Happy Valborg! My first official Swedish national holiday! They have a huge bonfire to celebrate the coming of spring.
I had the chance to plant flowers myself in the last week (we were doing some service for an inactive couple in our ward, who the husband is actually from the states haha) so I definitely know how that goes.
We got 3 new investigators within the last few days! Arne is a referral from a member in our ward
(Linda who is amazing! She really takes care of the missionaries and she
is just awesome!). He came to church on Sunday and we had a sort of
Gospel Principles class that he (and that inactive we've been working with,
Magnus, came to Church and this class too which was awesome!) was able to
attend and we were able to teach him a bit about the Plan of Salvation.
We made plans to meet him on Tuesday, which we were able to teach him
about the Restoration and set up an appointment to meet him tomorrow, so
hopefully all will go well!
We also were able to finally meet with some potential
investigators that have been really busy and sick the last few weeks. We
were able to meet with them on Monday and talk to them a bit about the
restoration and the Family Proclamation and they invited us back tomorrow for
dinner and to learn more! They were super positive and we hope to see
them progressing.
A cool experience I had this week was when my companion and I
were trying to figure out whom we wanted to attempt to drop-by last Saturday.
We had the ward list in one hand and a list of old investigators in the
other as we prayed about which direction to go. I got the thought that we
should try to go to an area where an inactive and a member with a non-member
daughter lived. Both the inactive and active members were actually home. We
had a lesson with the inactive, Illona, and she told us that she felt like we
were an answer to her prayers. We had a really good discussion of the
Atonement and she asked us if we could come by every Monday and have FHE with
her and her two(?) year old daughter. She even was able to come to church
last Sunday! As for the active member we got to talking with him and he
thinks that it might be time to have the missionaries to meet with his
daughter, so we're trying to set an appointment with the two of them sometime
this week.
Something that I learned this week was about the different blessings Priesthoodbearers can give and how blessings for
the naming of children is actually clearly laid out in D&C 20:70.
I've been thinking about the importance of names (which includes their
implication in church records, the temple, and different titles of respect) and
this just emphasizes the point that we need to be proper with name usage.
I've been learning more about Christlike attributes for teaching
our investigators/members we’ve worked with and I've been using Chapter 6 in
Preach My Gospel quite a bit. In the beginning of the chapter it
references 3 Nephi 27:27, which asks what manner of person, ought we to be to
which Christ answers, "Even as I am." I've just been thinking
about how important it is that we do all that we can to become more like Christ
in everything that we do. It can be difficult to remember at times, but
it just helps to know that even if we cannot achieve perfectedness (I don't
know if that is actually a word, but I'm going with it) in this life, we can do
our all to make it happen and Christ will make up the difference. It's
the same with putting my effort forward here in the work.
As for my scripture study this week, I've been learning about
Christ (I started reading Jesus the Christ so I'm on like chapter 14 there and
I'm in the middle of 3 Nephi) and one thing that really struck me is how Mary,
the mother of Christ, must have felt in all of this. In Luke 2, Joseph and
Mary take Christ to the temple and while there they run in Simeon, a faithful
servant of the Lord who knew that he would have the opportunity to meet Christ
before the end of his life. Simeon is able to recognize Baby Jesus for
who He really is, and Simeon blesses the family. But one thing he said to
Mary in verse 35 was "Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul
also." I can't imagine completely how it must be, living in her situation,
but she saw her own son, brought by such miraculous means, crucified on the
cross (John 19) and that it was as if a sword had pierced her to center.
That's a very vivid description.
Love you all!
Allie
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