Mission Week 55

Tjena tjena 

Hope everyone is doing ok and had a good week 👍

This was a bit of a long and slow week. Not a lot to say but a few experiences to share. 

After not replying for about a week I was able to run into Grace (girl who was a missionary for another church that I had a very spiritual lesson with) when talking to people in town. She left back to Uganda for a few weeks for vacation so prayers up we can meet when she gets back🙏

We had 2 lessons teaching about the Book of Mormon and restoration of the church with younger men from Africa that both went quite well. One from Sudan and one from Nigeria. The man from Sudan opened up to us at the end about some experiences he has been dealing with for many years. For his privacy I will not go super deep into detail but his experiences give impressions that some sort of evil spirits are involved which sounds crazy but I definitely don't think he was lying so that was interesting to say the least. 

We had a lesson with our friend who has been gone on vacation for like 5 weeks. He is agnostic and exploring with faith right now but we had a great discussion about the Doctrine of Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, enduring to the end) and he admitted have a hard time with taking the step in faith to really get the process going. He is a really charismatic guys and the discussions with him always go really smoothly. 

We did some more service for the older couple that lives in the middle of the forest. Picked cherries for like 2 hours and then they played us some of their Swedish folk music that they have official showings for sometimes. The lady plays the violin and the guy the accordion so it is a cool combo. 

Had a lesson with an extremely devout Muslim. Always good and interesting for me to hear other faith perspectives, especially from the people that are extremely faithful and active in their faith. Really nice guy from Gambia and he said he wants to invite us over for some African food sometime🙌

On Sunday after church we had a lesson with our friend Chris from Greece who I'm not sure if I've mentioned in my emails but he has been taught by the missionaries for a while and is basically a member at this point. He is just dealing with some personal stuff that will take hopefully no more than a few months and then he will be able to be baptized. But for the lesson we ended up talking about a lot of kind of confusing church organization and priesthood topics and he just said how clear everything was and how everything made perfect sense (like he always says). His faith and understanding are really impressive for how long he has been familiar with the church and he is a super nice guy who is never afraid to ask questions when he doesn't understand something. Love teaching him. 

I haven't mentioned it yet but we've been having a weekly soccer activity with some people in our ward. Simply put there's not really anything else I could do that makes me feel as unathletic and uncoordinated as playing soccer makes me feel haha. But I guess I am slowly getting better📈 Something cool with the soccer tho is that this random old dude from Ethiopia was just standing on the side watching us one week and we asked if he wanted to play and now he's been coming every week and is super friendly and also super good at soccer. 

In me and Zach's study of studying every scripture that references Christ, we studied Jesus's title of "Good Shepherd" this past week. Though Jesus has was too many good titles to pick a favorite, this is definitely a really good title for obvious reasons. There is many different things that Christ as Shepherd can mean/symbolize that these verses talked about. Including but not limited to: 

-Preparing a way for us against our enemies (Psalm 23:5)

-Being the shepherd and bishop of our souls, especially those that have gone astray (1 Peter 2:25)

-Seeking those who are lost or scattered (Ezekiel 34:12)

-A guide who leads us down the right path, who calls all to follow him (Psalm 23:3, Alma 5:38)

-Someone who "numbers" and knows each one of his sheep

-A comfort and support in darkness

I love how this title for Jesus shows us more deeply His love and support for all of us as His sheep, each person receiving this help in their own personal and individualized way. Christ is aware of each one of us and where we are in accordance to him. He seeks us out and calls out to each one of us. This week was filled with some mental frustration and despair for me for a variety of reasons (my companion, Sonya Massey, different social issues in and out of the church) which led to me feeling a bit distracted and on edge for a lot of the week. As my mind went back to this image of Christ as our Good Shepherd, it helped remind me that no matter how alone we may feel, how far we feel we have strayed, and how deep in the darkness we may feel we are, Christ is always there beside us, guiding us down the right path and protecting us from the darkness and enemies that may surround. He will seek us out if we are lost and give us the comfort and help we need.

Miss you all❤️Hope everyone is well🙏

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Mission Week 55

Monday, July 29, 2024

Mission Week 54

Hello everybody hope things are well with you all. This week was filled with a lot of things not in our area so not a ton of stuff to talk about. 

