It's Getting Warmer: 2/23/15

Hej!

     This week was really good. Last Monday we got to go visit the archives where some family history couples in the ward work. They gave us a tour and we got to see lots of the super old church books and other documents that they take pictures of so they can be indexed. It was really cool to see books from the 1600´s. I got a lot of pictures so I will attach a few. 

     On Tuesday we got to do something really fun. A bunch of new missionaries came in from the MTC, about 19 of them, and we got to take them out street contacting on their first day in Sweden! They were all super tired but were doing a really good job of staying awake. I got to go contacting with an elder named Elder Hart. I felt kind of bad because we didn´t find any very positive people, but I got to talk to him about Sweden and he did well at stopping people to talk to them. 

     We had transfers on Wednesday. My new companion´s name is Elder Pearson. He is from Saint George and is a music major, so he´s pretty good at guitar and piano. He´s very talkative, which is pretty nice for me since I´m not so talkative, haha. So far we have been working well together so I think it´s going to be a great transfer. 

     This week we taught an investigator named Jan, who is about 82 and super good at piano. He was practicing hymns on his piano so we sang along. He said we were the first missionaries who have both been good at singing, haha. He and Elder Pearson get along really well because they both know a lot about music and composers. 

     On Saturday one of the zone leaders´ investigators got baptized! It was especially cool because our investigator Jan played the piano for the baptismal service. He played a classical piece while we waited for them to change after the actual baptism, so that was a little different than how it normally goes but it was also kind of cool. President Beckstrand was there and was really impressed that our investigator was involved in the baptismal service. He told him that if he got baptized then he would come to the baptism. I think Jan liked that idea. We´re hoping this has helped him start thinking seriously about baptism. He´s pretty much a member, he just needs to get baptized. 

     After the baptism we went to teach one of the zone leaders´ investigators who is from Mongolia. This week was the Mongolian new year, so they have a whole week of celebrating. When we came to her apartment there were a couple other families there. They were all super nice and gave us some of the traditional Mongolian food. There was meat, which was good, and salad stuff that was good, but we got a very interesting kind of tea, which was not good. It was basically hot, watered down milk with a tea packet and probably a lot of salt in it. It´s apparently the most popular tea among members in Mongolia because it works with the word of wisdom, but I don´t think it´s worth it. Then right after that lesson we had a member dinner, so we were all super full, haha.

     For a spiritual thought I just want to talk about Joseph Smith. Last night during our free hour between nightly planning and bedtime we watched the Joseph Smith movie. It helped me realize just how much hardship and trials the early members of the church went through. I am grateful for their perseverance and faith. Their sacrifices have paved the way for millions of people to join the church today.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Smith

Pictures! There are a lot of pictures this week so I´ll try to pick the best few.

1) Stockholm!

2) At the archives with Elder Walker and Elder Bird (Elder and Sister Bird are the family history couple)

3) The biggest book I´ve ever seen. It´s very old. 

4) I got a new phone case since the old one fell apart. I looked at the dots and got a good idea

Sunshine and Transfers: 2/16/15

Hej!

     This week was pretty normal to start off. Elder Walker and I have been exploring a lot more of our new area this week. We found a lot of great places to take pictures of Stockholm while we were out contacting people. This week we have had super nice weather for the most part. It was blue skies and around 45 degrees Fahrenheit a couple of days this week. I literally felt like it was Summer while we were walking around. One day this week we were really behind on contacting to stay on track to reach our weekly goal, so we decided to set a pretty high goal for the day. At first it seemed like we had set a goal that we couldn´t really achieve, but when I got up the next morning I decided that I really wanted to reach that goal. So we went out and got the most contacts of any day in Gubbängen so far. It was nice. Contacting has been something we have needed to work on, since Elder Walker and I are not so socially outgoing, but I am starting to get better at talking to people who might not look like the most likely to receive the gospel or who are scary to talk to.

     On a lighter note, this week I almost completely messed up my hair. I decided I needed to cut it again, and my plan was to just take a little off the sides. Unfortunately, I mixed up the directions for the length to cut the "nape of the neck" with the "back of the head" length. I wasn´t very careful and started cutting before reading the directions fully. So at first I just noticed that there was a lot more hair falling down than I expected, then I glanced at the directions and realized my mistake. So, I ended up having to cut my hair shorter than I expected, but I think I covered my mistake pretty well, haha. There´s just a chunk of shorter hair on the back of my head, but I´m planning on just trimming it again next week when it grows out a bit (after reading the directions a lot better). As I was writing I realized this can be a good spiritual analogy :) Sometimes in life we think we know all that is going on and that we don´t need to read the "directions", or the scriptures. But unfortunately, we are human and sometimes make major errors in judgement. If we are not careful, these errors can cause us to lose control of the situation, and end up somewhere different than we had intended, or with hair shorter than we wanted to have. But luckily we always have a chance to come back, to repent and try again. The next time might not be exactly perfect, but if we follow the directions diligently then we will improve and come that much closer to perfection--or perfect hair. I know that was kind of a silly example, but it just goes to show how we can take everyday life experiences to help us learn more about the gospel.

