Day 76

Hej Hej Allihopa!

This week was great! Lots of cool experiences! This week was really sunny which was nice. Malmö is awesome and I love being here. I am really getting to know and love the members of this ward and all of my investigators. There is not a whole lot to tell about this week. Just work work work. We taught a lot of investigators this week! I have been getting really frustrated with myself in terms of the language and also with the fact that it seems like some of our investigators are going nowhere. I feel like this week was pretty tough. But it was a successful week. 

Tuesday: Not a super successful day. We taught Alex again as usual and we taught him the commandments. It was warm enough to teach him outside so we did. I like teaching Alex because it really helps with my Swedish. The rest of the day we contacted and did some swingbys. We were able to help teach one of the sisters' investigators named Hans. He is hard to teach because he never stops talking. Especially about his bird Kaisha. It was a good lesson. We taught him more about the Restoration. 

Wednesday: We had district meeting and it was super good. Prior to the meeting Elder Johnson, our District Leader, asked us to have a 30 min prayer the night before. I was able to do this and it was so awesome. I didn't know how or what I was going to say for that long, but once I started praying, I started to realize how much the Lord has blessed my life. I was also able to pray for different people specifically and focus on them individually. As I let the spirit guide the prayer, I was filled with happiness and love and I knew what I needed to say and what I needed to ask for. Because there are blessings that the Lord is wanting to give to us, but we have to ask. Something else I have started to do that I challenge you all to do after you close your prayers, is to just stay kneeling and listen. Heavenly Father will counsel, guide, or comfort you while you are on your knees. 

Thursday: Thursday went well! So the first lady I saw at the bus stop, I went and sat next to. She was old and super nice and told me that I was beautiful :) she said all the missionaries she has seen are beautiful. Made my day. What a sweet old lady. She wasn't interested though so that sucked haha. Oh well. Then we went to teach one of the wards recent converts named Fardin. He is Persian and a total bro. I will send home a pic next week. We taught him about Family History and about the temple. He just had is interview for his full recommend! He is also teaching me a little Persian. I can say that I am a missionary from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Persian! Then after that we went to Björn and Christian's house. They are two members we are in there 20's and they share an apartment. They made us dinner and we do role plays with them every week. We taught the plan of salvation this time and it was really helpful because they love to correct our swedish. We also taught Bill again. He wanted to move his Baptismal date to April 11 because he would be out of town for awhile. But he still wants to be baptized! He is so awesome! 

Friday: Friday was great! We had lunch with the other Malmö missionaries because the Relief Society had a dinner a couple days ago and they had a ton of leftovers and they told us missionaries that we had to eat all of it. Then we went to teach a new investigator that we contacted on the street named Donald. He is an African and loves God so much! He loves the Holy Bible and knows pretty much everything about it and knows a ton about prayer. All he needs is the Book of Mormon and he will no doubt be converted :) He asked so many questions about the BOM and was so interested and really wants to read it. We told him to read 3 Nephi 11 but he didnt want to because he wanted to start from the beginning. The lesson was super spiritual and I felt the spirit so strong as I bore testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. He said he would pray and ask if what we taught him was true. I have good feelings about Donald:) Then we taught Emmanuel again about the Plan of Salvation. It went really really well and he said everything made sense to him. We knelt down and prayed together afterwords and Emmanuel said the prayer and it was the sickest prayer ever! The spirit was super strong! 

Saturday: Saturday was good. We taught a less active member named Elizabeth with the Zone Leaders. It went super well. Then we went by one of our investigators named Jack. He owns a pizzeria. Hes not really progressing but we usually stop by to teach him a lesson or just chat with him. We dont know where he lives cuz he is in his pizzeria 24/7. It makes it hard for him to come to church too. That night we were able to visit Su in his home. He made us dinner and we were able to read out of the Book of Mormon with him and answer his questions he had. We had a really great disscussion about God. And as we were teaching him and explaining, you could feel the spirit in the room. He understood everything we told him and he seemed at peace. We taught him a little about prayer and he asked what to pray about because he could never think of anything. At the end of the lesson, we all kneeled down and prayed together and I asked Su to say the prayer and he was uneasy about it and didnt really want to. So I asked him if I said one, if he would say one after me. He agreed. So I said a pretty simple prayer. He said afterwords, "You said everything I wanted to say." We laughed and then told him that it was okay and he could say those things again. And then he gave one of the simplest prayers Ive heard. But one of the most powerful and spiritual and meaningful. I felt the spirit so strong. Afterwords, I asked him how he felt and he said weird. But that was the spirit he was feeling because there was no denying that feeling. 

Sunday: Sunday wasnt too eventful. We went to Church and that was good. Sadly, none of our investigators showed up.. That evening, we went to 

another lesson with the Sisters to two new investigators named Patience and Samuel. The are Sambo (which means they live together but arent married). They are also African and as soon as they let us in they started making us tea. Usually people drink root tea or natural or whichever one is okay to drink. Its called Röt in swedish but they poured us tea and me and Elder Brinkworth realized it was Black tea and the sisters didnt so they were just chugging away haha and we were trying to give them signs that it was black but they werent catching on hahaha. But luckily Samuel left the room to go find a book of mormon and so we hurried and dumped it all in the sink before he came back hahaha it was so funny. But the lesson went really well and Samuel commited to read and pray about the Book of Mormon! I love bearing my testimony about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon more every time. It is true!!! 

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers! I am doing great! I love it here in Malmö and I am working really hard! I love you all and pray for all of you! have an amazing week!

Love, 

Äldste Alex Bailey