Day 331 - Happy December

Well hallå där ni vackra manniskor! 

Wow what an amazing week! So many miracles and blessings this week! One of which being snow! It is just a tiny blanket of snow, but it's still snow :) Elder Blackburn and I have been working super hard this transfer and I feel like I can finally say that I am seeing the blessings that have come from our effort and diligence. We have come in contact with some of the most amazing people I have met on my mission. The work is moving forward here in Uppsala! I love it here. We received some news this week that Elder Blackburn will also be training this next transfer. Meaning one of us is going to be leaving and doubling in somewhere else. I hope I get to stay. But if I end up leaving, I know this area is in good hands. Transfers are coming up in about a week and a half. I finally get my greenie! It's going to be a party.

This week we were in Stockholm a few times. On Tuesday, we had zone training. It was really good and we focused a lot on our testimonies of Heavenly Father and also of Joseph Smith. It was really spiritual and I was really touched and uplifted. They also introduced the church's new Christmas initiative. It is the new Christmas video for this year and the website and all that jazz. I really like this year's video. It makes it really easy to share with people here on the streets. It is powerful. If you haven't seen it, go look it up on the church's website! We have planned to find a lot of investigators with this video. Christmastime is my favorite time to contact people. Around this time of year, a lot more people are thinking about Christ than during the rest of the year. What a better opportunity than this to testify of Jesus Christ and why we need a Savior. I am so excited!

Wednesday, I went on splits with Elder Muirhead. He is Elder Walker's greenie. It was a good time! We worked really hard and talked to a lot of people. We had the opportunity to teach George. He showed up a little late, but we were happy that he came. Things are going good with him. He is just very busy. We had an amazing lesson about the Restoration of the gospel. He had a lot of questions and we had answers. We showed him the short restoration film. It was really powerful and he really liked it. We bore strong testimony of the need of a restoration and that Joseph Smith really was a prophet. It was a great lesson and the spirit was strong. We invited him to be baptized but he said he needs to learn more first. Understandable, I guess. We are going to continue to work with him and help him along the path back to our Father in heaven. I am grateful for the chance I have to met with and teach George.

We had a miracle happen on Thursday. Thursday morning, we had an amazing lesson with Klara. She is doing really well and is learning more and more and coming closer and closer to an answer. She has grown so much. We are going to meet here tomorrow hopefully. Keep her in your prayers! Then after the lesson, we got a text from an old contact named Dimitri that we tried to call. He said something along the lines of, "Hey sorry I was busy when you called. But I am going to the Swedish Church and I'm not interested if you are trying to recruit me." I laughed a little bit and then started typing my response. I basically told him we are not trying to recruit him, we are just trying to share a message that means everything to us. A message that will change his life. A message that has given me so much happiness and comfort and peace and guidance in my life that I wanted him to experience the same thing. I bore my testimony that this is really The Church of Jesus Christ restored on the earth today. I said some other stuff that was quite bold but needed, haha. Anyways, I thought he was going to say something rude back to me, but all he sent back was the word, "restored?". Before I could finish my response back to him, the phone was ringing and it was Dimitri. So I answered and ended up talking to him on the phone for about 35 min. Teaching him about the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and prophets and the Book of Mormon. It was so cool. By the end of our conversation, he asked if we could just meet up today because he had a lot of questions. So we met with him later that day and it was such a spiritual lesson! He is searching for the true church. He is also very religious (uncommon for swedes). He shared some experiences with us that were very close to him. The whole lesson we had a Book of Mormon on the table and when we got to the Book of Mormon, he asked us if he could borrow it. Haha we told him it was free and he gladly took the book. He told us that an earlier missionary had told him that this book would bless his life in many ways. He asked us what we thought. We added our testimonies to that missionary's and bore strong testimony of The Book of Mormon and that there is a real power in the book. We invited him to read it and he said he would. Later that night, we were at the Senior Missionaries' house for a Thanksgiving dinner! It was so nice of them to invite us over and it felt just like home! I didn't think I would get a real Thanksgiving dinner this year but I did! It was so good! While we were there, we got a call from Dimitri. He told us that he had been reading the book and that he was shocked, in a good way. He told me that he felt convinced and that he had lots of questions. He also said he prayed and didn't feel much. We were really excited and set up another time to meet with him. He wasn't able to meet us then and he is really busy so we haven't met him since then but we are trying! Dimitri really is prepared and I know as he continues to read and pray, that he will receive an answer.

