Going Full Circle

Hey y'all!

This week we had specialized zone training with President and Sister Beckstrand and the assistants came down to Skåne for. It's funny how inspiration works, the conference was about strengthening our own and other's testimonies but I needed help with helping investigators making and keeping commitments and I got some great insights during the training. The assistants talked about being full time vs fill time missionaries and how it's important that our missionary activities are always focused on bring people closer to Christ. Work hard AND smart.

I learned a lesson this week because Elder Scott and I forgot to ask for bus card money to the office until saturday and it can't be submitted until monday and it takes 3-5 days to process so we've been living life behind bars. I've actually enjoyed biking, the weather's been cold but sunny and you get to see the city in a different way. 

Funny language moment for ya, Elder Scott and I were roleplaying teaching someone on the street for companion study and he was the person and I was the missionary. He was playing an atheist and he was talking to me, the missionary, about how God can't exist because of all the suffering in the world. He said (in Swedish), "det är hemskt att Isis skjutsa människor" which essentially translates to "it's terrible that Isis gives people rides". Haha "skjutsa" is to give a ride, "skjuta" is to shoot. I can totally relate to Äldste Scott is the beautiful thing about training, I've been there my man. Still am there sometimes. 

So the same crazy guy from Romania that talked with Elder Christensen and I in Kungsbacka station 10 months ago took the same train as us down to Malmö on monday and that was the highlight of the day. He didn't have a ticket so he pretended to ring someone when the bus conductor comes pass and it totally worked. His sister is princess diana, he loves sweden cause he can shop lift and only spend 3 days in prison, he was on the train to denmark to sleep then was coming back, he was quite the legend. Came full circle. 

Hope everyone has a solid week, love you all! 

Äldste Hainsworth

 We came, we saw, we conquered

Nimis for p day today was freezing but so cool! 

Romanian guy

From Monika Pettersson:  

Week of Faith

Tjänare allesammans! Here's a couple of the highlights of this rainy but great week that seemed to fly right by. 

One of the funniest things happened on my mission this week, at least judging by how hard we laughed. We were with Bai and Terry on friday who I love so much and will miss a ton when I leave Helsingborg. We were talking about weird foods they eat for Chinese New Years (happy chinese new years!!) and they brought up turtle soup. We were confused and asked them to explain how they made it and so Bai tells Terry to google it and show us. So Terry hops on his computer and searches "turtles" and obviously just pictures of like cartoon turtles and some real turtles appear and Terry was confused and just sat there wondering why we were cracking up. So Bai came and helped him out and typed in "Chinese New Year's turtles". Sounds silly looking back on it but in the moment we could not stop laughing. The language barrier makes for some funny experiences.

On thursday Elder Scott and I traveled out to Klippan which is a cool little town about 40 minutes outside the city by train. We went out there to visit and member and his girlfriend who randomly called the church phone (luckily a member was here to answer it) and said they wanted to talk with us.  The member's named Wisdom, from Nigeria and his girlfriend is named Ann Marie, from Sweden. They live sambo which means together but not married. They had some questions about getting married and mostly about baptizing their baby. We gladly explained baptism in the church and how we wait till they're accountable to choose for themselves and they were suprised but liked the idea of a baby blessing too. We also asked Ann Marie if she'd like to be baptized and she wasn't sure. We'll definitely be going back because this family has so many blessings waiting for them if they build their family on the rock of the gospel (3 Nephi 14:24-27). 

We had a great challenge this week from the zone leaders of inviting someone to be baptized everyday this week. It was a big lesson to me of not being afraid to fulfill our purpose as a missionary, which is to invite people to come unto Christ, even if it's on the street or at a bus stop. Most of the time they say no or I'm not sure but that's the beauty of it because we're inviting them to come unto Christ and opening our mouths and that's all the Lord asks. When we INVITE we SUCCEED. That's my lesson for the week, try and understand the people then be bold! Everything else will fall into place from there. 

Deuces and Pusses! 

Äldste Hainsworth

A taste of Bai and Terry's chinese grocery store, featuring Bai and Terry

If this had been around when I was a kid...

Really sad reality of Sweden, people always digging in the trash for bottles and cans they can recycle and get a couple krowns from 

 Good to know the Americans in our ward have their priorities straight

Updates & New Mates

Hey all! I feel like this email just needs some quick updates on lots of people we work with so I'll go ahead and crank those out. Hopefully it helps! 

Erik and Peter- meet with them every other week, they're determined to read the whole Book of Mormon before they accept or deny the Church so we meet with them and answer their questions about what they've read. Really making progress though.

Dan- he's been very up and down and slammed the door in our faces earlier in the week but then called us and invited us over a couple days later so we've essentially dropped Dan because it's such a huge time commitment and he's essentially going in a circle with no real progress. Very sad but we still encourage him to read and pray and come to Church. 

Demetri- he came to church and went to a YSA activity and is pretty tough to meet with but we keep on trying. Working on getting hometeachers for him and his family as well. 

Tommy- haven't had the chance to go out to Påarp in a while to visit Tommy but we will certainly be going this week.

Lars- long period of no contact with Lars but he's texted us saying he's been busy but is still interested and hope we're doing well so we'll hopefully start teaching Lars again soon.

Sebastian and Kade- they're busy with school so it's tough to meet and they haven't made it to church yet but we're excited to keep teaching them, Plan of Salvation is next on the agenda. 

Tina- we haven't met with her since the first lesson since we're letting her and her husband CJ take it at their pace but hopefully will teach another lesson soon. We helped them with a HUGE move on saturday that was a 6 hour full body workout, I was fried after that. Felt good helping out though. And hanging out with their super cute dog. 

Two stories for this week! The Landskrona elders and us like to do contacting blitzes sometimes where we switch comps and go hit the streets, it's fun and surprisingly effective. So during one of these blitzes Elder Mason and I contact a guy named Alexander whose got the classic earbuds in hoodie on. We was immediately interested in hearing our message and we got his number before we really started talking! We met up with him a few days later and had a GREAT lesson on the Restoration of the Church and the Book of Mormon. Turns out Alexander had a spiritual awakening a few years back and has been searching ever since and was out on the streets that night with headphones in pondering the Bible and his search when we stopped him. He said he would be baptized if he knew the Book of Mormon was true! 

Viveca referred herself on the Church's website and we called her and set up an appointment for saturday night. Her husband and mom joined in the lesson. Turns out Viveca is huge into family history and figured out a few years back she has family in California and she went and visited them. Turns out the relative is a Bishop in the ward there in California and she learned all about the Church and even went to church with them! She says she's always felt drawn to the Mormon church and could always see herself as a member. We taught a powerful Restoration lesson to her, gladly answered their questions and left some Church materials. Viveca is awesome, Elder Scott and I were skipping out the door after that lesson.

 The Lord is preparing people! I know it's true, I've seen it happen here in Helsingborg and I've seen it throughout my mission! 

I love you all and each and every one of you is more of an example to me than you realize and I appreciate that. I really do. 

Love,

Äldste Hainsworth

 Tenny's companion, Elder Scott from Australia sent me Tenny's pictures today.  Looks like the meat in the ad below is from Australia.