Week 43 - So Train Me Maybe?!?

This week has been quite the roller coaster so here we go!

Monday we were eating dinner when a potential investigator we had wanted to meet but had never confirmed texted us and asked if we were meeting, after a little confusion we established that we were meeting and rushed out the door to get to the church to meet with him. The lesson went pretty well so that was good after our little adventure of cutting dinner short to rush out there but it all worked out in the end.

Tuesday we did a little bit finding. We were out tracting in Brandbergen when we got a call from President Youngberg. We stop and find a slightly secluded spot and he tells us that we're both training! We were both super excited! The rest of the day we continued knocking doors other than a brief break for a member meal.

Wednesday we had district meeting a day early so that the assistants could some and join us so that was fun. We all had lunch together at the church and then Elder Wilson and I went on splits back in Vendelsö. We met with a recent convert so that was fun. We then went tracting and accidentally tracted into one of our member families! It was super funny, we laughed and they invited us in and we got to practice for our member meal at another family's house right afterward.

Thursday we switched back and we had a great lesson with one of our investigators at a member's house and it was fun because we were reading from the Book of Mormon in 3 languages, English, Swedish, Amharic.(Mom's Note: Amharic is the national language of Ethiopia. Thank you Google!) 

Friday we went to Train the Trainers in Täby! It was a big party. there were 19 trainers there, 7 of us were from my group and 3 more have been my companions at some point so that was pretty cool. We had some awesome training before heading home. We had a great member meal and knocked some more doors.

Saturday we did more finding, We usually trade off every time someone answers a door for who is the one to start talking and I must have had a spree of at least 20 doors in a row that didn't answer so that was interesting.

Sunday morning, we were halfway through planning for our day when we get a call from President... 2 Elders and a Sister had to wait for their visas and won't be coming in on time and Elder Anthon and I will be the trainers waiting for those missionaries. President said we find out Monday night if they even make it at all this transfer or if we get to stay together for another 6 weeks. So we shall see what happens next week! We had church after planning and Sacrament meeting was about Personal revelation. One of the speakers mentioned something interesting which was that we have to be humble enough to receive revelation.  We need to be humble enough to follow the Lord's council and guidance and do things His way instead of ours. I really like that thought.  We had a great day in church and we had a fun member meal with a Nigerian family as well.

I hope you all have a wonderful week and we'll see what happens next week!

Pictures are of us elders coming back from splits.

--Elder Ashford

Week 42 - Interviews

We've had a number of fun encounters this week so here we go.

Monday after P-day we went out contacting for a little while and we ran into these guys who believe in this thing which I believe is called "The Book of Knowledge". It's interesting because it essentially blends all of the major religions in the world and yet they believe in something very similar to the Plan of Salvation. They believe that we are here on earth to go through experiences and trials so that we we can learn and improve and that we receive a heaven after this life according to our actions.  There were a number of other things too that were interesting about it.  For me it actually just testified more of the Restoration of the Gospel. When different groups split off from being God's people they still had small pieces of truth that then warped over time, yet somehow when someone tried to kind of combine all of these they were able to get some ideas pretty close, yet they still didn't have God's priesthood authority and so they weren't able to establish truth in it's fullness.  It was still a very interesting conversation and we got one of their numbers so we'll so what else I can find out when we meet with him.

Tuesday was wild. We went contacting in Brandbergen for awhile with no luck but then we came across this one man that we had kind of walked past a few times. We were both headed into the mall there and I said hi and then he stopped and started talking to us, we sat down because he was curious because we kept running into each other so he wanted to know more about what we were out doing. We talked for about an hour and taught the basics of most of the Restoration. He then invited us to his place for lunch so we went with him, and he started making us lunch. As we were eating one of our members walked into the kitchen... We were all quite surprised. Apparently the member and the man we met share the apartment with a few other people but we had no idea when we got there. After lunch we walked outside and were going to make our way to the bus home to do companionship study when this other guy calls us over. He says he sees us all the time and doesn't usually have time to listen but that day he did and was curious as to what we were out doing. He was walking his dog so we walked with him for about an hour and a half and talked about who we were what we did, and explained about the church by teaching the restoration to him. We even gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon. At this point the schedule we had planned was completely shot and the Mission President had texted us to see if we could do interviews that night so we headed back to the apartment, did studies and dinner, and then went to the church to call some people while we waited for our turn for interviews. It's always nice to have interviews. For ten minutes you get to have a one on one with the Mission president, it's great!

