Hej!
My mission is coming to a close, with only one full week left in Sweden, before I start making preparations to fly back to the US. There's just so much to do here in Uppsala, it'll be hard to leave! But I know that Äldste Johnston will continue to work hard and help everyone here. Speaking of my companions, we got a call mid-week that Äldste Mathias was moving to Skövde, and so we are back to the normal 2 missionaries in a companionship. I kind of miss being in a tripan, there really never was a dull moment.
We had the chance to celebrate Midsommar this week! This year, we went out to a member's house just on the countryside and had a nice lunch with a lot of the other members. That which was a little unfortunate, was the average age of the people at the party was about 70, and so Elder Johnston and I felt slightly out of place. But, we had a good time! Lots of good food. I was even able to avoid all the pickled herring that they were trying to serve.
Well, the party ended quite early and we were at home around 6pm. We had about 3 hours left in the day and we didn't know that we would do but we definitely knew that we weren't about to just sit around the house for a few hours not doing anything, and so we went back out to the streets. Well sort of. We decided to go out to Gamla Uppsala and see if they were still having some kind of celebration there. When we got there, we found out that the celebrations ended at 4pm and so there really weren't many people there, and they even had locked the gate that led to the midsommar pole. But, the craziest thing happened when we were there! We ended up running to a man that used to be a member of the church. He told us all about what has happened in his life and what led him to stop being a member of the church. We had the chance to bear testimony for him about the existence of God and the Restoration through the prophet Joseph Smith, that it was something that truly happened. He then told us that he said as we said that, it felt good for him in his heart. He recognized those good feelings that comes from the gospel. I hope that he can come back. It really wasn't a coincidence that we had that conversation with him. I'm thankful that we went out again and that we felt the day wasn't over yet. I hope that we can have that same attitude even to the end.
I think I had mentioned something a member named Odd the other week. Odd and I have become great friends over the past few weeks and I hope to get some of the pictures that he took in his career. I never thought that I could become friends with a 75 year old. But anyways! We met up Odd in the church on Sunday and he told us that we could come by later in the day to give a Book of Mormon to his neighbor. We came over to his house that evening and he first showed us around his apartment a bit, and then he put on his huge fluffy slippers and we went next door to knock on his neighbors door. We were let in almost instantly and had the chance to teach the Restoration and present a Book of Mormon! It was so awesome. Odd pretty much taught the whole thing and you could see how much he cared about the message and how much he cared about his neighbor. It was such an exciting experience, and it's just one of the many things that are happening with the members here!
Hope y'all have a good week! Thanks for the support over the past 2 years!
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