Six Months: 1/26/15

Hej!

     As of the 23rd I have now been on my mission for over six months! It´s really weird to think that it has already been that long. This week was pretty good. We had a lot of different things happen. 

     Something exciting is that Elder Walker and I found a lot of tractable apartments this week. That probably doesn´t sound too exciting to anyone else, but in Stockholm a lot of the buildings have code locks on the doors so it´s always fun to find places where we can knock doors. Something else that was a bit more exciting this week was that we had a special zone training. We talked a lot about how to organize the area book and keep it neat so that it´s more useful. But then at the end of the training, we got to watch Meet the Mormons! I think everyone felt kind of weird watching a movie for so long, but it was really good. There are a lot of cool people and stories in it. 

     This week Elder Walker and I got to do exchanges with the zone leaders, so I got to work with Elder Noso in the zone leaders´ area. It was really good to be around a really good missionary and learn from him. Elder Noso is super good at contacting people. He literally talked to everyone we walked past. We had some great lessons, and we also got to use the car, so that was really nice. We got to teach one of their investigators who is an 80 year-old Jehovah's Witness who has a baptismal date now. She will be a super strong member. She reads scriptures by using the Gospel Library app on her tablet, so it was kind of funny to see someone so old using a tablet so much. 

     Yesterday at church a non-member came to visit. He was contacted by some other missionaries and given a contact card with the church´s address, so he just came. Elder Walker and I spent about an hour talking to him and trying to explain things. He is Chinese and has absolutely no Christian background or knowledge, so we tried explaining how there are different sects of Christianity that have different beliefs, but are all still Christian. We referred him to the Elders that work in the area where he lives, but I will actually be teaching him tonight because we´re doing exchanges with the district leader and his companion later today. 

     Yesterday we actually did more exchanges with the zone leaders, because they had two member dinners set up with two different investigators. So I went with Elder Held, the other zone leader, and we ate at one of the bishopric counselors` house. It was pretty fun and we had a good lesson. 

     This week for a spiritual thought I want to share some things I thought about while reading in the Book of Mormon in Mosiah. The people of Alma were in bondage and had to carry heavy burdens. The Lord promised Alma that He would lighten the burdens so that they would be easy to carry, but not to take away the burdens. In our lives we will all face trials and hardships, even when we are living right. The people of Alma were extremely righteous and faithful, but still had to endure hardships. Our burdens can be lightened just as theirs were. Sometimes we need to go through trials in order to strengthen our faith and to trust more in the Lord. Something that stood out to me as I read was how the people of Alma endured their trials with so much patience and faith that soon Alma was told by the Lord that the people would be freed. We never know when hardships will come or when they will end, but when we trust in the Lord we will always be able to endure it and become stronger as a result.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Smith

Pictures!

1) Snowy path

2) Snowy park

Another Week: 1/19/15

 Well, this week has been good, but a little crazy. Last P-day we switched apartments because the old one´s contract ran out. The apartment couple helped us move and the district leader and his companion were super nice and gave up most of their P-day to help us move. Luckily nothing was too heavy or hard to move. We had a ton of Books of Mormon though, in lots of different languages, so those were a little harder to get out. Our new apartment is good. It´s a little further from our area, but it´s in a pretty nice area right by some water. 

     On Friday we had zone training. It was nice not to take an early train to get there. I got to have an interview with President Beckstrand before it started. It was my first interview with him since I first came to Sweden. Zone training was pretty good. The zone leaders talked about goal setting, and as an example they talked about Elder Held´s weight lifting training. Apparently he was the number one weight lifter in Denmark, and second in Scandinavia. They showed us a video of him lifting a big dumbbell, which was pretty cool. After zone training we all went to pizza hut for lunch. In Sweden pizza hut is like a nice place to go to, which is funny. 

     Also after pizza hut, we were standing outside of the YSA center and talking, and a lady called to us out of her car and asked if we came from Utah. We went over to talk to her and tell her actually none of us were from Utah, but were from the US. She actually was born in Utah though and is an inactive member. So that was a pretty cool experience. We were having a good conversation with her, but then a van in a big hurry pulled up behind her so she had to drive away before we could give her a card or anything. 

     This week my hair got pretty long, but getting your hair cut here is expensive, so I decided to cut it myself. When we were cleaning out our old apartment I found a pretty nice clipper set, so I used that. It was a little scary, because just last week I had a dream where I was shaving the hair on the back of my head, but cut it lopsided, so I kept over-correcting and cutting off way too much hair. But it went well, haha. I think it looks pretty normal for the most part. At the end I was trying to make the transitions from the side to the top a bit better, but I decided I better not push my luck so I just left it. 

