October 28, 2013 Week 16

I had an awesome week this week.  We had zone conference and President Walkenhorst had a lot of good words to share with the missionaries here!  

(In answer to, "How are you doing?")

I am doing great now that I have 20 pounds of granola...  it was pretty funny we were just doing our studies and then we heard UPS pull up and Elder Pugmire said, " I swear it, that is for you"  Then we heard a knock knock.... Booom just got a package!  1 day air shipping on a box of trailmix....  then 30 minutes later Fedex pulled up... knock knock.  Me and Elder Pugmire just starred at each other.... I just started laughing, it was so funny I then got like 5 bags of granola and 2 memory cards and gloves... it was pretty intense... It looks like you have found the grocery store on amazon!  The funny thing is that they are all 2 day shipping.  2 day shipping on a box of trail mix is pretty funny.  

(In answer to, "How is the Branch and the De Leons?")

The Branch is going up and down it is so wierd, it changes every week... I guess a lot of people are trying to work right now-- over-time -- to  get a good stash of money for the winter.  I guess we will see though.  The DeLeons are struggling they are having a really rough time trying to believe in the things and worst of all they don't have the support from their dad.  But the dad wants to baptize his kids... well he can't do that unless he is active!!  ahhh missionary problems you have to love them.  

But this Saturday we had a day of finding!  We were able to find 5 new families and one of them was really cool... well they were all really cool.  But for this one we were just riding our bikes down a road and I told Elder Pugmire we should go knock on this door.  There really weren't a lot of signs that it was a hispanic house but we went anyway..  So we knocked, and well they are hispanic ,and they were really interested in the church and they told us to come back next saturday at the same time because the father drives up to Kansas every week to go work, and he is only home on the week ends.  But we were able to share a prayer with them and it was very cool to see.. And then it happened 4 other times.   

I dont have much time to write, we went to the public library today. ahhhhh 8 minutes left....well that is crazy that Ryan is about to be born into his mission!  and yah I know Chandler Webb we had quite a few classes together and we knew each other pretty good, that is way sad he will definitely be in my prayers.  Tell Eli and Joel to start preparing for next season even though it seems like it is far away!!!  and tell them I am proud of them...THE BRIGHTON LEGACY CONTINUES!!!  that will be my mission present -- to see them playing when I get home!!!  

(In answer to, "How is the biking?" --funny thing Ethan rarely rode a bike pre-mission)

I love bike riding it is a good way to burn the frustration that comes from missionary life and the work is more deserving.. my bike is doing really good I did have some bike problems though,  but I took it to the bike shop and they fixed it up and I got a flat tire this week too at 9:30 the Sisters weren't that happy to come and pick us up...but what can you do... I am really happy that I bought a 29er size I can  get going a lot faster then on a 26er... but we will see how much I like bikes during the winter that is going to be fun!! and ice storms.. but right now the weather is really nice and it is pretty fun.  

That is awesome to hear about Nic and the Kip, and that the ward missionary work is going good!  It is awesome to hear that Bethany is still single,  and I guess she is a instapro right now?  That is pretty cool.  I told one of the youth going on a mission to follow me haha got to love insta!  I kinda wish that you could snapchat on a mission-:} OH well... I saw the new apple layout on the iphone it is sickkk we should be getting ipads one of these days here but I don't  know I guess all I can do is have faith.. 

(Response to the photos sent)

Those pictures are awesome pretty much everything that I love about utah--BLACK BEAR-ALTA-grampas chair-grandmas ice cream cake...I have no clue what joel is doing? (Joel was smiling with a cucumber slice covering his teeth)-football...man I miss mountains there is a little hill that we ride up every day and it is on UTAH SREET....and it makes me trunky!!  

Have and awesome week y'all 

Much love from flat OKC, OK

~elder finlinson~

Flat Tire

More pant repairs...

Good thing for Missionary Mall Warranty

October 21 2013, Week 15

Man I don't even know the week I am on any more...  it is all just one giant blur.  That is awesome it looks like you all have had a fun week .... Tell Grandma and Grandpa thank you so much for all of the stuff in the packages... those pumpkin almonds are amazing they taste so good.. me and Elder Pug have determined that that is the trunkiest candy you can buy...it just tastes like holidays.  

