Merry Christmas!

Elder Nelson's Mom here: this was sent on Christmas Eve but I forgot to post it.

Merry Christmas!

In Sweden, Christmas is actually celebrated on Christmas Eve, so the festivities are about to be in full swing!

We were able to go to an amusement part called Liseberg last P Day and look at all the lights and the Christmas market they had, it was beautiful!

There are lights everywhere. Most of the windows have these little candle things or giant lighted stars, and it has helped to make the dark more enjoyable. The Swedish people know how to do Winter and Christmas!

Our ward also had a really big Christmas sacrament meeting/concert that was wonderful and thoroughly brought in the Christmas spirit. The ward was also so kind to us and gave us a lot of presents! The amount of candy I will end up eating from their gifts should probably remained unstated!

We have had the opportunity to talk to and teach many people about Christ recently. The promise of Christmas really is "Peace on Earth, goodwill towards men". The gift offered to us in this season is the invitation to find peace through Christ. He can change lives and make them full of joy and meaning. I am so grateful for the opportunity to testify of Him this Christmas time. Make him a part of your Christmas season!

Merry Christmas everyone!



Elder Nelson

Lucia, Christmas Conference, giant Cinnamon Rolls... Christmas is almost here!

Ok, it's been a great week! I'm going strait into it!

We had a celebration for something called Santa Lucia this last week. Basicall6 it's this giant concert with people singing holding candles with one person having a ton of candles in their hair. It was awesome, definitely one of my favourite Swedish Christmas traditions!

We had our Christmas Zone Conference this week and it was awesome! It was combined with the Malmö zone, which meant we had about 40 or 50 missionaries all together. And it meant that we had a total of 12 elders staying at our apartment the night before it! Which was fun! Then the actual zone conference turned out really good and was all focused on Christ. And we got to watch a movie, "It's a Wonderful Life". Who could've asked for a better Christmas Conference!

Today we went to a place called Haga in Gothenberg, and found a little cafe that has GIANT cinnamon rolls! It was pretty awesome! And tonight we will be going to a Christmas market as well!

Christmas is coming up this next week. We as a mission will be (trying) to read all the citations to Jesus Christ found in the topical guide during the time between Christmas and New Years. As we come closer to Christ, we will find more joy, peace, and strength then we can find anywhere else. Our goal is to come closer to Christ during this time, and that is what I would invite you all to do as well. Find a way to come closer to His during this time that celebrates His birth.

Merry Christmas!



Elder Nelson

Happy December *turns up the christmas music*

Steven Nelson
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2:45 AM (20 hours ago)
to bcc: me

I hope that everyone has had a great December so far! Keep up the good ''Light the World'' work out there! We received transfer calls last week and I'll be staying, but my companion moved all the way up to Boden, the furthest north mission area in Sweden. It's going to be chilly up there! I got a new companion whose name is Elder Moss and units been really good so far! He's one transfer older than me in the mission and is a great guy and we've been working hard!

It's warmed up a bit since a week and a half ago which has felt nice. It was well below 0 C then but now its back up some. But a small lake near our apartment froze and we noticed after it had warmed up again and it has started to melt. So of course my companion (back with Elder Cummings) felt the need to stand on it! And it luckily didn't break but it didn't seem to far off! I was able to snag a picture of him on the melty ice which was cool!

Several weeks back I mentioned a crazy coincidence when we met someone who had been on a foreign exchange in Colorado a looong time ago. Well, we've kept some contact with them and were able to have dinner with them last week! It was awesome. We got to know them a lot better, had a fun time, and were able to teach about the church and Jesus Christ as well. It was so good! And they said they'd try to come to the Christmas party which we had on Saturday and they did come for a little while! It's been good so far and I'm excited for how it'll keep going!

That leads me to the Christmas party though! It was suuuper good! We set up tons of decorations and lights everywhere and it was beautiful! We had the classic Swedish "Julbord" which is the normal food eaten at Christmas and did other traditions as well such as singing and dancing around the Christmas tree. Overall it was a lot of fun and a success!

Ok, well have a great week! Make sure to keep up with the Light the World initiative! As Christ says while visiting the Nephites:
''Therefore let your lights so shine before this people, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is is heaven.''
So go out there and be a light! Because really when it comes down to it, that's what the gospel is!



Elder Nelson

Makeup and Thanksgiving

It's been a good week! We've had a lot of good and fun things going on, like Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving! This week the cold has started coming in a lot more, and we've been having days with highs of just around 0 C. It's getting chilly now! I'll get into the week though.

We had zone conference this last week, and it went well like always! We sleep in one of the two elder apartments in Gothenberg itself, so we had a lot of Elders staying over for zone conference on Monday night. It was fun having 8 or so Elders with us, and it was fun to see some people from my MTC group I hadn't seen in a long time.

On Wednesday we had been invited to an activity with the sisters by someone they were teaching. We were told it would be face masks or something along those lines, so I was expecting a nice relaxing spa feel. But no! We arrived and I looked at the table, and all I saw was makeup, and I just though 'uh oh'. So yeah, to not offend someone the sisters were teaching, we put on make up! Although I looked beautiful with foundation on, I think it was the first and last time for me!!

This last Thursday was Thanksgiving! We made a pumpkin pie that day and it was delicious. We had dinner with a member that night, and although it wasn't turkey, it tasted great in any case! We took the pie with us and had it for dessert, and the members seemed to enjoy it even though it is a little different than normal Swedish dessert. It was a good day!

