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| Things are getting greener |
HEJJJJJ PÅ ERRRRR
I hope that everyone
has had a stellar week!
This week has been
pretty wonderful, with lots of focus on the members!
We visited and served
a few people. Service included helping cut down trees and clearing out a closet
that is just PACKED to the brim with stuff. It was fun and we got some good
Persian and Iranian food out of it! As well as the joy and satisfaction of
helping.
We met with a part
member family this week. We talked about the Restoration of the Gospel and
invited them to read the Book of Mormon. They gladly accepted but weren't able
to make it to church on Sunday because their son was sick. But hopefully next
week!! We had a little fika
this week with a sweet new convert named Jasmin. Hoy moly does she have an
incredible faith. She has been tested and tried in ways that none of us can
understand but she has such a strong anchor in Christ and knows that if she
holds tight she will make it. She is just the best. We are going to the temple
with her and another member (who hasn't been to the temple yet either) this
Wednesday.
We had a hungarian
dinner this week with our RS pres and her newly baptized husband and Sussi and
Pontus. Similar situations and actually quite a lot in the ward in general lately
all the husbands of faithful women have been baptized - one step closer to
eternal families! It's very exciting! It went really well and the Spirit was
strong as we talked about repentance and how even after baptism we will make
mistakes but that is why we have the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Have a great week!!
Love,
Syster Jordan Lund
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| My baby using Swedish questions to contact people |
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| Sad to say goodbye to Elder Weaver and Elder Archibald. They have done wonders for this mission! |
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| Needle operation to get some tree out of McClatchie's finger |
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| Birthday fika with Pontus and Sussi |
April 25, 2016
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| Temple with Sahar and Jasmin |
hallllllllåååååå
I hope that
everyone's weeks have been wonderful!! This week was great!! My power of prayer
has increased ten fold for SURE!
Let me start of by
saying that we have been really keeping our money tight these last few weeks
with groceries so we have just been trying to plan dinner appointments with the
members! It's been SO FUN getting to know the members and help them to trust us
and give them more motivation for their own missionary work. There are some
really fantastic families in this ward! We were able to go and visit the bishop
in his home with his family. It was lovely getting to know them and talking
with the bishop about how we can best help the ward and the missionary work in
this area. HE TRUSTS US. It feels good to know that he trusts us, because the
bishop is the key to the rest of the members. He was very glad that we took the
initiative to come over and get to know them.
We had a zone training
about the commandments and being bold in our teaching, something most
missionaries are afraid about doing. It was super good! We have a new zone
leader who actually is from Sweden so it was fun to watch him figure out
english words. That must be how all missionaries are with Swedish.
We were also able to
go to the temple with a member who has never been to the temple! She is from
Iran and was actually baptized in Cyprus about 6 years ago. She loved it and is
looking forward to getting her endownments - and we get to help her along the
road!
We also had a ward
activity that was actually like a missionary activity. It was meant to be for
the members to bring their friends to watch "Meet the Mormons", but
it ended up being missionaries and their investigators and a couple members.
All in all though, we had about 40 people there! The Bishop conducted the
meeting and did an AWESOME job with it. We also had a short question and answer
thing after the movie for a short while and then some refreshments! SO good! I
was kinda stressed the whole week leading up to it. Making sure everything was
in line. I said a real nice long prayer laying everything on the table for God
the night before and put it in His hands. And He took
care of it! It was really good, and a success in the end!