With the question about apple products I think that were are going to get ipads by the end of this year but I am not sure to be exact.  That is awesome that you are seeing the miracles of missionary work in the neighborhood.  Tell kip to keep it going I totally felt like I was in prison a couple of times (tell him to find the taco dealer)... thanks for all of the stuff you sent I got the fenders, suit and the bag... thanks.  The weather got wayyyy cold this week especially on a bike.  All of my clothes work good except the gloves I need something a little stronger and waterproof.  You should just send my ski ones they are good... the only thing that I think I need is one of those recorders that the boys use for piano...writing in a journal is too hard... we are too tired and we go to bed right when we can.  Sorry to everyone... writing letters is so hard for me to do... we can only write them on p-days and we don't have a lot of time on p days...

OK well this week

ummm

This is a hard week to remember not a lot happened...but at the same time a lot happened?  We have really been focusing on the De Leon family they have been showing a lot of interest in the discussions and they are all ready to be baptized.. their date it set for December 7th- and it will probably take that much time for anything to happen... the Dad is less active and hasn't been to church for a long time because he works, but we told him last night that his sons were ready...this kinda scared him I think.  I don't think that he was expecting them to like the lessons.  But they really love it and they are ready to be baptized right now!  He then said that he was going to take off Sundays and prepare to baptize them.. he said that it has always been his dream to baptize his kids,  we told him that his dream is really close and is ready-- now he just needs to act!...  We took a member to our lesson with them,  Octavio-- he was baptized 3 months ago and has an amazing conversion story... members are the best!  In my opinion mom you have one of the most important callings in the church... without a fellow shipper people don't want to go to church and if they don't go to church they wont be baptized. 

sooo the cow head (see photos below)

This has been something that our ward mission leader had been talking about a lot,  and he finally gave it to us!!!!  The whole cow head minus the brain---because of mad cow disease!  But we ate it all eyelid-eye-tongue(my fav)-cheek... yeah all of that fun stuff--- and you know it wasn't even that bad,  I have to admit the the eye was not good and we did run into some crunchy pieces that you just eat anyways... I did eat one of the optical stems and a cornea- and all of the jelly inside....tasty! and of course you just throw it in a tortilla and then eat -- it is perfect!  But that was a fun experience for Halloween- that i never want to try again.  

This week at church we had 10 less actives and it was the primary program.  It was awesome to see all of the Hispanic kids singing Spanish primary songs... I love SPANISH... I was reading in the 1st Corinthians today and it was talking about all of the gifts of the spirit I would really recommend it there are a lot of cool blessings promised in PAUL'S letters I think that he is my favorite.   

Buuuuuttttt have an awesome week!  Happy Halloween 

love ya'll

see ya latter

ELDER FINLINSON THE 4th

 Elder Pugmire was pooped on....

 OKC Sky...

 Oklahoma getting colder...

 Thanks for the Package Grandma and Grandpa!

Way to go Brighton!

October 14, 2013 Week 14

Hello

Bike fenders sound great... i have not gotten the duffle bag yet...my bike is good-- i hope...  

And yes I got my Health package, thanks I think that my favorite is the bible cereal--it is pretty intense it is like it is alive.  Me and Elder Pugmire both ate some last night.  It has a very interesting taste..BUT this morning... O dear I had to go to the bathroom twice before personal study.  Ahhhh it was terrible very terrible! My body I guess needs to adjust, so then I can truly feast upon the words...  I tried some of grandmas crazy fizz juice this morning-- we figured out if you eat 17 pounds of carrots then it will be the same amount ofvitamin C... 

Pues (Well ) to talk about this week-- week 14.  I have had more than 3 months on the mission now, it is crazy...  I remember the last time I saw ya'll at 4 in the morning that was fun.  It is really weird to look back at those times ijole...  thanks for sending that Caramel, the branch president and his wife were so thankful and they said that it was so good.. now you can say that people in Oklahoma ate your Caramel and they liked it, and they are Hispanic yahhh...  I was able to leave the other pan at the church during conference--- but I did enjoy a lot of it thanks!..  

