This week has been an adventure to say the least :)
Last P-day we went out and explored this giant rock in the ocean. We walked
out on a bridge to get to it and walked around on it and sweden is so pretty at
night. We were able to look out at the city and see the lights reflecting off
the ocean and it was so beautiful!
We had snow this week!
For study I've been reading from Our Search for Happiness by Russel M.
Ballard and it's like my new favorite book. Go read it. Give it to your member
friends. Give it to your non-member friends. It's simply the greatest. It's
written so clearly and has helped me better understand the gospel and our
church. I finished it this week and started reading Jesus the Christ by James E.
Talmage (i think) and holy cow that is some thick reading. I have to take a
mental breather every 3 sentences but it's really good :)
Sofia, the african girl that chased us down in centrum last week insisted
we meet with her. We looked her up in the area book and she's been taught
before, so we swung by to go teach her but she wasn't home. We decided to walk
back instead of taking the bus (like, we never walk so this was some sort of
secret spiritual prompting) and we ran into her on the way back home! We were
able to set up another appointment to meet with her and it was awesome. Like,
thank you Heavenly Father for the direction we sometimes don't realize we're
recieving.
We had pingis again tuesday night and Hasam (the iranian guy from last
week) brought a friend! He's like bros with Pres. J now and he's cool. So we
were playing pingis and I was working up a sweat (swedes love intense pingis
tournaments. its nuts) and suddenly in walks Babu, one of our investigators that
had a baptismal date when we got here but then fell off the face of the earth.
We had never met with him before so we ran up and introduced ourselves. We sat
down and started talking to him about stuff and he's decided he will be baptized
in India when he returns home. He's like done his homework and knows the closest
temple to him, knows about wards and stakes in his area, I'm not even worried.
So we talked with him and got to know him and I'm so happy we were able to meet
him before he left back to India!
On Wednesday we went clear out to Bergkvara to go visit one of our new
converts Mim-Ariel. She made us lunch and it was really swedish. Fish, bread,
gravy, potatoes, tea. She's the sweetest person in the world and we talked about
church and favorite scriptures and mini miracles we're been able to see in our
lives. She has a cat and I'm secretly the mission cat lady and we talked about
cats for like 20 minutes. I love Mim-Ariel. We're soul sisters or
something.
Then we swung by one of the member's houses, Madeline, and she fed us lunch
too (two lunches. I was full to bursting.) I had a hard time understanding her
because her Blekingska was so strong but she's really cute and uses her hands to
talk :)
We went back to Karlskrona and then walked to Sofia for our appointment and
contacted along the way. We contacted this dude that looked just like Will Smith
and the whole time I was thinking, "Holy cow, I'm telling the fresh prince of
Bel-Air about the gospel in swedish." and it turns out he already knows about
the church! He had met with elders in another city and now he lives here! We got
his number and we're gonna try to start meeting with him! Sofia blåsted us
(wasn't home) when we went by so we have yet another appointment with her this
friday. It's fine though, walking to and from her apartment has been the coolest
thing ever. We call the path the sacred sidewalk because we meet all these solid
people on it. Like Will Smith.
On Thursday we had district meeting and it was awesome. I LOVE meeting with
other missionaries. When you go the whole week just you and your companion and a
whole city of people that know nothing about the gospel it's super comforting to
know that there are a bunch of other people out there doing the same thing you
are. After district meeting we went to (you guessed it) an asian buffet. What is
it with elders and asian buffets?
We had planned to have 4 lessons on Thursday and we were only scheduled
with one. We were determined to achive the 4 lessons. So we went through the
area book and found this guy and called him and he seemed interested enough so
we asked if he could meet with us. That day. In 15 minutes. And he was like,
"yeah! I'll totally do that!" So we met with him and talked about why our church
was different from other churches and gave him a bit of a watered down
restoration lesson and his first language is Turkish so we told him we'd get him
a Book of Mormon in Turkish and it was super awesome. We walk back to the
apartment basically floating on air. AND THEN we got a text from him that says
"thanks so much, you guys were nice!" and we're like "no problem! we'll be sure
to get you that book the next time we meet!" and he says "do you guys wanna go
get a drink sometime?" and it was like all my happiness died. COULDN'T SOMEONE
BE INTERESTED IN THE GOSPEL FOR ONCE? It's so rough having such positive
contacts and then having literally 80% of them text us and ask us out or ask us
to marry them and I'm sick of it. Elders don't really have this problem. But we
pressed forward because we still had 3 more lessons to teach before we reached
our goal of 4. We walked down the sacred sidewalk and on the way gave out 2
Books of Mormon and taught 4 more lessons. And then we went to our appointment
and taught that lesson. SIX LESSONS IN ALL. Setting goals works.