I had
another experience with prayer that I thought I would share. We have been trying to get in
with the members and get them to trust us, and let me tell you, they TRUST US.
lots. However, now we need more people to teach, people that are ready to
repent and be baptized. I prayed SO HARD Saturday night..and began my fast for
the next day. Lemme just also include that my testimony of fasting is SUPER
STRONG. After closing my prayer, one of our new TUs (potential investigators)
that we had texted responded and said that she was actually very interested in
talking to us. MIRACLE ONE. The next day we talked to literally everyone. No
matter how awkward. We had an investigator that has a baptismal date but hasn't
comet o church since we've been here come to church. MIRACLE TWO. After church
we talked to a member about coming with us on a lesson with the investigator
that was in church. And this guy is very busy and to be honest we really
thought he didn't like us (we haven't been to his house yet, he doesn't even
know how awesome we are!! haha just kidding). We talked to him and got lots of
insight about his mission. I felt very prompted to ask for a referral even
though we weren't even really talking about that at all. He didn't hesitate too
long before giving us a name and an address and permission to say that he had
sent us to this man. MIRACLE THREE. We swung but the referral and followed the
direction of the member. The referral was incredibly positive and even invited
us in (single man so we didn't). Super positive! MIRACLE FOUR. We walked
alongside this lake to contact people who were casually walking so maybe they
might have more time to talk. We found a persian family feeding the ducks. Mom,
Dad, young daughter. I had been inspired that morning to bring a persian Book
of Mormon. MIRACLE NUMBER FIVE. The daughter was distracting the parents who
were trying to focus on what we were saying about the book. We played the
distraction card and I took the daughter and distracted her off to the side while
Sister McClatchie in Swedish explained the book of mormon to a persian family
who really couldn't speak too much Swedish. And we got their number. MIRACLE
SIX. Later that evening we got a text from a referral that we have been trying
to get in contact with for about 4 weeks. She invited us over to serve. We
gladly accepted and we will be seeing her this Thursday. MIRACLE 7. Basically,
God is there. He is there to help us. We just need to turn to him in
desperation ALWAYS. I need to be humble before I am forced into humility.
Overall it has been a great week full of
miracles! I can't wait to see what this next week brings!! I hope that you all
have a wonderful week! Thanks for all the support and prayers!
Love,
Syster Jordan Lund
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| Swedish church in Stockholm |
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| Sweden :-) |
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| Love my girl McClatchie |
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| Spring! |
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| Wait...jk snowed on us |
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| Sweden :-) |
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| Walking with Pontus, Sussi, and Barbara in Vaxholm |
May 2, 2016
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| Valborg |
Heyyy everyone! This
week has been super good! Not too many crazy stories but some good ones!
sooo here we
go!!
This week we had
sisters conference! woohoo! Well I guess it's called sisters training now..
anyways, we all gathered together in Västerhaninge with all the sister
missionaries in the mission! It was super fun to learn about different women in
the scriptures as well as learn how we can stand steadfast in Christ. We also
talked about decisions that we have to make in life and how the Lord doesn't
always say yes this is right. Sometimes he wants us to make our own decisions.
But that if it is wrong for us or wrong in general he will make it known to us.
And we learned how to study the scriptures better! It was basically the best
ever. They had a chocolate fountain with marshmallows too! President Beckstrand
and I had a chubby bunny contest off to the side...he won. What a champ. But it
was super good!
This week I almost
lost Syster McClatchie. We were running for a bus and I was checking a
different bus so I was lagging behind but told McClatchie to run to the bus
stop and I would cross the street and be there soon enough. The bus came and
then a stead stream of cars. I tried to cut across but it was just not
happening. I finally got across and McClatchie stepped onto the bus because I
was within view. Well right after she stepped on the bus, the doors closed
behind her and I thought we were toast. haha I think I might have even let out
a yell scream thing. haha the doors opened back up and I was able to get on.
Close call though!
We met a sweet lady
named Fay this week. She is from Uganda and has only been here for a few
months. We met her on the street and met later in the week to talk more about
the church. We gave her a tour of the church and she loved it! In her prayer
she said "thank you for helping me to find my sisters in Christ." She
is the coolest ever. We're looking forward to meeting with her this week.
We also sat down at a
bus stop and began to talk to the guy next to us. The conversation took an ugly
turn when he asked us if we had boyfriends. Now, I have learned long ago that
if any guy asks you that here, you just go with it and say yes. He asked us how
many we had. Again, feeling uncomfortable we made something up. He asked how
many kids we have. We said none. Long story short, it led into a very
interesting conversation about the Law of Chastity. Never thought I would end
up teaching that on the street!
