What's good everyone hope you all doing well
Not much to talk about this week.
First half of the week was mostly just a farewell tour for Elder Smith. Just visiting all the people he wanted to say goodbye to and we spent our pday at the thrift store so he could look for anything that was Swedish to buy haha. Thursday was transfer day so me and Elder Smith flew down to Stockholm together and then we waited there for a few hours and talked with a lot of other missionaries, and then I flew back up to Örnsköldsvik with my new companion.
My new companion is very reserved. He is really smart and really good at guitar and also a redhead lol. It has been a really tough adjustment for me getting a new companion though. Everything that I am used to just feels a lot different. He does a lot of stuff more by the book than Elder Smith did which I am not used to. Last week was probably the best week of my whole mission so far. It seemed like things were starting to pick up, and we had so many miracles. This week every thing that seemed like a miracle last week has fallen apart. Everybody who seemed promising seems the opposite now for one reason or another. This week has been really tough for me. I have felt a lot of discouragement and loss of motivation.
(I encourage you all to not skip past the spiritual thought to the pictures this week.🙂 I may as well have not sent an email this week without it.🙃)
My bright spot in every day has been my personal study time. I have studied so much good stuff this week that has given me hope that things will get better and that I can rely on Jesus Christ for strength. My best study of the week is when I listened to Elder Holland's talk "An High Priest of Good Things to Come". I strongly encourage everyone to go listen to this talk on their own, but I'm just going to share a few excerpts from it and you will be able to see why I liked it so much. "To any who may be struggling to see that light and find that hope, I say: Hold on. Keep trying. God loves you. Things will improve. Christ comes to you in His "more excellent ministry" with a future of "better promises." He is your "high priest of good things to come" … Even if you cannot always see that silver lining on your clouds, God can, for He is the very source of the light you seek. He does love you, and He knows your fears. He hears your prayers. He is your Heavenly Father, and surely He matches with His own the tears His children shed… [Jesus Christ] was misunderstood or misrepresented, even hated from the beginning. No matter what He said or did, His statements were twisted, His actions suspected, His motives impugned. In the entire history of the world no one has ever loved so purely or served so selflessly—and been treated so diabolically for His effort. Yet nothing could break His faith in His Father's plan or His Father's promises. Even in those darkest hours at Gethsemane and Calvary, He pressed on, continuing to trust in the very God whom He momentarily feared had forsaken Him." I know that what Elder Holland says here is true. God and Jesus Christ know us, love us, and understand what we are going through, even though it may not feel like it. Rely on Them in your times of need, and know that there is light at the end of the tunnel, that there is a brighter future ahead, with and through Jesus Christ.
I'm sorry if this email was so negative. Just saying it how it is I'm not gonna sugar coat anything. The bit of good news to share from the week is that we finished teaching our friend Jessica all of the lessons, and now we just need to talk to her husband (who hates religion) about baptism and get his permission. If all goes according to plan she should be getting baptized in the near future. A huge miracle and blessing for sure.
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