Week 50-- Life in the Big City

May 24, 2018

Week 50-- Life in the Big City

Hejsan!

A couple highlights:

I went on splits (splits is when we split up as a companionship and trade with another companionship.)with the Zone Leaders in a place called Gubbängen (goo-bangin). I was with Elder Craun who's from Arizona. We had a solid time together, taught a few good lessons. The Gubbängen chapel is the oldest Mormon chapel in Sweden and it's huge! They have a basketball court (which is very rare in Sweden) so we walked there early in the morning and balled it up for morning exercise.

Other than that, we had 2 of our investigators at church this week and one brought his wife! They're both from Africa and our ward mission leader is from there so he has that African brother connection. They just chat back n forth in their pigeon English and laugh in that high voice. It's fun to see them chat and know someone from home.

What's been cool to see is how technology has changed our involvement with those we teach. We now add people on Facebook and start a group chat via messenger with them and through that we can send church videos, scriptures, videos of us saying hi/reading something, audio messages, you name it. It's pretty sick to use something I once wasted time on to be able to help people come closer to God.

Today we had a pretty sweet prep-day. After shopping and cleaning, we rode the train into Stockholm and went to Gamla Stan (old town) with the tall colored buildings and narrow alleys. We saw the building where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded every year. We heard that the spiciest sausage in the world is some place in Gamla Stan so we went on the hunt asking people but most were tourists and the swedes didn't know... more to come next week. We took a tour to the top of Stadshuset or the old city hall that has a bell tower and got a 360 view of Stockholm. Also ran into a couple up there from Mercer Island! Felt good meeting some fellow Pacific North-westerners. Good people, good people.

My spiritual thought this week comes from something I've learned recently. There have been times on my mission where I am telling someone something I believe on a bus or on the street and I don't necessarily feel strongly or emotional about what I say. I thought maybe it's because I've said it so many times that it's lost its flare or effect on me, but I heard someone say in a conference that you can't testify or teach deeper than your knowledge or conviction is. So lately I have been trying to say things that I feel in that moment are especially true to me, and I have noticed that God's spirit gives me that warm feeling that it's right when I do so. So, if you are put in a situation where you can say what you believe (or even just in personal prayer to God), say the things you for sure believe in that moment of your life and you'll get a confirmation that it's truth. And that confirmation always feels good :)

love you all!

Äldste Gordon

Correction to my address:

Elder Rylan Gordon

C/O Michael Stålande

Uddnäsvägen 23

176076 Järfälla

(bc we rent from someone)