 |
| Nephi's baptism. |
So this week has been crazy busy and still sick! The first part of the week was full of sickness again. Elder Jamsa was getting over the flu and I was getting it, so that was a little tough. The craziness started on Tuesday! We had Zone conference the next day on the mainland and had to take a boat that Tuesday. There was no room on the boat for our car because of the Easter holiday and we wouldn’t be able to get our car back until the weekend. SO no car for us, only boats and trains! Before we left, we had a lesson with Nephi to prepare him for baptism. He lives 45 minutes away, and we don't teach him at the camp because he gets pressure from some of the guys he lives with about wanting to be a Christian. So we pick him up with a member, and then drive to another members house that lives close by to have the lesson! So that takes some time as well but was needed.
Tuesday night we got on the boat about 4:00pm and then didn’t get to the apartment we were staying at until about 9:30pm ish. There were three companiosnhips in this appartment but I lucked out and got the couch to sleep on haha. The next day came around VERY slowly as I was struggling to sleep with a room full of snooring men, but it was a good day! We walked to the church and had an amazing Zone conference. It was focused on the importance of language and why learning Swedish is important and how to best learn it. Walked out of there with some good ideas and plans to improve my Swedish for sure. But we would not be walking out for a while because our train didn't leave to take us to the boat station until after 8:00pm, and the conference ended at 4:00pm. What we did is chilled at the church for a few minutes because we were both feeling too sick and exhausted to go talk to people with the other Elders. We had the idea to call the Maddens! (the senior couple here on Gotland). They came to the conference as well but in their own time and in their own car. They were just staying in the housing for people visiting the temple for a few days. So we called them, and they invited us for some dinner! They took us to the all American Pizza Hut!! I can’t believe they even have one in Sweden! It was so good and they they drove us to the boat station so we didn’t have to walk and take a train.
We got to the Boat station and there were SO many people!! Easter weekend is insane! I actually had my bass guitar with me and Elder Jamsa had his guitar as well so we had to find a place to sit with these two instruments. The boat was almost full when we got on with a total of 1,200ish passengers! We found a spot available for us in the Economy seating, which is just dinner chairs with a table. To sit in the nice chairs you have to pay extra and we never buy those tickets. So this would be a 3 hour ride in these hard wood dinner chairs with the deck full of crying, running children becuase it is like 10:00 at night. haha It was a party! AND to top it off, we were both sick! I Closed my eyes for a second about ten minutes after we sat down. Then I opened them and saw a woman looking as Elder Jamsa and me. She had two tickets in her hand and explained to me that she had these two tickets that her and her husband were sitting in but decided to sit in the regular seating so she could chat with her friends. She gave her tickets to us and we were sooo astonished! We said thank you so many times, got our things and walked over to our new seats! Just then, Elder Jamsa told me that he had said a prayer that he would be able to sleep on this 3 hour boat ride, and when he opened his eyes… there this woman was giving us her tickets. :) So that was somthing cool that happened! We sat down in those nice recliner chairs and rested up until about 12:30AM when we got back to Gotland.
 |
| Feel the joy! |
The next few days we were still pretty sick and trying to meet with Nephi to get him ready for Baptism. On Friday, we drove Nephi out to the ocean where we were thinking we could have the baptism. We arrived and were skipping some rocks in the Baltic Sea, and then in his broken english he said "This? Baptism?" and we told him yes! :) He shook his head with a worried look and said "no!" haha We then, with the help of translators found out that he thought it would be TOO cold, so we would do it in a local pool instead. It went good! A big turn out and almost all of the new members were there to support him!
Remember me talking about Sadegh a few weeks ago? He was the one that wasn’t sure if he was staying in Sweden/Europe or going back to the Middle East, but anyways he will be baptized this Friday IN THE OCEAN! He has commited to doing it in the ocean and feels very ready no matter how cold it is haha. He has always had a desire to be baptized since he started taking lessons and knows that the church is true and has changed his life for it. He has been coming to every activity and attending all church meetings and everything! He was just unsure about being sent back to his home land where it could cause problems if he is Christian (like being put to death). There was something that happened to him at Nephi’s baptism that changed his mind. He had a very strong spiritual feeling that he needs to be baptized as soon as possible and we talked about it. This will be so good for him!
Love you all and “see" you next week! (sorry for not many pictures. The computer I’m working on is having some problems loading the pictures)
Happy Easter!
Äldste Blackburn
No comments:
Post a Comment