Jul och Northern Lights: 12/26/14

Hej!

     This has been a very different week, but a good one! I have P-day today, and I´m pretty sure my next one is on January 1st. I found out I am being transferred! I will be going to an area called Gubbängen, which is in the Stockholm zone. So I will be in more of a big city area, which will be interesting. My companion will be Elder Walker, who has been out just one transfer longer than me. 

     It´s kind of hard to remember everything that has happened, so I will just write what I remember. First of all, we got snow! There is about a foot of snow now, and the temperature is in the negative 10s celsius. Luckily we haven´t had to be outside too much lately. The snow plows here are really good, so the roads have been pretty clear for the most part. But in the city there are some giant piles of snow from the snowplows, and they look pretty cool. It´s like there´s a mountain in the middle of town.

     This week all of our lessons were basically just saying goodbye to our investigators and explaining that new missionaries will come by to visit them soon. Elder Stafford goes home on the 30th, and our area is being closed because so many missionaries are leaving in his group. But luckily there will still be the other two companionships in Sundsvall to keep teaching everyone.

     On Christmas Eve all six missionaries were invited to the District President´s family´s Julbord, which is basically a buffet table of Christmas foods. It was pretty fun. There were little kids running all over the place, but everything went well. There was a white elephant gift exchange, and I ended up getting a 10-pack of toothebrushes. So now I have enough to last my entire mission, haha. 

     After that we got to go over to the Branch President´s house. We got to watch Frozen with them. Three of the missionaries hadn´t seen Frozen yet, so they were really happy to finally see it. After the movie we went outside and had a snowball fight with the kids. While we were playing, somebody noticed that there were Northern lights! There were street lights and other lights where we were, so we ran into a big field full of snow where it was a better view. I had on church shoes and church pants, but somehow my feet didn´t get too wet running through deep snow, which I am very thankful for because it was about -15 degrees. The Northern lights were awesome! They weren´t super bright, but they stretched across a lot of the sky and sometimes there would be brighter strands.

     Yesterday the missionaries got together and we made a big breakfast at the church. I also got to skype home yesterday, which was really fun but also kind of weird, haha. It was weird to be on this end of the skype call, being the one away from home. Then yesterday night a member family had us over for dinner.

     I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Lately we have been teaching the lesson on the Restoration a lot, and usually when we talk about Jesus Christ, it is my turn to talk. I have gotten to tell a lot of people that Jesus Christ was not just a good man, but he was literally the Son of God, who came here to the earth and suffered and died for us. The only way that we can progress and someday live with our Heavenly Father again is through Jesus Christ and because of what He did for us. I am so grateful for my Savior and for the opportunity to grow here on the earth and to follow His example. I hope we can all remember that even though Christmas is the time of year when we most remember Christ, we need to remember Him the rest of the year as well.

God Jul!

Äldste Smith

Pictures!

1) Giant snow pile!

2) A good way to keep drinks cold

3) Christmas breakfast

4) Northern lights! They didn´t show up very well in pictures

It's Cold: 12/15/14

    This week has been pretty fun. A lot of this week it was either -5 or -8 degrees Celsius. It wasn´t too bad though. It still hasn´t really snowed here in a long time. It was supposed to snow today, but it´s raining instead. Last P-day I got my first real haircut in Sweden. Before that I´d just had Elder Stafford trim it a bit. But now it looks pretty good I think. Last Monday night we went Christmas caroling with a couple of families in the branch. We sang to some members and less-active members in the area. It was a little crazy, because everyone lives kind of spread out from each other and we had to drive in between every person we sang to. On Tuesday night we went out caroling again with some of the youth in the branch, and we sang to some investigators and a couple members. Sometimes it was funny because I don´t know the words to the Christmas songs in Swedish, so I just kind of hummed and mouthed along a lot, haha. 

     This week Elder Stafford and I were invited back to the high school to do some more presentations about America. But this time we made it about Christmas and the holiday season. It was fun to talk about American culture and compare it to Sweden. We also got to sit in on a class in between two classes we were presenting to, and watched some presentations they were doing on cities around the world. It was funny whenever it was an American city, because when they talked about the foods people eat there they would just throw out all the stereotypes, like hamburgers, American pancakes with lots of syrup, and of course lots of sugar. 

