Sweden - August 26, 2013

Well the biggest thing...we didn't escape transfers last week. Last Tuesday, we got a call from President Newell at 4:30 pm saying that Syster Gambles would be transferring to Malmö with Syster Miller (one of the other sisters here in Örebro) as her companion, and that Syster Miller's companion, Syster Hauglid, would now be my companion, and that we would have elders in our ward. So then on Wednesday at 2:00 pm, Syster Gambles and Syster Miller left and at 5:00 pm Äldste Muirbrook (he's been out about 19 months) and Äldste Lundquist (fresh from the MTC) arrived. Now I'm officially with Syster Camille Hauglid from Spanish Fork, Utah. She's 19 and went to BYU for a semester before coming out to Sweden. Her parents are both professors at BYU.

I'll still be working with my old investigators, except that I won't be working with Balansama anymore sadly. He'll now be working with the elders. Even though I know I'll be seeing him on Sundays still, I'm going to miss him. But he did send me one of the sweetest texts for my birthday (he wasn't able to come to church to tell me in person).

The Lohman family invited us over for dinner yesterday and they even made a cake for me for my birthday, which was extremely sweet of them.

Moses - We've went over the law of tithing and the plan of salvation with him. He doesn’t completely understand the sacrament as well as the concept of repentance, but we hope to be able to help with that this week. He came to church.

Frezghi - We taught him the plan of salvation, which he really seemed to like. He wants to know more about baptism, which we are more than happy to oblige. He also came to church.

Love - we talked about the importance of prayer and scripture study.

Mehtop - still excited to learn more!

Cherry - Syster Gambles leaving was extremely hard on him. He started school up again though, so I hope that makes it a little easier for us to meet with him. He still wants to meet though, which is good.

Eric - He's been busy with hospital visits again this past week, but he wants to meet us either today or tomorrow.

Fredrik (recent convert that transferred to my area now) - We taught him about temples as a follow-up to a Sunday school lesson on family history last Sunday.

Love you all!

Allie

Sweden - August 19, 2013

This week has been busy. Complete with playing soccer in the rain with the ward, playing basketball, a baptism for one of the other sister's investigator, accompanying a musical number for both the baptism and for sacrament meeting this past week, transfer call Saturday (speaking of which, both Syster Gambles and I are staying in Örebro!), helping someone move, complete with moving an old, heavy TV down three flights of stairs, and a day full of drop-bys, but complete with chocolate chunk cookies (they don't really have chocolate chips here in Sweden, so we just get a 200g chocolate bar and cut it up into pieces). Full week.

Pictures! One of me with Rose and her two little girls. 

District meeting in Örebro.

Investigators:

Rose-  She's looking forward to her baptism. We talked about the importance of reading the scriptures and praying last week and she committed to do her best with both!

Eric - we taught him about following the prophet last week. He's doing really good.

Love -  set up an appointment to meet with us later today, which we're are extremely grateful for since she's been so busy lately.

Moses - came to church yesterday as well as to the ward's football and basketball activities last week. After watching the Restoration video with him, he asked to have his own copy (which we happily complied) because he wanted to watch it again.

Frezghi - came to church yesterday even though he wasn't feeling well. He's come to football and basketball as well, which certainly helps him to get to know the ward faster.

Mehtop - she is super positive. She already started reading the Book of Mormon and finds it really interesting. We hope to meet her again soon.

Balansama (new convert) - He keeps coming to church and he still really wants to receive the priesthood. We just need to help him be able to talk with Bishop (who has been out-of-town or really busy lately, but it will happen).

I've been making my way through Alma and something that stood out to me this past week was Alma 15:18 - And how Alma was such a good example of a true friend with Amulek after all they had been through together.

Love you all!

Allie

The Örebro sisters! At Zone training a couple of weeks ago.

Rainbow... lots of rain = lots of rainbows =)

I still can't think of something witty to put here - August 12, 2013

Hey everyone!

Another week come and gone! We had Zone Conference last Tuesday which certainly speeded things along. We had to travel to Stockholm for it. I kind of miss being able to go the city every P-day, but then I'm glad that we can do just do things here in Örebro. Last P-day our elders came down from Västerås and we went on a hike and saw the water tower I mentioned before. I've included a somewhat normal picture of them from that day... and one that is not so normal (we found a pretty cool store though! Tons of board games...though I can't really buy anything from there, because board games are bulky...)

One of my favorite memories of the week... Balansama talking about one of our other investigators. "He always says he's busy. What is he, a businessman or something?"

It's been raining all week (and by rain, I really mean thunder and lightning storms complete with random spouts of pouring...thankfully we have not been caught unawares again), which I gather is pretty typcial around August.

I got to translate for someone from Swedish to English the entire Sacrament meeting on Sunday...which I was happy that I was able to do most of it... I also played another piano solo in sacrament meeting, Paul Cardall's arrangement of He is Risen. Even though I've played so much, I still get nervous. Yep.

I've also been getting that writing itch again, so we'll see if anything comes of it. I just can't let myself get distracted haha.

1) Cherry - he's doing pretty well, but it's been a more difficult week to meet with him. We hope that once things settle down with school starting everything will be better. He's most definitely still interested, but busy with his job finishing up.

2) Eric - he's making a lot more progress now. He really wants to learn more about Joseph Smith. We believe that learning a little more about the prophet will help him gain a stronger testimony of him.