Okay so the biggest miracle of all happened this week. I would love to write 5 pages about this experience but I don't have that much time so I will try to shorten it as much as possible. About 6 weeks ago I contacted a lady on the street who was about to have a baby. We taught her and gave her a card and a Book of Mormon. We didn't hear from her and didn't expect to because she was literally days away from having her baby. So about 2 weeks ago, my mom emailed me a comment that someone had posted on my blog. Turns out it was this lady, Caroline. She has been following my blog and said she would be really interested in meeting. So Caroline emailed me the next week. I emailed our number back and we called her and set up a time. We met with her this week and she is by far the most prepared Swedish person I have ever met. She has been researching a lot on the church and has already read in the Book of Mormon. It probably was the most spiritual lesson of my mission. She shared personal experiences about giving birth and feeling like God abandoned her for a while but then when she held her baby in her arms, she felt closer to him than ever before. It was powerful and we were all in tears. The spirit was so strong. I shared 3 Nephi 22:7-10 (look it up;)). She really liked it and it helped her a lot. We taught a powerful lesson and she loved it. She has been reading the Book of Mormon and has been praying. She is trying to come closer to God and find the church that is right for her and find the church she feels is right for her family. We have been teaching her a lot this week and she has been calling us with questions. She is really trying to search and find an answer. She is so awesome! I already care so much about her and want her to get an answer so bad. She has gone through so much in her life and has a lot of trials and challenges. We are helping her understand them and help her through them. After our first lesson, we gave her Mosiah 24:8-15 to read. It is about God helping the people of Alma and lifting their burdens. We met with her again today actually and it was another powerful lesson. She told us that when she read those scriptures, she felt a warm feeling go through her body and she felt really touched. We had a kneeling prayer with her and the spirit was so strong! We are going to continue to meet with her and teach her and help her find an answer. And turns out that she knows a couple in our ward who also just recently had a baby because they were in the same parent group. And her husband is from Austria and the couple is from Austria! Coincidence? I think not :) This experience just really showed me that the spirit really does work in people. And also, prepared people really are out there. We just have to go out of our way, put in an effort, to find them. I easily could have walked right by her and she might have never heard about the church. I know God loves each of his children and that he really does help those who are searching after the truth.

I think about all these people I meet with and I really feel such a love and care for them.  I know that Heavenly Father loves these people more than I could ever imagine, but I feel that I am able to feel a piece of that love right as I meet with them. It also helps me realize the importance of each and every soul - that they really are important to our Father in Heaven.

I want end this letter on a funny note. This week Elder Blackburn and I both cut our hair. We decided that we would cut each other's hair (bad idea because neither of us have cut hair before). So I offered to cut Elder Blackburn's hair first. I did really good on the sides and left the top longer. It looked pretty good actually! But then we decided to try out a "thinner" attachment that we found in the hair cutting set. So I asked him if he was sure if he wanted to use it. He said yeah so I went right up his forehead and it worked a couple times and then it took a huge chunk out of his hair hahaha! We were dying cause we were laughing so hard. We figured it would be better to just shave it all down. And we must have been using a beard trimmer or something because the longest setting was 6 millimeters. So we buzzed his head!! hahaha it was a lot shorter than we thought and he looks bald hahaha. I have been calling him Caillou for the past couple days, haha. So after that incident, I decided I probably shouldn't let him cut my hair. So I had the sisters do it at Family home evening last night. They had never cut hair before. But Elder Walker had so he coached them through it. It actually turned out really good!

Anyway, sorry this is so long. I gotta go. I love you all so much and want to thank you all for everything you do for me! 

Remember that the church is true!

Also remember that I love you!

MVH

Äldste Bailey

"Yes, you and I should count our blessings, but we should also make our blessings count!" -Neal A. Maxwell