Day 90: Glad Påsk!

Tjena Tjena!

What an awesome week! Glad Påsk everyone! (Happy Easter). This week was really hard but also really great. Conference was amazing! It was so different watching it as a missionary. I received so many insights and I paid way more attention than I ever have just sitting at home on the couch haha. But also conference and Easter made me super homesick so that was hard. But it was also great here. It has been a slow past couple of days. Easter in Sweden goes from Friday to Monday. Which means there is no one home or on the streets. But on Saturday we moved apartments. And there isnt going to be any new Elders moving into our old one, so we had to move out and clean EVERYTHING. So we took time on Thursday and Friday to pack and clean. Saturday took all day to move. The new apartment is much nicer and in the middle of our area. I like it a lot better and the change of scenery was also nice. 

Tuesday: So transfers happened this week and our Sisters in Malmö both left and we are not going to have Sisters in Malmö this transfer. So they left Tuesday morning and we went with them and the Zone Leaders to the train station to say bye. Then we made breakfast with the zone leaders and helped Elder Krebs pack because he is heading up North. We taught Alex again later that day about Påsk. 

Wednesday: Wednesday Morning we took Elder Krebs to the airport and said goodbye to him. And the new Zone Leader wasnt coming until that evening so we had Elder Sheldon with us the whole day. Then we had district meeting in Lund which was good. Then we went and taught a less active member named Elisabet. She has us over every week and makes us tea every time. She has super hard Sconish and she is hard to understand but it is getting better and better. Then we went and taught a super old Chinese member named Peter Lee. He is in his 90s and he owns a chinese restaurant. His son and his family run it now but he just hangs out in the restaurant all day. When we got there he gave us a huge plate of Chinese food and kept giving us bottles and bottles of coke haha. I dont really drink coke so I would keep pouring my coke into Elder Brinkworths glass when Peter wasnt looking, then he would reach over and feel my can to see if it was empty then go get another can out of the fridge. Hahaha he is super funny. We felt a little bad because his family aren't members and they were kinda ticked at him for giving us so much food. Peter didnt care though, he just kept telling his daughter to go get us more food hahaha it was so funny. Then that evening we went and picked up the new missionary in Malmö, Elder Beck. He is super cool and a good missionary! I like him a lot. Then that evening we had Correlation Meeting and Ward Council. 

Thursday: Thursday was mostly cleaning and packing. We did have 2 lessons scheduled but one of them canceled. The other was with Emmanuel, one of our newer investigators. He is from Africa and loves God and Jesus Christ. I had an amazing experience as we were teaching Emmanuel. We were teaching him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we were planning on inviting him to be baptized. The spirit was so strong as we taught the lesson with power and inspired questions. When it was time for me to ask him to be baptized, I was super scared and I didn't want to ask him because he is a fairly new investigator and I didn't want to seem like I was forcing baptism on him. As it was time for me to say it, I prayed silently for strength to say it. I still didn't feel comfortable asking it but as soon as I opened my mouth, a warm feeling came over me and the words came out. I felt like it wasn't me who said them. And as soon as I said them, Emmanuel smiled and said "Of course I will". I just couldn't stop smiling after that and we committed him to prepare himself to be baptized on May 9. He is super willing to be baptized, he just wants to know more about the church first. I am so grateful for that experience I had. 

Friday: Friday was also a lot of cleaning and packing all our dishes and food and whatever we had. By the end of the day everything was in boxes and the cupboards and everything was empty. We went to Sports night and basically no one showed up because it was Easter. But luckily Su showed up a little later. Su is doing so good and progressing so well! He is moving a lot slower than most people but thats okay! We played basketball with him. And our ward mission leader named Simon who played basketball professionally in Malmö came and played with us too. During sports night me and Johan (the assistant ward mission leader who I am really close to and we are super good friends) taught a man in our ward also named Emmanuel. We taught him the 1st presidency message in the Liahona for April. I love that message! I encourage you all to read it! 

Saturday: Saturday was a moving day. Two other senior couples came down to malmö to help us move. It took basically the whole day. Then we got to watch conference!!!!! Conference was so amazing this week!! The only two sessions we get to watch live were the Saturday and Sunday morning sessions. So we only watched the Saturday morning on Saturday night. It was really good!

Sunday: We watched 3 sessions on Sunday. I loved them all so much!! The first was priesthood session. It was so good! I especially loved President Eyring's talk! I really applied it to my mission. It helped me realize the importance of the Priesthood I have and the companionship of the Holy Ghost. I really liked when he said that the power to speak and act in God's name requires revelation and revelation requires prayer. I pray every day for the spirit and to know the way to know peoples hearts. I also learned from this talk that who cares what people think about me? It is better to be feel weird or go out of my comfort zone or get yelled at or scuzzed off and give them a chance to hear the gospel, than to let them pass by and have that feeling of regret as they keep walking past me. I want to walk away from people not with the feeling of regret or failure, but with the feeling of "well done". Just like president Eyring on that guys doorstep. Su also came to the priesthood session which was awesome! 

There is a tradition here in the mission for conference called "conference godis". Where we all go to the store and buy a ton of candy (like the ones with the scoopers where you can fill up a bag with as much as you want). And we buy enough for all the sessions and eat them throughout conference. 

Good news!! If everything works out, Bill is going to be baptized this Saturday! He has been taught all the lessons and is super confident about being baptized. He is so willing to keep the commandments and he wants to be made clean again. He is so amazing and I couldn't be more excited for him! I will give more info on that next week. Everyone pray for him and that the baptism happens!

Anyways I am about out of time. I hope everyone had an amazing Easter. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers for me. I love you all! I want you all to know that I am absolutely loving being a missionary. Even though it is hard, I am growing so much physically and spiritually. It is so worth it. 

I want to give a quick should out to my good friend Ian Elmore! He is getting baptized this Saturday! Congratulations Ian! Love and miss you man! 

I hope you all have an amazing week! 

Love, 

Äldste Bailey