Wednesday we had correlation with our mission leader which is always great. It's nice to talk with a member of the ward for how we can work with the ward members.  We did a lot of tracting throughout the day. We also had an interesting member meal. They had planned to feed us but most of the family was sick so the dad just bought us pizza and drove us home so that we could eat it while he brought more pizza home for the family.

Thursday was district meeting and we talked about acting as missionaries with power and authority. Our authority comes from our calling as missionaries and our power is evident when we act. It was super good.  We then had a member meal and they took us out to a lunch buffet which was fun.

Friday we spent the morning planning and then knocked doors for most of the day but we texted one of our investigators and asked if she had time to meet over the weekend. She texted back saying that she could do Saturday evening and we looked and saw that we had a member meal, after confirming with the family we then texted her back and invited her and her two sons to come with us. It worked out perfectly!

The missionary that I replaced here in Vendelsö had told us that he kept thinking about this one family out in Söderby and suggested that we swing by so on Saturday morning we went out there. We knocked on the door, they answered and... they weren't interested.  We tried another door that said to come back later... they weren't interested either.  We had tracted in the area before so we decided to pick up where we left off. After knocking on doors for a while we came across a lady who went to school as a kid with a member, we talked a little bit about the apostasy and restoration and explained about the Book of Mormon. We asked if she was interested and she said sure and even said that we could come back later when her husband was also home. We gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon and traded phone numbers. We walked away super excited, while we had been hoping to meet with a different family, we were in the right area at the right time to meet this woman and now we have a family we can potentially teach! Later that day we had our member meal and it went super well. The two boys were very energetic but the family we were with did a great job of keeping them busy. After the meal we were able to teach our investigator about the Plan of Salvation there in the members' home. The Spirit was there and it was great! 

Sunday we had two investigators come to church. After Sacrament meeting we met with them in a spare classroom with a member and taught them the Plan of Salvation. It went pretty well! The member did a great job of testifying of the Plan and the Spirit was definitely there. We had a great rest of church and went out knocking doors again in the afternoon. We also had a member meal for dinner. 

It's been a great week and I am so grateful for the opportunities I have to teach people about the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation all the time.  They really do fill me with joy with the knowledge that we have a Heavenly Father who loves us and has restored the fulness of the gospel here to the Earth today!

Have a great week!

Pictures are of a highly advanced security system we came across, 

a massive snail we saw 

and us (Äldste Anthon and Äldste Ashford) on the way to church.

Week 41 - Zone Conference!

This week we started off great by trying to do our laundry on P-day only to find out that the "Flood Protection" had activated so it didn't work, so that was great. We went out tracting that night though and ran into a guy from Lithuania that took a Book of Mormon so that was cool.

Tuesday we had Zone Conference! President and Syster Youngberg were going through some house keeping and Syster Youngberg's segment was on Health and Safety and she went over the 10 points listed on the missionary portal. She got to step 6 "Protection from animals and insects"... I laughed, the story of my dog incident has apparently spread across the mission. We had some great training from the Assistants though based on the theme "Being an Example of the Believers" based on 1 Timothy 4:12. There is also a general conference talk by Russell M. Nelson titled "Be Thou an Example of the Believers" that is also super good and tied into our discussion. We talked about how we as missionaries could be an example of all of the attributes listed in the verse from Timothy. We also had the Stake President come as a guest speaker to discuss member missionary work and it was great!

Wednesday our determined that our washing machine was clearly past our capacity to fix. Our land lady was super nice though and said that we could borrow their washing machine until we got everything sorted out so we were in fact able to wash our clothes for the week. We also had one of the Senior couples come because we had some bike locks on our bikes that we don't actually have the keys for so they came with an angle grinder and cut them off and gave us new bike locks. It was a very entertaining image seeing a 65 year old man in a nice suit go to town with an angle grinder with sparks flying everywhere.  We also started tracting in a little bit different area of town which was fun.

Thursday we did a lot of finding work but we had dinner with one of the members of our bishopric which was a lot of fun. [Mom's note: a bishopric is the presiding leadership of a congregation. Is consists of a Bishop, the leader of the ward (congregation) and 2 Counselors.]

