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🙏❤️
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