Thank you Dad, for your words of wisdom about personal revelation. It has been something I have been trying to strive for since my first few days in the MTC. The spirit understands people and situations and the scriptures so much better than I could ever hope to. To be worthy of hearing and then actually listening to the spirit is something we cannot underestimate the importance of. I am striving to listen more carefully.
Well family, I am in Sweden! Woot!
So much has happened I don't even know where to start. So... I'll start at the beginning.
Funny fact, Our elevator has 5 floors (and a basement) and the first floor has the letter E... But the next floors are numbered in this way, 1, 2, Red, Blue... Now, put the word fish after each floor, and you have one fish two fish red fish blue fish! Hello Dr. Seuss! Exciting right!
Anyways, so the next day we went on a 2 mile run. It's so beautiful, eventually I will take pictures and show you Sweden from the eyes of me.
Kay, so my first morning was interesting. I doubt you're surprised. So I showered and I wanted to blow dry my hair, sensible I thought so I don't drip all over and what not. I used a converter and a blow dryer that had been left behind since I didn't bring one (Note that yes I did use a converter) I blew out all of the power in the apartment. The fridge, the lights, everything... except the oven, which was good because we were making banana bread as a birthday gift for one of the sisters. We couldn't figure out how to turn the power back on because the fuses were... weird... and Swedish.
And at the time we didn't think to much of it (we hadn't realized that the fridge had turned off) and we were going to be late for district meeting, and since we were running late, (because of the power outage caused by me) we decided to take the bikes. Guess what! The bikes... are tall. Like SUPER tall. Like to tall for Kjanela tall. But I got on it anyways (I had to use a pole to balance because it was so tall) and we headed on our way. Now, recall, Kjanela and bikes... not the best combination, because Kjanela is not very good at them. So Sister Richins crossed the street and I didn't because there was a car coming and I wasn't moving quickly enough. Of course that means I had to stop. And my feet can't touch the ground when I'm on the bike... so I fell off. So I walk the bike across and use another pole to balance again. By this time Sister Richins is pretty far ahead of me, she hadn't notice my graceful fall from the bike. And I take off after her (doing my best to pedal quickly on pedals that are really too long for me). And the road is sort of windy, so I can't always see my companion, and I can't catch up. And finally I realize that my companion is not just around the next corner (which is what I had been telling myself so I didn't panic) But I don't know what to do! What if she really is around the next corner and I'm being to pessimistic, what if she's NOT around the next corner and she turned way back there? It was a rather stressful moment. And then... I notice a woman with a dog, so I decide, let's ask her if she's seen a girl on a bike! (Brilliant right?) So I ask her, but that requires me stopping on the bike, as you can guess, I once more fell off the bike and nearly landed on her dog. I pull out my limited Swedish and ask her and she sort of stares at me tells me no, and then asks me where I am trying to go (In Swedish!) So... I point out my name tag and say "This Church!" She asks for an address and I just sort of stare at her. Finally I'm like, "I got here yesterday, I don't know any addresses and phone numbers, any street names, anything." So the kind woman pulls out her iphone and says she'll try to find the church for me. At that very moment... Sister Richins appeared! Yay! And I managed to make it to the church.
It was very stressful, but I got to practice Swedish, talking to people I don't know... and thinking under pressure, which... as you might have noted, isn't my strong suit.
And then! Later that day, I got to start the conversations with random people on the street! (I didn't do much in continuing the conversations because I never had a clue what the people said back to me) and then we were talking to two 19 year old girls and I could sort of understand them because they talk clearer, and I got to share the Joseph Smith story in Swedish! Exciting right!
And one of our investigators set a baptismal date for 3 weeks from now. His name is Mikael. It was exciting.
And, some of our lessons our in English. (Not because of my poor Swedish skills but because the investigators don't speak Swedish) many of our investigators are from the middle east or Africa. It's really quite cool.
I've already had the opportunity to teach 8 lessons with investigators, some in English some in Swedish, and I've participated in the teaching of all of them! (Even the Swedish... although not quite as much... since I don't always understand what they say... alright, so most of the time I don't understand what they say.)
