Dec 4, 2017 Bicycles, Eggs, and Port-Codes

Thanksgiving dinner

Several weeks ago we discovered a super cool little Arabic store where we go to get some of our

The flat of eggs I rode home with

groceries because it's significantly cheaper, and is sometimes better quality (although you definitely have to be careful with some of the food....) Among a few other items, I regularly get eggs there because you can buy a flat of 30 eggs that are cheaper and twice as big as the eggs you can get at the other grocery store. It's an incredible deal, but the only problem is transporting the eggs home with a bike... Normally they rubber band a second carton to the top of the eggs so I can put them in a sack and hang them on the handlebars, but on Monday they didn't have any extra cartons to do that with. So there I was with 30 eggs and a bike to get home. Naturally I accepted the challenge and did the only thing that made sense; I rode the bike with one hand while carrying the flat of eggs in the other hand. Elder Cotton tried to convince me that we could find a different way and that all of the eggs could survive, but that just sounded too easy. After a fairly intense bike ride, I am glad to report that all 30 eggs made it into the fridge safe and sound.

This weekend we got to spend the night in Stockholm for Stake Conference! Stockholm seriously has to be the coolest city ever, and after taking so many trains I have really gained an appreciation for it's subway system (the Tunnelbana), which is pretty amazing. Stake Conference was held in the StockholmsMässan building, which is a big convention center (they actually had a big fitness trade show going on at the same time in a different part of the building which looked pretty interesting). Stake Conference was wonderful, and it was awesome to see so many faithful saints gathered in one place.

This week we definitely had some cool experiences that witness that our Heavenly Father places people in our path for a reason, and that He always prepares a way to accomplish His commands. One evening we were out in town around 8:30 on our way back home. We aren't usually around that area at that time, and as we came upon an intersection we stopped and tried to decide whether we should take the shorter route, which we usually take, or the longer route, which would take us through town in the hopes that we could find someone, even just one person, on the deserted streets to talk to. After saying a prayer it became clear to us that we should take the longer route, and it wasn't too long before we came upon two guys from Nigeria who had just come from the gym. We had a great conversation and they want to meet with us to learn more about our church and the Book of Mormon. We are never in that area at that time, and had we not prayed for, and followed, inspiration on which way we should go, we never would have had the chance to meet them.

This week our Branch President asked us to visit a couple less active members and deliver invitations to the branch Christmas party. Seeing as how branch council is on Tuesday and we wanted to have a positive report, we determined to do everything we could to deliver those invitations. Yesterday we went to visit the last two people on the list, and upon arriving at the first we were met by the bane of

See if you can find the Santa Claus driving the tractor

missionary work here in Sweden, the port-coded apartment building. After unsuccessfully calling the resident and trying everything we could to get in so we could at least slip the invitation through the mail slot on the door, we stood there not knowing what else to do but unwilling to give up. Right at the moment, a lady delivering reklam (basically a bunch of advertisements/mail) walked by and asked us if we needed to get in. Naturally we responded that we did, and she happily let us in. After checking every single door in the building we discovered he had moved to France and no longer lived there (which the branch president had actually suspected) which was good to know so that we don't waste time in the future trying to contact him. We then went to the second person we wanted to visit where we were once again met by the Devil's handiwork, the port-code. After several minutes of trying to get in we were about to leave when a man walked out of the building. We explained the situation to him and he let us into the building where we were then able to deliver the invitation as we had set out to do. I know without a doubt that the Lord prepared a way for us to complete our assignment by placing those people in our path. Whatever our assignment may be, if we strive to do everything we can the Lord will prepare a way for us to overcome the elements we are incapable of on our own.

Äldste Sirrine