Friday we did more finding and had a couple of conversations with people and were able to give out a Book of Mormon. 

Saturday we did some finding work and we had a lesson all set up and had a member there and everything except that then we texted the guy to see if he was coming and he said he wasn't going to make it... awkward. We went home for dinner after that and had a good conversation with our member friend on the bus ride back. We then got to drop off a Twi Book of Mormon to a lady from Ghana we met with a few weeks ago. She's pretty positive but has just been super busy so it can be hard to meet with her because of her schedule. 

Yesterday we had church and it was wonderful as always. We had a couple from the US visiting so Elder Anthon translated for them and I was the one trying to look up all the scripture references for him as best as I could.  We knocked doors for a little while as well.

I decided to study Patience as a Christlike attribute this week and found a really great example in Alma 26. It speaks of Ammon rejoicing with his brothers about the wonders they have seen during their mission among the Lamanites. They had to endure their many trials and hardships but they persevered and were able to see miracles!

- Elder Ashford

Week 40 - Still No Super Powers

My arm has just about healed by now. So that's nice.  It has been almost two weeks though and unlike Spider Man I have yet to gain any dog related super powers... so that was bit of a let down.

As for what actually happened this week, we knocked a lot of doors.

On Wednesday we managed to contact 3 different Jehovah''s Witnesses in a row walking through Brandbergen so that was interesting.  Later in the day we had a pretty cool experience though. We had planned in the morning that we were going to knock on doors somewhere and we had seen a few new places that we wanted to try but I felt like we should go through one of the areas we had been knocking on and try to go through a few streets we hadn't been through yet, there was one in particular I wanted to try. We had started by tracting in a different area but felt like it wasn't going very well and felt like we should try that one street that we had talked about before.  We got out there and then decided to start at the far end of the street and work our way back.  The first few houses were not interested but as we climbed up the hill to this next house (there were no steps) we met a young guy who was working on fixing it up. We talked for awhile and got to know him a little bit better and found that he actually had a few Mormon friends. We continued talking and explained some parts of the Restoration of the Gospel and the Book of Mormon. He accepted a Book of Mormon and said he would read it. He said we were welcome to come back some other time to talk more about it but that he was normally only there on the weekends and lived in the city during the week.  As we left it struck me as well as my companion, Elder Anthon, that that meeting was not by chance. In our district meetings there has been a lot of focus on following the Spirit and we definitely felt guided by the Lord. There were so many things that directed us there at that time in that short window when that man was actually there when he normally wouldn't be. It was a really amazing experience. We then went out and got dinner with a member. Plus I hit 9 months on the mission!

On Thursday we had district meeting and the Zone Leaders were there with us. It was pretty fun and we continued talking about being led by the Spirit in our finding efforts. We got to practice with some role plays which went really well.

Friday we did some planning in the morning, knocked a bunch of doors, and then had a pretty fun member meal. The wife was one of the women who bore her testimony during the missionary work focused lesson that I talked about last week. She had had a lot of experiences with the church before but it wasn't until a friend lovingly encouraged to at least meet with the missionaries once before she really saw the truthfulness of the Gospel and how the Lord had prepared her. It was fun to be able to have dinner with her, her husband and their kids and get to know them a little better.

Saturday we tracted a bunch more and then we talked to a guy on his way to a party. We had a real quick discussion and we got his number so that we could meet again and give him a Book of Mormon. 

Sunday we had a Fast and Testimony meeting in church. We had an investigator come and we taught him about the Restoration during the second hour class and it went super well.

We have Zone Conference tomorrow and it we were told to study a little bit about the Great Apostasy and the Restoration. It was something I had already been thinking about a little bit and it was great to be able to study it a little bit more. The Gospel of Jesus Christ was twisted a lot after the death of Christ's Apostles. I love though that God restored that Gospel through Joseph Smith and through the Book of Mormon to teach us again about those beautiful, powerful, and simple truths. I love teaching people about how God loves us and has always called prophets to teach the people and how He continues to do so. I love the Book of Mormon. I know it to be true. I hope you all have a wonderful week and take some time to read it and ponder the miracle that it truly is.

