Week
89; July 27, 2015 – Seek and Ye Shall Find!
It's
been a crazy week! We've traveled a lot and accomplished much. Things
started-off really slow, but we were really blessed and we got a lot of work done.
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| Jag älskar Sverige! (I Love Sweden) |
Monday was pretty simple,
we just took care of the usual stuff then then had dinner with the sisters and a
really cool member named Linda. She made us a spaghetti feast! I've had a lot
of diners in Sweden, but I always love a good old spaghetti dinner! She had
three little kids to that were super fun! Her youngest, Noah, is two and had a
ton of energy. We chased him all over the house!
Tuesday was a little
slower. We couldn't get anything set-up so we did a lot of contacting and visiting
less-active members. That night I had a cool experience. I tried calling everyone
and I was just having a hard time setting-up lessons. At almost 10:00 PM I
felt really strongly that I needed to call one of our investigators, Jeff. I
have literally never called anyone that late at night, but I did it anyway, and
he said he would be happy to meet with us!
The next day our zone
leaders came to work with us. We taught a Finnish man named Sauli, and it
went really well. We discussed the Plan of Salvation and most of his beliefs
were similar to ours. Sadly, he'll be moving soon, but we'll be meeting
with him three times next week to prepare him to meet with the new Elders in
Kristanstad. (Pronounced Ker-quans-stad)
Afterward, we went on a
road trip with the zone leaders to track down less-active members that lived far
from the city. It was hard because it can take all day to find one of them,
so there’s a lot of people we don't get to visit. Sadly, we didn't have
much luck connecting with anyone, but we left some cards and notes and we hope
some of them will be able to make it back to church in the future.
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| Resting While Tracting |
Later, we split up and I
went tracting with Elder Stinnet from my MTC group. We found two potential investigators
then a super unusual, but awesome thing happened. We met this little old
man earlier in the day who tried to speak English with us. Strangely enough,
Elder Stinnet and I ended-up knocking on his door later and he was so surprised.
He asked, “How did you guys find me?” We explained that it was a complete accident
and he said, “Well I must need to talk to you guys,” and he invited us into his
home to learn about the restoration. We taught him a great lesson and we
hope to continue teaching him after he returns from his vacation.
That night was amazing
Elder Stinnet and I went to teach Jeff and he said that he had completely
forgot his cousin was going to be in town that night, so we invited his cousin
to listen. His cousin was super interested and he participated a ton in
the lesson. We taught the gospel of Jesus Christ and focused a lot on the
meaning of faith. Sadly, Jeff will be moving to Göteborg soon and his cousin
lives there as well, but it was still amazing because Elder Stinnet works in
that area and he was able to develop a relationship with Jeff before his move,
so it ended up being great!
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| Blackburn's in Awe! |
On Thursday, Elder
Farnworth taught an amazing District Meeting on the Sermon on the Mount. He
has learned so much in his two years, so I always learn a ton from his district
meetings.
Elder Farnworth and I
went on splits afterward and we helped a man paint for a few hours. We
talked a lot that night, and he helped me to focus everything I can give until
the end of my mission. He has been a huge help to me and I can't believe
that he'll be home in nine days!
On Friday we taught
Mattias with the sisters. We taught him about the priesthood and explained why
men have the priesthood. At first he thought it was a dominance thing, but we
explained how the priesthood acts as an umbrella to protect and strengthen both
men and woman. He seemed very satisfied with our answers, but we had to
leave early to get back to Jönköping. The Sisters then taught him about The
Family, A Proclamation the World, and he ended-up excepting a baptismal date!
We're all super excited and I know he we'll be able to do this!!!
Saturday was really
hard. We had another lesson with Mattias and it went really well. We
had four more lessons planned that day, but all four called and canceled, so we
were pretty sad. But it ended-up working out better than we expected. We found
another person to teach that day and we met with the Sisters to discuss the
best ways we could help Mattias move forward.
On Sunday we had another
great lesson with Mattias. He came to church as well! He was worried about the meaning
of the Sabbath, so I studied a lot and we taught him about the history of the Sabbath. We
have more to share with him, but he's doing allot better.
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| A Little Volleyball Competition Between Districts |
We ended the week with a
great dinner with an American family, the Murphy’s, that’s the family we did the
Fourth of July with. He told us some great stories the whole night about when
he lived in Mississippi and about his mission to South Africa.
Well, it was a great
week and we have an amazing week ahead of us! Thanks for reading!
Love you guys!!!
Äldste Stoeltzing
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