Double-Double

Email written: 9/25/17

Hallå igen! 

4) Äldste Strong and Äldste Barney, two missionaries that were in my same MTC group

Wow, I cannot believe another week has flown by just like that. I've been in Sweden about an entire month already and I have learned so much this past month both spiritually and language-wise. I love having the chance to learn so much every day. You really begin to learn a lot about yourself as you help others 24/7. 

The first double of this week, is the fact that we have 2 investigators who have set up dates to get baptized!!!!!! 

The first investigator is Veronika. Last sunday, she randomly showed up to church with her best friend (a member in Sundsvall) and agreed to meet with us later in the week. She told us that she had come to the Gävle Branch a few times as a kid, so a lot of the members recognized her and there is already so much love for her. Veronika is really really awesome and has a strong belief in God and a desire to help others. 

Our second investigator is Zoran, a young kid with parents from Iran, but was born in Sweden. Zoran is one of the top magicians in Sweden and has performed several cool tricks for us when we meet with him. He has a really good heart and a desire to learn the truth. 

The other double this week, was that we traveled to Stockholm twice this past week!! We had zone conference on Tuesday where all the missionaries in the Stockholm get together and pretty much get pumped up to do missionary work. The other time we went to Stockholm was for a leadership meeting that taught leaders in the church how to work with missionaries. Both meetings went super well and everyone in the Stockholm area is just working very hard, but more importantly, working very smart!

Stockholm is SUCH a beautiful city, full of waterways and really cool old buildings. They give out the Nobel Prize every year in Stockholm and I'll include a picture of the building where they do it in. 

As far as the Swedish language goes, there are days where I can understand everything people say and have really awesome conversations, and then there are days where I understand about -2% and my head just hurts after a long day. But in the end, I'm loving this language! My favorite word right now is probably 'matglädje', which broken down into two parts is mat(food), and glädje(joy). If there were ever two words that deserved to be together, it would be food and joy, eller hur?

3) A church just outside of Gävle

Well, I would just like to end this letter by saying that Jesus Christ is my Savior and my Redeemer. This past week when we were out contacting, a man just straight up told us that Jesus didn't suffer for us and Jesus can't save us. Well, my dear friends and family, I'm here to tell you that we all can be saved through the Atonement of Jesus Christ! That is very, very true. 

I love you all and I hope for the best for each and every one of you. Hej då!

1) Where they do the Nobel Prize

2) Stockholm

3) A church just outside of Gävle

4) Äldste Strong and Äldste Barney, two missionaries that were in my same MTC group

5) A laundry selfie taken very early this morning...enjoy 

-- Äldste Steele

1) Where they do the Nobel Prize

2) Stockholm

5) A laundry selfie taken very early this morning...enjoy 

K-Baptized

Email written: 9/18/17

Hallå!!! 

I cannot believe that another week has just flown by here in Sweden. We do so much every day that the days kind of just blur together. Sometimes I'll just be sitting on a bus and just think about how lucky I am to live in this beautiful country for the next 22 months (since I've already been on the mission 2 months). One thing that I'm not looking forward to however, is the cold, cold winter that is just around the corner. The sun is already starting to set earlier and earlier, and everyone knows that it is going to be a cold a dark winter.

This week has definitely been a crazy one. On Friday I actually had a chance to go to Borlänge on what we call 'splits'. Splits are just when you switch companions for the day so you can learn things from a different perspective rather than just your original companion who you are with 24/7. I was companions with Äldste Barney, who comes from West Valley, UT. He's been out a couple of months, so he is still trying to get a good grasp on the Swedish language, just like me, so it made things interesting! The highlight of the whole day was probably when we visited a member's home to just teach a lesson to strengthen them. The member comes from Angola, a country in southern Africa, and we actually spoke English with her. She had family that was visiting from Angola that weren't members and they only spoke Portuguese. So we ended up teaching an awesome lesson with a Portuguese translator!! (Shoutout to Sister Bartels and Elder Menjivar serving in Brazil!) They were so much fun to visit and teach and really learn their life story. They also had a really good sense of humor, so we ended up laughing our heads off for a solid 15 minutes after the lesson. People truly are amazing. 

