Transfer Drama

My baby is leaving............ She's going to Norrköping. Ever heard of it? Didn't think so... haha. I am really going to miss her. :( And I am getting Sister Sorenson! The really talented Sister that does all the chalk art. She's just in Täby so she is making a really small move, same chapel and everything. But I'm excited, it'll be fun.

Ah, I don't have my planner so I'm trying to remember what happened this week. Probably something about missionary work. That's usually how these things go.... We are reading Sister Jackson's brother's email in Arizona and he already committed someone to baptism and he has been there for a week. I'm just trying to make anything from this week sound relatively cool now haha. 

We gave out a few more of our "Family Mission Plans" and we have gotten really positive and not so positive reactions. We have had people say, "Oh, I feel so guilty! I have not been doing this!" and we have had "No one is interested here. No one wants religion. I've tried, it doesn't work." It's easy to lose faith here. I'm seeing it everywhere. But we also got a really positive response yesterday. The Chilean couple came up to us and told us all about someone they are planning to invite over and asked us to pray for them and she was just GLOWING and so excited. It was really cool to see! If I can just get the ward excited about missionary work and talking to their friends in addition to my own efforts, I will feel okay about my time here in Stockholm. It's been really clear that this is what we are supposed to do! 

We also made some Rice Crispie treats and brought them by less actives. One of them was so confused, "Is this rice?????" Haha. Oh! And Soledad is doing awesome! We are going to start having family home evening with her family once a week and we are going to help her teach her kids about Jesus and stories from the scriptures. I can't wait. :) If you want to pray for her and her family, that would be awesome. I really hope her husband will respond to it well! Also, an older Finnish lady's son came to church after about 20 years of not coming, and why? Because a member called him and invited him. Don't ever underestimate how powerful a simple invitation can be!  That's all we are asked to do as members of the church, but we need to do it!!!! "Just do it" is our motto nowadays, or "Gör det bara."

Oh, so we tried to do chalk art again... Fail. We did it in this really public place and we were drawing a map of the world and all the sudden there was these two little tiny Chinese boys that started singing Michael Jackson and crowds of people started gathering... Then, I was in the middle of teaching a lesson and all the sudden I looked up and saw a bunch of signs for "Human Rights" and a HUGE crowd gathering around and all the sudden people were chanting "No borders! No nations! No segregation!" "Borders are illegal not people!" It was incredibly ironic that we were drawing all the different countries as this was going on, we realized pretty quickly that we didn't want to be associated with that so we took off. But yeah, there's quite a bit of political talk here about whether or not Sweden should let so many immigrants in, especially with everything going on in the Middle East. It was interesting to say the least. 

A cool story I read about repentance that I wanted to share. Repentance is one of those topics that we hear about so often that I think we brush it off and think "I know" kind of like prayer. But we need to ask ourselves:

Am I repenting every day?

Are my weaknesses becoming strengths?

Am I relying on the grace of Christ every day? 

Am I using the sacrament to renew my baptismal covenants and become clean as I was after baptism?

Are the scriptures/conference talks/church meetings ... etc. leading me to CHANGE?

If not, we are living under our potential. So that's something I'm working on! Those are just my thoughts.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1986/10/come-back-to-the-lord?lang=eng

Oh my gosh! I just realized this talk is from Elder Howard! In our ward! WHAT. MIND BLOWN.

I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Syster Stetler

The Missionary Next Door

ERIK GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) I'll send pictures. He's the Swede from Gävle that was SO READY! :)

Well this was another very exciting week in Stockholm.... This week consists of blank days and stomach aches. I really didn't feel good all week and we really didn't have a ton of success, but it still had some good things!

So we went to the Vasa on Monday, it was pretty cool! I am terrible at museums though, I get bored pretty fast... But it's an old war ship from the 1600s that they spent a ton of effort on and made it reeeeeeal fancy, and it sunk like 5 minutes into their journey #embarrassing.... So for some reason it took like 300 years to find it, even though it was a quick boat ride out from the shore. I'm not really sure about the details, they had a video but for some reason it was in Spanish. #sweden 

Tuesday was slightly more interesting, we had zone conference. It was really good, we learned all about the history of the mission in Sweden then talked about Becoming a Preach my Gospel Missionary from Elder Bednar. I love that talk, I knew it from when the Elders in Elko burned CDs on our computer and that was left on there. (Speaking of that, whenever you send a package can you send the talk "The Missionary Next Door" by that girl that talks about member missionary work? If it could be somehow sent through the computer that would be cool too. I just want to hear some of that stuff as we are working on member missionary work) But anyways, I love that talk. It was cool too because Elder Sahlin is Swedish and he just thanked us for helping his people and doing what we do. I love the people here they just need to let me love them haha. Also, I tried to contact a girl on a tunnelbana (Subway) and Sister Jackson completely fell on her lap due to a hasty stop. She didn't appreciate it.

