SOCIAL MEDIA

Mission Week 51

Tuesday, July 2, 2024

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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