Hej på er!!
You know at water parks and sometimes on the lazy river they have a big whirlpool that spins around pretty fast? Well, that's pretty much like what it felt this past week as my first week in the office. There were about a million things to do and my head was always spinning, but it's so great to be here, back in Stockholm with Äldste Derr.
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| 1) The new group of missionaries |
The first part of the week was concerned about the transfers, which included new missionaries coming in and old missionaries going home after their two years. RIP pappa harper. We had the privilege to pick up the brand new missionaries from the airport on tuesday morning and it was so much fun to be around new missionaries. They had such a fire for missionary work and were so excited to meet their trainers and get to work. We were able to take them to a church that was pretty close by when we had a little bit of downtime and that experience in of itself was super cool to be a part of. When we got there, the church was completely closed and it kind of bummed me out, and everyone was freezing cold anyways and wanted to go inside, so I keep looking around for an entrance. We come up to a glass entrance, and i try pulling on the handle to get in to the building. A woman sitting at a desk looked very angry at me for trying to get in to the church. Also, it probably didn't look too good with 16 or so missionaries just knocking on a door of another church. It was pretty unfair for her....16 soldiers in the Lord's army vs. 1 swedish church priest. But, she got up from her desk and asked us very sharply what we were doing. I replied politely and respectfully and her entire countenance changed and she offered to give us a whole tour of the building! We got a great language and swedish church history lesson all in one! At the end of the tour, Ä. Derr and I had the opportunity to testify powerfully of the message of the restoration and gave her a card. It was great to see the change from someone being very angry at us to very accepting of us and curious to see who we were.
Amidst all of our other meetings, we had the chance to get out and do some classic missionary work, which is where the true joy lies in a mission. As we were out knocking doors this past week, we had a goal to get let in. After knocking for about an hour, and not facing much success, we had a quick conversation about our goal for that evening. With a new determination to reach our goal after remembering the one we had prayerfully set that morning, we knock on the next door. This snygg swedish man dressed up in a suit comes walking out and starts talking with us. We find out that the reason he is dressed up so nice is just because he had family night...like dang what a cute family they were!! The man welcomed us in and we taught them all about the gospel that has been restored to us! We are going back this next week to teach them more!!
The reason that I'm emailing today, was because yesterday we had mission leadership council. In our councils, President Youngberg just brings up topics and we get to discuss our views and experiences, so that we all can get a pretty good feel for what is going on in the mission. The spirit was so strong in that room throughout the whole meeting and it was amazing to see how each and every discussion was inspired. The leaders that we have right now in the mission are unreal...hur duktig som helst!!
Too many times in our lives, we have the tendency to focus on the things that we are not doing or doing poorly, and seldom on the things that we are doing right. I'm nowhere near perfection in my calling as assistant now, but instead of beating myself up over the areas that I lack, i instead can joy in the successes and take 1-2 things at a time to work on, and eventually, i'll reach perfection. Not in this life, but in the next life.
Hope you all have a great week! I'm flying out to Malmö in a few hours...so gotta blast! Hej då
Pictures:
1) The new group of missionaries
2) stockholm temple
3) hejdå pappa
4) halloween activity this past saturday
5) too cute,,,had to send
-- Äldste Steele
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| 2) stockholm temple |
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| 3) hejdå pappa |
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| 4) halloween activity this past saturday |
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| 5) too cute,,,had to send |
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