Monday, August 24, 2015

Triple Threat: Foster Child

Well, this week was an awesome to say the least. I'd like to announce that I have become a foster parent...sorta. We got a new companion this week! Her name is sister Carrington and she's from New York state. She's been living in sweden for about a year as a nanny and she decided to come on a short term mission (10 weeks) :) So we're training her and showing her what it's like to be a missionary and teaching her swedish. I called her my foster child because usually when you start a mission we call it being "born" and your trainer is your "mother" but it's a little different with her being a short term and sister DeMille and I can't both be her mother, so we decided foster parents was a good title. Mission culture. So I'm back to being in a tri-pan! It's really really fun and I just love it, it's like having a sleepover party every single night and it's been really cool helping her learn about missionary work and swedish. 

To start the week off we did p-day out on Visingsö and Gränna. The candy cane was like, invented in Gränna or something, so we stopped by and went in like 10 of the 30 candy cane shops they have there and it was amazing! Crazy how a little town like that can support so many candy cane businesses. Then we took the ferry out to the island and climbed around in the castle and I almost got stuck in a little crawl space but don't even worry, I totally got out. From there we came back to J-köp and had a little dinner with the YSA's here and it was good fun :) 



On tuesday we had a traditional columbian dinner with the Robayos and it was really heavy but super delicious. I thought I would never be hungry again. They are the greatest people. Seriously. I just love them so so much. We finished off the meal with an english lesson about our interests and hobbies and they are getting the greatest vocabulary ;) they're actually getting pretty good with the english. 

I went on splits with Sister King in Västra Frölunda this week and it was way fun! She is just amazing at swedish and she's super smart. We went and did a swing by at a less active woman's house and it turned into cleaning up the kid's bedroom while they ate dinner. Hey, whatever we can do to get on good terms, right? We also talked to these Iranian guys on the spårvagn for like 45 minutes (that's what happens when you have electrical problems) and one of them gave us his number. So the next day we swung by his shoemaker's shop and taught him the restoration and gave him a book of mormon. It was awesome! Also I officially hit my 9 month mark on wednesday. As a gift for making it halfway, I got the news that we would be a tri-pan! Doesn't get better than that! That night Rikki made us dinner and we ate at the church together. It was really good too! Ways to get meals from people? Invite yourself over, or tell them you're reaching your half point on your mission. 


For district meeting we had an awesome lesson. Elder Stoeltzing shared this story about the Michigan State Football team and how they went from being the worst team in the country to being undefeated for the next three years. And it's because on the his first day, the new coach had the team in the locker room and had them take off their pads and jerseys and wrote one word on the board and told them they couldn't play for his team or put on their jerseys until they understood that word. And the word was "love." We talked about how with missionary work if you don't love the investigators, if you don't love the people, if you don't love your companion or the gospel then why are we even here? We talked about how love changes everything and when understood it gives you a drive to never give up. That night we went to the Salo's and had a little activity night with them. I got to play a board game with the little boys and it was great :) they are just the cutest ever. 


We got sister Carrington on friday! We were so excited for her to get here!!! We went and picked her up from the train station and then the three of us had our first appointment with Anna Lisa. From there we had dinner and then played some beach volleyball with the YSA. While we were playing I saw a guy just standing by the side watching us so I invited him to play too. By the end of it we found out his name was Kassa and he wanted to come play basketball with us the next morning! 

Saturday morning the three of us got up and went to the church to play basketball and Kassa and his friends came...super late. We were just finishing up the game. So we invited them to church the next day and they said they'd be there! We had dinner with the Hegyessy's that night and talked and laughed and ate lasagna :) then we just weekly planned the rest of the day. 


Sunday was crazy! we had SIX investigators in church. I think that's a record. Hello miracles, God really blessed us with that. We set up appointments to meet with all of them next week and we're really excited! Kassa and his two friends came too! So we gave them all arabic book of mormons. After church we went out contacting and I went with Sister Carrington (contacting with three people is intimidating, so we have to split up a little and take different sides of the street) lemme tell you, that girl has got the energy I lack. She just bounced right up to all these different people and started talking with them about the meaning of life and telling them about the book of mormon. She's just the cutest. We had tons of fun :)

Funny contacting story: we're walking down the street and I tell sister carrington I'm gonna stop this one woman and so i stop her and suddenly this giant bread roll falls from the sky and hits her in the head. She turns around and looks for where it came from and she see's sister carrington standing there and thinks she threw it at her or something. Then we see the bird that flew over with the other half of the roll in it's beak and try to explain that it was the bird but the woman just walked away. we laughed about it for like 5 minutes straight, it was so funny! 

that's all for this week! thanks for the updates on life and family and friends! and thanks for the prayers on my behalf :) we've definitely seen a change in the work this last week so it means a lot that you guys are praying for us! 

kärlek till ni alla!
-syster janessa brink


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