Well this week was pretty mellow we did some finding this week and we had some pretty good success.  We used the area book and looked at people that were taught but were dropped either because they were not keeping commitments or they didn't answer the door... it was very cool a lot of the time the peole were not the same as on the list but at least it led us to Hispanic houses!  

One of the cool things is that we finally have a Peruvian investigator!  He reminded me of Eduardo so much!  We were just ridding our bikes down a street and we saw a Hispanic sitting on the porch so of course we went up and talked to him.  We ended up talking about the 1st lesson and got his phone number!  

After that we went to Jose's house (the one that knew all about our church--- well he knows even more)  so we rode up to the house but he lives in this small house in the back yard... so we walked in the back yard and we saw him, and then it began...  He said let's just read out of the bible,  and he brought up stuff that we believe, it was very cool.  It was the first lesson and we covered everything that you cover in the lesson after baptism and he believes in all of it, it is crazy... then the real crazy part ... he started talking about King Benjamin!!!?>?????????!!!  WHAT DID HE JUST SAY..  he was like "yah i really like what he says"... me and Elder Pug just thought that we miss translated something, but no, he was talking about the book of Mormon??  So we gave him a  Book of Mormon and he said he was going to read it...  

So we had exchanges this week and me and Elder Pierce tore it up in the truck... I went over to his area we went over to one of our members houses named GRAMALDO.  He is crazy he lives alone and he is probably 50 years old and he loves Christmas!  His house is already decked out, it is pretty disgusting i would say it is to almost the point of hoarding.  see the picture.. Miss claws (Claus) was sitting in the dinning room.

Last night we had an amazing Doctrine of Christ with the De Leon boys, The spirit was so strong and it went so smooth...  right when we got in there, they said that they planned it, and they are going to be baptized on December 7th!!  It was the best lesson I have ever taught and Elder Pugmire said the same--probably because it was in English,  but it was definitely run by the spirit the whole time!

Well the time has come to press send.  because i am sick of typing.

Love ya'll have a funnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK

ELDER FINLINSON

Dropped my planner in a spinning toilet....

 OKC Trailer Park

 Someone died in our apartments...

October 7, 2013 Week 13

To: Angie Finlinson, Annette Paulsen, Bethany Finlinson, Chad Killpack, Doug Finlinson, Duffy Pi

.....

We just got a new Elder in our district and he is from Draper... he came in with that one other guy I met at the Draper Temple, Elder Jolly... but the new  Elder in our district is Elder Cluff.  I am not the youngest anymore.   

I was just looking at my preaching certificate and I am coming home in june 2015...  dang that is a long time!  That's ok because missionary work is awesome.  But there is a chance that I could get home before I turn 20, now that would be gnarly wouldn't it!  

Thanks for all of the junk food, coat, gloves and the hard drive.  It is really bad, me and the district leader were going to start a diet last week and then you had to send all of that food-- so it got pushed back to today... Please don't send me any unhealthy food anymore por favor.  In the spanish cultures the term agua means that it is flavored water full of sugar-- I did drink hibiscus tea last night but it was loaded with sugar... In order to get pure water you have to ask for it.  Satan really came down on me with the diet thing last week.  O well..  

With Joel's head thing I honestly have no idea, but i don't know that is kinda weird.  Thanks for the carmelo X2 holy cow!!! Luckily our branch president had a hip replacement this week, so we went over to his house and gave him one of the trays... and that kinda leads me into one of the crazy things this week.  Well last transfer me and Elder Pug were reading in the PMG (Preach MY Gospel) and there is a story about how you need a relationship with the branch president.  So we brought it up LAST DL (District Leadership?) and said how we would all like to increase our relationship with him, and since he just got surgery he would be at his house.  The excuse was that he lived too far away and that the missionaries with cars--everyone except me and Elder Pugmire-- would use too many miles to go there...  me and Elder Pugmire set it up and we visited him with our whole district.  It turns out that he has been the Branch President for 9 years and NEVER HAD Missionary's VISIT HIM!!!! WHAT THE HECK.  No wonder there wasn't a good relationship with him.  And it turns out that he doesn't live that far away it is like 15 minutes from our apartment............

