Day 397

Hälsningar!

Hope everyone is doing well! I'm doing just dandy! It was a hard but good week here in rainy Gothenburg. It rained pretty much the whole week. We didn't have that much set up this week so it was basically all finding work. We did teach a fair amount of sit down lessons, but not as much as usual. But that's okay. I love going out and working hard. It felt like we just got rejected all week and people were especially mean to us this week. It was okay, though, because that is exactly what Christ said would happen. We would be hated by all men for his name's sake. Despite all the rejection, we found a fair amount of people this week and have an awesome week set up for this coming week! Sorry I don't have very much time at all, so this might be ridiculously short. But just remember that not so much happened this week. 

We had a pretty cool experience with a less active member named Susanne this week. She called us up one day while we were tracting and asked if we could give her a visit. We weren't really sure who she even was. We had heard her named before but we had never visited her or seen her in church or anything. Anyways, Elder Williams and I took a couple from the ward with us to go visit her the next day. Turns out Susanne has had a really hard live with lots of trials. Her best friend had recently died which took a toll on her, and she also has PTSD. Turns out that she was in Washington DC on 9/11 when one of the planes hit the Pentagon. Like she literally saw the plane crash into the building. That was super hard for her. A lot of other things happened over the past 15-20 years as well that have just built up and taken a toll on her. Anyways, so with the PTSD, she has suffered some memory loss and can't remember so much about the church. So we were able to teach her the restoration and teach her all about the Book of Mormon. It was so cool to watch things come back to her remembrance as we would explain something. It was a cool experience.

This week, I had a very spiritual experience on the bus with a man from Syria. He had come here to Sweden and left his wife and kids there. He expressed how much he missed them and how dangerous it was there. He said how there are just bodies in the streets and how you can't go outside without worrying about bombs and snipers. It is insane. I was talking through the google translate on the phone and we talked a lot about God and how he will help him through all this. I would say something in English and then it would pop up in Arabic and then he would say something in Arabic and it would pop up in English. It was such a cool experience and my heart just hurt for this man. I bore testimony that God is our father and that he loves us and wants to help us if we let him. It was a cool experience and the spirit was strong. I absolutely love the middle-eastern people. They are the most kind, loving, caring people I have ever met in my life. It is crazy what they escaped and what they are running from. I feel it a blessing to be able to help them find peace and comfort in the gospel. 

On Sunday, I had to teach the Elders quorum lesson in church. They asked the missionaries to teach one Sunday every month. And Elder Williams had to teach Gospel Principles class, so I was all alone! I was super nervous. I felt really inadequate teaching all these well polished gospel learned Melchizedek priesthood holders anything about the gospel, especially in another language that they were way better than me at. Anyways, it started off really well. I taught out of a chapter of Preach My Gospel. Ch 4, learning to recognize the Spirit. We are teaching them how PMG is not only for missionaries, but for members. It was an awesome lesson and just about 15 min in, the stake president walks in and sits down and I was just like "awesome...". I got super nervous but as I kept teaching, the words I needed to say just kept coming to my mouth. It was so cool. I was able to teach powerfully and clearly. And I know it was the Lord who was leading me. In fact, about 60% of the way in, I felt really prompted to talk about member missionary work. I ended up hitting member missionary work really hard and got them all really pumped up. It was a super good lesson and everyone thanked me after. I know it wasn't me, but the Lord who taught those Elders. 

Well, I am out of time. I love you all and am thankful for all you do for me! Have a good week and remember that the church is true and that nothing is going to change that! 

MVH

Äldste Bailey