Hallå allihopa!!
This past week did not start out quite as I had planned, as I woke up extremely sick Tuesday morning. I don't want to gross out anyone with details, but I think it's what they call the Double Dragon in south america. So yeah, it wasn't the most fun thing in the world. I just had to lay in bed all day and Elder Lewis and I were just stuck in our apartment the entire day. I first felt just terrible physically, but then I also was really sad that we weren't able to go out and work. It's quite a change from maybe even a year ago, where I would've loved to have gotten sick to get out of school or work, but I guess I've learned how to work hard and I've also come to love the work that I do here in Sweden. I hope in the future when I choose my profession, I can choose one where I will be devastated if I miss a day of work. But anyways, there I was just laying in bed feeling miserable, and I knew that my only hope at that point was to ask my companion and a member of the branch to give me a priesthood blessing that night. Elder Lewis and Fredrik Jonsson (branch member) were then able to give me the blessing just a few hours after I had asked for one. I truly had faith that I could be healed and be able to get back to work the very next day. It was such a powerful blessing and I'm so thankful for branch members and a companion who are able to honor the priesthood they have to bless the lives of others. Well as you can see from the subject line, I bounced right back on Wednesday, not even 24 hours later was I ready to go out and teach the restored gospel. This church is true and the priesthood is on the earth people!
The rest of the week ended up being super awesome as we were able to meet with Selma, an investigator we have been working with for the past few months. Before, she had been scared about baptism and what would happen to her when she converted from Islam to Christianity, but as we met this week she was able to say that all her fears have disappeared and she is ready to be baptized. She's so ready in fact that she looked at her calendar, saw that she was free today, and asked if she could be baptized on that day (just 3 days after the day we had met with her). We unfortunately had to say no since we still have a few more things to teach, but she did set a date for February 10th, so keep her in your prayers! She is so fantastic and is so thankful for all the amazing things she has learned in the church and from the Book of Mormon.
And now for the funny story of the week! Elder Lewis and I had come back to our apartment, but it was kl 20.00, and we didn't want to get home until kl 21.00 since we didn't really have much to do at our apartment, so we decided we would still stay out and find something to do for the next hour. Well, we gave our friend Emmanuel a call (Emmanuel is an All-Swedish league soccer player from the Congo) and we wondered if we could visit him. He said that he was on the way to the gym so we couldn't visit him, but we could meet up real quick at ICA to say hey and see how things were going with each other. Well, we went to ICA and met up with him and walked around the store a little bit as he was looking for some powerade #athletegrind Well, as we were walking around the store we ran into a guy that worked in ICA that always worked when Elder Harper and I bought groceries and turns out Emmanuel knew him so they started talking. Well, then Emmanuel leans to me and says I think he's Christian, and I'm like really? and he's like let me ask real quick and then he asks the guy working if he's Christian, and the guy says no, I don't really believe in anything. And at this point, Emmanuel just gets all serious and then just looked at him and said 'No' and I am just completely shocked that Emmanuel just said no to this guy's belief, and then Emmanuel goes on to say no again and then he says that he needs to come to church with us on Sunday. Emmanuel then turned to Elder Lewis and is just like you need to teach this guy about Jesus, what are you doing? and so then we invited our new friend Amin to church with us and at the moment he agreed to come with us, but he never came. But on the bright side, we have his number now and are going to try to meet with him again and hopefully have him come out to church next week!
That experience just showed me how bold we need to be with the gospel. We need to be more bold in our knowledge that Christ truly did come to earth, to live a perfect life, set the example for us, establish His church, and then atone for our sins. Atheism is growing more and more popular here in Sweden and throughout the world and it's so sad to see, but it's also such a wonderful opportunity to be here standing as a special witness of Jesus Christ finding those that still believe and standing strong in the faith that we have.
Have a good week everyone! Hej då
#varmodigt
Pictures:
1) Selma!
2) Emmanuel and the boys looking fresh at church
3) the Ica encounter
4) one of my bus driver homies
5) The man in the tower, Ove Rosen! a member in the branch is in charge of the clock tower here in Gävle, so he took us up to the tower for a tour of it
6) the bells were loud and noisy when they went off in the tower haha
7) last of all, our good friend Juhani! We met him on the bus about a month and a half ago and he's so positive. Him and his family are going to start coming to church regularly!
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2) Emmanuel and the boys looking fresh at church |
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| 3) the Ica encounter |
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| 4) one of my bus driver homies |
5) The man in the tower, Ove Rosen! a member in the branch is in charge of the clock tower
here in Gävle, so he took us up to the tower for a tour of it
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| 6) the bells were loud and noisy when they went off in the tower haha |
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| 7) last of all, our good friend Juhani! We met him on the bus about a month and a half ago and he's so positive. Him and his family are going to start coming to church regularly! |
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