Syster Brink in Sweden: backfire

TJENA ALLIHOPA!

life is wonderful here in sundsvall (ya'll will never hear the end of my time in sundsvall, haha, i've been here so long!) and sister davis and i just LOVE being companions :)

on pday last week we went on a hike with the district and made korv on top of the mountain. I love district activities. and i love wearing pants. and eating korv. so this pday was quite the winner in my book. as stated in last weeks letter, we wanted to focus really hard on being patient this week. so we had lots of patience activities planned.

to start off patience week we got blåsted (not planned, but we were patient about it) so we went contacting instead. We tried really hard to listen to those who we were talking to and not just spew doctrine on them. It was really good, and we ended up talking to this one guy for quite some time. He was from afghanistan and really nice. But he wasn't interested in learning more about god, just interested in talking to some people who were actually willing to listen to him.

the next day we decided to avoid saying the word "tired." which was decently easy actually. I wasn't tired at all on tuesday. We had to go pick up a package from this company that should have dropped it off to us so we went out of our way to get it and then ended up driving around their building for like 20 minutes trying to find a door and a place to park. I was convinced that the building was a mystery box or something like that and there was no way to get in or out of it (patience.) and then when we finally found somewhere to park the car and get into the building we were really eager to get our shipment of brand new fully translated persian books of mormon. i walked up to the lady who then disappeared into the belly of this mystery box building to retrieve our package. she came back hauling a big box and placed it on the counter and i read the side of the box. To my dismay it said "Book of Mormon - SWEDISH". Our THIRD SHIPMENT OF SWEDISH BOOKS OF MORMON. (patience) We now have over 60 copies of swedish books of mormon. I could probably build a house out of them hahaha. we got in the car and drove off to a day of knocking on doors because everyone we normally meet with has decided they don't like us anymore. We knocked on a lot of doors, and found an AMAZING area to tract. I was certain we would never run out of things to do there. Until we rearranged areas later in the week and gave our amazing tracting find to the elders. hahaha. patience.

the day after that our patience day activity was making a new contacting goal of 30 people. we decided to talk to 30 of gods wonderful children about the restored gospel. we got blåsted by our schizophrenic investigator, and then she called us later that night to tell us she didn't want to meet with us anymore. It's okay though, we were busy knocking on some more doors. We went by a less active woman (whom I have been trying to get ahold of for my full six months in this area) and sat down and watched a REALLY outdated movie about Christ's last week on earth. It went through the atonement, the trial, the crucifixion, and the resurrection. It actually ended up being perfect for her. She loved the movie and at the end of our visit she gave us a full cake, a carton of milk and a scarf because we needed something to eat on the road and we looked cold to her hahah :) after visiting with her we went by Armin and Shirin bearing gifts of cake and a carton of milk and some banana bread we'd baked the day before. We took some time to look at the temples of the world, shirin taught us some more persian words and then we shared this talk with them from April 1971 called Great Experiences. We talked about how there are SO many great experiences in life and that there are so many that will be coming in the future. It was a really great night with them!

Thursday our goal was to speak only swedish with each other the entire day. I ended up dreaming in swedish the whole night before, so waking up the first thing I said to sister davis was "hade du några kul drömmar igår kväll?" swedish all day long wasn't hard for me to do. We had studies and district meeting in swedish and then met with a couple of potential investigators. One of them, Simon, was supposed to come at 1:30 but didn't show up until 2:30 (patience.) we'd even called him that morning to make sure he'd be on time. so we ended up sitting at the church with Karin, our sweet member that told us she'd be willing to help us teach him, doing a scripture study with her. When he finally showed up, we only had enough time to introduce the book of mormon to him, bear our testimonies, and invite him to come to church. we then had another lesson with a different member, Mona, set up. Our new guy was named Tobjörn and I think he's actually going to become an investigator. He'd read all of Ether 12 since the first time we met him. He was interested, had good questions. We had a good time teaching him.

the next day we decided to go the entire day without complaining. this one was hard. as you guys know, missionary life has it's ups and downs and Friday was a down day. After the frustration of an entire week and not being able to get contact with our regular investigators we were feeling relatively complain-y. But that's nothing a preisthood blessing can't fix. After that we had a great lesson with Farhad and Bakhtiar about the gospel of jesus christ. They are such a light for us. I don't know what I'd do without our amazing persian speaking members.

Saturday we taught patrik, our friend who moved to Lund, about fasting and fast offerings. His work allows him to live in lund but come back to sundsvall every two weeks. He meets with the missionaries down there too. At the end of the lesson we committed him to continue with his monthly fast (because he's already been doing it) and then to pay fast offerings. He kinda had this look in his eye and I was like, "wait.... have you paid fast offerings before?" and he was like, "yeah, I've done it twice already. I plan to continue." And I felt like a proud parent after catching their child sharing their toys without being asked.

Then we went by a less active sister named Ingrid. We chatted with her about making the sabbath a delight. She said she'd be at church (and then she didn't come. patience.) and invited us back to dinner sometime in the future. We spent the rest of the day knocking on doors and ran into (what a coincidence) Ingrid's sister! it was cool to chat with her and we gave her reference to the church and what her sister believes in. it was fun :) that evening we had to catch the bus home but couldn't find our way to the bus stop. So I pulled up google maps and it directed us to the bus stop. The route there however, went through the freakiest pitch black forest ever. we used the camera flash on the phone as the flashlight and I watched as the battery dropped from 30% to 2% in a matter of seconds. We were worried we'd be stranded in that forest, but no worries, we made it out alive.

Sunday has never felt like more of a restful day. After a week of consciously testing my patience I really needed the sacrament. We spent the rest of the day after church inviting people to come unto Christ and finished the night off by comforting a drunk guy who's girlfriend lives in Russia.

This week has been quite the challenge. With an area that decided to go belly up over night we have been working so hard to turn it back over again. I have learned that I have next to no patience this week hahaha. But that's what's cool about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. This week we actively showed off our weaknesses. "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." Ether 12:27

That being said, next week is Faith Week for us :)

stay tuned

syster janessa brink