4) My kebab pizza

Today before I started to email, I was actually K-baptized!!! A k-baptism is just whenever you eat a kebab pizza for the first time. Kebab pizza is huge here in Sweden. It's kebab meat, onions, tomatoes, peppers, and then a garlic type sauce....basically not a type of food you would want to eat on a date. But yeah, it was delicious, and I ate my entire pizza, as did my companion with his own kebab pizza. 

As far as our success is going, we are really working hard finding people to teach. We didn't make any amazing breakthroughs this week, but we set up some really awesome plans for this week. I'm really excited what this week has in store, with teaching, inviting, and finding. 

I have a quick spiritual thought to share with all of you to end the email. It comes from the Book of Mormon! Just to give quick background on what is happening, a war is going on between two groups the Nephites and the Lamanites, and one of the commanders of the Nephite army has just received 2,000 young boys (stripling warriors) to aid in defending their nation. This is what is said to describe the boys:

"And they were all young men, and they were exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity; but behold this was not all-they were men who were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted."

Being out here in Gävle, we really don't see any other missionaries often, much less our mission president. It is just me and Äldste Harper to do the work here. We could slack off and no one would really know but us, but we know that power comes from obedience and in being true at all times. I invite all of you to always have integrity in everything that you do, and I promise it will give you power!

I love you all and I hope your week is fantastic. Keep working, keep studying, and keep on keeping on!

1) Swedes are serious about their choklad....
maybe a little too serious

Pics (fair warning, I shaved my head this week):

1) Swedes are serious about their choklad....maybe a little too serious

2) This is a kyrka right by the main train station here in Gävle

3) This is what a lot of the country of Sweden looks like. Farmland, green, beautiful...hmmm kind of reminds me of Wisconsin

4) My kebab pizza

5) Us after finishing our pizzas

-- Äldste Steele

                                                                              

2) This is a kyrka right by the main
train station  here in Gävle

3) This is what a lot of the country of Sweden looks like. Farmland, green, beautiful...
hmmm kind of reminds me of Wisconsin

5) Us after finishing our pizzas

Moment of Silence

Email written: 9/11/17

Hejsan!

4. Me and my awesome comp.

I would like to first take a moment of silence. If you're wondering why, check the date. I might be in Sweden, but I haven't forgotten about America just yet! 

After being in Gävle now for just about 2 weeks, we are now pretty comfortable with the layout of the city and the bus schedule. It was quite overwhelming at first to figure out everything in this city, while also following up with everyone the past missionaries worked with. But now, we are in the full swing of things and Äldste Harper and I are just working hard every single day trying to bring others closer to Christ. 

As of now, we have one really strong investigator. His name is Alex and he first met the missionaries in 2015 (Syster Adamson, my Swedish teacher, is actually on the teaching record as the first missionaries that taught Alex, so that's kind of wild). As we met with Alex, he shared with us that he absolutely loves everything about the church, the beliefs, the standards, the love he feels from it. The only thing stopping him from joining the church is his girlfriend that actually lives in China. He is thinking a lot about the future and he doesn't want to join the church if she isn't interested. We really had a great conversation with him (half swedish, half english so I understood all of it) and really began to understand him and discern his needs. During our lesson, I then had an impression to tell him something really cool that could take place for him and his girlfriend. I told him, if he took the first step of faith in the church, he could be the one to baptize his girlfriend in China. His eyes lit up and the very words that came out of my mouth (not my words, but the words of the Spirit), touched his heart, and everyone in the room knew it. We really have a lot of hope for Alex!

