Transfer calls came in this week, and I will be moving up to Sundsvall with an Elder Cragun from Utah. You might recognize his face from the newspaper. He scored the game winning shot in this past year's state basketball championship. I'm also going to be the district leader up there in our small district of 6. All of us are in Sundsvall. Elder Swenson will be getting a really good elder as well, so I'm not worried about this area. This area though was unique in how close I felt to the people here. I really saw the change Elder Swenson and I were able to help incur here. The branch is really upset that one of the sisters here and I are transferring because they really love how dedicated and diligent we have been here. And I've seen it too. In the past 3 months, we taught about 1/3 of the lessons I've taught as a missionary. I'm surprised at what was accomplished and know that we couldn't have done it without the help of God. He truly is hastening His work, and allowing us to see the beauty of it.
We have been working really hard to use the Christmas video and despite my initial skepticism we have found it to be incredibly effective. We got a new investigator from it, taught a majority of our lessons based on it, and really took advantage of this wonderful tool. It was incredibly easy to tie it to the restoration and invite people to be baptized and read the Book of Mormon and come to church. It truly is easily tied to every part of the gospel that we teach as it is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The thing we found hard was asking people for referrals with it, but we have found even that isn't hard.
We had a few cool experiences I'd like to touch on. One was after we got cancelled on Friday night. We were walking to our backup plan and found some guys playing basketball, so we challenged them to 2 on 2 in our proselyting clothes. It turned out they were actually pretty good, so we didn't win, but we had a fun game to 11, then taught them about the gospel, and committed them to come to church. We got the one a Book of Mormon, but the other said he wouldn't read it, so he didn't take it. He'd much rather come to church and experience it than read about it.
Another was when we were tracting this week. I had a feeling to go home and go through some records in our area book, so I told Elder Swenson we should do that, and he agreed, so we started walking home. We met a really positive Filipino lady, who knew a little about the church and wanted to learn more. Then we met a young Swedish man who's had a rough family situation, but has always been Christian because of his sweet grandmother. We started talking to him, and he shared his testimony of the Savior, and we told him we wanted to help him strengthen it, and help him come even closer to God, and went into the Book of Mormon and started on baptism, then he had to run before we got to commit him. In that same area a few nights later on our way to a lesson a religion teacher asked us to come to her class and teach them about what we believe. We gladly accepted and were sadly unable to do that, but got some elders to take our place in doing that.
This week was a proof to me that miracles do happen and that the Lord is hastening His work. We did our part, and left the rest in the hands of the Lord. And He did his part. I'm sad to leave this area, but am excited to meet whatever lies ahead in my new area. Maybe I'll see the northern lights. I hope so! I love you all!
Have a great week!
Äldste Liddle
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