Day 48

Hey everyone!! 

I made it to Sweden!! This week was really hard, but I absolutely love it here! It is sooooo pretty!! We arrived at 8:00 am on Tuesday morning. We were greeted by the Mission President and his gang. President Beckstrand is really nice and an amazing man. I am excited to get to know him. From the airport, they took us on a tour of Stockholm which was really cool! I'm sorry I don't have any pictures of Stockholm.. my camera died right when we got off the plane.. I had Elder Hart take a bunch for me and of me and he didn't send them to me.. So I will put them on next week. We were all really tired from the flight though. When we got to the YSA center, each of us was paired with an older missionary and we went straight out to the streets of Stockholm and contacted people. I was scared out of my mind. But as I did it, it got easier and easier. Especially because most people said they weren't interested after the "We are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" part. People in Stockholm are the hardest to talk to because they all have somewhere to be. Then the 18 of us spent the night at the mission home. Sister Beckstrand made us dinner and breakfast. She is so awesome! That night we got to see two baptisms of 2 little Chinese boys. It was a really cool experience. 

Wednesday morning we all went to the local church and had an orientation given by the APs to kinda pump us up. It was really cool. We went over the rules and stuff too. After that, all the new trainers came into the room and we were each given a letter. It was like a second mission call. We were all super excited to see where in Sweden we would be serving! Mine said I would be serving in Malmö! I was really excited to go there!! It is the farthest south in the mission you can go. It's the 3rd largest city in Sweden. It is so cool! I love serving here! I haven't seen too much of it yet, but from what I have seen it is so awesome!! It's very Swedeny just like I thought it would be. It is cold and windy and always rainy. But that's okay because I like the rain. My companion is named Äldste Brinkworth. He is from Huntington Utah. He's been out 16 months. He speaks really good Swedish so I am happy I have someone to practice with. He is a good guy and really nice. 

Thursday, we taught 3 lessons and they were all in english. We taught Dennis, Nordin, and Elizabeth. They are all members of the ward. They all went well and I love teaching. 

So there are a ton of immigrants in Malmö. Out of all our investigators, none are Swedish. But about half speak swedish, so we teach them in swedish. We have about 8 right now and they are all african or middle eastern or asian. I actually haven't taught any investigators yet, but I have taught a bunch of lessons to members and less actives and recent converts. It is so cool. The spirit is so strong whenever we teach. We currently have 2 baptismal dates with investigators named Su and Jing. I haven't taught them yet, but Elder Brinkworth said they both want to get baptized. The only problem is that they are living together and they aren't married. We are going to meet with them this week and talk about that. We have another investigator named Bill, who is from Nigeria. We are going to ask him to be baptized this week because we feel like he is ready. Everyone we teach is amazing and I wish I could talk about everyone but I don't have enough time. We try to talk to as many people on the streets as we can. Out of the past 4 days, we only have one appointment scheduled. So hopefully it goes well. 

Luckily for me, our church building has a basketball hoop and wooden floors. And every Friday night, our ward does sports night. So on Friday we played Innebandy (indoor floor hockey. Which is actually super fun), and futbol, and basketball. There is a man in the ward who played professionally in Malmö, so we went at it pretty hard. I am happy I have someone good to play against. 

Sunday, I was able to meet the ward. This ward is soooo awesome and every single member is so amazing!! I struggled to talk to everyone but that is okay I will get better with the language as time goes on. I was called to bear my testimony in sacrament meeting and it went awesome. The gift of tongues is so real! The ward was so nice and complimented me so much on how well I could speak. (Even though I probably said a lot of things wrong haha). Then I got to sit in on the Sunday school class and tell the youth why I chose to serve a mission and the blessings that have come from it. (I did it in english) Most everyone can speak english here. But the class went really well. I had no idea what anyone was saying haha but I could feel the spirit which is all that mattered. That night we had dinner at the Grant's. And after the lesson, Brother Grant showed us this video of "proof that dinosaurs lived with humans" hahaha it was so funny how into it he was. He explained into so much detail his theories and how now that we have media, the government can't hide things like this. It was funny because the video was on YouTube looked like it was a bill nye the science guy video from the 80's. He was so convinced that dinosaurs lived with humans. Who knows? maybe he's right. 

I absolutely love it here in Malmö!! thank you for all your support and prayers! You are all so amazing and I miss you all! I love being a missionary! I'm so sorry for the lack of pictures... I will send 5x more next week!! I hope you all have an amazing week. Let me know if there is anything else you want to know or want me to put in these emails! I love being in Sweden and spreading the gospel in this beautiful country. I hope everyone has a fantastic week!!

Love, 

Äldste Alex Bailey