Well we had a very good talk and we gave him a priesthood blessing, and gave him the carmel.  It was a very good experience and now when ever I go into an area I am going straight to the Bishop or President to introduce myself.  He then stated that we should have dinner some time... That right there is when you know you did some thing right.  When a Hispanic offers you food it is like a welcoming into a friendship.  That happened like 3 times this week.  But no wonder the Branch President didn't listen to us or really care what we did!  When I came in all of the missionaries were just talking about how he didn't care about the ward and were just complaining about him.  Well I think we figured out the real problem. 

This week was crazy and disappointing...  we set the goal last week to invite all of our investigators to General Conference. And we did it!  We committed 20 people to go to General conference we called them and we only got 1... It was a really important week we just cleaned out a good chunk of our investigators last night... We are going to go visit them all and tell them how we were sad in not seeing them, if they give a good enough excuse then maybe, just maybe we will come back but it is going to have to be a good one!  

The cool part though was we had 7 less actives go and it was really cool to know that they were watching it...  I really liked General Conference..  Probably my favorite was Pres. Uckdorf.  I liked how he talked about how only God and Jesus Christ are perfect in this world and how this church is run by imperfect people and how their are mistakes even in this true church.  This helped me because I've been thinking how to respond to the questions about the questionable stuff that went on in the early years of the church...  It is so nice to have prophets that explain stuff so simply that you almost feel stupid ahah.. I can't wait to receive the conference Ensign I definitely prefer to read it and study it but it is fun to hear their voices and see their emotion when they speak!  

That coat is really nice thanks it should keep me nice and warm, yah i don't know what everyone wears yet because it isn't super cold.. but Elder Pugs has an overcoat thing, but i don't see why the one you sent wouldn't work.

I feel like I am forgetting something but I can't remember, oh well maybe I will remember next week?

Thanks for all of the prayers and love. 

Love from a colder OKC,

Elder Finlinson

Pants to be replaced by Missionary Mall....

September 30, 2013 Week 12

Hello family......TRANSFERS!

I am staying here in the city and I am very happy about that because I am getting a hang of the people and I love the people here.  Yep me and Elder Pugs are going to tear it up next transfer...  so guess who my new zone leader is going to be.??  Elder Powley I guess I will get to kinda serve with him.  I guess he has already served her before but he is coming back and he is speaking English.  In our district Elder Chapman is going to die and Herman Robinson is going to some small city in the south speaking English.  I am very excited Elder Pierce our district leader is going to be a trainer and the guy I met at the temple is coming out so I guess we will see if he gets put in my district. But enough with POLITICS..this week

This week was a ton of fun and very spiritual... to start off the De LEOns, they are a part member family, the dad is a member and the 3 boys from California aren't(but not for long).  The only difficult thing with them was that one of them was atheist and the mother and the dad just barely split up and they still both go to the same ward but they live in different houses.  I know confusing.  O yeah the dad is less active too.  But we went over there this week and we talked to the oldest boy who is 22 years old we had a really good lesson about the book of Mormon and we asked him if he had any questions and he said no.  It seemed like he didn't really care and that he just doesn't care for the religion and why we need it?  So we talked more and then he interrupted us and said "Do you even care about me or are you just trying to get a baptism?"  YES he asked a question.  We then told him how we were converted and how we want everyone to have this experience and that the point of this life is to return to our Heavenly Father and to be exalted. BOOOOM he just said "o".BANG BOOOM.  SPIRIT I then told him that I loved him.  It was very weird it was definitely a spiritual I love you and it went straight  from heart to heart...  We then asked him to pray and he first said no and then we said "the worst that could happen is that you talk to the air".  He then prayed and he prayed amazingly.  After the prayer he started rubbing his arms..BOOOOM YOU JUST FELT THE SPIRIT!!! so we were teaching an atheist.

