Mission Week 24 - Moving Again

What's good everyone, Merry Christmas to you all. Hope you all have a good Christmas day. 

First, we got transfer calls on Saturday night. To my surprise I will be leaving Utby already, after only 6 weeks here. I will be going to Borlänge, which has been closed for 6 weeks and is the area that my current companion Elder Steffen came from before we were in Utby together. Elder Steffen loved the area, especially the members, so I think it should be good. I will be whitewashing (both missionaries new to the area) and greenie breaking (somebody's first companion out of training) again, so back to back transfers for both of those things which is pretty crazy. I am sad to leave Utby, mostly because I don't feel like I have made many strong connections with a lot of people because of the fact that we whitewashed the area and I was only here for 6 weeks. I am grateful for my time and experiences I have had here though. 

Interesting things from the week:

Somehow this is already the second time on my mission getting interviewed by people from the local newspaper. Basically some of the Elders in our district had some people from the newspaper reach out and ask if they could follow them around for the day, and the day that they chose was the day we had in-person district council. As a reminder we only have in-person district council together once a transfer because the areas are farther apart in Sweden. And if you don't know what district council is, it is basically just a group of 4-8 missionaries who are in neighboring areas getting together and talking about things we have studied and how we can improve our areas. This was easily the best district council of my mission so far. We talked about many things, the Book of Mormon being one of them, and the spirit was super strong when we started talking about it, which was really cool because we had the news reporters with us. All that the news reporters did was interview everyone together before we started district council, and then just take pictures of us the entire time. They also followed with us to lunch afterwards as well. 

We went caroling again, this time with the young men and young women in the ward. We went around to people who live alone or just need a little more light this Christmas so that was nice.

We gave the sacrament and a blessing to this 88 year old lady named Taimi from Finland. Her husband died 40 years ago and she is a convert. Super strong testimony even though none of her family or friends are members. One of my favorite people I have met here, she is so sweet.

We had a dude request a Book of Mormon that is like a 2 hours bus ride north of us. We went up there, and taught him the Restoration, and when we went to have him read Moroni 10:3-5, he said that he would not read it. We were really surprised and kind of startled by it, and then he proceeded to say that he wants to read the entire Book of Mormon in the next couple weeks so doesn't want to start at the end. Pretty interesting but also cool. 

We had a lot of member meals this week because a lot of our friends that we are teaching were busy with Christmas stuff. The members we visited were great and a lot of them gave us food to take home also so that was awesome. 

We worked on putting in the floor for the same lady again. Within the first 20 minutes we cut a piece incorrectly so I tried to make a small change to the cut but we were using a hand saw which is not very precise and it slipped off and cut my finger. We left soon after that so we did not make much progress this week.

In Sweden Christmas Eve is the big day they celebrate. That is when they open the presents and when Santa comes and all that good stuff. It was a pretty good day for us. After church, we went with a member to visit his mom and eat food with them. Pretty regular and bland food if I am being honest, but of course very nice of them to feed us I am very grateful. After that we went and took some cinnamon rolls to Taimi because she was celebrating Christmas by herself. And then we went to a member meal in Västra Frölunda's area. They are from India and had 8 missionaries over which was super nice.

Today for Christmas we just played basketball and chilled which is a good day by my definition. It doesn't really feel like Christmas at all though.

With all of the surprise changes that I have had on my mission so far I was thinking about how crazy missions are with how much change there is. I started thinking more about it and that is basically life I guess. There is always constant change in all of our lives whether it be jobs, friends, seasons, school, age, weather, all of the people around us, and even ourselves. Of course the one thing that doesn't change is Jesus Christ. 1 Nephi 10:18- " For he is the same yesterday, today, and forever; and the way is prepared for all men from the foundation of the world, if it so be that they repent and come unto him." I feel like this is a pretty common scripture or theme, but if we really think about it it can bring a lot of comfort. With all of the crazy changes that constantly take place in our lives, Jesus Christ remains there. He is always there for us, no matter what is happening. Mormon 9:19 - "And if there were miracles wrought then, why has God ceased to be a God of miracles and yet be an unchangeable Being? And behold, I say unto you he changeth not; if so he would cease to be God; and he ceaseth not to be God, and is a God of miracles". God and Jesus Christ are unchanging! They always have power to perform miracles in our life if we have the patience and humility to submit to their will. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the light. I hope you take some time to remember Him today:)

God Jul!❤️🎄

Pics: 

Mission Week 24 - Moving Again

Monday, December 25, 2023

Mission Week 23

Hej, 

Hope everybody had a good week and is enjoying this Christmas season. Pretty good week for me.

