Conference Weekend 10/6/14

Hej!

     This week has been kind of crazy, but also really fun. Last Monday we went winter clothes shopping. I couldn´t decide on a winter coat yet, but I got some scarves and a hat and a shirt from H&M, which is a Swedish company. When me and the other elders got home, we put on some of our new stuff and realized we looked like hipsters, so we took some pictures, haha. I also got this super warm, but cheesy looking sweater from a second hand store. That night me and Elder Stafford taught one of our investigators, and he wants to be baptized! He will be baptized on January 3rd, but we are hoping he will be willing to move it up, since he is almost ready right now. He had to quit coffee and snus (snus is like chewing tobacco but comes in packets and is more addictive I think).  So we have been working with him on that. We made a plan with him and asked him to get down to just a little a day by Friday, but he just went and threw out the last of his snus and has been going cold turkey the last 5 days! He is awesome. 

     Also this week we taught one of our investigators who is from Uritria, which is in Africa I think. She is Christian and has always been saying how the things we tell her are exactly what her church believes, so we went into this lesson with the goal of helping her see this church is the only true church, and help her see it´s different. So we watched the Restoration video with her, which basically goes over Joseph Smith´s first vision and a little about the early church. So afterwards our investigator was confused about how only two personages appeared to Joseph Smith, so we got into a discussion about the trinity, which led to how the Bible is imperfect. She showed us a verse to prove the trinity, and we noticed there was a Joseph Smith Translation there, so we were just like "actually, we believe that part is translated wrong". She was very surprised. She knew the bible wasn´t 100% translated right, but she said this verse had to be right. It was a strange lesson. We are glad she sees that her church is not exactly the same, but it is sad that it happened that way. So hopefully she will want to keep meeting with us and read the Book of Mormon. 

     This week I did some more roof work! First a man in the ward needed help working on the chimney of a house he´s fixing up. We had been at open church, so we were in church clothes. So he gave us some work jumpsuits and hats and shoes to wear over our church clothes. It was kind of funny, so we took pictures. Then on Saturday we helped finish part of a roof we worked on a couple weeks ago. But we were just helping lift up metal sheeting to go on the roof, so it wasn´t too hard or anything. 

     This week was general conference! We watched the Saturday Morning session at 6 o´clock at night, which was a little weird. Me and two of the other elders went out to a candy store earlier where you can shovel candy into a bag and you pay based on the weight of the bag. It was cheaper to get 2 kilos than to get just under 2 kilos, so we each had a 2 kilo bag of candy. I´m not sure how many pounds that it, but it´s at least 4, haha. So we had lots of godis (Swedish word for candy) for conference. Sunday morning we watched Priesthood session at 11, Saturday Afternoon at 2, and Sunday Morning at 6. We have to wait to watch Sunday Afternoon when it is online and when we have time. Luckily I got to watch almost all of conference in English. We had a little TV in the cultural hall for english speakers. One of our investigators came for Priesthood session, but his taxi was late so I watched the first part of Saturday afternoon with him in Swedish. I fell asleep during the second talk, haha. My swedish still has a ways to go. 

     One of my favorite talks was in Saturday Morning session, about knowing which way we face. We need to maintain the standards set by God, and not try to change them just because they go against what man thinks standards should be. The world today tries to tell us that we are wrong because we do not have the same morals and views as them, but that is not right. We can know that we are always right when we are looking towards God instead of the world.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Smith

Pictures:

1) I think I look weird here but I have to show the sweater. Also, I got that infinity scarf(I think that´s what they´re called), but it is too short to wrap around twice and too long to be warm wrapped around once. So now it is just for show, haha.

2) Funny clothes funny faces

3) The leaves are yellow!

4) hipster clothes funny faces

5) Me on the roof with funny clothes

Almost a Month! 9/29/14

Hej!

