Singing to Strangers

Hey all! Transfer week was crazy...for other missionaries!! Elder Groberg and I were excited for everyone else coming and going as we had a completely normal week together and we just eased into this next transfer in the same area with the same companionship. This week has had it's share of blessings and we're stoked to get er done this transfer. I'm especially looking forward to this coming week the temple is closed and the missionaries in Stockholm will take shifts cleaning the temple here. It's not exactly how I imagined my first time in the Stockholm temple going down but I'm excited nonetheless. 

We've got some new faces in the district and had a great first district meeting this past thursday! We've got a brand new missionary from the MTC, Sister Gill. Sister Gill's from Colorado and lived in Helaman Halls at BYU before her mission! 2015 though, not 2014. Then Elder Williams is from Utah and has been out about 10 months. We've got an awesome district and I'm excited about what we're going to accomplish.

Some updates on our investigators...Our investigator Angelica prayed! She's never been religious and she prayed for the first time during our lesson! She said it felt good and it's a HUGE step for her since she's been good about reading the Book of Mormon but hasn't prayed till then. 

Betul is the only investigator that came to church, we set up a new baptismal calendar for her and will be meeting with her often to try and help her read and progress towards the 18th of June to be baptized. She just needs help taking everything seriously and keeping commitments and she'll be on her way. She's already made lots of progress, she has friends in church and has been to church twice which is the most of any of our investigators since I've been here. 

We had a cool experience with our mission leader this past week. Kent is the best. He was talking with his neighbor in the elevator one day (big step for a Swede) and she said that someone had rung her doorbell in the middle of the night and she asked Kent to pray to God for her. Kent said he would then later on was looking through the hymnbook we have and felt prompted that this was something her neighbor needed to hear. He went and asked her if it was alright if him and two friends from his church came and sang this hymn to her the next day. She said it was great and so we practiced singing one time with Kent on wednesday then went and knocked on her door. She even called over her 11 year old granddaughter that was there and we sang "Where Can I Turn for Peace?" from the Swedish hymnbook. The mom and granddaughter were holding eachother and there was a strong spirit of love and peace and unity in that room. We ended up leaving the hymnbook with them. Kent is a wonderful example of how there's often people closer around us than we think that we can lift and strengthen, sometimes even the next door neighbors. 

Peace and blessings from Sweden,

Äldste Hainsworth

 P-day visiting the city hall! 

A Boyscout house like the one I went to when we lived in Denmark

Shoutout to my mom, it's lilac season! 

Drowsy Drug Problems

Hallå där ni tjusiga människor! 

I've got to start by sharing this little story. This last wednesday Elder Groberg apparently took some new allergy meds to help with pollen and stuff. We had our correlation meeting with Kent our mission leader at his apartment, so we were sitting on the couch facing Kent who was on a chair. We're about 20 minutes into the meeting and Kent and I are talking about an investigator and I glance over since Elder Groberg's been awfully quiet and his head is buried in his hand which is resting on the couch! He's out cold! Kent's been playing it off as if nothing's happening so I just kick Elder Groberg in the leg under the table and he wakes up, only to nod off again! This kicking waking nodding off process goes on for the next half hour until we wrap things up. Needless to say Elder Groberg took a nap for dinner in the evening. 

Elder Groberg also mowed our neighbors/landlords lawn for them on saturday cause he mowed lawns as a high school job so apparently he was craving a good lawn mowing. Seemed to do the trick. 

Well, after lots of prayers and working with wonderful members we had some more investigators in church yesterday! Mayra came and brought her three teenage daughters (10, 14, 17 so they remind me of my younger sisters) and they seemed to love it! Except Mayra said she got a headache from all the loud kids during sacrament meeting, our ward can get a little out of hand in the kid department sometimes. The members were so great though and so welcoming! Angelica came as well since her member boyfriend Samuel was giving a talk! She seemed to really enjoy herself and stayed for all three hours. It may not seem like much but remember Betul who came two weeks ago was the first investigator in church in 6 months!! 

Mikael's brother went into the hospital yesterday and has been diagnosed with cancer. We're very sad for Mikael and his investigating will be put on hold for a while but we will continue to offer love and support. 

Betul continues to come to the YSA center in Stockholm every week but isn't too excited to meet with us otherwise for normal lessons so we'll see what happens with her! 

Something I liked in my scripture study this week:

1 Nephi 6: 4-6 

"4 For the fulness of mine intent is that I may persuade men to come unto the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and be saved.

 5 Wherefore, the things which are pleasing unto the world I do not write, but the things which are pleasing unto God and unto those who are not of the world.

 6 Wherefore, I shall give commandment unto my seed, that they shall not occupy these plates with things which are not of worth unto the children of men"

Like Nephi says in verse 5, if we want to please the world then the Book of Mormon isn't for us, but if we want to please God then we will follow the teachings of the Book of Mormon. It's that simple, the choice is up to us! I hope we'll choose God because that's the path to lasting peace and happiness. 

Love each one of you so much! Have a wonderful week! 

Äldste Hainsworth

(from May 23rd)

 The Nordic Museum! 

Elder Groberg and I adopted a little Mongolian baby

The District! Glad 4 of us are staying! 

Sister Giles (Rob Hild's cousin) is going home, we're gonna miss having her in the district!  