The highlight of the
week was Valborg!! I said this last year, but basically it is just a giant
holiday to celebrate the official end of winter and the beginning of spring.
They make a giant bonfire and songs and sung and people just gather to
socialize. Last year I had the opportunity to go to Västerhaninge with a ton of
other missionaries which was a BLAST. We had planned on doing that this year
too and had big plans until we were basically backed up to a wall of why we are
here as missionaries. A member mentioned that he had a referral that was going
to be there. We had to evaluate our circumstances and after prayers and
ponderings we decided to go to a different Valborg here in Täby so that we
could socialize and meet the members' friends and work on finding people -
which is something we are in desperate need of. So, even though we didn't have
the Valborg we planned on, it was still a blast. And we met the referral and he
is super positive! And we saw some of the refugee kids and their families
there! And potential investigators! Super worth it and the Lord blesses us when
we make the little sacrifices!
I think that is it
for this week! I will attach pics below of different things!
Love you!! Have a
great week!
Syster Lund
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| Watermelon and pizza for dinner ; PICNIC! |
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| Sister's Conference! |
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| Vaxholm |
May 9, 2016
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| The sun is shining! |
What a wonderful
mother's day yesterday! I was super excited to skype with the fam and catch up
and talk about how life is! It was a little easier this time knowing that time
will fly and I'll see them sooner than I know it.
This week was a week
full of miracles. I don't even know where to start or if I can remember all of
them.
Tomas was an
investigator that we met one of our first weeks here but had to drop him
shortly after before he was basically just meeting with us to mock us. We asked
him if he wanted to come closer to God and he just laughed. We had encouraged
him to pray and he would never even speak of it. That was the last thing he
would ever do. We told him to read in the Book of Mormon and if he would be
interested in coming unto Christ to call us later. He walked out of the chuch 5
weeks ago and we thought we wouldn't see him again. PLOT TWIST. He texts us this
week and says that he has reread the reading we gave him in the Book of Mormon
(Alma 32) and wants to meet. So we meet the next day and talk about his
questions, but we can already see that there is a huge change in him, something
is different, he is humbled, his heart is open. It was incredible! We expressed
how we would like to help him come unto Christ and feel God's love for him and
he nodded along. We invited him to say a prayer at the end and he said "Ja
visst!" ...like what. I turned to Sister McClatchie out of pure shock. He
had always refused to pray. Well, we got down on our knees and he offered the
prayer! He said he would pray and read in the Book of Mormon and come to
church! (We had stake conference this week though and it was pretty far away so
he wasn't able to come). We got another text from him the other day saying that
he had read the next chapter we had given him and that he had been praying! Ahh
best ever!! We are super excited about it.
So yeah we had Stake
Conf this weekend and Elder Johnson talked to us about agency and how we
shouldn't take away other people's agency and how lots of times we do it
accidentally. In all reality, God loves us enough to give us trials in our life
to grow and develop into the people He knows we can become. It was just so
good!! And obviously there were other great speakers too. It was the best!
So this week we were
following up with a TU and we knocked on the door that legit had a very similar
Persian name. We knocked and a man answered and McClatchie shook his hand and
said it was nice to see him again. I didn't recognize him at all so I asked if
his family was home..especially the one we were looking for. He invited us to
sit down on the couch and got us some juice and we were just chatting and all and
I didn't recognize these people but I just assumed it was because they didn't
have the same sort of clothes on. Eventually they were like..."Sooo, who
are you guys?" haha that awkward moment when we knock on the wrong Persian
door and they let us in for juice. It's casual, they are SO NICE!!
I got to go on splits
this week to Uppsala which was super fun! I got to be with Sister Gardner who
goes home in 2 weeks! Nuts! We had a great time talking to people and teaching
lots on the street. I even got an angry Italian man who came up to me and
started yelling at me about how rats are going to hell. So that was fun haha
We got to meet with
lots of other people this week too, but too much to write! Lots of cool
referrals we got from members and what not so that is awesome! We are excited!
