sea2swe: The Finding Grind

Heeeeello allihopa! Hope each and everyone of you has had a fantastic week! Elder Walton and I both agreed this past week the days felt like weeks and the week felt like a day, but hey at least the week flew by right?

We've decided to try utilizing the pamphlets we have that teach the message of the gospel simply and quickly and it's been working great for contacting and finding, especially with language barriers! Just whip out an Arabic Book of Mormon and boom off to the races by pointing at stuff and having them read it.

My comp and I went out to a small Swedish town named Påartorp and did some tracting and taught a couple lessons and got some good potential investigators! We met a guy particularly named Tommy who wasn't very interested in religion at first so we just started talking to him and turns out he's a motorcycle mechanic and got excited and ended up talking with us about motorcycles for 20 minutes and showing us his current project in his garage, it's a pretty sweet harley. Turns out he has friends in Sandy, UT and he ended the conversation by saying maybe he'll swing by church sometime, everyone needs some comfort in their lives right? And said we're welcome back!

Wednesday was the big day! We got together with the Landskrona elders and did a finding activity we'd kind of planned but mostly decided to do spontaneously in downtown Helsingborg. We found these way cool professional signs in the church and a small fold up table and lots of pamplets and Book of Mormons and were on our way. We set up this stand on a busy walking street and had two of us manning the stand and two walking around talking to people. We taught some great street lessons and gave out some materials for about an hour and a half before the rain was coming down too heavy for anyone to talk to us! Great activity that we'll definitely do again, we got some hot chocolate after to warm up. Splits with Elder Nielsen the rest of the day in Landskrona.

We had a wonderful zone training with President and Sister Beckstrand and the assistants and zone leaders, they are truly inspired leaders and they gave some great counsel on diligence and the First Vision of Joseph Smith.

On friday we taught Bai and Terry how to play Blackjack and Texas Hold em and they loved it! We went to the Okassio's for dinner before innebandy and made dinner for them! I love the idea of it and they loved it, we made fettucini alfredo with bacon and green peas. Dessert was made by Elder Nielsen and Groberg, they did a strawberry shortcake. Who says Elders aren't good homemakers?! We ended the night with some innebandy with the ward, always a good time.

Saturday we took a trip north to Höganäs to visit some members! We met with Robin and Clas, Höganäs is what I thought of when I got my call to Sweden, it's quaint with these pretty Swedish neighborhoods and houses. We were told by previous missionaries to specifically ask Clas to use the bathroom when we visit. So we did, and he said to put our shoes on...the bathroom was downstairs in the basement with lots of spider webs and scary stuff, Clas is a brave old man alright. We met with Dan at night and sang I am a Child of God in Swedish with him! None of us were good singers but it brought the Spirit in a powerful and noticeable way and Elder Walton and I both decided we want to sing hymns with everyone we meet with! We read Moroni 4 with Dan and he had some great questions and comments about it.

We sang with the YSA's in sacrament on sunday and I got to give a little 5 minute talk on preparing for my mission since the theme on sunday was missionary work! Also our investigator Lars said he wouldn't be able to make it to church but showed up to surprise us, what a guy! Anyways we were happy to see him and glad he made it to church.

Thanks for the examples of hard work and diligence each one of you are to me, lets work hard and be diligent so we can all have happy and productive lives! Elder Holland said this "when we speak of those who are instruments in the hand of God, we are reminded that not all angels are from the other side of the veil. Some of them we walk with and talk with—here, now, every day. Some of them reside in our own neighborhoods. Some of them gave birth to us, and in my case, one of them consented to marry me. Indeed heaven never seems closer than when we see the love of God manifested in the kindness and devotion of people so good and so pure that angelic is the only word that comes to mind". What an amazing opportunity we have to be angels in the lives of others through our words and deeds.

Med kärlek,

Äldste Hainsworth