Week 34--- Reindeer and snowmobiles

February 04, 2018

Week 34--- Reindeer and snowmobiles

Tjena alla!

Pretty average week this week to be honest, but here are a few highlights:

We met our investigator N this week and things are going great with her. She's a nice woman, and her own style. She's got some green-dyed hair, shaved sides of her head, has 4 little kids and her husband looks like someone who'd be in a swedish punk rock band (which he was earlier), but she's the nicest woman. She really wants to find God and is willing to do what it takes. Our lessons with her just feel so good because the presence of the Spirit is so tangible.

We drove out to Ostvik to visit an older lady named Ulla in the branch here who recently turned 80. We went out there to fika (swedish tradition snack time) with her, help her shovel her driveway, fix her computer which was Windows 2003 ha ha and to share a nice message with her!

I attached a picture of the fika, but I'll fill everyone in on what a typical swedish fika is. You start with choosing your tea (not green tea BTW), then you grab some bread and slap some butter and cheese and usually some sort of finely sliced meat on there. There is also something called Knäckebröd which is like a thick cracker you can put butter and cheese on. Once you're done with that, then it's okay to move on to the desserts (I tried starting with the desserts my first time with Ulla and she made me put it back, so I guess it's a strict fika rule). Desserts are usually bullar (like mini cinnamon rolls), cookies, cakes, pretty much the classic swedish pastries you would think of. It's pretty common to fika (fee-kuh) with people here, not just with old ladies ha ha I do feel pretty sophisticated though sipping tea, eating pastries and discussing higher-level things with Swedes😎

Yesterday we had to drive out about an hour to a place called Boliden and another called Bastuträsk to check on some members and see if they still lived there. While they weren't interested in the church and the other didn't live there, it was a super pretty drive. We were way out in the Swedish countryside on small forest roads the whole time. We saw some reindeer on the side of the road too which was cool! Hopefully the videos I took make it to you.

My Spiritual thought for the week comes from a scripture in the Book of Mormon in the book Mormon chapter 9 verse 15. It says "God has not ceased to be a God of miracles". This part of scripture is a prophet telling people that miracles still happen, but it may feel like they don't because we don't see crazy things happen like we read in the scriptures. But! Often, miracles are ready to happen, they just aren't asked for.

On our way to an apartment complex this week we called our good ol' fika pal U and asked her to pray for us that we could find 1 person who is interested in our message. We figured God wouldn't turn down an 80 year-old lady's prayer ha ha. So, we started knocking on doors, and found this immigrant who didn't speak great of swedish, but already had a Book of Mormon and said we could come back. It wasn't super promising, but Äldste Callor and I figured hey maybe that was the one person. We kept going with no luck, and the last door we knocked on in the building before going home was the one person we'd been looking for and prayed for. He was a 32 yo guy from southern Sweden, lives alone, super friendly and we chatted about life for like 20 mins and eventually he asked to know what we do or what Mormons are (he thought we were Amish people). So we gave him a Book of Mormon and he was down for us to come back.

This experience showed me that we just need to pray for specific things, in faith, and God will give them to us. We called U back and told her all about it and she was the happiest I'd heard her. I don't know why it's taken me almost 8 months on the mission to figure this out, but I now know that God answers specific prayers, so try him. Pray for something specific, maybe opportunities to serve others, and he'll for sure send 'em your way.

I'm blessed up here in Norrland and am blessed to have so much support from you all! I love you guys!

Äldste Gordon

Waving good bye to the missionaries from Boden at the bus stop

Flygande Jakob a dish that we make and eat throughout the week.
Chicken, bacon, cheese, peanuts
(I'll make it for you when we get back, it's way good)