Växjö Week 3 - February 4, 2019

Another awesome week! 

We had the privilege of visiting Göteborg this week for zone conference! We were in a combined conference with the Göteborg zone. About once a year, each mission gets a visit from a church leader who comes to a zone conference and teaches the mission. 

Äldste Massimo De Feo was the member of the 70 who we got to learn from. He gave a conference talk last April called Pure Love: The True Sign of Every True Disciple of Jesus Christ. I encourage you to study it (here), it has become one of my all time favorite conference talks. Äldste De Feo talked a lot about how the people we teach need to feel both the love that we have for them and understand our expectations for them. High love, high expectations. Äldste Buckley and I have referred to that principle countless times in the past week, I'm grateful for that inspiration received from Äldste De Feo! There were so many other things that he taught that I loved and that have already had a positive impact on the work here.

Elder Buckley and I had prayed to be able to teach someone on the way to zone conference. We had four hours of travel and we wanted to use them well. We were surprised when we got out tickets to Göteborg to see that we weren't taking a train there but instead three buses and one short train. It didn't seem like the fastest or easiest travel option but we trusted that either the office elders (who ordered the tickets) or the Lord knew best. It turns out it was the Lord who knew best! 

We had a long long conversation with a lady that "happened" to be on exactly the same buses and train as us. We talked all about the church, gave her a Book of Mormon after writing our testimonies in it, and became great friends during our hours together. I'm not sure what impact the whole experience had on her but I know that she is the person that was placed in our path by God. An answer to prayer!

On Friday night, we got a call from the sisters in Malmö that one of the people they are teaching had decided to keep her baptismal date. This meant that Elder Buckley needed to interview her for the baptism, and the interview was the next day. So we had an unexpected trip down to Malmö! It was amazing to be on a train again. I haven't had the experience of riding long distance trains up to this point on my mission but it has really been fun to be on them so often over the past few weeks! The visit to Malmö was short, we didn't even get a picture. 

Another referral came to our area! I'm not sure how exciting that is on the exciting news scale but Elder Buckley and I were sure thrilled to receive it! We have received two a week on average together. We went by the home of the man referred, he wasn't there but we are planning on going by again today.

Växjö received a ton of snow over the weekend! It was so fun to wake up on Sunday and have the whole covered in white. We visited a castle today for preparation day with an American member from the branch. The castle is from the 1500s, it's on a little island pretty close to Växjö. We were the only people there and had a great time exploring all around inside. We even built two snowmen in the courtyard! Sweden is so cool.

I hope that you have all had a great week!

Love,

Äldste Francis

We also visited a castle last week, one of the pictures is from that castle and the others are from today's castle.