Skip to main content

No Separation of Church and State

 Hej hej hej! 


I'm not sure whether it was a fast week or a slow week, but it was definitely a week. 

Notable instances: 
- A couple weeks back, Syster Taylor and I got a call from a random number. It was a teacher, from a high school here in Lund, and he asked us to give his religion class a presentation about our faith! With much enthusiasm--we accepted! We gave that presentation on Friday, accompanied by a member in the ward named Samuel. It was great! We essentially taught the class about the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation, and then hit other key points about our church that make us unique--such as modern-day prophets. The teacher and the class (of 5 students, haha) asked us a lot of questions as we went. About homosexuality, marriage, life after death, chastity, and then--why we are a part of this church. It was a great opportunity to bear testimony, and the spirit was definitely there. 
After class, we put a bunch of pamphlets and Book of Mormons out on a table near the front of the class--and EVERY student took one of EVERYTHING. Even the teacher took one of everything, and then requested that we leave more of each so that his absent students could take them as well. SCORE.
- We met with a lot of members this week, and it's been so fun to hear everybody's testimonies and conversion stories to this gospel. We have so many strong members here that are inspiring to me.
- One of the members we met with is a family history wiz, and asked if she could look at my family tree. So we looked at it together, and I discovered that my Swedish ancestors are from down here in the South of Sweden! From Malmö, Ystad,... you name it. It was really cool to learn that I'm in the same area, and have been in the same places that they lived when they were converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ. 
- Me and Syster Taylor were running to catch the bus yesterday, and she completely ate it. Splat. On the concrete. Highlight of my week! JUST KIDDING. She's a warrior, and I love her. But to be fair, it was really funny. 
- We made a steak dinner yesterday, which was bopping. 
- Earlier in the week, we were looking through the people in our areabook, and I felt prompted to reach out to one in specific. We did, and were able to meet with him on Friday! He's eager to learn, and had awesome questions about what makes our church different from other faiths. He's also ALREADY READ over half of the Book of Mormon!! We're meeting with him again this week! 
- Syster Taylor and I had to sprint for like a half a mile one day to catch the bus, and it was INCREDIBLY difficult to run in my giant puffy coat and my backpack. By the grace of God, we made it, which was really a miracle because the next bus wasn't going to come for an hour.
- We knocked 5 doors on Saturday, and got SUCH a variety of responses. Confusion, disinterest, immediate backlash..."oh Nej, oh Nej, jag tror inte på Joseph Smith! Joseph Smith hade fel! Gå till Svenska kyrkan!" We hadn't even introduced ourselves yet😂. But the last door we knocked on, we were able to give them an Arabic Book of Mormon! Which was pretty crazy since I don't usually carry those around, but I had the feeling I might need one that day. 

I'm grateful to be a missionary, and I'm grateful for the challenges, and the variety of experiences I've been blessed with. God is in the details. 

Hej då! 
Syster Naatjes 
PICTURE O'CLOCK
Hyping ourselves up before giving our presentation at the school.

Castle in Helsingborg today! 

Taken precisely 0.76 seconds after Syster Taylor told me I have no figure in my long puffy coat. 

Helsingborg Stan!

P-day snowman! Yay! 

I made Syster Taylor pose with her scraped-up hands and her muddy coat after eating it yesterday. 






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

End of an Era

  Hej!  This past week has been great. As always, we've seen miracles. And weird things, too! But I'm just absolutely filled with gratitude to be a servant of the Lord. Especially this past week, for some reason. This week we: -had an awesome lesson with a young Father, who's just trying to mend his relationship with God. Very pure.  - taught our friend *Anna and her 18 year-old son about prayer.  - made breakfast and watched general conference with our members and our friends on Sunday morning. #swedishvåfflor  - gave out a Book of Mormon in Persian to a sweet old lady who tried to speak Persian to us for like 10 minutes.  - got to have a great lesson with our friend *Marianne, and she had a lot of great questions about conference.  - got to eat some homemade rulltårta with one of our friends and his family. Very cute.  - had in-person distriktsråd and the Elders made us lunch. It was like a finish version of baked macaroni and cheese.  - fi...
Post a Comment
Read more

The blessed jalapeño

 Tjena! This week was great!  We got TWO MEMBER referrals and it turns out one of them met with the missionaries over twenty years ago and loves our church!! She said that the members of our church "are love." Super cute.  We also: - went to a birthday party for a less active member and they served us papusas!! That was my first papusa experience. #shoutouttobeth - played innebandy at the church with some cool people - had a lesson about the nature of God with our friend *Mont. It was awesome. Everyone go read Alma 42. - accidentally cried in a Willy's grocery store  - met a really nice old Swedish guy on the street, and answered his questions about us and our church for about 30 minutes. And his wife was adorable, too.  - received a lasagna  - spoke in sacrament meeting on Sunday! #nice On Sunday, I spoke about miracles. Our God is a God of miracles! He's done them before, and he'll do them today.  Have a fantastical week. Sys Naatjes  snow! ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Busy Sunday

  Hello everyone! We're going to hop straight in.  This week we: -Gave out more Books of Mormon on the street and by knocking doors. Always fun.  - Finally met with a really cute family that had been difficult to meet with! - Met with one of Syster Kearns' distant relatives who lives right outside of Lund! They got in contact with one another through ancestry and were able to meet and talk Swedish together! It was actually really cool. Syster Kearns got to explain that it was because of our religion that their common ancestors fled to the US, and is also now the reason why she's back here in Sweden. #fullcircle - Got kicked out of a Svenska Kyrka by a svenska kyrka priest who asked us to take off our name tags. Classy.  - Met a man who had no idea that his wife of 35 years is a member of our church and listened to him explain his deep, complicated, philosophical ideas.  - Got rejected many times on the street. -Had FIVE PEOPLE come to church yesterday! It was IN...
Post a Comment
Read more