First Pics From Finland!!!

Elder Golling is having a great time on his mission.  He sent home some first pics from the field and a huge long letter.  We email weekly but I really do love to get the letters.  The main part of his letter is talking about all that he is learning.  Here are some highlights:

The language coordinator taught them was about the gift of tongues.  But this could be applied to anything hard or challenging

1.  Have Faith
2.  Hard Work
3.  Pure Motive

He says if you need help with any of this pray for it.  Pray for more Faith, pray to work harder and pray to have a strong motive to do it.

He also talks about dealing with people.  This, I would say, was always a challenge for him so it is good to hear what he has to say and I am sure I can apply it in my life.

When dealing with people, "build people up to the point so that they will realize that they should be better.  Love even better - pure love.  Give into their will until they realize that they should do the same.  If everyone becomes submissive, everyone will feel the Spirit.  More submissiveness is the key to getting along (not in all things but there are lines - follow the Spirit)".

He says that Finnish is crazy hard but it is starting to get easier.  My favorite thing he said about it was when he doesn't know, he just guesses and the Spirit helps him with that.

He sounds awesome and is absolutely loving his mission.  He and his companion are relying on riding bikes everywhere.  He said riding bikes in the snow is not as hard as he thought it would be.

Here are some pics!

First Email from the Field

We got our first email from Michael this morning.  He sounds wonderful!  His companion's name is Elder Ogden.  He says Finland is so cool!  It is also chilly there and there is 3-6 feet of snow everywhere.  He said it is like Mutual Dell with more snow and no mountains.  But, you don't really notice that there are no mountains because there are trees and tall buildings everywhere.  The architecture is very contemporary and they use a lot of granite in the buildings.

He said I would like it there because everyone walks everyday, everywhere.  He said they love granola and have great bread!

He has been there less than a week and they have had two new investigators and taught 19 lessons.  He also said that he gets fed very well.  He had a liver casserole this week and really liked it.  They are teaching three men from Ghana and they apparently speak English very well.

He still says the language is crazy hard but he is loving his mission.  I will keep you all posted as I get more information.  Thanks for the love and prayers!

MTC Pics to go with the last post

 I believe this is his group of Fins

 There were a lot of shots with friends.  I am not sure if he was one of the Fins

 This is some kind of assignment chart

 These were his two companions

 I love this picture!

 This is one of his teachers.  I think Michael is older, what do you think?

 I am assuming this is Christmas at the MTC

I believe this is the Fin group again - Michael or Elder Golling was Zone Leader

Safely in Finland at Last!

Elder Golling has made it safely to Finland.  He left Monday morning with a stop in Chicago and London before landing safely in Helsinki.  We didn't hear anything until yesterday morning from his Mission President but early, early this morning he emailed us and told us quickly that he made it safely.

The area he is in is Jyväskylä, Finland.  Try saying that!  I looked it up on Google Maps and it is very nice there.  There are many water ways and this area is smack dab in the middle of them all.  It is more central to southern Finland.  The name of the area means "Grain Village" but when I looked it up at street level on Google it didn't look like a village to me.  It is very much a city with clean and beautiful street.  At least the area that I Googled looked like that.

Well, his email was short, just "Hi, made it safe, I am in Jyväskylä, I need to buy a bike, I am on a biking mission".  I am sure he is absolutely thrilled to be on a bike.  Michael is all about a good workout.  He actually got super fit (as if he wasn't already) while he was in the MTC.  

He sounds wonderful.  I am supposed to be getting his camera card from when he was in the MTC so I will post pics as soon as I can.  I just wanted to give everyone an update.  

Thanks for all your love and support, Michael has really felt it so far!