Well, first and foremost, Sweden has ruined my sense of temperature. By a miracle, for the past two days, it hasn't rained, and both days, I have been dying of heat. I think it scared Syster Byrd to see how happy I was when it started raining on our way to the library today. Like, we're talking extreme happy dance and some cheering and singing. In the rain. Rain just makes things so much cooler, and it's so much better! Really, I'm almost scared by how much I'm starting to like seeing a solid wall of water coming down outside the window.
And, yeah. This past week was a lot of fun; we got to go to Göteborg to meet the new mission president and his wife. President and Sister Beckstrand are very definitely different from President and Sister Newell, but I think things will turn out okay in the end. Haha, no, they'll be great, just different. As it was, it was fun to finally meet them after all of these months of hearing various rumors from members and missionaries.
This week has been both a challenge (a.k.a. an opportunity to grow) and an amazing testimony of the power of faith. You see, in Swedish summer, people will randomly leave on vacation for a month or two at a time. And show up random places like Skövde when you thought they'd be in Borås. And this on top of the usual challenges of missionary work. So, understandably, we've felt things have been a little dead in the past few weeks, as we've had problems getting things set up.
However, it's amazing what the priniciple of faith can do. As missionaries, we make goals, and we do everything we can to accomplish them in the faith that the Lord will provide a way as His will matches ours. And really, at times (okay, all the time), all we can control is our attitude and the fact that we're putting ourselves out there and contacting. So we did that this past week, and it's been amazing to see how maybe we didn't meet every goal that we'd set, but we made it much closer than we'd thought we would be halfway through the week.
I especially remember last Wednesday. By about 4:00 in the afternoon, pretty much every plan we'd had had fallen through. We contacted for a while in the hopes that we would find someone to teach, then stopped for a while to eat dinner. We stopped to say a prayer on our way out that we could find something effective to do with our time, then went out the door. We decided to swing by a less active who lived close to us and just see if we could get in, although she hadn't opened the door the last few times we'd been by. She later told us she almost hadn't opened the door, but we were able to get in and teach her, and then to meet her again in the week and get her to church yesterday. And we continue to see the blessings coming as we go out and do our best. Maybe not in the way that we want them to, but we are seeing lessons somehow manage to get lined up, and people are showing up as we really are trying to do what is in our power in missionary work. It's great.
And, yeah. There's my fun last week in Borås. We had fun for the 4th of July visiting an American couple in the ward and having hot dogs and Kool-aid (luxuries, I assure you), and we've had fun not getting completely fried in the sun. Joke, we're pretty well fried at moments, but we love it anyways.
Well, I hope you all have a fantastic week, and I love you tons!
Love,
Syster Maxwell
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