Stake Conference in Stockholm

Well, the weather has officially gotten spring-y and for the most part the sun it out. I do love that I can wear only a white shirt now! For now, the days are really long but very nice. Pretty soon, it is going to be light from the time we wake up until the time we go to sleep! But some good things happened this week, so I will get on into it!

We went on exchanges in Uppsala, and what made it so awesome was that the weather was so nice. And Uppsala is a giant university town. So we, along with thousands of other people, travelled the city with bikes! It was awesome to be around a ton of other people biking, a beautiful river, and flower lined streets.

After that, we had stake conference down in Stockholm. So we went down on Saturday, and were able to go contacting and finding in my old area for a few hours. It was a blast and brought back tons of memories! And then the stake conference itself was very good! We have a member of the 70 come from France to be with us at the conference and teach us. I don't know his name exactly, but it was a French name sounding something like Elder Calezar (something like that!). One of the best parts of the whole conference was the ability to see all the ward members from my old ward, the Stockholm ward. It was a blessing to see all the members that I knew from my old ward that I served in! We had a great time down there, and there was some good things we learned from the member of the 70.

Some other quick news is that we (the Stockholm zone) will be technology missionaries. We will all be recieving smartphones and using social media with proselyting. So that is exciting and I am looking forward to that!

Oh, and one more announcement! Sweden will be having Elder Renlund of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles come and visit this coming Sunday and Monday. On Sunday he will be stopping to all the church members in the country from Stockholm, and on Monday he will have a meeting that will be with the missionaries in Stockholm city and sent out to all the missionaries in the country. It is an amazing opportunity!!

Well, that's most of what happened this week! Have a good week everyone!

Elder Nelson

Pic 1: Tooons of bikes in Uppsala
Pic 2: Going out to bike
Pic 3: Look at that blue sky!
Pic 4: My companion and I

White shirts only (haha, sometimes)!

I never thought that it would happen, but Sweden has officially warmed up for us in Borlänge! During the middle of the day it is warm enough that we only will wear white shirts! I didn't think it would be possible! The sun is now up when we wake up at 6:30, and it sets around 8:30 at night. The days are getting longer and longer! But I'll get into the week a little more.

The work has been progressing well this week. We've taught some good lessons, found some new people, and have made some really good steps forward with a less active member. Overall it has been a really good week. The sun has been out and shining, so I has felt wonderful to be out and talking to people, I am looking forward to the Summer here!

There wasn't a ton that went on this week with specifics, but it was just a good week in general. I did have the chance to re-read the talk given by Russel M Nelson in general conference again though. And to me, it really stood out how we can and should be feeling the infuence of the Spirit every day in our lives. I really believe that it is true, and when I have tried to seek that inspiration and guidance, I have been able to find it more. I really do believe that Russel M Nelson is the prophet for us today, and that we will be helped through life as we follow his counsel.

Good luck to everyone who may have finals or any kinds of end of year school tests! I wish you all a wonderful week!


Elder Nelson


Pic 1:The first wildflowers I've seen in Sweden!
Pic 2: Livin' the white shirt life (although my comp hadn't gotten the memo at the time!)

(received 4/16/18)

In a bit of a hurry, but doing well!

*Notice: This email was supposed to be sent last week, April 9, but it didn't send, so I'm sending it now.

Hello! I don't have much time this week because we were gone for a lot of the day at the Dalahäst factory. It is the one place that they make, hand carve, and paint what are called Dalahästar. hey are small painted wooden horses that this area of Sweden is famous for. I'll make sure to send some pictures. But it was super cool to watch them make them! The people that paint them make paint all the details on the horse in only around 1-1.5 minutes, the precision and speed is awesome! So yeah, we were there to check it out and buy some. But now I don't have much time, sorry it's short!

This last week went well for us. We were able to teach several people, found several new investigators, and also went on exchanges with the elders in Uppsala. It was a good week and a good P-Day!