     On Saturday we did greenie splits, so it was me and Elder Bliss. He got here in October. We went contacting in the city Saturday morning, but it was almost a ghost town. And our lesson didn´t end up happening so we didn´t get to speak Swedish very much. We might try to do exchanges again sometime, but we´ll see. December is really unpredictable because there´s a lot going on. On Saturday I helped break a world record! They just finished building a huge bridge across the harbor here, and they wanted to break the world record for the longest light parade procession or something like that. So a lot of people had electric candles, and we walked across the bridge. We had to stand in line for over an hour though, and it was pretty cold. Then the bridge turned out to be 1.7 kilometers long. There were over 7,000 people there. We were all joking, because no one had ever seen so many people in one place in Sweden. 

     Saturday is also a day where people do a thing called Lucia. It is about Saint Lucia from Italy, but I think it is only celebrated in Sweden and Finland. There are girls dressed in white robes, and holding candles. Then the one in the center in Lucia, and has a crown with candles on it. Then they sing songs about Santa Lucia, who is basically a bringer of light. We got to see one at the high school before we taught classes, then we saw another in the big Swedish church in town. It was kind of a weird experience being in a Swedish church. There was a choir there and a couple soloist singers. Then in the middle this guy got up on the organ and played a song that sounded like it could be in a video game or at Disneyland, and the spotlights were moving around everywhere. But the Lucia part was good. 

     Next week is a short P-day, so I won´t be writing a big email until the 26th I think. 

     This week as a spiritual message I think I just want to talk about the importance of prayer. A lot of our investigators seem interested, but have lots of questions and expect to get logical answers from us, or an answer from the Bible that eliminates all doubt or chances of different interpretations. Basically what everything comes down to is our ability to pray with faith and real intent for answers from our Father in Heaven. As missionaries we tell people all the time that we have prayed and know that this message is true, but we can´t give them our faith. They need to pray for themselves so that they can really know if this is true. We know from Moroni 10:3-5 that this is the way the Lord has prepared for us to know if the Book of Mormon is true, if Joseph Smith was really a prophet, and by those we know that the church is true. If we pray, are faithful, and do our part (reading the Book of Mormon), then we WILL get an answer. That is a promise. So I think that is something that is important to remember. 

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Smith

Pictures!!

1) We hiked a hill/mountain near town. This is the sunset.

2) We were walking in the city one day and saw all these high school kids walking around the big Christmas tree and singing Midsummer songs

3) One of our cups fell off the drying rack in the middle of our daily planning

4) High school Lucia concert. They used real candles, which I don´t think would be allowed in America

Another Week: 12/8/14

Hej!

     This week didn´t have too many crazy events, but it was good. Something really good that happened was that yesterday we had church down in a town called Hudiksvall. It is about an hour drive south of Sundsvall, so there are a lot of less-active members down there. We drove down with the branch president and his 6 and 7 year old sons. His sons started getting a little crazy when they realized it was going to be a long car ride, but luckily I had a notebook and pens in my bag, so we played tic tac toe most of the way there. We had church in a member family´s apartment. At the meeting there was Elder Stafford and me, the branch president and his two kids, two less-active members, and two investigators. So it was a small meeting, but it was really good I thought. Almost everyone bore their testimony during sacrament meeting, including one of our investigators. I felt the Spirit, and I think it was one of the best sacrament meetings I´ve had, even though I couldn´t understand much. The whole time it kind of reminded me of how small the Church was at first. It started with six members, then was still relatively small for many years. Now there are over 15 million members. It´s amazing how much growth there has been in just a few years. After sacrament Elder Stafford did a lesson about scripture study, and after that we ate a bunch of Swedish Christmas food. It was Christmas bread with butter and cheese on it, some oatmeal stuff with cinnamon on it, and a drink called julmust. Julmust is a big Christmas time thing here, but I don´t think they have it anywhere in America. It´s kind of like cream soda, but a little different. 

     This week it snowed! But only a little. The other elders ding dong ditched our apartment, and left a little snowman by the door. On Saturday we were at the church, and then the elders showed up, and the sisters came pretty soon after them. We didn´t plan it or anything. So we decided to just have a coordination meeting, haha. We decided we are going to start an English conversation group as a way of fellowshipping investigators, or even just showing people that we are normal people. So that will be fun. 

     One day we were going into the city to contact, and the other elders were going to do the same thing, so we did splits for an hour. I was with Elder Bliss, who is one transfer newer than me, so it was called greenie splits. We did pretty well for being on our own. We talked to a lot of people about Christmas. One time a man said something and I had no idea what he said, but then he just walked away, so it was okay. 

I hope everyone has a great week! Be sure to share the He Is The Gift video! It is a great way to remind people that Christmas is about Christ and also to invite them to learn more about our faith in Him.

Elder Smith

Pictures!

