October 29th, 2018 Letter #51

The main reason why I say that it'll take a different approach with this district is because this time around I was dealt a handful of missionaries that are slow to trust new leaders. On top of that, I have never been in the same zone with any of them for a complete transfer before so I know very little about them. Those two conditions don't blend well. That being said, I feel like winning people's confidence is a stronger point for me so we're already starting to see things moving in the right direction. Little by little, but we're moving. The district class went poorly at first, but finished well (and the end is always what people leave with). 

Olga is the name of the girl, but she disappeared this week and Uriel's mom went super catholic mom mode and didn't let him come to church. So we drew a blank in church for the first time in months. I felt like we worked well this week, but obviously we're still lacking some extra umph. 

We lived with the Zone leaders for the last couple weeks, but now we have running water in our house so we've moved back into it. We're still waiting on a fridge, but that's not a huge deal. 

Zone conference is next week I think. My favorite thing about the area is member support. Everybody is willing to help. Also tracting is a lot more effective here than in Xalapa. So in short it's easier to find new investigators. That being said, I feel like it's been harder to have constant contact with them after finding them. 

There's not really anything special to smell around here, but something funny was that a kid of an investigator gave me a homemade perfume this week haha. It's definitely a feminine smell, but it's not half bad. The unusual thing about the area has been that everyone told me it would be super hot in Tuxpan, but it's pretty much just rained the whole time I've been here. Things are still going well with Elder Jimenez, he's helping a lot to gain the trust of the district because he knows the missionaries here way better than I do. 

The best part of the week was when I did splits with Elder Pearl. We had the biggest wave of blessings. We spent the whole day straight up finding new families and ended the day having found 18 new investigators. A fairly normal stat in the mission is 6-7ish in a week. So it was pretty cool. It was in the area of the Zone Leaders so the new people will be theirs, but that doesn't bother me because he and Elder Lobo are trustworthy missionaries that will certainly teach them well. The most challenging was seeing 0 investigators of ours in the church. That had me down for a minute, but I know it's simply a call to work harder. A simple, but pure principle that I found in my studies is in D&C 11:20, "Behold, this is your work, to keep my commandments, yea, with all your might, mind and strength." It points out the core of any calling or assignment that we have. Everything points back to keeping the commandments with every bit of effort.

Love you,

Elder Finlinson

October 22nd, 2018 Letter #50

Tuxpan is really cool, and it's a lot flatter that my past 2 areas. I feel like people have been pretty open when we've talked to them this week. It rained really hard on us in these last couple days, but today has been calm again. Elder Jimenez has been doing great so far. He came up with a lot of good ideas (He told me this is his 6th time in a whitewash). He has goals, plans, and seems to know what he's doing so I'm not terribly worried so far. 

I can tell you that I think this district is going to require a different approach than my old district, but I'll keep you updated on the why as we go. There's 8 missionaries in the district. Elder Sarat and Elder Yuit are in Cerro Azul. Hermana Sanchez and Hermana Becerra are in the Tenechaco ward. Elder Lobo and Elder Pearl are the zone leaders and are in Tuxpan 1. Elder Jimenez and I are in Tuxpan 2. 

We had 2 people get to church this Sunday from our area and one of them has already been to church a few times before (recently) so we talked to her after church and she said that she'd been wanting to talk to the missionaries for a while, but didn't feel comfortable saying anything. So she's an excellent candidate. Uriel also went to church for the first time. He's good friends with our Deacon's Quorum President (who is an absolute future General Authority) so he could also be a great baptismal candidate. I've heard great things about the ward, but due to very heavy rain on Saturday night the streets semi-flooded and the amount of people in church was about half of the average (67 people in church with an average of 116ish). So there's a lot of members left to meet. 

The best part of the week has been that we've found good people to teach. There's been several challenging things in the week, but they're all temporal things that should pass within a week or so (things with the new house mostly, but they're getting fixed). I haven't been in Tuxpan long enough to give you a decisive answer about the fish. Elder Jimenez gave me a charger that works for the battery in my camera so we're good. My white tie is lost somewhere I think, but don't stress it because I'm pretty sure it's unnecessary and it's just one more thing to worry about when we baptize. 

We just straight up got soaked this weekend. My boots are fried and I lost my umbrella, but a member wants to give me some boots he used on the mission that are still in good shape and I can easily buy another umbrella so don't worry, I'm on top of it. The most important thing are the covers for my scriptures.