On Friday we woke up really tired. Syster Allred was nauseous and I was
exhausted. We taught one of our new converts, Irene. She's from El Salvador and
she's beyond strong in the faith. They fed us typical swedish breakfast
(smörgåsar. I'm in love. I'll be eating them everyday when I get back) and we
talked about Uchtdorf's talk "Lord, Is it I?" and it was awesome. Friday was
supposed to be Paulina's baptismal date but she wasn't able to be baptized
because she wasn't at church. So we stopped by and asked about her general
feelings on things and decided that we'd keep meeting with her and prepare her
for baptism in March.
Poor Syster Allred was really not good on Friday. We went home after open
church and I made her some soup. We tried to go out contacting but everybody was
so rude and no one would stop for even 2 minutes. The worst was this one girl
who was like, "what do you people want?!" and rolled her eyes when she saw our
name tags and said, "Pfft. I know what I know." and walked away. I wanted to
throw her in the ocean. Here we were, out on the street in the middle of swedish
winter, thousands of miles from our homes, Syster Allred sick to her stomach,
trying to talk to people in their own language, and all we want to do is help
people. Friday night was hard. And then both of us got this sudden prompting
that we needed to be in. So we basically ran back to the apartment. We still
don't know what that was about. But at least we were inside.
On Saturday we taught Ereleng. He's awesome. Our lesson on the plan of
salvation went super well and he had questions like, "wait, after everyone's
been ressurected how are we all going to fit on the earth?" and "what do people
in your church do if someone doesn't come one day?" and it was super awesome.
He's got great questions that I love answering and he is super open to
commitments. I really enjoy teaching Ereleng. I think he's golden.
Then we taught Tobias, the guy we had the member present lesson with last
week at pingis. We tried talking about church but he kept asking weird questions
like "are there more sharks in Hawaii than California?" and "have you ever seen
Las Vegas?" and everytime we tried to say something to him he's pick apart our
swedish. So the spirit wasn't there. I didn't understand his norweigan accent.
He kept correcting us even when we said things right. We invited him to church
but he said he didn't believe that one church can have the whole truth so he
needs to research all these other churches in order to figure it out. In my mind
I'm like, "Oh my goodness, stop complicating things and just pray about it." I
think if we ever meet with him again I'm just going to speak english because he
understands it perfectly.
We went to Birgitta's house (the less active sister that knows about lehi
and highland) and I brought my picture book :) we had a great time talking about
the mountains and places around town. She looked at the picture of mom and dad
and was like, "they're so cute! your parents look so young!" and we talked about
family and temples and left her with a prayer. I LOVE HER.
On Sunday we had church. None of our investigators showed up. It's sad.
We'll just keep inviting them. We met with this african man named Nebie. He's a
super devout Christian and loves everything about Jesus. We gave him a lesson on
the restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon. As I was saying the closing
prayer he was like, "yes, thank you Jeses, amen Jesus, hallelujah, amen" the
whole time and it totally made my day. He met with the sisters here before
because he found one of their name tags on the ground and returned it. He said
he just wouldn't feel right if he had held on to it. He's one of my new
favorites.
random stories:
- in branch council this week they asked me a question and I hadn't
understood a single thing they'd been saying. So I just kind of blinked at them
and said, "...uhhhh... jag förstod ingenting." and they laughed and looked back
at me like, "well, answer the question." and it was super embarassing.
- we were in Ronneby and this guy is so drunk he can't even walk straight
and he comes up to us and says "Ni ser ut tomte." and I've been laughing about
it all weekend. He said we looked like tomte. A tomte is a little swedish troll
dwarf thing. I can't even handle how funny that encounter was.
- We contacted this adorable old swedish lady. She's a professor of
religion and says she thinks we represent our church in the greatest way and
invited us over.
- We contacted this swedish kid that was maybe 18 on the same day Tobias
dissected our svenska and he came up to us about 5 minutes after we contacted
him and told us we had very good swedish. I'm so thankful for those
people.
- we found the cutest park near our apartment in Karlskrona.
- Sometimes we sprint after buses and bus drivers laugh at us
- Syster Allred accidenally lit one of our dish towels on fire yesterday
hahaha
As always I love being a missionary. Sister Allred and I have been sick
this weekend but we can see the blessings of strength throughout the day. We
know that we have family and friends praying for us and feel uplifted when we
work. We have been so blessed to be in this area serving with the people that we
serve with. I love this branch. There are few members here but they are
spiritual giants. I learn and grown so much from them and their examples. I love
helping people and talking to people and sometimes I remember "Oh my goodness
I'm living in sweden, speaking swedish, telling people about the greatest news
to ever hit the earth" and I feel like it's not even real sometimes. I love
being a missionary. I LOVE IT. I'm so grateful I have these next 16 months to
continue serving!
Have an amazing week!
Love, Syster Janessa Brink
sometimes I make houses of cards
standing on the peir with this fish woman statue. Red eye like crazy.
snow in Karlskrona! standing on the sacred sidewalk!
burnt dish towel.
this is how we're going to get all our potential investigators to stop asking us out
on the bus, super tired
