Sunday, August 25, 2013

Monday, August 19th

Alright! So this week has been crazy busy! We seriously have so much to do in this area. My senior companion, Elder Terry says this is the busiest he has ever been in his whole mission. Its awesome though! We have one investigator that has a baptismal date for September 6th but I am still kind of worried about her, becasue she is Marshilese and doesnt speak english super well, but Elder Tewsbury knows her better than I do and says she will be ready, so I am excited! And this week we are also going to challenge Troy to be baptised the following Friday! He has been progressing super well. We have had 3 total lessons with him so far and he has followed every commitment we have given him! He is in his early 40s and has moved here somewhat recently to kind of get away from people he knew and try to get his act together. He is sooooo prepared! I cant remember if I told you this already, but we asked if he would like to pray with us every morning and he said he would love that, so for the past almost 2 weeks he has come down and prayed with us before he leaves for work and he says he feels so much more strength from doing it. He also kept his word when he said he would come to church. He came yesterday and said he really enjoyed it. He was only able to stay for the first hour because he had to work, but ever since we have been meeting with him he has been looking and appling to jobs that will allow him to have Sundays off and is getting very close to recieving those jobs. But until then, he is wanting to continue to come to sacrament meeting. The members were so welcoming to him and one lady at church even gave him a hug. hahaha. Bro. Wyant is the 2nd Counselor in the Bishopbrick and he gave the PERFECT talk for Troy! He talked about how the basics is what living the gospel is all about, and used Elder Uchtdorfs talk "What matters most" and he knew about Troy so he explained everything very simply and tailored the talk almost exactly what Troy needed. It was super cool. We love Troy and will hopefully have a goal for him to work towards for baptism this week. 
We also had another investigator at church yesterday. He is the husband of Sis Bolis in our ward. She is very active and has just been waiting for the right time to have someone teach her husband. We met him about 2 weeks ago and talked to him. They are both in their mid 60s, btw He has a strong desire to be sealed to his wife because he says he loves her a lot and he understands that if he is sealed that he will be with her forever. But he just needs to know and understand what needs to come before that. haha So its so cool to teach him becasue he has this end goal of going to the temple and so his desire is already there, it is just our job to help him fill in the gaps and help him gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon, get baptized and receive the priesthood! He has health problems so he is kind of worried he doesn't have enough time to learn everything before he gets sealed, because he says "you know, I don't know how much time I have left." But like I said he is progressing and we got him to read from the Book of Mormon this week which was good, and we will be able to follow up this Wednesday with him!

Leonice is our portuguese investigator but sadly we havent been able to meet with her since my first Sunday here. She works a lot and lives far away. (about an hour....yeah our area is huge!) But she still wants to meet with us, and we will finally be able to meet with her this Friday so I will be able to talk about her more next week. I cant wait to talk to her again.

I have been able to do tons of service too. We are still helping Brenda and Kateleen at "Simply Comfort" every Wednesday and also Bob every Thursday. They are great people to be with and talk with. They just love the Elders! And we also serve an old couple every saturday. This week we are also helping The Wyants move (they will still be in the ward though). So we will have a lot of service this week! Btw the Wyants are awesome! we have dinner at their house every Sunday! They always invite us over and I always get stuffed. They are so nice. Their youngest daughter, Cristi, is about my age and will be sending in her papers in a month or 2 for her mission, and one of their sons Kyle is on a mission in St. George, Utah right now. They are also getting really excited about missionary work in this area! We are hoping they can help us be the driving force to get the rest of the ward on board with the excitment!

Oh and Mom, I got your message of "Hi" through a senior couple from the JSM. Elder and Sister Osborn are their names. They come to our ward for church because there are so many missionaries at the ward that meets at the chapel next to the JSM. But yeah they relayed the message for you at church yesterday! It was really cool that you found some of them through that blog you found! haha

Well I sure love you all tons and look forward to telling you more soon! I still havent mailed my letter about my Book of Mormon experience, but I will send it soon and hopefully it will be at home by the time you guys get home from Utah!

Thanks for the love and prayers!
Eu amo voces muitos!

-Elder Swalberg

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