Oh, How Swede It Is!: Hej Igen

Letter sent August 29, 2016:

Hejsaan ya'll

Sitting in the coolest library room I've ever been in. Such a high ceiling and so many windows. It's really pretty.

After telling someone on the street we serve missions for 18 months and how long I've been out they told me that I don't have much time left. This is the first time I've heard that--normally they say I still have a while. I've been in mid-mission crisis ever since.

What a good exhausting week. On Monday we prepared for the week and all that good stuff and then jumped on a train up to Stockholm because we had mission leadership council on Tuesday. I LOVE STOCKHOLM. It just warms my whole heart to be underground on the tunnelbanas and see all the pendeltågs and just ahh. I love it. Sister Jackson and I stayed the night in Täby and then Tuesday morning we headed over to the mission home for the meeting. I got to see so many people I love: The Beckstrands, Syster Hall, Syster Wilson, and a couple other missionaries from my MTC group that I haven't seen since we abandoned the MTC entered the real world of Sweden. The training was incredible as they always are. It's so cool that a bunch of us get together and listen to the training and then have liberty to take from it and teach the zones whatever we feel that they need. It strengthened my testimony of the spirit and recieving inspiration a lot when Sister Jackson and I called up to talk to the zone leaders in Göteborg and found out that they had focused on something completely different than what we had talked about in our zone training. One thing I liked that President Beckstrand said was while he was talking about success and defining success in the right way. He went up to an Elder and said, "I bet you thought you were going to slay it when you got out here to Sweden, huh? You thought you would baptize thousands, right?" The missionary nodded and then President said, "Well guess what, you are slaying it." He then talked about how there are a lot of different aspects of missionary work and all of them have to be done to help the children of God. On the way back, we talked with the Malmö zone leaders about the zone training and planned for that. Also ate digestives with white chocolate which is absolutely divine. Also created a weight loss competition. The elders were insistent that we do it as companionships and as the reward, if they win, they have requested that we pay for them to eat at their favorite buffet and then just sit there and watch them eat. Kind of defeats the whole purpose of losing weight but whatevs.

Thursday Sister Jackson and I had our first planned lesson go through as a companionship!! We were pretty stoked about that! Turns out the couple wasn't actually interesed and just told us God doesn't exist the whole time and kept comparing belief in God to traveling to China but like, it was nice to sit down for a bit.

Friday we had our zone training and it went super well. We talked about knowledge, and motives behind doing the things we do. Like, the pharisees had a lot of knowledge that they tried to wreck Jesus and others with all the time. The different between Christ and the pharisees and saducees (there are many differences but just to name one) is that Christ is motivated by charity, His love for the people. He teaches with love. That's why His teaching is effective and that's why people continue to listen. It's so important that as missionaries and as members of the church we have the right reasons driving our actions.

Saturday we talked to the nicest Jehovah's witnesses I've ever met. Also talked to hundreds of other people. Classic our lives. Also saw a be-a-u-tiful sunset. Seriously Malmö is gorgeous and I can't get over it.

Sunday we taught primay (most adorable picture you've ever seen attached). One little girl reminds me so much of Piper. This primary just melts my heart. I love them.

I love the gospel. I really do. I know it can help every single person regardless of circumstances, problems, or interests. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ and one day everyone will know about it. Everyone will confess that Jesus is the Christ. It's going to be a really nice day.

Älskar er!

Syster May