On Tuesday we had zone conference in Stockholm. Always good to see some friends and get to play basketball afterwards. 

On Wednesday we were back in Stockholm to have a lesson with some Sister missionaries and a guy they met that lives in our area. We just taught him about the Book of Mormon but during the lesson I saw him look up a Bible verse on his phone that is commonly used to "disprove" our church. But instead of saying something about it he just put his phone away and then turned pretty quiet the rest of the lesson. Not going to be teaching him more as he yelled at us when we called him again but got a trip to Stockholm from it I guess haha. 

On Thursday morning we had a lesson with our friend Fullah ("muslim" from Sierra Leone). We taught him the doctrine of Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, enduring to the end) and he really loved it. He was saying to us how grateful he is for our time to meet with him and how our meetings are becoming something that he really appreciates every week. He is doing really good and loves everything we teach. 

Later Thursday afternoon we went back to the older couple that we did service for last week to do more service this week. We just helped with random stuff around their yard for a couple of hours (lifting stones, fixing a tarp, picking cherries) and they fed us dinner as well. My favorite part of the visit though is that the lady who lives there had her 98 year old father over for a visit. He was a really funny guy and was telling us a bunch of jokes that he remembered from his English school books from his childhood. He is not a member of the church and isn't really sure if he believes in God. I really enjoyed listening to a perspective of someone who has that many years of life experience. One of the highlights of my week for sure. 

A few weeks ago I mentioned a lady from Iran that we door knocked and she ended up showing up to church that week. Well she now has come to church 4 weeks in a row and this week we were finally able to get a lesson with her and her son. Her name is Goli and her son's name is and is probably in his mid 20s. They both came here 4 years ago but her son can speak way better Swedish than she can so it was really good he was there. We told them about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and what makes our church unique and they definitely seemed intrigued. She expressed again that she feels like Jesus is calling to her, though they grew up Muslim (not by their own will) in Iran. There was a nice spirit in the lesson and she is really positive. Looking forward to what will happen going forward with them. 

On Friday night we went to Stockholm again for the baptism of a 14 year old named Jonny. He has been wanting to get baptized for almost a year but his parents took a while to get on board so he didn't have permission. He is like a celebrity in our mission though because he is constantly with the missionaries and even wears missionary clothes and proselytizes with them. Because so many missionaries have a connection with him our mission President let anybody with 30 minutes come to the baptism. There was a really strong spirit there and cool to see how happy these many people (28 missionaries came among many others) were for this one boy. Memorable moment for sure. 

On the theme of baptism I thought I'd talk a little about covenants. Though there is many things that make the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints unique, our individual ability to make covenants with God is at the center of God's purpose in restoring His church back to the earth. My mission president gave a presentation at zone conference with an object lesson demonstrating how covenants bind us closer to God. How as we progressively make more covenants with God we are drawn closer to him in a more tightly bound relationship with Him. In recent years many different leaders of our church have talked a lot about covenants. Here is a few quotes surrounding covenants that I was able to find pretty quickly: 

-"entering into a covenant relationship with God binds us to Him in a way that makes everything about life easier." - President Nelson

-"No matter the outcome, all will be well because of temple covenants." - President Eyring

-"The covenant connection we have with our Heavenly Father and His resurrected and living Son is the supernal source of perspective, hope, power, peace, and enduring joy; it also is the rock-solid foundation upon which we should build our lives." - Elder Bednar

-"The covenants God offers to His children do more than guide us. They bind us to Him, and, bound to Him, we can overcome all things" - Elder Christofferson

-"Keeping covenants made in baptismal fonts and in temples also provides us with strength to withstand mortality's trials and heartaches. The doctrine associated with these covenants eases our way and provides hope, comfort, and peace." - Elder Renlund

There's not much more I can add after all of those but covenants really are one of the greatest blessings God has offered us. As we make and keep covenants we are able to develop a special relationship with God that only covenant keepers can receive. And this is all made possible because of Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice, which is why all of the ordinances that are performed to enter into and renew covenants point to Jesus Christ through their symbolism. Jesus Christ is who we should follow, and covenants are what allow us to more fully do that. 

