Two Easter Holidays In Finland

Hey Family!! 

Hyvää Pääsiäistä!! Wow, I cannot believe I have now spent 2 Easter holidays in Finland. I remember last Easter like it was just a few months ago. It was a great time to really reflect on the meaning of Easter because I honestly don’t think I have ever thought about it too much! But with the Christmas season and then the Easter season, I have been filled with the joy of our Savior´s birth, mission, death and resurrection. There is simply too much joy!:) We were able to eat the traditional Easter dessert called Mämmi. Look it up online, it is pretty disgusting haha. But you have to eat it!

Finland is transforming into spring and, like always, it is BEAUTIFUL. I will send pictures of this secret forest that we found, it was pretty awesome :) I am loving my time in this new area and Sister Toomey really is great and hilarious. I cant remember if I told you this but she was with Sister Harris here right before I came in and for some reason having a mutual companion just makes getting a long quickly and well super easy.

 The work is going well, we have 2 super cool investigators right now- one looks like a homeless man an is just the greatest guy haha and another is a young adult. Both Finnish men.

With daylight savings it is starting to feel like summer where the sun never goes down! I am so excited! I am still learning a lot each day and I am stoked for General Conference this weekend (can you believe it has been 6 months since last GC??). Anyway that is all I can think of! Have a great week!! :) Love you all!! 

My New Companion Is Wonderful

Hey Family! 

What a great report, the crazy life of the Wunderli family is a fun one for sure! Adventures everyday.

Bye Sister Jones :(

Well, it was a good week, I am liking my new area so far and (this wont be a shock) my new companion Sister Toomey is wonderful. We already feel like we have been together for a month. With every new companion I am just reminded of the fear I had before I left of having really difficult companions... And now I could not even name one out of my 8ish companions that I don’t absolutely love! Since I am still in Helsinki the area doesn’t seem all too different, though it is quite larger than my last area. I would be lucky if I work out all the public transportation by the end of my mission. THAT would be impressive haha. The ward here is filled with great people and I am just excited to get to know the place better!

Hello Sister Toomey :)

We had zone conference yesterday, which was really amazing, I am so grateful for Heavenly Father, and how He always seems to perfectly place events on my mission to help and support me and motivate me to lift up other people. Missionaries around the world are starting the new initiative #Hallelujah this week, focusing the message on Christ´s atonement and resurrection through a 2 minute video the church produced. Look it up if you haven’t seen it, it is what we show to most people we come in contact with. What an exciting time to be a part of the work!! It is great to see how technology really helps the message spread. Hopefully someday this mission with get Ipads (every Finland missionaries dream) so we can be more involved in the technology movement, but for now we work with what we got haha.

 Anyway, the sun is coming up, the people are brightening up and the gospel message is being spread! Thanks for everything fam. OH I got your package this week mom, thanks for the clothes and tell the Fischer’s thanks for the letter! Both things were great. Love you all!!! :)

FROM MOM-

Well hellooooh Terra la la la,

We received an email from your mission president saying some of the missionaries would be writing early because of zone conference. We can't tell if that's applies to you or not so I am ready now just in case.

Unfortunately dad is already asleep because he is on East Coast time. I am writing at 11:23 PM so he is likely very ambiened up since there was a party going on outside his room when he was about to sleep. If you haven't written by tomorrow I'm sure he will tag something onto this but he is at the beginning of a potential trial right now.

It was a good week for me because I got to go skiing and dancing. Every week that involves those two activities ends up being a pretty good week. I'm finding that skiing and dancing are my bread-and-butter.... It's becoming a basic need :-)

The house is oddly quiet considering we have eight people living here full-time and Nate and his posse dropping in and out on the weekends. This weekend Megan is in California at a cheer competition, Nate is in California golfing in a tournament, dad left for Florida for a case, Rachel and Trevor went to Vegas for a crazy monster truck something or other. Rachel will have to tell you about it :-) so today I was just chilling with Makendy and Essie and Samie. 

I don't know if you know this but Saturday's Warrior is being made into a movie and it's being released next week! You got that right it's going to be sah weet!! I'm sure it will be out on DVD by the time you get home and we will all watch it together :-)

I love you I can't wait to hear about your week. I hope everything is going well. I am so proud of you!

Moving to Haaga!

Hey Family!! 

The last walk to the Marjaniemi church!

Well, it was a good week of finally being back to full health. A little bit of an adjustment to get back in the swing of things but it feels so nice to be able to do all that this great work requires!

While I think of what to write I guess I will tell you where I will be this next transfer.... I am moving to Haaga! That really doesn’t mean anything to any of you haha but Haaga is another subarea of Helsinki so I will be staying in the same zone, just moving with a new companion in a new ward. I didn’t think I would stay down south but I am super excited for this new (possibly last) step in my mission. My new companions name is Sister Toomey- she is 4 months behind me in the mission and she is really great! I know her a little bit because we have been in the same zone for a while. So I will be leaving wonderful Marjaniemi and the amazing Sister Jones tomorrow, it is always hard to say goodbye... Sister Jones and I have been through the biggest ups and the worst of downs and I am so grateful for the opportunity I had to train her, learn from her, and see her begin to become an outstanding missionary. We have become very close and I am looking forward to still being able to see her at zone meetings :)

I have had so many great experiences in this area and have learned so much from working with the members and people here. I think the biggest lesson I learned was how to rely on our Savior´s redeeming power. I know that no matter how hard things get, through trust in Christ, one can experience a strengthening power that is beyond human understanding or explanation. I have had to learn how to not only KNOW that He can help, but how to actually ALLOW Him and His grace to assist me in my joys and trials. And what is great is that even when I am resistant to His will and guidance, I know that I can pray for a soften heart and a submissive will and then experience an overwhelming joy that comes from recognizing His hand in my life. I know my Redeemer lives!

