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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