Leadership Training in Göteborg‏

Hello lovely family!

Sorry my letters are getting smaller and smaller, but once
again we had a Leadership training. This time on the west side
of the country! A highlight of the training actually wasn't in the
training itself. While we were preparing for the training and setting
things up, the sisters in that area came in and asked me if I spoke
Portuguese, Itold them that I could try! During I training I slipped
out and taught a man who came from BRAZIL! I real live Brazilian.
He came from Zona Oeste... of sao paulo. His name was Cleber!
It was so cool to be thereand translate for the sisters. This man
took the message full-heartedly! We read through the plan of salvation
with him. And as we were reading he would always stop and ask a question
that would be answered right on the next page! It was so amazing to see
the FULLNESS of the Gospel be unfolded to him. He had always believed
in God, but as long as you follow your heart, God won't lead you astray.
He didn't know what the atonement was, the sisters and I were able to bear
strong testimony of the cleansing and enabling power of the atonement.
He felt it was real! He had so many questions that he realized
couldn't be answered in the first visit but the sisters there will be
meeting with him more. Experiences like that are really special for
me, yes it was a VERY ACCEPTING brazilian, but the memories that came
flowing back to my mind about how much I love those people and also
came to a realization (as we drove back to Stockholm) on how much my
love has grown for the people here in Sweden! As I think about this...
In and outside of missionary life, one tends to generalize, judge or
assume things that we shouldn't. The atonement has been done so that
we don't have to judge! What a blessing! In the wise words of mother
teresa...“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” You
often search for ways to make things easier, unfortunately in
missionary work, we tend to do the same. "This is how you contact a
swede" or "this is how one can teach an african" My testimony has
grown more and more that there is no formula to teach people from all
over the world... but there is a way. Let the spirit teach you what to
say as you listen with Love and a desire for the salvation of THIS
loved son or daughter of God. What we do in our life isn't as
important as who we have BECOME. The objective is to BEcome as he IS.
Anyways...
Yesterday my companion and I had a great day. We taught a lady from
Vietnam in the house of a member and it was really great to see them
bond as bothers of young 3 year olds. The down-side of it was that the
kids were there. We had a plan to invite her to baptism, but it just
wasn't happening with their kids hitting, screaming, running and
climbing around to make it a spiritual experience. We had a plan to
teach an inactive member with a non-member wife but he was out of
town. So we decided to tract the area! And what a blessing that was.
We found this man who is from California who said he had a very strong
Orthodox belief and he would be out of town. We asked him if he would
be interested in talking more later and he gave us a card, told us
what we worked with and we found out that he worked with skateboards
"tip technology" to improve thm in some way. We asked him if he could
show us a board so he ran upstairs and grabbed a board, explained it
to us and then said "here" and gave us the deck. Now... for all of you
who don't know how much skateboards cost... look it up because I don't
either but I know it's expensive! He insisted that we keep it! So we
got a skateboard! The floor just below him was a Swedish lady with a
10 year old daughter and they were AWESOME! She had met the
missionaries before in a different city. But loved having us over. The
girl was talking so much and telling us how she felt towards religion
(really positive) and how the family insisted on the fact that there
is no way to know what will happen to us after we die. But we showed
them a scripture and they loved it. We asked if they could read the
Book of Mormon and come to church. The mother said YES we can read
together tonight and throughout the week. Then the girl said and if
she doesn't read with me then I will read by myself! haha The mom
didn't want to come to church but the daughter said "But I want to go
to their church so I can sing!" They had plans this sunday but we look
forward to seeing them in church and getting to know the members!

Well thats just a little summary of what's been going on. I'm loving
life, my area, the members and my companion. There's also a guitar
laying around here in the office, so I have a goal to learn to play
the guitar, so I will be off doing that!

I love you all and thanks for your support!
Love,
Äldste Wad