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| April Fools joke...Elder not aware of missionary tag switch. |
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| Easter cookies |
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| Jordan always with a thumbs up loves her mission! |
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| Dinner at a members home along with some investigators. |
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| Soup always a staple. |
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| The Northern Lights |
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| Who says missionaries can't celebrate St. Patty's Day... |
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| Loving the bike but a little challenging in a skirt. |
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| Tennis anyone? |
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| Cold! |
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| Post Ward Council meeting photo opportunity. |
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| "Loving my mission" |
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| Pday exploring |
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| Syster Lund and Syster Poulson |
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| More pday |
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| Planting flowers at the Stockholm Temple |
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| CARE PACKAGE! |
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| Dinner invites |
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| All smiles again! |
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NEWS FROM SWEDEN
March 15, 2015
Hej Hej!
Happy P day! This week went by sooo fast but that is okay, it's kinda nice when it flies by.
We had tacos this
week at a members house - it was basically the best thing ever.
We have been
teaching a less active family (the dad and mom are members and their 3 cute
girls arent). And we finally got through to him this last week. We will be
meeting with them again tomorrow to talk more about coming back to church and
getting the girls baptized. They are a super cool family..it's awesome to
meet with them.
Our light bulb (the
main one in our tiny apartment) went out on Monday. We got it fixed finally
on Friday
...but it was super
hard to work with little tiny candles and the bathroom and kitchen lights all
week. We also got bikes!! Super exciting!! Except we look like dweebs with
our helmets but that is okay, because...you know...bikes.
I've been kinda
sick all week. Some weird sinus thing is going around through the
missionaries. I am getting lots better but just didn't feel 100% all week. I
keep thinking about a talk I read that as a missionary, if you are tired, you
need to push even harder. So, I am doing my best, pushing hard, and knowing
my limits so that I can get better quick!
We had a lesson
with a member on Thursday and just practiced the Restoration (that is what
President has asked us to do). We didnt think that we did that great of a
job, but it really touched the lady we were teaching and she actually began
crying. It was super cool to see how even though we aren't the best teachers,
the Holy Ghost is.
We
have been reading lots of conference talks lately, but something that stood
out to me in one that I was reading (as we talk to less actives) is that the
ultimate way to show your love for the Lord is loyalty. Loyalty to the
church, the teachings, the doctrines, and the commandments. It's super cool
knowing that if we are loyal through everything, things will be okay and that
we will be in the comfort of the Lord's hands.
I
hope you all have a wonderful week!! Love and miss you all lots!
Syster Lund
March 23, 2015
I hope that all is
going well with you guys. This week has FLOWN BY.
Happy St. Pattys day!
Apparently, people don't celebrate it Sweden, but no worries, Sys. Poulson and
I ate pie anddd wore green on St. Pattys day. Last Pday we went with the elders
and explored this cool forrest thing and had lunch. We went to this new
convert's house for a BBQ later that night...we ended up eating charred lamb
but blood on it - not sure how that happened.
We met this guy on
the street last week and got his number and ended up playing this cool game
with him...they call it bowls. It's hard to explain but it's a mix between
bocce ball and bowling. We went and met all his friends #jackpot.
ALSO, St Pattys day
was ESPECIALLY awesome because we saw the Northern Lights and they were
GREEN!!! Like what are the chances of that...I was beyond happy. So super cool.
I was so excited and we just kinda stayed outside for a bit until they
disappeared.
We ate some weird
fish this week...but we didn't get sick! And the family was super nice for
opening their home to us anyways.
I got my boots shined
by one of the elders here (Elder Featherstone) and he did a super bomb job!
They look brand new!
Thursday we had to
speak Swedish all day, it was hard but super helpful. We got kebab again after
the district meeting. We played soccer with all these cool guys again and got
some pics.
The bikes we got are
super fun! We've been on them twice and turns out, it is a LOT harder to get
off in a skirt and rainboots than one would think! #devastating.
We played tennis this
week with the wife of a inactive family we are working with!! Man it was so
great. She was fun to play with and we just had a good time! And now we know
where the tennis courts are. Except its like 230 kr for an hour on one court
and 90 kr for balls and 30 kr to rent a tennis racket. Pricy! But it was fun :)
We had dinner at
Lindas (member) and it was so fun! We helped her out in her house a bit and
then talked with her and her nonmember daughter for a while and just ate food.
