(no subject)

My time has come, they're kicking me out of Stockholm! It is going to be so crazy to leave my birthplace (mission wise- not in actuality). But yeah, it'll definitely be an interesting change. So yeah, I am going to be transferred on Wednesday to a city called Borlänge. It is a much smaller town than Stockholm about 2 1/2 hours North and West from here. I don't know a ton about it, but it sounds like fun (and also colder and darker right now, but that's no problem for me!)

But I'm not focusing about that right now because until Wednesday I'm still in Stockholm! So yes, the work is going well. We've just been working with the people who we had before, and done some finding work too. For example, we were outside Tuesday evening for a few hours, the bad thing is that it was so cold then! Haha, by the end I definitely couldn't feel a lot of my face! But it was good, and we have been doing some good things!

We also went on splits with the district leader this week and it was pretty awesome! We saw a bunch of little miracles like some super prepared people we met and a cool service opportunity. We got to do the ol' classic service of helping an older woman carry her groceries, and that was fun! The best part was that she then said she would come to church and sounded really positive and interested. It was good!

So I'm going to tell a quick funny story. Ok, so my companion and I had to go to the doctor for a quick appointment on Thursday. The doctor spoke English with us, but she wasn't perfect by any means, but we could communicate just fine. Also, keep in mind that the Swedish word for recipe and prescription are the same word. Anyways, she tells us at the end of the appointment that if we want, we can go down to the pharmacy and pick up our "recipe". Then she proceeded to explain about the recipe and how often the medicine from the recipe should be taken. Only by the 3rd or 4th time she called it a recipe did I understand that she was referring to a prescription, and I thought it was really funny. There's my story!

Anyways, I'm excited for transfers to see how it all goes. Oh, and my companion here is Stockholm is being made district leader, so that is really cool too! Have a good week everyone!


Äldste Nelson


Pic 1-2: We were on a cool bridge near the palace
Pic 3: I found a train named Nelson!!
Pic 4: My comp and I :)

(no subject)

Hello February!

Good morning, I hope that the last week has been great for everybody! It's been good out here, so I think that I will just jump into the week!

We have mission tour this week! Mission tour is basically like a normal zone conference where missionaries have a big training meeting, but this time there were 3 zones meeting all at once. And a general authority comes and visits the mission! So we had about 3/5 of all the missionaries in Sweden come to Stockholm, and President Johnson (the President of the Europe area presidency) came too. It was really cool! In fact, our apartment was chosen to be checked by President Johnson, so that was actually pretty freaky. But man, this apartment was looking so fresh and clean by the time he got here! But overall this mission tour was really fun and I learned a lot!

There is a little bit of a funny story to accompany mission tour. So we had all the elders from Norrland (basically the whole upper half of Sweden) come down for the conference. And as they were about to return on their train, they heard all the trains were being cancelled! It turns out that a huge snow storm was dropping around 70 cm of snow up there! So what ended up happening is that some of the missionaries had to stay in our apartment with us. And keep in mind that our apartment is pretty small! We have one room that is a combined bedroom, study room, living/dining room, and kitchen. Then a separate bathroom. It is not big! But we had 6 elders sleep here one night! Basically someone slept on 2 chairs pushed together, 2 people slept on mattresses on the ground, 2 slept on the bunk bed, and then the last person just slept on the ground. It was certainly cozy! But they are now back to Sundsvall (that's the city they were from) and the about 2 meters of snow that are up there, so that's good!

We had a really cool success story this week. Our ward mission leader asked us to go visit a family in the ward who is a part member family. So the dad is an inactive member and the rest of the family aren't members at all. So we took a bus out there (we may or may not have gotten lost on the way out there... I'll take the blame on that one) and eventually arrived. But what was really cool was how happy and receptive the family was! We knocked, and when the door opened, we were invited right in. It turned out that they were having a birthday party for their youngest son, and the mom actually invited us to stay. They were such a nice family and they asked if we could come by again! It is pretty amazing that they did that because they haven't had contact from the church in a long time, but they all were still very positive. It was a little miracle that helped brighten the week!:)

We'll, I think that's mostly it for the week. It's been a good one, and I have high hopes for this upcoming week! In fact, transfer calls are this weekend, and seeing that I could potentially be moved out of Stockholm, I'm pretty nervous! But it should be good, and I'm looking forward to everything! Have a good week everyone!

Elder Nelson

Elder Nelson's Mom here:  Elder Nelson did not send any pictures this week.  The following were on the Swedish Missionary Mom's FB page in the last week or so. The first two are the missionaries helping to clean an apartment.  I think the third is a group that were all together in the MTC, but I'm not 100% sure.