The pictures are of a moose we saw while out proselyting Monday night, 

a sign to a day care playground which says 

"Welcome to Trumman -Be scared of our children, always close and lock the gate, thanks!"

Finally there is the classic warning that you see in every Swedish elevator 

warning of the danger of having objects to close to the door in an elevator... 

I swear, Swedes must have nightmares about it or something because it is everywhere.

- Elder Ashford

Week 39 - President says I'm a real Missionary now

So here comes the story of my first full week in Vendelsö.

Tuesday we had a super good lesson with Moses about the Plan of Salvation which was great.  We also had an English class and only one person came, and he's a member from Västerhaninge's ward, but it was fun. We helped him out a bit and we had a good time.

Wednesday is quite a story. Buckle up because here we go.  We had splits and Äldste Anthon went to Handen so I was with Äldste Jackson who had been in Sweden for a week at the time.  We had a super awesome lesson on the Restoration with a lady.  It was great, she said she would even come to church next week. After that we went talking to people on the street nearby. We ran into a few interesting people as always happens when you just talk to everyone. We then came home to get some dinner so that we could go knock on some doors later that night.  Well... plans change.  Our neighbor has a dog that is notorious among missionaries for barking angrily at us.  Now normally I feel like dogs like me but apparently not this one. The door to where we live is around the back of the house because we live in part of someone else's house and there is a stairwell that runs along the side by the fence to get back there.  Well, as we were walking back there the dog decides to jump over the fence ahead of us and bit my arm. Thankfully it wasn't anything too serious and the owner was right there and got the dog under control. We went inside and washed it out real quick and called the senior couple in charge of medical advice. He told us to go to the clinic and get it checked out just in case so we did.  We got there and they determined that is wasn't serious and that they could fit me in for an appointment 2 hours later. We were going to have to break curfew for that so we called the mission president and I asked for permission to receive medical assistance and he approved.  He asked to hear the story so I explained what happened and we laughed about it.  He even told me that I'm a real missionary now so it's official.  I got checked out later and everything was okay.

Thursday we had district meeting which was fun. We also had correlation meeting with a member and then a member meal that night but on our way home as we were about to get on the bus Elder Anthon realized he couldn't find his bus card so we had to search for that. We retraced our steps but couldn't find it. 

On Friday a member said he found the bus card in his house and brought it to us which was awesome.  We also made some cookies and brought some to a member and one to an investigator family so that was fun.

Saturday we got to help out at a move.  They were just going to a bigger apartment within the same complex but they lived on the top floor in both so for every trip we carried stuff down 3 floors, went across, went up 3 floors, dropped the stuff off, went back 3 floors over and up 3 floors again. We just repeated that cycle for 3 hours but it was super good. We then had to go up to Gubbängen because our friend Moses who we met on Tuesday doesn't actually live in our area but in Gubbängen so we wanted to make sure he could meet the missionaries there and know where the church was. It sounds pretty simple but it turned into it's own adventure.  We got to Gubbängen and we didn't see Moses so we called him to say that we were there at the train station. Well, he said that he was also at the train station.  We went around trying to find him but couldn't figure it out. The Gubbängen elders came and after talking with him for a little while determined that Moses was not in Gubbängen but in Globen, which is one line over on the subway. They then helped give him directions for how to get to Gubbängen and finally, after 90 minutes of confusion and trying to give directions, Moses got to Gubbängen. We had a great lesson with him and he should do great there now. We then had to run to catch a train because a member in Handen's ward had invited not only the Handen Elders but us as well to dinner. 

Sunday we had church which was pretty awesome.  We had a great Sacrament meeting. We also had a great lesson during third hour.  Our ward mission leader was in charge and he had one of our converts from a few months ago explain the process of how she found the church and how it had affected her life.  It was awesome. He then had another member of the ward who joined the church a few years ago share her story of how she had had interactions with the Church for a while but it took some time and encouragement of a friend to actually meet the missionaries. It was a really great lesson.

It's been a wild week with all sorts of ups and downs but it's great.  I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Pictures are: first of this pigeon just hanging out in the subway train with us

then there is a picture of the dog bite because I know someone was going to be curious, 

and finally there is Äldste Anthon and I hanging out waiting for the metro back from Gubbängen

- Elder Ashford

Week 38 - Living the Vendelsö life

This week has been rather interesting so here goes.