So fun!! Love both of them so much!
We gave a lesson in
Relief Society yesterday...in Swedish. And the whole RS sang in sacrament
meeting. It was basically like a women's day for the main meeting. Even the
closing song was "As Sisters in Zion" and the men were all just
laughing and trying to sing without being awkward as.
Life is so great!! I
am super excited for GC coming up! This week we read a talk called Lord is is
I? and it talks about not looking at the faults of others when you have places
to improve in. It was really eye opening and a good reminder that we all have a
lot that we can do better with and change for the better.
Love and miss you
all!
Syster Lund
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March 30, 2015
Hej hej allihoppa!!
This week has been
all over the place. Last Pday I got my first little set of actual makeup - yes
mom and dad, there is hope for me someday. Sys. Poulson was super helpful when
I was trying to decide what was best. We went to Miriam's Monday for FHE with
her and the elders. It was fun, she is such a sweet lady (in our ward).
Tuesday night was
super crazy. We had a dinner at 5:30, bowls at 6 (that weird bocce game I
was talking about last week), and a lesson at 7. It was a super crazy night and
we were biking all over the place but it was good. I got really good at making
Snickerdoodle cookies this week, I did it two days in a row. We made tons of
cookies for less actives and investigators and members.
We are working on
training our Ward Mission Leader (I dont know why they didn't do it sooner) so
we can break into the untapped potential of the ward! Should be good.
We had Ward Council
and took a HILARIOUS picture that I will send shortly. The elders practiced
jumping over things and got really good at it without getting hurt haha
#impressive
We met with President
this week during district meeting. Sys. Poulson and I got delicious homemade
pudding from our DL because we sent in our numbers first last Sunday!
We went on exchanges
with the Sister Training Leaders! It was my first one but I didnt really know
what to expect. But basically we just spent 24 hours with another comp. I was
with Sys. Stewart who goes home in 3 days and that I actually went out with the
first day I was in Sweden. She is super cool and fun, but I was glad to be back
with mama Poulson after.
Syster Poulson
sprained her ankle while she stayed here for exchanges. She did it playing
soccer so we are out for a couple days. We are resting it and icing and
elevating. It's reeeeallly hard for her to walk, but she is a trooper. Anywhere
that we have to go that is more than like 200 m we take a bike. And that is
only if we have to go...we cancelled a couple appointments we had because her
foot didn't feel good. I think it is getting better so hopefully we will be
back and running shortly.
We had dinner with a
lady that only spoke Danish to us...I'm still working on understanding Swedish
so there was basically no hope for me or Elder Burton (other greenie here). It
was funny to just watch Elder Featherstone take it all for us and talk to her -
true gem.
We've been laying low and catching up on area book stuff and
numbers we've gotten.
Good quote from the week that we attached to the cookies we
delivered: "When everything says you can't, believe in the part of you
that says you can." We are kinda having a tough time right now with people
to teach and with Sys. Poulson's ankle, but we have not given up ANY hope. We
know where our beliefs are and no one can discourage us or this work!!
Love and miss you all!! I hope you have a great week :)'
Syster Lund
April 6, 2015
Hej hej!
I hope that everyone is doing well!
This week had some lows and then finished on a really high note! Last Pday we got these super cool erasable pens - We searched all over the mall for them and finally found them! We bought like 5 each haha. Tuesday was probably the hardest day of the mission so far. We had so many good awesome lessons planned and they basically all fell through. Our object lesson didn't work super well and one didn't even want to see the Easter Video. It was just kinda tough but we decided it would just make the rest of the week that much better...and it did! Wednesday was April Fools and Sys Poulson and I had lots planned but we decided that it probably wouldnt be the best idea as missionaries so we played a simple nametag trick on Elder Burton and took a picture before he realized haha. The elders got us back good. They called us at 9pm and said hey you need to hustle over to the church, there is a lady that we have been teaching that wants to meet with the sisters because she has received an answer to her prayers. They made this call immediately after we had shagged down and into our Pjs and after I had mentioned that I was surprised the elders didnt get us. Needless to say, I knew it was fake the whole time...but because of the shred of what if they actually are telling the truth, we decided to go. We got there and there was a sticky note on the door that said "April Fools, fools!" oh man we were peeved. We noticed their phone in the corner and grabbed it and booked it out of there as fast as we could. They ran after us and grabbed their phone (after we had sent ourselves the video and deleted it from their phone). They were upset about that one hahah it was hilarious. Props to them for sure though. We talked to a guy on the street that day for about an hour and man he was struggling with all sorts of stuff. We were walking on the other side of the street and we saw him and felt prompted to cross the street and talk to him. After pouring our hearts, souls, and testimony out to him for an hour he didn't want to meet again, which is a major bummer. I'm sure we'll see him again though :) There are construction workers across the street that always call things out to us - I wish I knew Swedish better haha, we'll teach them, sometime this week for sure.