     For my spiritual thought this week I want to share a message that we shared with a new convert family that we visited this week. We showed them the Mormon Message about President Monson when he was in the Navy. The petty officer told all the Catholics to go to church in one area, and Jews in another, and then Protestants in another. That left President Monson standing there. He relates that at that moment he felt absolutely alone. But then he realized that there were others standing beside and behind him, and that he really wasn´t alone. He goes on to say how we as God´s children we are never truly alone. At times we may have to make choices that are not popular, and that make us feel isolated. But when we choose the right our Heavenly Father will always support our decision and we will never be alone. I just really like that message.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Smith

Pictures!

1) Viewer discretion: It´s a pile of my old hair.

2) Here is my much nicer to look at new hair

Moving: 1/12/15

Hej everyone,

     This week has been pretty good. There weren´t many things that were any different from normal though, so this will be a shorter email. 

     This week Elder Walker showed me how to use all the resources on the family history room computers, so I am starting to do some real work on my family history, which is fun. When I find a name that is missing some information, like the specific birth date, or parents´ names, I can look up pictures of really old Swedish church records that have all that kind of information. Those who have done indexing before know how hard it can be sometimes to decipher the really old cursive writing from the 1700s and 1800s. I am trying to read that same writing, but in Swedish. So it is a bit of a challenge, haha. But I am able to pick out names and some key words so I can figure out the important information. 

     We had a couple of member dinners this week, which were super fun. At one members´ house they had a big gingerbread house that they let us destroy and eat, haha. I think I have a few pictures of it. Last night we had dinner with a family that knows Elder Walker´s family. The wife knew Elder Walker´s dad when he was a missionary in Sweden. The husband went looking through pictures on his computer, and found pictures of Elder Walker´s family at a Midsummer party like 6 years ago. So that was pretty cool. 

     The only other big news from this week is that Elder Walker and I are moving! The contract on the apartment we are in ran out, so we´re moving to another apartment that is closer to the city, but a little further from our area. The elders that live there now are moving to a new apartment that is closer to their own area, so it works out pretty well. The fun thing about moving out of a missionary apartment, is that you find a lot of random things when you start cleaning it out. We found a soccer ball, a bunch of clothes, some empty journals, and a lot of other things. I´m not really sure what we´re supposed to do with all of the stuff that we don´t want or need. We will be moving out in about 3 hours, so after emailing we have to go back and try to organize things as best we can.

     My spiritual thought for this week is about missionary work, but I´ll try not to make it too preachy :) This is actually something that Elder Stafford had an insight on, so it´s not my original idea. It has to do with how we know that today in the latter days the Lord is hastening His work. Many times we take this to mean that a lot more interested people will show up wanting to investigate the church, or that missionary work will just happen. But we need to remember that this is his WORK, which means that we need to do our part and do work to make things happen. Hastening the work can be taken to mean that today with so many resources and opportunities to share the gospel, we need to do our part to hasten the work. I will relate this to Jacob chapter 5. When the Lord of the vineyard goes out to harvest the fruit of the trees for the last time, that is when he brought together and used the most servants. This was the harvest that brought forth the most good fruit, but it was also the harvest that took the most preparation, effort, and work. I´m trying not to be preachy, so I´ll just end with this: The servants that helped with the last harvest had great joy with the Lord of the vineyard because of the fruit, and so can we when we help in this great work.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Smith

Pictures!

1) This is a cool tree sculture/lamp that is at a subway station in our area

2) Here we are at a member dinner. We had hot dogs with guacamole on them. It was interesting

3) Here is the gingerbread house

Hello Again: 1/5/15

Hej!

     So I have another P-day already. From now on I´m pretty sure it´s back to the normal Monday, once-a-week P-days. I don´t have much to say, so this will be a shorter email.

     Last week for P-day we went to the actual city part of Stockholm. It was really cool. I got to see a lot of the buildings that are in the typical picture of Stockholm that shows up if you google it. We wanted to go shopping, since there are a bunch of Christmas sales, but it was on New Year´s day so they were all closed. But there´s a YSA center in the city that we went to and hung out with other missionaries. The weird thing about serving in Stockholm is that you´re actually pretty close to a lot of other missionaries so you get to see them more often. It was really fun. I got to see Elder Peterson, from my MTC group, who I haven´t seen in about 4 months.