The next cool thing that was definitely the spirit. ...so we were going over to see a potential and we were talking to her and we set up an appointment with her but when we left we saw a huge garage sale run by Mexicans..  I really felt that we should go over there so we did.  We ended up talking there for 1 and half hours it was really cool.  His name was Jose and he is Evangelical, he belived in preatty much every thing that we did except that he thought that no on should be allowed to pierce their ears and that it is still to young for eight year olds to be baptized.  I am very excited to see what is going to happen with him.

There are a lot more stories but I don't have enough time!!!!

The other elders in our district had a baptism very cool.  We had 2 dinners last night and they were both totally different!  We had amazing fajitas in the first one with a member.  Then after that we went to our investigator THE ORDAZ it was Melisa's 6 year old birthday.  It was crazy there we so many people there it was perfect tracting area, except that half of them were drunk but we had some amazing food!!!!! see fotos!!! 

Grilling with the Brother Ordaz- used for homemade salsa

Well I am doing good here, check out my new bike... we guilt tripped our investigating kids and didn't visit them for a week and they amazingly found it (the lights that were missing from his bike last week--know he has double lights since I sent him more...)  YAHHH..  I probably will need a jacket for the winter and scarf--I guess they wear them here-- gloves.. as far as the carry on goes i don't know??  I could be here in the city for a really long time but I don't know, there is no way I could take all of my stuff with me.

you can decide:)

Love elder finlinson

  

  District

  

  

  

Elder Pugmire and Elder Fin frying up Okra given to them by a man on the street.

Spanish Elders and Sisters

Below: Elder Chapman dying...I guess this is the exit ritual of an Elder going home?

Thanks for all of your support for Elder Fin 

Email:

ethan.finlinson@myldsmail.net

September 23, 2013, Week 11 Part 2

Hola! familia como esta?  I guess this will be my weekly review since I didn't really write anything in my email and I am happy I didn't because we had a crazy night tonight.  So after a beautiful dinner we prepared in our apartment we were about to go out and work.  But right before Hma Alba called us and asked if we could go to a Noche de Hogar with her at her house. YES! she was going to invite a friend of hers.  We were very excited for this because we have been praying for new investigators.  So we go over there and of course there is food, tomalies, some tres leche con arroz, it was very good.  But anyways we started up teaching or listing.  Hermana Lopez was teaching about fe (faith).  Well, I guess she invited a couple more people, we were all sitting in and then onoe of our less active family walks in...then the Ordaz family walks in, EVERY ONE WE WERE GOING TO SEE THAT NIGHT SHOWED UP TO THE NOCHE DE HOGAR AND WE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW!!  IT WAS CRAZY!!!  We had a really good lesson/discussion so tonight we had 8 investigators, a less active family...our branch mission leader...and the Gospel Doctrine teacher.  That is what I called STACKED.  It was a very cool experience.

Here is some cool stuff that I studied this week:

"Sharing our thoughts and desires with God should become as natural as breathing and eating."

--Bishop Dean M. Davies

"Agency allows for all of the pains and suffering we experienced in mortality.  Even when caused by things we don't understand and devastating evil choices of others.  In the war in heaven we fought for this agency for ourselves and others.  Agency is essential to understanding the Savior's earthly ministry."

--Quentin L. Cook

"Belief is always the first step towards conviction"

I have really been reading the conference Ensign you gave me.  It is awesome.  I am pretty much making my own scriptures by reading it.  Thanks for all of the support, prayers and love you all have given me.  I have definitely felt it and I am very grateful for it.  And I am looking forward to receiving even more of it..ha ha.  I know this is where I am supposed to be and I wouldn't want to be any where else in the whole entire world than right here in OKLAHOMA!  Love Y'all Mucho.  Please tell every one...O MY JUST FORGOT AHHHHHH CRAP I SENT DAD HIS B-DAY CARD A MONTH EARLY....AHHHH MISSION LIFE IS KILLING ME, ELDER FORGETS-A-LOT OF STUFF

O well i was just a month early.

Dang. tell Ryan to email me so I can write him on his mission, because there are a million Ryan Johnsons in the world!!

Elder Finlinson Address:

ethan.finlinson@mylds.net

Blog: ethanfinlinson@blogspot.com