Syster Brink in Sweden: Breaking News from Sundsvall

Dear family and friends,

This week I have more time to email! I can't even tell you how awful library computers are. I felt so cheated last week. It's good to be able to sit at the church and know I'll be able to get out what I want to say :)

Our pday was really relaxing. We kinda just stayed in and watched The Testaments and took some naps (sunday isn't the day of rest, that's monday) and then we also bought some rain boots. My first day here in Sundsvall it was pouring rain and my shoes are not water proof (thanks to all those holes... eh.) and from there we went on over to the church to teach our friend Simo. He's cool. He's from Morocco and wants to get baptized so we're just getting him there :) we taught him the restoration and we'll be teaching him again tonight. He's a super good kid, and I really like teaching him.

We teach a TON of TU (tänkbara undersökare=potential investigators=restoration) lessons. I have never taught the restoration so many times in a week. There was this one guy we taught and the entire time we were teaching him it felt like he was trying to outsmart us. Lots of talk about astrology and orions belt constellations and how it all associates with christ figures that show up in every religion and that's why he doesn't believe in god. Are you confused as to how all of that fits together? me too. It was all pretty nonsensical. But we just ended up telling him that we don't know a ton of things, but we're sure about what we do know, and we know that God exists and that Christ is the savior. After bearing testimony he wasn't really up to try and throw down anymore and just kinda shrugged off what we said but didn't try to deny it. I don't think we'll be teaching him again cuz he didn't seem too into trying to find out if God actually did exist or not. It's too bad too cuz I know he felt the spirit. Some people just aren't ready.

We also met with some students from the high school this week and they interviewed us for a class project. They asked us all these questions about what we believe about life after death so we pretty much taught them the plan of salvation. Most of the questions though were about how our religion affects us socially and how other people look at our church. They had good questions and didn't try to argue with us so that was really nice. One of them actually seemed pretty interested so we're gonna try and get in contact with him again and teach him some more.

Zone Training was in Umeå on Thursday, and since it's so far away we had to head out the night before. Normally we would stay with the sisters in the area, but there aren't any sisters in Umeå. So instead the zone leaders set it up for us to stay with a member up there. She was the sweetest woman I have ever met in my life. She was about 70 years old and she made us this amazing dinner and breakfast the next morning. I can't even explain how blessed I felt to be able to stay with such an amazing member. I really hope I get to see her again! Zone Training was great and we talked about how to work with the members and more fully involve them in the missionary work.

Thursday night we met with these adorable girls that aren't able to get baptized yet because their parents don't like our church. They've got really strong testimonies and they're really sweet. We just have to wait until they're 18 to baptize them. So until then we're just meeting and keeping those testimonies strong. We're teaching them about preach my gospel because one of them wants to go on a mission once she's baptized.

There was a street fair set up in centrum this week too! Sister Taylor tried a kangaroo burger. And since I've already had the kangaroo, I went for some spicy mexican food instead. I miss spicy food so much. I carry around a little bottle of tobasco sauce in my backpack to put on whatever I'm eating.

The primary program was yesterday and it was so fun! We invited so many people to come and see them sing, and there was actually a really really good turnout. They were so cute. We have about 20 primary kids here, and it was fun hearing all the songs in swedish. And of course, there were all the fun little quirks of the primary program (the kids in the back row fighting, the girls in the front row playing with each other's hair. There wasn't any throwing up though, so this primary program was a little more mild than ones that I've been to in the past).

Today we're planning to hike a mountain. it will be fun! I look forward to the letters and emails next week!

ha det så gott!

syster janessa brink