Fwd: Baptism on Saturday!

Hello everyone, I hope your week went well! Things are pretty good here! Firstly, we have an investigator that is going to be baptized this Saturday! He has been taught all the lessons, had his interview, and now has the service planned out for it. He really is such a stud and is awesome. It's been such a good experience to work with him and teach him about the gospel. I will let you know how the actual service goes next week.

It has officially gotten pretty cold here! The temperatures are just above 0 C (it is 2 C outside right now) and that is just around 35 degrees or so in Fahrenheit. So it's pretty chilly! And it is so strange because the sun sets so early already! We had daylight savings on Saturday, and that made it even worse. I think that the sun set at around 4:00 yesterday:( but its ok. It is strange for it to seem like it is late at night so early though.

This week we had the chance to go and do service at the temple here in Sweden. We planted flowers and worked at the grounds there for around 5 hours. And I enjoyed being around the temple so much! It felt good to be on the temple grounds and to help make it a more beautiful place. It was pretty cold that day, but it was still a blessing to be able to go out and help make it look awesome! (I'll attach a picture I took of it).

This week I got to go on splits, and it was exciting because it was my first time. A split is where you trade companions with another missionary from another companionship for 24 hours. And what made it even more exciting (scary, actually) was that I was put with another new missionary. They had only been out for around 8 weeks. So with the two of us combined we had about 11 weeks of living in Sweden, which means our Swedish was pretty horrible! But it turned out to be really fun! We couldn't understand a lot, but we did our best to talk to people! We also had two lessons to teach, so that was interesting also! We did our best and things turned out pretty well, and I was able to learn a lot that day.

I also had the opportunity to give a talk in church on Sunday, and that was an experience! I had the whole thing written out but I was still pretty worried about it. I don't really like to give talks in English, so having to give one in Swedish did not make it any easier! I gave kind of a simple talk about the role of the Savior in our Heavenly Father's plan for us to return to Him. I felt really good about it before I gave it, but I did get really nervous. I stumbled my way through it though! It wasn't super understandable, but I think I was (sorta) able to get my message across. People in the ward told me I did a good job for being here only 3 weeks, but I think they were just being nice. But it's ok because I got through it, and I was grateful for the opportunity to share my testimony of the Savior.

That's about all for me this week! I hope that you all had a good week and that things will go well for you this next week too!

Vi ses,
Äldste Nelson

Photo 1: Me, in Gamla Stan (Really old part of the city)

Photo 2-4: More pictures of Gamla Stan. The streets are super close together!

Photo 5: The Sunset we had Sunday night. It was only 4:00 in the evening!

Photo 6-7: Planting flowers at the temple

The Streets of Stockholm

Things are finally getting into more of a routine, which is a beautiful thing! And the jet lag is gone, which is also very appreciated. The week has been really good for us in Stockholm. Our investigators are progressing, the weather hasn't been too cold or anything, and all the beautiful leaves on the trees have started to fall. It looks amazing right now!

Our investigator Brandon is doing well and is still on track for his baptismal date on Nov 4. Hopefully things keeps going well! He has been coming to institute and FHE, and he also came to church this week. And the church was awesome! It was the Primary Program in the ward here, and it was the most adorable thing I've seen. It was just a bunch of little kids singing Primary songs in Swedish and it was so cute! I think our investigator thought it was good also.

We have also been having some success with a less active we are working with, and this week was the first week he came to church in a while! And we have finally started to help an old investigator who hadn't really progressed much want to come to church and learn more, so that's good too!

Sweden is a really similar place to the US in some ways, but also really different in others. For instance, it feels like all the cars here are super nice and expensive! We see super expensive cars all the time, and we also see some other kinda strange sights. For instance, we have seen several taxis that are Teslas! It is just so strange to see a Tesla used as a taxi, but it isn't uncommon. And also it seems like all the garbage trucks and a ton of construction trucks are Mercedes, and it is just strange to see!

Things are going well, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to invite the people here to come unto Christ and to help them do that. I can see the hand of God in the work here as we have worked with people and with the members.

Until next week,
Elder Nelson

I'm officially in Sweden (and have been for a week)

Wow, I have a ton to talk about. So I'll get right into it. So we packed and got ready to leave the MTC a week and a half ago so we could leave on Monday morning at around 4:50. Sunday night turned into a pretty late night because it turned out someone in our room had not begun packing until 10:00 that night. But it was still good and it was actually really sad to say goodbye to everyone else in the MTC and the people on our floor. But even though it was hard, we got up at 3:45 the next morning and headed out around 4:30. We had a little time in the airport before we left and so we stopped to get breakfast burritos at the Cafe Rio at the Salt Lake airport. And it was so awesome because someone random in front of us in the line payed for all of the missionaries who were there (there were 9 in line) without telling us. It was really nice of them!

Anyways, out first flight left at around 10, we stopped in Minneapolis for a few minutes and had to hurry to our next flight, which was to Amsterdam. That flight was really fun because it was 80% empty! So we could spread out a little bit and so were able to sleep a lot better. I was able to get around 3 or so hours of sleep there, which isn't great but it did feel really good. And then after Amsterdam it was a short flight to Stockholm Sweden.

