Elder Kyle Steele: 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!