      I have been in Sweden for almost a month! It feels really weird to think about it. The weeks go by really quick here. I had my first week in the mission without taking a train! It was nice to have a break from traveling for a while. This week was pretty good. Our sister missionaries both went home though. Last P-day we gave them a funeral, which was pretty fun. We had a eulogy and stuff, and made them a slide show using pictures sent to us by their old companions. It is pretty awesome to have iPhones here. 

      So we have a few weeks without sisters until next transfer, which will be in mid October. Elder Stafford and I are teaching some of the sisters´ investigators now. One of them is really great, and wants to be baptized in January. He could probably very easily be baptized earlier, but first he has to quit drinking coffee and taking snoos, which is like chewing tobacco but it comes in a packet and is really bad. But he is making a lot of progress with it.

     This week there was an international food festival in Sundsvall. On Tuesday we went there with the sisters before taking a bus to go meet one of their investigators that we teach now. Sister Barton got a kangaroo meat hamburger, which was interesting. She let us all take a bite. It didn´t taste too different from beef from what I could tell, but she had some very spicy peppers on it so it was hard to focus on the taste of the meat. Then Elder Stafford and I bought 3 pretzels: a salt one, a cheese one, and a pizza one. They were really good, but super filling, haha.

     Elder Stafford and I are teaching a family from Syria. We have had 3 lessons with them now. They have been reading the Book of Mormon and are pretty awesome. It is just sometimes a little hard to communicate with them, first of all because they don´t speak English very well, and then also because they are from a different culture so they see a lot of things in a different way. We have to be sure that they understand us completely. They really want to speak to an Arabic speaking church member, so we called the proselyting elders, who said they will ask President Beckstrand who will then contact other missions to find Arabic speaking elders who can skype our investigator family. It is pretty cool. 

     Yesterday in church it was the primary program. There are about 20 primary kids in our branch I think. They were pretty funny. Then I got to teach the Gospel Principles class about tithing. It was just the missionaries, the branch mission leader, and our investigator, so luckily I got to speak in English. I think it went pretty well. It helped me realize how many great things are done with tithing money, and why we pay tithing. It isn´t just so the church has money, but it´s to show our Heavenly Father that we are obedient and faithful and care about Him more than money. 

     Last night we went out tracting, and we were in an area where we haven´t been able to find the stairs to go to the upper floors of the apartments. But last night we found the stairs, and the second door we knocked on was an older Afghan couple. They didn´t speak English, so they led us to their neighbors who could translate. The neighbors were a young Afghan family, and the father translated for us. Pretty soon he invited us all in and we did what we call a "zero lesson", which is where we just explain what we do as missionaries and about what we hope for the investigators. We set up a time to come again and meet with them all. We have a few Persian speaking members in the area, so hopefully one of them will be able to come with us. 

     We have met a lot of pretty awesome muslim people here so far. It just makes me wish I could speak persian and arabic, haha. Maybe someday they will send persian speaking missionaries to Sweden. From what I hear, they would be busy. 

     Overall it has been a great week!

     I hope everyone is doing well and has a great week too!

   Elder Smith

Pictures:

1) Me being sleepy in the library while trying to study

2) Kangaroo hamburger with Elder Stafford and Sister Young

3) Saying goodbye at the train station (at 6am, so that is why I look tired)

Week 3 in Sweden! 9/22/14

Hej!

     This has been a very busy week! Last Monday for our P-day activity we went to a park on the top of a really big hill. There was a super long wooden stairway/path to get up there. The park had some really huge benches, so we took some pictures sitting on them. Then we played on the playground a bit. There was a zipline and some other fun stuff there. Then we went up to the top of a tower that is there with a really good view at the top. It was fun.

     On Wednesday we worked on the District President´s farm. We helped him hook up some heavy metal stuff to the front of his tractor so he could move it all to a big pile of scrap metal. Then we helped push some really big rocks into this hole that was basically a well. It was fun. They fed us a whole bunch of really good lasagna. We also helped trim back trees from the road leading up to their house, which was fun. After that we went to a member woman´s house, since the sisters were there helping make saft, and we were invited to help too. But when we got there they were pretty much done, so we just got food again. The member woman really likes giving people food, so she made us eat a lot, haha. I was very full that night. 