I Broke a Window

Hej allihopa! Jag hoppas allt är bra med er! Life and the work have been going out here in Stockholm! And while it is still super dark a lot of the time, it has been getting a little brighter and for the time being, it has warmed up a bit. Which has felt nice, but I have the feeling that winter is not done with me yet! We'll see what the future has in store, but for now I'll tell ya about the past week!

Firstly, I had something cool happen that is hopefully a good sign for my Swedish! A little background is that I typically don't dream very often. But this week I had a dream, and what was special about it was that it was in Swedish (well, partially in Swedish)! But it was really cool and hopefully that is a good sign for my language skills!

I've got some exciting news! I broke my first window in my life this week! So firstly, it is important to know that my companion plays rugby, and is really good (fun fact, he's going to play at West Point when he goes home). And in some free time a night we had this week he got out his rugby ball and passed it to me. I passed it back. Then he passed it to me a lot harder, so I threw it back hard too. It completely missed him, hitting the window. Which proceeded to shatter, glass falling everywhere. It was terrifying! And long story short, we called our landlord, he came and took the window the next day, and it was fixed really quickly. I certainly felt embarrassed and pretty dumb! But I learned a lesson which my mom has tried to teach me for a looong time, "No throwing balls inside the house"!

We had the primary program in church yesterday, and it was so cute! And they did a really good job! It's fun because I know all the kids and their families, so the program was even better. The program was a weird mix of Swedish and English because there are some American kids that only speak English. But everything worked out well! And we got to help out in primary after, so that was super fun too!

We had a kinda cool story with an investigator this week. So we found and have been teaching a Swedish guy, and it has gone well. In our last lesson we finished teaching the Restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon, and we asked him to read a specific chapter from it. Then yesterday on the train, the sisters from our area saw him on the train and talked to him. And what he told them is the cool part! He said that he had read more than 10 chapters from the Book of Mormon already, and he still sounds super positive! So that was a cool little thing that happened this week!

Anyways, the week has been good, and the work is going well. Have a good week everyone!



Äldste Nelson



Pic 1: My broken window
Pic 2: It's my kompis and I!
Pic 3: haha, what our window looked like when it was being fixed
Pic 4: Yeah, its us again :D

Hej hej!

This week has been a good one! A lot happened, and it's keeping us busy! It's really good that we've been busy because it keeps us going through the short winter days! But the good news is that the days are getting longer! I mean, they are still super short, but at least everyday we're making progress! I'll hop into how the week was.

Firstly, we got to help 2 people move, and it was surprisingly fun! Haha, it reminded me of Saturday mornings back at home when we'd have to go help people move! But it has been really helpful, because it has been a way for us to get in better contact with them. Both families were less active, and now we're able to meet with them, and it's been really positive!

On Saturday we had 2 people in our ward boundaries get baptized. They are married, and they are named Jérémie and Daisy. They have three little kids too. Their story is pretty amazing though. Jérémie was given a Book of Mormon by a friend 18 years ago, and it just sat in his house. He then was going through a hard time and decided to read it last year. He read the whole book, and got a spiritual confirmation it was true. He was then given an anti-Mormon book, but it only strengthened his testimony that the church was true. He and his family then came to church seeking out missionaries, were taught the lessons, and they are now baptized. They are both Swedish, and they are such awesome people! Their conversion is such a cool story, and the whole service and especially their testimonies at the baptism were wonderful! It was such a good experience to be there with them when they were baptized. Some conversions take a long time, but this story showed me that every action inviting someone to Christ can make a difference.

Besides that, we've stayed busy teaching, helping members, having splits, and doing our interviews with the president. It's been such a good week! Have a good week everyone, and keep an eye out for the miracles happening around you!


Elder Nelson


Pic 1: So they have a chocolate bar that literally has oreo inside it!
Pic 2: This is all the missionaries in Stockholm, 4 Sisters and 2 Elders

tjabba

Hej allihopa!
I hope everything is going well with everyone this week! By now the holidays and decorations are being taken down, so we are really getting back into the normal routine. But it feels good to be getting back in the groove of everything! The week feels like it's gone really quickly, but a lot has happened, so I'll get into it.

Firstly, the Book of Mormon musical started up again! It was closed for a month and a half or so during the holidays and new year, but now it's back, and I had forgotten how fun it is! The sisters in our area and us gave out about 200 books, and it was just so enjoyable! My Swedish has gotten better, so now I'm more able to converse with people, and I had a couple good conversations with people. Haha, it's a lot more fun when you can understand what people are talking to you about!

Another interesting thing we did this week was actually quite a bit odd. We helped a member in another ward with a funeral. And by that I mean that we were paul bearers. So I have officially helped to bury someone in a Swedish cemetery now. It was a strange experience, but everything went well with it. The cemetery was beautiful and old too, and that was awesome to see. Overall kinda weird, but also a cool experience.

