On Monday some members made dinner for us at the church because they wanted to see us one last time before three of the four missionaries left so we had a fun time with that.
On Tuesday we went around trying to meet with some people one last time and taking care of things before we left. We met with a few members and got some pictures with some of them. I then had to also spend quite a bit of time packing as I had not gotten to it yet.
On Wednesday we had to get up early because Äldste Stapley had to catch a 6:50 train so of course we needed to be up by 5 to make sure we both of us had everything. My train left about 20 minutes later and I then had to switch trains in Lund before heading up to Norrköping which is an interesting challenge considering I was one person with 2 hands and 3 suit cases but I got it to work so it's all good. My new companion Elder Olson met me at the train station and we got my luggage off and back to the apartment. After that we spent some time catching me up on the area before we went out for the day. We also had the interesting situation of needing one of the Elders going to Helsingborg needed to sign a baptismal form that we had and his train was stopping in Norrköping so we had to stop at the train station, find his train and then as soon as it stopped, he hopped off, he signed the paper, and then he got back on the train and it left, the whole affair was kind of funny. Tip of the week for those of you who ever end up needing to do any paper work, remember to check where all the signature lines are and get those people to sign it, you never know, the next opportunity to get it just might be a 3 minute window before a train leaves. We then went back out talking to people and met with a member which was fun.
Thursday was district meeting and it was super good. It's a little weird though because 1. it's a small district 2. it's all elders 3. Most of us are relatively new in the mission. Our district leader has been out the longest at 18 months but then you have me and one other elder from my group, there are 2 from the group ahead of us, and then the last one is in the group ahead of them. So probably 5 out of 6 of us have been in Sweden for less than 8 months. It's going to be great! Our district meeting was about setting goals for the upcoming transfer which is always great. I didn't used to like goals that much before my mission but now I love having a plan for what I want to work towards, it helps me have something to focus on. We also met with some of our investigators later in the day and it went well so that was good.
Friday we taught someone else and then after lunch and studies we went out to Nyköping to meet with some members that we can only really see about one day a week because the travel is tricky to get out there. After we got back we had a member meal here in Norrköping so we figured we would just bike and it was okay at first but then of course it starts raining about halfway through and by the time we are locking our bikes up it started to hail a little bit. So that was quite the adventure. After the meal we then had to bike back... and it was still raining... that was fun.
Saturday we had a pretty solid first lesson with someone so we are pretty excited to see where it goes. We also met with one of our other investigators and it went pretty well. He doesn't speak English much and he's still learning Swedish, he recently came from Syria, so we just have to take our time to make sure he gets what we are saying. It worked out pretty well though.
Sunday was church of course so that was a lot of fun. There are a lot of kids in this ward which was fun to see, Helsingborg didn't have very many. It was also kind of funny because we had almost nothing planned for next week and then by the time church was over half our week was booked already. We went home afterwards and did some of the studies we didn't have time to do in the morning before going to the Bishop's for dinner.
My big takeaway from church and my personal study yesterday was that we we need to listen. For Sunday School they based it on the communication section of the Church's My Foundation, which is a program for teaching self-reliance. It was really good though because people appreciate it when they know the listen to you. Sometimes it's really easy to not listen to people because you are too busy thinking about what you want to say. What was cool was that the same principle applies to prayer. Prayer is an opportunity to communicate with God, but how good are we at listening? It's really easy to just say what we're thankful for, what we want, and then 'hang up' without waiting for a response. How long do you spend just sitting there, listening for God's response. How long do you spend trying to feel the Spirit or searching your thoughts and feelings for an answer after you ask a question? Probably most of us would answer with not much. Try it this week, try saying a prayer for an entire 5 or even 10 minutes and see the difference it makes. I promise God wants to answer you but you need to be willing to listen.
Have a great week everyone!
Pictures are
1. Elder Olson and I
2. Helsingborg missionaries with the Malmsten Family
3. Helsingborg missionaries and the Ocasio and Rexeus families
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