Love you,

Elder Finlinson

Connor and his companion, Elder Jimenez decided to get some exercise because they were already soaked anyway! Look at the rain in the streetlight.

October 15th,2018 Letter #49

I will no longer be secretary here in Los Lagos. I'm gonna go open a second area in the Tuxpan Ward in the Tuxpan Stake in the city of Tuxpan. It's kinda funny because we had already made jokes about that happening because Whitewash Tuxpan Finlinson makes for a hashtag that had some missionaries laughing. I'm going to be District Leader and my companion will be Elder Jimenez from Durango. He's only got a few months left in the mission. I already know him rather well and, interestingly enough, he had already mentioned to me that he wants me to be his last companion. We did splits one time back when I was in Xanath, Papantla and he is a very talented teacher. I'm excited about the change. That being said I do feel a tad wary of the situation due to some struggles that he's had in the mission. President talked to me today about the decision and he said that it was something he felt strongly about, but he gave me a warning. He basically said, "We're putting a lot of confidence in you with this change. There are two possible outcomes here. Either he enters your game or you enter his." I'm being given a good support though. The two zone leaders that I'll have are the two that I would handpick for helping me out in this situation and they are going to be working in the same ward as us (My area is Tuxpan 2). And going back to what I mentioned at the start: He told me personally that he wanted to be my companion and he knows that I'm not into messing around so I almost want to believe that he has a desire to give one last burst of effort before going home. 

Elder Lovaas leaves Wednesday, but I leave tomorrow so we'll probably just buy a pizza tonight or something because I don't think we'll have time to do much seeing as today he has to give a conference for the new missionaries. 

We ended up with four baptisms. Juan José, Fernando, and Fernanda were fairly expected, but super special nonetheless. The baptism that really caught me off guard was Sasha. Do you remember her? She was one of our investigators for a while, but she seemed really reluctant to join the church for 2 reasons; 1. Experiences she'd had with members and 2.Hesitation to leave her old church. She got really close to getting baptized a while ago, but it didn't work out. Then she left Xalapa to visit Guadalajara for a month or so (she's from there). Well she got back late last week and told us that she wanted to talk with us. She said that she had gone to her old beloved church while on vacation and she realized that they didn't take things seriously enough in that church. She felt like they didn't do things with the order that God would have them done with and that that was something we did well in our church. So her interest was peaked once again. I won't say that she immediately accepted baptism from that moment, but after a couple of visits and a good stop in Alma 32 we were able to help her make the decision to get baptized. And It was cool because she has a daughter from Guadalajara that was visiting this week so her daughter watched her both make and follow through with the decision to be baptized so hopefully that'll turn into another baptism down the road. Sasha and Juan José chose me to baptize them so that was a neat little experience. Juan José had a cast on so we had to tape grocery bags to his arm, but all went well. 

The investigators that went to conference loved it and we're expecting 3-5 more baptisms in the area this weekend, but I'll just have to find out later seeing as I'll be in Tuxpan. 

For President's Birthday we just ate a solid meal, I don't know how to describe it but it was good. Then we had cake and left so that we wouldn't waste too much time there. I couldn't find the charger for my camera and I don't have it with me right now to check what kind of charger you'd need, but I'm sure it could wait another week. The packages get here pretty fast. Also it'd be killer if you could include covers for my scriptures because my bible is falling apart. 

Something I was looking at in my studies this week was from the teachings of the presidents of the church. It was about how we must not question the direction of our leaders in the church nor talk poorly of the Lord's anointed. It talked about how losing trust in our leaders is a step in the direction of apostasy. I find it an important principle. It's important not because the leaders are perfect and don't make mistakes, but rather because when they are weak and need support we need to be the arms that bear them up (Exodus 17:8-12). 

Also if you wanted to know, President sent me a short email this week that essentially said, "I feel very blessed to have you in this mission and to know that you are a very obedient and hardworking missionary. Thank you for your work. This month has only 3 weeks (to baptize because you can't during conference) but we'll baptize a lot. I wish you success and I love you. Do your best."

I'll throw in some pictures for you to see as well.

Love, Elder Finlinson

The first 2 pictures are my district from this last change. There's one picture of the baptisms and the rest are with the family whose kids were baptized.

I like the serious picture because due to the position of the light bulb in the room I look like I'd just barely descended from the heavens to chasten the people.

October 8th, 2018 Letter #48

This week we were able to do a lot to help our investigators. There are now probably a few secure baptisms for this next weekend, but even though the 13th is super close there are still a ton of wild cards in play. 

