September 23, 2013 Week 11

Well i guess I will write a little bit.  even though yall didnt write me.

Had a pretty cool week this week it got a lot colder...and it is really nice riding around on bikes.  We ran into a part member family and are teaching them right now I think that we are going to be able to baptize them, we had a lesson with them last night and it was really weird, it was in English. That was my first English lesson it was very hard but it ended up being a really cool lesson.

Some of our investigator's little kids took the lights on my bike and they said they didn't know where they were... I didn't get them from them so now i have to go buy some new ones.  

But it was a very fun week.  It is crazy how fast time is flying,  I love the mission life it is a ton of fun.

HAVE an awesome week

(This photo is a letter from Joel, a picture showing him we are almost out of Mrs. Butterworth's syrup, I told the boys I wasn't going to buy it after the bottle is gone because it is made with High Fructose Corn Syrup...Ethan looks like he is telling me to get the boys their syrup...)

(I feel so bad Ethan didn't get our emails today...we did write Ethan, but for some reason he didn't get it.  I resent two different ways including old-fashioned mail!)

Here are Ethan's Addresses if you want to write to him.  Thanks for you love and support!

ethan.finlinson@ldsmail.net

Elder Ethan Finlinson

416 SW 79th St #210

Oklahoma City, OK  73139-8121

September 16, 2013 Week 10

Well another week....gone. In a flash!  It is so weird time is flying so fast-- I hope that that is a good thing?  

I will be praying for XX.  That is hard. I can't imagine it. 

  

I am staying very healthy I believe, right when it hits 10:30 you can guarantee that I am in bed and right when 6:30 hits I roll out.  Sleeping is a daze here I don't even dream I just close my eyes and then open them, haahha it is pretty crazy.  

The one problem that we have is our neighbors...they are crazy. You can bet at least 2 times a week there will be a fight from the hours of 2-4.  It is so annoying it is the same people every time.. O well it is sometimes fun to watch-it is the only entertainment we have...  

This week was very interesting we went on exchanges and I was with Elder Chapmen.  He leaves at the end of this transfer... what the heck! That is in 2 weeks... anyway we had a lesson and we taught a Testigos de Jehovah...TJ's...or Jehovah Witnesses.  Let's just say that we talked for 2 hours...in spanish aaaaaaraaha... it was fun, for those you just listen.

We had a very cool week...it was a building week.  We got 3 new investigators and we had 7 menos activos at chuch.  We didn't teach a lot of our existing investigators.  We have been really focusing on the less actives(menos activos).  Last week we gave 2 sets of families back to school blessings, because the dads didn't want to..it was sad.   They were both very cool experiences.  

We taught ORDAZ (it is the family that i met on the first night with the cake) any way we learned that they have been taught for 7 years!  Missionaries have in the past just been going over there to talk about life.  Well that changed this week.  We went in there, it started out normal we start eating food but it wasn't spiritual then we go sit in the living room.  I pulled out this plan of salvation wooden puzzle I bought in mexico, and it got the 5 year old and the 7 year olds attention.  The parents were out of the room doing something and we just started talking about it with the kids, it was really cool they were helping each other figure it out and they were learning it... well the mom comes in and asks about the puzzle then the kids taught the whole plan of salvation to the mom.. it was so cool.  She then talked about specific things and it ended up being a really cool lesson.  3 days later we went by and we didn't have dinner so it was around 5 O clock and we were like lets go see the ORDAZ family(we didnt say that we wanted food but that was the real reason we wanted to go over there).  Well we got our food-mule con papas con queso con arroz con Coke con todos!  It was very good stuff o and we had some chicken that was fried in Guatemala and then had a airplane ride over here... O well it tasted good.  Anyway we were talking and supposedly some Baptist missionaries came by and asked what religion she was and she said that she was mormon and catholic and then shut the door.  We were so proud! and we ended dinner off with another really good lesson. love it  

But that is about that, there was a lot more but we don't have enough time..(to write at computer?) we get two hours but.... today we had to put a spare on the Hermansas car, get in a Bible bash with a Baptist and this is the cool part..........WE SAW THE LADY WE HELPED LAST WEEK,  it was so random but very cool,  she was very happy to see us and talked about how she had a good lesson with the English elders!!!!!!!!!  got to love service

Thanks for all of the packages.. and tell Bethany thanks for the pictures and to send more... of our trip and of life that was awesome to see..  and tell grandma thanks for the bread it tasts amazing.. and thanks for all of the distribution stuff....buuuuut we can get most of that stuff through the office... but i like the sign IT IS NICE TO BE IMPORTANT-BUT IT IS MORE IMPORTANT TO BE NICE... i put it outside our window for all of our crazy neighbors.

love yal                       (Package destroyed...)

September 9.2013, Week 9

Thanks so much for all of the packages i love them

Well we are a little bit later in writing today because we just helped a person with their car, it just stopped in the middle of an intersection-I guess that is what you get when you pray for service.  When she asked who we were we said that we were reps. of Jesus Christ.  She just started crying.  She was so thankful, she was an African and she didint speak much English.  But is was a good way to start off the week...  

Man sounds like a crazy week... tell Eli and Joel well done in the games-even if they did lose.  

I HATE SATAN yeah that Aztec family, they were just blessed with a new job, isn't that great... No, now we can never teach them.  They are only free on Thursday nights it is insane.  One of the biggest problems we have is getting others to church.  Our branch is so weak- in numbers... but i was just thinking if i could have our ward come out to Oklahoma.  The branch here would be amazing.  That is one benifit of serving a mission in utah, so many members.  And it seems like when we do get members out none of our investigators are home ahhhh.  O yeah last night we were eating at A MEMBERS house and up on on of their shelf was a nice big bottle of wine....