I hope that everyone is doing well!
This week had some lows and then finished on a really high note! Last Pday we got these super cool erasable pens - We searched all over the mall for them and finally found them! We bought like 5 each haha. Tuesday was probably the hardest day of the mission so far. We had so many good awesome lessons planned and they basically all fell through. Our object lesson didn't work super well and one didn't even want to see the Easter Video. It was just kinda tough but we decided it would just make the rest of the week that much better...and it did! Wednesday was April Fools and Sys Poulson and I had lots planned but we decided that it probably wouldnt be the best idea as missionaries so we played a simple nametag trick on Elder Burton and took a picture before he realized haha. The elders got us back good. They called us at 9pm and said hey you need to hustle over to the church, there is a lady that we have been teaching that wants to meet with the sisters because she has received an answer to her prayers. They made this call immediately after we had shagged down and into our Pjs and after I had mentioned that I was surprised the elders didnt get us. Needless to say, I knew it was fake the whole time...but because of the shred of what if they actually are telling the truth, we decided to go. We got there and there was a sticky note on the door that said "April Fools, fools!" oh man we were peeved. We noticed their phone in the corner and grabbed it and booked it out of there as fast as we could. They ran after us and grabbed their phone (after we had sent ourselves the video and deleted it from their phone). They were upset about that one hahah it was hilarious. Props to them for sure though. We talked to a guy on the street that day for about an hour and man he was struggling with all sorts of stuff. We were walking on the other side of the street and we saw him and felt prompted to cross the street and talk to him. After pouring our hearts, souls, and testimony out to him for an hour he didn't want to meet again, which is a major bummer. I'm sure we'll see him again though :) There are construction workers across the street that always call things out to us - I wish I knew Swedish better haha, we'll teach them, sometime this week for sure.
Thursday we got the bishop to agree to
let us into his home to practice teaching our missionary lessons! No
missionaries have gotten to go to his house in a LONG time, so we are super
excited! And we had a whopping 22 people at soccer this week!!
We had an Easter dinner at Linda's
Friday which was the bomb! She and her family are so great, she is basically
the mom away from home. We played cards and I crushed everyone in Egyptian Rat
Screw. I tried Caviar (I dont know how to spell that), the little orange fish
eggs. It was nasty. Then I tried it out of a squeeze tube - almost puked. But I
tried it!
GENERAL
CONFERENCE! It was awesome. All the missionaries in our zone went and got
traditional conference godis/candies Saturday. That night Linda told us that
she had our Easter Baskets hidden around her house so we went over and hunted
for those. She is seriously the best person. I love her so much!! I wish you
guys could meet her. Yesterday, was THE BEST DAY EVER. We started the day off
by delivering a little Easter basket to the elders in the morning. We then made
cookies for some people we are working with - I was pretty proud of them. I got
creative with materials because I didnt have a rolling pin, wax paper, or a
cookie cutter. I ended up using a lint roller case, a plastic place mat, and
our Easter basket shell. We found out that we are getting another elder here in
Västerhaninge - Elder Bliss. He was in Syster Poulsons MTC district and he is
way awesome, he should be a good addition to the Västerhaninge family. We had a
super flaky investigator show up to the Sunday morning GC session! It was
crazy! He even bought us a little Easter snow globe. We watched it with
him in Swedish (I'll have to rewatch that one haha) but he seemed to like it!
He left with a cig and lighter in hand though haha, we'll meet with him this
week for sure. It was a great week!!!! I love missionary work!
Thought:
I really liked what Elder Oaks said in the Saturday morning session about how
we should really live what we claim to believe in. So often it is easy to just
do what is right on Sundays but really we should be carrying it with us during
the week and throughout our lives. The guy on the street that we talked to
forever had bad experiences with a mormon girl who was clearly not following
the commandments. Because of her bad decisions and hypocrisy, he has a view of
Mormons that is completely backwards - super frustrating for missionaries haha.