1) Elder Stafford took this while we were driving to get groceries at 9 something in the morning last week. It´s the bay that leads to the ocean

2) We were walking around one night (at maybe 5), and saw this beach so we decided to take a picture. We couldn´t figure out what was making that weird white line in the middle though. It looked kind of like fog with a light shining on it, but it was really wide. I think it´s the ocean.

3) Frozen pond! (I was careful)

4) We bought a 3 kg bag of pasta last week. Hopefully it will last until the end of December, haha

5) Snowman (I put my name tag on it for the picture)

Christmas is Coming! 12/1/14

Hej!

     This week was pretty crazy, but was good overall. On Tuesday we met with an investigator who we met only once before. He is a kind of missionary in his church, so when he texted us and said to meet him by his church to meet his friend, we thought it was pretty likely his friend was a priest who would try bible bashing. But then we got there and it was just one of his friends who goes to his church. She actually turned out to be very positive and helpful, because she speaks good English and French, so she could translate to French so that we could communicate better with our original investigator. Elder Stafford and I are hopeful she will be interested in the church, because the lesson went well.

     On Thursday we had zone training, so we took an early train up to Umeå. Most of it was about something called the Christmas Initiative. Basically it is a huge plan to help more people learn about Christ. The Church just put out a new video, kind of like the one called Because of Him that was made for Easter, except this one is about Christmas. The Church has made special Christmas contacting cards that are about this video and about Christmas.Mormon.org. Also the Church will be playing the He is the Gift video on four big screens in Times Square in New York City, and on December 7th the only ads on youtube will be for He is the Gift. I think
it´s amazing how much is going on to get this video out to people. We (as missionaries, and as members) have been challenged to share this video with as many people as possible, and use it to invite people to learn more about Christ. During the Christmas season people think about Christ more than usual, so it is a great opportunity to share the gospel with others. I think there is a lot about it in the Ensign and Liahona, with quotes from Apostles about it.

     Also, there is an article about the Church in Sweden in the Ensign!! I haven´t gotten to read it yet, but it seems cool. We had an early train home from zone training, so the zone leaders were driving our district to the train station. They had to make two trips, and I was in the second group. We were looking at the clock, and by the time the zone leaders got back to the church to pick us up, we had about 6 minutes until our train left. We said a prayer, then headed out. Pretty much every light changed to green for us, and we got there with about a minute to spare. So that was a cool experience this week.

     On Thursday night we got to go over to a member family´s house for Thanksgiving dinner. It was a lot of fun. The food was really good, and we got to play with the kids a lot. They weren´t too crazy, so it was better than other times we have been over there, haha. I got to help do a coloring book, and a little fishing game, haha. 

     On Friday we drove down to Hudiksvall, and had a bunch of lessons (4) with less-actives and an investigator couple. Our last lesson with the investigators was not so good, but this time it was really good. They say they know they need to get baptized, and they know the Church is true! They want to get baptized in May when it is warmer, but we invited them to pray about a baptismal date. Next week we have a special sacrament meeting down in Hudiksvall, so that will be really good. All the people who live too far away to come to church very often will be coming.

     This week I have been reading a lot in the New Testament, and I have been impressed by how the Apostles and disciples were so willing to suffer for Christ´s sake and how they stood up for their faith no matter what the consequences were. Sometimes they were delivered out of danger, but sometimes they weren´t. But in the end it was worth it for all of them. We today also face persecution sometimes because of our faith. We need to remember that it is important to stand up for what we believe in, and we will be blessed. I was especially impressed how when Peter and another apostle (I feel bad that I don´t remember who) were beaten by the Jews for testifying of Christ, that they rejoiced that they were worthy to be beaten for Christ. I thought that was a great example of being patient in tribulation and having an eternal perspective.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Smith

Pictures!!!

1) A big Christmas tree in the town square

2) Coloring

3) Super fancy member dinner. That wasn´t all we ate, the plates were just decorated fancily.

Done with Training! 11/24/14

Hej!

     I am now officially done being trained! It doesn´t really feel like it, haha. This has been a good week. It was busy, but a good kind of busy. As part of missionary training, the greenie is the senior companion for the last week, so this week I was senior companion. It was weird. Basically it was my job to lead daily and weekly planning, lesson planning, and picking which way to walk when we street contacted, so it wasn´t too bad. I´m not a super decisive person though, so I struggled with picking which way to go while contacting. Elder Stafford didn´t ever give any input. All he´d say is "I want to follow you", haha. 

