This last week has been good. It's been a bit less awkwardly-scheduled than last week, so we've been able to meet a few more people and such. A lot of the people we've been able to teach have been people we talked to on the street, but it's still been really good.
Last Monday we went in to downtown Stockholm and sort of old-town Stockholm and looked around some of the shops and such. It was pretty cool; there was one store in particular called the SciFi store or something like that (maybe scifi bookstore?) that just had a whole bunch of (unsurprisingly) science fiction and fantasy books, magazines, etc., but also a very impressive collection of board games, roleplaying stuff, etc. It was pretty fun looking around it. And then we also looked some at another store selling a bunch of "viking" souvenirs. It was pretty neat as well; I may head back there. And then we also looked at less interesting things like shoes and suits.
There hasn't been too much out-of-the ordinary in general, but a few things have been fairly interesting. On Tuesday we went on exchanges with the other Hägersten Elders, and I went with Elder Steen. It was good, we did some contacting and then had open church. In the evening we visited this Palestinian guy and his family. He was super nice and very friendly. He tried to serve us some tea, which was very kind of him, and he seemed a little confused when we had to decline, but we tried to explain why we don't drink tea as best we could with the language barrier. He seemed a bit disappointed. Anyways, we ended up getting home kind of late because the lesson went kind of long (and started later than we meant it to; we missed a train stop on the way there), and then we had to wait for a bunch of trains back to Handen. But it was all in all a good day.
The rest of the week has gone well. We've done a lot of contacting and actually got a kind of weird number of referrals. I think all in all there were 7 or something like that. They were all from other missionaries who were just having investigators, old investigators, or less actives moving into our area, but we still had a lot of people move in. So far we've contacted two of them, and they've both been pretty positive, so we have our fingers crossed with the others. We'll see what happens.
We'll be watching conference this weekend at Gubbängen or Västerhaninge chapels. I think they're at about noon and four, but I don't really remember. Some weird times. But we'll probably be watching it in English.
You asked how living by the spirit has kept me safe? I guess you could say living by the spirit and by mission rules and such keeps me safe in a variety of ways. Trying to follow the rules and the guidance of the spirit helps me (and missionaries generally) to avoid situations that could lead to physical or spiritual harm, like bad situations with other people or potentially physically dangerous situations. And then, of course, the spirit can help to warn us of other dangers and tell us things we can do. I don't know if I can think of any specific examples right now, but I'm sure that the spirit and mission rules do help.
Ward or Branch? I'm in a ward. The building is bigger than most of the other buildings I've been in, though it may still be a tad smaller than typical church buildings in the States. Maybe. It's big for a Swedish church, at any rate, which seem to be smaller than American ones. I'll send some pics as soon as I can, but it's sort of set up in a T shape, with the chapel and gym down one hall with classrooms across from them and then another hall (the top of the 'T') with some more classes and offices.
Miss you guys!
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