Dear family!
I LOVE MY LIFE! I just love being a missionary. Sys Werjefelt is
super awesome. I love her already. Some one asked me if my Swedish has
gotten better in this first week.. To answer.. I have definitely
already learned some very important new words. Toot :prutta, Burp :
rap, Growling stomach: curra (they actually say purring stomach).. :)
I thought you guys all might get a laugh out of that.
So I collected my wonderful new companion on wednesday in
stockholm. I had to say good bye to Sys Vistaunet. I was sad to leave
her. But I will get to see her soon. And then it was back to
Kristianstad with Sys Werjefelt. This week has been a whirlwind
adventure. As a trainer President said that we should try and have a
good scheduled week for our new missionary. Well the first day out
Sys Werj and I were running from each lesson. I don't think she was
expecting missionary work to be such a good work out. It is
interesting because you get to a persons house all out of breath and
you sit down and have a great lesson for an hour and then up and out
the door you go and running to the bus. You sit for an hour and then
run and then sit for another hour and then run. It is a good thing I
like running :)
We were walking out of a lesson that first day and we finally got
to walk to the bus instead of run. We got to the bus stop and sys Werj
looked at me and said "we haven't talked to anyone yet..." I smiled
and said ok! How about those two girls. There were two girls walking
up to join us at the bus stop. (side note.. sys Werj makes funny awkward sounds) She got this funny
look on her face and made one of those funny sounds. So we get on the
bus and end up talking to them and they sit next to us. We got to talk
to them the whole way back and told them about our purpose and asked
them if they would want a Book of Mormon. One of the girls
practically jumped out of her seat "Yes!" As we walked away sys Werj
and I had big smiles on our faces. That was our favorite moment of the
day. That is probably one of my favorite parts of being a
missionary... getting to talk to random strangers and tell them about
our message.
Some more cool facts about sys Werj. She is 19 and is from
stockholm. The reason she is on a short term mission is because she
has had the chance to do some member missionary work. In the past
year three of her friends have joined the church. That first night as
I got to know her better.. it was amazing to hear about the
experiences she has had with these three friends of hers. She told me
about this change that she saw occur in her friends lives and how much
joy it brought her. I have an amazing companion and I am so excited
to learn from her.
We had some sad things happen this week but also some very exciting
things happen. Two of our strong investigators wont be meeting with
us any more. It is really sad when one of these friends chooses not to
learn more even after they have had so many great experiences. You
really do love them and care for them and want the best in their lives
and you have so much hope for them. I hope we will be able to meet
with them again. But! With the sad there was some good.
We met with the cutest Vietnamese girl. I had been keeping in
contact with her throughout the week and she had texted back that she
reads from the BOM every day and loves it! I was getting so excited
to meet her. So we sat down on saturday and she told us that she has
been talking to a priest from back in Vietnam and he says that this
book is not true and it is not worth her time.. etc. etc. My heart
dropped. What do we do! But I thought we best start with a prayer
before we can go forward. So we said a prayer and then began talking
again. We had planned on teaching her about the plan of life but sys
W and both felt like we needed to start with the Restoration. This
girl is just amazing! At the end of the lesson she said "I trust this
man alot.. but I have read this book and I believe it is true. I am
going to keep reading it." She is prepared. Often times when we
teach people they dont quite get the message that we are teaching. But
she got it. We had a member with us, a 15 year old young woman. As
we walked out of the lesson she said that was her favorite lesson
because it was so cool to see how she really understood our message
and see it click and her accept it. I am excited to continue teaching
her!
We have another amazing man that we are teaching. His name is
Ondrej (andre) and he doesnt speak any English or Swedish. His
daughter became a member last year. The missionaries started teaching
him a few months ago and his response was.. no i don't want to get
baptized. Well they stopped focusing on him and started teaching his
son more. But they gave Ondrej a book of Mormon and asked him to read
it and he said he would. Well it is now about 4 months later. He is
in Heleman now and he wants to get baptized now. It is amazing to see
the change that has occurred in this man. He is so sensitive to the
spirit and he loves coming to church even though he doesn't understand
much. Most of all he loves the Book of Mormon. This change in him is
all due to this book. I am so grateful for the Book of Mormon. The
family even had some problems this week with other relatives. The
relatives called and said "what are you doing joining this church and
why do you go to this church and read this book. its not the
bible..etc etc." The member daughter became all upset and was so
worried and began to wonder if she had made the right choice. Ondrej
stepped in to help and said "This church is TRUE. This book is TRUE.
we are going to this church!"
Of course I got all of that from them translating. But it was
exciting.
This is all I have time for today. I want you all to know that much
much more has happened this week. The Lord has big plans for this
branch and he has guided us to people who need us. I am so grateful
for prayer and that we can get answers. I get answers everyday to my
prayers. I know you can as well.
Thank you for your letters as well!
LOVE SYS schneiber II
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