Nästan Jul!

Hello everyone! This week has been pretty awesome out here! A lot happened this week, so I'm just going to get started!

We've been working really hard at getting out cards for 'EttLjusFörVärlden' cards out. And it's been a lot of fun! We've been making little bags of brownies and gingerbread with a card on it and then giving it out on a super busy street. And it's been super fun! We've given out about 200 bags or so, and it is basically just a party! We'll see how it pans out, but for now we've gotten a lot of bags and cards out, so it feels like a success!

Santa Lucia was this week too! It is basically this choir concert thing in big churches where they are all dressed in white and have candles. It is actually kind of weird at first, but it was seriously so cool! We got to go to one is a really old church building and the singing was really good! I think we took a video, so I'll try to send that too.

This week we had zone conference, and it was an awesome Christmas themed one! There were a ton of music numbers and we did some of our mission president's Christmas traditions. One of those included watching 'It's a Wonderful Life' and that made me so happy! I've seen that movie almost every year for the past couple of years and it made me kind of sad that we wouldn't get to see it this year, but then we got to watch it in zone conference! It was so cool! The whole zone conference got me in the Christmas feeling, and getting a Christmas package from home helped too (thanks mom!)

I'm pretty pressed on time today, but things are going really well here. We've had a good week and I'm excited for the week ahead. I hope that everyone has a joyful and safe Christmas! Merry Christmas!!

Äldste Nelson

Pic 1-3: Us passing out cards and treats
Pic 4: Santa Lucia!
Video: Santa Lucia also!​

Elder Nelson's Mom here: We're having trouble accessing the video.  I'll update the post if we can get it working.  And, once again, this letter was actually sent on 12/18/17.  The same nameless someone didn't get it posted on the correct day.

All ready for Christmas!

Hello everyone!

And just like that, another week seems to have come and gone! It seemed to be pretty quick this week, at least for us way out here in Sweden. I guess the shortness of each day could be because the actual daylight only lasts a few hours! It is now officially dark by around 2:45 or so, so that's fun! It is pretty sad each day to have it dark so early, it makes me feel tired and like the day should be nearly complete by around 4:00, but nope! It just means you get used to the dark, but it really isn't bad. Anyways, there were several fun and cool things that happened this week!

We got to go and clean the temple again, and that might not sound too exciting, but I really love going! Being in the temple that long is just awesome! And it was also cool to see the nativity that they put up in front of the temple, it was a good reminder of Christmas! However, it was disorienting to come out of the temple at 3:00 to go back to work doing normal proselyting and to have it be dark already. But that's just the way it happens sometimes!

To make things a little more Christmasy in our apartment we got a Christmas Tree (the term 'tree' is being used very loosely in this case)! Haha, it is actually just the end of a branch from a pine tree, but that doesn't make it any less good of a Christmas tree! We made a little stand for it out of a toilet paper roll, were able to borrow some Christmas ornaments, and then I made a star out of some sparkly pipe cleaners I had found. It may not be the best Christmas tree in the world, but it is better than nothing, and it makes me laugh each time I see it! Merry Christmas! (I'll attach a picture, don't worry)

Overall, our investigators and work in general is going alright. I've kinda seen that people are less prone to talking to you on the street when it is freezing cold and super dark, but that isn't going to stop us! We've still met some awesome people, been able to teach, and tried to help out how we can. Things are all good! And what was also fun was that our ward had a morning last week where we went and played sports all together as the young men and the rest of the priesthood. We played basketball (me being 6' 5 certainly helped) and then a sport called innebandy, which is basically floor hockey. But it was a really good way to get to know people in our ward better and just have fun with them. It's been really good!

Well, that seems to be all the exciting stuff we were up to this last week. I hope everyone is as excited as I am for Christmas! I am grateful to be a missionary and to be able to serve people. I hope you all have a great week!


Elder Nelson


Pic 1-2: The Swedish temple (the second picture was taken at 3 pm, just so you can see how dark it gets!)
Pic 3: Our Christmas tree! (Yes, it is as majestic in real-life as it looks in the picture)

Elder Nelson's mom here: Just for record keeping purposes it should be noted that this letter should be dated Dec. 11, 2017.  Someone who shall remain nameless may have forgotten to post it on the right date.

