June 27, 2011

Hei Family,

I am leaving Pori. I'm heading back to Espoo. My new companion is Elder Fuchs! His mother is from Austria so I highly doubt she is on the Missionary Mom's or speaks english for that matter ( just so you know :) ) We will be the zone leaders of the Helsinki Zone. So I'm heading back to Helsinki which could be sweet. There is tons to do there on p-day where in Pori I just wrote letters haha. I'm kind of bummed to leave Pori. I definitely loved it here but I have been here for a while (though it doesn't feel that long) so I don't mind that much leaving. The work here is just going crazy. The shame is leaving right now at it's high point. Elder Baccile is coming down to take my place though so that's good. Espoo should be fun though and a lot better now that I don't need to take two buses to get to my area like the last time I was here with Butler. Now I can just walk out the door. 

I'm not sure what my address is in Espoo but you can just send it to:
   Brian Behnke
   Neitsytpolku 3 A 4
   00140 Helsinki
   Finland

That should get to me just fine. It will just take an extra day. So you can send stuff to there until next week when I can send you my Espoo address. 

My week has been great though. We had a district meeting on Wednesday here in Pori. We all pitched in and made salmon soup. It's so super good. I gave a message on humility. It was a good time. The on Sunday we had 11 either investigators or potential investigators come to church! The most I have ever had before this was 3 haha. It was pretty awesome. It was a really fun Sunday.

That's sweet that Ellie won her match. I'm really excited to hear how she did on her own. That sucks about Scott's house. Why did he move there if it was such a dump? Hopefully he can go find a better place that he will actually want to stay in. How is everyone else doing? How are things going at Gram's place? Is Scott's work still going good? 

I don't have much else to write. I hope you all have a fantastic week and I will talk to you again when I am 21. I will then be legally able to drink in America and rent a car. I will officially be an adult. So I got that going for me :)  

I love you all,
Vanhin Behnke

June 20, 2011

Hei Family,

Sister Juutinen was so excited when you wrote her back. She texted us at like 6:30 this morning haha. I gave her your email address because I figured you would love to talk with some people out here. I hope that was alright. She was very nervous to write to you in English. 

Our couple we are working with are fantastic. It is a big honor that he wants me to baptize him but chances are I'll be gone.  We will see. They are fantastic!

Everything is going well here. I just heard from Nathan. He is a stud. That is great that he is back. Whenever you talk to him next, you should tell him to send me his address. How was the wedding shower? What kind of stuff did she get? What all did you do?

I don't know if I need anything right now. Just hold off on sending anything until I know where I am. Chances are I leave next week. We'll see what happens. Everything really can happen with President putting everything in order for the new president to arrive. I think I leave my wonderful town of Pori though. We are going on splits tomorow with the Rauma missionaries (Pearson and Budd). We are going to another DA with Sister Salmi. That should be fun. Then on Wednesday is Distric Meetng I am making salmon soup for everyone. It should be good. I will take pictures. 

That is all I have for you. Thank you for the email. Have a fantastic Father's Day! What are you all going to do? Let me how it goes.

Love,
Vanhin Behnke

June 13, 2011

Hei Family!

I just got my first set of my going home papers today. I filled everything out already. I have my home address as Grandma's address. Hopefully, your phone number is still the same. If not, your email address is on there. I checked the box that you all are NOT coming to Finland to pick me up. So everything about my flight information is now taken care of. I will be flying in to DIA (just in case some new massive airport was built in Highlands Ranch :) ). Let me know when you get my flight information. I want to know.

Super cool that Nathan is home. Those 2 are studs. You should have them send me some emails with addresses attached because this chain letter takes about a half a year to get around haha. 

Our DA with Sister Salmi this week with Elders Groberg and Lytle was really good when they came down for spilts. We had lasagna with pickles and pineapple inside. It was really good! The salad was a salad with red onions, pear, grapes, apples, tomatoes, and this lemon itailian sytle dressing. Really good. And Ruisleipä (dark rye bread)

Things are going really well here. We have 14 investigators. It's awesome! Most I have ever had! I remeber when I girst got to Finland and all I wanted was a phone number. Just a spark of interest from something. I didn't even care to teach anyone just a number which was super hard to obtain. Now things are just rockin.' We are teaching a family who can't speak any finnish and knows only a tiny bit of english. They are from a small country near Indonesia. We use very simple, slow , short English and use pictures. It's a ton of fun. 

