Yo hope everybody well,
Summary of the week for y'all:
Monday-Tuesday we were in a smaller city called Eskilstuna for splits with the Elders there. They don't have much going on in their area right now so the whole day Tuesday was just spent on the streets talking to people. Always cool to see new cities here in Sweden though, most of the pictures below are just of the city.
Wednesday - Thursday we had a lot of lessons scheduled but most of them canceled so most of those days were spent on the streets. Me and Zach have agreed if you have any more than 3 lessons scheduled in a day it's bad luck and the majority will get canceled the day of😂. This has held true the past couple weeks. We did have one lesson on Wednesday with this guy from Angola who is with Salvation Army who I think was trying to convert us but he was really nice and respectful and heard us out. Not interested though.
Friday we had a really great lesson with our friend Michel. I've talked about him a bit in these emails but he is from Iraq and 21. Really funny guy in a sarcastic type of way. He is agnostic though and has a hard time believing in God without a sign, and has met with the missionaries since April. We have had quite a few good lessons with him, one that I talked about a while back where we helped him recognize how he has felt the spirit in his life. Since then though he has been really inconsistent and kind of stubborn in our lessons so we were about to stop teaching him. But the missionary from our ward who came home last week said he would be on a lesson with us when we explained how it'd been going with Michel. Well this member Philip is super good at teaching and during the lesson just asking Michel a bunch of questions that helped him logically think about everything he's been taught and come up with solutions himself. Even Michel could tell he was a good teacher like halfway through the lesson he was like "you guys brought out the big guns today huh?". By the end of the lesson he was completely committed to coming to church on Sunday in addition to trying for meaningful prayers and studying of the scriptures. On Sunday at church he seemed to have a much more positive and receptive attitude. Really cool to see.
On Saturday we had a lesson with this 18 year old named Milan from Serbia. I met him a couple weeks on the street and gave him a Book of Mormon that he gladly accepted after I expressed how much it's helped me in my life. He is grown up in a strong Orthodox Christian family but the older he's gotten he has realized he's never felt that much of a connect to God and just has doubts. We talked a little but about his faith background and then just taught him the Restoration (Joseph Smith, authority, Book of Mormon). He admitted to being skeptical, which we assured was natural, but he said that he at least felt convinced to read the Book of Mormon. We told him we carry a bunch of Book of Mormons in our trunk so we could check if we had a Serbian one. He said that we didn't have to but we insisted so I went out to the car to check and before I could even look at the books he looked on the bookshelf in the room we were sitting in before and the only Book of Mormon on it was in Serbian. Pretty simple miracle but definitely not a coincidence.
That night we had a lesson with the Peruvian couple who only speaks Spanish that we taught last week. They are a really awesome couple. The husband Daniel is a super funny guy but also very intrigued and receptive to our message. We were able to teach them the full Restoration lesson this week and it really seemed to make sense to them. And of course we had a member on the lesson with us to translate which was awesome.
Sunday was probably the most hectic church service of my whole mission. Hectic in a good way though. Philip, the missionary who just came home, gave his homecoming talk so there was some family members there to see him. And then there was like 3 missionaries who served here 5 years ago back for a visit, all with a spouse or friend. And then our mission president and his wife also came (unexpectedly for us) to see Philip speak. So the chapel was already a lot more full than it normally is on Sundays, and that's not considering the many friends (people we invited) who came. We had Michel, Daniel, Adriana, Perry, the Peruvian couple with their toddler (I know most yall dont know those names but I'm not gonna put parentheses by each persons name explaining haha). Those were all kind of expected to come, but there was also a guy that I invited to church on the street who didn't want to give his phone number so I just wrote the church address on a piece of paper and he came. I do that to a lot of people so I was really surprised this guy came considering he's not even Christian. And then there was this African lady that I met like 6 weeks ago who we stopped texting because she wasn't replying but I saw her on the street this week and invited her to church and she came with her husband and 5 (!) kids, all dressed up nicely. Needless to say there was a lot of people to talk to, and when the family came in I had to scramble moving chairs for them to have room because the chapel was so full. It was a really awesome day and I just feel grateful that the Lord is blessing the ward here in Södertälje.
During church we sang the hymn "Secret Prayer", which is one of my favorites in English but I think I liked the Swedish lyrics even better (the lyrics have generally the same message but are changed to maintain rhyming).
'Må min själ bli vänd i bön,
och ej söka jordisk lön.
Bönen är ju mänskans tröst,
sänder himlen till vårt bröst.'
'May my soul be turned to prayer,
and not seek earthly reward.
Prayer is man's comfort,
sends heaven to our breast.'
I can't remember if I talked about this in another email but a few weeks back we were talking with a member about prayer, and he talked a lot about how important prayer if for us. That God is all-knowing, so on His part He doesn't really need us to pray. But rather prayer is an opportunity for us to build a relationship with God, and learn to humble ourselves and become aligned with His will. Just like the song lyric says - we shouldn't seek earthly reward. And as we begin to use prayer as a tool to come closer to God, it will become our comfort, and bring the spirit into our lives (sends heaven to our breast). If prayer is used correctly, it is one of the most important tools that we can exercise. President Nelson has repeatedly emphasized that our prayers need to be more meaningful. Here is one example: "Polite recitations of past and upcoming activities, punctuated with some requests for blessings, cannot constitute the kind of communing with God that brings enduring power. Are you willing to pray to know how to pray for more power? The Lord will teach you."
Prayer is powerful. God is good.
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