Final letter - Home on Thursday

The time has finally come and I'm writing my last weekly email as a missionary. Where has all the time gone? On Tuesday I'll take a train to Stockholm, on Wednesday my group and I will go to the temple (My first time in 22 months), and then on Thursday (my 20th birthday) I fly home. I wanted to end with my testimony and some thoughts.

I have repeatedly felt of God's love and watchfulness throughout my missionary service. It is a wonderful thing to pray and feel His peace every night. I believe in the power of prayer and have relieved many small and specific answers to my prayers.

I have seen how faith in Jesus Christ bring peace and joy into lives. Seeing people change and a light come into their lives is one of the sweetest things I've experienced as a missionary.

There are many experiences, some exciting and adventurous, others tender and spiritual, that I could share but I think I'll keep this short. I am so grateful for this chance I had to be a missionary! I've met many amazing people, seen incredible examples of faith and diligence among the members here, and loved serving among the people of Sweden.

I've read that the entire mission of the church is to help people come unto Christ, whether it be through missionary work, helping members make and keep covanents, or doing work for the dead. It has been a special experience to have that as my personal mission everyday. I want to end with a final invitation to you. I invite you to make a change (or changes, if necessary) to come closer to Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Christ, and there is nothing more important for each and every one of us than to individually come to Him.

Thank you for following me along this journey!


Elder Nelson

Last full week

Well, today marks the first day of my last full week as a missionary. What a mixture of emotions! This last week was a really great one though.

I had my last zone conference this last Thursday and it was good to get to see a lot of people I know as well as give my last testimony at a zone conference. Our mission President is inspired and I love the chance to feel the spirit strongly there.

We went out with a less active member and his little son this last week and picked berries out in the forest! It was a beautiful morning and we had a really great opportunity to get to know the member a lot better. We also found and ate blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries which was really fun!

Things have gone really well with those we teach! We have someone really positive that came to church on Sunday and they had a really great church experience. Things are going well here in Kungsbacka!

We do service for a group that is similar to DI each week. People donate things and then they are sold second hand, and the profits go to helping different projects in 3rd world countries. This week we helped to fill up a giant truck full of clothes, furniture, and other things like toys that couldn't get sold here, so they are being shipped to where they can help people. The truck we filled was headed to Estonia I believe. But it was some great service and we got a lot done!

Recently I've been reminded time after time the importance of doing some simple things, such as reading in the scriptured and praying daily, and partaking of the sacrament. I know there is a depth and meaning that comes into human lives as we do so. There is more peace and joy and reasurrance available to everyone through those small actions. Keep doing so, and if you're not doing them now, then start! It makes all the difference.

I hope you all have a great week!


Elder Nelson





Here are the berries, the empty truck before we started, and where we took cover for a few minutes when it started raining like crazy!

Running stairs

It has been a good week and the days just flew by!

So on Tuesday we decided to accomplish a goal of Elder Udeji's and get some good excercise, so we got up at 5am and hopped on the train to Kungsbacka. Right next to the church there is a water tower type building on the top of a large hill and a lot of stairs leafing up to it. 185 stairs to be exact. So, we went there and ran up and down those stairs a couple of times with a member in the ward. It was beautiful up there and some good excercise, but it destroyed my legs haha! We're hoping to go do it again tomorrow!

Gothia Cup was last week and we kept seeing foreign teams which was interesting. We asked someone how many teams had come to play, and we were told it was 1686 teams!

Besides that we had interviews with President, played soccer with a lot of people, started teaching some new people, and met someone that looked a lot like President Nelson as we were out knocking. Lots of good things!

I want to end this just by talking about a scripture that stood out to me this week. In a companionship study while on exchanges we thought about some good answers for people that casually believe in spirits and that stuff but not God. We eventually started talking with each other about coming to know the Creator. I read in Acts 17 where Paul teaches the Athenians and says,

"For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To the Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you."

The amazing thing about the Gospel is that we know who God is and how to come to know the creator. Continue to take the time to do so, it really makes a difference.


Elder Nelson

Gothia Cup

Wow, the week has just flown by. And they don't stop going fast! It has been a good and busy one. But here are a few quick highlights!

This week we were able to have a stake picnic activity in our area. We went to a cool castle by the oceanside and ate some good food. The best part about it all was that I got to see a lot of members I had once known when I was in Västra Frölunda. It was really fun!

The second highlight also has to do with a dinner we had. On Sunday we had dinner with a member and his family. What made this dinner special had to do with the dad. The father in the family is a relatively famous singer in Sweden. He and his brothers won the Eurovision music competition quite a while back (a big international singing competition that takes place every year with most European countries as well as others. It's pretty famous, you can look it up)! His name is Louis Herrey and he's an awesome solid member here. It was cool to meet a famous person (famous in Sweden at least)!

Otherwise we were teaching several lessons, doing a bit of service, and finding people. One of the highlight lessons was someone we taught while tracting that lived in a beautiful house way up on a hillside overlooking the ocean. It was pretty awe inspiring! Things are going well with the work.