I spoke in Church again at a ward activity for members and non members. I spoke about how God is the same yesterday today and forever. I pretty just read 2 Nephi 29:7-11 and talked about it. It was simple but good.

Story: Elder Larson and I are riding to a teach with this couple and this guy rides up to me and says, in english, "I don't want to be rude, but GO BACK TO SALT LAKE CITY!!!" Whoa so we stopped the bikes and talked to this guy. He was just yelling at us telling us to go back to Utah. So I said, "I'm from Colorado." Larson: "I'm from Canada." The guy didn't know what to say. I think if he knew that Colorado was right next door to Utah he would have had somekind of comeback haha. Then he moved on to say that Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon are all frauds. So I asked if he had asked God about ti or Read the Book of Mormon and he said No. I told him that that was the problem and then he went off saying how Finland doesn't need us here and that The Bible has always been enough and to just go back to wherever we came from. We just said alright man and left and then he called us disciples of the devil.  It is a fantastic day. I want more of those days.

That's all I have for you. 

Vanhin Behnke

June 6, 2011

Hei Fam,

How was Ellie's birthday? Was it super fun? What are you all up to this week?

Helsinki was really good. It was a fun meeting. We played football every morning. I woke up at 4:45 in the moming to Elder Lytle sitting on my bed putting on my shoes for me haha. Football was a lot of fun though. I saw Elder Burt again. The first time since my 6th week in the country, Whoa! But the meetings went really well and we got pretty much the last of President Brown. One more meeting with him and then he is gone and President Rawlings comes in. I won't have too much time with th new mission president but I should get a good dose before I leave.

The investigators are going good. We have about 9 right now. It's the most I've ever had. 4 look like we might have to move on from but the others are doing really well. It's a very exciting time right now for us in the mission right now. It's a great thing to be apart of.

I have nothing to write really this week. Not much has happened. I speak in a investigator night class thing on Sunday and have like a 5 minute speech. That should be good. Not looking too forward to it but it could maybe be a good experience.

We are going on splits with Elders Groberg and Lytle this week. I am pretty excited for that. We have a DA together with this member who is hilariously fun and makes fun of us because we are American!

I'm coming home soon! Warning: I'm not trunky, it is just a fact. You should go download the song "Gone til November" by Wyclef. Just listen to that. It's perfect. Scott knows the song. have you made any plans for anything for when I get home?

I am getting a lot of emails. Sweet! I don't feel so forsaken anymore. Everyone sounds like they are doing well and nothing seems to have changed at all since I've been gone. Perfect! :)

I am excited to see pcitures of Scott's apartment. Is it cool? 

That's all I have.

I love you and will talk to you next week.

Love,
Vanhin Behnke

May 30, 2011

HEI!!!

How is everything over there at Gram's? How is Scott doing at work? Where is his new house? Is Ellie really getting that car? How is everyone doing? Are you all going out to Kristen's wedding? What are the plans?

I got a email from Jake Wagner! SWEET! He left me his email address so I'm stuck and can't write him back. Everyone just leaves me there email address haha. That's super cool that Hunter B had his graduation. We went to a graduation party on Saturday and they played this game where you roll dice and what every number you get, is the amount of these huge marshmellows you have to put in your mouth. Then they give you a song to sing and teammates have to guess the songs. It's kind of cheating when the American missionaries don't know any finnish songs and it's their turn haha. So, basically, it was a struggle but we did alright. What did you do at Hunter's? That's super cool that you saw Kendall, Liza (Lisa?)(Finnish is messing me up!), and Emily. How are all they doing? I didn't get any letters from them. Maybe next week. This one member was giving me a hard time once about not having pictures of any girls I've dated so I just pointed to Emily's picture in the family book that you sent me for Christmas haha. It wasn't a lie because we did date for like 8 min. In 8th grade before she broke up with me. You can ask her about it. She never told me the reason why she shattered my small 8th grade heart :)

Elder Larson and I are headed down to Leadership Training Meeting in Helsinki for the next 5 days!!!! We leave tonight to Tampere to meet up with Elders Groberg and Lytle to drive down and stay with Elders Christiansen and Fuchs. It's like a big MTC reunion. It should be fun. I just recently relized that after this change, I have 3 more changes til I'm coming home. Next change, they start to send me my going home papers. Whoa. Not a lot of time left.

