March 18, 2019 "But I'M interested!"

To give you an idea of what our area looks like, 

here's a few of the houses we knocked on this week.

This week the Lord presented us with an incredible opportunity to serve. I'll preface this by saying that it's incredibly hard to find service here in Sweden (Ward service projects? They don't exixt here...) so any opportunity is a real blessing.

As we were heading to the train station after knocking doors in an area, we saw a credit card lying on the path. We picked it up and looked around to see whose it was and saw a man 50 yards away walking the other direction, so we ran to catch up with him and asked if it was his. He said it wasn't, which left us wondering what to do. We almost just left it where we had found it so the owner could find it if they came looking, but then we had the idea to look at the name on the card and then search that name on hitta.se, a website/app here in Sweden. All you need is either a person's name, phone number, or address, and it will pull up all the rest of their information, including name and birth date. Honestly this website is incredibly nice as a missionary when you need to find people, but is really disturbing otherwise when you consider that anyone can find all that information about you so easily... We found the man, Magnus, on the app and saw that he only lived a half kilometer away, so we decided to take him the card, meaning we would miss the train back home. We knocked on the door and said we had found his card and then asked a couple questions to make sure it was his. He was incredibly grateful we had brought it to him and immediately grabbed his wallet to try to pay us. We explained that we didn't want to accept any money and then had the opportunity to talk about our volunteer service here in Sweden. As it turns out, his uncle is a member of the church, along with his wife and 10 kids, down in Västerhaninge (near the temple). Right at that time the man's wife came walking up to the house walking their dog. She had been on her way to the grocery store when she lost the card, so she had been looking all over for it and was quite worried. She couldn't believe it when Magnus reached into his pocket and produced the missing card. We were able to share our message briefly with them, and we left feeling that we had planted a great seed, feeling strongly that our service will lead to questions and conversation between him and his uncle.

We don't have a lot to work with right now, so this week we did a lot of knocking doors and talking to people on the street. Our area is a really rich part of Stockholm, so it's been interesting to meet a lot

P-day today. We hiked out into the woods

 and made a fire! It was raining pretty good, 

but don't worry, we're all eagle scouts 

so we got that fire going first try :)

of different people and see some beautiful neighborhoods. Not a single person we met this week was interested in learning more, but that hasn't stopped us from experiencing great miracles and joy. I love the words of King Benjamin as he teaches his people about the greatness of The Lord. "And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you." (Mosiah 2:22) I can't say I entirely understand the full impact of every conversation we had this week, but I can say from experience that I know without a doubt that the Lord fulfills every promise and blesses us for our efforts to keep his commandments.

Here's one of my favorite experiences from the week I'll leave you with. We knocked on a door and a little a young couple opened the door along with a 4 or five year old girl. The dad said they were just about to put the kids to bed, so it wasn't a good time. The little girl then said, "Yeah, it's not a good time. Maybe try again tomorrow, but a little earlier." We then asked the dad if there was another time we could come and share our message and he replied that they weren't interested. The little girl then looked up at her father in great indignation, and with hands on her hip, said, "But, I'M interested!" I couldn't help but think of Christ's command to become as little children and it definitely made me smile.


Äldste Sirrine