Feb. 10, 2014

Dear Momma ja Papanua,

I thought you might like to remember that I am in a European country. Did you put that picture up on your blog? Because of the difficulty in the MTC of sending pictures I forgot to send the picture of Matt so I was gently reminded last week and Sent it. I am pleased to hear that it was received by his mother. What I remember was just passing Matt and telling him."Elder....Hey...um, My name is Elder Sandberg and My Mom knows your Mom and my Mom wants me to get a Picture with you as well as give you a hug from your Mom."...All of his Mission buddies thought it was great, but he was kind enough to let a strange missionary give him a hug and picture from his mum. So that is the story of Elder Matt.

Just a couple hours ago Elder Glasgow and Myself were able to visit the Fazer Chocolate factory. The Outside smelled too much like Cookietree. The Alhovuori family is another family that you will need to visit as well as Brother and Sister Russ. So as a side note, If you come and pick me up that will have to be an activity to visit. That also reminds me of my other thought....What if you didn't come and pick me up, but we came back for Mom's Birthday and my late Birthday? Just an idea to pray about. I haven't thought about it too much, but when Vanhin Lamoin visited with his parents it made me start to think. But, Fun story about being guided and not realizing it.

Today after we visited the Factory, We stopped in Koivukylä to get some Kebab. ( Side note, I know this is not the best way to spend the Widows Mite, but we have somewhat of a potential at the Kebab shop. And we visit enough that they know us :) its is also cheap. ) After we came back to Kerava and went straight to shopping.First store we stopped at was closed. Which is never closed on Mondays, but today it was so we finished our normal shopping and went home. After we returned home we unloaded and decided to head for the church to email. On our way there we passed a man that looked as if he was in pain. Before we could talk to him he was asking if we could help him carry his bags. Some how he knew who we were. We picked up his bags and they both seemed to be 30 plus pounds. But we walked with him and as we talked he was asking about the past missionaries that were here in Kerava. Come to find out He as a former investigator and now wants us to come back with a Mk ( Mormonin Kirja) and Bible. 

If we had not passed at that moment we probably would have missed him. Way cool!

This last week we also had our First potential "Stood us up". We waited at the train station for 30 minutes and he never showed. 

Does Jeff or Ashley Pahl remember any cool Object lessons that they used when they were on their mission? I Remember Jeff sharing one about a Coin, water, a cup, and a plate., and the object was to get the coin out of the water dry. If he remembers any I would love to hear about them. Which leads me to my next thought.

Veli Russ. One of my favorite people. Both him and his wife are converts. We met with them on Saturday and talked about the Restoration and what it ment to them. Veli Russ told us that the first time he had ever heard about the Restoration it was in connection with a car. 

"When Jesus came down to earth He brought a Car. The car was in original condition. But through time the Car became distorted and different. For the car to come back to its original condition a Restoration would be needed."

Sister Russ mentioned the Restoration as a Mirror. The Gospel is just like a full size Mirror and with the Apostasy it became broken. Different Religions having a piece of that mirror. Just like other churches have partial truth. To bring the mirror back together it needed to be Restored."

Those were some cool thoughts that I had. 

It was great hearing from you again. I love you all very much and I pray for you eveyday. Be Safe. Be Strong.

Keep The Faith.

Love,

VS