I am so grateful that God leads his work and I can be a part of it.

Hey Mom!

So we had a really good story this week. It was actually last night. Saturday night was. . . .let’s just say it was a long night. Then Sunday came and it was pretty much just a normal Sunday. Nothing really special or nothing super annoying happened, until the night. We went and taught Samanta and Geri at 6:00 and then after that we had planned on going to a neighborhood called Çole and tracting. But it had started to rain and so we were debating if we should go get our umbrellas or not. Eventually we came to the decision to run by the house, grab our umbrellas, and go to a different neighborhood right by our house. Earlier in the day, we had discovered that we had mysteriously skipped some pallats in that neighborhood Saturday night. So we decided to go tract those. We got to the pallats and began with a prayer. Everything was going as normal. People were giving us lame excuses about random stuff that wasn’t really relevant to anything. We got to one door, knocked, and heard a woman come look out the peep hole. We heard her say, “Oh, it’s some of those JW’s.” So that wasn’t a really good first impression, but she answered the door. I started out by smiling and saying, “How are you? We’re from the Church of Jesus Christ and we have a special message about. . . .” She then said that she was Muslim and just believes in God and nothing else. We talked to her for a few minutes and we both testified about things that we knew in our hearts. They let us in. We found that there were four people in the house, a husband, wife, daughter, and soon to be daughter-in-law. We asked them a little bit about themselves and found out that the daughter (Bruna) really wants to be baptized even though her parents are Muslim. Not necessarily in our church, but just generally to be baptized. Me and Elder Garn both thought to ourselves, “Well we can definitely do that!” We started to share our message and they listened. They like really listened. It was so cool to explain about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and then testify about it. They must have really been listening to the spirit because they accepted to meet us often so we could teach them and we’re going to be going back tomorrow to give them a Book of Mormon.

Now that’s just kinda like a good lesson, right? Well think about it for a second and see how unbelievably miraculous it was. We had “just randomly” not even seen that pallat Saturday night when we were both pretty upset and not in any state to testify powerfully of the principles of the Gospel. We had planned on tracting in Çole, but it started to rain and so we had to change our plans, and then at the door their hearts were open to the spirit as he spoke through our simple testimonies of truth. It was just so cool to see how God really does put you in the right place at the right time if you are willing to work. My testimony definitely grew as we were thinking about all the things that had to happen in order for us to meet that family when we did. I am so grateful that God leads his work and I can be a part of it.

Alright, well I should probably get going and write Dad and Lindsey, but before I go tell Mitch that I am WAY excited for him. That is such an awesome mission call! I know this is a stupid question, but what language do they speak there? I am so pumped for him. Tell him I will pray for him as he prepares and leaves. That will come sooner than he thinks. ;)

I love you mom. Thank you for your e-mail.

-Elder Swenson