I hope I get to stay here one more transfer!! We'll see where the Lord needs
me!
I just wanted to
include a quote that I loved from this past General Conference:
"Heaven is
cheering you on. Today, tomorrow and forever." (Jeffrey R Holland). Keep
working hard and choosing the harder right instead of the easier wrong!!
The following are
pics of a variety of things..they'll prob be in two emails, sorry!
Love,
Sister Jordan Lund
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| Sister McClatchie and I being goofy at Skansen |
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| Beautiful view from Skansen of Stockholm |
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| Matching backpacks and skirts at Stake conference haha |
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| Sweden |
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| My favorite little daughter! |
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| Uppsala! |
May 16, 2016
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| Dandelions! |
Hey everyone!!
This week has been a
little all over the place but overall super duper great!
Last pday we went to
Skansen which is like an outdoor zoo thing in Stockholm with different animals
that have homes in Sweden! There were even 4 bear cubs! We went with Sisters
Harkness and Gardner and Elders Castleton-Rudolph and Dean along with Pontus
and Sussi. It was a beautiful day and super fun!
Maybe I'll just
explain who came to church and how we got them there because God really really
REALLY blessed us this week:
Tomas - We met and
talked a little bit about the Plan of Salvation - very simply. Not only did he
come to church but he stayed all 3 hours! And he was in a suit! With a cute
little briefcase thing! Ahhh I wish I had taken a pic. Next Sunday I will for
sure. We are meeting with him tomorrow at a member's home and we are super
excited!
Xiaodan - Okay so
this is a miracle. We randomly swung by a member about 2 or 3 weeks ago and
just stopped by to share a short message. We asked for any referrals and she
gave us Xiaodans number. (Xiaodan is Qi (the member)s sambo's dad's
girlfriend). We called her and invited her to church the next Sunday but she
couldn't come (Stake Conference a ways away). She called us the next week and
asked if we could meet in Täby centrum, which we were randomly already on the
way to. We met with her and she said hey, I have two other friends that want to
come to church too. Their names are Song and Shen shen. (Song is Xiaodan's ex
husband and Shen shen is the ex husbands new wife). Kinda complicated situation
but they are just all the best of friends! They all came to church this Sunday
and Xiaodan brought her 5 year old son and 4 month old daughter.
Song and Shen shen -
see above
Arthur and Elisabeth
- This week we got to go and visit our friend Elisabeth and her mother who is a
member! We met with them as well as Arthur who is Elisabeth's husband figure
from Ireland. We had lunch and laughed and had a grand old time and talked
about prayer. They all came to church the next day happy as clams!
Sven and Anja - Anja
is a less active member who is just AWESOME. Her husband has been sick recently
so she hasn't had the chance to go to church. And her husband isn't a member.
But we met with her this week and talked to her a lot about the nature of God
and God's role in nature. It was a cool and fun discussion for sure! Anja and
her husband both came to church yesterday which was awesome!
It was kind of a
hectic Sunday but those are usually the best ones! We even had a Chinese Gospel
Principles class that we asked one of the new members to teach. It was
basically my 6 foot 1 Sister McClatchie and 8 chinese people (members and
investigators) in a small primary room with baby chairs haha. Basically Sister
McClatchie just totally rocked the situation. And apparently it went well! Relief
Society was a little different. I would translate from Swedish to English for
one of the Chinese members and then she would translate from English to Chinese
to the next girl. Oh man it was just so fun! Basically like a line of telephone
so hopefully they got the message!
We just met with Fay!
She is the cutest ever and we committed her to prepare for the 18th of June to
be baptized! She is totally prepared but just needs the lessons. Unfortunately
she can't meet as often as we would like, but we will do all that we can to
help her!
