Week
73; March 30, 2015 – A Bowl of Curry and a Measure of Success!
What a great week! We've
focused a lot on helping Stefan quit Snus (Smokeless chewing tobacco). It's been great. We gave him the
church’s quit tobacco presentation, and he loved it. He agreed with every
point and he even got up and flushed a can of Snus down the toilet! We've
been going by almost every day and he's doing a great job! He keeps going
longer and longer without Snus and he’s almost making it two days at a time
now! We know he'll be ready for his baptism soon. His testimony of the
Book of Mormon keeps growing and growing.
We found another great
investigator recently. His name is Jay and he's a convert to Islam who
joined because he felt they have a short pathway back to God. He was shocked
when we told him prophets exist on earth today and he genuinely started
searching to know if it’s true. He's accepted to read the Book of Mormon
and he wants to come with us to General Conference.
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| Helsingborg District Meeting |
We had a super fun
district meeting this week. We stayed the night in Helsingborg and Elder Bybee
made us his famous fried chicken. All I can say is he's going to be a very
successful chef… It was probably the best fried chicken I've ever had!
The next day we had
breakfast with the assistants and a convert Elder Noso met when he started his
mission in Landskrona. They were the coolest people ever and she made a killer
apple pie! We visited for a few hours and held our district meeting at her
place!
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| Aldste Stoeltzing reading Den Aldste |
On Saturday night we had
one of the coolest testimony building experiences I've had in a long time. We
we're really hungry, so we decided to try some Indian food. The dinner prices
were super expensive, so we told the owner we'd come back later. As we we're
leaving she shouted, “Wait!” She invited us back in and explained that she met
with some missionaries once and she still considered them to be good friends. She
said we were the first missionaries she'd seen in over ten years and she wanted
us to be her guests that night! She made us curry chicken and told us all about
her old missionaries! She invited us to come back whenever we wanted to
talk more! This was so cool for me.
Often, missionaries measure
their success in the number of lessons they teach or the amount of baptisms they
have, and I admit, I'm guilty of that a too. As a result, I sometimes feel
like I haven’t been very successful because I haven’t baptized anyone yet and I've worked in some areas where I didn't teach too much. Alicia, the restaurant
owner, showed me that success on a mission is as much about making a friend and
touching a life, as it is getting a baptism. It took that bowl of curry to
help me realize that maybe my mission has meant a lot more than I thought, and hopefully,
maybe one of the thousands of people I've met will one day remember me and the
message I shared! I’m sure Alicia’s missionaries have no clue she still
remembers them, but I'm so grateful for the work they did and for the lesson I've learned from this experience.
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| Elder Stoeltzing and Stefan |
Church was great on
Sunday! Stefan came and he actually surprised us by bringing his girlfriend
Elisabeth! They both loved it and felt a warm welcome from the ward.
It's been a fantastic
week and I can't wait for Easter. I hope everyone has a great weekend with
family and friends!
Äldste Stoeltzing
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