Monday we found out while we were emailing that we would as a matter of fact not be leaving on Wednesday but rather on Tuesday, so we had just a little bit less time to figure out our few last minute details before we shipped out. The Linköping Elders came and we played some ping pong at the church. They left and we just continued working on our transition report and getting everything figured out for the Elders coming in.  We then went home for the night and finished packing up all of our stuff.

Tuesday We finished our report and printed it, we then cleaned the church and met with a couple people before we left. We then went home, made sure we had everything, and then left for the train station. I took a train to Stockholm where the Vendelsö Elders came and picked me up. Elder Anthon will be staying here in Vendelsö with me and then Elder Barker would be leaving for Skellefteå the next morning.  We got all my stuff and then brought it down to Vendelsö.

Wednesday we dropped Elder Barker off at the bus stop super early in the morning and then came home and finished getting ready for the day. Vendelsö is definitely a little different from what I am used to. Helsingborg and Norrköping were big enough cities that they had a main street that kind of makes up the center of town and so we could just go there to find people to talk to.  Here in Vendelsö it's all suburbs and we have a very small area. So we walk around but we don't see quite as many people, we also tend to knock a lot more doors here so it's going to be a bit of an adventure this transfer, I haven't done as much knocking doors so far in my mission but that is about to change.

Thursday we had district meeting which is fun. The missionaries in Visby, which is a city on an island off the coast of Sweden, are part of our district so we got to Skype them so they could be part of our district meeting. Elder Anthon and I are the only companionship in the district right now that aren't training right now besides the Senior missionary couple that also lives in Visby. It's kind of an interesting thought.  The meeting went super well though as we set goals and plans for the transfer. Never underestimate the power of goal setting, sometimes it's boring but it really does help you get things done.

Friday we did some planning for the week and we knocked some doors.

Saturday we did some tracting and then we had a really good lesson with one of our investigators. It went super well as we explained the Restoration and the Book of Mormon to him. He had some questions about how some things in the Bible get him kind of confused and we were able to show him how the Book of Mormon helps clarify some of those things from the Bible. It was awesome!

Sunday we had church which was great. The ward is a little bit bigger than some of the ones I'm used to but it's pretty nice. We also had a really good lesson on the Plan of Salvation with someone and we had nice member meal in the evening as well.

This week I am really grateful for the scriptures. I had the opportunity to finish reading through the Book of Mormon this week and I have loved it. There is a special feeling that comes from reading it. I love being able to talk to people about it and explain some of the simple truths that it holds in its pages.  I'm really grateful for my time in seminary. Every school day during high school I got up early to learn about the scriptures.  Those things that I learned have really helped me in my mission and this week I have been able to use some of the scripture mastery verses that I had memorized so that I could find scriptures to explain ideas to people clearly with the use of the scriptures themselves.  I know the Book of Mormon is true and that it really does bless our lives as we read it and understand the principles it teaches.

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

--Elder Ashford

Pictures this week are of:

a little summer cottage we walked by

 the next is of a sign that clearly is instructing to be aware of such risks as monkey bars, 

break dancing, yoga, walking with small children, as well as cats and chickens

 then there was this thermometer that we ran into while knocking doors, no I cannot read everything it says because it is actually in Norwegian but I can make out some of it

 then there is the maze which Sweden occasionally uses instead of speed bumps, 

however not everyone actually slows down while weaving through

finally there is Elder Anthon and I

Week 37 - If you roll doubles, roll again, If you roll doubles again, roll again.

This has been a fantastic week and I will explain the title a little bit later, if you are too curious you can go ahead and hop down to Saturday.

Monday we had a super fun member meal with a family before they went on vacation.  We also had a fun lesson with one of our other members as well.