Just remember, ALWAYS LIVE LIKE YOU BELIEVE.
Love you all!!
Syster
Jordan Lund
April Fools Elder Burton!
The massive soccer crew
My pride and joy Easter cookies
Love love love Sys. Poulson
April 13, 2015
Hej hej!
I hope that everyone
is doing super well! This week has been super great - full of great lessons,
new investigators and all sorts of funny things.
Last Pday we went to
Gamla Stan and explored the old town of Stockholm with another companionship
(Syster Beckstrom and Syster Harkness) - it was wayyy fun! We also planted
flowers at the temple this week!! I slipped pretty hard off this short wall and
scraped up my leg and now my ankle is turning purple...not really sure what the
deal is. But it doesnt hurt too bad so I'm not super worried (I'll send pics).
The missionaries in our zone (like 22 of us) planted something like 7,000
flowers. It was nuts but it went super fast - whereas normally it takes the
grounds crew 3 weeks to get it all done (we got it done in about 4 hours). It
is SO much more complicated than anyone could even imagine. Let's just say I
have a new respect for flower beds. Oh another thing - a shy timid elder got locked
in a bathroom after planting flowers and was somewhat fretting. But because the
locks at our house are similar to the lock that was on the bathroom door, I was
able to pick the lock with a coin and help him get out haha Thanks for teaching
me your ways Tay.
On our way home from
Ward Council the elders showed us this cool tire swing thing they have been
playing on and it is super cool - they have these tire things at almost every
playground here so it is super awesome. There were a couple super embarrassing
moments involved with that but it's all gucci. It's hard to explain the swing
but I'll try to get a picture before next week.
I got the Easter
Package - thank you SO MUCH. I was so excited it was unreal. And the sunflower
seeds...you know me too well.
Soccer was especially
crazy this week - the elders tend to always bail on this activity even though
they are in charge of it. We were trying to organize like 20 boys into teams
and make it fair so everyone has a chance to play...I got a little flustered
haha but it was fun! Not too many injuries.
Friday we had zone
training which was great! We talked about our personal and companionship
studies in the morning and how to take full advantage of those. We went to
lunch at a super good burger place after - the first legit hamburger I have had
here. We went to a less actives house and had some tea and talked about the
gospel. It was a good lesson, but I basically burned all my tastebuds off. She
gave us these little marzipan chocolate things which I didn't think were too
bad, but Sys. Poulson tried to shove hers in her pocket. Silly goose. We had
dinner with the Forsmans (American family) and played with their cute kids -
they are so NUTS. I give major props to the parents, they have their hands
full. But it was a lot of fun and it was nice to speak english haha :)
We met with an old
investigator who is a hippie sailor. He has been all over the world and been
through a lot. He is super serious and just kinda funny. He hasn't been
baptized because he thinks the font in the church is unsanitary (he thinks that
thousands of people have been baptized in that font....HA. not quite). So we
offered to have him baptized in the sea or up in Nynäshamn and he liked the
idea so we will see how that goes. We met with Tibor and Barbro (sweet old
couple living above us and are part of the Swedish church) and taught the
Restoration, sang some songs, and just laughed. They are super sweet and they
told us that we are like daughters to them. We met with Peter too and he said that
we are the most positive thing in his life for the past 10 years - it was super
sweet of him!
Syster Poulson and I
have realized that we teach a lot of people that like to spill everything to
us. And that there are certain strange things behind each one - but hey, people
to teach!
I fasted for Travis yesterday which was a cool experience.
We swung by Kjell's house yesterday to see if they were back from Spain and
they are! We are going to have lunch and teach them this week. I am super
excited for that - he has a cool twirly captain hook mustache and speaks super
fast Swedish. We met BozedaR too! We talked a little about baptism and whatnot.
He asked if he could take a smoke break in the middle of our lesson and we said
it was fine but I for sure read him scriptures the whole time hahaha He then
said the prayer at the end with his eyes open and staring at us. I did
everything I could to not crack up. He is so awesome though. Last night we
practiced our Swedish and English with this couple in our ward. We learned a
lot of stuff pertaining to Swedish and clarified lots. SO HELPFUL. And the
couple is just super sweet.
Wonderful long week!!
I love being a missionary!! And I love you all!
Love,
Syster Lund