SISTER MCCLATCHIE IS
TRAINING!! here in Täby. That's right. My current greenie is getting a greenie
next week. NUTS. She is excited and scared and every other emotion but I know
that she will do great! And I'll be a grandmother! Not sure where I will be
moving but I do know that I will be moving...I'll let you know next week when I
know where!
Love you all! Thanks
for all the support!!
Syster Jordan Lund
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| More Swedish countryside |
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We've been eating
pears all day er day
|
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| Knocking doors at Skansen |
May 23, 2016
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| Nordiska Museum last week for Pday |
Helloooo!!!!! Happy
basically summer!
Where did May go?!!? It seems like the months are just flying by! And not slowing down for anything!
Where did May go?!!? It seems like the months are just flying by! And not slowing down for anything!
I don't have an
incredible amount of time today, but I just wanted to share a little bit about
our week! And for the weeks to come!
I found out that I
will be transferring to LUND to be there for my last 6 weeks of the mish! I am
super excited and I get to be with a super awesome sister named Sister
Bourelle. I am so excited!!
This week we had the
chance to meet with Qi and Xiaodan. We had a lesson in the centrum and Qi was
so awesome and translated for us. Xiaodan talked about how she already knew
that there is a lot of wisdom in the Book of Mormon and that she is excited to read
it! She is in it for the right reasons and we are super excited. Song and Chen
Chen our other Chinese investigators came to a baptism on Saturday and really
liked it too!
We went and played
soccer with the ward and it was a good turn out this week! I got kicked in the
shin (totally my fault) and this giant lump started forming on my leg that
could be seen from across the field. haha everyone was making weird faces as
they looked at it and I tried real hard not to look because it was freaking me
out. It looked similar to how my leg looked when I broke it - but it is all
good now!! Lots of ice and elevation and now it's gone down quite a bit.
We had a lesson with
Tomas with the Körlofs and it went well. It's always good to have members there
to back us up. The Spirit was whispering to McCltachie and I throughout
the lesson so it turned out well too. Sometimes it's harder to pull the lesson
back to the main point, but I think we did it! Like I said, thank goodness the
member was there.
Some cool miracles
that we realized this week. Our two main goals together were to find and teach
a family and to teach people who are prepared to be baptized. We have been
praying so hard to be able to achieve these goals and we have focused most of
our efforts on it. Well, in the past 2 weeks, we have picked up a beautiful
Chinese family and we are teaching people with baptismal dates or commitments
on the table. It's been really awesome to see!! I am kinda bummed to be
leaving, but they always say leave your area better than you found it right?
I got to bear my
testimony on Sunday. It felt weird standing up there and looking out thinking
that it has only been 3 months here. I feel like I have known some of these
people much longer. I read a scripture from Alma 7 (verses 22-24) and bore my
testimony as well as I could. In the middle I got choked up and for the first
time in the whole meeting everything got DEAD SILENT. I could feel the Spirit
so strong as I simply stood there and looked out at the potential that this ward
has to be AMAZING. They already are, but even so much more! Sister McClatchie
will do amazing things as she continues in this ward with a greenie. Lots of
sad goodbyes, but we will be running in a 5 k tomorrow with about 18 women in
the ward, so we are excited!
Thanks for all the love and support! I can feel the love and
I APPRECIATE IT SO MUCH.
Love,
Sister Jordan Lund
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| Hosse and Homa |
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And their wonderful
persian food
|
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| Julia my fav! |
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| The cutest little Chinese fam (Song, Chen chen, and Xiaodan) |
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| Pontus and Sussi |
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| Green soccer fields |
May 30, 2016
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| Sitting outside our apartment waiting for our ride. |
WOW!! What a week! It
has been crazy. And I don't have a whole lot of time this week to email! Monday
we had a good pday of just hanging out in Stockholm and saying goodbye to some
of my closest friends from the mission that I won't get to see for a good chunk
of time! We had a lovely bbq at the Stenkronas that evening for FHE. It was so
fun! I love that family!
