happy birthday joseph (2 days late...)

It has been a pretty awesome week for us here in Landskrona and Helsingborg! Things are good as always. Spring keeps taking over more and more, and I'm looking forward to the leaves coming out on the trees (hopefully) soon. Here's how the week was!

Because of some last minute cirmumstances we had a temporary 'tripan' (3 people in a companionship) one of the days last week and it turned out way good! We couldn't use the buses because the third Elder didn't have a buscard but everything turned out really good actually and we found a really positive man who wants to be taught and come to church. That, and the awesome lunch we had, made it a sweet day!

On Sunday we had a really good day with several less active members that came to church as well as an exciting activity at the bishops apartment. We ended up being 27 youth/YSAs/missionaries (with a good amount of visitors from neighboring wards) in his apartment playing games, eating food, and having a great time. It was awesome!

On a sidenote, there was a shooting in our city last week, so there's that.

To end on a little bit of a spiritual note, we taught an amazing lesson this last week. It was with a Swedish man we'd met before and we finally got back to teach him more. It was a solid Restoration lesson where the spirit was able to be present quite strongly. It was really impressive to see how quickly my companion has been able to learn and grow his ability to teach because he was able to be a big part of the lesson and teach and testify. What hit me while we were teaching is how powerful the message of the Restoration of the Gospel really is. It is very powerful to promise people that if they read and pray about the Book of Mormon with an open heart they will get an answer. It is a very strong claim that can't easily be explained away without actually trying it out. So do it! Read and pray, and see for yourself.

Have a great week!

Happy pi day

It has been a fast week! I honestly don't know where the time went! But here we are again at another Monday. Some really good things happened this past week, so let's get right into it!

We had exchanges with the Elders in Malmö this week and I got to be in Malmö this time. It was really fun and it was also good to be able to see more of Malmö and feel the big city feels again. We did a lot of good work and were able to teach a lesson to someone with a baptismal date there. And we also contacted someone and they said they were interested, and it turned out they were actually living in Landskrona (the city I live in) and visiting Malmö for the day. It was pretty that I went there but ended up finding people for my own area!

We also were able to help set up for and them attend a funeral here in the ward. It was of the old stake patriarch and was a really good service. It was sad in a way, but I am grateful for the peace that comes by knowing what is happening after this life.

We had a really sweet experience this last week, and it actually began the week before. We had received a referral from some sisters in Slovenia and hadn't been able to get in contact with her. But then this last Thursday we went and stopped by them and it was super cool! She was really positive and we will hopefully be teaching her more this week. Thanks to all those Slovenian missionaries out there!

It's been a good week, and I hope this next one is as well!

Elder Nelson


Also, we celebrated pi day the right way

Fettisdagen, pastries, and tons of asian food

It has been a week full of delicious food and honestly tons of really good things within the work. It was also a really rainy week, but luckily has become a sunny one today! Here's how the week went though.

We were finally let into the home of someone we knocked into a while ago, and their house was pretty amazing! It was built 1924, has some grounds and a gate, and the inside was beautiful! The man was really kind and we were able to teach him about the restoration. We hope to be going back soon!

On Tuesday it was fettisdagen, which is a Swedish holiday celebrated by eating a pastry called a semla. They were pretty amazing, and because of some surprise semlor at ward council, we actually ended up being given 2 of them that day! No complaints here!

It was very very windy and got pretty rainy last week, and while we were tracting in an area along the ocean, we went out on a dock and I was convinced I was going to get blown away! But the weather turned out to be for our benefit because a Swedish couple ended up inviting us in because of how windy and rainy it was. We were able to get to know then, and then share the message of the Restoration with them and invite them to keep learning more. The coolest part about it was that they had seen the Book of Mormon musical in Stockholm, and it turns out that they were they when I was serving in Stockholm and was able to give out copies of the Book of Mormon after the showings. It was a super neat coincidence.

Life is just great for us out here. I am loving it and really feel grateful for the chance I have to be here, to experience what I am experiencing, and to help those around me. It is amazing to be a missionary!


Elder Nelson

Training Week 1

It has been a busy week!

So on Tuesday I sent off Elder Ahonen to go up to Umeå where he was transferred and spent the rest of the day on a train up to Stockholm. It felt really good to be back in the first area where I was trained! It was also really fun to spend the night with the other trainers that were waiting to pick their new missionaries up. And before I knew it the next day had come and I had received my new companion! His name is Elder Merrell and he comes from Washington state. He is an awesome missionary! We came back home that night and arrived pretty late. It has been really fun to have a new companion!

