En Stor Bit Choklad

Email written: 2/25/19

Hej!!

Well, time is running out for this P-Day and transfers are this week, and so there is a lot to think about and do in preparation for them. Elder Lewis and I are staying together another transfer (thank goodness, I love that man!), and we are excited to see what we can accomplish in these next 6 weeks! We are getting 2 new elders in the office, Elders Bjornn and Sirrine, and so we are going to have 6 missionaries in our apartment. It's going to be interesting!

So, for this email, I wanted to just let you all know that I am human, and to prove to everyone that i am human, I wanted to share the funniest tracting story of what happened to Elder lewis and I. 

So, anyways, we got a lot of food from a member out in Vallentuna, and as part of the food, we got a Marabou choklad bar. We didn't really want to wait before we got home to start eating it, so we broke it open and carried it around with us and we went to go swing by some other people that lived in that area. We came up to this one door of a family with small kids that had said to come back at an earlier time during the day and so we were trying to go by and right before I ringed the dorrbell, elder lewis gave me a huge piece of chocolate and then I popped it in my mouth. Well, then I rang the dorrbell, and then i realized that I just made a mistake, i can talk with someone with a bunch of chocolate in my mouth!!+?! But, sure enough, this dad comes to the door like only 2 seconds after I knock, and so i start going into a panic. I look over to elder lewis and he has no idea what I'm trying to say and I try to switch spots with him, but then the man opens the door and my mouth is just full of chocolate. I am totally embarrassed, and I look over at elder lewis and he is saying nothing, and so then I just shove the chocolate to the inside of my cheek, and then apoligze that i have just eating a huge piece of chocolate. Out of the corner of my mouth, i ask them if they are interested, and then they just slam the door on our face. I felt so bad that i didn't even think before acting in that situation, but elder lewis and I couldn't stop and haven't stopped laughing about it.

The conclusion that we all can draw from this, is that God calls just ordinary people to perform an extraordinary work. So, I am thankful that God qualifies each and every one of us to perform these great things. 

Hope y'all have a great week! Vi hörs!

Pictures:

1) lewis

2) the POEs

3) båt och solen

-- Äldste Steele

Bonus Pic: "Slippery"

1) lewis

2) the POEs

3) båt och solen

Bonus Pic: "Slippery"

En Kväll med Savannah Stevenson

Bonus Pic - Savannah Stevenson

Email written: 2/18/19

Kära vänner,

What a week it has been! Wow, can't believe it's already Monday again. We have so many amazing experiences every day, the days just start to kind of blend together. This is now the last week of the transfer, so we will have to see what happens next week with transfers. I'm hoping to stay at least one more in the office with my good friend Äldste Lewis.

The week started off way tough with everyone getting sick and canceling our visits and lessons that were planned. I think there was a total of about 8 or 9 cancelations all this week and so that wasn't the best of circumstances, but we ended up making the most of it. You see, this was quite the humbling experience for us. Things start happening in our area and we start to get prideful in the fact that oh wow we have this many lessons today or this many dinners, etc. And so we needed a little humbling to know that a lot of things in life we have absolutely no control over. The only thing that we can control is our attitude and our reaction to those things.

But, this past Saturday, we had the chance to travel out to the Gubbängen chapel and help out for a concert put on by a woman named Savannah Stevenson. She is a super talented British actress that has been in wicked and some other musicals and also played the role of Mary in the church's Bible videos. She gave such a great message and a great concert as well. Our role at the concert was to make as many connections as possible with people and to talk to everyone and so we were so exhausted after an entire day of helping out, from about 13-21.30 was how long we were there. A few of the people we are teaching got to come along with us and they got to meet a lot of other members and so that worked out perfectly.

