Day 530

Hallå hallå kära vänner!  

I hope everyone is doing well! This email is probably going to not be very long at all and I apologize! :(  

But first and foremost, I want to send a quick Father's Day shout out to the best dad in the whole world! I am so grateful for him and all he has done for me and all he still does for me. I am the man I am today because of him. He has always been there for me no matter what. I'm so grateful that he raised me in the gospel and taught me the way to live that brings the most happiness. If I can become half the man that he is one day I will be well off. He is one of my very best friends and I am so happy to have him as my dad. I love you dad! 

Things are going sooooo well up here in Umeå! I love it here and we are working so hard and giving the Lord our all and having fun! We have truly been blessed this week. I am so grateful to be able to serve my Savior in this beautiful country.

A big portion of this week was spent in Stockholm for "mission tour". A member of the Europe area presidency came and talked to us! His name is Elder Dyches. The Dyches were so loving and down to earth.  They just make you feel like 100 bucks! Thursday we all met in Västerhaninge for mission tour in Stockholm.  The Beckstrands once again did a fabulous job training on the spirit.  Elder Dyches taught about becoming master teachers.  He allowed missionaries to ask him questions as well. It was also so cool to be able to see everyone. It was a total of four different zones there and 110 missionaries or something like that! That is only about 2/3 of the missionaries in the mission. But there were so many people there that I hadn't seen in a long time which was good!

Friday we had a special MLC.  Elder Dyches trained on leadership. It was so good! I learned a lot. Especially about understanding the difference between an excuse and a reason, learning how to better lead and teach, and how to get rid of pride and fear.

He also talked a little bit about Andrew Carnegie.  When he died, they wrote this cool phrase on his tombstone.  It says something like this: "Here lays a man who drew better men to him than he was." Or something like that. It means is helping people around you to become better then you are.  I thought it was super good!! I need to be better about praising others and helping others be better. Even if it makes me look worse.

I would say that a small but really cool spiritual experience this week would be teaching our investigator with a baptismal date whose name is Pandu. It was such a spiritual lesson this week. I made a concious effort to be led by the spirit as I taught. It was so cool to feel the promptings of the spirit telling me what I should and shouldn't say. I remember a specific time I was ready to move on but felt impressed to go back and talk a little more about prophets. And as I did, it turned out that he didn't know much about what a prophet even was. And later the spirit was so strong as we asked him if he felt what we were feeling right now. I felt a literal burning in my heart. And it wasn't the usual burning I get when I step outside of my comfort zone to talk to someone of something. It was different. It wasn't a huge feeling but it was strong. I know if I didn't try to feel it, I would have missed it. I also felt the spirit very strong as we invited him to be baptized. It was just a very cool lesson. The spirit was definitely present and testified to us all that what we were dicussing was true.

Anyways, I'm sorry that this email was all over the place. I will be better next week I promise!!! :) Hey, I love you all! Have a good week alright? Thanks for all you do for me! Remember that the church is true!

Strength and Honor

äldste Bailey