Wednesday we taught English to four Japanese ladies #shoutouttoAisa. I love teaching English. We are working on making that way bigger, I think it's our best chance to meet people! Afterwards, Aisa took us to a Japanese buffet. It was really good! I can't tell you how many Asian buffets I have been to as a missionary, especially in Stockholm. I don't know what it is, but if you want to find the missionaries in Stockholm, hit up an Asian buffet. Seriously, any Asian country. 

We also ate Chilean food again with the Cordovas! It was incredible, as always. And I got a whole history lesson on Chile. I seriously love their family so much! Brother Cordova reminds me of dad. A Chilean version haha.

The rest of the week was finding and working on our plan for working with members better. Our idea: Family Mission Plan. We are meeting with everyone that will have us and having them fill this plan out that we made. I'll attach it. You guys should do it too! I guess I'll just get started with my rant on this because it's inevitable and I can feel it coming haha. I was thinking a lot about my mission, what's been successful, what hasn't been... and what God wants me to learn and do on my mission. I only have 7 months left... And I thought about that story that you guys probably know about how God told a man he was supposed to push a rock and he pushed and pushed and got stronger and then got really upset that it never moved and God told him that he was just supposed to push. In a lot of ways that's how I've felt. I've pushed, and I can keep pushing. I don't mind it... And I've gained a lot personally. But God called me and other missionaries here to move the rock, not just push it. But Syster Jackson and I can't do it by ourselves so we are recruiting the help of the members and relying on God as much as possible. There are INCREDIBLE promises made to Sweden about missionary work, not to mention the entire world. Don't make the missionaries push alone!!!!! It's very noble to serve a mission and give it everything you have and get stronger and better because of it, but if we can move the rock we should! It's going to take everyone.

I love you guys! I love the gospel. I am studying the Atonement and truly learning what it means to repent and come unto Christ and there is nothing sweeter in this world. 

Love,

Syster Stetler

What even happened this week?

Hey! I hope you all had a great week! :)

This week I went on splits! They were pretty fun. I went with Sister Kam-oh-wo-hah. She is from Hawaii and she looks like a little Hawaiian Barbie. We went to Uppsala and it was super fun because it's all college students so you can just walk around and talk to people and they are all super open to talking! 

Other than that, not much really happened. We are going to start having all the members do a "family mission plan". It's gonna be great to get to know the members better and get some help with missionary work!

We just keep on finding.... we are really hoping that we can set up some lessons this week... but, the future is bright. Transfers are coming up and I really don't want to go... I feel like I haven't been here long enough to improve things at all.

AH! I am sorry this email is so bad, I just really don't have anything to tell... I'll keep thinking though and maybe add more.

Love,

Syster Stetler

Transfer to Norway

Aug 17

I think I belong in Norway. I get asked at least once a day if I am from there haha. I told a guy that I was from America and he still asked if I learned the language in Norway. I don't even know. Haha. 

Last pday was CRAZY! I saw Ilse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) She is seriously the cutest thing ever. We went to lunch with her boyfriend from America and her friend from Finland. It was so fun, we ate at this place with a really nice view. It was nice to see someone from home. I have pics. :) Also, I saw Anne and she tried to spank Sister Jackson and was as crazy as ever. Hahaha. I love her. You guys have to meet her. After that, we played sports together because the weather has been absolutely beautiful. FINALLY. 

We did chalk art again this week! We... well.... they drew the nephite temple when Jesus came to the Americas. I didn't do any of that, I just walked around and talked to people for about 4 or 5 hours straight. I even talked to a guy while eating a sandwich haha. So classy. But it was fun. I met some incredible people, and talked to more Swedes than I probably have my whole mission. They were very curious as to what was going on. Hopefully we can teach some more people from it! :)

We taught Danny about the Restoration! So fun! He is so cool. He isn't in our ward boundaries so we got him in touch with the elders in Gubbängen and they all went to their sports night and so we will continue teaching him English and see how it goes. :)

We taught a less active and a nonmember family... kind of... they live together. #sambo But it was really fun to teach a family. We don't get to do that very often. We also helped an investigator move into her new house and she fed us the best Chinese food everrrrrrrr and we got to know her husband. 