Tuesday we had zone conference, and for our mission we have 2 big conferences with multiple zones for Christmas zone conference. So we had my zone (Göteborg zone) and also Malmö zone too. It was mostly a regular zone conference for the beginning but after the usual presentations and lunch we went out and caroled with all of us missionaries. We just walked around downtown Göteborg and stopped in different spots and sang all of the songs we had on our list. We also went in the big mall that I always talk to people in and that was really cool too. Every spot we stopped at a decent size crowd would form around us, many of them filming, and most everyone smiling. It felt good to spread some Christmas cheer to others and remind them what Christmas is really about.

We had two interesting lessons this week that were a very refreshing change of pace for me. One of them was a dude named Victor who was taught by missionaries like a year ago, and then the other was a dude named Richard that we taught the Restoration like 3 weeks ago but he has been busy since. Victor was asking us about controversial Joseph Smith topics and Richard was asking us about war and politics. Even though these may sound like annoying or uncomfortable lessons to have, it was actually very nice for me because it gets kind of repetitive teaching the same thing sometimes. And both guys were really respectful in the way they posed their questions so that was good too.

We had another lesson with Angeliné and had the same member Jennie on the lesson with us again. It was a good lesson where we explained the priesthood, because Angeliné has been telling us she doesn't see a difference between our church and other Christian churches. She was pretty receptive to everything we taught, but after the lesson she talked about how it is very difficult for her to accept our beliefs because her dad was a Methodist preacher and she has had the same faith her whole life, and taught it to her kids as well. She feels like if she switches faiths now she is betraying what her parents taught her and showing her kids that what she has taught them their whole lives is wrong. She said she will keep waiting to see if God gives her a feeling or sign that our church is right, but she hasn't received anything yet. Please pray for Angeliné!

We had the opportunity to help a lady install her new floor in her living room and kitchen this week. Unfortunately she has not asked anyone else to assist us in our efforts, and obviously we don't have any experience with installing floors. Also the only tool she has provided is a handsaw. So to say the least it will definitely be an interesting turnout but we will see how it goes I guess. We have made little progress so far because she has many things in her living room and only cleared a tiny corner for us to work on. I'll include a picture of the progress we have so far lol.

Probably the most common question I get asked from people at home is what the food is like here. For most of my mission, it has been mostly the same as American food but this week I finally have some interesting things to report. On Saturday we had our ward Christmas party where there was all of the classic Swedish Christmas foods. This included: pickled herring from a jar, some sort of cube of veal meat, raw salmon and cooked salmon (both served cold), purple cabbage, some sort of beet salad, meatballs, and korv (hot dogs). Dessert was rice pudding with a fruit sauce. I made sure to try everything for the experience, and most of it was good besides the veal in my opinion. The party also consisted of singing Christmas hymns, and kids dancing around the Christmas tree with music playing (a Swedish tradition). 

For pday today, we went up to one of the Göteborg Northern Islands called Marstrand. We went to this super old fortress from 1638 and just walked around the little town which had a really cool vibe. After that we went bowling with the elders and sisters in the other Göteborg area because one of their members paid for them to go and invited us. So that was fun except for the fact that I'm horrible at bowling. 

That was pretty much it for the week. Had a few other member/friend visits but that was all.

For my spiritual thought I wanted to go a little bit off of what Zach shared for his spiritual thought last week and talk about the light Christ brings. I probably sang Silent Night in Swedish 20+ times this week with the caroling, ward party, and church. There was one line that stuck out to me every time : 

"Stilla natt, heliga natt!

Mörkret flyr, dagen gryr."

This translates to "Silent Night, Holy Night! The darkness flees, the day dawns" (They try and keep the lyrics similar in Swedish hymns but obviously change them a bit so they rhyme). Anyways this line is just so powerful to me, that because of Jesus Christ darkness flees, and a new day dawns. Jesus Christ truly does dispel all darkness, sorrow, fear, sadness, and discouragement in life. As we focus on Him more, we will feel the positive effects more. It will feel like a new day is dawning. We always have another chance with Jesus Christ and can always hope for a brighter future or a "new dawn" because of Him. 

3 Nephi 11:11: "And behold, I am the light and the life of the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning."

I hope you all have a great Christmas and that you can take time to think of our Savior in the holiday busyness! 

God Jul!

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Mission Week 23

Monday, December 18, 2023

Mission Week 22

Tjena tjena

Hope y'all had a good week. Pretty good one for me. 