Life with him has been really fun because I've made an exerted effort to try to experience all the amazing things here in Sweden. It has been way cool and we have done some good work. Life is exciting here for us!

It has been pretty amazing to see the help we've received from God in the last couple of days since training has started. We've received a lot of guidance and help with planning things as well as just having help with everything. We are blessed for sure!

Have a great week everyone!

I'm training

Wow, it has been a long week with lots of exciting things that have gone down. Spring has come upon us and it has felt wonderful! The warmth and the sun have been a big blessing! But here's how the week went.

We were taken out to lunch on Tuesday by a man we started teaching and it was really cool! It was at the restaurant in a hotel and made me feel really fancy! The next day we went to a city called Örkelljunga which is considered to be in the 'bible belt' of Sweden. It was a small little city, but it was fun to be out there!

Later in the week we went on exchanges with the Elders in Halmstad. And it was really fun! I was there and had a really good experience. We were out tracting and found a really big house kind of secluded off in the outskirts of a neighborhood we were in. It was beautiful so we had to knock it. The man that answered was very kind and we were able to have a nice conversation. He told us an experience of when he had died on the operating table while having a heart surgery. He explained his experience and what he saw, and it was a description of the spirit world. We were able to give him a Plan of Salvation pamphlet as well as a Book of Mormon and it was a very cool experience.

On a less spiritual note, me and the elder I was with got Dominos pizza that night as we came home. So we had a way fun dinner hour watching The District, eating American pizza, and drinking Nesquik. It was the life!

The week has been good and the following one should be even more exciting. I found out that I will be training an Elder this week so that will be an exciting experience for me! Any prayers would be appreciated!

Have a great week everyone!



Elder Nelson

Happy birthday Elder Ahonen!

It has been a great week!
It feels as though spring has come early down South in Sweden. On Saturday we hit 10 degrees celsius (50 F) and it was sunny and beautiful. It felt so good! I'm hoping that spring has come in to stay and that it keeps getting better. But besides the weather, the week was a good one.

My companion, Elder Ahonen, had a birthday this week! It turned out to be a really good day! We did some service at the Red Cross and then bought pizza, followed by some semlor (imagine a roll cut in half with creme in the middle and powdered sugar on top) and they were amazing!! And then at the end of the night, we had dinner at a member's home and they made us some amazing steak as well as cake. And I blew up a bunch of birthday balloons to top it all off! Happy birthday Elder Ahonen!

We were also able to go on splits with the Elders in Malmö this last week and it went really well. I went with Elder Jarman, an Elder who was in my same MTC group. We had a really good time and it was super fun to be able to catch up and remember good memories.

We have been able to see the hand of the Lord often in the work this last week. A moment that touched me a lot was yesterday as we visited an older woman who cannot come to church with another couple from the ward. We talked, had a few snacks, and then we gave her the sacrament. Following that, we had a little lesson together. Her eyesight is too bad to be able to read, so we spend a while just reading from John 1 in the New Testament. The message itself wasn't incredible, but I could see how appreciative she was. The power that came from reading the word of God was something she has missed, and the spirit it brought made a big difference to her. There is a power in the scriptures and learning about Christ. I love the simple truths and power that is available to us.

Have a good week everyone!


Elder Nelson

Elder Nelson's Mom here: We were excited to hear that missionaries can now video chat or call home each week. We did have a great chat this morning and look forward to more. I think the plan is to continue with weekly emails still.

New email address!

Hello everyone!

Its been a good week! We got an email a few days ago saying that our email addresses will be changing tomorrow! Mine will be: steventhomasnelson@missionary.org
But any email that are sent to this old one will be forwarded to that one, so you don't need to worry too much about it. Haha, hope that it all works well!
Here are a few highlights from the week:

We started doing some red cross service at a place they have here in Helsingborg. We spent most of the time helping to sort clothes, and it was fun to meet all the people there! And after we had dinner with the kindest woman ever later that night, we went and met a less active and were able to talk around a bonfire with him. It was a great ending to an awesome day!

The following day we went on exchanges with the Elders in Halmstad, a city around an hour away by train. We met a ton of cool people and just had a good time together! I was with an Elder from my MTC group and it was fun to remember old experiences!

One of the biggest highlights of the week has to be an experience we had yesterday. We were called by our bishop and asked to go give a blessing to a 90 year old non member sister of a member I'd actually met while serving in Stockholm. She was in the hospital with a lot of medical problems and wanted a blessing even though she wasn't a member of the church. There was a powerful feeling as we were with and blessed someone who likely does not have a lot of time left. There is a power in the priesthood that cannot be found anywhere else. The priesthood has been restored and it truly is God's power.

Have a great week everyone!


Elder Nelson