     Early this week we taught an investigator named Emile. We have been teaching him for a while, but he seems to just look at things from an intellectual perspective, so we decided to teach him about prayer and the Holy Ghost. When we started the lesson and asked if we could pray before we started, he said "No, you don´t need to pray." So that led us right into our lesson, haha. He basically told us that he believes all you need to do to know about something is read about it. It was interesting, especially because he is somewhat religious already. But we had to get a little bold with him about how prayer really is important. We tried asking him about how reading can help him know something is true when people can have so many different opinions by reading the same thing, but he kind of avoided the question. It was a tough lesson, but I liked getting to do some more intense testifying.

     On Thursday we had the car, so we did a lot of swing-bys to less-active members and went to a lot of places. It´s amazing how much more you can do with a car. So it was a fun day. We met some interesting people. On Friday we had a lesson with a guy we met on the street. When we met up with him, he said he had a friend he was with. It turned out his friend is a member! So we had a member present lesson, which is pretty rare. So it was cool. On Friday night the young men rented a gym at a school for a sports night. So it was the missionaries, the leaders, and a couple of youth. We played a game called innebandy, which is really popular in Sweden and is kind of like hockey, but you just run around, and you hit a wiffle ball. It was fun, but I´m not very good at it. Then we played basketball after that. Me and Elder Stafford both got pretty sore afterwards, haha. But it was a lot of fun.

     Transfers were this week. Me and Elder Stafford had no idea if we would be transferred or not, so we were a little nervous. But we are both going to be staying in Sundsvall, at least until he goes home at the end of December. 

     This week while talking to people on the street we met a guy from Egypt who is a doctor considering moving here to work. He is muslim, but we had a really good conversation with him about our beliefs, what is the same and what is different. It was cool to talk to someone who is faithful in their religion and genuinely just wanted to know about our beliefs as well. It was a big difference from a lot of the other people we talk to. Elder Stafford and I were talking about it afterwards, and it seemed like we could really sense his faith while he talked. It helped me realize that there are a lot of people in the world who are just trying to be good people and follow their beliefs the best they can. Even though relatively few people are members of the church, there are still many people trying to come closer to God, so that is why we are here to share the gospel. This week we taught a lot of first lessons to investigators, and when we first teach someone we usually go through what our purpose as missionaries is and what we do so that people can understand that we are hoping to help them to come closer to Christ and to be baptized. But one thing that is fun is getting to tell people why we are here. To a lot of people a mission probably seems like a really crazy thing to do, because you give up time and money and TV to talk to people about church stuff. But we are really here to help people find the truth and follow Christ, so it is a great job. I am thankful for my experience so far, and hope I will be able to keep progressing so I can better help people. But it is important to remember just how important the message of the restored gospel is to people. It changes lives, for the better.

I hope everyone has a great week! 

Oh, I just remembered. Elder Stafford and I got to sing Come Thou Fount yesterday in sacrament meeting. I was a little nervous, but I think it went well. We sang in English, so some people might not have understood it.

Elder Smith

Pictures!

1) This is some kind of factory on the other side of the hill. They have a smoke stack thing with a big fire on top, but from this place it kind of looks like Mordor from the Lord of the Rings

2) We wore normal people clothes on our way to play sports with the young men. This is a Christmas sweater I found at a second hand store

On the Road: 11/17/14

Hej!

     This week has been pretty good, but super busy. Something I think I have forgotten to mention in earlier emails is that we got a car! The funny thing is that only Elder Bliss and I are allowed to drive it. Everyone else technically has a working US license, but you have to get it approved for driving in Sweden, and none of the other missionaries have renewed their papers to drive in Sweden the second year of their missions. So the greenies are the drivers. My first time driving in Sweden was last Monday night. Luckily all the snow from the earlier week melted that morning, but it was really dark and foggy. But I made it alright. 

     On Tuesday we were supposed to have a lesson with someone at the library, then go teach another guy, but the first person didn´t show up. While we were sitting in the library the other guy we were going to teach showed up. He said he was heading to the mall in Birsta, so he wasn´t sure when he would be back for his lesson. So we just went with him, haha. We basically just followed him around the mall and a grocery store while he shopped for a little while. But he said he´d come to church (and he did!) so it was worth the little extra time. 