We had the primary program here on Sunday and it was amazing! Not only was the music touching and the kids adorable, but there were some powerful testimonies and stories shared by the kids. I'd never heard such real spiritual experiences shared by Primary children as I did then. It really strengthened my testimony that God is helping and preparing the upcoming generation for the challenges that will be faced. It is true when it says in the Book of Mormon that in the last days:
'And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld the power of the Lamb of God, that it descended upon the saints of the church of the Lamb, and upon the covenant people of the Lord, who were scattered upon all the face of the earth; and they were armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory.'
As we come to Christ, we can be blessed with the power and strength of God to be able to survive and fulfill God's purposes in our time. Power comes as we choose to follow Christ.

Have a fantastic week!



Elder Nelson 

Pic 1: Pumpkin Pie!
Pic 2: A member had these in there apartment and it reminded me of home
Pic 3: Check out that makeup!

Savannah Stevenson Concert and Thanksgiving

Wow, it's been a wonderful week and there is so much to talk about! I'll just go straight into it.

On Tuesday we were able to help out with an awesome activity run by one of the members here. So we usually play innebandy (imagine indoor floor hockey pretty much) every other Tuesday with the primary kids in the ward, but it was one of the kid's birthday so we turned it into a big innebandy birthday party and the kid invited all his schoolmates to come play also. So there was around 20 or so primary and non member kids there with a bunch of parents as well. It was sweet and we got to talk to all the non member parents. It was a really fun finding opportunity, and we got to play innebandy with around 20 other little kids!

The next day we were able to go on splits with the Elders in Kungsbacka and it was really good! It was to finished off as we all went and got really good pizza together! Way tasty!

The big highlight of the week was on Saturday. An actress named Savannah Stevenson from England came and performed at the chapel here and we put on a big event. She is the person who was Mary in the church bible videos, as well as Glinda in Wicked. She was so good!! We were at the church starting at 2:30 pm to help with set up and seating people. There were 2 concerts, one at 4 and one at 8pm. And so many members brought friends and people from the whole stake were there. It was so sweet and we got to meet so many members, less actives, ex members, non members, and several people we were teaching were able to come. Ah, it was the perfect missionary work because the concert was a good mix of religion and other things like Broadway, and we as missionaries got to meet so many people! I think there were between 500-600 total and it was a success! The one problem was that we had to clean up, and didn't get finished and home until 11:30 (don't worry, we had the mission presidents permission)!

My thoughts about Thanksgiving come a lot from a scripture in D&C which says that:
"And in nothing doth man offend God... save those who confess not His hand in all things". It can be difficult at times to see God's hand in each of our lives, but if we take a little time and reflect on what we've been given and blessed with each day, we can see how much God really is a part of. Let us all remember to be thankful to the being who has given us everything this Thanksgiving.

Have a wonderful week and happy Thanksgiving!



Elder Nelson

Swede is the work

Hello!
It's been a busy week, and I can't believe it's Monday again. I checked the weather recently and it's actually been warmer here in Gothenberg the last few days compared to Provo. Who would've thought I'd come to Sweden to get warmer weather! It's been a good week though. We've seen a lot of miracles and good progress here.

This week I went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders in Utby. It was really good! We actually saw some good success including a classic missionary story. We were out knocking on doors and were just about to head back. We hadn't found any new people who wanted to learn more, and only had time for one more door. We said a prayer and asked that we could find one person who would be interested. After the prayer we went to a door a little ways down, knocked, talked to the woman who lived there for a while, and were invited to come back and share our message another day. It was one of those times that shows that prayer really does work! Heavenly Father does hear our prayers.

This week we had some success with those we were teaching. One experience specific sticks out to me. It was with a Swedish man who when he was first met didn't believe in God. Now, just around a month and a half later, in our lesson he told us he believed both in God and Jesus Christ. It was a sweet experience to see how he had changed and he had come closer to his Father and his Saviour.

On another interesting note, we have someone we're teaching who is a concert pianist, and it turned out that he wrote a full length musical way back in 1996. He's tried to have it shown in the United States but the producers there didn't want to take a risk on it. So starting next year it will actually be playing in Poland, which is pretty cool! Haha, so if you're in Poland next year feel free to check out his musical called 'High Voltage'!

Anyways, the week has been a good one! There are some good things coming up this week as well that I'm really looking forward to! I'm grateful to be here serving the Lord.



Elder Nelson 

All Saints Day and Halloween

Ok, I don't have a ton of time so I'm going to just get into it!

This week was an awesome one with two holidays that we celebrated! It was Halloween and Alla Helgons Dag (all saints day) and both were really good! For Halloween we had a big ward party and it was awesome! We made some pizzas that looked like pumpkins and dressed up as missionaries. We made it exciting by turning all of out cloths backwards though! It was really fun and there were a ton of people there and tons of games, food, and activities. It turned out great! The other holiday was all saints day which was on Saturday. Pretty much everyone goes to graveyards and lights candles and puts them on the gravestones. We visited a cemetary that nightt and it was beautiful and really there was a really powerful feeling there. It was beautiful to see such respect shown and the reverence of the people there. It was a great experience!

This week I also went on exchanges with the Elders in Kungsbacka and we tracted. It was the night of Halloween and we were knocking on some doors. And some people were actually giving us candy! It was really funny and we had some great conversations with people! It was awesome trick or treat without having to dress up this time haha!

Last week I told a story about a woman whose door we knocked on and we were able to find out that she had been on a foreign exchange in Colorado with a family who is friends with my companion's family. Pretty crazy! We went back this week and were able to talk to her for a while and she told us that she would love to have us over for dinner! So things are going well there and it is just so cool!

It has been a great week overall! I hope that the coming week will be good for you all as well! have an awesome one!


Elder Nelson



And yeah, our jack-o-lantern is angel Moroni