3) Moses - loves meeting! He has a lot of questions in general, mainly because of his experiences with religion in Africa. He definitely feels strongly about continuing to meet with us, at the moment though he's just not sure whether or not someone can be baptized again. He loves learning about Christ though.

4) Frezghi - definitely wants to learn more. He's pretty much just waiting for his answer to confirm that this church as true. He does say that it most definitely makes him feel good!

5) Rose - is still doing well and really wants to be baptized. It's still hard just to help her get to church. We're hoping that things will become easier once the train schedule changes for fall.

6) Love - still loves to read from the Book of Mormon, but she's been really busy with her new job as well.

7) Balansama (new convert) - is just doing so fantastic! He's definitely a missionary and he talks with pretty much all of his friends about the church. He's excited about the priesthood and he wants to become more involved with the ward by learning Swedish. He wants to be able to bear his testimony in Swedish in one of the upcoming fast and testimony meetings.

8) Victoria (inactive) - loves learning more about the church and she definitely wants to keep coming! She's come at least four times now since the beginning of June.

Scripture - D&C 3:1 -"The works, and the designs, and the purposes of God cannot be frustrated, neither can they come to naught." His will will prevail in the end. We do not have to worry about who will be the victor, we just need to decide which side we would like to be on.

Love,

Allie.

Some pictures:

me, Syster Gambles and Pontus and Pihla (our ward mission leader and his soon-to-be wife. They're getting married this Saturday. She actually served here in Örebro for 10 months back in 2009/2010. She's from Finland.

Me very happily walking along a Swedish street? This was right before that pouring rain story I wrote about

Some of the random things I find around town... statues of pigs and a cement couch




It's August already?!? - August 5, 2013

Fun story for the week. We had made plans to meet Eric at his friend's place Saturday night, but Eric had missed his bus so he wasn't there quite yet. We ended up meeting him halfway between his friend's apartment and the train station and we sat on a couple of benches on a dock by the river that runs through town. Throughout the lesson I was noticing lightning and thunder in the distance, but I didn't really think too much about it, especially since yesterday was easily the hottest day I've experienced in Sweden. It began to sprinkle at the beginning of my prayer, but at the end of prayer about 30 seconds later, it was pouring. POURING!!! We were all soaked within seconds (because why would we have a raincoat or umbrellas with us?). Eric began running to his friend's place and Syster Gambles and I ran to the nearest bus stop, realized the bus wouldn't be coming for another hour (and that it wasn't sheltered) so we started walking home in the POURING rain. It poured for 15 minutes straight before it lessened to a more moderate rain. We ended up walking the 45 minutes home in the rain. Syster Gambles and I decided that it would have been a good scene in a romantic comedy movie, if we weren't missionaries and if we had romantic interests. Life of a missionary.

A "I'm so grateful for the Spirit" story. There was an older man that needed help outside our apartment today and I wouldn't have even noticed him if it wasn't for the Spirit prompting me to look closer. He was across the apartment square (and from a distance everything seemed like it was okay) but he had fallen with his walker and his artificial leg was jammed so it wouldn't move so he couldn't get back up. Syster Gambles and I went over to help. We couldn't help him on our own, but thankfully not even 3 seconds after a quick prayer, another woman came out of her apartment and with her and another that came shortly after we were able to get him situated. We called for help and he was able to call for his home support to come help him. I'm glad we were able to help him when we did. We always liked him because he says "hejhej" to us every time he sees us. I hope he's feeling better now!

My other Investigators-

Cherry - We met with him several times last week. The hardest thing for him right now is that he doesn't feel converted quite yet. He thinks that it will come, just a matter of when. He doesn't want to decide on getting baptized until he knows that he will be able to live those promises he makes all of his life. We're still working with him and trying to help him along. It's certainly a lot easier for us to see how he has changed than for him to see for himself.

Moses - He is a referral from Cherry and is super positive! He came to church last Sunday as well as a ward football activity last Saturday and he really liked the plan of salvation.

Frezghi - He is a referral from Moses. He also came to church and simply asked us if we could meet with him and teach him the lessons. He is very positive as well and he really liked to church.

Mehtorp - We tracted into her. We were doing drop-byes with a list of old investigators and we realized fairly quickly that one of those old investigators no longer lives in that building and we wanted to knock on a least one door. So we knocked on this one door and a man who had just come to a previous football activity answered. He introduced us to his life and she's really interested in learning more. She had never before thought that there could be additional scripture. We hope to bring her a Book of Mormon in Turkish today.

Loveline (pronounced kind of like lowv-leene- I don't know how to explain it, but it sounds super pretty) she's been really busy this week (she's now working 2 jobs), but she really wants to meet.

Rose - We taught her about the blessings of obeying the commandments and reading 1 Nephi 4 with her. She loves the Book of Mormon and still has a strong desire to get baptized. The hard thing is still transportation.

Balansama (new convert) - is super excited about receiving the Priesthood. Plus, he is already a ward missionary - fellowingshipping Moses, Frezghi, and Cherry. He's just so cute! He was explaining the sacrament to Moses and Frezghi yesterday in church without us even asking.

Scripture - Hebrews 9:11 and the phrase that Christ is the "high priest of good things to come."

"Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead. Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come." Elder Holland.

I love you all!

Allie

Pictures of Orebro Castle.