Californians Rule Borås!

Celebrating July 4th in Sweden

June 6, 2015

Hey everyone! I hope all is going well back home :)

This week flew by but last week seems like forever ago. We went to the chiropractor this week for Giles back. We learned some new techniques to help us with our posture and whatnot. And it was both of our first times ever going to the chiropractor so I totally thought that when he snapped her neck and she screamed that she was dead. Good thing she's not!

This week has been incredibly hot! And by incredible hot I mean around 80 degrees. And that was outside...the buses were that much worse haha. We kept joking that it was like a mission in South America haha - we are so spoiled over here in Sweden. We tried to drop off a get well soon card for one of our investigators at her house but the door to the apartment building was locked so we ended up climbing on top of each other to place it lightly in some flowers on her balcony.

On the way to a members house for dinner this week, a guy drove up in a car next to us and asked us if we were missionaries. He then invited us to get in the car with him (the elders were with us) and he would drive us where we needed to go. He said that the missionaries had helped out his mom a few years back and that ever since then he has been trying to repay us and help us out whenever he sees missionaries. Super sweet! Just goes to show that no effort is left unnoticed.

We had our first correlation meeting with our WML and he is super awesome! And he gave us some watermelon to eat on our way home - we had to scarf it all down before we got on the bus haha. We swung by the town center to contact some people and discovered a little disco concert! It was fun to see how people jam out here.

We also had zone training on Friday! We talked all about the Book of Mormon and how important it is to build our testimony on it. It was also fun to get together with other missionaries and share fun experiences. I also finally got a nice watch! At least it's nicer than I've ever had before haha it is an Axcent of Scandinavia and I'm pretty jazzed about it.

The 4th of July was BOMB. We woke up and went to help Kia (less active) carry some boxes downstairs. We then had some strawberry milkshakes that she made with her unclean cat hair fingers with moldy strawberries. haha oh man, the milkshake was super good! That evening we went to a 4th of July party at the Murphys! We played some Swedish games and football and ate a bunch of American food and sweets. It was a lot of fun! And kind of nice to hear lots of english speaking people for a change.

KINDA SCARY STORY: We officially dropped an investigator who had been taught by missionaries for 20 years, but she was just not progressing nor has been for like at least 5 years...I'm surprised missionaries didn't stop teaching her earlier. She wasn't too psyched about it..We came home and were getting ready for bed when we felt something super weird and bad in our apartment. We thought it stemmed from the fact that we had dropped this lady and she had some really harsh feelings towards us, but then we realized that the elders weren't home in their apartment on time. We called the elders and asked them to come over and bless/dedicate the apartment. They came over and felt extraordinarily bad that they might have been a contributing factor to having this bad energy in our apartment. They blessed the apartment and also gave us both priesthood blessings. All was good after that. The next evening we both had promptings that something big is going to happen soon. It could be good or bad, we don't know, but it kind of freaked me out a little bit. But it has been a HUGE testimony builder to me that Satan is real and that we must always trust in the Lord in all that we do and lean not on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6). After I was able to wrap my mind around that, all was well again. I know that I am here for a reason and that no matter what happens, I am here to be a missionary. Nothing can distract me from the Lord's work here in Sweden.

The next day was Fast Sunday and it was the best Sunday here in Borås so far :) We taught the UK (YW) about missionary work and how important it is to pray with real intent. Majella came to church again and we were able to teach her the Plan of Salvation and draw it out for her. And we finally got her number! We are hoping to meet with her this week. Next we had sacrament meeting. We spotted Kia and just about died! We sat next to her and to make the situation even more glorious, she got up and bore her testimony about how special it was to have us come over to her home and teach her the Restoration. It was so cool to see her in church with the testimony that we always knew she had. We worked with the elders on area goals and planned a cool way to get the member missionary work flowing!

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE being a missionary :) I love being able to trust completely in the Lord and relying on the Spirit in all that I do.

Love and miss you all! Have a wonderful week!!

Love,

Syster Jordan Lund

Enjoying watermelon


Just happened upon a concert...


Dying in the heat!

Just two Californian girls...


Loving my companion!

July 13, 2015

Hey!! Sorry this is a day late! We cut our pday short yesterday and didn't have time to really email. So here we go real fast!

What a crazy week! So many great things have happened in such a short time :)

I hit my 6 month mark on Tuesday! It is so crazy that I'm a third of the way done with less than a year left! whaaaaaat. So crazy haha I spent my 6 month mark on exchanges with Sister Allred (our STL) in Västra Frölunda so we didn't do anything tooooo big. We taught a new investgiator of theirs who was wearing all leather attire haha. He bought us cokes and we taught him about the Book of Mormon. He invited us to come back to his apartment and I could have sworn he was trying to kill us. He had a knife in his back pocket - not just a pocket knife or butter knife..it was like a stabbing knife. He tried to get us to step into his apartment and shut the door. #sketch. And we totally saw Robert Downey Jr!! We think at least...98% sure.

