren't there, but a different guy opens the door. We didn't recognize him at first (assuming he was our investigator) we ask him if he has time to meet right now and he says "Not today but tomorrow I do." After a  second we realize that this was not our investigator and that it was indeed his roommate. Anyways we went back on Monday and taught him the first lesson, committing him and many other of our new investigators to baptism in the first lesson. Then after our lesson as we are going to catch our bus to take us home we stop a Chinese man who is Christian and we set up a lesson with him on Wednesday. And this morning a potential we called a while ago calls us back and we set up a lesson with him for Friday! Wow I can not believe this week! Miracles upon miracles! We have been blessed tremendously!

 Have a great week! I love you all!

-Vanhin Robison

May 31, 2018 ~ Week 37

Hello all family and friends! Before I get the ball rolling with this weeks headlines, lets stop and take a moment to thank and to remember all of the Veterans that have so bravely sacrificed everything they have for us and for those around us. I feel very blessed to have one in my very family. We love you so much Grandpa Walker!

This week was pretty average though, they don't celebrate Memorial day here it was another plug and chug type of day in the daily grind here. Our pool or interested investigators is drying up so we are working building that up and finding those that God has prepared! In order to do so we need to talk to every one, so that has resulted in some really awkward conversations as well as some great ones! We aer also going right through the area book and calling/visiting every former investigator and potential in there! Now we have quite a long list because our area book has been combined with another since we took over an area after it closed.  

 

I wish  Ihad more to report but is really all that we have done this week. But if you are feeling prideful in your language abilities here in Finland, either try to read the head lines on the news papers, or talk to drunk guy on the phone, you'll be humbled as is my experience here haha. 

Although life is great! Its a nice cozy 70 degrees here almost everyday and very sunny, even when you don't want it to be (like at 3am).

I love you all, have a great week!

 

Love,

Vanhin Robison

May 24, 2016 ~ Week 36

Is this week count even right? If its not, oh well! Anyways, I have successfully survuved my first week in the suburbs of Helsinki! I came down on Tuesday morning and arrived in Pasila after my 50 minute train ride from Lahti. My companions name is Elder Johnson from Arizona and he is one transfer ahead of me while he has got a complete grip on the language, so thats good that he's got it! He's also our district leader. We got right to work teaching a lesson a few hours after I got in which is always a great start! ANd we have taught a few more since then. Our apartment actually isnt even in our area, its in the sisters, and it takes us 15ish minutes ot get to our area by train so it was super inconvenient and uneffective. But that has all changed as yesterday we packed our apartment adn moved to a nother apartment in our area now! Last night was our first night in it.

Alright now I'll just skip right to the good stuff. Saturday was a weird day. We were in the downtown Helsinki for a lesson at the church. When we were walking back to the tram stop with our investigator some drunks in a bar on the side of the road stopped us and wanted to know if we are selling tickets to heaven. My comp. responded with no, but we have this book. The lady looked at it and said I don't want to read it, it's too thick! She said I just want to go to heaven, I'm a good person, I wake up every morning, I get ready for the day, I clean the dishes, I'm a good wife, I'm a good person, what more do I need to do to go to heaven. By this time our investigator is like what the heck, and our tram had arrived so as much as I would have loved to teach the whole bar about baptism, we had to leave and catch the tram. But they have our card and when they come to, hopefully they will call us. 

Story #2 happens 5 minutes later, when we get off the tram and start to walk into the train station to catch our train back home. A drunk lady grabs my companion and is vehemently yelling bless me bless me! And we are like alright we'll say a prayer for you and she is like no bless me and then she starts to bow down like she wants us to put our hands on her head and we are like uhhh.. There are crowds of just drunks all around watching us and if I had payed more attention to them probably mocking us, but we go on and we say a prayer for her and she keeps talking to us during the prayer telling us who to pray for and then she grabs this random guy and is like bless him and his mom too. And was like, hey arent you from the Church of Jesus Christ, and we are like yep, and he goes cool. So we walk away while the crazy lady is distracted, meanwhile our investigator who was with us has now left. And story #3 happens 15 seconds later when these two guys come up and start dishing anti on us and we are like we dont have time for this, if you want to bash come to church tomorrow and we can talk after. They didn't come...

Anyways it was a crazy few minutes and all of this followed a super awesome first lesson! 

Anyways, I love you all! Have a good week!

Some man at the train station preaching from his wheelchair.

May 16, 2016 ~ Week 35

Well this week has brought the change that I have been looking forward too/dreading ever since I arrived in Finland. We received our change calls where President informed me I would not be spending my next 9 weeks in Lahti. Rather he told me that ii will be spending it Helsinki! I love Lahti so much, it has become my home since I have been here for 6 months! The ward and my investigators now feel like family, adnm the feeling of getting on that train tomorrow is a lot like going to the MTC again. Lahti has a special place is my heart! But dont get me wrong, I am very excited about going to serve in Helsinki. Alhtough I am not right in the downtown Helsinki, (I am as close as you can get to the city center without actually serving in the city center), I am very thrilled to go there! Althought I think the Lord has some lessons in store for me seeing as big cities are not my favorite thing in the world, I think I'll grow to love them.


That was the highlight of our week. We spent this week following up on every potential investigator that we have found during this transfer and had not been in contact with recently. So this lead for a lot of awkward conversations of people kind of remembering us and us kind of remembering them. It was great fun!


On P-day we decided to test our skills and go fishing! Although fishing here is a little different for us, because in oreder for us to go legit fishing (a fishing pole, reel and all) we need a lisence, which we dont have. But there is something here that if you go with a pole and without a reel, you can fish without a lisence. So we found a long stick (a broom handle) and tied a fishing line on the end of it with a bobber and a hook and Elder Ford bought some worms and we gave it our best shot! Although our maximum cast distance was only about 7ft off from where we were standing, were it was still shallow enough that our hook hit the lakes floor. Needless to say, we didnt have much success, but niether did the other pro fishermen around us so we didnt feel to bad. We just felt like wierdos holding a broom handle with a little fishing line over the water. But it makes for great experiences anways! Plus we got a nice sun tan as I am trying to decrease my neck tan line form my collard shirt.


That's all for this week and thenext time you here from me I will be Helsinki! Have a great week!
Love,
Vanhin Robison