     It´s been pretty warm lately. On Thursday it got all the way up to 7 degrees! Now it´s back to about freezing though. Yesterday was my first church in Stockholm. It went pretty well. Last night a member named Pablo invited us and the zone leaders over for dinner. He gave us way too much food. After the huge dinner he gave us a ton of ice cream too. He literally just took the whole container of ice cream and split it into four big chunks that he gave to us. 

     For a spiritual thought I´d like to share a quote. Unfortunately, I don´t remember the exact words or who said it, but it´s still good. It was something like, "Always be preaching the Gospel. And, if necessary, use words." We need to be sure that no matter where we are or what we´re doing, we´re always living the gospel. People will notice that something is different, and that there is something special about us. I really like this quote because it shows how the Gospel can really change us and help us to be better people, but at the same time it´s a little scary to wonder if I have been living up to that expectation. It also shows how we do not need to necessarily talk to people and be "preachy" in order for them to learn about what we believe. We can show it just by how we live, or especially by giving service to others.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Smith

Pictures!

1) The streets of Stockholm

2) This is the busiest street in Stockholm apparently. But the morning after New Year´s Eve was not very busy. There´s one intersection where there´s an H&M on three of the four corners. 

3) I bought a cool Viking rune ring, but it´s made of copper so it stains my finger, haha

Gubbängen and New Year´s: 1/1/15

This has been a very crazy week, but it was very good. On Friday we had a funeral (as they are leaving the mission) for Elder Stafford and Sister Smith. We had a few eulogies and poems, and I made a slideshow using pictures from both of their missions. I thought it went pretty well. It was also a mini birthday party for Sister Jacobs, because everybody was transferring right before her birthday. On Sunday, I took a train to Stockholm after church. Both of my suitcases were pretty heavy, and I couldn´t find any space on the luggage racks on the train so that was a little stressful. I found a spot for them, but it was in a different cart on the train. By the time I found a spot I had just enough time to say goodbye to everyone before the train left. 

     I am in Gubbängen now! It is an area that is just outside of the actual city part of Stockholm. It is very, very different from Sundsvall. We ride the tunnelbana (subway) everywhere, or we walk. It is a little warmer and less snowy in Stockholm, which I am really glad about. My new companion is Elder Walker. His mom is Swedish and his dad served his mission in Sweden, so he basically already knew Swedish before his mission. We have been getting along pretty well so far.

     The last couple days we have been doing a lot of swing-bys. We have a big list of less-active members and other people that we just try to go by and visit. It´s a little harder in Stockholm, because a lot of buildings have a coded door that we can´t get in. But we have met a lot of interesting people while walking around. 

     Lately there have been a lot of random fireworks going off while we are walking around. We usually don´t see anything, but we´ve heard a lot of explosions this week. We did see one go off though, and it didn´t even go higher than the buildings. I´m pretty sure that the fireworks here aren´t as safe as America´s.

     For New Year´s Eve we got to go to a member´s apartment along with the zone leaders, who are in our district. It was pretty fun. We played a game kind of like Scattegories, where somebody picks a random letter and everyone writes down a word that starts with that letter in a couple of different categories. We also played charades. Then we watched a bunch of fireworks from the member´s apartment, because it was on the 9th floor in a building on a hill. It was pretty foggy though, so we heard a ton of explosions, but didn´t see as many fireworks. There were still a ton of fireworks that we could see though. Some of them went off at the same level in the air as where we were, so that was exciting, haha. 

     Last night the zone leaders shared a spiritual thought that I want to write about. They showed us a video that the Church made where people in a cafe are interviewed about what they know about the story of Lot´s wife. The lesson of the story of Lot´s wife is that we shouldn´t look back. What´s in the past is in the past, we can´t change it. But we do have the power to change the future, to make it the best one possible. Especially around New Year´s we all think of goals for the new year. But this is not the only time that we can choose to change or improve. There was a line in the video that I like a lot. It was, "Today is literally the first day of the rest of your life." Everyday we can make decisions that can lead us to becoming greater people and bring us closer to Jesus Christ. It is through His atonement that we have the power to change and become better.

I hope everyone has a wonderful new year!!

Elder Smith

Pictures!!!

1) Me and Elder Walker

2) Fireworks

3) The sky looked really cool a few days ago. I didn´t get any pictures of it, but a little later the sky was super  blue and red and orange during the sunset.