Christmas time is near! (Finally December!)

Hello everyone, life is going well in Stockholm! We actually don't have any snow on the ground right now, but it is looking like Christmas is close everywhere we go! There are a lot of lights in people's windows, the stores have gone crazy with Christmas decorations, and a giant Christmas tree was even put up in a park-thing near our apartment. It's exciting! This week was pretty full, so I'll get into what's happened!

Firstly, we got the chance to go to the Stockholm temple, but only to clean it! It's closed for the next two weeks for cleaning, so we were invited to go and help. I wished we would have been able to go and visit the temple and do some temple work there, but at least we got to go and help prepare it for people to come in the future. And honestly, I was just happy for the opportunity to be at the temple, it's such a great place to be! Haha, and as a bonus, I was given a mop/sweeper thing and was told to clean some of the ceiling. And I can't say that I'd ever mopped a ceiling before, so that was interesting too!

Our ward had their Christmas party this week! At it we had a Julbord (traditional Swedish Christmas food), sung songs, and then the primary kids did a Nativity scene. It was really fun! We got to help set up all the decorations and helped to organize some of it, and it turned out well. The food was good, and included stuff like meatballs, ham, mashed potatoes, sill (picked herring), and a few other things. Then the nativity well done, and the singing was awesome! For the singing there was a Brother from our ward who just played the songs on his bass guitar from memory and we all sung along with him (we sung each song twice, once in Swedish and once in English for the American families). It was a really good party!

We've met a lot of really cool people this week, but one of the highlights was a new convert we got to meet with. He is pretty inactive, and it sounds like it's really hard for him to get to church. He is actually homeless, so he can't really get out to where our church is located we learned. But he is the most kind guy you'll ever meet. We didn't have a good place to sit and talk where we met him at the Stockholm Library, so we went to a nearby McDonalds. While we were there the new convert went up to buy some food for himself. He came back with a bag of several burgers, dropped them on the table, and said, 'boys, I got us a bag of burgers!' He was just so nice to us, even though he doesn't have a steady job and doesn't have an apartment right now. We are seeing what we can do to help him and help him find some help, or at least work on getting him a way to get to church each week. It was amazing to hear about how strong a testimony he has even though he doesn't have the money to get to church often or to even afford many things. It was an example to me about how our physical circumstances shouldn't determine our faith in God, but that we should be steadfast at all times. It was awesome to see!

It was a great week out here, and I'm hoping that this upcoming week will be a good and safe week for all of you! For anyone who hasn't seen it, I suggest watching the 'Light the World' initiative video, it is a super good one!


Äldste Nelson

Pic 1: Statue thing near our apartment (I know, really descriptive)
Pic 2-3: Castle/Museum down the street from us
Pic 4: View from a bridge over the water (also near our apartment)

(no subject)

It was a pretty jammin' week! Lots of good things happened this week so we were kept pretty busy! I'll just jump straight into it!

It started off pretty awesome! We on Tuesday woke up to it snowing a ton! So we got all our winter gear on and headed off into it! It was really fun to be in the snow, but being in the city means that the snow gets packed down and pretty slippery really quick! I haven't fallen yet but I don't think that that'll last too long. Having everything look so snowy and with some lights getting put up has been really cool and has gotten me excited for Christmas. But sadly the snow already melted! I expect it to come back soon and I really love how 'Christmasy' it makes everything look.

But before we really get into Christmas I have to talk about Thanksgiving. Our district of 8 all had Thanksgiving together, and we had a senior couple come that was kind enough to make us the food! So we had real turkey! And then also mashed potatoes and stuffing and all the other stuff! So that was tons of fun and was a good reminder of home and the holiday. It was awesome!

Well, I this point I'm realizing that most of the stuff this week was pretty typical, so I don't have a ton of stuff to talk about. But there was a really cool thing that happened to us this week. We were at the Book of Mormon musical passing out books and talking to people like normal. Like was typical we passed out a ton of books and had several good conversations with people. But then as we were about to return home for the evening at about 11:00 at night (we have special permission to stay out late for it), we were approached by a person. She started asking us questions and was really interested in our message and our church. She said she had seen the musical before and had several questions about us. And then she asked us if she could meet with us and we said, 'definitely'! It was really cool to find someone so interested who sought us out, and it reminded me that the Lord does prepare people for us to meet.