We played tennis this week with one of the elders/our investigator! The elders came too and I beat Blackburn so now I am 3/3 in playing elders in tennis!

We dropped one of our investigators a week or so ago and had some tough times dealing with that the the consequences from that. Deciding not to meet with her motivated her to truly ask if this is the true church - so she asked and received the answer that it was! She texted us and told us about her decision. So that was super exciting and extremely BIG! She has been taught for over 20 years and now she will finally be baptized (if all goes well)! We are super excited to teach her again and prepare her for that!

There was a day this week where we got blåsted all day and decided that hey, let's go get some donuts to soothe the pain. As we were walking down the street eating our donuts, a man said "Hallå grisar" which means hello pigs hahahah needless to say, our self esteem was shot even more than before. Rude but oh well!!

We had a really great discussion with a new investigator of ours named Robert (he is from India)! He is SO prepared and fun fact, we met him on Giles birthday! We actually taught him twice this week and he was so receptive and we can really tell he is considering all aspects of becoming a member of our church :) We also have a new investigator who is from Greece! He is super cool and open to the gospel as well.

We went to meet with an old investigator named Mohammad. We got there and turns out there were two Jws already there - IT WAS A SETUP. Oh man I was so nervous. I ended up distracting the JWs with random questions and discussion topics while Giles taught Mohammad. By the end of the hour and a half I was exhausted!

While waiting for the bus Saturday evening, a group of young boys (17 ish) came up to all four of us missionaries and asked us to teach them. They were all pretty tipsy and somewhat all over us haha. They invited us to go down to the lake and hang out with them - which we turned down. We got their numbers so maybe we will teach them again haha Oh and the majority of them were gay which was cool to talk to them about. They said that before we talked with them they were pretty against Mormons and now they are interested and PRO mormons!! WOOHOO

For Pday we went to some caves and hiked some mountains in Jönköping with our district! It was super duper fun, but very tiring as well.

A great, busy, tiring week!! So happy and proud to be a missionary here in Sweden!!

Love and miss you all!! Have a great week :)

Kärlek,

Sister Jordan Lund

Bus with Elders on splits

When we got the text from May

Getting ready for our cave adventure.

Could be an album cover

4 points on the face

June 20, 2015

Hejsan!! Hoppas allt är bra med er!

This week has been kind of laid back because no one was answering their phones! Lots of contacting and studying. We had a specialized zone training on Wednesday which was awesome. We went to the Utby chapel early in the morning to have Giles and some elders practice their song - which was BEAUTIFUL. The training was all about the Book of Mormon and how we should be giving them out to anyone and everyone we can. We went and ordered about 65 BoMs after that in a few different languages. Also, I had a contest with the assistants to see who could throw food in the air the highest and catch it in their mouths. It was super fun and they laughed about my hidden talent.

We played a prank on Elder Blackburn and told him that we had done something bad with some boys we had met on the bus. He TOTALLY bought it and believed us when we said we were getting sent home. We used it as a teaching moment to tell him that never would we EVER do anything to get us sent home haha. He thought it was funny so it was all good.

We went to the Baqueros house for dinner which ended up being crackers and jam which was good too. We taught them the member missionary lessons that we are working on with the members and it went super well! They don't speak much swedish so we are going to try to brush up on our spanish before we go back. The busses were all janky and we thought we weren't going to be able to get back to our apartment until the next morning at 4 am haha buttttt it turned out okay. WE LIVED. We also helped a lady who lost her kid in the park. Super crazy because after looking for probably 15 minutes, and praying individually to find the kid, Giles and I came back together and said a prayer. As soon as we said Amen the kid was found.

We offered a guy a tampon for his bloody nose..I guess they don't do that here in Sweden. He gave us the weirdest look haha.

The highlight of this week was a lesson that we had with the elders' investigator named Mattias. We started out with just cutting his hair and trying to get through to him and then it turned into a full fledged lesson. We sang a hymn (Nearer My God to Thee) and he was hit so hard with the Spirit that he was literally speechless and even choked up a little bit. We talked about why he doesn't want to be baptized and basically got the details and broke down lots of barriers. He ended up saying his first EVER vocal prayer at the end. It was so awesome! We challenged him to meet with us everyday this week and read and pray. We tried to break it to the elders in the best way possible and I think we did a pretty good job. We are all on the same page now! And we have been planning his lessons and they are seriously going to be SO AWESOME. We are so jazzed to teach him more.

