Day 684

Tjenare!

Hope everyone is doing well!! 

I don't have too much time today but I will dish out the best email I can! Things are going so well. I absolutely am loving my mission. As my last few weeks wind down, I have been really up and down lately when it comes to my feeling about going home. Of course I am excited to see my family and friends again, who wouldn't be? But today I got my flight plans from the mission. I thought it would make me really excited but it just made me really sad :( It made going home kind of real. It is going to be really hard for me to leave Sweden. I don't want to leave. I have made so many close friends here and gotten so close to so many people that it is almost like leaving on a mission again. The friendships I have made here will no doubt last into the eternities. This country and these people will forever have my heart. It's hard to leave them. Also serving the Lord and being a missionary is the best thing in the whole world. Not having to worry about anything else besides the gospel and other people's lives is the best. I wish I could do it forever. Okay I'm done venting about that haha I still have a few weeks to give the Lord my all! 

This week was good and we have worked hard. My goal has always been to work so hard that I collapse when I step off the plane. I'm almost there haha. The work is wearing on my physically but not slowing me down at all! One of the reasons is cause I have Elder Harrell by my side keeping me going ;) he is such a stud and doing so well! We are working hard and definitely seeing the blessings! We basically contacted all day Tuesday though Thursday. On Thursday it poured rain the whole day but we contacted nonetheless! We also were able to meet Sina on Tuesday! It was a great lesson! We had no way to have translation because we still had no phone and Sina had no credit on his phone to call people. But he can speak pretty good Swedish and then we used Google translate as well which helped out a ton. We taught him about the Plan of Salvation and about the Word of Wisdom. He had so many questions that we were able to answer! He expressed a desire to be baptized! We set up a baptismal date for the 10th of Dec! He is such a good guy.

On Friday, we had zone training in Södertälje. My best buddy Elder Carrigan is still my zone leader ;) he's doing a mighty fine job! He and Elder Päkää gave a fantastic training about the new Christmas Initiative that the church is doing this year. The video and the initiative will go live on the 25th of November! I love the video so much! It is so good and it is all about service. The theme is how we can serve like Christ served, in 25 ways, over 25 days. :) its going to be so awesome and a great tool for the missionary work here in Sweden and over the whole world. I love the message behind this year's initiative so much. The real Christmas spirit is all about love and service. If people take this seriously, it will change their Christmas this year and for years to come!

On Saturday and Sunday, we were able to travel to Stockholm for Stake Conference. We were able to go down a few hours early and take some time out of our Pday to walk around the old part of Stockholm and to see the sights and stuff. it was awesome. But stake conference was super good! There were so many good talks both on Saturday and Sunday. I was able to see so many good friends. Man, I love all the missionaries in this mission. They are the best. The highlight of Sunday was definitely going to Pablo's after the Sunday session. He invited 42 missionaries to his place to feed them all! It was crazy how many missionaries there were in his apartment. I don't know how we all fit. It was fun. Conference was definitely spiritually uplifting. My favorite talk was definitely Sister Beckstrand's. She gave a great talk about service and about sacrificing what we have and giving to others. I really felt the spirit during her talk and it helped me out a lot. 

Well, I'm about out of time. I love you all and I'm thankful for all you do for me! The church is true. Work hard my friends!

Godspeed

äldste Bailey