Hej På Er! [Hello there!]
Äldste Liddle
This week was awesome!!! We got a lot of lessons in, and good tracting done. I really like tracting in this area. It's a lot less people on the street to contact, so we do more tracting right now.
The week started off a little slow, but we had about one positive lesson per building we tract lately, which is 1/8-12 doors. Most of which don't answer, so pretty good odds. We had a zone training this week and the Beckstrands surprised us with Meet the Mormons. We were able to watch that, and it was cool. It's funny how many people think we're still Jehovah's Witnesses out here though. I've never seen one of them tracting in Sweden, just standing holding up their booklets, but every other door we knock on you hear, "Oh it's the JWs." Then we clarify, no, it's the Mormons. Either way those people usually aren't interested. The area book and planning were the big topics, and we've been really good with our area book here, because we didn't have a whole lot to come into, so we are leaving our area book with many new records, and lots of updates. The other big thing in the zone training was the cancellation of open church time that we've been doing. We were supposed to keep all churches open a certain amount of time a week for people to come and take tours, or do things like that, but it wasn't effective enough in a majority of areas, so they cancelled it.
On Friday we were taking down our open church sign, and just doing some language study at the church, and were right about to leave, when a guy walks in and asks us to help him with his family history work. Of course it's the day we take down the sign. The funny part is that the sign said nothing about family history work. I have no clue how he knew, but somehow he knew we could help him, and so we helped him for a while, then scheduled a follow-up for this week, and invited him to church. He's not interested in church, but we're still meeting him, and will get our members involved so that he eventually will get into church and want to learn more.
Football was cancelled this week, so we went tracting again on Saturday. We didn't find anyone, but met a lot of interesting people, and are making progress with a less-active family. On Sunday we didn't get any of our investigators in church that we tracted into, but we tried swinging by them after church. It was really cool though in church. We have a lady who was less-active for a while, mostly because she lives a long way away from the church, but she came for her second time, and the branch loves having her here. We had a Sunday School class taught by the renowned Brother Rydén. He really can [teach?] the Bible. He wrote down the 15 apostles' names, then explained to us how it really was only 12, and then the one who replaced Judas, but because of the 4 languages of the time some of the names were different. He always seems to teach us something new about the Bible, and is an incredible teacher. He is always excited, and transitions so fluidly between points, then right as you're about to start getting tired he pulls out a song that we all sing together, rejuvenating the class, then keeps going, using his song to teach us something as well. The funny thing is he's only been baptized for about 2 years, but has more gospel knowledge than most people I've met who've been members their whole lives and are in their 50s. He's an amazing man. And the best pianist I've ever met.
Before I forget, I'm going to take a silly moment to see who knows what Chicken Vindaloo is. It's an Indian curry that was rated as 4 flames at our local Indian restaurant. Normal curry was at 1 flame. In Sweden, as I've said before, they don't have spicy food. You really have to search to find anything comparable to what is in the States. So when something is rated as Extremely Spicy in Sweden, normally you have to tone it down 3-4 notches. If any of you have had Vindaloo before, you know where this is going. The manager seeing how Swedish I looked, tried to dissuade me from ordering it, then compromised to start it out with less than full strength spice. Another note, I'm used to the immediate burn of most Mexican food spices. Indian food is more, "Eat now, burn in 5 seconds." So I started eating my Vindaloo, and my companion asked if it was spicy. I told him the curry we make is spicier. About 5 seconds after my first bite I changed my mind. My mouth was burning like my habanero experience, but wouldn't stop. It was pretty hot, but I ate the whole thing to the doubt of my companion. Needless to say I learned my lesson and will not order the Vindaloo again without training. It tastes really good, but it doesn't feel too good for the next hour after bite one. Pictures to come. [See below.]
The Church is true, and God really does answer our prayers. Keep up the great work, and remember you can be a missionary right now in your home place! Family history is another way of doing it as well! We're so blessed with technology.
Mvh,
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