sea2swe: January 9th - Forks in the Road

Hello hello! Here's the weekly report...

Workovers with our zone leaders were a blast. I was reunited with my old french partner in crime Elder Baquedano while Elder Wilson went off with good ole Elder Blackburn. I've been blessed with amazing zone leaders and I learned a lot from them in our short two days together. They came saturday, went to church on sunday then went on their way up to boden for two more days of workovers up there.

We had some disappointment this week as we came to a fork in the road with Carl our only progressing investigator. He was interested in learning more about the Church in the beginning but said he wasn't ready or comfortable taking that next step to see if it's true. We respectfully accepted his decision to take a break to see if this is really something he's ready for. I've learned not to find blame in yourself when people choose not to accept your message. We did our best, prayed for him, loved him, and taught him by the Spirit. That's what counts.

Alexander came to church since he has to help Ivar, our member, and he seemed to really enjoy it and was listening attentively. It'll take some more time but we're really hoping he'll start to warm up to us again.

I had an experience this week with my prayers and I can testify that prayer brings spiritual power. I had this spiritual emptiness that I'm sure you can relate to at one point or another, just a hollowness inside of me that usually isn't there. Through sincere prayer one night this week on my top bunk of our bunk beds I received that comforting fullness of the Spirit that just came over me like a warm hug. Sometimes all it takes is a bit of self-evaluation and course correction to bring our Spirit back in tune with the influence of God's love. I love this by Elder Packer "We do not have the words (even the scriptures do not have words) which perfectly describe the Spirit. We cannot express spiritual knowledge in words alone. We can, however, with words show another how to prepare for the reception of the Spirit". Go read his whole talk "The Candle of the Lord", it has helped me a lot on my mission.

Well, that's all for this week! It's beginning to become ever more apparent how little time I have left and I just need to keep going all the way to the end! Make every second count.

Love you!

Äldste Hainsworth