Sweden - September 16, 2013

First of all, a pictures of me, Syster Hauglid, and an Elder Keele (he was in my MTC group).

My ankle is still healing....I might have fallen again on Saturday (stupid sticks in the middle of the path that hide in the dark...) so that set me back a couple of days, but I'll be back to normal before you know it!

Some of the people we work with:

Cherry - we went through the baptismal interview questions with him again. He seems to have a testimony about everything, he just needs to decide when to get baptized. He often says that he'll decide a date after he comes to church again, but then he hasn't been coming to church. We wonder if there is some other underlying reason he doesn't want to talk about... but he's been coming to church activities so that's good!

Frezghi - He's been very busy with school and working on his papers so he can stay in the country. He still wants to be baptized though! 

Moses - He seems to be going through a rough time right now with school and the question of whether or not he'll be able to stay in the country. He's still praying about whether or not he should be baptized.

Fredrik (recent convert) - came to church and received the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday!

This was something I found in an old Liahona "We [need to] remain steady and patient as we progress through mortality. At times, the Lord’s answer will be, “You don’t know everything, but you know enough”—enough to keep the commandments and to do what is right." (Elder Anderson, You Know Enough October 2008) We know enough to make those next few steps.

Love you all!

Allie

Guess what Allie did? - September 9 , 2013

It's been an interesting week here in Sweden. So last Tuesday, I sprained my ankle! Here are a couple of pictures (the latest in missionary fashion and look at all of those pretty colors!)

So I've been on crutches the last little bit (officially stopped today), but I'm super grateful that I brought my brace, since I'll be needing it for a least another week. So it's been eventful, but the ward has certainly been taking care of its missionaries =) They loaned me the crutches and helped us out a ton on the day it first happened and I couldn't really walk.

Otherwise it's been a little bit of a slower week, simply because of needing to rest to help my ankle heal.

Some of our investigators -

Moses - he loves coming to church and learning more, but he still doesn't want to be baptized. He's agreed to pray and study about it though, which he was more hesitant to do before.

Frezghi - he wants to be baptized! We haven't decided a date yet because he's supposed to get his schedule for the month today so we hope and think it will be sometime relatively soon. He says that whenever he thinks about baptism, he just feels extremely happy.

Cherry - met with us again and we reviewed the Plan of Salvation.  Cherry has definitely gone from saying "if I get baptized" to "when I get baptized" so we hope to have a candid converstation with him about it later this week.

Love you all!

Allie

My first and last September on the mission! - September 2, 2013

It's been another busy week here in Örebro! For the first time since I've been here we were able to have 20 official lessons in the area, which is just an easy way to see how are work impacts the people living here. Syster Hauglid is doing great and of course she is super excited since she now knows where her sister will be serving her own mission to New Zealand!

I can see a little bit of what you all are experiencing with Hadley. An less active (who is now officially active again!) has a 11 month old who just started to walk! Elicia (the baby) is just duper adorable and of course reminds me a lot of Hadley.

Pictures for the week:  a frozen cake pie with Jared's sparkler candles that he sent me =)

One of Syster Gambles, me and Cherry (finally, right?)

One of me and Syster Gambles.

Our investigators:

Moses - We met him a couple of times last week. He committed to following both the Word of Wisdom and Law of Chasity and he came for sacrament meeting, but he still doesn't understand why it would be important to be baptized with proper authority. We hope to help him understand better in our lesson with him tonight.

Frezghi - We taught more about baptism and he says he wants to study the Book of Mormon and pray about it more before he commits, but he seems to think that it is the direction he should head.

Fredrik(recent convert) - was able to talk to interview with the Bishop about the priesthood. So he will hopefully be able to get it soon.

Something that stood out from my personal study this week was in the talk Stand in Holy Places by President Monson in the October 2011 conference. It is so important that we are in tune to the promptings of the Spirit and to act on them when we receive them.

I'll just copy the story here:

"I am always humbled and grateful when my Heavenly Father communicates with me through His inspiration. I have learned to recognize it, to trust it, and to follow it. Time and time again I have been the recipient of such inspiration. One rather dramatic experience took place in August of 1987 during the dedication of the Frankfurt Germany Temple. President Ezra Taft Benson had been with us for the first day or two of the dedication but had returned home, and so it became my opportunity to conduct the remaining sessions.

On Saturday we had a session for our Dutch members who were in the Frankfurt Temple district. I was well acquainted with one of our outstanding leaders from the Netherlands, Brother Peter Mourik. Just prior to the session, I had the distinct impression that Brother Mourik should be called upon to speak to his fellow Dutch members during the session and that, in fact, he should be the first speaker. Not having seen him in the temple that morning, I passed a note to Elder Carlos E. Asay, our Area President, asking whether Peter Mourik was in attendance at the session. Just prior to standing up to begin the session, I received a note back from Elder Asay indicating that Brother Mourik was actually not in attendance, that he was involved elsewhere, and that he was planning to attend the dedicatory session in the temple the following day with the servicemen stakes.

As I stood at the pulpit to welcome the people and to outline the program, I received unmistakable inspiration once again that I was to announce Peter Mourik as the first speaker. This was counter to all my instincts, for I had just heard from Elder Asay that Brother Mourik was definitely not in the temple. Trusting in the inspiration, however, I announced the choir presentation and the prayer and then indicated that our first speaker would be Brother Peter Mourik.

As I returned to my seat, I glanced toward Elder Asay; I saw on his face a look of alarm. He later told me that when I had announced Brother Mourik as the first speaker, he couldn’t believe his ears. He said he knew that I had received his note and that I indeed had read it, and he couldn’t fathom why I would then announce Brother Mourik as a speaker, knowing he wasn’t anywhere in the temple.

During the time all of this was taking place, Peter Mourik was in a meeting at the area offices in Porthstrasse. As his meeting was going forward, he suddenly turned to Elder Thomas A. Hawkes Jr., who was then the regional representative, and asked, “How fast can you get me to the temple?”

Elder Hawkes, who was known to drive rather rapidly in his small sports car, answered, “I can have you there in 10 minutes! But why do you need to go to the temple?”

Brother Mourik admitted he did not know why he needed to go to the temple but that he knew he had to get there. The two of them set out for the temple immediately.

During the magnificent choir number, I glanced around, thinking that at any moment I would see Peter Mourik. I did not. Remarkably, however, I felt no alarm. I had a sweet, undeniable assurance that all would be well.

Brother Mourik entered the front door of the temple just as the opening prayer was concluding, still not knowing why he was there. As he hurried down the hall, he saw my image on the monitor and heard me announce, “We will now hear from Brother Peter Mourik.”

To the astonishment of Elder Asay, Peter Mourik immediately walked into the room and took his place at the podium.

Following the session, Brother Mourik and I discussed that which had taken place prior to his opportunity to speak. I have pondered the inspiration which came that day not only to me but also to Peter Mourik. That remarkable experience has provided an undeniable witness to me of the importance of being worthy to receive such inspiration and then trusting it—and following it—when it comes. I know without question that the Lord intended for those who were present at that session of the Frankfurt Temple dedication to hear the powerful, touching testimony of His servant Brother Peter Mourik."

Love,

Allie

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.