Swede Is the Work : Miracles Happen

September 7th, 2015

Hejsan Familjer!

It is FREEZING here! Oh my goodness, we went from summer to this ice cold weather! Luckily the sun is out today, but it sure got cold fast! We have seen some INCREDIBLE things here this week. Syster Lund and I are starting to see results from our finding efforts! It's so exciting! This week we handed out Book of Mormons in Swedish, Serbian, Albanian, Mandarin, Spanish and Persian.

Remember the man we met on the bus that I talked about last week? We met with him again earlier today and had an incredible lesson on the Plan of Salvation. His name is Mathias and he is Swedish. He said at the beginning of the lesson that he wasn't really interested in joining a religion, he just wanted to develop a relationship with God. As we went through the Plan of Salvation, he had all of these INCREDIBLE questions. We started talking about the Celestial, Terrestrial and Telestial Kingdoms and he pointed to the Celestial Kingdom and said "How can you get in there?" Uhmmm, HELLO. At the end of the lesson I asked him "If all of this was true, would you be baptized?" He said yes. Holy cow. God is blessing us. The prepared are out there. People are really seeking! I can't describe the excitement that you feel! Also, we have a baptismal date with our other investigator, Mattias (Mattias the 1st.... we have to say Mattias #1 and Mathias #2 to remember) in December! He is a 23 year old Swedish man who is incredible. He is a seeker and has stepped away from drugs and a criminal life and has completely changed.

We also met a lady on the street this week that is from Finland, but has lived in Sweden for many years. We taught her a street lesson and invited her to church. She had visited a bunch of churches and was interested in trying ours out. We called her on Saturday and invited her again and then we contacted a member to fellowship her at church. She came and her and the member got along SO WELL!! Syster Lund and I could both see her in white... We are SO happy and excited for the work that is moving forward here! God is blessing us for the hard weeks of finding work we have had.

The other day we meet a couple of people that were struggling with some substance abuse. The one woman was from England and she was very drunk. She asked us to take her back to Sjöbo (where we live), she had no idea where she was. She said that this is the first time she has drunk since December of last year. She said that her boyfriend was doing drugs today and he wouldn't come to an art show with her. The other man was smoking, drinking and had something in his hand that possibly was some kind of hard drug. The mission takes you places you never would go otherwise. You are with people that come from all walks of life, you spend time with people that you would have never spent time with before. This drunk woman turns to us and says: "You can do one thing for me. You are religious right? Say the Lord's Prayer with me." Or something like that. She then held both mine and Syster Lund's hands and sang to us. Syster Lund goes "Can we sing something for you?" We took the hands of these two children of God, who were very much under the influences of the world, and sang "I Am a Child of God" to them. I was holding hands with this VERY dirty, sketchy man, who was probably missing a bunch of teeth, singing him a song that means so much to me. I just felt the Spirit confirming to me of God's love for his children. This is an experience that is so unique to a mission. I really feel like I am in the Savior's shoes sometimes.

The last thing I want to record is when Syster Lund and I talked today to the three very tattooed, pierced and very non-LDS looking people basically possible. I spent most my time talking to one of the guys and he was basically a Satanist who believed in Satan, and he was smoking right in my face and I was breathing in that cigarette smoke like crazy. But something incredible happened. I just felt SO much love for this man. Not in a romantic way at all. I felt God's love filling me. I saw him in the way I believe that God sees him. It was an incredible experience. The mission is incredible- it fills you with love like you have never experienced before.

I love you all, I love my Heavenly Father. I am grateful to see things through His eyes in a small way.

Love,

Syster Nielsen