Day 411

Hej på er!

I hope everyone is doing well! Well, time continues to fly over here! Another week has flown by and my mission is going so fast! I love my mission so much and I love serving the Lord with no regrets! 

I don't have so much time this week and not so much happened. So I will give you a quick update. I feel like we have been doing a lot of finding work this week. Probably because we have haha. I would say our area is in "building up mode". When I got here, we didn't really have anyone to teach. So Elder Williams and I have really been building up the teaching pool. Over the last month, we have found a lot of interested people on the streets and gotten a lot of numbers. This week, I think we are meeting with around 4 or 5 new people which is super good. We have investigators that we regularly meet with as well, but we are trying to leave this area better than we found it and build up the teaching pool as much as possible. 

This week we were able to meet with Sonyaa. We taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a super good lesson and she learned a lot and asked a lot of questions. We taught about the importance and significance of Faith and Repentance and the role they play in the conversion process. In order to be truly converted, we must have a fast faith in Jesus Christ. That he is the Savior and Redeemer of the world and that faith must lead us to act. As our faith in Jesus Christ grows and as we learn more about him, we will develop the desire to obey his commandments and we will want to become like him. And we do this through repentance. Those who truly repent become truly converted. Repentance is making the necessary changes in our life and living in harmony with God's will. We talked a lot about repentance with Sonyaa because that is something we have been focusing on as a mission. Not rushing too fast through teaching repentance. Because those who truly repent and make the necessary changes in their live to become more like the Savior and those who do everything they can to follow his commandments will become truly converted. And those are the members who are faithful for the rest of their lives. Not the converts who are baptized and go less active after a few months. Sonyaa is doing great. She is progressing, but slowly. She has said how she doesn't want to rush this, and how she wants to make sure this is something she really believes in and really wants to do before she does it. We are continuing to help her along this journey. She still comes to church every week and we are going to meet her on Wednesday this week.

Last Wednesday, we were able to go on splits with the Elders in a city called Alingsås. It was super good! Alingsås has been struggling a little bit recently so it felt good to go pump them up! We talked to a ton of people and taught a bunch of lessons on the street. We found some people who were interested which was great! It was super fun to go work with those guys! They are studs!

On Thursday, something kinda scary happened haha. Elder Williams and I were out contacting in this mountainy forresty area and so there were a bunch of cliffs and hills and stuff and there was a random elevator that can take you up to the top of the cliff were the path continued. It looked pretty ghetto and we heard some banging on the top but we weren't sure what it was so we decided to go up. Well like we were going to go that way anyways. When we got to the top and the elevator door opened, we stepped out and saw four half drunk middle eastern guys turn around with pipes in their hands and as we walked out of the elevator towards them, on of the guys said "well, look what we got here!" and the other guys laughed and started to surround us and then I knew for sure it was about to go down and I was ready to fight haha. (btw we were in a really sketchy area of the city).  And then they started asking us who we were and where we came from. I started talking to them and joking around with them a little bit. I asked them where they are from and all this stuff and I let them know what I am doing here and when I told them we help people come closer to God they began to loosen up. And when I told them we were from America they absolutely loved us. They tried offering us the weed and cocaine they had as well haha and they tried speaking English with us. I had them teach me a little more Arabic and I just tried to be nice to these guys. The whole time I was making my way around to the other side of them so we could get outta there. We were all standing on a super high bridge so there was only one way out. That was why it was pretty scary at first. But I am like 95% sure that these guys intended on fighting us when we walked out of that elevator. As we walked towards them, I didn't know if I was going to have to fight or not but I knew God would protect us. It was really cool that the Lord delivered us out of these guys' hands. I am glad we were able to get out of there unhurt, even though I maybe wanted to fight just a little bit ;)

On Saturday, we were able to go to the baptism of a man named Joakim in a nearby city called Trollhättan. He was the Sister's investigator and has an amazing story. He was a hardcore atheist when they started meeting. He has an amazing conversion story and I was able to interview him last week for his baptism. It was so amazing and the spirit was so strong in that room with him. The baptism was so awesome and Joakim was so happy afterwords. I love being at baptisms and I love feeling the spirit that is always present. Things are starting to happen in Sweden and everyone can feel it. 

Saturday night, we sacrificed a little bit of our P-day time to go to a hockey game with a member and some less active YSAs! We went to one of Gothenburg's professional team's games. Their are called the Frölunda Indians. It was a super fun game!! I have grown a new love for hockey! The four of us went super hard and screamed as loud as we could the whole entire game! Everyone around us was laughing and calling us crazy Americans :) Swedes are super super reserved people so it seemed like the most they would do was clap or occasionally cheer when someone scored. So we stood out a ton. We tried our hardest to get on the jumbo tron thing but never succeeded. We also tried to give a mormon.org card to one of the players after the game but that didn't work either. But yeah the game was super fun and I completely lost my voice the next day! 

Well folks, I gotta jet. Thank you for everything you do for me! Thank you for the emails and the prayers and thoughts. They mean so much more than you know! Have a good week everyone! Know that I love you and am praying for you! Remember that the church is true and nothing is going to change that. Now everyone go out there a work hard and serve with no regrets!

Med många kramar,

äldste Bailey