Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Nov 12: Who Shall Separate Us from the Love of Christ?

Dear Family!!

Hejsan och hur går allt med er!? jag borde prata mer svenska med er så att ni kan prata svenska när jag kommer tillbaka. Jag älskar er och ser framemot att vara med er snart!

Translation: Hello and how is everything with you? I should talk more Swedish with you so that you can speak Swedish when I come back. I love you and look forward to being with you soon!

Okej! what a wonderful life! This morning syster Werjefelt and I woke up and we had decided to push our beds together. Well I decided to steam roller over her to wake her up. Then we got the brilliant idea to come to the church and play ping pong for our exercise this morning and study at the church and then write to the family. It was a great plan until we got here and only found a broken ball :( but we made the best of it. We live right near a big arena and on Saturday two of our members were in a big ping pong tournament. So we decided to go check it out Saturday morning. I have never seen sOO many ping pong boards in one room with so many awesome players. It was awesome. So we just really wanted to play ping pong after that. While we were at the ping pong tournament we got to meet a few friends of our members and invited them to learn more. I love finding people through new ways :)

The big event for this week was having splits on Thursday. The systers from Alingsås (Syster Talbot and Syster Jacobs) came down to Kristianstad on Thursday and I was going to take syster Jacobs around and syster Werjefelt was going to have syster Talbot as her companion. Let me tell you... it is not easy planning a whole day of missionary work for one companionship... let alone planning TWO full schedules of missionary activities. So we started planning Thursday on Monday. We just scheduled everything for Thursday :) We were a little worried the rest of the week we wouldn't have anything to do.. but we did :) So Wednesday night came and everything was looking beautiful when one of syster Werjefelts main appointments canceled. NO!!! what should we doo!? I was thinking.. if someone canceled on in my schedule it would be ok..we'd find something to do.. but I was worried about helping sys Werj having the best first time leading the whole day. She was going to be in charge. As we sat there thinking the phone rang. It was Björn.

Let me back up. Last week Syster Werj was sick and so I got to spend some time looking through the missionary area book where they have records of all the old investigators they have taught in the past years. Well I found one guy named Björn. We ended up meeting him this Tuesday. The lesson went well but at the end he didn't really seem interested in trying to find out if the church was true during this time. Sys Werj and I were both sad.. but we gave it our best shot and all we can do is invite people.. we cant force anyone.

So Wednesday evening.. Björn calls and says.. you know it was so nice meeting with you guys. I really enjoyed talking with you. Do you think you have some more time this week to meet and talk? WHA?!! yesss.. tomorrow? It worked out perfectly! I love Heavenly Fathers timing.

Thursday came! and I LOVED being with syster Jacobs. She has two older sisters who are the same ages as Katie and Christa and she has a younger brother who is the same age as Erik. She is just happy and full of energy :) I really felt like it was just too much fun to be with her. We went to Hässleholm which is a town right outside of Kristianstad. We took with us a Young Woman named Javi (she is from Chile and wants to serve a mission!! she is 17 right now). We just rocked the whole day with amazing lessons one after the other. It is days like these that I walk out of a lesson and just cant stop smiling and LOVE being a missionary and could do this for the rest of my life. My favorite lesson was with an amazing man named Daniel. He served a mission when he was younger but had to come home early due to some kind of sickness/emotional problem. At that time they didn't know what it was.. He became inactive afterwards.

We had come by two weeks ago and knocked on his door and he was home! (that was a huge miracle) and he said.. "well i've been trying to sort of avoid you guys..." But we smiled and asked if we could come back. He hesitated for a moment but then said ok. So I was a little nervous about what we could say to touch him and invite him to start coming back to Christ. Right now he is sjukskriven (he cant work due to sickness) and is having a really tough time. This week I have been studying hope and I just felt like that is what we needed to talk to him about. And then I was looking through my ipod and I have some Mormon Messages on there and I clicked on one and it was PERFECT. (I believe this is the same Mormon message that erik sent me one day when he had come home from his mission.. )

http://www.lds.org/pages/mormon-messages?lang=eng#the-power-of-hope

well to make a long story short: We came in, showed this clip with him and then syster Jacobs turned to him and asked him how he FELT during it. He opened up and told us about his worries and there was such a strong spirit in the room. He has gone through a lot and has a hard time with "Faith" and really knowing if God is there and "Feeling" the holy Ghost. It seemed to fit perfectly with what I experienced myself in Uppsala. We testified and taught and I could just feel a strong love for this man. I believe it was Heavenly fathers love for his son and his pure desire to really know if his Heavenly Father was there for him. I walked out with a peace and joy and love that could sustain me through the darkest of dark nights.

I was reminded while sitting there that all the hard challenges we each face are for a purpose. They are not given to us to beat us down and kill us. They are given to us so that we might rise above. I am so grateful for the small challenges I have faced in my short life for they too have given me the chance to better understand Gods children around me, my brothers and sisters... and so that I might better be able to lead a helping hand, a listening ear, and an embracing hug.

There is much more I could write about this week. But I think I will leave it at that. I love you all and hope you all know that Heavenly Father loves YOU. And he has sent certain people to you that you too can help and uplift. And he has also sent certain people to you to uplift and help you during your times of need. And don't forget our savior who understands it all.

Romans 8

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Love

Syster Schneiber II

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