Matthew 11:28-30 - "¶ Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

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Mission Week 54

Tuesday, July 23, 2024

Mission Week 53

Tjenare

Hope everyone is doing good. This week had a lot of good things for me so I will pick some of the best / most interesting, but this still gonna be long. 

I'll start with an experience that was non missionary work related but probably the most interesting thing that happened. We were heading to visit some members that live about an hour away and we were already like an hour late because our lesson before it went long. They live basically in the middle of the forest so when we were about 5 min away we pulled onto a narrow dirt road that would take us the rest of the way there. Problem was there was a bunch of cars coming the other way so I tried to pull as far as I could to the right side of the road but miscalculated and our car ended up with the right two wheels stuck in the ditch/drop off that was on the side of the road (pics included). We tried to just drive out to no avail so we got out and tried to figure out what we would do. The lady who was driving the other direction who kind of caused us to go off the road turned around and was offering to help but there wasn't much that she could do. She was about to just leave when this African guy in a big white van drives by and immediately pulls over and gets out to see if he can help us. After looking for a place on our car that he could hook and not finding anything, he said he didn't have time to help us but to flag down the other lady who had stopped to help (who was now driving away) and have her drive us to the car shop he works at and tell them that Chris sent us. This lady pulled back up and Chris told her she needed to drive us there and she said that she didn't have room in her car because of her 3 daughters and Chris told her to just squeeze us all in. This was all in English and then she says to us in Swedish "I'm not driving illegally" so she preceeded to have all 3 of her teenage daughters file out of the car and stand and wait on this dirt road while she drove us to this car shop about 5 minutes away. When we went into the shop we explained the situation and told the guy that Chris sent us and so he just drove us in his tow truck back to our car. After digging through our trunk he found the hook that he needed so he simply pulled our car out with his truck and when we asked him how much we would need to pay he said "don't worry about it, just drive carefully". We were extremely blessed to drive away with no damage to the car, definitely a miracle that we got help from those 3 people. Not gonna lie I didn't think there was many good samaritans like that in Sweden haha. 

Besides doing some service (scraping off old paint) with those members that we were driving to, the rest of the notable stuff from the week was just a lot of lessons, many of which went really good. Here's a short recap of the good ones (bad ones aren't really worth mentioning) - 

First one involves a little backstory. So at the beginning of this transfer one of the missionaries serving in Stockholm sent us a phone number for a guy he met that plays basketball and lives in our area. Because of my toe, I told him that I wouldn't be able to play for a bit until it got healed but this past Monday he invited us to play and my toe is better now so we went. It ended up being pretty decent competition and our friend Unisa (from Sierra Leone, muslim) that I talked about in my email last week ended up being there as well. Another guy there who I was guarding the whole time and talked a bit with ended up asking about our missionary tags at the end and asked a few follow up questions about us being missionaries. Pretty regular stuff as a missionary and didn't think much about it but a few days later we ended up seeing this same guy walking in town and we stopped to talk to him. After answering some more questions about missionary life he just ended with "well you guys could probably preach to me sometime because I'm Christian" and offered up his number so we took it and ended up planning a time later in the week to meet him. A lot of the time we were with him was just spent talking a lot about his life and such (he is 19 and from Nigeria, named Justin) but we were able to talk about the Book of Mormon as well. He hadn't heard of it though he said he had heard about Mormonism before. He was pretty open to reading the Book of Mormon and wants to meet with us again. Cool to see something positive like this happen just from playing basketball🙌

Another lesson we had was with our other friend from Sierra Leone who is also Muslim, named Fullah. He is similar to Unisa (basketball player from Sierra Leone) in that he says that he is Muslim but believes a lot of things that someone who is Christian would. We taught him the Plan of Salvation and focused a lot on how Jesus Christ is what makes everything possible and he seemed to really like it and made some comments implying that he wants to continue on this path we have started him on. 