....

....

....

that was a different conversation, how they had that haha

but we got it cleared up.

It is getting darker here earlier and that means that the doors close earlier.  We were out tracting last night for our last hour 8-9 and it was really hard there are no street lights in our area so it looks like we are up to no good.  You know just two people in white shirts and ties walking along..  We did get 2 referrals through one Mexican family and one English--we are pretty good at guessing what houses are Spanish and what ones aren't. Can you Google and send what to look for in a Spanish house???  

But this week we are really going to try to get a lot of new investigators... on Friday we went out tracting and we sayw this car and it had a bumper sticker that said jesucristo on it we were like sweet hermanos...no..english...not any English...crazy drunk English.  Right when she opened the door she said i love Mormons.  So we went in, she started talking about all of the crazy stuff and how faith isn't even needed any more but she loved us.  It was very weird haha...she also offered us a drink but she was like I only have dr. pepper and coke...I said that I would like a dr.pepper  she was so shocked...I HATE MORMON Myths-  that was the main reason i took it (also because all i have been drinking the last 3 weeks is tamirain juice--it tastes like laundry detergent-- i spelled it wrong too)... But one the cool experiences that happened this week was that we had two less active families come to church who haven't been there for 7 weeks.  It was awesome to see them make that big step to go back to church..  But that is about it.

I went to chuck house--best chicken fry in the universe..also a very good way to die of a heart attack yuuuum

Tell people aka the wardies to write me -- ryan sasha and eddie.. and tell jackson to shoot me an email every week how brighton is doing!!!! por favor!

it is hard not knowing...i hear the Friday night lights and it kill's me..  also keep sending the stuff about Uaea (friend that plays for the U)  that is so sickkkkkk...and also the university of utah scores... and only byu's when they loose.  my comp is a byu fan 

loves ya'll 

elder finlinson

September 3, 2013 -- Week 8

Thanks I am great... that is my response to all of you worries in the first paragraph... did you get my birthday card??

Well...this..week..was CRAZY we had some really cool experiences and some kinda sad ones...

I will start with the good, so last Friday we were going to go visit one of our potentials and there wasn't a lot of hope for them, it was a contact that happened a really long time ago.  So we didn't really know.  We called them up and they said that we could come over and they were really excited to see us...it was kinda a shock.   So that night we went over there, and can I just call them PERFECT INVESTIGATORS.  We started the first lesson and we talked about families,  they are a really strong family and they do everything together, it is a family of 6, 5 of them are over 8..  we continued with the lesson we talked about Jesucristo and Jose Smith.. they were like ok this is cool and they were taking everything really well, then we talked about the Libro de Mormon, and this is where it gets crazyyyy.  We talked about how it is another testament of Jesucristo and how it took place in South America.  It turns out that their family is Aztec and they believe in a white god named, chizucana?-- They then said that they know that this is Jesucristo,  and they wanted to know where in the Book of Mormon it talked about Him.  We showed them and challenged them to read it..  I then asked if they wanted to be baptized and they said  yes.  Because they knew that the book of Mormon is true, it was a crazy experience and we are going to talk with the family today.

Now for the sad part...  so I went to the branch for the first time because my first week was Stake Conf.  So we went to the branch,  and that is where this area is struggling, a lot.  There just isn't alot of strength,  we have 2 dinners this week which is pretty bad i guess... but that isn't the main problem.  members won't go out and teach with us.  Having members is really important because it is their root to keep on going to church.  There is  a lot of work to do in the branch.

The second sad thing is we found this 85 year old investigator who really liked us to come over and had a pretty good feeling that our church was true,  so he shared the good news with his daughter, and it went down hill from there.   His daughter said I guess a lot of bad stuff about our church and said that if he joined the church then she would remove herself from the family.  So we talked to him the day after because we had an apointment and he told us all of the bad stuff that his daughter said,  I guess the positive part of it was that he still liked us and wants us to come back but we can't because his family is more important.  But he told us to leave a Book of Mormon and that he would read it.  It was just sad because we knew that he felt the spirt and he knew it too,  but because of his family he cant progress.  Oh well he will get baptized in spirit paradise!

But yeah it was pretty much a good week this week..  there was a lot of good and a lot of miracles.  We haven't been able to talk with Nancy because her husband is gone most of the time, but we are going to go and try to see her again today.  Thanks for the box of ties I have gotten complements from all of the hermanas haha.  My comp was like those are so ugly....  and i didn't say anything because I knew what was going to happen,  I think that he is getting sick of me getting complements on my ties.  Ahhah they were  some sick ties the DI is the best I am wearing the skiing one right now...  but I like the all white one but I hae no clue when I am going to wear it... but yah whenever you see some cool ties grab um.  Thanks for the zucchini cake but yeah grandma was right there wasn't enough.  My comp was mad that there weren't two---but I would have eaten them both anyways--- as for the spice kit i finalsy took it out this week and I think the baking powder exploded.  Glad the wedding went well and your birthday... I did send you a card I swear.  

But if uou didn't get it I will send you another one.  (GOT IT TODAY!!)  Eli and Joel keep on tearing it up in football work hard at practices even when the rest of the team isn't.  They may get mad at you but in the long run they will respect you and follow you---you will also win more games--- good to hear that Brighton pulled out a W for the first game keep on sending me updates.

well one more week down

weird to think it has already been 2 months --about--

Elder Finlinson