Right at first we were able to meet our mission president and all of the Assistants and everyone. It was exciting! It was also weird to have all the signs in Swedish! That day we did a lot, but as part of it we explored Stockholm a little with the assistants. And it is really so beautiful! We stayed in the mission home that night, and it was some of the best sleep I've had in my life. I had only had around 6 hours of sleep in the last 50-60 hours. It was some very needed sleep!

The next morning we did a little orientation in the morning, and then headed to my chapel to get assigned our areas and senior companion. Our group of missionaries got spread all over the country, but I was assigned to the Stockholm Area with Äldste Olaveson, my trainer. He's been out here 4.5 months. Our area is the area in the center of Stockholm. We have an apartment right next to the ocean and get to street contact in the busy streets of the main city in Sweden. There is always a lot going on but it is such a beautiful place.

Right now we have one investigator who is really awesome. His name is Brandon and he can speak Spanish and Swedish, no English. But teaching him is awesome! He had agreed to be baptized already when I came in and he is such an amazing guy. Whatever we teach him he grasps so quickly and agrees to it. He came to church with us on Sunday and if things continue to go well, he should be baptized on November 4th or 5th. Besides Brandon we have a few other people we are teaching. We are meeting with one or two less actives and then (trying really hard) to keep meeting with another person. It's fun and enjoyable to teach the gospel, but my lack of Swedish is pretty frustrating!

I think my favorite things we've done so far is pass out copies of the Book of Mormon and the Book of Mormon Musical. It is a play that is pretty against the church and makes fun of a lot of things, but we hand out copies of the Book or Mormon after it's over because a lot of people are interested after the play. It is awesome to have people actually interested in what we are saying (usually when we contact of the street people aren't interested at all) and it is just fun to do it with a lot of other missionaries! We usually hand out a hundred or more at each showing of the musical, and I personally have gotten to do it 3 times since coming here.

This is pretty long so I think I'm going to end it now. The language is coming along pretty well (well, kinda) and this is such a beautiful place. Have a great week!

Sincerely,
Elder Nelson


Also, I'll send some pictures in another email

Pic 1: Me and my comp, Äldste Olaveson

Pic 2: Street view near T Central

Pic 3: The view outside of our apartment through the window

Pic 4: All the missionaries at the Book of Mormon Musical

your missionary's arrival

Dear family,

Äldste Nelson has arrived safely in Sweden.  We have attached two pictures of him with us here in Stockholm.  The people of Sweden will be truly blessed by his service.

Mondays in the Sweden Stockholm Mission are traditionally Preparation Day. This is the day you can expect to receive an email from your son. We encourage you to also communicate weekly with him as this is a great source of faith and support for him as he serves in the Lord’s sacred work.


Thank you for your love and support.

Sincerely,

President and Syster Youngberg

Sweden Here We Come!

Elder Nelson's mom here: The newest Swedish Elders left the MTC this morning.  Their first flight left Salt Lake at 9:51 am.  They should arrive in Sweden about 1:00 am UT time tonight.  That will be 9:00 am Sweden time.  Greg, Ryan, and I did get a chance to speak with him from the airport.  He;'s heard they will go tracting first thing after they arrive.  That's going to be one long first day!  He sounded excited nd happy to be on his way.  Thanks to Dixie Lewis who snapped this photo at the airport and texted it.  And thanks to Charles Tschaggeny and at least one other kind stranger who let him use their cell phones to call when his calling card didn't work.  Let the real adventure begin!

Så lite tid till Sverige!

Hello everyone!

To start off this letter, I want to say that I have my travel plans! I officially leave for Sweden in 4 days. I have to report to the MTC travel office at 4:50 am on Monday morning the 9th. Which is so soon! Our flight leaves around 10:00 that morning and then we will arrive in Sweden 8:50 the following morning, October 10th. It's going to be a long day of flying and everything else, but I'll actually be in Sweden in no time! It still doesn't feel real!!!

General Conference this weekend was amazing! I loved the opportunity to listen to all the Apostles and General Authorities. Sitting on hard seats in an auditorium for 10 hours was not exactly ideal, but I still really enjoyed conference. I think my favorite talk from General Conference was Jefferey R Holland's. It was a beautiful talk that made me feel like everything would be ok as long as I continue to trust in God and try my best. It was an awesome message!

Another really cool thing that happened this week was that the General Young Woman's President, Bonnie L. Oscarson, came and spoke to us for a devotional on Tuesday night. It was awesome because it turns out that her husband and her served together as Mission president and wife in a mission in Sweden! So they told all the missionaries a lot of stories about their time there and experiences they had. And it was also cool because she asked the Swedish missionaries to stand up, and that was pretty awesome. It made me even more excited to go to Sweden!

Another experience this week that was pretty powerful was that me and my companions had the opportunity to Skype with a member in Sweden, talk with them, and teach a lesson. I use the term "talk" pretty loosely because 1) We don't speak good Swedish, and 2) The member's microphone was broken so she could hear us but we couldn't hear her. But even with those barriers we were still able to have a good discussion and lesson because we could talk to her and she would quickly type responses back to us. It was really cool!

That's just about it for this week. Next time I write I'll be in Sweden!

Until next time,
Elder Nelson

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