Week 56 - Thanksgiving

I don't know how many of you noticed but I sent out 2 week 54 emails in a row so we will just pretend 55 doesn't exist and move one to week 56.

Monday we went to and played basketball again in Gubbängen. Our mission president even came and played with us for a while so that was pretty fun. 

Tuesday we went to the Senior center and talked with people there. Apparently there is this group of men that are retired that pretty much all they do every day is come to the center and play pool for as long as it's open.

Wednesday we baked cookies for one of our former investigators and wrote a card inviting her to check out the Chrismas Initiative. We left the box on her doorstep and we got a text an hour or two later thanking us for the cookies so that was awesome.

Thursday we had a really good district meeting on how to use the Book of Mormon in lessons and making sure to help people actually read it and understand what they are reading. I am currently the oldest missionary in the district at just over a year. The other members of the district are all at 6 months or less... So that's pretty interesting. After district meeting we had thanksgiving with a bunch of missionaries. One of the Senior couples made the dinner and it was a lot of fun. 

Friday there was a district leader conference video call so I got some training from President Youngberg along with the other district leaders in the mission and that was pretty cool. I definitely learned some good things from that. We also were able to give someone a Plan of Salvation pamphlet so that was super cool.

Saturday we ran into that guy we ran into last week that we talked with for awhile, his name is Kennith. We got to talk to him for a few minutes, he didn't want to give us his number but he did ask us for a Book of Mormon so hopefully we'll hear from him soon about it.

Yesterday we had a good day in church and then we had a member meal later that day and then that night we had stake choir practice since we have stake conference next week so that was really fun too.

This next week should be another busy week so it should be pretty exciting!

Have a great week!

The picture is of the massive box of cookies we gave to our investigator (there are 45 cookies in there).

--Elder Ashford

Week 55 - It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

This week has been pretty great!

Tuesday we went to the church and did the church's technology safeguard course and a questionaire for our mission tour in a few months. Oh yeah, I think I forgot to mention last week that we are approved to become a technology mission, I still don't have all the details on that but we are getting new phones in the near future.  We did a lot of finding work for most of the day and then we had a dinner with a part member family too and that was fun.

Wednesday we went to do some service by talking to people at the senior center and we walked in and realized that we had forgotten that Wednesday was bingo day. Everyone there was pretty excited for it and people kept asking us if we were going to play bingo so we stayed and played bingo with them (although we didn't play for prizes) and it was a lot of fun. I think a lot of people enjoyed seeing us there even if we didn't get to talk to so many of them.

Thursday we had district meeting which was pretty fun. We just had a new senior couple added to our district so that was cool. We got to know them a little bit and we had a really good discussion on how the Book of Mormon answers the questions of the soul. Or in other words how the Book of Mormon answers people's questions such as "is there a God?", "Does God know me?", "Why do I have weaknesses?" and so many others. It was really awesome. We also had a mission-wide video conference call about the upcoming Christmas initiative. They are doing #LightTheWorld again which will be super fun to try to do service again during Christmas time. Go check it out on mormon.org!

Friday we had our usual weekly planning and we had a lesson with one of our recent converts. She is like 15 and we had a super good lesson with her. We then went to knock doors later that night and we were going to try this one area but upon arrival we realized that we didn't have the tracting records for that area. We started in another area nearby that we did have records for but received a pretty cold reception at several of the first houses. I kept feeling like we should try contacting and considering that knocking doors wasn't feeling successful we figured we would try it. We went into Brandbergens small centrum and it was pretty empty but we did stop this one man, or rather we said hello and he recognized who we were and started the conversation for us. It was clear he understood the apostasy. He was hesitant to join any specific religion because there were so many christian churches and they didn't understand the Bible the same and he didn't understand why. He said he had talked to missionaries on a tunnelbana before and so he knew that we also had the Book of Mormon. He was on his way home and Elder Langford asked if we could walk with him. He hesitated for a second and then said sure and we continued the conversation although we mostly just listened, I kept trying to think of something to teach or testify of but nothing seemed very concrete. We didn't get his number or even his name but he appreciated that we listened to him and he said we would probably run across him again on the street sometime. As we continued walking around afterward I knew that we had been there to talk to this man. That was why we were there that night and that was pretty cool that the Spirit was able to lead us there at that time.

Saturday was a pretty slow day for the most part but we had a good time.

Sunday was a great, as usual. We had some great talks in Sacrament meeting about having spiritual experiences, receiving personal revelation, seeing the Lord's hand in our lives, and applying Christ's Atonement to our lives. It was awesome. We also got to help teach the lesson in primary, the kid's class" because the topic was how they could prepare to be missionaries so that was a lot of fun. We also got to hand out Books fo Mormon at the musical again and that was fun. We then got home and got our transfer calls (we are both staying) and then went to stake choir so that was fun.