     On Thursday we had zone training, so we got up at 4am to take a train up to Umeå, which is a little over 3 hours away. Then we had zone training and lunch and rode the train back home. We got back around 6:30ish I think. I was really, really tired by the time we got back. 

     Oh yeah, and on Wednesday night we were heading back to our apartment, and a drunk lady was getting off the bus and tripped and hit the ground really hard. So we ended up staying with her along with another lady who was helping her while we waited for an ambulance. The drunk lady wasn´t bleeding or anything, but we weren´t sure if she might have hurt her neck or something. The ambulance got there after about 15 minutes I think, and they took her to the hospital. So that was an interesting experience.

     On Friday the sisters brought me and Elder Stafford doughnuts during open church because I was so tired and had kind of a hard day the day before. So they are super nice. Then on Saturday we spent the entire day helping a member lady rebuild her roof. I don´t think her husband is a member. They live away from the town, so it was really pretty around their house. We were there from about 9:30 am to 9 at night. Elder Ogaard got to help tear off the tiles off the roof and throw them to the ground, so everyone watched because it was cool to hear them smash on the ground, haha. We were all sore by the end of the day. But it was fun. 

     Yesterday was the sister missionaries´ last Sunday in Sweden. They are both going home on Wednesday, I think. But we found out that we will be getting new sister missionaries in about 3 weeks, so that will be good.  The other elders and I are going to teach their investigators and take over their areas while we don´t have any sisters, so that will be fun to get to teach more. 

     Yesterday night we taught a family for the first time who we had met on the street. They all fled from Syria, and have been here about 4 months. Three of them had taught themselves English, so we kind of had to talk to them and they translated for the rest of the family into Arabic. It made me wish I had learned a little arabic before coming on the mission, haha. There are a ton of Arabic and Persian speakers here from the Middle East and Africa. But they were a super nice family. It is the man and his wife and their 2 year old son we contacted initially, then they also live with the wife´s parents and 2 brothers. So we kind of just talked to them about what we do as missionaries, and then gave them a couple book of mormons. They are Muslim, but seemed pretty open as we talked to them. We went through the pictures in the Book of Mormon and told them a brief overview of the events of the Book of Mormon so they could understand a little better what it is. Me and Elder Stafford felt like it went really well, and we are super excited to teach them again. I´m not sure how much they are really investigating the church as opposed to just wanting to read a book in Arabic, but I hope they were able to feel the Spirit and will want to know more. I feel like they are an awesome family. 

     I hope everyone is doing great and has an awesome week!!

    

   -Äldste Smith

Pictures!!

1) Chess with Elder Gray

2) On the big hill on P-day again

3) Us on top of the tower thing on P-day

4) Me and the other elders on P-day

5) Me and the sisters on a swing

6) Super exciting train ride...early

Lots of Trains! 9/15/14

Hej!

     This week has been kind of crazy, but in a good way. So last P-day for our fun activity we hiked up to an obstacle course that is in a forest here. So we hiked up this really long hill, then we ended up at the bottom of what is a ski run hill in the winter, so we had to hike/climb up that. It was pretty hard. But we had a cool view of the city when we got to the top. Then there is this path in the forest with bridges and balance beams and rock walls and stuff, so it is an obstacle course. It was a lot of fun. 

     Then on Thursday, we got up at 4 am to get to our 5:30 train so we could go to Stockholm for a mission conference where David A. Bednar came! It was so cool to see an apostle in person. The missionaries in Western Sweden didn´t get to come, but most of the mission was there. We filled up a chapel. Elder Bednar talked to us a lot about being agents and not objects, meaning we need to make decisions and use our agency so that we can continue to have agency. Also we need to act if we want things to happen. He said that faith is really an action, so we show our faith by acting. Then after a little while he told us that we shouldn´t try to take notes of everything he says, because we realistically won´t read them much if ever anyways, so we should just write down spiritual impressions and listen more. He compared it to the large and small plates from the Nephites. The thing that helps us more is the small plates. Then he did a kind of Q&A thing, so people would share insights from some of his talks we were asked to read before the conference, and he would respond and share stuff in response. It was pretty cool.