Other than that, we are really trying to find more people through a variety of ways. One of those ways is through street contacting, where basically we just start walking around the city and strike up a conversation with someone. It can be very difficult at times when person after person won't listen, or even throws in some expletives at us. We continue to press on and find the people ready for the gospel! Something kind of funny we encounter from time to time is when someone who doesn't know Swedish super well tells us "Jag är inte interesant" Which translates to 'I am not interesting', rather than saying "Jag är inte intereserad"

I love you all and pray for your success in this upcoming week! 

Kämpa på!

Pics:

1. Just Sweden being beautiful

2. Speed bumps here in Sweden are called 'farthinder', fart means speed, but to us Americans, it is quite a funny word

3. So I found out today there are more female priests in the Swedish Church than there are male priests....hmmm interesting

4. Me and my awesome comp. Something cool about him is that he has two different colored eyes.

1. Just Sweden being beautiful

2. Speed bumps here in Sweden are called 'farthinder'

3. So I found out today there are more female priests
in the Swedish Church than there are male priests....
hmmm interesting

Välkommen till Gävle!

Email written: 9/4/17

Hejsan!

I made it safely to Sweden! The flights weren't too bad at all, other than the fact that we had to wake up at 2:30 am to make it here. Funny story actually, the sisters didn't wake up on time so people were sent to wake them up. Thankfully they made it on the bus and then we were on our way. 

Our first day in Sweden was a tiring one, especially after not being able to sleep on the plane. We arrived into Sweden around 6am, and then we ended up having a mini tour of Stockholm, and then we were sent out on the streets of Stockholm to talk to people and try to hand out a Book of Mormon. It was such a wild experience! Most of the time people just said "NEJ TACK" and we would just have to smile and say "Ha det så bra".

2. Jag och Äldste Harper

I am assigned, at least for the next 3 months, to the city of Gävle! It is a city about an hour and half north of Stockholm by train. Friends and family, please do not pronounce it wrong, because otherwise, you'll be saying a very inappropriate word. It's kind of hard to explain the pronunciation, but just don't say "yev-lah". Anyways.......my companion/trainer is Äldste Harper! While his family now lives in Utah, he grew up in Flower Mound and we both love the Dallas Mavericks!!! He's been out on the mission for 9 months and he is helping me get adjusted to missionary life and the language. Äldste Harper and I are both new to Gävle, as we are replacing Syster Missionaries, and so it has been pretty difficult to learn the city in such a short amount of time and keep up with old teaching records. We are making it through little by little, but we haven't really taught a whole bunch yet, but I know this week will be amazing!

Sweden is truly a beautiful place! There are trees absolutely everywhere. I've never seen so much green in my entire life. Also, the fruit here is next level. It just tastes so pure and perfect. I'm basically in heaven here. 

Upon arriving to Sweden, I realized that I really don't know a whole lot of Swedish. When people talk to me, I pick up about 2-3 words and the rest I don't understand at all. While the MTC taught me a whole bunch and I'm really comfortable teaching about our church, I really don't know much else. It's quite frustrating at times, but I understand more and more every day and I know that everything will work out. 

1. Vår Kyrka

Yesterday was my first time at church in Sweden and I had such a great time! I even spoke in Sacrament meeting, just saying what I know to be true and how excited I am to be a missionary in Gävle. All the medlemmar told me that jag talar jättebra svenska and so it's really boosted my confidence in the language! The church building is pretty small, and about 20-30 people usually show up (there's work to do). A thing that is a little bit different of the Mormon culture in Sweden is people don't say brother/syster. Everyone knows each other on a first name basis, so i don't know a single person's last name that comes to church, so that's pretty interesting! the members are awesome and feed us frequently (which is rare in Sweden), but we already have like 5 meals planned for the week!! 

3. A view from the most popular park in Gävle: Boulongers Skogen

Other than that, life is good! I love you all!

Bilder:

1. Vår Kyrka

2. Jag och Äldste Harper

3. A view from the most popular park in Gävle: Boulongers Skogen

4. Sweden's smallest Ikea....rofl

5. We live next to "Wall-E"

-- Äldste Steele

4. Sweden's smallest Ikea....rofl

5. We live next to "Wall-E"