Tuesday afternoon we had a free block of time so we did our usual talking to people in the mall. We had around 2 free hours so we just decided we would endure and try and talk to people for the for the full 2 hours and 15 minutes. After getting into it a little bit I had a few good conversations with people which was good for a change but no one really interested. We had about 10 minutes left when I saw this lady walk the other direction past me really fast (keep in mind I am in a crowd of people so this one lady just stood out to me). I kept walking in the same direction but couldn't put off the feeling that I needed to talk to her, so I quickly turned around and did a little speed walk to catch up to her because she was walking fast. I went up and said I was holding a quick survey and asked her what she thinks our purpose is in life. She responded with "Jesus. Everything is for Jesus". A big smile came to my face and as I began to talk more to her she started sharing a lot of her religious beliefs and kind of just views on life and how Jesus applies to them. Every thought she brought up I instantly thought of a Book of Mormon scripture that connected with it. I ended up sharing 3 verses by the end of our conversation, and she loved them all and said "Amen" repeatedly and nodded as she read each one. She ended our conversation by saying that she thinks it doesn't matter which church you are in, if you love Jesus it is all you need. I expressed that I agree that it is great to love Jesus, but I think there is something special about my church that she would like a lot. She seemed interested, but shared the bad news that she would be leaving in 2 days to visit her home country for 2.5 months. I gave her a Swedish Book of Mormon, but I told her that I would really like to give her one in her native language (Portuguese) before she left. She gave me her number and told me where she lived, which was unfortunately kind of far away, but I told her that I would give my best effort to try and get her one.

The next morning we took a bus super far north in our area to visit these extremely old members. They were really nice and it was good to give them someone to talk to. On the way back from that, we were able to stop and give Arlinda (same lady) her Portuguese Book of Mormon. I thought we were going to just drop it off for her, but she excitedly invited us in and sat us on the couch. She called her daughter in too, and was telling us she had come home the day before and told her daughter how crazy good she thought I was at Swedish only being here 4 months. We were able to give background on the Book of Mormon, and she seemed super excited to read it. She said that she didn't have room to take her Bible in her suitcases, but that she would take the Book of Mormon with her and read it while she was gone. She said she has only been Christian for a year and a half, but she has completely changed her lifestyle for Christ, even more than a missionary it seems like haha. Even though she will be gone until February, it was still really cool to meet her and was cool to see someone so excited to get more to read about Christ. It reminded me of the African leader that President Nelson met and gave a Book of Mormon to. "You could have given me diamonds or rubies, but nothing is more precious to me than this additional knowledge about the Lord Jesus Christ." We are so blessed to have the Book of Mormon, and we should always make sure that we don't take it for granted, and appreciate it as much as these people. 

That was definitely the highlight of my week, but another good thing that happened was our lesson with Angeline. We invited a member to be on the lesson, and she ended up being a lifesaver. Even though we have taught Angeliné the restoration 3 times, the member got talking with her and Angeliné was saying that she does not know the difference between our church and others. I was appalled because we have taught about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon so many times, but the member did a really good job explaining it in a different way and Angeliné was engaged and asking questions. Definitely one of the better lessons of my mission. Angeliné has been slightly difficult since then, but we just have to be patient with her and I am confident the gospel will change her life. 

The rest of the week consisted of a lesson with a dude named Dameer who could read auras and energy, a lesson with a lady named Anette which also had a member on it who basically just taught the whole lesson for us because he loves doing missionary work, a Christmas concert, and splits with Elder Belnap which went really well. We also had this harp recital thing for a lady in our ward that we had to go to because she had us begin and end with a prayer, but literally no one showed up besides the parents of the kids so there was like 10 people there and the whole thing was just so awkward and uncomfortable. When me and my companion got up at the end he leaned over and whispered in my ear "this is the most slightly uncomfortable I have been in my life" hahaha. 

For my spiritual thought I wanted to talk about a simple experience I had that made me think about something else. When me and my companion were sitting on a bench waiting for the bus, this dude came up and started asking us if we are Jehovahs. We told him no and then he asked what church we are a part of so we told him. And then he grabbed my tag and started yelling at us telling us to tell him what we believe in, only so that he could proceed to say that God doesn't exist, and that I should go home, snort some cocaine, drink some alcohol, get with a girl, and enjoy life. After this dude walked away, this latina lady came up with a big smile on her face and started waving at us. The man that was with her said that she didn't speak any English or Swedish, but that she saw us and really wanted to say hi because she is a member of the church also, from Nicaragua. After saying hi the lady walked away, which meant that she wasn't even waiting for the same bus as us and went out of her way to come say hi to us. After these two interactions, I got on the bus and for most of the bus ride was just thinking how dumb it was that that guy would come up and say that to us. I'm used to those type of interactions at this point, but it still was making me mad that just because we wear a tag on our chest makes people think they don't have to treat us like a regular human being. After having negative thoughts like this the whole bus ride, my thoughts came to the lady from Nicaragua again. I thought about how nice she was, and what a positive interaction that was. I realized that I had just had 2 interactions within 30 seconds of each other, and one was completely positive and one was completely negative. And then I thought to myself that I literally had the choice, to pick between being angry about the mean guy, or being happy about the nice lady. This of course, applies to life as well, and makes me think of this quote from President Nelson I'm sure many of you have heard. " My dear brothers and sisters, the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives… Joy comes from and because of Him [Jesus Christ]. He is the source of all joy. We feel it at Christmastime when we sing, "Joy to the world, the Lord is come." And we can feel it all year round. For Latter-day Saints, Jesus Christ is joy!" Interestingly enough, the song Joy to the World has been on my mind this week as well. Every time I've heard it this Christmas season, I have felt deeply in my heart, and thought in my mind that Jesus Christ really is "Joy to the world"! He is true reason to "Rejoice, rejoice"! I am so grateful for the Savior and the reminder we have to focus on Him a little more this Christmas season. I know that he IS joy to the world, and can bring us more joy than anything else.

