Monday, February 24, 2014

February 24, 2014

Kära Familj,

Hi. Everything's good. Good stuff happened this week.

That's what I told Syster Haynes I was going to say in my email this week. What if that was the only thing I wrote? So much has happened that I have no idea where to start. We've been contacting like crazy and talking to everyone was see and we've been blessed so much by it! We've hit the 20 lesson goal for two weeks running and we're not about to stop and I know it's all because of our diligence and obedience. But anyway.

I'll start at church because I always run out of time. Church yesterday was as great as ever and as stressful as ever. We had two investigators there. The first was Ion (Juan) from Romania. We taught him on Friday and gave him a Book of Mormon, and between then and Sunday he'd read all the way through Mosiah 2. (Side note-the Romanian translation doesn't have all the chapters, so it's not as much as it would normally be, but it was still the first half of the book!) He said that it was "perfecto" and that he felt the Spirit while he was reading it. He speaks a little Spanish, I speak a little Spanish, and the Holy Ghost helps us out a lot. He came to church with us so he came to all three hours. We weren't sure what to do with him during the first hour (priesthood) because we wanted to teach him the second hour (Sunday School). Heavenly Father took care of it though. When we got to church we found out that Priesthood meeting was going to be taught by Brother Trejos in Spanish, and that it would be translated into Swedish over the headsets. So Juan could understand what was going on and he really liked it. Then we taught him during Sunday School about the Restoration. Then we had Sacrament Meeting. The girl who usually translates into Spanish was there this week so I didn't have to translate. Juan enjoyed Sacrament Meeting as well-even though I couldn't figure out how to explain what the Sacrament was. He was a preacher in the Pentecostal church for 37 years though, so I think he caught on. Remember last week how that member called us and told us about her friend Robert who wants to learn about the Gospel? He and his friend David showed up halfway through Sacrament Meeting, so we were pleasantly surprised. After the meeting was over we all had smörgås (Swedish style sandwiches) and our VIPs got to mingle. I think they enjoyed it. We got Juan safely back to the city then we went to Irma's house (the member who brought Robert) and taught Robert and David with her. It turns out David was baptized seven years ago in Spain, but stopped coming to church when his job made him work on Sundays. It's an amazing story how Heavenly Father helped him find the church again-Robert invited him to come with him because Irma invited Robert to come with her. So we gave David a Book of Mormon because he didn't have one here, and of course we also gave one to Robert and told him all about it. He hasn't been to church for a looooong time (he said) but he liked sacrament meeting and said he'll come for longer next week. Yay! They're both from Ghana.

The rest of the week leading up to Sunday was great as well, of course. Tuesday was cool in that we planned lessons for five different women. Even though we didn't have the opportunity to teach all five of them, we got contact with all of them during the day. Two of them were drop-by's and they were actually home and set up appointments with us later in the week. Two of the scheduled lessons we had worked out (Ulrika and Merita. They're both doing well.) and the third one cancelled, but she called us to tell us she had to cancel, which is a blessing in and of itself. (That was Maggie, who we also taught later during the week.)

On Wednesday we taught a family from Afghanistan who speak mainly Persian. They are super positive! The husband (Mohamed) said that when he reads the Bible he feels good and he just wants to keep following Christ. They asked us if we have services on Sunday and said they might come, but they live pretty far out of town so it's hard for them. They didn't come yesterday but we have another appointment with them this week that I'm super excited for! We found out that a member family lives out by where they live, so we're going to try and get them to come and meet them. Unfortunately they don't have the pamphlets in Persian, but they have the Book of Mormon and I think that they'll start reading it! We gave it to them in Persian and in Swedish while we were there. Their names are Mohamed and Hlimah and they have four daughters. I haven't met the older two, but the younger two are adorable; an eight-year-old named Sitara and a six-year-old named Sonya.

Thursday we had a sisters conference so I got to see all my Västerhaninge roomies again! Syster Sjöblom and I shared a pizza like in old times, and Syster Christison and Syster Larson were there as well. It was all the sisters in the southern half of Sweden. They talked about eating healthy for part of it so today we're going to try and buy more fruits and veggies to snack on... Syster Newell also did a really amazing presentation about scripture study. On the bus ride home we taught a guy named Gegitacho from Ethiopia. We actually had an appointment with him last week but we cancelled because we thought it seemed kind of sketchy and we weren't sure what he was really interested in. But then he got on the bus and recognized us, and we taught him the Restoration and he's super positive. It was totally directed by the Spirit because we had to tell him why we're here as missionaries and what our expectations are, but we also had to give him a second chance once he understood that. We taught Ulrika again and we brought a member with us who's recently come back to activity and it was PERFECT. The Spirit was so strong and Christina could relate to everything Ulrika said about the difficulty of coming back to church. I really think she would have come yesterday except that her daughter was in town. 

We went into Saturday with six lessons scheduled. After one cancellation and two no-shows, we still managed to teach five lessons. It was pretty awesome and it was all because of good planning. When Anja didn't answer the door, we taught a guy named Andre (from Romania) on the street. He actually asked for a Book of Mormon and told us his address so we can come by again. Then we taught Kadija (from Guinea). She told us she'd almost cancelled on us but then felt bad cancelling at the last minute, so she let us come. Then we were supposed to have a lesson with a girl named Nora but she didn't answer her door, so we dropped by the Trejos family and taught them. They are awesome and they helped us a lot with Spanish. After them we went to Maggie. She's doing really good, but she hasn't really read any of the Book of Mormon yet. We taught her the plan of salvation. Finally we taught Eldar and Khayla, a family from Azerbaijan who live downstairs from us. They're a really cute family and their little boy was super cute and fun. But they weren't really interested in learning about the Gospel.

And stuff happened on Tuesday and Friday of course. Every day we come home we're just like "well that was crazy. What a miracle." So the prayer list for this week would be: Juan, Maggie, Mohamed and Hlimah, Robert, and Jessica. And of course everyone else we're teaching, but those are the most promising ones right now.

The cabin trip sounds fun, but not as fun as Mom's girls' night out! I'm jealous of both, but I think I'd still rather be here. I didn't know Peyton was considering doing track. But to Peyton, good luck at all your competitions! I wish I could be there to see! And I hope Cody's having fun playing Ultimate. I'm also especially glad that Bo still likes Buddy the Hedge Pig (has Cody started letting us call him that instead of Ralph now?) and that Penny still likes that blanket.

Thanks for the vocab words! I wrote them down in my planner to study later.  {Merrill sends her words in Spanish to help her vocabulary grow.}

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Jag älskar er!

Love, Delaney