Also, when we're on buses, at the beginning we contacted people together, but Saturday we sat by different people and contacted seperately (Also Sunday, but Saturday was first) and I talked in Swedish to a girl for like 15 minutes. She wasn't interested in the gospel at this point in time, but she did listen and I did understand her, and it was great! (She was about my age so she speaks pretty clear Swedish, she also spoke English, but I asked her if we could stay in Swedish so I could practice, she was very nice about it.) It was SUPER scary, but I did it! And that's the important part! Right! I also bus contacted seperately on Sunday. Again, a fun experience.
We got to watch 3 of the 5 sessions, Saturday morning, saturday afternoon, and sunday morning, and we hope to watch the 4th one soon. I loved Elder Bednar's Elder Uchtdorf's and Elder Scott's talks.
While Elder Bednar's talk was about tithing, when he talked about subtle but significant blessings it really inspired thought. Sometimes when I pray I'm like, I can't handle this, help me to be free of this stress, this situation, all of this horrible things, and that's not bad necessarily. But maybe my prayers should be *Heavenly Father, I can't handle this situation, at least not on my own, please give me the strength to endure and the comfort to endure it well.* Anyways, I really liked his talk. Elder Uchtdorf's was wonderful as well. And I just wanted to give it to all of the people we are teaching! It was wonderful! I loved the line "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith."
And then Elder Scott's talk on the atonement was wonderful and thought provoking.
I've met some of the members, in fact we had lunch with one of the Sister's Sunday. (that's where we watched saturday afternoon's session) We also had a recently returned missionary teach one of our investigators. (And when I say recent I mean he got back like 2 months ago, so very recent).
Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention that we did get the power turned back on, but we didn't get it done until Friday (we got permission to go buy fuses and stick them in... I can't explain it any better than that though...)
I've already been blessed to meet some wonderful people. There is a couple from Albania who we taught the word of wisdom to, and they're going through a really tough stressful time right now, but they still said they wanted to try and keep the word of wisdom. And a sweet woman and her daughter were excited when we gave them a book of mormon because they wanted to read it. And two youngish men from Yemen who are Islam but still want to learn what we're teaching even though they don't agree with a lot, but they promised to read the book of mormon thoughtfully and carefully and to pray.
And so far it isn't all sunshine and daisies, I've been told no several times, and people aren't always open to what we say. (But I've only been out here for like 4 days, I'll get much worse before I am through...) But so far it's been wonderful and exciting and I'm really happy.
Mom would be super proud of me... I've been wearing the cardigans (even when I want to rationalize that I'm bringing a coat with me...) but just in case I always bring a cardigan... and even more wear it... I've also worn the tights... Is there a catch... yes, I do happen to be sick right now. I feel horrible because I think I'm keeping my companion up all night coughing. But it's not very serious, just a cough and sniffles. And one of the members, Bonnie, the woman we ate lunch with, she's from America and she gave me loads of cough drops. I'm also pretty much exhausted, jet lag, not sleeping through the nights, and coughing late into the night have really messed up my sleep. So that probably isn't helping me get better.
Again I'm just absolutely loving life right now. It's great being out here, I'm learning so much. My Swedish is horrible but I'm working on it, and I understand more than I thought I would, and I still understand practically nothing! It's wonderful!
The gospel is true!
Sometimes, and I can attest to this, life is a little terrifying, I've felt that way already, I have to stop people on the sidewalk and just start talking, and I don't know what they are saying and I don't always know what I am trying to say. And it's hard, and it's scary (at least to me it is) but you just have to take a deep breath and do it, and say a lot of prayers, and you can do it. You're not always successful, in fact often enough, you're not. But you can do it. It's scary, life is scary, it requires acting in faith and hope. And forgetting yourself and your own fears and ACTING. And that's what the Lord wants from us. He wants us to act, doing as much as we know how to do, putting forth as much effort as we can, and he'll help us.
We can do this!
Tell Sister Dearian that I love her lots!
Love,
Sister Kjanela Fawcett
There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.
Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.
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