     After that we got a little time to talk to all the other missionaries there. It was cool to see how everyone in my MTC district is doing. Most of them are around the Stockholm area. It seems like people are a little more willing to stop and talk to missionaries where I am than in Stockholm, so I am very thankful to be in Sundsvall. But from what I have heard everyone in my MTC district is doing great. After that we took the 4 hour train ride home. It was a long day.

     Then on Saturday we had District conference in Umeå, which is a 3½ hour train ride north of Sundsvall. District conference is like stake conference, but we have a district made up of branches instead of wards. So we had part 1 on Saturday night, and another 2 hour session on Sunday morning. President and Sister Beckstrand were there, so it was fun to see them. Sister Beckstrand gave 20 minute talks in both sessions, one of which she found out about last minute, and her Swedish is probably about the same level as mine so it was impressive that she could do it. She had one talk prepared in Swedish, but the one she just found out about she was able to just do in English and a member translated for her. They were kind of long meetings for me, because I still don´t understand much of any Swedish so it was hard to stay attentive, haha. But it was alright. 

     Saturday night we stayed in the zone leaders´ apartment. We heard there were supposed to be northern lights that night, so we got permission from President Beckstrand to be out at 11ish to see them. So we went out and found a dark road to look at the sky, but there were no northern lights. But there were quite a few stars out so it was still pretty cool. 

     So this week I spent most of 3 days travelling. And this Thursday we have zone conference, so we will be going up to Umeå again. But it´s not too bad.

     This week we had some pretty cool tracting experiences. We tracted this one apartment building, and a man answered the door and just said, "come in." But as we walk in, we see a woman who looks familiar. It was someone we had contacted our first day in Sundsvall and were trying to schedule an appointment to meet with her! It was pretty crazy. The family was kind of busy, but the father met with us, because he explained that in his culture you can´t just send someone away when you´re busy, you have to let them in. He was super nice. So we taught a short lesson, and are going to meet with him again soon. We also got let into another apartment this week. It was a Christian woman who is very interested in learning about all the kinds of Christianity. We taught her that day, then came back a few days ago and gave her a book of Mormon. She is super excited to read it, because she hasn´t heard of a church before with more than just the Bible. She is really nice and loves God, but is not interested in coming to a new church or anything. But we hope that she will be able to feel the truth of the Book of Mormon when she reads it.

     It has been a pretty great week! Super busy but also fun.

     I hope everyone has a great week!

     -Äldste Smith

Pictures:

1: me and Elder Stafford at the top of the big ski hill

2: elder gray, elder ogaard, me, elder stafford, and sister young near the obstacle course

3: There are these dragons all around Sundsvall. Elder Stafford wanted a picture with this one

4: I just found this picture on the phone. I was very tired, haha

5: at the top of the big ski hill

Pictures in Sweden! 9/8/14

Here are the pictures that we received from Aldste Smith this week!

First week in Sweden!! 9/8/14

Hej!

 I am trying to get used to the Swedish keyboard, so I may have some typos. It is really awesome here. I am in a city called Sundsvall, which is in Norrland (the northern zone). It was a four hour train ride north of Stockholm. I like it a lot. My companion is Aldste Stafford, who has been here almost two years, and is from Idaho. This is the first time he has been north, and he says the people here are super nice compared to other places. Almost everyone we contact stops to talk to us.

     For those who didn´t hear, we had an exciting time getting our visas. On Thursday they told us that our visas hadn´t come in yet, so we would most likely not leave when we were supposed to. But then on Friday they called us back in and said they just got our visas, with about 15 minutes left until they would have reassigned us. Then they read us where our reassignments would have been. So I could have been in Ogden, Utah for a transfer, which would have been nice actually. But I am super excited to be in Sweden! I know I am supposed to be here.