Well, I best be going. But I do know that the Lord is looking out for all of us and that he puts people in our path that we can help. We should always be looking out for the chance to be an example and to let our light shine. Oh, and everyone should do the Light the World initiative!!!

Have a fantastic week,
Äldste Nelson

Pic 1-2: The view outside our apartment and of the church near our apartment
Pic 3-4: The snow at the park in Karlaplan (where we live)
Pic 5: Our Thanksgiving (sorry, it's the only picture I have!)
Pic 6: Some cool moose light things. Fun fact, those moose lights are like 20 feet tall (haha, I walked under one of them!)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

yeah yeah, I know that Thanksgiving hasn't happened yet, but I can still appreciate Christmas before Thanksgiving is over! Especially because there are a ton of lights being put up and it's beginning to snow more! This week has gone by really well, and there have been some really cool miracles that we've seen here in Stockholm. Anyways, I'll just hop into it!

All of our investigators are doing well. We've continued to meet with Brandon who was recently baptized and he is still doing really well. We are still working with him towards the goal getting him to the temple to do baptisms soon. We also have been making some progress with another person who is from Sweden, so hopefully that continues on and he keeps progressing. Not a ton of movement, but things are still going.

This week was Stake Conference for us, so we went to a session on Saturday night and on Sunday. On Sunday I was asked to look up the scripture that were referenced during people's talks in English so that the person who was translating could read them. And it was more stressful than I thought it would be! Someone would mention a scripture reference and start reading so I had to find them fast so that the translation wouldn't be held up. Someone would say 'Isaiah 55 kapitel 8 till och med 9' and I had to turn there as fast as fast as possible. And it wasn't too bad or anything until someone quoted a scripture in 'ordspråkboken' and I had no idea what that meant! It turns out that that is the book Psalms in Swedish (maybe proverbs, I still can't remember). But the translation person turned to me and expected me to have the scripture opened up but I was just sitting there not knowing what to do. But besides that it went really well and I really liked Stake Conference!

We saw several really cool miracles this week, and I think I'll tell one or two of them really quickly. For one of them we were just walking down the street while going to the Tunnelbana (The subway here) station. We just decided to stop and talk to someone on a street corner, and as soon as we started talking we realized that they didn't speak English or Swedish. We couldn't really communicate with them, but we tried our best to explain who we were and that we were talking about Christ. The man spoke Spanish and kept gesturing to himself and us saying something. Turns out that he is actually a member from Colombia who is visiting Sweden! Through the wonders of Google Translate we were able to find out that he was lost and needed help getting somewhere. We were able to help him and he also wanted to know where church was this Sunday, so we gave him that information also. It was really cool to be able to help someone out so much and to just be there to give them some assistance when they needed it.

The other really cool thing that happened this week was while we were grocery shopping this week. We were looking at tortillas or something (Not important to the story) and then a person came up and started talking to us. She asked if we were Mormons and we were like, 'uh, yeah, that's us!'. She turned out to be a member who had moved here. She told us that she hadn't thought there was the church here because she was from another country, but we were able to help her and give her the address and time of our ward on Sunday. It was a strange meeting but was a cool way to help someone out.

Anyways, this week has been good and it has been a blessing to see how the Lord really looks out for all of us. He knows out circumstances and will help us when we need it. It was a blessing to be able to be someone who was able to help 2 of those children out when they needed it. Remember that the Lord knows you and cares deeply about all of His children, including you. Have a wonderful week!

Äldste Nelson


Pic 1-2: There is a church that we are near. It was pretty awesome inside!
Pic 3: The view over the water near Gamla Stan
Pic 4: It's me!
Pic 5: Christmas lights are coming!!
Pic 6: We walked out of our apartment and there was a horse... so I took a picture of it. Yup, that's the whole story!

(Elder Nelson's Mom here: Sorry this is sideways.  It's right on my computer and I can't convince Blogger to change it.)

