March 19, 2018 Coincidence? I think not.

One of the many waterways in Goteborg

 This week we had an incredible zone conference in which we received several hours of training on how to use technology. Our mission is one of two missions outside of the US and Canada to be receiving smartphones at this time, and it's truly an incredible opportunity. Each missionary will own his or her own smartphone, which will aid many aspects of the work, and we will begin using social media such as Facebook to proselyte and communicate. The mission is very excited to have such an incredible opportunity, and we will be receiving phones (and additional training) at our next zone conference in six weeks.

On Wednesday we had a member, Tyler, take us out to lunch. It was super nice of him to do that for us, and it gave us a wonderful opportunity to get to know him better and to help him set goals and make plans for missionary work he can do as a member. After lunch we had some time to street

Elder Lee, one of the Assistants,

at zone conference. He is heading

home this transfer, and it's sad to

see him go.

contact, and we had language study scheduled for 4:00 at the Institute Center. We found some wonderful people who we look forward to teaching in the future, and we found ourselves standing outside the door to the Institute Center at 3:58 pm, one person short of our goal of potential investigators for the day. Determined to reach our goal, we decided we had two minutes to do so. We started walking down the street and you better believe I was praying as we approached the first man we saw. No sooner could we say hello than he very abruptly stated he was not interested and kept walking. We continued down the street and had this happen two more times before we decided we needed to head back and start our studies. We were on our way back and were directly across from the Center at exactly 4:00, about to cross the street and enter the door, when we stopped a lady who was was walking very quickly, carrying several bags, and had headphones in. She stopped to talk with us, and it turns out she is from the Philippines and Christian. We had an awesome conversation with her about the church, and she eagerly exchanged phone numbers with us saying that not only would she be interested in a message about Jesus Christ, but her boyfriends dad would be as well. I add my testimony to that of Elder Rasband who stated, "Our lives are like a chessboard, and the Lord moves us from one place to another—if we are responsive to spiritual promptings. Looking back, we can see His hand in our lives." and Elder Neal A. Maxwell who said, "You and I may call these intersectings ‘coincidence.’ This word is understandable for mortals to use, but coincidence is not an appropriate word to describe the workings of an omniscient God."

We saw the hand of the Lord guide us yet again on Saturday as we taught our new investigator Christopher (50 years old), who we received as a referral from missionaries in another area. We had received his phone number from the missionaries, called him, and set up an appointment to teach

We were trying to find a

members house at the same

time the clouds decided to

come down and embrace

the earth. This made it rather

tricky to find the house, as we

had no idea which way we

were walking...

him. As we talked with him, we discovered that he broke his leg about two months ago and is in the process of physical therapy and recovery. He explained that the two people he trusts most in his life is his physical therapist and his mother, and that both had told him within the same week that if he wanted to get his life in order, he needed to start praying more. He pondered on this, deciding they were right, and started to do so. The very next day we just "happened" to call him. He knew there was no possible way that this was a coincidence, so he decided to meet with us and made a plan to meet us weekly and come to church in order to find greater happiness and fulfillment and life.

"You and I may call these intersectings ‘coincidence.’ This word is understandable for mortals to use, but coincidence is not an appropriate word to describe the workings of an omniscient God."

Äldste Sirrine

We found a teeter totter while searching

for the address of someone we were

visiting. Naturally, we couldn't resist.