Monday, March 20, 2017

IT'S TRUE

Our week:

Roamed around Stockholm…you know, just another Monday/P-Day on the mission.

Wednesday…oh, man!  This one was hard.  One of those “you just don’t even want to start the day” days.  But—good news—it went fairly well after:

            --1 no-show…even though we can to his house!

            --Next, a lesson with a SUPER non-interested Muslim.  That was a hard lesson.
            --Then, a total language-barrier lesson.  Oh, wow.  This one tried my patience.  It is super hard holding your composure when you’re trying to help answer certain questions, such as: “where do we go after this life?”  Then they totally disregard you while you’re answering, and immediately ask: “Well, where do all the animals go?”  Then, we start to answer, “well, we don’t know everything about…” and he totally cuts us off and says, “You don’t know, you don’t know, you don’t know!”  And very quickly—without really thinking about it, I just said, “Well, that’s because you don’t listen!”

Let’s just say that he listened after that and finally got some questions answered!  It’s crazy what listening can do!

            --But, then we ended the day teaching a lesson to an awesome Swedish lumberjack.  So all was good!

Thursday we had a lesson with this super cool guy from Afghanistan.  Very Muslim.  Didn’t seem too interested at first, but we taught him about the Restoration, and afterwards he said:  “Wow—I have never even heard of this before!  This is all new!”
That was one of those lessons that you just KNOW is a miracle.  THIS is why I’m on a mission.

We also had one of the most amazing less-active lessons.  It was so wonderful.  Things have been really hard for her lately, so we have just been trying to help in any way we can. 
We watched the Mormon Message “Hallelujah” with her, and she was just in tears.  It truly is amazing being able to see someone feeling the Spirit again.  She does want to come back…sadly, it’s not easy, but it IS most definitely worth it!
My favorite part was at that at the end of the video it shows a picture of the Savior.  We left it on through the rest of our lesson, and I feel like it just made the biggest difference.  It was an amazing experience.

But, aside from all this, I have been learning more Arabic!  My favorite.  I have been able to invite people to Church, and every time we stop them on the street and switch to Arabic they are just as equally confused as they are happy that we are speaking their language.  It’s actually quite amazing just slightly being able to break these language barriers.
Now, while waiting for this library computer to work, I can share some of the greatest quotes from this week:

            --A member from our ward said:  “I served in the Vietnam War.  But I never went to Vietnam.  I stayed back scrubbing the toilets while the other guys went.”

            --On the more serious side, one other member said something pretty cool:
“The power of God is taking a bum on the street, teaching him the Gospel…then twenty years later he becomes the CEO of this great company.”
But, aside from all of this, one of my favorite parts by far of this week was being able to finish the Book of Mormon once again.  All that I can think to liken it to is finishing your favorite series.  After you have invested so much of your heart, time and attention to it—and then it’s just over!  The people you have come to LOVE so much—and then, better yet knowing that it is all TRUE!  

And even a little further, that it was written for US TODAY.  That God has been so merciful as to give us more than one record.  That we have “the witness of two nations.”  And that we can seek the confirmation of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon over and over again.
While finishing up Moroni 10—the last chapter of the Book of Mormon—I took frequent breaks, looking through all of the very well-loved pages.  Looking at all of the markings I’ve made as I’ve read.  All of the notes expressing moments of ENLIGHTENMENT.  Times where answers were received, clarity was given.  

This little paperback has been with me through it all.  Spending most of the last 520ish days in my faithful little Fjall (Swedish backpack).  Who would have known that a book written 2,000 years ago could help me through each and every one of the hardest days I have faced in my mission.
“Love.  Healing.  Help.  Hope.  The power of Christ to counter all troubles in all times—including the end of times.  That is the safe harbor God wants for us in personal or public days of despair.  That is the message with which the Book of Mormon begins, and that is the message with which it ends—calling all to ‘come unto Christ, and be PERFECTED in HIM.’  That phrase—taken from Moroni’s final lines of testimony—is a dying man’s testimony of the only true way.”   (Elder Jeffrey R. Holland)
Moroni 10:3-5—

“I would exhort you, that ye ask of God, if these things are not true.”

Once again.  My heart and mind receive the same confirmation—“You already know this is true.”


Syster Campbell


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