I know I'm emailing a day early but because of New Year's we have a P-day schedule and I don't know if I will have a lot of time to email tomorrow because we are going to Malmö for our actual P-day.
Monday for P-day we went to to the mall and I got a Fjällräven backpack. It's a Swedish brand that is really popular among missionaries. We also had a member dinner with more Christmas food because the day after Christmas is sort of like another holiday in Sweden, the food was really good.
Tuesday we did a lot of contacting on the street. It has been really hard to meet with people to teach because of Christmas and New Year's. At one point Äldste Murtonen had the thought to swing by one of our investigator's that we weren't planning on visiting and that we hadn't been able to get in contact with. We ended up running into his girlfriend actually. He had lost his phone and had gotten a new one but we didn't have his number and we got it from her. It was a small miracle! We had some good conversations on the street as well and I have been trying to contribute more, even with my limited Swedish.
Wednesday we traveled an hour away to meet with a less active who recently moved into our ward. Him and his daughter served some really good arabic food that was delicious. We had a really good meeting with him and we could tell that he has a really strong testimony of the gospel. We then had run a little bit to catch our bus back to Helsingborg, it was even a double decker which I thought was especially interesting. We did some contacting and then had yet another member meal for dinner that was also delicious. We had a great meeting with them and a a fun discussion about temples.
Thursday was great. We had district meeting and part of the preparation for that was that we were all supposed to read the talk "What lack I Yet?" from the October General Conference in 2015. It is a great talk about how we can ask God what it is that he wants us to improve on. He [Elder Larry R. Lawrence] shared some examples of people's experience and I thought it was interesting that the Spirit only gave them one thing to work on at a time, and it was something surprisingly simple. It's a great talk and I would definitely recommend applying it because there is always something we can improve on. Our district meeting was on planning and the importance of goals. If we don't have goals we lack the direction to really achieve anything. I have been able to accomplish so much more in the day because we set goals and plan everyday. I never have to wonder if there is something I should be doing. Later that day we met a less active family for dinner. We shared a message on the Gospel of Christ. It was an awesome discussion... despite the efforts of their very energetic 16 month old daughter. They also had some really good other questions for us about sharing the gospel with others, questions others have asked them, and others that we did our best to answer and I could feel that we were really able to bring the Holy Ghost into their home. It was awesome! On a funny note, on our way there, we actually got stopped for once by someone who gave us some pamphlets about Islam. It was interesting to be on the receiving end for once. I ended up giving him one of our pass-along cards in exchange.
Friday my visa paperwork and residence card showed up so Äldste Murtonen and I had the fun experience of going to fill out paperwork so that I can get a Personnummer, which is the Swedish version of a Social Security number that you need every time you go to the doctor, go to the dentist, etc... We also visited an older lady in the ward and had a wonderful discussion on the Plan of Salvation. Two other women in the ward came in a bit late but they also joined in. They also all missed the sacrament on Sunday so we got to help give that to them, it was my first time in Swedish to so that was cool. We had yet another member dinner that night (My companion tells me not to expect so many meals with ward members after New Year's) this family was actually the first family I had dinner with in Sweden. After that meal we went to Helsingborg and did more contacting. We actually had a really great conversation with a muslim couple and we even gave them a Book of Mormon! We weren't able to get their number but hopefully something comes out of that. We actually missed our train because we talked longer than expected and had to contact for another half hour until the next train came.
Saturday we did some weekly planning and thought of some new ideas for how to have the members help with missionary work and how we can find some new ways to find people to teach. I'm kind of excited to see what happens. We had a member dinner for New Year's and there were actually 3 families from the ward there which was a lot of fun. Unfortunately because the next day was Sunday we had to be home by 10. I had prepared a thought but we didn't get a chance to share it but I can share the talk with all of you. It was "A Year of Jubilee" from the 1999 October General Conference from the Sunday Evening session. It was a great talk [by Elder L. Tom Perry] about using the new year (because it was the last General Conference for the century) to set goals and make time for the things that matter like family scripture study, family prayer, and family home evening. There was also a great quote in it from Spencer W Kimball about changing our environment to invite the spirit more. It was a fantastic talk that is worth studying for New Year's.
After we got back to the apartment we tried to go to bed at 10:30 like we were supposed to but it was hard to sleep and then at midnight it became impossible. We live right by the park in the middle of Landskrona and people were setting off fireworks. These Swedes were going crazy with the fireworks, they were all over the city! We ended just getting up and watching for a few minutes because we knew we weren't going to be able to fall asleep until the fireworks calmed down.
It's been a great week and I'm so excited to see what the rest of my mission holds in store.
I hope you all have a great 2017!
P.S. I have a whole bunch of pictures both from this week and last.
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| Main Street in Helsingborg. Their apartment is nearby. |
A few photos of the Tower in Helsingborg.
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