Elder Nelson


Pic 1: We made a cake to celebrate the church's birthday! (april 6, 1820, woot woot!)
Pic 2: Someone made us lasagne and decided to give each of us half of it... yeah
Pic 3-5: Dalahäst factory!!!

(received April 16, 2018)

Easter and General Conference!

We were blessed with both General Conference and Easter this week! It has been a beautiful sunny week, and it is now officially April! What a great week! The week has been pretty good for us out here, so I think I'll get right into it.

We got a ward mission leader this week! We haven't had one for a long time in this area, so we have been occasionally meeting with a member of the bishopric. But now we've got one! So that's exciting and I'm looking forward to working with him!

On Thursday we were in a city for Gävle for district meeting. Because of how far away we live from other missionaries, we only get to have our weekly district meeting in person one time per 6 weeks. Other than that we use Skype instead. So it was super fun to get to be there in person and see another city (Gävle is super pretty and close to the ocean).

Because it was Easter we went down had a påskafton (Easter-eve) dinner with the bishop. It was super fun! We had good food and played games and had a good time in general! And after that we went to General Conference at the church building. And luckily they had it playing in English in a side room, so that was super nice.

Generally, missionaries here have a bit of a tradition of buying a lot of candy for General Conference, and I couldn't let that tradition slip by me! So my companion and I bought a lot of candy! It was super fun, but I felt a little sick by the end of Saturday and Sunday!

General Conference was wonderful though. If you haven't had the opportunity to watch it, I would strongly recommend doing so. It was a very powerful conference with the new prophet, Russel M Nelson. I felt authority and power in his words as he spoke on Sunday morning, and it confirmed to me that he really is the man called of God to lead His church. It strengthened my testimony, and I know it can do the same for each of you if you study the prophets words and prayerfully consider what he's said.

I wish you all a great week!


Elder Nelson


Pic 1: So the sign says, 'bikes banned'
Pic 2: It be April already, but outside doesn't totally agree
Pic 3: Easter Dinner
Pic 4: Moose crossing
Pic 5: How we watched conference

Happy Easter!

We are in for a special treat this week, Easter and General Conference! I'm looking forward to it! Life in Borlänge has been good! This week actually warmed up a ton, so a lot of the snow has been melting! Spring is coming so fast! Haha, now there are giant giant puddles that freeze solid in the nighttime, but hey, Spring is still on it's way. The week has been a busy one, so I'm going to hope right in.

This week we had splits. And man, it was an adventure to say the least. So the plan was for me and my companion to travel down to Uppsala (around 1.5 hours away by train) and then for me to pick up an elder from Uppsala and come back to Borlänge so we could work here for the next day. So we went down on Tuesday night, but on our way to Uppsala, we recieved notice that our seats on the train back to Borlänge had been cancelled, so we couldn't come back that night. So it let to us having a surprise sleepover with the Uppsala Elders. Which was fun and everything, but I hadn't packed any clothes or anything because I had planned to be back in my apartment that night. So we had lots of fun and stuff, but it was difficult to travel around Uppsala without bus cards! But we got everything figured out and the rest of exchanges went well from then on!

Something we went to this last week is called a språk cafe. It is an place where people gather every Thursday to just speak Swedish and practice with each other, but we went because we were meeting an investigator there. But being there was super cool, and we actually were talking to someone there and they were really interested in the church, so we gave them a card. And then, him and his wife showed up to church on Sunday! It was super cool and way awesome to find someone who was so ready and willing to come to church with us!

One last cool thing. So the church is not doing a full world-wide Easter initiative this year. But the Europe presidency decided to do one for all of Europe. So they made a video, we have cards, and we are doing things with ward members here in Sweden, so that's super cool! But I decided to share the video with you all because there isn't much of an initiative happening in the US, so here is the link to the video (haha, I should send the link that is in English, not Swedish). I really enjoyed it!

http://www.lds.org.uk/jesus-christ-is-always-there-easter-2018?lang=eng-gb

Have a great week everyone! Don't forget to watch Conference and to remember the real reason for Easter!


