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."
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