Week 17, Högklint, Conference, Redneck Swedish and Service

Tjena!!!
Hey everyone!!! This week has been pretty crazy we have a lot of work to do in this branch because its so small but the Lord is definitely watching over this area. Elder Held and I have been contacting a ton becasue we need new investigators as well as some from the old area book. We have also looked for a lot of ways to serve this week. There was a quote I heard in the MTC that really stuck with me and I think that we are really able to use it in this area. "If you can love them today, maybe you can teach them tomorrow." That has been our motto this week because we have had members and investigatorsin need. Megan told me that she would get to do service so that she could wear jeans and thats true!! Its probably one of the only times we don't have to wear church clothes is when we do service.

Högklint and it is the highest
suicide spot on the island

On Tuesday we went to a members house to help with some of the house and yard work so that her house can be ready in that area to have people over to be taught. So we got do mow her lawn and take care of the weeds and things and do that for some of her neighbors and talk to them. It feels so much better to just go and ask people if they would like some help rather than jumping straight to religion. People get more excited when you ask if you can mow their lawn haha. We also got closer to an investigator in the area that has never let missionaries come over in her 4 years of investigating but we are going there tonight actually so we are really excited about that and we hope that we can help her feel that spirit to help her in her decision.

We were also blessed to help Tord this week who changed his baptismal date to the first of November so that he can feel ready and really get rid of his habits of smoking and drinking coffee... which, by the way, I have been told several times that the harder of the two is coffee... I guess it depends on the person but I thought that was super interesting. We helped him clean his apartment and gave him a few things to remind him of his commitment. We are going to try and do whatever we can to help him because it is not going to be easy. We also got to help his nephew who is also an investigator move. That was really cool because he got a lot more comfortable with us. We were able to really talk to him genuinely because he knows that we actually care about him and that its not just a thing we want him to have just because. I liked the quote from conference from Mother Theresa when she said that "My work is about love not statistics!" I think that is something I am definitely learning while I am out here that I really do care about these people individually and that I share the gospel with them because I want them to have the same joy that I have felt in myself and in my family and I know that they can have the same in their life. Those opportunities have been pretty amazing this week and I am super grateful for them. Also, the Swedish here I would describe as being super redneck Swedish. They used to have their own language now its just a super weird dialect but its fun to get used to. Örebro was a whining dialect and here is redneck... They have a ton of different ones in Sweden.

I remember dad and a bunch of people telling me that tracting is one of the least effective ways of getting to people but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. We did almost no tracting in Örebro because we could work the system and get in contact with people that knew other people. Here we only have a few members and investigators so it is down to knocking on doors sometimes. Which is actually really interesting but its helped me a lot develop a testimony that Heavenly Father is directing where we should go and what we should say. We felt promted this week right after a lesson to knock on one door before we left the area. She opened and was super positive and later in the week we taught her the lesson of the restoration. That was super cool because we have been praying to know where to go and what to say to find the people that are interested. I have a testimony that God cares about us and that He really does direct this church and the missionary efforts around the world. It is super cool to see. (I think my favorite with tracting is when people try to be nice and say that now is a bad time and then we ask if we can come back later and they think for a sec and just say.. nope I dont think that is a good idea either haha)

Also, this one is mostly for Megan. We taught a belgian girl on the street that we met and just taught her the first lesson standing on a cobblestone street in Visby and gave her a book of mormon. I dont know if we will be able to teach her again but it was cool to be able to meet someone that is from one of the places that Megan served!! Also, it just makes me happy to be able to share my testimony every day even if people arent going to accept it. That is there choice and they will always have the choice but the choice is also mine to share it and it always feels good at the end of the day no matter how many people turn down the invitation.

I hope everyone got to watch conference this weekend it was super good and talked a ton about strengthening the ward members and your own family. That was cool to see the shift in focus I felt like from missionary work from the past couple of conferences. I think sometimes we focus so much on outside of the church that we begin to forget how to take care of what is already there and what is inside our own homes. There were some amazing, inspiring talks. Its amazing to have the opportunity to listen to people that are inspired for our benefit.

Love you all!!!

Also this week had Visby day so we were in the middle of the city eating the best hot dog of my whole life (not even kidding) and we had knights that were on horses that rode behind us!!! I would show you but we forgot the cord to our phone. And I thought that it was just someone dressed up but apparently there actually is a knight of Visby... where am I? haha. Mom asked what we ate and this week we ate some rice

pancakes which had eggs and flour and some yogurt and rice because we didnt really have anything else. And they were actually pretty dang good!!

Jag sacknar er!!!
Äldste Israelsen

Check out this cliff!! Its called Högklint and it is the highest suicide spot on the island how cool!!