HELLO fam-bamily! I would like to start off by answering mother YES I did receive the Cook Book that she made and I love it! It is incredibly useful I just need to use it. A lot of the times as a missionary you just kinda throw things together. But I will and have been using it! And this morning the Joseph Smith pamphlet and things in Serbian came in the MAIL! THANK YOU SO MUCH! We will be getting that to them ASAP!
This week has been a very tiring week but I know that Acting in all diligence will bring blessings! And what an amazing week this has been!
None of our baptismal dates were able to get baptized this weekend because they just weren't ready. But often as missionaries we tend to forget that we HELP THEM recieve the restored gospel. By Faith in Jesus Christ and THEN repentance... THEN comes baptism for the remission of sins. And if they aren't keeping the commitments we give them (which are preparatory to the COVENANT they will make) they won't be ready for Baptism. But I'll go through the investigators...
Surendra agreed to being interviewed for Baptism by Elder Winegar... turns out that he didn't feel like he was ready for Baptism because he needed to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet. The next time we taught him we asked him if he had been reading in the Book of Mormon and praying. And he said yes. As the teach went along we came to find out that he hadn't been reading... and he didn't want to pray. So we taught him about Faith and how we first need to EXPERIMENT on the words and then we will feel the swelling motions... Where is the power of prayer without the Faith? For him... he just needs the Faith to Pray... and then to read... and pray again... but he has yet to do this. He is an amazing guy and is really searching for truth but isn't taking the necessary steps. Tyvärr
Michelle from China has been working all day everyday... never has time to meet and very occupied with her job. We will hopefully be able to meet her this week and hope and pray for the opportunity to do so.
Zaki didn't show up to a teach so we wouldn't be able to teach him everything in time so we are planning for next week. He is from Afghanistan and has a strong desire to be Christian and has quit smoking... he just needs to understand that he isn't just joining any christian church. But the only true and LIVING church on the Earth. HE is awesome though. Super stud
Li, unfortunately hadn't been reading in the Chinese book because he said it was hard to understand and boring. And he is leaving back for China today so we read 2 Nephi 32:5 with him and promised that he would be able to recieve an answer if he read as much as he could while he was in China. He will be returning at the beginning of August and I will be emailing him scriptures every week and he will be writing me back answers and comments! super stoked! He is an amazing guy.
Because of the mid-summer holiday we weren't able to meet with Benjamin and Nafiseh from Iran... but they are still amazing people.
Alinda has still been doing great with not smoking... and so we just need to remind her to read and pray a lot so she can know the truth! She will be baptised next week because she has really shown so much progress it is AMAZING!
We were able to teach another guy from India... anirudh.. we showed him Finding Faith and Christ. At the end of the film he said... hey... I BELIEVE that! It was super sick. So we read 2 Nephi 31 with him and asked if he would follow the example of Jesus Christ and he said he would! Super cool guy! He is set for the sometime in July.
We also taught this woman from Lebanon. Her name is Seta... she has been muslim but has been investigating many Christian churches. She speaks broken-up swedish and so we gave her brochures in Arabic to read along with. And so our Baptismal commitment was pointing to "Things to know" section on the back... and one of the lines say "prepare yourself to be baptized on _____" and she said OK! And so we set up a date for July 17th. Super exciting times.
We have also begun to teach a guy named Rennie. He plays on local soccer team Elfsborg here and we asked him what religious background he had. He said he believed in Christ but hasn't been baptized... so we told him that there was a 14 year old boy who was in the same situation as him... and he loved it. We asked what he felt as he went to Church when he was young. He said I don't know how.. but I everytime I chose to go... I was helped out. It was a super spiritual meeting and we invited him to church and to read and pray because by the Holy Ghost... he could know the truth.. not just a best guess. And he said he WOULD. Unfortunately he had traveled to Göteborg over the weekend and got back too late. :(
This week we had done all that we could to get our investigators to church. And 1 came. Seta! She was great and enjoyed the great spirit that was there! It is actually pretty amazing because even though no one else came... we still felt within ourselves that we did ALL tha we could. And that is what the Lord expects of us.... just a kind reminder to us that people have their Agency.
Well... other than that this week has been amazing WEATHER! It was Mid-summer and me and my compaion were able to celebrate it with out gypsy serbian family and our less-active that translates. It was really cool. I was able to take some pictures so I will be sending those sometime next week! Watch out!
It's good to hear that all is well with the family! I love it when you guys write me and show the love!
This is the best thing in the world. I know that this place is the place where the Lord has sent me and I wouldn't rather be doing anything else but serving and representing the Lord that can literally SAVE and rescue EVERY person we meet on the street IF they are willing to COME unto Him. This is the Lords work. I really have been so blessed as I help others come to Christ.
Go Utes... Let me know whats going on in Mantua... and keep populating the Earth!
Love,
the Wad
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