That morning, Elder Lewis and I decided to go out on a nice promenad along the lake since it was a perfect spring type day. Everyone and their dog was out to walk around and so we had the chance to invite a ton of people to learn more about the gospel but the greatest thing was the first impression that we received  as we came into the park area. I knew that we needed to talk to a certain man sitting on a bench but we waited until the very end to take that contact. Well, as we come up to talk to him, he tells us at first that he wanted to be alone to digest what just happened to him. As we presented who we were and how we wanted to help, he began to open up and told us that he had just gone through a tough divorce and that he wouldn't get to see his daughter as much anymore. I could tell how hard it was for this man as I know other people close to me that have experienced pretty tough divorces. As we shared a brief portion of the hope that a Jesus Christ can offer, he looked at us and thanked us for talking with him. He knew that God has sent us to help him just in this time of his life and he looks forward to be healed emotionally as he learns more about the atonement of Jesus Christ.

We never know where we will be lead and who we will be lead to, but if we follow those promptings, we will see the blessings, just like a special experience that I can share in next week's email. But, what I can share is we will be heading out to Jakobsberg to baptize a girl that Elder Barney and I originally found on splits a few months ago. Life is so amazing! Hope you all have a great week!  

Pictures:

1) stadshuset, vad vackert!

2) standing on a frozen lake 

3) gubbängen kapell

BONUS PIC: Savannah Stevenson

-- Äldste Steele

1) stadshuset, vad vackert!

2) standing on a frozen lake 

3) gubbängen kapell

Ute på landet

Email written: 2/11/19

Hej!

February is in full swing and we are in the middle of semla season! We had the chance to go to a local bakery to get a typical Swedish pastry called semlor. It's basically a large roll where they cut out the middle, fill it will marzipan, whipped cream, and then they put the top of the roll back on and sprinkle it with powdered sugar. It tastes super good and everyone in Sweden gets at least one around this time of year :)

The office is losing one member this week unfortunately as our good friend elder Youngberg is getting transfered in the middle of week 5. We'll miss him, but he won't be too far away.

Yesterday was a great day at church. A young woman in our ward, Ebba, is going out on her mission this week to go to France. She gave a great farewell talk and the spirit was super strong there as she shared how she somehow always had known that she would go to France and it was so spiritually confirming when she opened her call. We got invited over to her farewell party afterwards and so we decided that we would attend for a bit and then go do our visits and knock on doors out in the area. Well after we made our appearance and talked to a lot of people, we decided to leave just to find out that we were completely parked in and we weren't coming out for at least 2 hours, and so Äldste Lewis and I just went out in the Swedish woods trying to knock on any house that we could find. It was a total change of plans, but we enjoyed being out in the Swedish country side walking 5 minutes between every house. We ended up giving a book of Mormon to a 12 year old and we met a single dad that really needed a good message that night, so no effort is wasted.

We went on a few splits this week and we got to accomplish a lot of great things on those! Some of the most memorable things happened this week as I was on splits with Elder Callor who was serving in the office before but is now a zone leader in Malmö.

We felt strongly we needed to go to Åkersberga and so we wrote down on a list 4 names of people we wanted to go by and the rest of the time out there would be talking to people on the way as we walked from place to place since we left the car behind at home. Well, after missing a train and trying to figure out which bus to take out to do the visits, we found ourselves waiting about 20 minutes for the next bus to come. As we wait there, we first talk to an older lady, and then a young boy that immediately runs away from us and then we come to the third guy that was about our age, maybe a little older. We begin talking and it takes forever for him to want to be a part of the conversation, but thne he finally starts responsding and then we soon come to find out that he actually has a Book of Mormon at home. We asked him how we got it and he said that it was from his friend Linus, and then that immediately sparked my memory of that morning when I went through records, I had read one that said 'friend to Linus' in the background information, and so then I proceeded to ask him what his name was, to which he replied 'Rasmus'. My mouth about dropped to the floor, this was one of the people we wanted to visit...I took out my sheet of paper with the 4 names on it, and I showed it to Rasmus to show that God is real and that he leads us. He knew that we needed to talk to Rasmus that day and you could tell that he really felt the spirit as we showed him. He isn't ready yet for the gospel but it was a super powerful expereincce for him and for us as our prayers were answered!