 Thank you so much mom for all your work with school! I will reply to your other email. Thank you for the update, I love you all!!! Have a great week!! :)

Plenty Of Miracles

Hey Family!!                                                                                         

So good news! My health is finally back to normal! Goodness it has been a long few weeks, but we persevered. After 2 weeks of being ill, we finally were told to go to the doctor. Turns out Sister Jones has had an awful case of bronchitis (which she is still recovering from) and I had some unidentifiable virus which I am convinced was created out of my own body to protect me from getting bronchitis haha. It has been so tiring as our bodies would just start shutting down around 3pm until we could barely move after dinner. We have rested a lot and seriously are so grateful for being able to get back into the swing of things! Namely because this is our last week as companions and probably my last week in Marjaniemi.

Oh ya, due to transfers next p-day will be on MONDAY. Ok, despite the sickness there were plenty of miracles that have happened! One in particular was too good not to share. We had a lesson scheduled with an investigator right after lunch but, after eating lunch, the member who was supposed to come with us to the lesson told us she could no longer make it. This meant that we could not go to the lesson because the investigator is a man. We were pretty disappointed because this wasn’t the first time we have had to cancel a lesson due to the same problem, and we were still recovering from sickness so we were very tired. So we called our investigator to cancel but told him we would still drop of the Finding Faith in Christ DVD we were going to watch. As we were walking to his house an older widowed member calls us and asked us if we were on our way (as a background-this lady is 85 years old and lives in the same area as our investigator so we were planning on dropping by her house after our lesson but we hadn’t called her to tell her we would be coming over). I was confused on the phone and asked her where we were supposed to be going. She said that she had signed up to have us over for lunch that day and the meal was ready! We realized we hadn’t seen the meal list at the church because we had been sick but it was a miracle that we were already so close to her house! So after dropping off the DVD we were able to eat the meal she had so kindly made for us. It was a miracle that our lesson fell through and the experience taught me that God always knows better than we do so as we do our best, whatever the outcome, it will be for our good and we will be blessed for our preparation and planning. The other miracle was that we didn’t puke after eating with her because we had already eaten lunch and were pretty full (though we didn’t tell her that because no one wants to tell that to an 85 year old Finnish widow who just spent time making you a wonderful meal). Haha so, that was a great experience of the week. So great to hear that everyone is doing well and working hard! I love the pictures! That is all for now, love you all! :)

FROM DAD-

Hey Bear!

I just had a great couple days in Phoenix with my old law school friends.  We saw a couple spring training baseball games, did our fantasy draft, ate a lot, and sat by the pool.  I actually gained 5 pounds in two days.  I didn’t think that was possible.  But I guess if you put your mind to eating enough barbecue, bratwurst, pretzel rolls, and fried fish tacos, anything’s possible.  I got back to the  boxing gym this morning at 5:45 to start the process of losing 5 pounds.

We got a nice snow storm yesterday, so mom is taking advantage and heading up to the ski slopes with Trina and Chris, her skiing buddies.  Essie and Samie finished their first year of piano training and put on a recital for the family.  It’s scary to perform, but they did it.  Mak and his friend Aweso (a Muslim refugee) went to Genesis last night with mom.  The choir was apparently in top form.  Megan finished her last cheer at a Brighton sporting event as the Bengals were eliminated from the state tournament.  Mak is starting track again.  He’s a lot faster this year, but is struggling with Wunderli back problems.

Hope all is well with you!  Looks like you’ve got the same weather in Helsinki today as we do in SLC.  Keep on keepin’ on!  We love you!

Dad

One Year Anniversary

Family!! 

Happy March!! Well, I wish I had a bunch of really exciting things to say but the good news is that I am alive! Haha Sister Jones and I have had the flu all week and though I have on some days been able to go out and teach lessons and such, I lot of time has been spent trying to recover. I should be alright now though...

We had zone training this week which was really good and since transfers are coming up it could be my last time seeing some of those people until I come home! So crazy... I also was able to see Sister Powell at zone training and I haven’t seen her since we were companions (which was my first transfer in the field) so it was great to think of all the great memories and mostly just laugh at the things we did and who we were a year ago.

Oh ya, speaking of a year, I have been in Finland for a year!!!! Ok, well the official date is on Thursday but that is so insane!! Wow, time is a weird concept. Hum... I wish I could remember more things to say but all is well! Even with the flu I am still able to learn so much and grow strong in my testimony. I am so grateful for the example of our Savior and for the love that He has for me and for everyone around us. It is amazing to be able to have the opportunity to do as He would do and devote so much time to serving Him and trying to become like Him.

Well, I cant think of anything else I would need in a package! Before the end of the transfer I am going to be sending a box home of clothes/things that I do not need to carry around in my suitcase anymore. Sounds like everyone is doing great, I love you all!!! Have a great week! :)