Week 47

Subject: These boots were made for walkin’

Hejsan allihopa!

It's been quite an interesting week in preparation for Valentine's Day! With our investigator calling us 'baby' instead of sister and then the other Sisters' baptismal date expressing his love to Sis Gotberg, we've had quite enough of the Valentine's sentiment :) He told her he's going back to Africa this week, and wouldn't she like to go with him? When she said no in her usual Sis Gotberg manner (nicely and with a sense of humor) he followed up with a texted poem about his love for her. He tried calling over and over and after a lot of agonizing conversations with the rest of us told her that she wasn't practicing what she preached because Jesus wouldn't avoid people. That was mature of him. So, in the end we gave S to the other sisters and they gave M to us. We are trying to meet with M again to see what his real intentions really are and if he is interested in continuing to learn more and set up a new baptismal date.

So, it's been quite cozy with all four of us in the apartment. It seems to take forever to get out of the door in the morning, but we can run and be ready for study at 8, so that's been impressive. Otherwise, I can never find anything and all my clothes seem to be permanently wrinkled from being stuffed in half a closet. After 2 weeks, we've worked out the kinks. We haven't divided up the area at all--we just communicate to make sure we won't be at the same place at the same time. The other sisters have more responsibilities over the institute center and teach Swedish class and such. It's been really nice to have the center to teach people. No more sitting at the library! It always struck me as funny that we didn't have a good place where we could go to teach people. It feels much more professional to have a place of our own to meet (in Örebro and Sundsvall, the church was a bit out of the way).

In other news we've seen so many miracles this week. I have done this three times now it seems. Go to an area, find out there are 1-2 investigators and then spend the next two weeks working as hard as we can to try to build up the area. It seems that on that day where I just don't think I can contact one more person, the Lord blesses us so much. Last weekend we gave pass along cards to 2 people who contacted us either that night or in the next few days. We met with one man, M, 3 times last week and found a fellowshipper who clicked with him immediately! Even when I feel so inadequate, the Lord shows me that He's the one who's taking care of everything. We had another miracle. We'd had a really poopy day the day before and I was sitting on the tram pleading with the Lord to give me strength to keep going and I got the strongest impression to just get off the tram and start contacting. The first person we talked to was a man from Colombia (Spanish speaker!!) who has Mormon friends and a Book of Mormon at home! He invited us over :) These things happened over and over again this week.

Just one more really cool thing...Last night we went tracting and the first door we knocked on the lady said, 'jag vet vem ni är. kom in!' We were so shocked we didn't really know what to do at first, but we took our coats off and sat down. She gave us tea and kladkaka and we showed here the new translation of the Book of Mormon. She was really excited about it. She said she likes to open up the book at random and see what the Lord has for her that day. She demonstrated and the scripture she read at random was Alma 10:8-9. I just got chills. The Spirit was so strong, we tried to explain the story, but we don't know if she really got it. In any case, we got her number and an open invitation to come back. It was really cool. Another tender mercy was that I was feeling bad making Sis Lövgren work while she was sick. We got to have a nice chat and drink tea. Wonderful.

Well, I love Sis Lövgren. She's just fantastic. We are so similar that we laugh about our same quirks. We both have a tendency to micromanage each other. It's great. I also got to wear Sis Gotbergs new boots to stretch them out for her and she wore mine. It was nice to trade in my clunky boots for nice sleek ones for a while. They have no tread, so I would hold onto her backpack and she'd pull me along the ice. Who needs ice skating? Anyway, that's the news. Oh, Elder Olsen is my zone leader. He played football with Aaron Lee. I gave him all Aaron's letters. He was very excited. 30 seconds left! Have a great week!

Love,

Sis M