     On Thursday we did splits with the other elders in our district. So I was companions with Elder Gray, the district leader, for a day. It was a lot of fun. We were fed all 3 meals by other people, which is crazy. We had the car, so we met a less active member at Ikea for breakfast. He paid for us, which was super nice. It was a buffet sort of thing. Elder Gray had to be a little hard on him though. He keeps agreeing to commitments then just not doing them. Elder Gray asked him if he would come to a branch activity and church this week. He said yes, so Elder Gray told him he was counting on him to come so he could trust him. After that we taught a man who is pretty close to getting a baptismal date. But we had to explain to him that you don´t need to get married to be a member of the church. It made me think how people can sometimes have questions that I never even really think about. Then we did some service helping a member put up drywall sheets in a room he is refurnishing in his house. After that we drove about 45 minutes to a place called Härnösand to visit a less active part member family. Elder Gray had baked a pumpkin pie, and the family fed us dinner. It was weird to eat pumpkin pie because it´s so American, haha. The family was super nice, but I don´t know how interested they are in church. They gave us a bunch of pepparkaka (gingerbread) dough to take home. After that we drove home. It started snowing when we first started driving that day, so I am pretty proud of my first time driving in real snow. It was interesting to be on splits and see how another missionary works.

     On Friday Elder Stafford and I drove down to Hudiksvall, which is an hour long drive. We had a lesson with the older couple that has been investigating the church a super long time, and we had a less active there with us. It was a very bad lesson. The investigator man basically just asked a ton of deep questions, and he and the less active were both trying to talk over each other most of the time. So me and Elder Stafford basically just ended up sitting there with the wife while the other two went on. I was disappointed we couldn´t actually teach them or help them at all during that visit. Next time we go we´re going to try to keep a little better control. We also visited a couple of other less actives, then went home. Something kind of funny was that everyone we visited gave us fika, usually tea and bread, and they made us take bananas with us when we left. So by the end of the day we had 4 bananas.

     On Saturday we taught a super positive woman we street contacted a few weeks ago. She was really excited to talk to other Christians and learn more. I think she has tried reading the Book of Mormon before, but it was before she was very good at Swedish and she was reading it in Swedish so she didn´t get too much out of it. Then we worked on a slide show for the branch culture night. We had to find pictures of all the different cultures in our branch and make a ten minute slide show. It was fun, but kind of stressful to do last minute. For the culture night there was a talent show. There are a lot of people in our branch that are good at music. One member man did a really good guitar solo on the electric guitar. The missionaries did a dance with an African member named Richard. We painted our faces white and wore white gloves, then all black. We did kind of an interpretive dance to some African American gospel music. I didn´t feel too embarrassed dancing in front of everyone, so that was good. We took some good pictures with the paint on our faces. 

     This might be my last full week in Sundsvall. Me and Elder Stafford have no idea if we are being transferred or not. Transfers are on the 26th, so we find out this week I think. 

     This week for a spiritual message I just want to talk about how we should not be afraid to follow God. This week I read in the Book of Mormon where Lehi´s family went through a lot of hardships in the wilderness. Laman and Lemuel always wanted to go back to Jerusalem, which was probably a temptation for all of them at some point. But if they went back to Jerusalem they would not have progressed, spiritually or physically. They had to suffer many trials, but they were led by the Lord, and by following Him they eventually made it to the promised land, where they could grow into great nations and prosper. So even though we go through hardships in our lives, when we follow God there are always great blessings.

Elder Smith

Pictures!

1) A lego R2D2 we saw in a toy store last Monday

2) Selfie in the elevator!

3) Painted faces!

4) Scary picture

Sveriges Fars Dag 11/11/14

Hej!

     This week has gone by super fast! But it was really good too. So last Monday me and Elder Stafford went to our apartment, after emailing, to do laundry. Then we wanted to go to the mall, so Elder Stafford said we had to go to the church to meet up with the other elders before we went. I thought that didn´t make any sense, because if we met them at the church, then we´d just have to turn right back around to go back to the bus station and switch busses to go to the mall. But I am an obedient companion, so I went without complaining. When we walked into the church, the other elders and the sisters ran out of the kitchen yelling "surprise!" and throwing balloons everywhere! I was kind of surprised. I was trying to keep my birthday low-key so it wouldn´t be a big deal, but they threw me a little surprise party. It was super fun. They even got a cake with 20 candles on it. After we ate cake and cleaned up we went to the mall with the other elders. First we went to a sports store so I could buy a backpack (my shoulder bag has been making my shoulders really sore) and so Elder Bliss could buy a winter coat. Then we went to IKEA. It was really fun. It was Elder Stafford´s first time ever in Ikea, and my second time. They were selling ice cream cones for only 10 crowns, which is about 1.50 in dollars, so we all got ice cream. Then we walked around the mall for a while. 