This last week I was looking under General Conference in the Gospel library app and found a section called missionary work that has over 300 talks. I started at the earliest talks given and read several of them from the 1970s. It was inspiring to hear some of the missionary stories shared! And it reminded me of some of the amazing experiences I've been able to have as a missionary in Sweden. I just want to say that I am grateful for this opportunity and have been really blessed by it!

I hope everyone has a really great week!


Elder Nelson


Oh, we also have a thing in Kungsbacka called Gothia Cup which is the world's largest tournament for youth soccer, so that's cool too! We've seen teams from Brazil, Spain, Thailand, and a few other countries as well as Sweden. It's pretty sweet!

Svung

Oh wow, what a week! It has been a pretty packed week with lots to do! Here are some of the main highlights.

Firstly, I had to get all moved out of Helsingborg and on over to Kungsbacka. It was really sad to be saying goodbye to the people and city I'd been with for almost 6 months! Helsingborg is a fantastic place! On Wednesday morning (after a slight train delay) I hopped on a train heading up the Western coast of Sweden and traveled almost all the way to Gothenberg. It was a fairly smooth travel and transfer except for one of my bags has now almost officially died for good. Haha, I hope it'll live long enough to be able to take me back to the States! But it has been great here in Kungsbacka so far!

A main highlight of the week definitely came on Thursday. Almost all the missionaries in the Gotherburg zone were invited to come to Alingsås and help out with Svung. Svung in essentially a nationwide version of youth conference where they rent out a school and all the youth in Sweden come together and have activities for several days. We got to visit there and go out with the youth in groups and do lots of different kinds of service to the people in the city (such as giving flowers to people, taking cookies to the police station, helping people pack up groceries, giving stuffed animals to kids on the street, and so on). It was great to be out doing service with them and to strengthen them! One of the best parts to me was being able to see youth from all 5 of my previous areas there. It felt so good to see them all!

There is a lot I could talk about, but I want to end talking about one specific thing. Before leaving Helsingborg I was able to visit several members and people we had taught. In the process of doing this we got the opportunity to visit a man that is being taught and teach him one last time. At the end of the lesson he asked us to give him a blessing (we had taught him about that the previous week) so we gave him one. It was such an amazing blessing from God that I had been able to see how far this person had come and really feel the joy of this work. God cares about His children.

Anyways, I hope you all have a great week!



Elder Nelson

Moving to Kungsbacka

Well, transfer time has come once again. After 4 transfers of bring in Helsingborg I'll be transferring to Kungsbacka! It'll be really sad to leaving Helsingborg though, im really going to miss the city and all the people here. But I am excited for Kungsbacka! I've been there on splits a few times because it is right next to my old area in Gothenberg. It'll be cool!

It's been a good week though. We were able to have a little summer party with some people in the ward which was really fun. Besides that, we've taught a bit, had an activity with the young adults, and also visited several inactive members. Things are going well there!

Today for my last P Day in Helsingborg we went out to a place called Kullaberg. It's a kind if peninsula thing North of Helsingborg that was seriously amazing. I'd never seen such large cliffs and waves in Sweden and it was gorgeous! I'll make sure to attach some pictures even though they can't fully capture how it was.

Well, I don't have a ton of time but I do want to just say that there is a peace and strength that comes into life as we follow God. The small things like sincere daily prayer and scripture study truly do make a difference. Have a fantastic week!


Elder Nelson

Midsommar and Koenigsegg

We'll, it was a really awesome week! A bunch of cool stuff happened, so here it is!

First of all, we celebrated Midsommar, the traditional Swedish holiday on Summer Solstice. It was full of the normal festivities like dancing around the Midsommar pole and eating a lot of traditional Swedish food. We got to celebrate and dance at a pretty awesome castle called Örenäs and then my companion and I were able to help carry the Midsommar pole and place it. It was pretty awesome and I felt really cool walking with it as hundreds of people were cheering and clapping. It was a great Midsommar!

Another super cool thing was that we were able to visit the Koenigsegg car factory that is located in our area. They only make 15 or so cars a year but they are some of the fastest and most expensive cars that can be bought. We didn't have a tour atranfdd or anything, we just kinda showed up and were able to get let in and talk with some people there. Turns out one of them is a member of the church actually! It was super cool.

While we were out there in the city of Ängelholm we decided to stop and check out an airplane museum that was next to the car factory there. That was really interesting too!

There were some good miracles and experiences we had this week but one was pretty special. We were walking down the street of a nearby city on Saturday. As we were doing so, a person on a bike biked across an intersection and happened to look back at us and then the person swung over to talk with us. It turned out to be a member that recently moved here from another country and had been in church a few weeks ago. He told us about how his friend he had come with had to return home so now he's completely alone here without knowing the language. We were able to h3lp him out a bit, explain some things he needed for a bus card, and to get his co tact situation so we could get in contact with him later and help get him to church. It wad a gander mercy that showed that he was being watched over and helped when he needed it. It was good to be a part of that.

Anyways, have a great week!


Elder Nelson