Another Week Bites the Dust‏

Letter sent February 22, 2016

At the Vasa Museum.  Syster Crawford can't stand people touching her sides;
hence my arms are dangling awkwardly.

Ahh another week gone already? Lol such a classic missionary thing to say. I guess I'm beginning to fit the mold. 

This week we had a specialized zone training which is when our zone gets together and President and Syster Beckstrand and the assistants teach us. It was soo good. Seriously, tone trainings are the best. We talked a lot about working with members better and about loving the areas that we're assigned to. That yeah, each of our areas are small, and sometimes not much happens, and maybe we'll only be there for 6 weeks; but that we should but all of our love into our areas and help them to be better than when we came. Syster Bateman shared shared a poem that I just absolutely adored. It goes like this, 

"'Father, where shall i work today?'

And my love flowed warm and free,

Then He pointed to a tiny spot

And said 'Tend that for me.'

'Oh no! Not that! Why, no one would ever see!

No matter how hard I worked!

Not that little spot for me.'

Now the word he spoke, it was not stern

He answered tenderly

'Ah little one, search that heart of thine-

Art thou working for them or for me?

Nazareth was a little place,

And so was Galilee."

So good, right? Yes, it is. We're all called to our little areas. Right now I'm in Jakobsberg and I'll be in other places in Sweden over the next year and a half and then after that I'll be in little towns in Utah or wherever. But it's not about how great or fabulous what you do seems to the world. Christ cares about the individuals. The gospel, everything Christ does, is for the individual. I'm here to bless individuals. I just think that's a wonderful thought. That everything that happens here on Earth; it's not just because God has devised a plan where probably a lot of people could make it back to Him. But that everything happens so that He can help each one of us individually while we're here. Obviously I can't help every single human being living in Sweden or even every single human being in this area now. But I can help many individuals every single day. 

The second half of zone training was a Family Home Evening with the Beckstrands. We all got in a big circle in the gym and we went around and got to know each other and then we got to just ask the Beckstrand's questions. They are the most incredible people. All of their answers to silly or spiritual questions really made us all see that their lives are built on the gospel. They don't just belong to the church, but the gospel is their lifestyle. And it's easy to see how that has blessed their whole lives. 

We met with Diego again this week and taught the full Restoration to him. He totally gets it. It was so funny. We were explaining how our church really has existed throughout all time and that there just have been times when we haven't had a prophet or whatever. Then we explained how Christ himself came and built up the church. And he was like, "Wait, no. Because Christ didn't build up a different church. It was the same one. I don't believe that Christ just had his own church that he decided when he came." We were like yes, exaaactly! Same! We believe the same! Haha it's always so exciting when they think they've posed this tricky question that we're going to disagree with and then we're just like, yeah, precis. That is exactly right. 

Sweden is BEAUTIFUL.

Oh oh oh. And we met with this other guy this week, Hamid, who is THE BEST. Gah he was so cool. We talked with him about the Restoration also and the godhead and at the beginning we were thinking that he didn't understand us. That his Swedish wasn't good enough because he kept just saying "okay." Which to us would mean that they aren't really listening or caring but to him I guess it meant that he was really following along with us because he would like repeat back to us ideas of what we had said. Honestly he was so happy. Just so happy to be with us. He was smiling the whole time. So we talked about how he could find out that what we were saying was true for himself and read the promise in the Book or Mormon with him (he read it in Persian so he really really understood) and we asked him if he would read and pray and really search and he said yes. They all say yes, but he was actually serious. He was like, I don't know how fast I can read the whole book though, maybe two months. And we were like noooo haha you just have to be reading daily. And he was like, "oohh. Okay, then I think I can receive an answer in one week." We were like, yeah, okay, if you believe that then we believe that too. It was so cool. We asked him if he would be baptized when he finds out it's true and he was like, "Själv klart!" basically like "Obviously!" Then he said the closing prayer and it was just soo good. He asked if he could say it in Persian and we said yeah. Which sometimes, that is a little sketchy when they say prayers in their native language because a lot of times they just say a memorized prayer from their youth even though we explain that we don't do that. So he said the prayer and we were like, "...so...what did you say?" And he was like, "I told God that I fell so calm right now and I asked him if the Book of Mormon is true and if what we talked about is true." It was just so good and happy! Then Sunday night we called to see how he was doing because he couldn't come to church because he had to do his laundry. I know what you're thinking, he had to do his laundry?? I thought the exact same thing the first time I heard it as an excuse. But they have to schedule when they're going to do their laundry here and if you miss your time you're basically just wrecked for the week and have to wait another whole week so turns out it actually is a valid excuse. Anyway, we called and he was like yeah I've been reading in the Book of Mormon already and blah blah blah and he was like Absolut I'm coming to church next week. Sorry that was a way long detailed explanation but we are just so excited.

Also this week we went to a members house for dinner and we were having chicken and rice and normal stuff like that. And the dad went to the fridge and was asking us which sauce we wanted to put on the chicken and he was kind of joking around and he pulled out hot sauce and was like, "Do you want this?" And we laughed and were like no, it's way to spicy. And then he pulled out mustard and was like, "This?" We laughed because we thought it was a joke and were like really? Then he pulls out barbeque sauce and was like "This??" And we were like "yeah!" And he started laughing like it was a joke and put it back in the fridge and brought the mustard and hot sauce to the table. It was the funniest thing. We were so confused. Like, we thought he was joking with the first two and then when he got to an actual normal topping he was actually joking. But hey, mustard turned out to be pretty good on it. 

I'm so so happy. By popular demand my mom I need to send more pictures but our phone cord is so broken and messed up right now so I can't get pictures onto the computer to send. But the elders might bring theirs when they get here so maybe I can still send some in another email. 

Also the Liahona is rad. Like, it's so good. Why did I not know this before I came out here? I don't know. But now I am obsessed with it. 

Love love,

Syster May

Syster May and Syster Crawford