Hello everyone. I hope you're all doing well! I've actually got some decent time to email his week so get ready.
 |
| Malmo |
Ok, so I'll talk about the work in this area. As of Wednesday, it was awful! We kept seeing all these wonderful people accept the invitation to learn more and even get baptized just to ignore all of our phone calls and stop investigating. Jose pretty much never answers his phone. It is SO frustrating! We've had 4 baptismal dates since I've been here which is a LOT! But only one of them actually went through (Victoria). Although Richard might still, we just aren't actually sure where he...lives. All the others have fallen through for some reason or another. We had the most depressing weekly planning session ever, because we had NO investigators. Those two younger investigators we had, Mahdi and Claudio fell through as well. Mahdi still wants to be Muslim and Claudio never showed up to his lesson. And won't answer our calls. We were quite bummed.
Well, we also have our next Ward Council this Tuesday so we got together with the other Elders to talk about the Ward Mission plan. We prepared by listening to a talk called ''The Missionary Next Door'' by Diana Hoelscher. And our minds were BLOWN. We realized why only one baptismal date
we've had has gone though, it's because there are two kinds of conversion to the church, not just
one. There is a Spiritual and a Social conversion. Victoria joined the church because she had a social
conversion to the church, which helped with her spiritual conversion. Michelle, Richard, and Jose did
not join the church because they're got no friends in it! Looking back to the dedicatory prayer of the
Sweden Stockholm mission, it says ''Let there be a spirit of cooperation between the membership of
the church and the missionary force which is unparalleled in any other land''. We realized that we need
to be working with MEMBERS. That is the only way we are going to get the these Swedes, who are
very uncomfortable to strangers and outsiders but incredibly loyal and loving to their friends. We
immediately went out and visited all the members in Landskrona and even some in Helsingborg to
share the message of this amazing talk! And we're already seeing results. We met with a friend of the
Malmsten family in Landskrona this last Saturday and are meeting with him again this Saturday to
talk more about the church. We are really getting these members excited about missionary work!
I can't even describe the changes that are taking place in this area. This is big. I can't recommend
enough this talk enough! Unfortunately, I think it costs money to buy online, but PLEASE read it!
It will change your outlook on sharing the gospel with your friends. This new kind of member
missionary work will bring about the second harvest in Sweden, I know it! We are super pumped
about it!
Ok. Funny story time: So last P-day after we emailed we took the train down to Malmö to see
some aquariums and castles and stuff. Well, we (the Landskrona Elders) were already on the
train like good little Elders should. Well, the other (Helsingborg) Elders are late, we didn't think
they were going to make it! Suddenly we see them run onto the train just in time....with some
other dude! Turns out he knew Äldste Hainsworth from forever ago and recognized him immediately.
He followed them onto the train with no ticket just to talk to us. He's from Romania and he's
probably the craziest dude to ever walk the earth. He would not stop talking. Just kept rambling
on. I am going to try to do his dialogue some justice here:
HELLO my friends how long have you been in Sweden I have spent 8 years in Romania, 1 in
Amsterdam, 1 in Poland, 1 in prison, 1 in the hospital. You know where I get food my friend?
Everyday I'm shoplifting you know exactly why my friend Easy come easy go my friend. Did you buy tickets? Why you buy those you don't need no ticket I've been to Paris I've been on a hundred trains I never have needed no ticket...ect. ect. Just the funniest guy ever. We thought
that was it though, like he was just full of talk when the ticket-checker guy comes around and he just pulls out his phone and starts yelling into it in Romanian. The ticket-checker dude just gives him a weird look and keeps walking. Never checks him again. We were stunned.
Included are some pictures of Malmö and the legendary Romanian dude.
We still don't know his name. Also a random picture of me at my desk my comp snuck. Don't know why.
We still don't know his name. Also a random picture of me at my desk my comp snuck. Don't know why.
Welp, I love all of you back home! Pray for Annars (the Malmsten's friend) that his heart will be opened when we meet with him this Saturday!
Love you all,
Aldste Mason
No comments:
Post a Comment