Additionally on that list of names, was a family that was taught about a year ago. They had just lost contact and so we wanted to try to go by again and see if they were interested. But before I go on, Elder Callor and I had set the goal to find a family in need of help. Well, we come up to the house and before we even knock on the door, we see a sign on the outside of the house that says 'Till salu' which means for sale. And so as we knock on the door, we find out that the family has been so unbelievably stressed and they just had a baby recently and the mom just started crying right there. This was the family that we knew that we would find and they were one of those written on the list! We offered to come back to give a message on hope and they gladly agreed and so that was very strengthening to my faith.

The work continues to move forward and we have a ton more stuff set up this week, including hosting a study visit for some people studying about our church at a local school and then there will be a concert on Saturday hosted by a Broadway actress Savannah Stevenson, so it's going to be a great week! Until then, ha det så bra!

Pictures:

1) Ä. Callor and i

2) Åkersberga

3) semla

4) semla pt. 2

-- Äldste Steele

1) Ä. Callor and i

2) Åkersberga

3) semla

4) semla pt. 2

Äldste Steele Goes to Gymnasiet pt.2

Email written: 2/4/19

Hej!

Where do I even begin with this week? Just about everything and anything happened to us this past week because of our zone conferences and our MLC the day after, as well as all the little bit of time we could squeeze in to teach, find, and visit other members. I'm actually quite relieved that the week was over because of how stressful it was, but I will forever be grateful for the lessons that I learned out of it and for the person that I am becoming. 

Before this pervious week had begun, we received a phone call from a teacher at a nearby gymnasium (the Swedish equivalent to high school) and she wanted to know if we could come and give a one hour presentation on the church in her classroom. We gladly agreed and journeyed on out to Åkersberga for this school presentation. I think it is so crazy that they are allowed to teach religion in schools, and even allow relgiious gropus to come and teach about the church. 

But, the lesson went super well and I really don't know how we held a full hour lesson in Swedish for a bunch of 18 year olds, but it was definitely a testiomny builder to see that the Lord will qualify us for any task that is put before us. As we began to teach, and questions started to come up, we politely asked the teacher if it was okay if we could use the scritpures, and she agreed, and so we were in the middle of a high school class, opening up the Book of Mormon and reading scriputres that asnwered their questions. We really hope that one of the kids gets interested and wants to continue to learn more about the gospel!

But, the coolest part of the whole visit, was on the way home actually. As we came to sit down, and older man immediately asks us how it went at school. A little taken off guard, we didn't quite know how to respond, other than, 'jodå det gick bra!', and we come to find out that the older man was actually the headmaster for that school!! And he had seen us come in and knew that we were giving a presentation that day and so he himself was pretty curious about the church and what we believed in. He asked us what the biggest difference was, and before he could even finish, he had a Book of Mormon in his hands and we had the chance to testify of it! And then he asked us further, well what do you think about life after death? And so we chose a chapter that he could read,  it was time to hop off the train.This great man then stands up and gives us the BIGGEST hugs because of what we could teach him! 

The other highlight of the week was when we had our visit from Elder Massimo De Feo!! When he taught, he taught so powerfully and with the spirit, and he said so many things that are going to benefit our mission in the months to come. 

As we were sitting in the Göteborg airport with Elder De Feo and President/Syster Youngberg, eating our hamburgers and seeing that our flight was delayed, it gave us some good time to talk and share expereinces with each other. I ended up eating everybody's leftovers too because I was so hungry haha. But, yes, as we sat there talking, President asked us, what were your takeways from the-- and then Elder de feo cut him off and said before you ask that question, Elder Steele and Lewis, from what I taught at the zone conference today, what is something that you want to teach? So right there, got put on the spot by Elder De Feo! But, the presentaiton went super well the next day even though we didn't get much sleep and we had almost no time to plan the presentaiton. So many good learning opportunities on the mission, I look forwared to a lifetime of service within the church wherever I am called to serve. 

Well, hope all of you have a great week! Glöm aldrig att kyrkan är sann!

Pictures:

1) Legendary picture

2) artsy snowwoman that someone made when we went tracting

3) Vaxholm

4) road sign

5) Gymnasiet

-- Äldste Steele

1) Legendary picture

2) artsy snowwoman that someone made when we went tracting

3) Vaxholm

4) road sign

5) Gymnasiet