     This week we found out about transfers. I will be staying in Gubbängen, and Elder Walker is transferring up to a town called Örnskoldsvik, which is in the North. My new companion´s name is Elder Pearson, and I met him before at zone training when I was in Sundsvall. He is a fun guy, and I think he is good at music so I think it will be a fun transfer. I don´t think too much else has happened to write about. 

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Smith

Pictures!

1) A typical street in Södermalm, our fancy area

2) Downtown Stockholm as seen from our area. 

3) A ski slope in the middle of Stockholm. I hear it´s not great, but it´s still a ski slope in the middle of a city

4) A really cool sunset

5) We taught a less-active man and he has these two birds that he sometimes lets out of their cage.

 

It Stopped Snowing: 2/9/15

Hej!

     It has been snowing almost the entire week, but now it´s finally stopped and is melting away! I will keep this email shorter again because I don´t have too much time left to email. But this week has been pretty good, if not super eventful.

     On Friday Elder Walker and I had a lesson set up with a less active member, but when we knocked on his door, it turned out we had his old address and he actually lived in a completely different area. So it was disappointing to miss a lesson, but we got the opportunity to go contacting in Södermalm, the new part of our area. We found some places with really good views of Stockholm.

     Something interesting this week was that I guess I almost burned my arm while cooking. That makes it sound a lot worse than it actually was though. A little while after dinner I noticed that some of my armhairs were kind of white. It turns out I burned some of them, haha. It didn´t hurt or anything so it was fine. 

     Today we spent the morning with one of our zone leaders, because his companion was on splits with a member. It was pretty nice because we got to use the car. We cleaned our apartment a lot. We found a lot of stuff under the bed, haha. Like a couple pairs of old worn out shoes. Then we went to a big park that is near our apartment. I took some pictures there that I´ll include. It was a pretty cool park, and we could see a really huge church that is also pretty close to our apartment. 

     I will keep my spiritual thought short and sweet because I don´t have much time left. This week I was reading in Alma, where the sons of Mosiah help to convert thousands of Lamanites. I thought it was interesting how the Lamanites were some of the most hard-hearted people who seemed like the least likely ones to get baptized. But they actually accepted the gospel with all their hearts and were extremely righteous. For me personally it taught me that I should never judge somebody as being less likely to accept the gospel, because we don´t know people as Heavenly Father knows them and everyone can use the gospel in their lives.

Have a great week!

Elder Smith

Pictures!

1) Stockholm

2) The big church by our apartment

3) Snow

4) A river between two islands of Stockholm. Honestly not the most exciting picture but it´s good

More Area: 2/2/15

Hej!

     This week was not super eventful, so this will be a shorter email. The biggest news is that the Stockholm Stake just changed a lot of the ward boundaries, so Elder Walker and I have probably gotten a lot more area. We haven´t worked out the details with our district, but our area is pretty small and everyone else is a bit overwhelmed with area as it is. The new area in our ward at least is called Söder Malm, which is an island in Stockholm and is actually where our apartment is. Everyone tells us it´s where the hipsters live, so that might be interesting, haha.

     This week I went on splits with my district leader, Elder Schindler. We went contacting at Stockholm University, and found a guy named Yang who is from China and studying for his PHD. We talked to him for a few minutes on the sidewalk, then he invited us into his lab building to talk more. So we got to go through some of those doors with a code pad on the side and go into an actual college lab place, which was pretty cool. We ended up teaching him for about an hour about all sorts of things. I saw him yesterday at church, so that was really cool to see. Also when we met with him he told us all about China, and it made me really want to visit there someday, haha.

     My spiritual thought for this week is just about how important it is to trust in the Lord. I have been reading a lot lately about the Israelites´ journey to the promised land, and how they stumbled so often because they couldn´t completely trust in the Lord to take care of them. There is an article in the Liahona this month that talks about how the manna that the Israelites received every morning taught them to have faith and trust that the Lord would bring more bread the next day. It was out of their power to keep manna for the next day or to somehow make bread for themselves, they needed to know that they would be alright as long as they trusted the Lord. Today there are many situations that can make us uncertain of the future, but as long as we are faithful and endure to the end the Lord will watch over us and we will be okay.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Smith

Pictures!

1) This is a big boat going under a bridge near our apartment. It seemed really cool when it happened.

2) This is a big stadium/theater thing called Globen that is in our area

3) This is a painting we found in the hallway of our apartment building. It had a note that said, "Varsågod. Det är en zebrahuvud." or "Go ahead, it´s a zebra head". I thought it was funny.