This week has been great! We've done a lot of service. Last Monday we didn't do too much for P-day, but in the evening we had FHE with some of the YSAs. We played a game called brännboll, which is like baseball but you toss the ball in the air yourself before you hit it, and it needs fewer people. On Tuesday Elder Blattman and I did some yardwork for a woman in the branch. While we were out it started hailing a little, but besides that it was actually okay weather. That night we had institute, and I translated for one of the other elders' investigators named Kamal. The lesson was on polygamy, so that was fun haha. It was actually a really good lesson though.
On Wednesday we did service for a couple in the branch. We mucked out the area where they kept their sheep. We had pitch forks and shoveled a bunch of the old dirty hay onto a tarp, then we all dragged the tarp over to the other side of the yard and dumped it into a big pile. After a few times we decided to just hook the tarp onto the hitch of the car to drag it over, since it took 5 of us pulling as hard as we could to drag the weighed-down tarp. It was fun though. At the end we each got to hold a lamb.
On Thursday we had district meeting in Kristianstad. We have three wards in our district, so each week we go to a different building for district meeting. Afterwards we all went out for pizza. On Friday we visited a less active with the other elders and we chopped some tree branches into firewood since the other elders cut down a tree in her yard last week. After we finished the work outside, we ate pizza and made bracelets. The member woman is really into making bead jewelry and stuff, so we each made an "I love Sweden" bracelet. It was fun.
On Saturday we did splits with the other elders, so I went with Elder Benson for the day. We traveled to a town called Ronneby to teach a man they met the day before. He didn't speak much English, so we were having their investigator Kamal come with us to translate from Arabic. It turned out that the potential investigator lives right across the hall from Kamal! He wasn't home, so Kamal invited us to his apartment and gave us Arabic food, so that was fun. Then we went to town becauseSaturday was a holiday called Valborg. We finished proselyting at 5, so we changed into normal clothes and met up with the other elders and some members and investigators in town. There was a choir of old men that sang, and then we walked to an island in the southern part of town, where they were going to have the fire. During Valborg they make a giant fire, the two main reasons I've heard is that it is supposed to scare away witches, and that it is just to celebrate that Summer is coming and Winter is over. We had to wait a long time, but eventually they started the fire. It was pretty cool.
There was something interesting that I read in Jesus the Christ the other day. James E. Talmage was talking about how Jesus Christ offended a lot of people. It wasn't because Christ was a bad person or did anything wrong, but it was only because the people chose to be offended by the things He said that were different from what they expected. At one point, because He was not acting in the way many of the Jews expected the Messiah to act, many of Christ's disciples left him. At this point, Christ asks His apostles "Will ye also go away?" But "[t]hen Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life." We need to always remember where our faith really lies. When we have doubts or possibly even get offended by doctrines or other things we don't agree with, we need to remember that we follow the Savior, and that if we rely on Him, we cannot fail. I know that Jesus is the Christ and that when we humbly follow Him we will always be led in the right direction.
I hope everyone has a great week!
Elder Smith
Pictures!
1) We woke up to SNOW on Tuesday, in the end of April :p
2) My new friend
3) #streetclothes
4) Fire
5) Lots of hay and other stuff
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