This has been a fun week. I've realized I didn't really take pictures of anything since I got here though. I'll have to work on that. This area is awesome, and we're still rocking it. I have to get something off my chest though. I pulled a prank this week, and it was perpetuated. I put a calculator on my companion's desk that is a prank calculator that squirts water into your face. I got him pretty good, and it was funny. I got sprayed by it as well. Then I pulled the same prank on the senior couple by showing it to the Elder and saying, "check out my calculator I got for Christmas" (which funny enough is when I got it). He looks at it, presses the on button, and it didn't squirt high, so he kind of just laughed, then asked if his wife had seen it yet. I told him no, so he went to pull it on his wife, and she pulls down her glasses, moves it right up to her face to get a good look at it, then presses the on button and gets squirted right in the face. Not the most Christlike thing to do, but it had a good little laugh, and no harmed feelings or people.
This week we had an investigator in church. He's a student from Uganda that's incredible. He's studying computer science (vilken tour?) [what luck?] and comes from very humble beginnings. He grew up where people believed that if you didn't hit a certain mark when you were at a certain age, your limits were constrained so you couldn't be what you want. He moved to another place and they asked him what he wanted to be. He told them his dream and then said, but I can't be that. They told him he most certainly could, and told him what it would take. He doubled what they said and is going to do incredible things because of his desire to be great. He's roommates with one of our members, and is probably going to be coming to church for the rest of his life since they help each other get there.
So here's a kind of ironic coincidence about where I'm at. My companion was a mechanic, and I was an IT support agent. We double in to an area with a troublesome car and computer network. The computer stuff is all fixed, but we didn't know the car was a problem. This week on our way to zone training the senior couple's car broke down in the middle of nowhere (there are not very many people in Småland, or many cities). Luckily we had our mechanic with us who told us what needed to be done, and we got to a dealership where they could do something about it. Sadly we had to drive about 30min going 40km/h to get to that dealership. They now have a different car that works fully. Sadly none of us are plumbers and we have a leaky faucet. The apartment complex should be fixing it soon enough though.
We played football for my first real time in about 4-5 years, and I haven't been so sore in a while. We did 3v3 indoor so you could only shoot inside a small box, and the goals were a lot smaller. It was fun to meet new people who aren't members through sports, and have a fun time playing with them. I'm just lucky I can run, otherwise I'd be useless in those games. The guy who invites us every week is really good for referrals, and has some friends who seem to be interested in the church that we will be teaching. The branch here is really good at fellowshipping, and it's a good thing because we have a lot of people who are wanting to find a good church out here. The work is getting bigger and bigger down here. It's so exciting to see such progress from both members and investigators.
Here's a cool thought. I remember when I was eleven I committed to making 4 choices in my life. The first was to become an Eagle scout. The second was completing the duty to God program. The third was serving an honorable full-time mission, and the fourth was getting married in the temple. Out here I've realized what a big difference those first to choices really make. An Eagle scout is preparation for temporal means. You learn how to be a good person who has the knowledge to survive in a lot of different environments. The second is preparing you spiritually to take on anything. The Duty to God program is an inspired program that will help every young man become and stay spiritually active in the church if they follow it. The third choice of serving a mission is really the test of the first two. If you never learned to cook your own meals as an Eagle scout, it shows in your diet of ramen noodles, mac and cheese, and cereal. Luckily all of my companions and I know how to cook good foods like curry, pastas, soups, and other fun meals. We're working hard on getting the Duty to God program in full effect here with our young men. The first step is the most important though: Prayer and Scripture study. If everyone prayed and studied the scriptures daily, there would probably be no less or inactive members in this church. The scriptures have incredible power in them, and that is one of the smallest and simplest things we can do to come closer to Christ. Make it such a priority that you never miss a day.
-President Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994), “The Power of the Word,” Ensign, May 1986, 81.
Mvh,
-Äldste Liddle
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