We had a lesson with this guy from Uganda named Gilbert who was really friendly. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and Restoration of truth+authority through Joseph Smith. When we were talking it seemed like he was not taking in anything we were saying as he was slightly nodding and then would butt in with a pretty unrelated question. After we explained everything my companion asked him what his thoughts were and he sat there for a second and said he didn't understand the question. I repeated it in bit of a different way and he just sat there for a second again and then says "What are my thoughts?..... It's wonderful!!! I am wondering why I'm hearing this now, why I am not a young man hearing this!" He then proceeded to ask some questions about how our church compares with Catholicism but in the end seemed pretty excited for reading the Book of Mormon and coming to church in the future. This was definitely one of the best reactions I have had to teaching this on my mission. 

Adriana (teenager from Peru/USA) who we taught last week and came to church met with us again this week and it went pretty good. The great thing happening with her right now is that she has made really good friends with one of the members so they have been spending a lot of time together which makes it easy for us to teach with the member as well. She came to church again on Sunday and has been reading a little bit from the Book of Mormon so things are going pretty good with her. 

Last lesson I wanna mention was with Grace who is also from Uganda. This is the girl that has just gotten back from being a missionary for her church in Peru that I was able to meet a second time on the street after she wouldn't give me her phone number the first time. Well going into the lesson she already knew all of the basic stuff about our church so we talked a lot about the importance of the Book of Mormon and the idea of God continuing to reveal more truth/information to us today. It was a really good discussion and she is really really nice and open to hearing out all the points we make. I don't know why but I have a really really strong feeling that this lady needs / is going to accept the Book of Mormon, but she is not quite there yet because she wants a spiritual confirmation before she starts reading, because she said in her whole life God has guided her step by step so she will continue to follow to the pattern she has learned. Something that was really cool that she said though is that the second time we ran into each other on the street (after she said we will meet if the Holy Spirit guides us to) she didn't even need to go out that day, but she felt like guided by the Spirit that she needed to go to the grocery store even though she didn't need food. And then on her way there she said when someone walked up behind her she already knew it was me before looking to see who it was. So basically just confirming that God guided us to meet again so I'm hoping it will just be a matter of time before we can meet again. 

On church this Sunday one of the members gave one of my favorite talks that I have heard in a sacrament meeting before. She talked about expectations - how they basically never end with a positive result. Either the expectation is satisfied so we have a sigh of relief or it isn't and we are feeling disappointed. She proceeded to say that someone once told her that disappointment is prideful, in the sense that if we expect something from God and then don't get it and are disappointed, we are basically showing that we think our expectation/will is more important than God's will in our eyes. Of course every expectation in life doesn't have to do with God and there are many moments where it is natural to be disappointed, but to me this was a good lesson on humility. That instead of expecting a bunch of specific things to happen we can have trust in God's will and choose to be grateful for our current circumstances, which in turn will create an environment where we can feel more joy. The member also shared two really good quotes from Elder Sabin: 

-"when nothing is expected and everything is appreciated, life becomes magical"

-"you will never be happier than you are grateful"

Humility and gratitude are both powerful ways to feel more joy in our life. However, they both take action and concentrated effort. As we put in that effort, the Lord will magnify what we put in. 

Mosiah 4:9 -  "Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend"

Sorry for the extra long email this week but thank you to all those who read I hope it was somewhat interesting. 

Ha en bra vecka 🙏❤️

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Mission Week 53

Monday, July 15, 2024

Mission Week 52

Yo what's good hope everybody had a good week.

Decently eventful week with some pretty good stuff for me: 

On Tuesday we had splits (switching companions for a day) with some Elders. They came to our area so we tried to schedule a bunch of lessons so the day was eventful. Last week I met a really cool guy on the street who is from Sierra Leone, plays basketball, and was interested in the Book of Mormon. Me and the Elder I was with for the day were able to teach him on Tuesday. The lesson started off surprisingly with him telling me that he is Muslim which he did not say when we met haha, but then he proceeded to say that he believes Jesus is the Son of God and died for our sins (which Muslims do not believe). We had a pretty chill conversation about faith and it seemed like he probably just considers himself Muslim cuz his family is but his faith reflects a Christian from what I could tell. He was really open to everything we talked about and seems interested in reading the Book of Mormon which is great. After the lesson we shot around on the church basketball hoop a little as well and he is actually pretty good for only having played 2 years. Also side note but the Elder I was with for the day went to high school with me (Connor Walton for those who know) so that was kinda cool to think that we are both here all the way from home. 

