Day 226

Tja allihopa! 

I hope you all had a great week. This week, we worked harder than I ever have on my mission. I thought time was supposed to go by fast when you work hard, but this week seemed to drag on forever. It was a great week though! Filled with amazing experiences. Lots of contacting and tracting again. But this week we had some great lessons in peoples homes. I love being a missionary! 

On Tuesday, we had a family home evening at Pia's with David there as well. It was really fun and we had homemade pizza. Then we had an amazing lesson about the gift of the Holy Ghost. We had a disscussion about the difference between the influence of the Holy Ghost and the Gift of the Holy Ghost. The spirit was strong as we talked about how we can learn to recognize the voice of the spirit in our lives. I shared a story that Sister Beckstrand (wife to our mission president) shared at a zone conference awhile back. It comes from Boyd K Packer. He talks about a man, who "one summer evening was walking through a crowded park. Above the sounds of city life he heard the beautiful song of a bird. He stopped and listened! Those with him had not heard it. He looked around. No one else had noticed it. It bothered him that everyone should miss something so beautiful. He took a coin from his pocket and flipped it into the air. It struck the pavement with a ring, no louder than the song of the bird. Everyone turned; they could hear that! It is difficult to separate from all the sounds of city traffic the song of a bird. But you can hear it. You can hear it plainly if you train yourself to listen for it." So, the ability for us to notice the whisperings of the Spirit come only with practice. You hear what you are listening for. 

On Wednesday we visited an investigator named Lament. We taught him about God and how he can come to the knowledge that he exists. It was a really hard lesson because Lament is a heavy smoker and the smoke inside his house made both Elder Johanson and I super sleepy. So we almost fell asleep in the lesson haha. I also felt like I lost 3 years off of my life being in that apartment. But the lesson went really well and the spirit was definitely present. We just need to help him recognize what he is feeling. 

Thursday we had a really funny dinner with a random Somalian man who invited us over. His name is Omar and he is super funny and the nicest guy ever! He can't speak very good English or Swedish but he can communicate well enough. Anyways, he just kept feeding us loads upon loads of rice. We kept telling him that we were full and he said "Americans eat much" but in Swedish. And then he gave us black tea and we tried to tell him we don't drink it but he didn't understand and told us to dip our cookies in it. So we were pretending to dip our cookies in the tea and we said "mmmmm braaaa". "bra" means "good" in Swedish. Elder Johanson was just busting up laughing and he had no idea. And then when he went inside we dumped the tea over the balcony hahaha.
He also kept trying to give us his laptop and kept telling us to use it. Hahaha it was so funny. He is the best.

On Friday, Elder Johanson and I fasted for Kenneth. He had said he wanted to be baptized on Saturday so we fasted for him - that he will know what he needs to do and that the Lord's will will be done. We also fasted for an answer to know how to help him. I was praying a lot that morning, too. Then our answer came later that day at Zone Training in Eskilstuna. What was taught was exactly what we needed to hear. The Zone Leaders talked about those who are prepared to hear the gospel, and those who aren't. We named on the board examples in the scriptures of those who were prepared to hear, and those who weren't. And as I looked at the names on the board, I realized the difference was that those who were prepared to hear and accept the gospel, were willing. They were willing to act. They were willing to accept the gospel and its principles and change their lives to live according to those principles. They acted on their faith. We have done everything we possibly can as missionaries to help Kenneth. It is now up to him. He needs to act on his faith in Jesus Christ. I think Kenneth was very ready to hear the gospel. We talked about how people become prepared to hear the gospel through the experiences and trials they have as they go through life up to the point to when they accept the gospel. Everyone who doesn't have the gospel is like a cake. Everyone is cooking in the oven. The heat of the oven (life) is cooking us and shaping us into how we need to be when we accept the gospel. You can't try to give the gospel to someone who is not finished cooking yet. You have to wait until they are done cooking in the oven. People need to have experiences in their life to help them realize the importance of acting on faith and following Jesus Christ. And we as missionaries will do everything in our power to help people come to this realization. Sorry that was kind of long and I hope it made sense. It was just a huge testimony to me of how we can receive answers to our prayers through fasting. I am thankful that I received exactly what I needed to hear.

Sunday was another answer to our prayers. Jonas, an investigator we have been working with for about 2 months, came to church! He has always said that he will come, and never has. But he finally came! Jonas has a firm belief in God, but not Jesus Christ. We have been working and reading the Book of Mormon a lot with him and trying to strengthen his faith in Christ, but haven't really gotten anywhere. But on Sunday, every single talk that was given was about Jesus Christ. No one was assigned a subject to speak on. But they were all on Christ. I promise you it was no coincidence. Each talk was so amazing and testified of Christ in its own way. The testimonies that were shared of Christ were so powerful. After Sacrament meeting, Jonas told us that he was inspired, that he came to the realization that God and Jesus Christ have the same purpose, that if he is going to follow God, he wants to follow Jesus Christ as well. He was really fascinated about the sacrament and wanted to learn more about it. It made us so happy that he came and enjoyed church so much. He said that there was a special feeling there. We are going to teach him tonight about the sacrament and invite him to follow Jesus Christ into the waters of baptism! 

Well I am super out of time! I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful week! I am doing well and working hard and loving the work. Thank you so much for all your thoughts and prayers and emails. It's nice to know I haven't been forgotten ;)

MVH

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