August 15th ~ Week 95

 Not much longer and that subject will hit "week 100", that is pretty awesome! I never thought that it would get that high! But who knows if that count is even accurate:)

This week was great we had a nice appointment with mother nature on Saturday night. We were about a 20 minute walk from any train station, buses weren't in sight, we were a 20 minute train ride from home, stuck with no umbrellas and staring at the darkest storm clouds I had ever seen! It was pretty awesome. We stood under a little overhang watching as just unbelievable amounts of rain came down in a matter of seconds. I had never seen so much lightning in my life, it was beautiful! We waited out the thickest parts of the storm but then realizing that rain storms in Finland can literally last weeks we decided to just get wet and do the work. We had some puzzled faces as drenched young men knocked on strangers doors. The storm took out many trees too and ended up canceling all of our trains back home so we took a 50 minute bus ride home but got some beautiful pictures of a sun set after the storm. 

I also branched out this week and made some blueberry muffins today. Well it turned out to be more of a loaf of bread because we don't have a muffin pan in our apartment, only a bread pan. It turned out really well I might say. I was inspired to do this baking because last week we had so much fun making brownies for my birthday!

We got to get to know President and Sister Aura this week much better as we spent Friday at their home for missionaries who have grown "old" in the mission. It is incredible that i still am trying to answer the same questions that I was asking at the beginning of my mission "how can i find more people to teach?" Anyways the meeting went great, i thoroughly enjoyed being able to catch up with the elders in my MTC group! Friday evening after the meeting we enjoyed a nice walk with President and Sister Aura to the nearby farm fields and horse ranch right next to the mission home. They are two great people. I know that they are called of God to lead this mission.

The rest of the week included a lot of opportunities to find new investigators and try to add more light to the previously asked question. We talk to people everywhere, it makes them a little uncomfortable sometimes, as it does for us as well, but we just look up unto Christ, not at the billion on lookers and ease-droppers. People this week told us that we are a little annoying stopping them on their streets and knocking on their doors. I didn't take too much offense too it knowing that I'm not the first to hear such things. I imagine that Peter, John, Paul and a whole boat load of other emissaries of the Lord Jesus Christ have heard similar things.

The time moves on we are doing our best! Summer is winding down in Finland, but we are enjoying the nicest weather ever here. Maybe with the going down of the son earlier it will open the hearts of the Finnish people faster! 

Love,

Vanhin Robison

                                                            1. Our mini BLT's

                                            2. Some of the Elders and Sisters at the meeting on Friday

                           3. Storm wreckage (the roots of the tree are taller than me by the way)

                                                                            4. Our blueberry bread:)

5. Finnish skies are incredible 

August 8, 2017 - Happy Birthday Kyle! ~ Week 94

 Hey there family and friends! Thank you for all of the birthday wishes! Many have asked what my companion and I are going to do since my birthday is on P-day, and we have decided to do some baking so that we can all celebrate at district meeting together:)

This week was great, the Lord really helped us pick up the area and get it going! There are so many prepared people here, the hard part/fun part is trying to find out who they are and where they are:) We found two of them this week, well actually one of them found us. H stopped us on the street and told us that he had met with missionaries years ago and he wants to meet again. He came to church and is in contact with us quite often. He truly is one of a kind, I have never had another investigator like him, not in the slightest. the other investigator we got was a referral form the bishop. He told us too go and visit a less active family with an unbaptized 9 year old son. we went over and met with the and they are now coming back to activity and the son is investigating! The Lord is taking our efforts and multiplying them!

Some events of this week include being kicked out of a refugee camp. It sounds worse than it is. we had a referral there from some other missionaries in Helsinki so we went to follow up with him because we had permission from President Aura and right when we got there the big security guard said that we couldn't be there and since all we had was a name we couldn't do much. 

Another thing was that President and Sister Aura called me for my birthday this morning and sang to me in Finnish so that was great! 

We took the wrong bus about 20 times this week haha. We are both pretty new to the area so we aren't sure how to get around the area the most effectively yet and that includes us taking the wrong bus or train, but we are getting better. it is incredible how fast time goes by when you are so focused in the work because of how busy you are trying to get to know an area and the people in it.

That's basically all that we had this week, bouncing from one finding activity to another and talking to everyone in between! The work is going very well and we are enjoying our time:) Have a great week!

Love, 

Vanhin Robison

P.s. Sorry that there are no pictures to send home this week, we haven't seen too many cool land features of picture opportunities.

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