On Wednesday we gave a church tour to this dude from Nigeria and he was really intrigued asking a lot of questions and then we taught about the Book of Mormon and though he was slightly skeptical he had a lot of interest to read it and kept asking for chapters on specific topics that he could read. Was a little hard to find a chapter with a theme of prosperity haha but he definitely seemed excited to read all the chapters we gave him. 

Despite having a good amount of lessons we still had quite a bit of street contacting this week. I met a lot of really cool people that I have high hopes for, but I don't think it's worth mentioning any of them until something else happens. But there are 2 notable people I can talk about. 

One is an African lady that I met early in the week on Wednesday I think who had just gotten back from 3 months of missionary service in Peru for her church. After a good conversation about missionary work, she asked if there was anything she could do to help out in our missionary work, and I just said we are sharing a unique message if she wanted to hear and she agreed so I told her about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and such and she seemed pretty skeptical but it seemed like if I had more time to explain I could have helped her understand because she was pretty open. Unfortunately we had a lesson planned in like 5 minutes so I told her I had to go but asked if I could get her number and we could talk more another time. She said no, and that if God wanted it to happen the Holy Spirit would guide us to meet again (A lot of people say this to us as missionaries and we never meet them again lol). She said that she takes the same route every day so I was looking out for her the rest of the week and didn't see her any of the days. But finally on Sunday when there was like no one on the street to talk to I ran into her and she reluctantly gave me her number haha so that was a simple cool moment. 

The other is a teenage girl that I met on Tuesday who is originally from Peru but comes directly from living in Virginia for 7 years. She had only been in Sweden like 2 days when we met so after she said she was Christian I just invited her to church assuming she didn't have one yet. She ended up coming for a church tour on Saturday night and we had a member with us that connected with her really well and she seemed to really like church the next day despite a bunch of the young kids going crazy during the service. Not everyday that we meet someone that new to Sweden who doesn't have a church so that was awesome. 

This transfer as a mission we are focusing on studying about the Holy Ghost and have been studying a couple of scriptures a day from this long list of scriptures that talk about different ways the Holy Ghost can help us. So I have been able to read many scriptures that talk about how - through the power of the Holy Ghost - we can know "all things" or be told what to do in the moment that we need it. While I have no doubt that these scriptural promises are true, we definitely all have moments where we feel that following a prompting didn't lead us to a good result, or lack to even feel help from the Holy Ghost at all. It can easy to become doubtful or frustrated when we beg for guidance and feel like we don't receive anything. Or when we follow what we felt like was a strong prompting and then end up in an even worse situation. Elder Pieper shared such an experience this past general conference, where he prayed for guidance of where to work and after following the guidance they received, everything seemed to become a lot worse. He describes the trial it was for him "I began to question the decision we had made and its accompanying confirmation. We had trusted in the Lord, and things were supposed to work out. I had fallen backward, and it now appeared that no one was going to catch me." He goes on to explain that when praying about his challenges, he got the impression "Don't ask why; ask what I want you to learn". Though it takes a lot of mental strength and faith, we should try and see our trials as opportunities for growth. Whether we receive a prompting that later feels wrong, or think we received no prompting at all, we can always choose to trust in God and in His intricate plan for us. If we are seeking guidance from God we are always being guided, whether or it feels like it. And of course sometimes we will be guided into things that are difficult, because difficult experiences are what stretch our faith and engender growth. I have definitely seen this principle on my mission as I am now on the other side of some difficult experiences and can look back and see how much I need them to help me grow. God is always with us and He always knows what is best for us. 

🙏❤️

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Mission Week 52

Monday, July 8, 2024

Mission Week 51

Hej, hope everybody good

This week had some pretty good highlights. Things have been going good here. 

We still had quite a bit of street contacting this week but I've definitely been able to see a lot of simple interactions that aren't worth explaining in this email but just nice people or even mean people that are worth smiling at or laughing at. 

We had a few pretty good lessons this week. One with with our friend Michel (the one from Syria who wants to become a comedian). In the email last week I mentioned that we helped him recognize times that he has felt the Spirit since meeting the missionaries, and the best part of the lesson this week was in the middle of our discussion he just said "I think I'm feeling the Holy Spirit right now". We talked a lot about prayer among other things and he definitely is taking slow steps towards building a faith in God. 