Elder Nelson


Pic 1: We made banana bread (and it didn't even turn out badly!)
Pic 2: We found a giant horse statue thing!
Pic 3: Språk cafe
Pic 4: A member made us an awesome lunch!

Spring is... coming?

Well, it has officially started to warm up! We have had a couple days of just sun, and it has felt really nice! The only problem is that everything is icy! But is has been absolutely beautiful and feeling the sun does feel so nice! It's still cold, but at least we've had a taste of Spring to come. But anyways, it was a good week!

We were in a nearby city called Falun, and it was awesome! We have several investigators there and so we were out there to teach. But it amazed me how beautiful the city is! And I have actually been told that the city is well over 1000 years old. And they have a giant ski jump you can see from the city, so that's cool too!

We actually were at another city as well this last week to help a member move. It is a small city called Leksand, but it was a classic Swedish village and was awesome! There were just all these little wooden red houses in the snowy forest that were surrounding a lake. And to make it better, they all had little lights in the windows. It was so beautiful!! And it was good to be able to help a new member move into their house and serve them in that way.

We did a lot of normal proselyting and tracting this week as well. We had a couple of really good experiences this past week doing that. And to make it even better, we found the awesome fox-wolf-dog again! Haha, it's the little things sometimes! But we did have some good experiences talking to people and giving people copies of the Book of Mormon as well.

But yes, it was a good week! I hope you all had a good week as well! I saw an awesome video this week, and so I'll add the link to that as well. Have a good one!


Elder Nelson


Pic 1: The icicles are growing
Pic 2: The giant ski jump at Falun
Pic 3: The magical fox-wolf-dog-hound

I forgot to add this! So here it is, have a good week!

Bo länge i Borlänge för länge

Ok, the week has been a pretty good one! And I was actually hoping that we might be on the way out of winter pretty soon because it started to warm up, but that wasn't the case! I'd say that it has probably snowed a good 8 inches or so in the last week! Winter certainly isn't a short season! We have had some super great experiences this week, so I'm going to hop right in!

Firstly, we had zone conference one Tuesday, and it was great! We took a train down to Stockholm and stayed there the night, then went to the conference. Our mission is becoming a technology mission, so we had a lot of training on that. We should get our devices next transfer (around 6 weeks from now) so that'll be good! It was super fun to be back where I was trained and had been so long down in Stockholm!

We have several new investigators this week, and it has been good teaching them. And other things like tracting have been pretty successful the last few days as well. For instance, in just about an hour or so of proselyting we were able to talk to a lot of people, give out a Book of Mormon, and then were inviting into another house to teach a lesson.

Sunday this week was super funny and intesting! Earlier in the week we had been at a bishopric meeting, and had sung an opening song with them, Israel Israel God is calling. Later that night I got a text asking me to give a talk on Sunday. So we showed up to church and I was ready to talk. Then a bishopric member came up and told us, around 2 minutes before church started, that we were going to sing 'Israel nu Gud dig kallar' in Sacrament meeting with them! So we ended up blessing the sacrament, my comp gave the opening prayer, then we sung with the bishopric (haha, we aren't the most talented singers it turns out!), and then I gave my talk. It felt like us missionaries were running the show!

After sacrament meeting we saw someone in the hallway we didn't recognize, and so we went up and talked to them. It turned out that they had investigated the church in a Swedish city called Umeå but then moved here a while ago. And they looked up the church here (after several months) and showed up. We were able to teach him a lesson during the second hour of church, and are now meeting with him again this week. It was a really cool miracle!

Anyways, the week had been full of awesome things. I hope that you all are able to have a great week and are able to see the hand of the Lord in your hand everyday. He really does love us and look out for all of us!


Elder Nelson


Pic 1: Livin' it up in Stockholm (at Zone Conference!)
Pic 2: Awesome fox-wolf-dog we saw!
Pic 3: It's me!
Pic 4: We found some Arabic treasure