 Neighbor's dog Topas

Elder Groberg doing work in our front yard

What Swedes do when the sun comes out

Hakuna Matata

Hope everyone had a solid week, we're just chugging along here in Vendelsö and this week had its share of ups and downs. 

We taught Mikael about the sacrament to help him come to sacrament and he seemed to really understand it and committed to come to church on sunday to partake of the sacrament. We showed up on sunday before church with a member that was willing to drive him and he didn't answer. Didn't answer the phone or door and we sadly had to go to church by ourselves, we were pretty bummed, we've been working on getting him to church for 3 months. 

I went on splits with Elder Loertscher this week and we figured out that the ice cream truck in Sweden only sells ice cream in bulk which is dumb!! For example, to buy an ice cream sandwich you'd have to drop 100 kr and buy a box of 8 ice cream sandwiches. We left that ice cream truck empty handed.

A guy named George from Kenya started talking to us at the bus station and he was such a bro! I mentioned that I went to Kenya in high school and he was like "niiiiice, jambo!" I said "Jambo bwana" he said "habari gani" I said "hakuna matata!" and he was laughing and loving it, this American kid speaking the only Swahili he remembers from his trip to Kenya. It was pretty sweet. We answered a lot of his questions about God and the meaning of life and all that good stuff. Then a couple days later we were walking back to our house and literally right across the street from our house in an apartment building and the door opens and it's George! He invites us in and we talk some more, George has a lot of deep thoughts about religion and we shared some of our thoughts from a gospel perspective that were much simpler and he seemed to like them. He said we could drop by whenever and we could talk some more. 

Romans 6 is one of my new favorite chapters about repentance! So good! I love verses 21-22: "What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life". I love it! By their fruits ye shall know them! That's been a big focus of mine lately is just acquiring more light in my life, getting that good fruit that it talks about through scriptures, meaningful prayer, the sacrament, service, etc. 

I love my mission, I love this work, and I love all of you! 

Äldste Hainsworth

 Seattle's best coffee here in Sweden

Whipping up some lunch

Of Mothers and Men

Tjena allesammans! Happy mothers day, especially to the greatest mom in the world, mine! It was sooo good talking to my family yesterday on skype! 

Well, I have a stronger testimony of trusting in God's timing after an experience this week. We focused a ton on getting our investigator Mikael to church on sunday because he needs to come in order to be baptized. We set up a ride for him, everything was planned and good to go then we get a text sunday morning telling us he's not feeling well. We were devastated and were planning on going to church with no investigators there as has been the case for about 6 months in this area. As we're boarding our train about a half hour before church starts, our investigator Betul calls us and says she's on her way to church. We forgot we'd called her yesterday and invited her to come, she said maybe but couldn't promise anything. It was amazing having Betul there, she loved all the cute little kids and the members were so friendly! Proverbs 3:5-6. 

Something that stood out to me in my studies this week: Paul hits the nail on the head when describing the state of mankind in the last days in Romans 1: "29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents 31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful". Paul mentions earlier on in the chapter the solution to these undesirable attributes that are so rampant in the world we live in:  16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth". The gospel of Jesus Christ is the solution, it's the medicine that fixes the malady. 

Ha det så otroligt gott! Livet är bra! 

Med mycket kärlek,

Äldste Hainsworth

 football on p day! 

Splits with Elder Johansson from my group! 

A flower we dug up and lovingly adopted to our apartment

Same flower, two days later...

 This is how studies are done

Some adorable kids in the ward

Baptisms & Bonfires!

What up y'all! This was an awesome week and after some crazy weather the sun has come out and looks like it's here to stay! Here's what went down: 

We had an awesome lesson with our relatively new investigator Betul. She comes from Turkey and is interested in learning more about Christianity and the restored gospel. During our lesson the Spirit was so strong when we watched the Restoration with Betul, it was her first time learning about the Restoration and she may not understand yet the feelings she had but it was the influence of the Holy Ghost. It is the only way to a lasting conversion. I'm so grateful for the power of the Holy Ghost and that I belong to a living church where we believe in modern day, personal revelation. 

She committed to our invitation to be baptized the first week in June and we're excited to keep working with and helping her prepare for that special day. 

Mikael has been doing much better, his brother is recovering from his coma slowly but surely which means Mikael is working again towards baptism the first week of June. His last two big hurdles are quitting smoking which is supposed to happen this week and coming to church. He's right on track and has a strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We continue to meet with and read the Book of Mormon with him every other day. 

We had stake conference so I got to see a couple of old companions, Elder Baquedano and Elder Scott, man I love my companions. We had a wonderful conference on saturday then all the missionaries walked to a big field by the church where Valborg was going on, with the giant bonfire and all. It was way fun and the weather was perfect. 

I just discovered this awesome website discover.mormon.org and I want you to check it out! It's a very simple, well organized website about the basic beliefs of the church. That's what it's all about is those sweet simple truths of the gospel and the more we understand and live them the greater foundation of faith we can build upon. 

I love you all and hope you had a fantastic week! 

Äldste Hainsworth

Ps The district meeting topic this week is the Law of Chastity, wish me luck! As long as it's not as awkward as it was in priest quorum I'll be happy! 

 Missionary WORK takes it out of ya

Valborg!!

Valborg!!

Companions that nod off together, stay together