Calder takes on DC🤑😎
Hej hej!
This week has been super dope! For starters I did go to DC!! I left late Wednesday night, the APs drove me to the airport. I was so excited to go to DC and to be by myself for a little bit for the first time in 14 weeks, until I ran into some swedish missionaries coming with me in the line for security. It's okay though because I'm so glad I met them there! The five of them started the MTC that day, said bye to their families, set their stuff down, and got on a train to salt lake. Kinda a crazy day for all of us but especially them. It was super fun to meet them and give them some advice on the mtc and being a missionary. It felt nice to be a couple weeks ahead of someone because it seems that everyone I've met will go home before me haha.
Anyway we flew overnight to Charlotte North Carolina. It was rough not going to lie. I'm not a huge fan of the overnight flight haha. I took a funny picture in the bathroom of the plane at 2 in the morning. I tried to have a missionary moment on the plane with the dude next to me, but after talking about football for like 20 minutes he put in his headphones before I got a chance. Oh well. On the second flight I sat next to a sweet lady who was a member of our church. I was able to talk to her for the majority of the flight and she was super nice.
We got to DC finally at like 9am. We met up with some other swedish missionaries and it was fun to meet them. We took lots of pictures and saw some of the iconic sights. It was so nice to get out of Utah for a little bit, I've been here for months in the mtc and now in Kearns for my reassignment and so as much as I love Utah, it was nice to have a change of scenery for a day. We went to the embassy and we said a prayer beforehand with all the missionaries there (there were like 15 of us total or close to it!) The prayers was super spiritual and a cool opportunity.
The interview at the swedish consulate/embassy was literally the dumbest thing ever. I have no idea why we can't just send them our passports. I flew all the way across the country to have a lady look at my passport for 30 seconds. Bruh. She told my I should get my visa by November/December. Kind of a bummer. It's all in God's plan but I've been really anxious to go to Sweden and that is not what I wanted to hear. Oh well though! God has a plan and sitting around crying about it does me no good. Time to commit to Salt Lake for another couple months. Jesus died for me so I can serve wherever I am needed.
The other highlight of my week Is I extended my first invitation to someone to be baptized!! It was super scary (my watch tells me my heart rate and it was about 110 haha) Okay so the kids name is Logan. We've been teaching him for awhile but he has always been super hesitant but loves to talk to us about his life and his dirtbikes and stuff. Anyway I gave him a book of mormon about a week ago and we followed up on wednesday . He told us he hadn't read it because he couldn't read. Hes 14 but just a little different which i hadn't even considered. So we showed him how to download the app and listen to it. Then the next day we came back to talk about it. We read the introduction and simplified it for him. It was super spiritual and so I got the prompting to invite him to be baptized. We invited him out of the scriptures in 2 Nephi 31:10-13. He was hesitant but we told him we'd help him and he said yes! I'm so proud of him and happy for him.
Other than that nothing crazy happened this week. Our friend Parker is getting baptized on Saturday and I'm so excited!
Spiritual thought
I was talking with one of my companions Elder Joyner and he told me something that hit me really hard. He was talking about how when Jesus Christ suffered for our sins in the garden of Gethsemane, he asked his apostles to stay awake and stand guard. That's it. Then Jesus Christ experienced the most awful pain ever on our behalf. Afterwards, when he was exhausted and spent, he walked out and saw them asleep. Jesus said in Mark 14:37 "And he cometh, and findeth them sleeping, and saith unto Peter, Simon, sleepest thou? couldest not thou watch one hour?" Elder Joyner then related this to us and missionary work. Jesus Christ literally died for us. He took our sins upon himself and suffered for each of us! All he asks us is to serve for two years (or 18 months). I don't want to get to heaven and have him say to me, could you not just serve for two years? Or could you not just follow my commandments? I don't know if this even makes sense but it hit me very hard and put some stuff into perspective for me. I'm grateful for my savior and his sacrifice.
Love you all!! Let me know how you're doing. I didn't read this email through so hopefully it makes sense haha.
-Äldste Calder
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