We swung by Kia this week and she took us out for ice cream! It was super fun and we taught her the member lesson also. She was super excited about it!

We did a deep clean of our apartment before Sunday and MAN it was so great to wake up to a clean room! Elder Blackburn won a contest at the 4th of July party and finally got his prize of peanut m and ms. Obviously we wanted them haha. In sacrament meeting we snuck his backpack under the chairs over to us while Giles distracted them. I unzipped the backpack and dropped my jacket down to pick the m and ms up with. GENIUS. All the while, the members behind us were cracking up so hard hahaha. It was just a great execution. We got away with it, and they didnt realize they were gone until about an hour later when we weren't with them.

We are super excited about this week!! It is going to be awesome!! Lots of lessons planned so we'll see how it goes!!

Love and miss you all!! Have a great week!

Language study snuggles

Sneaking M&Ms at church

Borås

Lesson with Mattias

July 27, 2015

I have to start this email off by saying that we have permission from our Zone Leaders to email today because of some mandatory missionary activities yesterday.

ANYWAYS, How is everyone doing? I hope everything is going well!!

Okay, the biggest thing this week was MATTIAS!! I can't remember if I told you guys the beginning of the story last week, but I will delve into it again.

It all started when we gave him a haircut. It turned into a gospel discussion about kind of where he is at, because he has been coming to church for about 2 months and wasn't really progressing. I had a really strong impression that we needed to teach him every day for a week. I kind of shewed the impression away because he was currently being taught by the elders, but again it came at me and I didn't deny it. He agreed to meet with us everyday that week and keep all the commitments we were going to give to him. I promised him that by the end of the week he would want to be baptized or at least have a belief in God. Sister Giles kinda looked at me like I was crazy for making that statement, and he did too haha but oh well. He started this week off pretty simply not believing in anything besides maaayyybeeee there is something higher. maybe. We taught him all the lessons that week - IN EXTENSIVE DETAIL. He is a very logical thinker and has a lot of questions which is super super awesome. Our lessons are usually around 2 hours with him and just jam packed with the Spirit haha. We had the elders with us on 2 of the 7 lessons this week so it was good to get their view as well. LONG STORY SHORT: we invited him to baptism on Saturday and he accepted! We set his date as September 5th, but there is a really good chance he might want to move it earlier. From 0-5% belief in anything to now about 85-100% in everything is something that has BLOWN MY MIND THIS WEEK. The power of the Spirit is SO REAL. We met with him at the bus station before church on Sunday so we could talk a little bit more before church and he was wearing a suit!! This is a guy who literally...no joke...has only worn sweatpants and sweats for the past 5 years to acclimate his body to anything. He put on a suit for church!! The elders brought some ties for him and taught him how to tie a tie. It was the most precious thing I have ever seen. Overall, this week has just been the most spiritually enriching and joyful week of my mission so far, if not life. We have truly felt the Spirit work through us to help touch this young man's life. And I KNOW that it has nothing to do with Sis. Giles or I, it is truly thanks to the faith we had, the fasts, and the Spirit. I am so grateful to have had to chance to help in that process! We will continue to teach him and baptize him with the elders - which will be good because we all have good input to put in to help Mattias.

There was this big running event in Borås this week called Orienteering? I had never heard of it before, but apparently it is a HUGE deal. About 20,000 people came in to Borås to participate in this, we meet a lot of people from all over the world including America, Canada, Japan, Australia, England, Norway, Poland, etc...basically everywhere.

We had breakfast with the Baqueros and prepared our lesson in Spanish! It is so crazy that literally almost everything that I learned Spanish wise in high school is GONE. GONE. Swedish came in a pushed Spanish right out haha. Sooooo we were basically reading our translation the whole lesson haha. They made some really good Columbian food for us though!

We tried to go out and sing tract, buttttt people weren't too fond of that idea, and threw stuff like chairs and whatever else down the stairs at us haha, we will definitely not be doing that again.

Yesterday we had a mandatory volleyball tournament with our zone - it was apparently initiated by President and Sister Beckstrand so it was MANDATORY. It took us a few hours to get there and back and that is why the emailing is today! It was super fun to play though!! We played district against district and then we split up into other teams. The team I was on got 2nd place, but we played super well together! It was just super fun!

This week has been so EXTREMELY spiritually exhausting but I wouldn't trade this exhaustion for anything. I am so so so happy to be a missionary and helping others come closer to God. AGHH I just can't explain my happiness haha.

LOVE and miss you all so much!! You are always in my prayers.

Syster Jordan Lund