Elder Kyle Steele: "Vi ska döpa oss i en sjö"

Email written: 6/11/18

Hej på er!!

Well, another week down, and another week closer to a baptism here in Örnsköldsvik! Our investigators, Stellan and Eva, were interviewed yesterday after church and are going to be baptized this Saturday! Since we don't have a baptismal font here in Övik, and Stellan and Eva don't want it to be huge deal up in Umeå, they decided they want to be baptized in a lake on the outskirts of Övik. It's going to be such a special experience and Elder Hansen and I will be giving talks on baptism and the holy ghost at the baptism. Believe it or not, they (or at least Stellan has) have been investigating the church for about 40 years now, and have just recently decided that they finally want to be baptized. I haven't really taught them much, just two times over the phone about the importance of the temple, but I still feel a lot of joy in seeing a couple enter the waters of baptism and prepare to be sealed in the temple in a year!

MIRACLE ALERT: This week we were out tracting in Själevad. As we were about to approach the door of this one house, we saw a lady walk by and decided to try to talk to her. So, we quickly said something to her, along the lines of 'hur går det?' and she just said that she didn't have any time to talk, she was looking for a lost dog, and then just kept on walking past us. We yelled after, asking if we could help her find the dog and she just said no I think I can find it myself. And then that was the end of the conversation and we continued to knock on doors. We didn't have much success after that, just a younger guy that was eating dinner but wanted to talk with us more, and a lot of no answers or not interested. But, we continued to work hard and then we approached house number 18. We needed to walk around the garage and then up the porch to get to the door, but right as we rounded the corner of the garage, we saw two older people sitting down enjoying the sun. They were kind of surprised, as were we, but then we realized that one of the people was the lady that we had tried talking to earlier, but this time the dog had been found and was just playing around in the yard. Now, she and her husband had time to talk and so we just started chatting about who we are, where we come from, and the the husband said, hey grab a chair and sit down. And so we grabbed some chairs and sat down with them and then started getting really into religion, as they are strong Christians. We then pulled out a copy of the Book of Mormon and began explaining to them what it was. They had never seen the book before and had heard almost nothing about it, but they listened intently and we talked about how the book of Mormon coming forth was a fulfillment of prophecy, as they loved studying prophecies in the Bible. And so they gladly took the Book of Mormon and said that they would read a little bit of it then give us a call so that we can discuss it more. We then asked the husband to say a prayer before we headed home and in his prayer he said, 'Vi förstår inte riktigt denna Mormons bok men hjälp oss att förstå' It was such a powerful prayer and we really look forward to helping them learn more about the gospel after a summer trip they are going on.

A ton of things happened this past week, both good and bad. Elder Hansen and I saw a lot of miracles together and taught a lot of lessons to people interested in the gospel, but then at the same time we had a lot of setbacks. Looking back, it might've been one of the worst weeks that I've had on my mission. It's kind of hard to explain, but simply put, I acted really selfishly this week and lost my temper, and it really made me realize that I am human after all and that I do have flaws. None of us here on the earth are perfect, but we do know someone who is- Jesus Christ. It is through Him that we can change our weaknesses to strengths, anger to love, pride to humility. I know that I have a lot of things to work on, and I'm thankful that I have this time as a missionary to improve, but more importantly I'm thankful for this time to get to know Christ and learn to put all my trust in Him.

Livet ruller på! Hope you all have a great week, don't worry too much about me. I'm having fun and learning a ton here in Övik. Time will just have to tell who is staying and who is going once transfer calls come around at the end of the week. Ta hand om er!

Pictures

1) Splits with my zone leader, Elder wilson

2) They had graduation this week #tastudenten

3) greener than green here!

-- Äldste Steele