     On Tuesday we taught a lot of English classes. As a kind of community service we did a presentation on America and American high schools for the English classes of a woman we street contacted a few weeks ago. They are good because we can do service, and show people that missionaries are normal people too. We taught three classes on Tuesday, and got free school lunch, which was pretty cool. Their school lunches are really nice, and looked pretty healthy too. We made feedback surveys that we handed out to each class, with questions like "which is better, Oregon or Idaho?" or what they wish was included in the presentation, stuff like that. Some of the answers were pretty funny. One person said they like Oregon, because it sounds like "oreo". Also, Elder Stafford got all three classes to sing the Swedish happy birthday song to me, haha. And it is kind of long, because it has three verses.

     On Thursday we went down to a city called Hudiksvall, which is about an hour long train ride south. We´ve never gone there before because it takes so long to get there that we really need a lot of stuff going on there for it to be worth the travel. But last week the other elders got a text from an investigator couple that lives there that has not been visited in about a year. So we decided to go teach them. They have been taught all of the lessons multiple times, and know a ton about the gospel and the church. They have just not been baptized yet, for different reasons over the years. But they are super nice. They picked us up from the train station and drove us to their house. They gave us fika, which is a Swedish thing where you drink coffee or tea (non-caffiene tea) and eat cinnamon rolls or other snacky things. Then the man played us a couple of songs on the guitar. He was pretty good. The only tricky thing with them is figuring out what to teach them. They told us the main issue keeping them from being baptized before is resolved, so we are hoping now they will be ready soon. They other hard thing is that they live so far away from the chapel, which is especially difficult to get to in the winter. But they have been doing scripture study every morning this year, so I think they are ready.

     This week we got SNOW!!! It snowed on Tuesday, and we got about 2 inches. The rest of the week it has just been cloudy and pretty cold, so there was lots of ice on the roads and sidewalks. But it is really pretty here, since there are a lot of pine tree forests around, so it looks like a movie almost. 

     Yesterday was Sweden´s Father´s Day. I´m not sure why it is so far away from father´s day in America. The primary kids passed out father´s day cards after sacrament meeting, and I got one. It was weird, haha. 

     I have been thinking a lot this week about what it means to endure to the end. I read the book Our Heritage, which is a short church history, and I realized that a lot of members of the church have gone through extreme adversity, persecutions, and personal sacrifice for their faith. I wondered whether I am strong enough to last through anything like what they went through. I think that I can, as long as I do my best and have faith. The Lord doesn´t expect us to be perfect, just to do our best and always be improving. Also, from 1 Nephi 3:7 we learn that we will never be asked to do something that is impossible or that is too difficult for us. Our Heavenly Father wants us to succeed, and so he will provide a way for us to do that. So I know that even when hard times come, I will be able to get through them. Our trials also help us to grow stronger and be more prepared for the next challenge we face. 

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Smith

Pictures! I will include some from last week as well since I wasn´t able to upload any:

1) Birthday cake!

2) Ikea!

3) Snow!

4) More snow

5) Sometimes our investigators can´t really speak English or Swedish...

There were too many pictures for one email, so here´s another!

1) We buy really big cheese from the grocery store. The milk carton is for reference. I´m not sure if the picture shows how big it is

2) Candles on All-Saints Day

3) It was dark, but here is a picture of more of the graveyard during All-Saints Day

No More English 11/3/14

Hej!

     This week went pretty well! Last P-day we went to a big mall in a place called Birsta, which is only about 15 minutes from Sundsvall. It was fun to be in a mall that is very similar to American malls. We mostly went to clothes stores and looked at stuff. It was all pretty expensive though, and nobody needed anything bad enough to buy anything. But I think we are going to go back to that area today, because there is an Ikea that we need to go to, and there are a couple of other big stores that we want to go to. Also last Monday we went over to a member´s house for dinner and to plan an act for the upcoming branch talent show. The member´s name is Richard, and he was showing us youtube videos of what he wanted to do with us. It is called minister mime, or something like that. Basically, you paint your face white, and wear white gloves, and do interpretive dancing to gospel music. But the music has singing to it, so you do movements and facial expressions to match the lyrics. It´s going to be very interesting, haha. I´m not much of a dancer, so it will be a challenge. Also, Richard fed all the missionaries dinner, and it was an African food called fufu. It looks like mashed potatoes, but it is doughy. The way you eat it is that you roll some of it into a ball, about an inch in diameter, and you dip it into a spicy soup (luckily the soup he gave us was not hot spicy, just flavor spicy), then you put the ball in your mouth, and swallow. No chewing. Technically you can chew it, but it is supposed to just be swallowed. When I tried my first one, I wasn´t sure how I would ever swallow it. It looked pretty big. But then I put it in my mouth, and it went right down, haha. It was a really weird experience. It´s like trying to swallow a big vitamin. Elder Stafford had a hard time trying to swallow them, but he got it by the end.