(no subject)

Hello all! So actually not that much happened this week, it was just a normal week. But there were a couple things of note so I'll talk about those!

We officially have started to teach Brandon (the guy who was baptized) the post-baptism lessons! And they've actually been really fun! The first one we did was the restoration, and we changed the teaching up a little bit. We did a roleplay-like thing where Brandon and my companion acted like the missionaries and they taught me (a fake investigator in this senario) the first lesson. It was really cool because we could see his depth of understanding and also it was a blessing to be able to hear his testimony. It worked out really well and I feel like it was a success! Things are going well, and we hope to go to the temple with him in around 2 weeks or so!

Christmas is coming up pretty soon! And the stores here seem to know it. There are a ton of lights being put up near T Central (The big central train station) and it looks beautiful! You really get to appreciate them with how early the sun goes down! In anticipation to Christmas me and my companion have started listening to Christmas music that he has (hooray MoTab and Vocal Point). But we also have a lot of Christmas hymns that are in Swedish to listen to, so that's adds a bit of variety to our music choices. A bit of a side note here, we actually haven't had much snow or anything yet. But it's now been around 2 degrees Celcius during the day for the last day or two. So I'm expecting it to snow pretty soon! It'll be exciting!

Things weren't really that exciting or different this week! We went to the Book of Mormon Musical a few times and handed out books, which was fun and exciting like usual. But besides that we did a lot of contacting on the street (hoooray!). It is really slow work sometimes, but it is awesome to see the miracles that sometimes take place. For instance, I stopped someone on the street and began to talk with them. I found out that they had a really strong faith in Christ so I began to give a really quick overview about the Restoration. He had to leave to catch a train, but he gave me his phone number and I left him with a Restoration pamphlet. Then a few days later we called him and he sounded like he really enjoyed the pamphlet and that he had read through it. We met with him once and it went well. We had to refer him to other missionaries that were nearby because he doesn't actually live in Stockholm, but they recently told us that they started meeting with him and that things are still progressing quickly with him. It was a cool experience to be able to help someone learn about the truths that I believe and that our contacting led to some success!

Anyways, I think that's all for this week. I hope things will go well for you all this coming week!


Äldste Nelson


Pic 1: Me on Drottninggatan, the high pedestrian shopping street in Stockholm
Pic 2-3: The water and pier right down the street from our apartment

He got baptized!

Hello everyone! It's been a pretty good week here in Sweden. The exciting thing is that the investigator we have been working with got baptized on Saturday! And it was really awesome. He is from El Salvador and has been living in Sweden for several years. He also speaks Spanish and Swedish which is cool. He had began being taught about a month ago and progressed really fast and is just a solid dude.

My companion actually did the baptism and he spent a long time learning to say it is Spanish, so that is what the actual baptism was done in. It sounded awesome and I think was more meaningful to Brandon (the person who was baptised) that way. I gave a talk at his baptism (yeah, my second one this week!) and that went ok. It certainly does not get less scary to give a talk in Swedish on your second try! But everything for the baptism went smoothly and we were able to get a lot of people to show up which was really good.

Brandon's confirmation then took place in church on Sunday and it was done by a member in our ward who has become friends with Brandon and spokes Spanish also. So his confirmation was done in Spanish too. It was a really cool experience even though I couldn't really understand anything he said. Haha, but that's not super uncommon for me right now!

Another awesome thing that took place this week was that we had my first Zone Conference. And it was really fun and I was able to learn a lot. It was especially good to see the other people in my zone that came out with me to Sweden and were in the MTC with me. I didn't think it would be that awesome to see them again but it was! In zone conference we learned a lot of stuff and how to better communicate and converse with Swedes, but we also had some interesting news. We are going to be made a technology mission! I think that's going to be really helpful and improve how things go here.

It's been a really good week here. I have loved watching Brandon progress and to see his testimony and faith grow. He bore his testimony after his baptism and it was just great. I felt so happy for him when he was baptized and I believe the Lord did also. I hope everyone has a good week!


Äldste Nelson


Pic 1-3: My companion, our investigator, and myself
Pic 4: All the Stockholm area missionaries (Elders and Sisters)