Stoeltzing Surfing Stockholm

Week 39; August 4, 2014 – Right Place at the Right Time!

It has been a beautiful week. We have been blessed a lot, and every great experience has come from the guidance of the Holy Ghost.  

Our new mission car... Not quite!

We started-off with a really fun P-day. There is an ancient mission tradition that every “Greeny” has to eat a whole Kebab pizza, so we made sure we fulfilled that tradition and introduced the new missionary, Sister Austin, to Kebab! Afterward, we played volleyball in the park. Although, we were pretty terrible, but we had a lot of fun. Ironically, a professional volleyball tournament started when we got off the court. Needless to say, they were a lot better than we were. One guy kicked the ball backward over the net and another guy hit it back over with his chest. I lost a little bit of self confidence at that moment, but volleyball has never been my sport. So, it was all good in the end. 

Elders Lindquist and Stoeltzing

Wednesday was incredible. We went out early to do some swing-byes and we got in to teach a lesson with Louis, an investigator I haven’t seen in a while. We taught him a little bit about the scriptures and we encouraged him to keep reading. The rest of the day was really amazing. We had to go over to the church at an unusual hour. While we were there a man named Abu walked in and wanted a tour of the church. He was the first person I've seen that has actually walked into open church in Norrköping since I’ve been here. The crazy thing is that no one invited him, he just wanted to see what the church was all about. We taught him a little bit about the gospel of Jesus Christ and showed him around the church. He seemed open to the message, so we took his number and we hope to meet with him again. He did want to talk a lot and we ended-up missing our cable car back home. But, that turned-out to be a huge blessing. 

There was a new convert who'd been out of town for a while and needed to talk with us. He'd been going through some trials and he really needed someone to talk with at that moment. I know that we were in the right place at the right time to run into him. The Lord put us where we needed to be to help all of those people that night.  

Sister Smith and what's left of the Red Black Cafe'

Thursday ended up being a funny day. We got out of our district meeting to eat lunch and Sister Smith wanted to go to a restaurant called The Red Black Cafe. She said it was a Shwarma place, and we wanted to try it because that's what the Avengers ate after their battle in the movie. So, were looking all over for this place and we couldn’t find it. Finally, we stumbled into it, just to find that the restaurant had been torn apart and only the sign was left. Unfortunately, we did not get to try Shwarma that day. 

Friday, the Holy Ghost really intervened in the work again. We were scheduling the week and going through a list of potential investigators. I was sorting through the list and I came to a name I had usually skipped over. It was a man, who I had been told, wasn't interested in investigating the church, so we hadn’t been calling him. This week, however, I felt I really needed to call him. He didn't pick up at first, but he called back. He said, “I'm glad you called, have you heard what happened.” I had no idea. He told me his that brother had just passed away and that he needed someone to talk to. He asked me how I knew to call him, and I said it just felt right about it. I've called him a few times since and I can't even begin to imagine how terrible he feels right now. However, he said he's realizing how important God is in his life and we were able to talk to him about the restoration of the gospel over the phone. He also wanted to know about the prophet, so we left him with a copy of a talk called “I Will Not Fail thee, nor Forsake thee,” for him to read (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/i-will-not-fail-thee-nor-forsake-thee?lang=eng). This is the talk that Thomas S. Monson gave after his wife passed away. 

Evening in Norrkoping... The end of a good week!

We've had our share of challenges working in Norrköping, but talking to this man really put a lot of things into perspective. It’s been worth it to endure the difficult days just to have the chance to help this one man. Everyone that reads this, please pray for him. His name is Eli.

I've been really thankful this week. There’s not much that we did on our part to make these experiences happen, but the Lord really guided us to where we needed to be and what we needed to do. Its weeks like this that help me remember why I'm here as a missionary and give me the strength to keep on working. Thank you all for reading and I hope everyone has a great week!

-Äldste Stoeltzing