Everything else this week was really good! We've been teaching a long and having some good progress with some recent converts, some less actives, and our investigators! And the sisters have an investigator family that's going to be baptized this Saturday, and I'm excited. We have a really cool experience about them actually. This last week there was some doubts and questions about the church that were expressed from this family that the sisters were teaching. They were nervous for the lesson because they didn't know all the answers to their questions and it was on some hard to answer and confusing topics. Our whole district did a fast for them and their investigators, that they will be able to have the Spirit with them and that they can help their investigators through their concerns so that they can continue and be baptized the following week like they'd planned. We all did the fast, then they went to their lesson. And when they got there it turned out that the family had been able to receive their own answer and spiritual confirmations on the topic, and their big concern was no longer a problem. It was a really cool experience, and it really showed me the power of prayer and fasting.

Anyways, the week has been nice and busy, and I'm expecting the next one to be the same! Have a great week!


Elder Nelson


Pic 1: Me, near the palace
Pic 2: The palace (and the super awesome water!)
Pic 3: So this is actually a giant light building thing, but for my purposed, a lightsaber
Pic 4: We made some super good curry!
Pic 5: This carved rock was at the cemetery, and was carved around 1000 AD by vikings!

I'm no longer a greenie!!

January 8, 2018

Hello hello! It's been a busy week! The transfers were a bit hectic but things are starting to settle down a little bit. My trainer, Elder Olaveson, went to Southern Stockholm to a place called Malmö and he left on Wednesday. Then my new companion, Elder Baggett, came that day. And he's pretty cool!! He has been out over a year and is really good at Swedish! But he is a really cool guy from West Jordan in Utah. He's going to go to West Point and play rugby when he finished his mission, and is just a funny dude! So far it's been lots of fun with him!

The work this week has picked up a good amount! In the past week we've had 4 new investigators, which is a successful week for Sweden standard! But there is a really cool story associated with one of them! Elder Olaveson and I were sitting on the tunnelbana and a guy walking down the aisle stopped and started talking to us. We talked for a while and he was really interested! He is super positive and an awesome older swedish gentleman. We taught him and he told us he wants to continue taking the lessons. But the cool story is the reason why he started talking to us in the first place. He had lived in the US a long time ago and had several friends who he met who were Mormons. He talked to them a bit about their religion but wasn't really interested. Then last year a missionary stopped him on the tunnelbana and talked to him. That contact with the Elders was enough to make him interested enough to stop us when he saw us. It is a really cool story of how planting seeds can really make a positive effect and lead to something happening in the future. And the coolest part of it was that when I mentioned this story in District Meeting that our Zone Leader remembered having talked to that guy and details about him. It was so awesome to be able to see a direct benefit of an attempted contact over a year ago, that it actually led to something positive!

Ooh, I don't have tons of time. But things are doing well! I hope you all have a good week and have fun getting back to school and everything!

Äldste Nelson


Pic 1: Me and my old comp
Pic 2: Beautiful nature!
Pic 3: Church near our house (still looking good)
Pic 4: My new companion, Elder Baggett (not the best pic, sorry!)

God Jul och God Nytt År!!!

Happy New Years everybody! This was a really good week for us and hopefully for all of you! I hope that all of you had an awesome Christmas and New Year!

This week was really interesting, but I'm going to cover that a little later. But for us New Years was super fun! We went to a member family in the ward and had a party with them! We watched a disney movie (with Mission President's permission!), played a lot of games, ate a ton of food, and then watched fireworks! We also got permission to stay up with them until midnight and see all the fireworks get shot off, and it was awesome!! It was like once it hit midnight everyone started shooting them off all around, and it was so cool! There were people doing it right next to the house we were at and it was amazing! Definitely a fun New Years Eve!

This week we had a challenge from the Mission President for all the missionaries to read the Book of Mormon from start until finish. The time between Christmas and New Years isn't a very effective time to proselyte, so he gave us extra time to do that each day. And it had been such a good experience! I am now almost finished with it, and will finish it today. Only around 40 pages or so left! It has been really interesting to see how everything connects together, how the knowledge and everything have progressed over time, and how much it truly testifies of Christ. It has been a really special testimony-building experience!

We got transfer calls this week and it's gonna be weird! My trainer is leaving me here in stockholm and heading off to Malmö (it's down south near Denmark). So I am getting a new companion and I am going to have to know everything about Stockholm by myself now! A new sister area is being opened here also, so there will be 6 missionaries in the Stockholm area, 4 sisters and 2 elders. And I'm going to be the person who's been in Stockholm the longest, and that's pretty scary to consider! But it will be good and I'm excited to have a new companion and see what everything is going to be like!

Good luck with the start of the New Year!


Äldste Nelson


Pic 1: Me and my companion!
Pic 2: My district!!
Pic 3: adequately explained by the picture