Tuesday we taught Alvin, the 9 year-old, at the church and it went super well. He's great! We then had 10 minutes to get from the church to the station and be on our bus. (keep in mind it takes ten minutes to bike to the station and we would still need to lock our bikes) We raced through the city and as we near the station we see our bus start to pull out. The number 40, a big double-decker and our only ride out to Finspång. It gets caught a little bit in the morning traffic and so Elder Olson and I continue our furious pedaling to the next bus stop where we know it is headed.  We find some nearby bike racks, locked the bikes, and rushed out to the stop in time to make the bikes.  Mission accomplished.  We were both a little out of breath so I believe that counted as our cardio for the day.  We took the bus out to Finspång where we had a great lesson with some investigators on the Plan of Salvation.  We finally came home and lunch afterwards (we didn't have to run for the bus this time). We had another great member meal with another family in the ward which was pretty fun.  On our way back we got a call from the Linköping Elders, they were stranded at the Norrköping train station. They had been on their way back from splits when there was a train accident further up on the tracks and their train had to return to Norrköping until the track could be cleared. They were stuck there for a few hours. When we got back to Norrköping we kept them company for a little while until we could determine that they would actually have a train to be able to get home.

Wednesday we met Alvin and his mom again and finished teaching him the rest of the lessons, he's a stud. Seriously. We also met with a nice older lady and helped her with her computer and she fed us lunch which was awesome.  We met with Ahed, who is our investigator who comes to church every week and we got a baptismal date with him! That was super exciting.  We also met another investigator and she bought us some ice cream. We had dinner and then went tracting.  One of the doors we knocked, the lady wasn't interested to learn more but was super nice and gave us some chocolate. Tender mercy of the Lord right there. We then got home and, in the words of the senior couple in charge of the apartments, had a "wardrobe malfunction". He reached in his dresser and bumped the back of it. The back popped off leaving the rest of the dresser unstable and so the shelves fell down and the whole thing started to lean. It was kind of a shock but kind of funny.

Thursday we started the day early. It was district meeting and it was our District Leader's birthday too, and it was the last district meeting of the transfer so the Katrineholm Elders just got here early and then we blew up a whole bunch of balloons and made a cake for the birthday boy.  It was pretty fun, not gonna lie.  We met with a member and had a lesson with her which was fun.  

Friday was a super fun day.  The Apartment couple came and fixed Elder Olson's wardrobe and then reinforced the other ones just to be safe.  We then went and met a member who drove us to Pizza Hut for a lunch buffet.  He then was nice enough to drive us all the way out to Nyköping so we wouldn't need to take a train there.  We had a fantastic lesson with a member there.  We then went to another member family there and we had dinner with them and then we had an awesome lesson. We talked about how the family is central to the Plan of Salvation and then we talked about The Family: A Proclamation To The World.  It was a super great lesson and the husband started to cry a little.  He told us how thankful he was for all that we did for him and his family by visiting every week. It reminded him a lot about his own mission and the families he would always visit and his love for them. It was special moment, especially since while we hadn't received transfer calls, we kind of assumed Elder Olson would be transferring.

Saturday we got our transfer calls.  I'm doubling out again! It's crazy! I doubled out of Helsingborg and I guess I did a good job because now I'm doing it again!  Elder Olson is headed to Västra Frölunda and I am off to Vendelsö.  It's in southern Stockholm. It's kind of cool though because that's where Elder Murtonen, my trainer, was trained. 

We then left to go to a ward activity.  It was a blast, Ahed came and we got to play a bunch of games and get some pictures with bunch of the ward members before we left. We then went to Finspång and met our investigators there again before coming back and meeting Wenjain.  Wenjain is the best.  He's a 4 foot Chinese man who is super funny.  We had one last lesson with him before we leave.  We watched one of the videos from the Mormon channel from an event called Hope Works.  It's basically like a Ted Talk.  One of them is super funny while being super insightful and is called "Humans, We have a problem".  Go check it out.

Sunday we had church. We got to bear our testimonies before we left which was awesome.  A lot of the ward members said they're going to miss us. We went home and did studies after church and then came back and began writing up our area notes for the missionaries coming in.

I am so grateful for the time I have spent in Norrköping.  It has been absolutely phenomenal here.  I love the people here and I have loved the work.  I have seen the Lord's hand in the work and the work is progressing. I have no doubts about that. The Lord has a plan and apparently I'm needed in Vendelsö and I am excited to see where this next adventure leads!  

--Elder Ashford

Pictures are of:

the front door of the church with all of the birthday balloons.

Then a couple with various members of the ward.

Then there is a picture with all of our district at lunch together.

finally there are a couple of pictures one night in Norrköping because it is super pretty.