Mission Tour

Tjena! How's it going? I can't believe my 6 months is creeping up on me. It's going SO fast. And my swedish isn't coming as fast as the time is going. But it's been cool to be in this area for so long and have people tell me how much they've seen my progress and see the gift of tongues working! It's seriously the most frustrating thing in the world to try to learn the language that you don't use more than an hour or two per day. We made Henrik speak Swedish with us and we are trying to convince all of our investigators to let us speak swedish. "You just are so much more sincere in English." It seems like a blessing, but it makes it super hard to learn and to practice. Everyone just wants to practice their english with us haha.

This week went slow haha. But it's 40 degrees and I am not wearing tights or my coat! So that's really exciting. It's light from like 7-6 and it's blue skies most days. My mood is so much better, and so are the moods of the Swedes haha. The work is really picking up, and so are the referrals! That's been really fun. So the highlight of the week was MISSION TOUR!!!!!!! We flew to Stockholm on Monday night and we went to one of our Elder's favorite investigators house's and they were really fun. Then we went to stay with the STLs, and it turns out one of them is from Spokane and we talked about Kyle for like 30 minutes haha. 

Mission tour was incredible. Elder Donaldson came and the whole thing was about the Holy Ghost. I learned so much. The AP´s taught really well, they did a role play that I learned so much from. Elder Donaldson talked about how people feel the spirit very differently, and the way you describe it to them and the questions you ask will be crucial in helping them recognize it and get an answer of the truthfulness of the gospel. He talked about experiences he had, where because he followed the spirit, his investigators knew the gospel was true. He then had an Elder come up and share the most powerful spiritual experience he had ever had, and it happened to be Elder Johnson from my MTC group, who shared the experience of when he gave me a blessing in the MTC. I don't know if you remember that, but I was having a really hard time in the MTC and asked for a blessing and he quoted my patriarchal blessing, answered questions I had, and I had never felt the spirit so strong in my life, and I just told him how inspired it was, and he couldn't even remember what he had said. After he shared the experience, Elder Donaldson looked at me, and asked me to come up and share my version of the story. So I did, and after I got done and all those memories had came back he asked me, "If you were an investigator, and that experience happened to you, would you accept the invitation to be baptized?" and I said "Absolutely." 

It really made me think, it's our responsibility to give people that opportunity. They have the choice to accept, but the more in tune with the spirit we are, the better chance they have at truly knowing the gospel is true. The same thing goes for the members. If the members are in tune with the spirit, the investigators can have the experience they need to have at church to know the church is true. Hard work, service, and the spirit. I feel like those are the three things that set apart a decent missionary from incredible missionaries. So that's what I am working on right now, is trying to be clean enough to be able to REALLY be led by the spirit. And I will invite you to do the same :)

I got to see almost all of my MTC group and that was just so fun for me. I love them. There is a special bond between everyone's MTC group. There should be, you spent 6 straight weeks together haha. I got to see Syster Modersitzki and that was really fun too! She is doing great in Uppsala.

We had trouble meeting with our investigators this week. We are also struggling to get people to church consistently. They all come so sporadically. We have so many people who really want to know if it's true, and they have amazing experiences, and we are just helping them realize those experiences as God's love and the Holy Ghost testifying of truth. One of our chinese investigators read the chapter we assigned her and asked wonderful, wonderful questions and that was probably the highlight of the week. "How do I feel the spirit? How do I get that?" Best. Question. Ever. Hopefully we can meet with everyone this week!

Ok, I love you all so much! I hope you know that. I hope you have a really wonderful week!

Love, 

Syster Stetler

Syster Stetler with her trainer, sledding on the frozen ocean! 

Syster Stetler reunited with her MTC District