     On Tuesday, we woke up at 3:15 am to get ready to go to zone conference. Our train left at 5, but there aren´t any buses that leave that early, so we had to walk to the train station. Zone conference was really good though, so it was worth it. On the subway from the train station to the chapel I got to talk with Elder Bradley from my MTC group, so that was fun. The zone conference was mostly about how we need to teach people, not lessons. We talked about ways to plan a lesson specifically for the person we are going to teach it to. The lesson guides in Preach My Gospel are good, but we need to be aware of what our investigators need and what will help them progress the most. Then we took the train home. We got back to our apartment around 10:30 pm, so we were pretty tired, haha.

     This week was Halloween! We didn´t really do anything special for it, haha. But we did go and buy some candy for ourselves. Halloween isn´t celebrated too much here. Me and Elder Stafford did some goal setting for the month of November, and we have decided that we are going to only speak Swedish this month. It´s going to be pretty hard, but I think it will be super helpful for me. We haven´t taught very many people that speak just Swedish, so I haven´t been using it as much as I should. So hopefully by the end of this month I will be a lot better at speaking and understanding Swedish. 

     November 1st was All-Saints Day, which is a Swedish holiday where people put candles on graves. So we went with the other elders to a big cemetery to see all the candles. It was really cool. I will include pictures of it if I can. Me and Elder Stafford forgot the phone cord, so we can´t upload pictures to the computer. But if the other elders come soon we can borrow their cord. 

     This week we had a couple of days that were super nice and sunshiney. But, the sun is going down faster and faster every day. Today the sun is supposed to set at 3:38 pm. It´s pretty crazy. 

     This week I have started reading Our Heritage, and me and Elder Stafford have been listening to some lectures about the Church´s early prophets. I think it is amazing how many people there have been who were so dedicated to the gospel and who sacrificed so much for their faith. It makes me realize that if we have faith we can accomplish great things and overcome whatever hardships come our way.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Smith

English Class: 10/27/14

Hej!

     This week has been pretty good. Last week on P-day we did some shopping, and I found a couple of pretty cool sweaters at a second hand store. This week it started out pretty cold, and almost snowed a couple times. Last Monday morning there was a little snow in the morning, but it didn´t stick. Then the rest of the week it was pretty rainy, but it got all the way up to about 10 degrees celsius.

     Last week me and Elder Stafford contacted a woman on the street who was not interested in the gospel, but is an English teacher at the high school and invited us to come and do a presentation on America for her class. She said some missionaries in the past did some presentations there and they really liked it. So on Wednesday we came and did a slide show presentation about America. We talked about Oregon, Idaho, American high school, differences between Sweden and the US, and gun laws, because their class has been talking about gun laws a lot. It was pretty fun. Elder Stafford used a lot of jokes. I talked about Portland, and had a slide about Nike´s world headquarters, and also about the phrase/bumper stickers that say "Keep Portland Weird". I found a pretty good picture to put on the slide show. It was a building with Keep Portland Weird painted on the side, but in front of the building there was a man on a unicycle, in a kilt, with a darth vader helmet and cape, playing bagpipes with flames shooting out of it. I thought it was a pretty good representation of Portland´s weird people, haha. Elder Stafford talked about Idaho, so he did a slide about potatoes, and another about Napoleon Dynamite. We thought nobody would know what Napoleon Dynamite is, but some of the guys in the class had actually just watched if for the first time last week. It was pretty crazy. 

     So the English teacher invited us back to teach all her other classes, and the other English teachers know about us now too. Even though we aren´t allowed to share the gospel directly in our presentations, they are good to help people see that we are just normal people, and not too weird haha. 

     This week we taught a guy from Afghanistan who had a pretty crazy story. He said that he spent 20,000 dollars on his engagement party, because apparently that is the custom in Afghanistan. He bought his fiance 10,000 dollars of gold. And he said the actual wedding will cost about 40,000 dollars. And he isn´t a super, super rich guy, so it is a ton of money. He is also training right now to hopefully be a pro soccer player. 

     Something else a little crazy that happened this week was that I let Elder Stafford cut my hair. He gave me a "swedish haircut", which basically means short on the sides, longer on the top. It actually turned out okay. I think it looks a lot better now that it´s had a few days to grow in a bit. Also, this week me and Elder Stafford discovered a hair dryer in our apartment. It´s actually pretty nice to use in the morning, haha. We also found a straightener and curler, but we are giving those to the sisters. 