Tuesday we had the
chance to go contacting with the new greenies! AH they are so precious!! We
were also able to run a race in Stockholm with the Relief Society and Young
women in our ward! There were about 12-15 of us in total that did the race. It
was fun! Sister McClatchie ran me hard! haha it was just the best way to go out
of Täby.
I left early
Wednesday morning for Lund and had some crazy travel but made it safely. Saying
goodbye to my precious daughter Sister McClatchie was the hardest thing ever!
Ah! I love her sooo much! I held back the tears until I made it on my final
train.
Lund is just
beautiful!! It is a university city and it is just poppin! It's a ton of
wonderful cobblestone streets and just sunny all the time. Oh we are also the
YSA missionaries. OH AND MY new companion is Sister Bourelle! She is just the
sweetest ever!! I LOVE HER. She is so cute and makes me laugh all the time. So
it's going really well!
We have had a lot of
cancelled appointments this week, but there is one new member who is the cutest
ever! His name is Ali and he just got baptized last week! He is only 9 years
old and from Iran. His whole family are now members! Coolest thing ever.
Ah I just am so
excited to be here in this beautiful city and working here with Sister
Bourelle. It's great! I know that these experiences are building me into who
God needs me to be. More updates next week! Hopefully a picture can be worth a
thousand words :)
Thanks for all the
love and support! LOVE YOU ALL
Love,
Sister Jordan Lund
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Sister Bourelle and I
|
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| Our street |
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| Weekly planning in the sun! |
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| Helsingborg |
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| Lund in Lund! |
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| Saying goodbye to some favs |
June 6, 2016
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| Just blown away by Lund |
HALLLÅÅÅÅÅ
What a great
week!!
I forgot my planner
today, so I will try to do this off memory. We met with some really cool people
this week! We met with a cool member named Helle. She gave us ice cream, we
looked at cool coloring books and shared a message about Jesus Christ - not
sure if it gets better than that haha.
We also picked up an
old investigator named Sara and she is soooo awesome! And prepared! We got
really personal with her and shared experiences in our lives that related to
her situation and how we can overcome darkness with light. She was super
positive and said that she knows the answer she will get if she prays about it!
She even wants us to meet with her dad and explain a little bit to him as well!
One of our
investigators Saad is moving to Malmö!! Sad! But he got a job over there so I
am sure he will have it good. He is so positive and can't wait to meet with the
missionaries over there! Ahhh he's just so awesome.
This week Sister
Bourelle and I have been really into sunflower and pumpkin seeds, as well as
banana chips. AND we've been eating SO MUCH SALMON. It's wonderful
We had zone training
and learned about helping people get to the temple. That essentially is our
final goal with them! It was a very spiritual meeting and we took a lot away
from it :)
The YSA couple has
been out of town so we had the chance to make dinner for the institute and
teach a seminary class of two people! Woohoo!! It was super fun though, we had
a blast. And the sloppy joes we made weren't half bad ;)
Also, it has been
SOOOO HOT here. Well at least it feels like it. But it's been cooling down,
thank goodness! We did service on Saturday in a member's garden and just sweat
buckets upon buckets. Totally worth it though, and helped out the family a lot!
We missed our bus to church yesterday but there
was another bus that would come shortly after. Unfortunately it was delayed and
we decided to walk the 30 minutes to church instead of waiting. Well, the bus
drove by slowly and we booked it to catch up, but the second bus didn't stop.
We were at this point going to be late to church. I was stressing. And walking
and walking. Finally the next bus came and on it were 3 of our new members. We were
able to walk with them to church and support them. Crazy how sometimes God has
other plans for us. Maybe they needed that extra support just then!
This pday was awesome! We took a train to Malmö
and rented bikes to bike down the boardwalk there. It was awesome! Happy
national day to Sweden!!
Have a great week!!
Love,
Syster Jordan Lund
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| Bridge to Denmark |
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| Attempting a human bridge |
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| Love this companion of mine! |
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| Scoping out churches |
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| Our friend Helle :) |
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| Biking in Malmö |
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| Walking to church |
