Hey everyone!
Wow, what a week it has been. The first few days I was chillin' in Täby with tons of missionaries, incoming and outgoing, and then next thing I know, I'm on a train headed to Uppsala. It's been such a wild ride, but I'm loving it here. We mostly use bikes here and so I realize now how lazy one gets when they have a car to do missionary work haha!
But, let me hop right in to explaining what is going on here in Uppsala, and while I can't write everything today, these are at least some of the highlights!
We invited a man we were teaching to be baptized this week and he told us that he would. Want to know why? Well, it's because 10 years ago, when he was given a Book of Mormon by the missionaries in his home country, he had a dream that night about the book and has since believed in the words, but because of so many moves, he never actually had the chance to be baptized.
Right before I got here, Elder Bird and Norin found a young man on the train called Juan. Juan originally comes from Colombia but has now lived in Sweden for quite some time. But anyways, we really wanted to try to get a meeting set up with him as soon as possible so that I could meet him. Well, after messaging each other a little back and forth, we found out that he was leaving for a cruise the next day and the only day that he could meet was the evening. He asked us how quick we could get there, and after checking the time the train left to get to his area, we knew that we needed to leave almost immediately to catch the train to where he lived. So, we dropped everything we were doing, got our shoes on and biked like there was no tomorrow to try and make the train. There was quite a bit of uphill battles, but knowing that our lesson was on the line, we kept biking. We parked them right outside the station and started into a full out sprint for the train and caught it just 1 minute before it took off. And even though the train was pretty full, Elder Norin and I found the two empty spots and both taught lessons there right on the train! Well, we finally came to the little city where Juan lived and he took us to a local pizzeria. He wanted to know more about Joseph Smith and so we taught him all about the great miracle of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He then told us that a few days ago in his religion class, the teacher told the students that only members were allowed to read the Book of Mormon, to which Juan interrupted and said, that's not true. I have a book at home that I read, to which the startled teacher then asked Juan where she could get a copy to read :)
On Sunday, when I went to church, I was able to meet a bunch of new people and I probably forgot everyone's names by now, but after a few weeks, I'll be able to get everyone's names down. But what I do remember was the joy that 2 returning members had as they shared their experiences of going into the temple for the first time. They were just glowing with excitement for the peace that was felt in the temple. They are now helping those around them catch the vision and feel that same peace that they are feeling.
Speaking of peace, I was super stressed coming into church yesterday, but then we sang a hymn, 'Master the tempest is raging' and when I sang the words 'Peace,peace be still' well, in Swedish, it was 'Frid var lugn'. So comforting to sing!! It's great to be here in Uppsala and to work with Äldste Norin! More to come!!
Ha det bra!
Pictures:
1) Uppsala station
2/3) Kyrkan
4) Vattentorn
5) 4 levande assistenter
6) Roomates for the past 6 weeks
No comments:
Post a Comment