District meeting was great! I loved the stories you sent. I couldn't find a way to use them with what we needed to talk about but I'm thinking of ways to use some of them. We just set some goals with what we want to accomplish this change and we talked about the importance of helping our investigators come to sacrament meeting. Did you know that if you  bring a question to church, it will be answered there too like it would be in General Conference. I thought that was pretty cool. I spoke a little about the quote, "Be a creator of the circumstances, not a creature of circumstances." I'm trying to pump us up a little bit. We then read out of Alma about Ammon when the sheeps were scattered and his attitude and what he did to change and take advantage of his situation. I thought it was pretty cool.

We had a great sunday yesterday. There were 3 investigators in church! That's the most I have ever had in church on one Sunday. It went really well. Elder Larson gave his first talk in finnish and did a great job. Luckily, there wasn't a lot of time left, so I only had to get up and speak for 5 minutes. Sweet! Elder Larson spoke about fast offerings and I spoke about fasting. It was nice.

Things are going really well for us here. We have 3 porgressing investigators who are really making bounds. It has just been great lately. 

I don't really have anything else. I can try and talk with the AP's but I'm not really sure what they can do. I can ask. That is super awesome about Ella Bezzant wanting to befriend McKay! That would just be so awesome!!! You should tell him about it. I'm sure he would be up for it. I love you all. I hope you all have a great week. I will talk to you again next week.

Love,
Vanhin Behnke

May 23, 2011

Hei Family,

I'm sorry Dad didn't get my last letter. I most likely forgot to send it to him as well. I logged in today with tons of emails!! It was great!! After about a year and a half, I have finally heard from Zach and Justin. Haha. I think though that people think I can write them back because are leaving their email addresses at the bottom. You might want to make sure that you tell them that is their mailing address and not their email address that I can write to. But thank you so very much for setting that up because I'm hearing from so many people and it's great.

I got your package. Thanks a ton! It definately helps when you put my number on the package because when I'm not home and they call, I can just go pick it up because the place isn't too far away. I have been eating so much lucky charms it is awesome!! I average about 3 bowls a day. They are so good. Enough with this healthy Finnish cereal stuff. It just doesn't give me my daily dose of essential sugar in the morning. The See's candy was devoured in the first day. Someone (dad) put some weird like raspberry nutty cream thing in there that just wasn't very good haha. 

I saw the picture of Ellie's new car. Whoa! It is way super nice! That will be so awesome when she saves up for it. The tennis matches sound awesome. Ellie gets to go beat little girls up with her racket and totally dominate it bearing the Behnke name. That's great. Is it just for the summer? Is Ellie all registered up for middle school? Is she excited? You just all let me know when you know everything about her schedule and stuff.

Elder Larson and I got let in tracting the other day and we a talking to this woman and her way big, extremely drunk boyfriend who was hysterical and laughing the whole time. He goes out to give me a hand shake and just stares in my eyes for like 60 seconds and then says, "I'm not a gay but you are one good looking guy! Isn't he (asking his girlfriend)" It was really funny. Everyone was laughing. The woman was asking us if they only send the good looking mormon boys to Finland becuase every missionary she has seen has been "gorgeous" as she put it. It was funny-

We got a big week ahead. We have my first district meeting on wednesday then a splits with Rauma on friday and I give a talk on Sunday. Fun. Then the next week, I head down to leadership training meeting in Helsinki for the week. It's going to be pretty fun.

That's all I have for you. 

I love you all,
Vanhin Behnke

May 9, 2011

After having the most wonderful time chatting with Brian we received a short letter this morning and some pictures, which I love!

Hey Family,

It was really great to talk with you all last night. I hope all is well. I don't have much to say to you all because we talked about everything last night.

I hope you enjoy the pictures. 

(NÄSTI- pronounced "nasty"  . . . . .  I thought it was funny)

I love you all

Also, could you find out who Jeremy Irons is. He was the voice of Scar in The Lion King but we can't figure out what else he has been in.

Thanks and I love you all

Next time we will take will be face to face

Love,
Vanhin Behnke

A sign missionaries never like to see!  :)

Elder Lytle and Behnke at the Viking dinner!!!!