Day 369

Hej på er allihopa!

Sweden is so beautiful! We have gotten a ton of snow this week. It's about a month late but whatever, it still came! It makes it feel so magical and cozy here, hahaha. But it is also super cold! Just like a cold that is sharp and goes straight to your bones. But it's a good time here :) Now that I think about it, despite the craziness, it was a great week with some amazing experiences that I will remember for the rest of my life. I love being a missionary!

So I'll start of with the first event of the week. So basically, my companion, Elder Burton, was having a pretty rough time on his mission and was not liking it very much. So, after a lot of thought and consideration, Elder Burton decided to return home. The next day, we got him on a plane back to the States. I really enjoyed my time with Elder Burton. He is a great person and friend. We had a bunch of fun together and he taught me a lot. I hope everything goes well for him back home. It was a good experience working and serving with him. 

On Tuesday, I pretty much spent the day in the mission office helping out the Office Elders. It was super fun but kind of made me appreciate the opportunity I have to be out on the streets everyday talking to people. I helped them with some orders and with the mission yearbook and stuff. It was a good time. I went to lunch with the office crew as well! That was super fun! We went to an american steakhouse/burger place. It was soooooooo good! Can't wait to come home to american food! ;) 

So then I took a train back that afternoon and got back to Gothenburg at 5:30. I am now in a tripanionship with the zone leaders, Elder Featherstone and Elder Albertsen (who are awesome, by the way!). At least until the end of the transfer. When I got back to Gothenburg, they picked me up and we went straight to a lesson with a part member family. The husband, Fredrik, is a member. And his wife, Jenny, is investigating the church. She has a baptismal date for next month. They are both so amazing!! Fredik went inactive for a lot of years and has been becoming active over the past month or two. He wants to baptize his wife Jenny. So he is doing everything he can to keep the commandments and become worthy to do so. He picked up smoking when he went inactive and he has quit again. It is so incredible to see the light and happiness in him change for the better as the Gospel of Jesus Christ has entered his life. The gospel has a funny way of doing that. When we accept and follow the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives, we will be happier, our lives will change, we will begin to feel Heavenly Father's influence and love for us, and we will begin to act on that love and help others. As we keep the commandments and obey God, we will be blessed. We will receive the power to meet lifes challenges and he will help us change our behavior and the desires of our hearts. I am so grateful for Christ, his gospel, and his atonement. Through faith in Jesus Christ, I know from personal experience, that he can heal us, both physically and spiritually. I know that if we turn to Jesus Christ and His atonement, we can receive help in our trials and He can relieve us of the guilt and shame that come from our sins. As we rely on the Atonement, we will feel the love of God, and He will help us with whatever we are going through. He will lighten the burden of our trials and the stress of everyday life. He will help us in our problems and challenges. We will feel joy, peace, and love! I will eternally be grateful for the atoning sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for ME personally and for YOU personally. I am so off track haha but I just want to end this little spiel with a quote I heard yesterday in Elder's Quorum from Howard W. Hunter. "If our lives and our faith are centered upon Jesus Christ and his restored gospel, nothing can ever go permanently wrong." So we taught Fredrik and Jenny about the spirit world and the three kngdoms. She had a lot of questions and was pretty confused but we explained pretty well and it ended up good. Then on Saturday, we met with them again and read 2 Nephi 31 and taught about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We talked mostly about baptism and the Holy Ghost. It was so awesome!!! The spirit was so strong and I know everyone in the room felt it. I am so excited for Jenny and I hope I am still around in a month when she gets baptized! This is one of the most amazing things about being a missionary. Seeing peoples lives change and watching that process happen! It gives you a certain kind of happiness that I can't explain. I love being a missionary!

Tuesday night, the three of us left on a little road trip to do work-overs in a few cities called Skövde and Jönköping. It was a fun time and I learned a lot. We spent wednesday in Skövde and helped out the missionaries there. They needed a little boost and some help in their area. They weren't getting along very well and we were able to go there and talk to them and help them and serve them. We worked really hard and it helped them out a lot. On our way home a few days later, one of the Skövde elders called us and told us how amazing their day went and that he would be 100% fine staying with his comp for another transfer!! That made us so happy! Because he was like destroyed when we got there. Just depressed and everything. But it made us so happy because we felt like we actually helped and made a difference! Then on Wednesday, we were in Jönköping. We did splits there and it was a good time. We felt like we helped them out as well. 

