Monday, May 21, 2012

May 21: Korv in the Rain with Laughing Fits

Dear Family! 
   It is so good to hear from you all! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM AND DAD!!!! Even though I just talked to you all for an hour last week... I was filled with bubbles of happiness to see all of your letters. Katie!!! I cant believe you are a doctor!! Man, good to know that all that work, sweat, tears, stress.... etc. was worth it. I still think I'm going to stick with being a nurse. ;) 
     Where to begin. . .  This week has been as fabulous as ever! Sometimes it seems that things are just trying to bombard you and make you have a terrible day. That is what Tuesday started out with. All the sunshine left and big dark clouds settled over Alingsås. We were about to head out for the day when Richard (our new amazing investigator) texted us and said.. I cant meet till after Maj. My heart sunk! After May?! He had just told us he had all week free. My first thought was.. who in the world has he been talking to or what did he read on the internet.  Then as we were walked outside to get on our bikes Lennarth or other progressing investigator calls and says.. "I don't want to be baptized.. I'm not convinced about the Book of Mormon!".. I calmly walked him through and said he didn't have to get baptized nor did we want him to get baptized until he got an answer about the BOM. Would he still be willing to meet until he received an answer. He thought about it and reluctantly answered yes.  Then as we are about to hop on our bikes and Syster Sprague's bike broke down. It was at this point where I felt like exploding and just walking back inside when Syster Sprague just busted up laughing. And then we couldn't stop laughing.  We fixed the bike and headed off on the way. Just in case satan was going to try another trick--I couldn't help but shouting out loud "don't even waste your time!"  It was a fabulous day. We ended up meeting with both Richard and Lennarth and the bikes are still working :)  So when something goes wrong.. Don't let it be the beginning of a bad day. Get rid of it with a nice laugh and smile. It works every time. 
   
You might be wondering why I titled my letter "Korv in the rain with laughing fits"... the laughing fits is because I think I almost peed my pants three times this week. One time we were going to knock on a referrals door and we couldn't even move we were laughing so hard. Our laughter just echoed throughout the stairwell.  I'm sure people wondered what was going on!
   The Korv is another story. We had come home from our District Meeting on Thursday and our teach had been cancelled. So we had some back up plans and one person that we stopped by was this old woman in the ward.  Her name is Viviann.. and this woman is on top of her missionary game!  Just that Sunday Freddy (an old man who had a stroke) came to church and he has an assistant that comes with him. It was a young looking guy and as the meeting was part way through a replacement came for him. As he sneaked out to go Viviann got up real fast and right as he was sneaking out the door she caught him and invited him to sit next to her to stay for the rest of the meeting :)  He said Nej tack. But that doesn't matter! She invited him!  So we stopped by to say hi and see if there was anything we could do for her. She had just warmed up two hotdogs (Korv) to eat for dinner. We were already quite full from our dinner but she offered us the korv.. and so we politely started to eat them.  We thought okej.. we can force down these two and then hopefully that is all we will have to eat... Viviann then warmed up 5 more!! and then cut them up and offered them to us. Oh my goodness.. She probably ate one korv and we both had the other four. When you are already full and have just eaten a korv and then are asked to force down another two.. I might not sound like much to you.. But it hurt! These are LONG HOT DOGS! ugg. But it was worth it! because she gave us a referral at the end! :)  I love old people. 
   This week was also amazing because we really worked on having members at our teaches. Friday was the big highlight! We had three lessons set up with members! We were super excited. And with each lesson.. I was so grateful we had a member there. Even though I can speak Swedish.. I still can't always explain everything perfectly..  My favorite teach was with Ulf and Anne Marie. Ulf is married to Anne Marie.. I think I have talked about him before. But he is awesome. We sat down to eat and he brought up the church conversation. He used to have a problem with drinking.. but he is under control of it now and still likes to drink his beer on the weekends. We think this is part of the problem for him not really wanting to progress and learn more. He told us he isn't open again and that it wont work trying to talk to some one who isn't open. We totally agreed with him.. which I think threw him off. So when we started out lesson we just said "ok, so we have a lesson for you Anne Marie!" and Ulf smiled and jumped right into the discussion. Working with Swedish people takes a lot of work! Probably working with everyone takes a lot of work. :)  But he is making some progress even if it is slow.  I really do love this man. He is so soft and kind and yet looks a little scary on the outside. We took pictures afterwards so I'll send you some. 
   
Our last teach that day was with Richard and Viktor. Viktor is getting ready to go on a mission and comes on one teach with us every week now. He goes on his mission really soon and we know he is going to be awesome! We even role played with him before our teach and exactly what he asked us was the question that our investigator had. It was amazing! We have been working on our teaching and focusing on certain points to make sure things are clear to people. All in trying to answer the why.. for our investigators. So like...why did we need a restoration..? we focus on the apostasy! Or why are we here and why do we need a savior..? the focus is Gods plan and the fall of Adam and Eve. These two points are very important and we have found sometimes are not understood quite right.  
 
   Lastly we were on the train and I sat next to this kid. He kept nodding off.. he looked so tired. I finally just asked him why he was so tired. He was surprised and told us he had been up for the past 2 days trying to finish school work. I smiled and talked to him a little more. He paused when he found out we were from America and said "WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY SO!" and said he was Canadian and switched into English.. haha. As he was getting of the train, he reached his hand over and said, "thank you so much for saying hi--it really made my day..." we really didn't get to say very much--but just taking the time to talk to people even if you don't even get to say something about the gospel... can be an answer to prayer.
Oh yah.. and the title was "..in the rain..." because it rained ALLL WEEEKKK... but! that cant stop us from having a great day! 
   So! You should all try and make a new friend this week! You might just make their day :)
love syster schneiber!

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