Appreciate you all🙏🙏 Be the positive experience in someone else's day this week!

Pics: (don't know how I have only 2, need to take more next week)

Mission Week 22

Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Mission Week 21

What's good everyone hope you all doing well

This week for me was the week of visiting members. In Sweden advent calendars are really big and the church provides some for us missionaries to give out to members and just random people. We were supposed to have them the last Sunday in November at church but for some reason we didn't so we spent like 3 hours texting every member that was on the list that we have. We had a total of 14 member visits which may not seem like a lot but that is definitely more than the rest of my mission combined all in one week.

Obviously you all don't want to hear about every member visit so I will just give some of the highlights:

We visited a dude with a really bad speech problem, but that did not stop him from talking NBA with us which was awesome. He and his wife also have a Book of Mormon reading streak of over 1600 days which is nearly 5 years so major respect to them.

We visited the relief society president and her family. They had us for dinner and were super nice, and afterwards they let us try a type of ice cream bar that everyone in Sweden likes and I do not know how. It is literally black licorice flavored and yeah it was disgusting. 

We visited an older lady who is a convert from Ukraine. She cooked us a traditional Ukrainian soup with garlic rolls. She was really really nice and told us her really powerful conversion story. 

We visited a really really old lady who looked like she was over 100 years old lol. Her hair was just patches and her eye sockets were so sunk it looked like a skull. This may sound mean but I am only saying this to praise her because she is that old but she talks with all her neighbors about the gospel and also went up and bore her testimony in church this week. 

Our last visit of the week was dinner with another family who had a teenage boy that it was good to talk with. The most interesting thing from this visit though was that my companion broke one of the glass cups literally less than 10 seconds into dinner lol.

Besides the member visits we didn't have a lot else. We did have an interesting lesson with our friend Angeliné (lady from Africa we met on the bus last week) and her daughter Emily who lives in Norway. Despite the weird lesson they came with us to a member dinner the next day and also came to church on Sunday so that was good. It just puts a smile on my face to be around Angeliné and she always answers our phone calls by enthusiastically saying "Hejjj mina vänner!!" (Hello my friends!) She is the lady with the glasses in the picture included. 

We had a few others lessons besides her. One with a guy named Richard who has explored a lot of religions but wants to know how to find out if a single one is true, one crazy lady named Puck that we will not be going back to because she said she doesn't plan on becoming a member in the first 5 minutes (we'll probably go back for service), and a dude named Claes who wanted to go on a walk in the freezing cold for the lesson because his wife isn't religious (only lasted about 10 minutes and didn't get to teach anything). 

That was basically it for the week. Sorry for the more boring email, I've been trying to make them more interesting but not a lot of crazy interesting stuff happens to us throughout the week usually besides regular missionary work. 

As for the spiritual thought, a scripture that really stood out to me in my studies this week was Matthew 16:25-26 "25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. 26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Something about this scripture is just really powerful to me. It just gives me peace and motivation to keep moving forward, even when the majority of the world doesn't agree with the teachings of Jesus Christ. It is so true that as we give our lives to Jesus Christ, that is when we find them. That is when we experience satisfaction, joy, peace, and comfort, even in the difficult times. I think this quote from Elder Holland in his talk "Lifted Up upon the Cross" goes together with this. "To be a follower of Jesus Christ, one must sometimes carry a burden—your own or someone else's—and go where sacrifice is required and suffering is inevitable. A true Christian cannot follow the Master only in those matters with which he or she agrees. No. We follow Him everywhere, including, if necessary, into arenas filled with tears and trouble, where sometimes we may stand very much alone." Being a follower of Jesus Christ is not always the easiest thing, and not always the most popular thing, but it is the right thing to do. And as we devote our time, efforts, and even our lives to Him, we truly will "find" so much more in return. 

Have a great week🙏

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Mission Week 21

Tuesday, December 5, 2023