     The travel went alright. We had a few close calls getting to the bus, to the airport, and getting to one plane, but it all ended up alright. We walked out of the baggage claim area and President and Sister Beckstrand and the AP's were there. Then we went to get our visas, then to the YSA (Young Single Adult) center in Stockholm. We had a short devotional, then paired up with experienced missionaries and went to contact for half an hour. It was kind of hard, but good. We talked to a couple guys, but it was super crowded so it was hard to talk to people. Then we went to the mission office to sign a few papers. Then we took pictures on the waterfront, then went back to the mission office then on to the mission home. The mission home is the same one they´ve had for a really long time, and it´s really nice. We had interviews with President Beckstrand then went to bed.

     The next day we went to a church building and had a meeting, and found out our areas and trainers. Then we went to the train station, and on to our areas. It was weird saying goodbye to my MTC district who I´ve been with 24/7 the last 6 weeks, but they will all do great.

     In Sundsvall there is me and my companion, another elder companionship that we share an apartment with, and a sister companionship. My first morning in the area we had district meeting at the church. Afterwards some of us tried this super super super hot hot sauce that Aldste Gray and Aldste Ogaard have. It is 1.5 million on the scale of spiciness. So me and Aldste Gray each took the dropper (it´s so hot it has a dropper because you never want more than a drop) and dropped it on our tongues. It tasted really bad, then got really really hot. It was funny, because it made me start to hiccup a lot. Then I started crying a lot, and I was not very smart and rubbed my eyes. So then one of my eyes started to sting a lot, then we all got kind of worried, haha. Aldste Gray, by the way, barely reacted to his hot sauce. He claims he is more used to spicy stuff. So we found some caramel sauce in the kitchen and they gave me spoonfuls of that since we didn´t have any milk. I was surprised that the hotness lasted so long. So that was a fun experience.

     Aldste Stafford and I have done a lot of contacting. We usually try to stop by places where we have records of people who have met with missionaries in the past, and then talk to people in the area when they are not home. Something interesting here is that there will be a street, then there will be a big group of apartment buildings, with paths and grass fields in between. So it is pretty here, but there are very few actual houses. We take the bus everywhere. It is a pretty nice bus system here, and tons of people use it. It is nice that there are hardly any cars on the streets, and lots of people walk around so it is easier to contact.

     We kind of started a new area, since there used to be a YSA couple here instead of another elder companionship, so we don´t have real investigators yet. But last night we taught a man who has been taking lessons for a long time, and used to be the sisters´ investigator but he lives in what is our area now. 

     Yesterday was also our first Sunday here. I understood a couple of words out of the three hours of talking, haha. But I didn´t fall asleep so it was good. I shared my testimony and introduced myself a bit. All the members here are super nice and said I have good Swedish. It is a branch, so there were 50ish people there. But there are a lot of kids and families. After church one of the member families had all 6 missionaries over for dinner. They had five kids who were all really fun, but pretty rambunctious, haha. 

     So overall it has been a super fun week! I can´t understand too much Swedish yet, but everyone says I´m pretty good for my first week. It is a lot of fun having an apartment with another set of elders. 

     Oh, another thing. On Saturday we took an hour bus ride to help rebuild an inactive member´s roof. They had scaffolding over the front of their house, and we got to help tear out the old roof boards and hammer in the new ones. Then the family fed us a really good dinner.

     It was sunny the first few days here, but it has been overcast and a bit cooler the last three days. It reminds me of Oregon, haha. But Sweden is really awesome :)

I hope everyone has a great week!!

    -Aldste Smith

Aldste Smith is in Sweden!

Äldste Smith left for Sweden on Monday, September 1.  We were able to talk to him briefly in between his flight layovers, and he was so excited to be heading to Sweden so that he can meet the people there and start preaching the gospel.
Here are some pictures that we received this week from Äldste Smith's Mission President's wife: