Mission Week 46

Hejsan,

Hope everybody well. The weeks here are starting to get really repetitive really fast. Doing finding most of the day almost every day (talking on the streets or door knocking), getting a good amount of people's contact information, texting those people until they stop replying. We've all heard people say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, and that's kinda what it feels like right now haha. That being said here is some of the out of the ordinary things that happened this week. 

Wednesday we had splits with some Elders that have an interesting take on missionary work. They are very loose on the rules and are very against doing street contacting or door knocking. Which I have been brainstorming ideas for alternatives to meet and talk to people so I think that it's great they are meeting people in other ways. Only problem is I'm not exactly sure what they do cuz we did a whole lot of nothing on Wednesday. Also their apartment was so messy and dirty I'm not actually sure how they are in a good mental state living in there. So it was an interesting day to say the least. 

We met with this guy named Johan on Thursday night. He is friends with one of the members in our ward and has been taught by the missionaries before but after going through some challenges stopped meeting with them. We are trying to start consistently meeting with him again. We had a great conversation where he expressed that he is just trying to find the right path in life. 

Friday we had an Elders quorum (older men) activity where we went out to this nature reserve that was just green everywhere. We were able to get 2 guys that we know to come which was great. The activity was mostly just playing kubb, which is a popular summer game in Sweden. Basically just throwing wooden baton type things at wooden blocks from far away trying to knock them over which sounds stupid but it was fun. 

On Saturday was able to go and play some pick up basketball with some guys. It was pretty fun and I was a lot less rusty compared to last week. Had some good short conversations that will hopefully help us become better friends with some of these guys going forward. 

Highlight of the week was definitely on Sunday. We had multiple moms say that they were coming to church with their kids that didn't show up which was disappointing but we had a really cool guy named Enrique come that easily made up for it. He is a 19 year old that I met in the mall like 2 weeks ago who grew up Catholic but feels like he never got much from it but thinks religion can be good. He lived in Nashville until he was 6, then Spain, then Sweden. His mom is from Peru and his dad from Spain. When I talked to him in the mall I told him I know it can be hard to feel close to God sometimes but I have noticed a difference in my life when I take it seriously. Before saying anything else he told me that he was interested and gave me his number. When he came to church he was asking a bunch of questions, saying he wanted to know as much as he could so that he could really give our church a try. He even asked if it matters if he has been baptized in another church if he were to be a part of our church. After explaining priesthood authority and why it would still be important to be baptized in our church he said that it made a lot of sense and he can see how we believe that. He said also that he wants to read the Book of Mormon after we gave an explanation. It was his first time going to a church in 5 years and he said he was really nervous to come but felt peace and safety. He is really interested in meeting up with us to learn more so I am really looking forward to that. He does unfortunately live out of our area boundaries so will have to start going to church with the other ward that is right before us (our wards share a building) but we will still be able to teach him because since our area is so impossible to find people to teach our mission president says we should teach people that we find even if they aren't in our area. 

We met 2 ladies from Uganda earlier this week who grew up Muslim but now aren't really a part of any religion. We had a lesson with them during pday and they had a lot of interesting thoughts and clearly have thought about religion and God a lot. Something one of them said really stood out to me. She was saying if we ever went to Africa we would see how blessed we are, and I initially thought she was talking about temporal things. But she went on to explain how a lot of the preachers/pastors for the Christian churches in Africa are just really corrupt and everything they do is motivated by money. And then clarified that we are blessed in the aspect that we really know God and have good intentions and motivations behind our faith. Kind of just made me think about how we really do take it for granted that we (most of you reading) are born with some sort of belief in God. I think it can be important to recognize our privilege in this aspect, that it really is a blessing to grow up in an environment where it is normal and natural to believe in God. I have seen first hand on my mission how hard it is for people to change from the beliefs that they grew up with. 

This quote from Elder Renlund's most recent general conference talk has stuck out to me in a similar aspect. "Our faith in Jesus Christ needs to be nourished daily. It is nourished as we pray daily, study the scriptures daily, reflect on the goodness of God daily, repent daily, and follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost daily." I think most of the things he talks about are pretty obvious ways to grow our faith but I think it is really interesting that he talks about how we should daily reflect on the goodness of God. The same with recognizing our blessed state in knowing God, we should take time to be grateful for that blessing as well as pondering and thinking about the other blessings that God has blessed us with. God really is so good and it really is a choice to be grateful or negative about our circumstances. I know better than anyone that it is easier said than done to be positive and grateful in all of our circumstances but I can say just this past day pondering about what that lady said made me feel a strong sense of gratitude for the goodness of God and a stronger trust and faith in Him as a result of that gratitude. 

2 Nephi 4:16 - " Behold, my soul delighteth in the things of the Lord; and my heart pondereth continually upon the things which I have seen and heard."

Pics:

Mission Week 46

Monday, May 27, 2024

Mission Week 45

What's good, hope everyone is doing well. 

Got a few interesting things that happened this week. 

First part of the week was mostly just finding (talking to people in the mall) and a few activities/meetings with members. We did have a cool miracle where I gave a lady a card (that has our phone number and church address) on the bus because she was talking on the phone the whole bus ride. Well she ended up calling us later that day (the cards almost never work) and we scheduled a lesson with her the next day. She ended up just not showing up to the lesson and then later blocked us which makes it seem horrible but it was exciting that she called us by me just giving the card without saying anything because the cards don't even work on the people that we talk to. But I guess this being one of the things I am writing about in my email shows how the work is going here right now haha. 

Thursday we had splits/exchanges with the Elders in the area right next to us. Not much really to say about it though we just did more finding and then had a lesson with this guy who didn't really speak much English or Swedish so clearly not that productive.

Fridays we usually go to a language café that is run by the local library. For the first 30 minutes this week there was no one there except for us 2 missionaries and 3 workers so the workers just started asking us a bunch of questions about missionary life and work so that was cool I guess.

Later Friday night we went to a park to play basketball to try and meet people but there was so many people there so we didn't really get to play much and people aren't really wanting to talk on the sideline when they are focusing on the game. And wasn't really fun for me to play either because I played horrible (it's been wayyy too long since I played basketball for real). But I did post on facebook earlier in the week trying to find people interested in playing with the idea of making a group that plays every week that we can invite new people to to meet and stuff. There was a good amount of people who expressed interest in playing and just as many asking if I was looking for coaching/playing opportunities with teams haha (will not be doing that). So hopefully that turns out good this coming week. 

Saturday we had a lesson with our member who was baptized in October. He is a super chill and cool guy and his testimony amazes me for how little time he has been a member. After that lesson he stayed to help us teach our friend Rainmark that I talked about in the email last week (guy from Uganda with a lot of questions where the old lady member was talking crazy). I think Steven (new member) thought we were just going to make him teach the lesson himself while we sat there and watched cuz he was kind of freaking out before saying he wasn't ready. Steven had to leave early but was a big help. The lesson in total ended up being 3 hours and our lessons are really supposed to be kept between 20-45 minutes🤦‍♂️. Rainmark really just has endless questions and ideas, the craziest thing this week being him thinking that Jesus and Melchizedek are the same person (we helped him realize that is not true pretty quickly). Though he has all these questions he actually seems to have genuine interest in our church and not just there to talk theology and compare ideas, so I guess we'll see what happens moving forward with him. 

We called/texted all of our friends asking them to come to church on Saturday (something everyone does in our mission) and we had many people saying yes or maybe to coming to church. We only got 2 people actually come, one being the guy that the missionaries have taught for years (he feels like a member) and the other being a 17 year old girl I met a couple weeks ago who texted us like 2 hours after church saying church was nice but she already has a church she goes to so will be sticking with that one. So that was a pretty disappointing end to the week. 

Easily the biggest strength of this area is the members/ward. We had a lot of member meals this week which of course is good for the free food but really just great to meet and get to know the members and get some wisdom from them. 

Something we got talking about with one of our members this week was how a lot of return missionaries come home and feel that they are inadequate or not doing enough with the gospel because they are used to dedicating every day to it. And how a lot of them give up completely and stop going to church because of it. What our member was really trying to emphasize is that everyone has different capacities. How at home with regular life we simply don't have time to give the entire day to the Lord. And even as missionaries how some missionaries have a bigger tank and can work harder for longer. But what he was really trying to emphasize is all we have to do is our best, give everything that we can to offer, and the Lord will be pleased with what we have given. Even if it's just 10 minutes of scripture study, or as a missionary 2 hours of going really hard. It doesn't mean the people who have a bigger capacity and can do more are better. The Lord only expects us to give what we are capable of giving. There was a really good talk about this same idea in general conference last year called "the imperfect harvest". Here's a quote that I think sums it up well. "we are measured by our personal devotion to God that we manifest in our efforts to follow Him in faith. As we accept the Savior's invitation to come unto Him, we soon realize that our best is good enough and that the grace of a loving Savior will make up the difference in ways we cannot imagine." After this he goes on to talk about the story of 5 loaves and 2 fishes, where Jesus fed the 5 thousand with the small offer from the boy. Jesus took what the boy had to offer and made it more than enough. We do what we can and leave the rest in Christ's hands, and therefore should be at peace knowing whatever happens we did our best. I think about this week at church for me. We had the new girl come that I talked about earlier. She came in late, so I wasn't able to make her feel comfortable and welcomed like I would have liked by talking to her and explaining how the service would go. I explained a few things by whispering in her ear but that was about the best I could do. I sat there thinking how I could help this girl have a positive experience at church and feel the spirit so that she would want to come back and we could have the opportunity to teach her. I silently prayed during sacrament meeting asking what I could do, and the thoughts came to my mind that I had done my part in talking to her in the mall, and persistently inviting her to church the past couple of weeks, and now it was in the Lord's hands to help her feel the spirit and have a positive experience. Like I already said, she ended up texting us after saying that she doesn't want to come back to church with us. Yes it is frustrating, yes it is disappointing, but I don't regret inviting her to church before we could teach her or wishing that I did or said something else. I did the best I could and gave my offer to the Lord. I don't know why the desired outcome did take place but that isn't for me to worry about. All that can be asked of us is that we do our best and then leave the rest for Christ. If we give what we can to Him, we will find a lot more in return. 

"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it."

Sorry for the boring email, really wish there was more interesting things to write about🙃

Have a good week🙏❤️

Pics: 

Mission Week 45

Monday, May 20, 2024

Mission Week 44

Tjena, 

This week was a grind and felt really long. But naturally there was a few interesting and good things that happened because of it. 

The first 4 days of the week we basically had nothing planned as far as meetings with the people we are teaching or other activities. As I explained last week there's not really any good places to talk to people in so those first 4 days of the week were spent almost entirely talking to people in the small mall or door knocking. It was pretty exhausting just being out talking to strangers all day. Swedes are really hard and frustrating hahaha. The majority have grown up not believing in God, think that there is no afterlife, and don't really believe there is any reason for us being here on Earth. And they are not interested in the slightest to learn about it. And the rare Swede that is already Christian is usually pretty set on their own church and doesn't want to share perspectives. So the average outsider would think that we only talk to people who aren't from Sweden but the truth is that those are really the only people that will talk to us most of the time. But with all of that considered in all of the many hours of being out talking to people there was some good interactions sprinkled in and even a few with some Swedes :) -

-An interesting french lady who has three phones who initially didn't want to talk to me but after asking about nature in the surrounding area I was able to teach her about the Book of Mormon and she was really receptive

-A Colombian lady who was not interested at all until I pulled out the Book of Mormon and when I did she looked at it for a second and then told me to take her phone number and told me a day we could come by

-A Chinese guy who initially rejected me but like 30 minutes later he found me and waited while I was talking to someone else and then came up and asked me a bunch of questions about the church and being a missionary

- A younger Swede who has played professional hockey in Washington and is also super open to talking about Jesus together

Another interaction this week that gives an idea of what Swedes are like happened on the bus. I sat next to this teenager with earbuds in and just asked him if he had had a good day. He quietly said yes and then I just followed by asking where we was headed. He just avoided eye contact and after pausing for a second just said "why do you want to know". I replied by just saying I was just trying to chat with him and he quickly switched his attitude and said "ohhhhh you don't come from here do you". It could've been because my Swedish but by the way the conversation went I'm like 95% sure it was because I was just talking to someone next to me on the bus and Swedes literally just don't do that. So me and my companion got a good laugh out of that. And I ended up having a really nice conversation with the kid. 

On Friday we had two different members ask us to help them with yardwork. It was a sunny day and nice to get a break from just talking to strangers the entire day. One of the places we did service at was for a super rich couple who literally had a lake and this giant hill for their backyard so that was really pretty. Directly after service we had a lesson with this guy who has been taught by the missionaries for like 3 years but just has a lot of problems with different commandments and aspects of his life. Me and my companion realized as we were walking up the stairs to his apartment that we forgot to plan his lesson (had literally been doing service all day) so we kind of just had to wing it. But it was really cool to see how the spirit just took over and guided the entire lesson, and I think we helped Helge realize the steps he needs to take and things he needs to consider if he wants to come closer to the Savior. A nice moment where God definitely knew that we intended to plan the lesson so He helped us have a better lesson than we could have planned anyways. 

On Saturday we had a lesson with a guy from Uganda. He is a really deep thinker and has many many questions about pretty complicated deep doctrine things. The lesson/discussion went really long and was made more confusing for him thanks to the older member who was there with us who kept bringing up information (some true and some false) that just gave him more questions and didn't answer his original question anyways haha. Me and my companion were talking after and said that we were both thinking throughout the lesson "well this is the last time Rainmark will want to meet with us" because of how off the rails the lesson was going. But here was another example of the power of the spirit. My companion was able to tell about his conversion story and from that point on in the lesson the vibe changed from argumentative, to Rainmark honestly seeking answers to his questions and humbly listening to what we had to say. It was cool to see and really nothing but the power of God that made it happen considering the things our member was saying😂🤦‍♂️.

Me and my companion (mostly my companion lol) were getting caught up on some doctrinal questions this week that were making us pretty confused and I could tell it was definitely testing my companions faith. As the week progressed it seemed these questions became less of a worry to us and I was listening to a talk yesterday that reminded me of what is most important. The talk was "Drawing the Power of Jesus Christ into Our Lives" by President Nelson and as you can probably tell by the title focuses a lot on Jesus Christ and His atonement. President Nelson quotes Joseph Smith in the talk where he says "the fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it." This quote was a good reminder to me that though it is good to seek answers to our questions, our main focus should always remain steadfastly upon Christ. It reminded me that "because of Jesus Christ, everything can be OK" (Amy Wright). 

Later in the talk President Nelson talks about how we obtain the power of Jesus Christ in our lives as it is our greatest desire to receive His help. "When the Savior knows you truly want to reach up to Him—when He can feel that the greatest desire of your heart is to draw His power into your life—you will be led by the Holy Ghost to know exactly what you should do." After reading this it made me sit and ponder if the greatest desire of my heart is to come closer to Christ and draw in His power. And if it is my greatest desire, is that reflected in my actions and thoughts? And if it isn't my greatest desire, what is? And what do I want it to be? 

That's kind of a lot of my thoughts but I'm sharing those questions I thought about because I think those are good questions we can all consider whether or not you believe in Christ. Just thinking about how our actions reflect what our desires really are. 

Like President Nelson explains, no it is not easy to have our focus fully on Jesus Christ, "it is mentally rigorous to strive to look unto Him in every thought". But as we do, "our doubts and fears will flee". I've definitely noticed a difference in my life from putting in that extra effort to do my best in truly focusing on Christ in every thought. It does make a difference and it is worth the effort required. 