     Tomorrow will be a pretty crazy day. We have zone conference in Stockholm, so we have a train that leaves here at 5am. So that means we will be waking up at 3:30, and we will be getting back at around 10 at night. It will be a long day. 

Elder Smith

Pictures!:

1) A selfie from working on a chimney a few weeks ago

2) Selfie of our district. Elder Bliss is the one in the hood, Elder Gray is in the back, Elder Stafford is in front, Sister Smith is kind of in the middle, and Sister Jacobs is in front of Sister Smith. 

3) Selfie on the bus. The gloved hand is actually Elder Stafford, but it looks like it´s my hand

4) I saw this out the window while eating breakfast yesterday, so I took a picture

5) Me and Elder Gray were texting awkward pictures to each other last night during dinner at the church with a member family. This is the only one I have of my new haircut. My hair is also conditioned (Elder Stafford is letting me use his conditioner) and styled using a hair dryer.

New Greenies- 10/20/14

Hej!

     This week we got three new missionaries in our area, and two of them are just out of the MTC! It is kind of weird to suddenly have other missionaries who are also just learning Swedish. So far all of the new missionaries seem nice and cool. Sister Smith has been out a little over a year, and will be going home the same time as Elder Stafford. 

     Last P-day wasn´t too exciting, but it was good. Me and the other elders played a game called Settlers of Catan, which is a board game that one of the elders had. So we had a kind of lazy day, which was nice. 

     This week we had zone training, so on Thursday we took the train up to Umeå. I felt kind of bad for the other missionaries though, especially the greenies. They had a super long day of traveling from the US, then a train ride from Stockholm to our area, then at 6 am the next day they took another train. Plus we took the train home that same night. So they did a ton of traveling in about 4 days in a row. 

     Zone training went well. Afterwards we all went to a pizza place to get kebab pizza. It´s a pizza that they have in Sweden that is some kind of meat called kebab, no one is sure if it´s a kind of beef or goat meat. Apparently it is the same as schwarma, if anyone has heard of that. But it is famous among missionaries. And everyone says that Norrland doesn´t have any good kebab pizza, but the place we went to was one of the exceptions. So now I am kebaptized, haha. 

     On Fridays we have an activity that investigators, less actives, or just people from the branch can come to. It is good for inviting investigators to so that they can just have fun and get to know some members. This week we played a game where you put flour in a bowl and turn it upside down on a plate, then take off the bowl, so it make a dome-shaped pile of flour. Then you put a coin on top. Then you take turns cutting a slice of flour away. You cut as close as you can to the coin without letting the flour beneath it collapse. Whoever makes the cut that makes it fall has to pick the coin out of the flour using only their mouth. So it was pretty fun. One time we got very, very close to the coin on all the cuts, so it was like a tower of flour. Everyone got very nervous at that point, haha. I will email some pictures of it if I have them. 

     I have a funny story to tell from this week. We invited an investigator to come see the church on Friday afternoon so we could give him a tour and explain how church works. So he came, and we showed him around, and we showed him the baptismal font then sat in the chapel to answer any questions he might have. He wanted to know what the font was for, so Elder Stafford found a picture of a baptism and showed him. Then our investigator got very quiet and thoughtful for a couple minutes, and kept saying "jag vet inte". Then he finally said what he was thinking. I was hoping maybe he was feeling the spirit, but actually he thought we wanted him to get baptized right then and there, so he was freaking out a bit. So we did our best to let him know that wasn´t what we were doing, and that baptism is something that is completely up to him, and is something that we would teach him about before he had to choose. He took it pretty well. He accepted a Book of Mormon in Arabic I think, then said he would need a little time to study it and figure out if he was interested, then he went home. So I guess I need to work on explaining stuff a little clearer.

     This week I was able to read the talks from Sunday Afternoon session of general conference, since it was too late at night here to watch it live. There were a lot of talks that I really liked. I really liked Elder Bednar´s talk where he talked about he and his wife watching their son to try to help his brother whose arm was hurt. It was a fun talk, but is also very true. Sharing the gospel doesn´t have to be anything big or official. It is easy if you think about how it is just helping a friend to have what we have. I feel very blessed to be a member of the church, and it is great to see how it can help other people´s lives as well.

     I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Smith

Pictures: 

1) Contacting with Elder Ogaard before he left to his new area

2) Finding people to contact with Elder Ogaard

3) Contacting with Elder Stafford

4) We found this view behind an apartment building in Sodom. I think it´s some sort of bay that leads to the sea/ocean

5) We couldn´t find a Sodom sign, so this is the next best thing

6) Activity night with the flour game