I really enjoyed conference. I don't know if it was because it was an exceptionally good conference or just because as a missionary the Spirit is with me more, but it was easily my favorite conference I've seen. I decided that I would write down the names of those who gave my favorite talks so that I could go over them again first, but my list ended with 12 names so it'll take a minute to take care of things. I suppose I'll tell you which ones I liked most that weren't by apostles. I'm just gonna put their last names, not as a lack of respect but rather a lack of knowledge regarding their titles: Pieper, Bowen, Gay, and the Sister (Cordon) that talked before Elder Holland. We had 8 investigators who listened to conference so I'm excited about the enthusiasm we've seen. 

For P-day we played dodgeball. We don't have any big plans still to celebrate Elder Lovaas' complete mission. In the Christmas package I might need something to charge my camera because I finally remembered to look for the charger this morning, but I couldn't find it. But hold on another week before making that call because I didn't have much time to look. 

Something cool we did this week was that President Esquihaus' birthday was yesterday and he invited us to eat dinner at his house. We had fun. The funniest thing was probably just seeing President on a happy high due to his birthday; he made some good jokes. 

Something I learned about this week stemmed from that talk by Elder Oaks that you mentioned. I feel like before the mission I had a pretty solid issue of searching spiritual knowledge through other means so that's something I have a great opportunity to change while I'm here in the mission. (Seeking spiritual knowledge through spiritual methods.)

Love you,

Elder Finlinson

October 1st, 2018 Letter #47

I don't know if I told you, but Elder Ahumada (that used to be an assistant) is one of the Zone Leaders right now. I talked to him on Monday night and we were able to see eye to eye and get things figured out. Tuesday was pretty normal all things considered. The sister missionaries in my district are super happy once again and the Elders are about the same as they have been. Their results have been nearly the same every week, which is somewhat disheartening. That being said, we've seen steady improvement (small as it may be). So as long as they keep improving I'll be happy. 

There was a lot of problems this week in trying to schedule appointments with the people that had a chance of getting baptized this weekend (we couldn't get an appointment until the weekend itself) so we'll be waiting another couple of weeks. That worries me and encourages me at the same time. I see the positive in the fact that they'll have a little more time to truly prepare themselves, but I'm worried because now we have a ton of people with the same baptismal date and I'm concerned that we won't be able to stretch ourselves out well enough to give everyone the proper attention. The biggest positive is this though: The assistants are back from doing the conferences so they'll have a little bit of time to work in these two weeks. That means that we'll be able to split ourselves up and schedule double appointments. The problem that we've had recently is that, since we can't work in the mornings as secretaries, all of our investigators have the same schedule. So we'll have an investigator say, "can you come Friday at 6?" and we'll have to say no because they're the 4th person to ask us that. Summed up: I feel that we'll pull it off if we work hard and have faith that it's possible.

The weather here has been cooling down. I've appreciated it. The best part of the week was the baptism of Hector. He wasn't our investigator, but rather the investigator of the sisters. That being said, I had the pleasure of doing his interview and Elder Lovaas had taught him more than a year ago, back when Elders where in that area. He took a looong time to get baptized for various reasons, but that made the service super special. Hector asked Elder Lovaas to baptize him and seemed rather happy that I went with him to the baptism. The hardest part was staying motivated this week. That was because it was really hard to get appointments with our progressing investigators (hopefully it's not because of a lack of desire on their part) and I didn't want to find too many news just in case we started to get the appointments going again. But eventually I realized that that was a faulty way of thinking and that it would be better to keep looking. As a result we ended the week with good results... apart from baptisms. But they'll come soon. 

We went to the trampoline park today again and it was the first time I've gone to a park like that and not had a minute or two that I just got bored or tired. I felt like it was well worth the money this time around. We had pork with mashed potatoes yesterday and a meat besides chicken was an interesting delicacy. I also had pig brain finally. It was disappointingly normal, but it wasn't bad. 

A tender mercy was also something I learned in my studies. I studied love quite a bit and tied it with obedience. I held in mind something that Elder Bednar had told us: if we lack love, the noun, it is due to a lack of love, the verb. I've come to a further conviction of the doctrine found in John 14:15, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." I also took an intriguing look into the parable of the unjust steward found in Luke 16. Read about it in "Jesus the Christ" if you don't understand it at first.

Love, Elder Finlinson

I always tell Connor that I want him to send pictures so I can see his cute face...well Elder Breinholt took this candid picture of him so he could send it to me.