Week 102 - Heading into week 102...When did that happen?

This week has been going well. It's crazy to think about how time goes by so fast. 

Tuesday we managed to watch both the Women's and Sunday afternoon sessions of General Conference! Yaaay! They were fantastic. I love conference. I feel like I never fully appreciated conference for what it is before the mission. As a missionary it's pretty much the biggest event of your life every six months. It's so amazing to listen to modern day prophets and apostles that speak to us today in our time.

Wednesday was another busy day with helping serve lunch again at RIA (they love us there). We then read in the Book of Mormon with a member again and had a great meeting with our branch presidency.

Thursday was district council and we reviewed some of our zone conference discussion, specifically having to do with studies. My studies have been really awesome this last week and I think a lot of it comes from President's challenge to STUDY the Book of Mormon and Preach My Gospel daily. Study implies actively searching for things and the Book of Mormon and Preach My Gospel are our primary tools. The more effort I put into my studies the more I get out of them.

Friday someone came and fixed our balcony door so that it finally closes. Yay! We did weekly planning and did stake reports. I was finally able to pick up my bike (again...). We had a member meal and then had some time to do some finding. 

Saturday was filled with a lot of finding. We had a lot of good conversations and spent a lot of time out and about. But all of the finding we have been doing this week has had some results. This week we have been able to hand out 4 Book of Mormons. At the end of last transfer our branch mission leader gave me the suggestion to set some personal challenged and the very first one I set was was to hand out 20 Book of Mormons before the next transfer. Last week was difficult and we only gave out one the whole week but we put in an extra effort this week and gave out 4; we now we are at 17 with one week left to reach our goal. As we set inspired goals that stretch us and work towards them God will put the people in our path and make the other necessary arrangements.  

Sunday was an awesome day. We had an awesome day in church. I even got to speak! So that was fun. We also had dinner with some members again and talked about the importance of having our own testimony. At one point several of us shared our experiences of how we knew the Book of Mormon was true and you could just feel the Spirit. It was awesome. We then had a little bit of time to work with and were able to go out and knock some doors and while we weren't able to give out a Book of Mormon that night or get let in we had a good conversation with this one guy, despite only having about a half hour to be out that night.

Today we went out walking through some of the older houses in Gammal Gävle so that was kind of fun and I put some pictures down below.

I love being a missionary here in Sweden and it's crazy how fast the time has gone. I am so grateful for all that I have learned here, whether that be about the people, myself, or more importantly the Savior.

Wishing you all a great week!

--Elder Ashford

Week 101 SO MANY CONFERENCES!! YES!

This has been a busy week but it has been awesome!

Monday after taking care of all of our Pday stuff we then caught a train to Stockholm for zone conference. It was pretty crazy, we were talking with people the entire way. We talked with the two guys who shared a table with us, and one other guy that was there too. We even gave one of them a card. Then we get to Stockholm and catch a tunnelbana (the metro) and talked to another two people. It was pretty awesome.

Tuesday was my last zone conference. WHAT!? At least it was a good one. We talked a lot about becoming "Preach My Gospel Missionaries" and renewing our emphasis on studying it which was awesome. We also talked a lot about the concept of repentance. I always feel so uplifted and energized after zone conference. We then had a musical number by one of the new missionaries which was "Come Unto Christ" which was the youth mutual theme from a few years ago. Right after that we had a short testimony segment, one of the traditions is that all the missionaries heading home bear their testimony... and this time I fit that category... weird. It was awesome though because I had been pondering about what to say and during the musical number it hit me. It was one of the songs our group had sung together in a sacrament meeting in the MTC and it's essentially both what we do as missionaries and invite others to do. During my mission I have come to know my Savior so much better and understand His Gospel. It's been a wonderful opportunity to be able to then share that then with the people of Sweden.

Wednesday was our usual busy day with RIA, a member visit, and that night we had our first coordination meeting with our branch presidency since we no longer have a branch mission leader. It went pretty well.

The next day we did a lot of finding. We spent time talking to people in town. We had a member meal, and we also got some time to tract as well.,

Friday was... interesting. We had weekly planning and then met this young man that we had met last week. We were able to teach the Restoration and show him around the church and it went super well. What did not go super well however was my bike. The air in my back tire kept leaking out. We pumped it up a few times and hurried to a member meal after the lesson but by the time we got it... The Flat Tire Strikes Back. We were super far from home and there was no way we could ride that back. We take it by a member that lived nearby and borrowed his bike pump hoping to at least be able to pump it up enough to get home. We get it all nice and inflated when WHOOSH  The tire was once again completely limp, and there was no chance of revival at this point. We walked by another member to say hi real quick and then had to lock the bikes at the church and take the bus home.  