A short funny thing that happened while we were tracting an apartment building was that an angry kinda drunk guy came out of his apartment and started yelling at us and telling us to get out. I didn't let this guy just yell at us. Like we weren't doing anything wrong at all. So I talked to him (don't worry I kept my cool haha) and we explained what we were doing and that we were here to help people and this guy wouldn't budge. He even went and opened the elevator door for us. I wasn't gonna go anywhere. There were people who needed the gospel in that apartment building! He was being super rude so I punched him right in the face. Haha just kidding I bore my testimony to him instead! And I don't know if it was because he felt the spirit and his heart was softened or because he was a little drunk, but his mood changed completely and invited us into his apartment! We taught him a little about the Book of Mormon and what makes our church different. The spirit was definitely there. But at the end, he ended up taking a Book of Mormon and giving us his number and he said he would come to church on Sunday. I don't know if he ended up coming because this was in Jönköping, but it was a really cool experience because this guy went from being angry and literally about to fight us to letting us into his home and hearing the message of the restoration. I am grateful for that experience and how it strengthened my testimony! I know that the message we carry as missionaries really does change and soften the hearts of those we talk to everyday. 

So Friday and Saturday were pretty good! So for the first time on my mission, I have a car now being in this tripan! It is both good and bad! It makes it hard to contact people and talk to them which I love. But it also makes it easy to get to places efficiently and on time. On Friday, we met with a new convert named Azi, she is so awesome and we taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ! She is from Iran and helped me out with my persian ;) 

On Saturday, we visited another new convert named Lennart. He is around 70 years old and super funny. We taught him about the priesthood because he is going to receive the priesthood next week. He had a lot of questions about the priesthood. Like, why authority is even needed. He converted from the Pentecostal church and in that church, one can just touch another person where there is pain or sickness and pray and heal them. So he was pretty confused about that. We explained priesthood authority and why it is needed. We also had a great lesson yesterday in sunday school on the priesthood. I am grateful for the priesthood in my life and I am thankful for a God that trusts us with his divine power. Anyways, it was super funny because Elder Albertsen has gained quite a few pounds on his mission and he is heading home in about 3 months. So he wanted me to help him lose weight. So Lennart was feeding us some pretty unhealthy sandwiches and I told Elder Albertsen to only have one and Lennart asked why and Elder Albersten explained how he is trying to eat healthy. Then Lennart went on for about 30 minutes on eating healthy and why it is important and how he can lose his "stomach". He told Elder Albertsen that there is still hope for him hahaha Elder Featherstone and I were laughing so hard. Then it got even funnier because we wanted to measure Elder Albertsen’s stomach so he got out a tape measure and was measuring his stomach! It was probably one of the funniest things ever! We also got our stomachs measured as well. It was pretty funny.

On Sunday, Fredrik blessed his baby in sacrament meeting. It was such a miracle to see him do that because he has been inactive for so long. Then afterwords I told him how amazing his blessing was. He told me "Well, yesterday we talked about the Holy Ghost when you guys were over. I was so nervous, but I really tried to listen to the promptings of the Spirit and I know that everything I said come from him. I know that if I followed the spirit, everything would be fine." Fredrik is so awesome and had some amazing comments in Elders quorum! He and Jenny are so amazing and I am blessed to be able to work with them and see their progression. I don't know if I will be able to work with them much longer but we will find out about transfers on Friday! Their goal is the temple and that will be so amazing when they make it there!

Well, I am just about out of time. I can't believe it has been over a year that I was dropped off at the MTC. It has been an amazing journey and I am so blessed to still have half of it left. I am determined to work harder, learn more, serve more, and come as close to my Heavenly Father and Savior as possible. I am so grateful for my mission and how much it has helped me in my life. I cannot begin to describe the blessings I have received and how I have changed for the better because of my choice to serve. I love my mission and my Savior and I am so lucky to be able to be here in Sweden for two years to serve Him and bring as many souls to him as I can. I want to also thank you all for your love and support and prayers. I love each of you and pray for you. Keep sending me emails because I love to hear from you! I am getting better at responding so I will try my best! I just don't have so much time, but I love hearing how life is going back home! It makes me happy! Anyways, let me know if there is anything I can do for you guys! 

Know that I love you!

MVH

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