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| We had our first Snowfall on Saturday! |
This week my companion and I were asked to help out with a funeral for the mother of our branch president. I was asked to play some hymns for the funeral and for the most part the hymn books have the same hymns, but there are several hymns added in that aren't in the English hymnbook, so I got to learn some Swedish hymns this week. Some of the Swedish hymns are super cool, and I wish we had them in the English hymnbooks as well! We found out that an interesting Swedish tradition is that men wear white ties to funerals. Our branch president was explaining this to us and told us that he once went to a funeral in Finland (his wife is Finnish) and wore a white tie, because that's how he's always done it, but apparently in Finland the tradition is to wear a black tie. He said he was the only person wearing a white tie and that he will definitely never make that mistake again.
Yesterday I was gave my first talk in Swedish and I can testify, as I have before, that the Gift of Tongues is real. Although not perfect by any means, with the help of the Lord I was able to present my message to the congregation in a way that invited the true teacher, the spirit, to testify. The Gift of Tongues is truly a gift, and it doesn't mean that God would deny us the great opportunity to struggle as we learn a new language. It certainly has been, and continues to be something I struggle with each day, but it is only through the struggle that we learn, and God would not deny us that blessing. As I interact with others I am continually reminded how greatly the Lord has helped me. As I speak with immigrants on the street I am amazed at how so many can't speak the language and have been here for several years, while with the Lord's help I am able to speak communicable Swedish after two months. When the Lord asks us to do something hard, he will always prepare a way, and he will not leave us without help.
This week we had a great lesson with our investigator Katrine. The night before the lesson she texted us and asked us if we payed tithing in our church. We told her that we did and said that we could explain it further in our lesson the next day. At the beginning of our meeting with her the next day she explained to us how grateful she was that God had put us into her life. She had previously belonged to a different church and gradually stopped going, but she said that she had just started to feel like she should come back to God when we found her on the street. She knows that this is what she needs in her life, and the spirit has confirmed to her that this is Christ's restored church on the Earth. As we discussed tithing she let out a sigh of relief, much to our surprise. She explained how glad she was that we pay tithing in our church because she had payed tithing in her previous church, and she knows that when she pays tithing, her finances are blessed, which she really needs right now. How amazing it is that she realizes the blessings that come from keeping the law of tithing, and I add my witness to hers that as we pay our tithing, the Lord truly "open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."
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| New winter coat. |
This week we had a lesson with Mekonen, who's been a member for about a year. We have been trying to get him to more actively take part in helping us with the sacrament, and to deepen his conversion. Mekonen is from Ethiopia and the question is not "What should we teach him?" but rather "What does he want to teach us?" We always go in there with a lesson plan, but as soon as we start teaching a principle he goes off for several minutes explaining his knowledge of the principle through stories and experiences he's had. As we sit there listening we sometimes wonder where he he's going with his story because it seems to be going in a completely different direction, but then in the end he always brings it back together and we just sit there in amazement at how effectively his story had just taught something. As we visited him on Saturday he began to tell us his life story. We sat in silence as we listened to how his wife had died three days after his son was born, how he was in the military and was taken as a prisoner of war for 182 days where he slept on cement, was beaten, and had only the clothes on his back. When he was finally released he escaped to Sudan and then Sweden. During the whole time he worried about his son, who he was not reunited with until years later in Sweden. After describing all this, and so many other awful things that had happened to him, he looked at us with a smile on his face and said, "And now, none of it matters, because of Christ." He explained how he had researched and been a part of many different churches, but it wasn't until he met the missionaries in Sweden that he found what he knows to be the true church of Christ. Through the knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he has been able to let go of everything that has happened in the past, because he knows that Christ has experienced all of it, and that through Christ everything is made fair and just. He now cherishes the friendships and support he has found in the church, and he thanks God for every blessing he now enjoys. What a wonderful example Mekonen is to all of us. Whenever we may think that that we're doing the right things and yet something we have experienced is hard or unfair, we should remember that through Christ, who was perfect and yet suffered more than anyone else, the Plan of Salvation is made possible and everything will not only be made fair, but we will be blessed far beyond anything we could deserve of ourselves. Nothing about the Plan of Salvation is unfair. Remember the Plan of Salvation, or in other words, the Plan of Happiness and that as our prophet Thomas S. Monson has said, "Our future is as bright as our faith."
Äldste Sirrine
