Day 390

Hello there my good friends! 

This week was great! This week was filled with amazing experiences and such! I don't have very much time this week so this is probably going to be really short haha. I know I usually say I don't have a lot of time and still write a long one, but this time I really don't have too much time at all. I am doing great overall and Elder Williams and I are working hard and having fun! We are definitely being blessed as we are going out and giving the Lord our all! 

This week we were able to meet with Sonya a couple times. She is doing so well and really progressing! We had such a cool lesson with her on Tuesday I think. We taught her about the Restoration a little bit more but as the lesson went on, she started asking lots of questions about the Plan of Salvation. So during the lesson, we switched to the second half of the Plan of Salvation. She was really interested about the spirit world and the kindgoms of glory. It was a great lesson and the spirit was so strong! I love helping people understand the gospel. We bore strong testimonies of the restoration of the church and about the BOM and plan of Salvation. We also extended a baptismal invitation. We invited her to be baptized on the 27th of February. We promised her that she would be able to receive an answer by then. She said she would be baptized if she gets an answer by then! It was super cool. We also taught her again on Saturday. We taught her about the first half of the Plan of Salvation. It was really good. She had lots of questions again. We somehow started talking about why bad things happen to good people. Or why God lets bad things happen in general. I had read a really good quote that morning that I was able to share with her that helped a lot. Luckily she can understand English as well haha. It is from President Kimball:

 “If we looked at mortality as the whole of existence, then pain, sorrow, failure, and short life would be a calamity. But if we look upon life as an eternal thing stretching far into the premortal past and on into the eternal post-death future, then all happenings may be put in proper perspective. Is there not wisdom in his giving us trials that we might rise above them, responsibilities that we might achieve, work to harden our muscles, sorrows to try our souls? Are we not exposed to temptations to test our strength, sickness that we might learn patience, death that we might be immortalized and glorified? If all the sick for whom we pray were healed, if all the righteous were protected and the wicked destroyed, the whole program of the Father would be annulled and the basic principle of the gospel, free agency, would be ended. No man would have to live by faith. If joy and peace and rewards were instantaneously given the doer of good, there could be no evil—all would do good but not because of the rightness of doing good. There would be no test of strength, no development of character, no growth of powers, no free agency, only satanic controls. Should all prayers be immediately answered according to our selfish desires and our limited understanding, then there would be little or no suffering, sorrow, disappointment, or even death, and if these were not, there would also be no joy, success, resurrection, nor eternal life and godhood” 

I could right a novel explaining my thoughts about this quote. This quote has helped me a ton on my mission. But I will let you ponder and think about it! Anyways, Sonya is doing great and I am blessed to be able to teach her! It was just a cool experience because it happens so many times that investigators will ask about something or I feel like I need to teach them something that I studied that morning. It is cool how the Lord guides us in our studies as well.

This week, we had a zone training with all the missionaries in the Gothenburg area and some other neighboring cities. It was a really good training and it helped a lot. It was centered on a worldwide missionary broadcast that we saw last week called, "Teach Repentance and Baptize Converts". It was an AMAZING broadcast and I learned so much. The zone training was good as well. But the coolest moment and when the spirit hit me the strongest was at the end. As a zone, we stood up and recited "The Standard of Truth". I don't know if you have heard it before, but it is from Joseph Smith in a letter he wrote one time.

“The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every climb, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.” 

I absolutely LOVE this! As us 35 or 40 missionaries stood there and read that together, the spirit just ran through my body and it felt so cool! It felt like we were an army and that nothing will stop us from preaching the gospel and spreading the truth. It was a reassurance to me that this church is true and that this work will continue to progress no matter what happens. I am going to work as hard as I can to bring the gospel to every ear possible. Amazing things have been happening in this mission and in this zone especially. We have such a great desire to push ourselves and give the Lord everything we have and we have faith to know that he will help with the rest. This is His work in the end. I am so lucky to be a representative of Him and wear his name on my heart each day. I love missionary work with all my heart and I love the people I am serving!

Fun little side note: Elders Albertsen and Featherstone lost their phone right before zone training and it was super stressful because we couldn't find it anywhere and they needed it for zone training. After a while of looking and not finding, I asked them if they had prayed, they said no, so we said a prayer together. I knew Heavenly Father would help us find it no matter what. A little while after the prayer, we were able to get in contact with the office Elders and get the "find my iphone" up and running. Elder Featherstone and I were out by the car looking when we saw that the little icon was moving. We were like "Okay let's go catch this guy!". So we jumped in the car and basically we chased this icon around  forever. It seemed like this guy was running from us cause we were going in circles. When we got in the general area of the phone, we hopped out and started sprinting up the street. Okay so picture this in your head: Two american guys in nice suits sprinting up the street in the old european city of Gothenburg after a stolen phone ready to do whatever necessary to get it back. FBI or what? ;) haha we felt like secret agents or something haha. So we were asking everybody in the area and no one had found or taken a phone. Then we found him. Turns out it was just the security guy who gives parking tickets out. He just found it on the ground and didn't want anyone to take it. He gave the phone back without any resistance. So luckily we didn't have to use force. haha just kidding. He was a super nice guy and gave it back with a smile :) It was a fun little experience! Anyways, moral of the story is that Heavenly Father always comes through! I am grateful that He answers prayers!

Well, that's about it for this week folks. Thanks for tuning in. Remember that I love you all! Thanks for the prayers and emails and all that stuff! Have the best week ever! Remember that the church is true and that nothing will ever change that!

MVH

Äldste Bailey