We had some really fun member dinners here this week, too. I am in love with our ward mission leader and his SUPER pregnant wife and little 2 year old boy. They are the cutest little family ever. And the Pences are still awesome! They take such good care of us! :)

This week I started a "small plates" journal and just am writing lessons that I have learned while being on my mission. I have learned a lot, and also learned how much I still need to learn. But one thing I added to it from this week was how God communicates to us through prayer. So Sister Jackson and I really like to compare prayer to electricity. We all have faith in electricity. When we turn a light on and it doesn't work, we don't doubt the reality of electricity, we doubt the connection, something in the wiring. It should be the same way with prayer. When it doesn't work, we should doubt the connection, not the actual principle of prayer or of God's love or even existence. I'll be honest, I have prayed for a lot of things and they haven't happened. I have prayed for a lot of things that have miraculously happened as well. I still need to learn a lot and gain a lot more faith and be more in tune with God's will. But my patriarchal blessing says something along the lines of me feeling his love for me as I pray. I kind of wondered if I would ever feel that, because usually my prayers are answered the next day or in a week, but not usually immediately. But this week I was praying more sincerely than I probably ever have and I felt this huge warm feeling come over me and I want to feel that every time I pray. I think sometimes we miss out on spiritual experiences because of the repetition or "easiness of the way". We can gain a deeper conviction of every single gospel principle and prayer is the key to it all. 

Have a great week! 

Love,

Syster Stetler

Gronask Eld

Hej a. Julia called up and said she's coming to Stockholm... so.... I told Sister Jackson she usually behaves better when we are in public, but we'll see what happens. "Because I like it" is like her catch phrase haha. Also, lunch appointment with ILSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) I am soooo excited to see her! And after that we are playing sports outside because it's absolutely beautiful. August has FINALLY been summer. It's been so sunny and nice so we want to take advantage of that. 

I'll start out with a funny lesson we had. I called this girl, Jane and she didn't answer but texted me in Chinese... so I texted back in Chinese, then she texted back, "I call you tomorrow." So we met with her and she's super cute. We started teaching her about the Restoration and we told her about God, Christ, and then the authority being lost. "So, Janice, what did we just teach you about authority?" "That it was lost so we can pray for it and then we all can have it and do what we want!" ..... Oooh... So we start reexplaining and she's like, "Ahh, I gotta go, I have a lot to do." So... the authority was taken from the earth.... the end. Hopefully we can meet with her again. Soon.

This week was transfers, and the trains just decided to have electrical problems, so we went to the Central Station and helped people out with their bags and such. I saw Sister Kimball! She is so cute. She is going back to the south so I will miss her. Apparently the south just isn't in the stars for me. I really want to go to Gothenburg. Anyways, that's a huge sidetrack. I wanted to get to the greenie situation. 13 elders came in and one is in our ward with us. He is suuuuuch a greenie haha. He speaks swenglish like 100% of the time haha. So cute. He always says "Mycket bra" and no one ever says that here haha... 

So as for the good stuff, Soledad came to church again! We met with her and she is doing so well, I'm so impressed. She has made the decision to be active and she is sticking with it! I'm just in love with her son Kevin. He had me draw 8 sea animals during Sacrament meeting and cut them out so he could play with them. His mom said that when she is like, "Let's go to church" he says, "with the missionaries?!?" I. love. him.

DANNY! The 18 year old that we teach English to! He came to church!!! So we invited him to a BBQ that the missionaries were having and he came and he loved it. Everyone just came up and talked to him and we ate and played ultimate frisbee and had a great time, then we invited him to church and he came! It was the coolest thing ever, because we haven't even taught him anything. He's the best.

So that's pretty much the week. We had dinner at the Pence's, as usual, and they are the best family ever. We drank mate! It still tastes like grass. But we had tacos and fun dips... I love Americans. :)

“Service to others deepens and sweetens this life while we are preparing to live in a better world. … When we are engaged in the service of our fellowmen, not only do our deeds assist them, but we put our own problems in a fresher perspective. When we concern ourselves more with others, there is less time to be concerned with ourselves! In the midst of the miracle of serving, there is the promise of Jesus that by losing ourselves, we find ourselves! [See Matthew 10:39.]

“Not only do we ‘find’ ourselves in terms of acknowledging divine guidance in our lives, but the more we serve our fellowmen in appropriate ways, the more substance there is to our souls. … We become more substantive as we serve others—indeed, it is easier to ‘find’ ourselves because there is so much more of us to find!”³²

I love this quote. I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Syster Stetler