Hejsan allihopa! [Hello everybody!]
This week was another great week. I went on splits and had another really cool experience. Lately I've been focusing on teaching focused on baptism, and really trying to emphasize that with Elder Swenson so he can be really good at it too. So we've been role-playing it, using it in every lesson, every role-play, every opportunity. And the surprising part is, it seems normal now. We teach the doctrine in such a way that it seems awkward not to invite the person to be baptized in the first lesson. On splits I kept this pattern going (because it's harder now to teach any other way) and we contacted a lady from Belarus. We were walking past Domkyrkan (the largest church in all of Sweden and possibly Scandinavia) and we stopped her, and she said, "I don't speak Swedish." So we got to know her a little bit in English, then she asked how we knew so much Swedish, and I replied with the obvious answer, "God has helped us! Do you believe in God?" That got the conversation rolling, and in no time at all she was feeling the Spirit really hard, we pointed out what it was, and she was astounded by how two 19 year-olds could make her feel so good in 5 minutes, and how they were so spiritual. We were committing her to baptism when she said, "I'm actually going back tomorrow (to Belarus)." We gave her a Book of Mormon, and our card, and left knowing that she knew that the what we said was true, and had a desire to act on it. I hope she gets in contact with the missionaries in Belarus.
We also followed up on the challenge we gave our branch of inviting 3 people to come to church, meet with us, and so on, and they did it. All of the members had either invited at least 1 person, or had a decided plan on who how and when they would invite someone. They were incredible, and fulfilled all we could ask of them. I'm very proud of the members we have up here in Gävle. They are wonderful, and they really work for this branch to grow. They love missionary work and practically beg us to invite them along on lessons, which we do every time we schedule a lesson. Sadly the investigator doesn't always make it to those lessons, but we did all we could do, and then make our time the most effective we can with the member by visiting whoever we can.
This week was a week focused on finding, and I'm glad we did it because we have a really packed week this week! We get to stay the night at the office with my old buddies, and partake of an outstanding spiritual feast tomorrow. Stake conference was also this week, and I really enjoyed it. We have wonderful leaders in our stake, who really are inspired by the Spirit and know what we need. We had some great talks focusing on how we can better reach out to rescue our neighbor, and help build up each other and ourselves. I really think that that is the key in this whole work. Love, and reaching out. As we seek not to build ourselves up, or gratify our pride by claiming we know better than our leaders, or the God who reveals His will and word unto them, but seek to follow their divine counsel, we will see ourselves grow. We must humble ourselves, and realize that we do not always understand God's will, but that when we do as He asks, and fulfill our divine callings with all diligence, our natures will change and we will become who we planned us to become. This church is true and is led by Jesus Christ through the Prophet Thomas S. Monson, his counselors, and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Christ lives, and is there for us.
Have a wonderful week!
Äldste Liddle
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