Week 74 Splits, Training with President Beckstrand, FHE at Mission Leader's House with 3 Investigators!

Hey everyone!

This week has definitely been interesting, we have seen a lot of cool things this week and we are so thankful to be here in Utby right now. The feeling in the area just keeps getting better and better. In the area but also with the members of the ward. It is interesting to see what kind of an influence that involvement in missionary work can help people to love the gospel even more. We have been stressing the importance of reading Preach my Gospel in families as well as the standard works. If we all read that book we would have so much more lust to share the gospel with the people around us and it would strengthen our own testimonies and the spiritual strength of honestly everyone in the ward. I encourage you to look and read and study there as well. It will help you to remember the simple truths that are the most valuable to us and it will help you to share your testimony in a way that people will understand.

We had a specialized zone training this week with the zone and the assistants and the president came down to instruct us further in what we needed to do. They talked about the restoration and how we received our own testimonies of the restoration and the prophet Joseph Smith. It really is powerful when we think back to the reasons that we are in church or are on a mission. If you have a second I would tell you to think it over and remember those experiences that you have had because they are powerful and something that cant be taken away from you. Really good training and it was cool to see my MTC companion giving the training.

Elder Albertsen and I went on splits this week with Kungsbacka and I went up there with Elder Sweat. He is an awesome missionary and we had a great time there in Kungsbacka. They have an investigator named Norbert who has investigated for a few months and we met him in a members house. The spirit was really strong as we talked about prayer and answers. It felt super good to be able to look him in the eye and tell him the answers that I had received and our invitation to him that we knew that he could receive the same thing. He is well on his way but the power of a testimony is incredible and it is up to us to share that witness that we have received.

We usually have a family home evening at our mission leaders house during the week and this week we had 3 investigators and lots of less actives there and it felt really good to have everyone there from all of these different backgrounds (Africa, Nepal, Sweden, Norway, american, middle east, china) just super cool to see how the gospel touches people from everywhere despite their background or culture.

In church this week we had 6 investigators that were able to come and 6 less actives as well! Really amazing blessing to see them all at church and loving it! We have quite a few right now that are on their way to taking the step to be baptized. I have one really cool miracle to talk about this week. So about a week ago our ward mission leader asked us to go by this lady that hadnt come to church in awhile. She was not there though but we tracted all 8 levels of this apartment complex and at the bottom we found this lady named azita who believed in Jesus Christ and we wanted to come back with a message about the book of mormon and she said thatwe could. After church the next week (so yesterday) we went over and taught her and her husband and they have two really cute little kids. When we were done with teaching the restoration she looked at us and said that she already knew it was true... we kind of just looked at eachother like.... umm what? haha but the day before we knocked on her door she had what she described as the worst day of her life and she didnt know what to do with the situation. She prayed to God that night to send help her way and we knocked on her door the next day!! That was so cool to hear and we will be looking forward to working with her in the future but it is absolutely mind blowing to see God working with these people to help them when they need it. The most amazing feeling is to be able to be a tool in the hands of the Lord and that is something that we all are as long as we are worthy and willing. Look for opportunities to be that insturment this week and I promise that you will see it.

We have had an amazing week and elder Albertsen and I are loving the work and loving this ward they are the best people ever. Also, Megan we had someone who lived in the netherlands for like 30 years move in to the ward. He says that dutch is basically a mix of swedish and german... so like thats pretty cool :)

Have a fantastic week!! Thank you for all of your support, ha det gött!!