Ha en fin vecka😁

Pics:

Mission Week 44

Sunday, May 12, 2024

Mission Week 43 pics

Went to add pictures and accidentally clicked the send button...here's pics from the week

Mission Week 43 pics

Monday, May 6, 2024

Mission Week 43

Hej, 

Hope everyone is doing well. 

Pretty uneventful week for me. Here is a rundown. 

Tuesday and Wednesday was just spent saying goodbye to people in Linköping like it usually is when a missionary leaves an area. We met with a few members, the most notable being our new member from Congo who made us fufu, fumbwa, and fish (Congolese food) that was super good. Linköping is a cool city but unfortunately I don't feel that I made any strong connections being there only 6 weeks unfortunately.

Tuesday and Wednesday night was spent packing up all of my stuff for the 4th time already. Let's just say I was sick of packing the first time I moved🙃. My bags basically have no room to spare so travel day on Thursday I had to wear a fleece jacket as well as two coats in 70 degree weather. One of my suitcases also broke so I had to drag it on the cement for like half of the journey. Unpleasant but did the best I could haha. 

Another thing that happened on Tuesday night was a random lady walking around in our apartment at 3:30 am😃. I slept through most of it but woke up as she was walking out by my companion said he just woke up and saw someone walking around with a flashlight and then just got up and asked her what she was doing and she claimed that she was just trying to find her friends apartment but walked into the wrong one. Not sure why she would be doing that in the middle of the night but made for an interesting experience haha. And yes we normally lock our door it just happened to be on the one night we forgot. 

I kind of mentioned this last week but my new area is one of the smallest in our mission and I learned this week actually the second smallest in the entire Northern Europe Area of missions. The only one smaller is the one right next to our area but the thing is that our area is like ⅔ natural forests so with the places we can actually work with ours is by far the smallest. And what that means for missionary work is that there is basically no sort of city center or square that we can go to talk to people, besides this little area next to some apartment buildings where there is people walking here and there. There is a tiny mall with like one strip of stores that takes like 2 minutes to walk from one end to the other but that is also not technically in our area either. There also isn't really anyone promising that we are actively teaching right now so we are kind of just doing the best we can with our area. Trying to talk to people on the bus, a little bit of door knocking, and talking to whoever we can in those smaller areas I talked about. We did have a miracle already though with that. I met a girl in the mall on Friday and she said her family has been looking for a church to go to. They just moved to the area at the end of last year and haven't found anything yet. Apparently they got invited to church by some sister missionaries a couple of months ago and tried to come to church but ended up getting lost. They ended up coming to church this Sunday which was awesome. We haven't taught them anything yet so I was sure they were probably confused about the talk about the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and prophets during church, but when I asked if they had any questions they just asked if it is the same time next week haha. The mom said that she felt the presence of God during the meeting so I think they enjoyed it. Just the mom and the teenage daughter came this week but I think they are planning on bringing the younger children next week. (They technically don't even live in our area but since it is rough to find people in our area we are starting to work with the elders in the area next to us to kind of work together so we will thankfully be able to teach this family).

Other than doing what I described above we just had a few other random things that we did. A few member meals, a primary activity (a race by a lake), and a language cafe at the library where we painted. Needless to say things are going pretty slow so far but like I said before we are just doing the best we can haha. 

Don't really feel up to writing a spiritual thought this week so I will keep it simple. I'm sure many of you you are familiar with 2Nephi 28:30 " For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have." This scripture is talking about our wisdom and reception of the word of God, how it won't come all at once but the Lord will give us a little at a time. However I was thinking of this scripture in a different way, in that our progression or improvement in life comes in the same way. Which I think we all already know. But I can say that I've been getting a bit frustrated the past couple weeks that I have been on my mission for 10 months and still struggle with feeling joy and satisfaction. But of course if I look back I have improved immensely from the beginning of my mission. So we really all have a choice to feel like we aren't improving and being frustrated or mad about it, or we can look back at how much the Lord has gradually helped us improve and blessed us. The Lord has greatly blessed us all and really does help us improve gradually as we go through life and learn from our mistakes and trials. 

Mission Week 43