Saturday we got a whole bunch of finding in and then we got to watch the first session of General Conference! (The morning session starts at 6 PM here) What exciting changes with the change of church meeting schedules and emphasizing studies at home. I think it will be a really great adjustment. And the talks were all fantastic.

On Sunday General Conference continued and every talk seemed great, and just when you think it couldn't get better, the next talk brought a whole new flood of inspiration and insight. It was a fantastic conference experience. In addition we had about 2 hours in between sessions of general conference to go out finding. We tried a neighborhood that we had walked through at one point heading home on Friday night and thought "maybe this would be a good place to try sometime". It proved to be a challenging area. Not many people answered and few gave us much of a chance to speak. We decided our time might be more effective trying to swing by some people on our way back to watch the last session and we had done the entire inside of a ring. However, the thought came "why not just knock a few last houses that were on the other side of the street on the way out of the neighborhood?" So we did. The first of the two houses answered and we started talking to this man about his family and he mentioned that his family, especially his parents, were fairly religious and suggested we come by when his parents were home as they were returning home from a trip that evening. We gladly accepted and gave him a Book of Mormon and said that we could explain more when we came by to visit. We are going by tonight!  

It's amazing to be able to see the work going on here in Sweden and to be able serve the Lord. It is an amazing privilege to have modern day prophets and apostles who speak to us today. The Lord is hastening His work, the only question is are we ready to keep up?

Have a great week everyone!

--Elder Ashford

Week 100 - It's a Sunday miracle, Charlie Brown!

This week has been pretty awesome. 

Tuesday we had an apartment inspection from our new apartment couple Elder and Sister Clouse and Elder Clouse's brother was visiting too, and their brother used to be The office couple with his wife just over a year ago, so I guess I have now met 3 of the 5 Clouse brothers. Very random but kind of fun. That night we started tracting in an area we haven't worked in before but Elder Balls felt like we should try. The last door of the night we talked to a teenager and his mother and had an excellent conversation and were able to give them a Book of Mormon. The mom even asked the son if he wanted to take it and he said yes! 

Wednesday we were able to have lessons with President which are always a great experience. 

Thursday was another good district council. We had a great discussion about the authority of our calling as a missionary. 

Friday we had exchanges with Borlänge so I was in Borlänge with Elder Petersen. We had a busy day and it was amazing because a whole sequence of events played out that we actually managed to catch several people at just the right time to be able to talk to them so that was awesome. We even got to help the youth with a family history activity. 

Saturday we got back and Elder Balls and I went to Innebandy one last time because we aren't going to be able keep playing at the place we've been at. We got a whole bunch of people there though so that was awesome. We also had Chill Kväll, some members provided some Kurdish food and we had a great turn out. 

Sunday was amazing! We had a great fast and testimony meeting (it's always a favorite of mine) and a great 3rd hour discussion on the meaning of the 13th Article of Faith. We also had an absolute miracle. In the morning we had set a bold goal to pass out the 2 Book of Mormons we needed to reach our goal for the week. We had church in the morning and this lady and her cute 3 little kids just shows up during sacrament meeting. We talked to her for a bit afterwards and she says she just likes to go to church sometimes, saw the sign outside and that it said Jesu Kristi Kyrka, and decided to just come see. She was a little curious after sitting during sacrament meeting and wondered if we had any brochures or anything. We gave her a Book of Mormon which she appreciated, were able to exchange telephone numbers, and then we invited her to general conference and she said she would come! The miracle continues when after dinner and travel we only had at most an hour to go finding. Elder Balls and I both had a few people come to mind to swing by. We swing by all of them with no success, meanwhile I had been wanting to call it a night since it was getting so dark but there was still this feeling that we needed to keep going but I wasn't sure where, so we kept knocking around the people we swung by, not much success, with maybe 5-10 minutes left before we decided we just needed to head back we decided to go up the street and keep knocking. At the very next house we met this very nice older woman who accepted a Book of Mormon. Book of Mormon number 2! The Spirit truly does lead us to those God has prepared and helps us fulfill our goals, but he also leads others to us, it truly is miraculous!

It's been an awesome week and I am so grateful to be a missionary! 

--Elder Ashford