Monday, March 27, 2017

African "foo foo"and Powerful Lessons

Hej hej! 
Teaching our friend Marvic
how to play some guitar!

Sooo where to begin….  Fun story time! So last week we were coming home from that Persian party that I shared about last week with all four of the Elders here in the city we live in, Elders Craun and Hawkins, Barns and me. This african woman walked up to the bus stop with her baby and stood next to Elder Hawkins. Elder Hawkins being the man he is, talked to her commenting on how adorable her son was. We all started talking and pretty much long story short, she loves Americans. We talked about some African food that we like and then she said, "Come to my babies 1st  birthday party next week! There will be lots of African food there!" So we were super pumped getting invited to a party on the way home from another party haha, and on top of that African food is awesome! 
Eating some African "foo-foo"
(potato mush you eat with your
hands) and african fried fish with 
the tail still on it. Way good! 
We went to the party this week bringing a little stuffed animal that was purchased by Elder Craun to be a gift from all four of us. We thought…there must be a reason why we are going to the birthday party. It felt right to go at least for a little bit and eat some good food and meet cool people. Both of those things happened. Just being there as 4 white boys from America with white shirts and black tags in a room full of fun loving Africans made people very curious and we taught almost every one at the party. NO JOKE. We didn't press it on anyone. People would just ask us questions after questions until it led to us teaching about the Book of Mormon and the restoration of the Church of Christ. We switched numbers with so many people, set a few appointments, and gave several Books of Mormons out. 
Jordan's Birthday party!

It seemed like there was always a lesson going on in both sides of the room. Everyone we met was always interested in why we're here in Sweden and about the message. I was teaching with Elder Craun for most of the time and the missionaries who haven't been out for very long are just getting better and better! He is a stud. The party went on and we ate amazing African food. Foo-foo is my favorite. You eat it with your hands. So that was a fun experience and we will be staying in contact with several of those people we met. 

Something spiritual... 
I have personally been working on Christlike attributes because those are always good especially as a missionary. One that has been harder for me is patience and humility with people who are rude on the street. Sometimes it’s hard to walk away. After several attempts of trying to help the person understand something and they don’t want to and continue to be rude then it’s wasting time you could be using to find someone who is actually ready and prepared to hear the message we teach. 
A few of our innebandy crew.
We play every saturday with investigators.
The finest team in Stockholm.
That happened this week with an older man and we quickly realized after some attempts at reaching him on a deeper level that we were wasting the precious time we have. So without any argument we invited him to act and to look up our website. He continued to say rude comments and he even was touching my shoulder :) haha So we walked away still feeling happy and with smiles on our faces. A split second after we turned away, there was a young couple that was about to walk by us. We stopped them and started teaching them and ended up giving them a book of mormon and we are planning to meet them this week. That couple is way cool and really liked the message we shared with them on the street. Gotta remember that this is the Lords time and its precious! We would never have talked to that couple if we stayed one second longer arguing with that guy. 

Hope everyone has a great week! 
Äldste Blackburn
Bikes, water, lifeguard rescue
rings. Cant get any better.

Oh how I love bikes! 




No comments:

Post a Comment