Today it snowed! It has kind snowed for the last week but today it finally stuck so that is pretty exciting.

--Elder Ashford

Week 54 - Exchanges

We had a pretty good week this week.

Monday we went bowling with the Hägersten Elders which was pretty fun. The place we went to though was a pretty cool. It was themed like a fifties diner. The bowling though was a little bit off because the pins were attached to ropes so they were easier to reset but the pins didn't fly around like they typically do so I think we are looking to try bowling again somewhere else.

Tuesday we went and visited the Senior Center in Brandbergen. We are planning to do some weekly service there by coming and talking to people there for an hour or two every week. We were there for about an hour but it was pretty fun and it will be good language practice for Elder Langford ;)  We also visited a less active and ate dinner with some members which was fun.

Wednesday we went on exchanges with the zone leaders so I was with Elder Pack in Södertälje. We got there and the first thing we did was visit a less active. We then came home for a little bit of lunch and studies before doing some finding. We went out contacting there which was cool and we met a guy at the library. Later that night we had an interesting time tracting. The few people that answered didn't speak much English or Swedish with the exception of the previous investigator and less active that we had no idea lived there. The less active let us in and we talked for a while which was pretty cool.

Thursday we had district meeting and we focused on the Book of Mormon and it seemed to go really well. We tried some role plays and that was great. We then went to Pizza Hut afterwards and Elder Pack challenged the Elders to a pizza eating contest. There was a tie of 20 pieces between Elder Lee and Elder Pack because we had a time constraint (I however was perfectly content with my 8 pieces). That night we also had a member meal followed by ward mission coordination meeting and ward council. So that was a pretty busy night.

Friday we had weekly planning and we also met with one of our recent converts so that was fun. We went over following the prophet and watched a general conference talk with her so that was good.

Saturday was a pretty normal day. We had a member meal and knocked doors in that area for a while.We also got a call and found out that we now have a senior couple that will be joining our district so we are looking forward to that.

Sunday was awesome! First of all it was Father's day so that was cool. Our investigator, Maria, and her son Andre came to the last 15 minutes of sacrament meeting. A lot of members in the ward said hello to her so that was awesome. The primary kids also went around after sacrament meeting and gave out chocolate to all the adult men in the ward which I feel is pretty common in most wards. What was weird was that I got one this time! Me and Elder Langford both that it was cool but at the same time super strange that we have reached the point of getting father's day gifts. We then had sunday school and priesthood and the lessons were both on member missionary work which is hard not to be excited about as a missionary. I feel like the members got kind of excited and I actually learned some things from them too. We went home after church and had a really good companionship study before turning around and going back to the church because one of the kids in the ward was getting baptized. None of our investigators showed up but it was cool to be there anyways and interact more with the members.  We then went straight from there to a member meal before going home and finally getting to our language study.

It has been a wonderful week and I can't wait to see what this next one will bring! Ha det så bra!

--Elder Ashford

Week 53 - Zone Conference

This week was actually fairly busy so that was cool.

Monday we went to Gubbängen again and played some basketball. 

Tuesday we had to take Elder Langford to immigration because he hadn't gotten there yet so we traveled all the way to Solna and took care of that. They took his picture and finger prints so he should be all good to go now. 

Wednesday we had zone conference which was fun. We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon. President Youngberg also did a fun activity that showed that most of the questions that people ask us on the street can all be related either to revelation or the Plan of Salvation. Most people's questions about life or about God can be related to one of those things. That was pretty cool to see. We came back from the conference and had dinner with a member so that was fun.

Thursday was my official year mark which was very strange. We knocked a bunch of doors and rant into this like 90 year old man that could be interested so that was cool. He was telling us that he has 4 kids and 3 of them are retired already... When I looked at him I would have guessed that he was maybe 70 if even that.

Friday we did a lot of finding and some weekly planning.

Saturday was pretty busy. We swung by a few people that said we could try again later. We then had a dinner with a young family that just moved into the ward about 2 months ago.  We then went to Hägersten where I did my first baptismal interview so that was exciting! We then straight from there to the musical and there were some people that actually talked with us for quite a while so that was fun.

Sunday we had church and it was Fast and Testimony meeting which is awesome! I loved it. We did some studies real quick at home before going to eat dinner with a member family and then going to the musical again.

--Elder Ashford

Here are some pictures from the temple service project last week.