We also had a lesson with King, the 16 year old from Ghana (the one who wouldn't take the Book of Mormon). His understanding is really low but he asks a lot of questions which is good. We just talked about the doctrine of Christ in a very simple way and I am starting to realize most of his faith is probably just because he is in a Christian family, as it seems he doesn't really know or understand a lot of things. After we were about done his friend came and sat down (we were at the library) and I assumed his friend was Christian too and tried to get him involved in our discussion. I quickly found out that he is atheist and we proceeded to talk for over an hour about why/how I believe in God. It was interesting for sure and just emphasized to me that everything comes down to faith, considering we will never receive physical evidence of God in the way most things are proved in the world. 

We also got to go to Stockholm twice this week. First was for in-person district council (meeting with like 6 other missionaries) that we do once every 6 weeks, which is always good. The second time was for game night on Friday. There is a game night held in Stockholm every week and all the missionaries who serve in Stockholm (there's quite a few) can invite friends or people they've met throughout the week to come. We are about 45 minutes from Stockholm so a little far to consistently invite friends and go, but some of the Elders in Stockholm have been teaching a lady who lives in our city who they wanted to introduce us to there. She didn't end up coming, but her brother, who also lives in our city, came with his wife and her sister. He is from Nigeria and the wife from Congo. I talked to him for a long time about a bunch of different stuff but it just emphasized to me that the best way to spread the gospel is to people that we already have a genuine relationship with. He is Catholic but after building that friendship with him he was open to maybe coming to church with us sometime or trying to meet up. He was a really cool guy and it was a great opportunity to make a new friend. Also I love big cities so always fun to get to go to Stockholm. 

Something pretty cool that happened on Sunday was a lady that we door knocked coming to church. We knocked on her door at the beginning of the week and she answered and just said she couldn't speak Swedish or English (most immigrants use that as an excuse if they don't want to talk), so I just started asking her where she was from and such. Her Swedish isn't great but enough to communicate, so we just told her where the church was if she wanted to come on Sunday. She said she would try and come, but with the amount of people I meet during the week who tell me they will come to church and don't come, I thought nothing of it. Well she did come to church and I talked with her a bit more and found out that she is from Iran and grew up Muslim, but lately has been seeing more signs in her life that she needs to believe in Jesus. And that when me and my companion knocked on her door it was confirming to her that she needed to commit to believing in Christ so that is why she came to church. She is a super nice lady and we should be meeting her sometime this week.

Another experience at church stood out to me a lot this week. One of other friends who was taught before I got into this area was at church, but we haven't been able to meet her since I got here because of some personal problems she has been having. But she told me at church on Sunday that she came because her 26 year old brother had died earlier that week and she wanted answers from God. Naturally, she was crying pretty hard during the meeting, but what stood out to me most was what the member sitting behind us did. It was a mom with multiple young kids, who always seem to be acting up during sacrament meeting. I have huge respect for mothers with young kids at church, so I would not have blamed this lady at all if she was just thinking about trying to keep her kids in check. But when she noticed our friend crying, she got up in the middle of the meeting and got some tissues for our friend from the bathroom, all while carrying her 2 year old daughter. Watching this woman made me think of a devotional by Elder Bednar that they play on one of the first days at the MTC for all new missionaries. In the devotional he talks about the Character of Christ, which he defines as "looking and reaching outward when the natural and instinctive response is to be self absorbed and turn inwards". Of course, we all have many unique and difficult trials in our lives that can make it difficult to think about anyone but ourselves, but Jesus Christ repeatedly showed us examples of turning outward and caring about other people despite extremely difficult circumstances. It is the natural response for us all to turn inwards when things get hard, but having true character means overcoming that urge and thinking about other people instead of ourselves. This is what Jesus Christ would do, and what He wants us to strive for as well. After all, that is why we are here on Earth - to strive to follow the example of our perfect Exemplar. 

1 Peter 2:21 - " For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps"

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Mission Week 51

Tuesday, July 2, 2024