Valborg and Cinco de Mayo

Email written: 5/6/19

Hey Everyone!!

Sorry that it's been a few weeks since I've written last. Last P-day was totally crazy as we first met up in the city for lunch with a member and her husband from Gävle, and then waited almost 2 hours to get our haircuts, and then we met a member in the church that really needed someone to talk to and so all that resulted in no time to write last Monday, but hopefully this email can lift your spirits and give you a sneak peak into what's going down here in Uppsala! 

I am absolutely loving my time here. I can say that this past week, not only did we go to a yarn store, but we also ate some fufu with our man Valentine, and we also saw an absolute fight break out in the Subway in Gottsunda centrum. It was insane!! Elder Butler and I were on splits and since our dinner cancelled, we had to go get some subway and just as we were telling the man what we wanted on our sandwich, this huge fight breaks out right in the middle of the store!! And after the fight broke out and we got our food, we were sitting there just having a good time and then this random Taylor Swift comes on over the speakers and apparently 'The old Taylor swift is dead', so that was weird for us to hear. But, that was just the weird things that happened this week, now to get into the good stuff, the good lessons learned!!!

We got to celebrate Valborg this week and although it was a fantastic party/grillfest, we were unable to light the huge bonfire. It's been all too dry here in Sweden, and so there were no huge bonfire. Eldningsförbjud....kom igen!! But, the great thing that happened at Valborg was a member took one of her good friends there and we got to talk to him for the entire party and become good friends with him in real life and on Facebook. After the party, he told us that he was coming to church on Sunday and so that was just a testimony to me of the impact that members can have on others. We didn't even really talk much about the church, but just because of how members act, the special spirit that they have with them, others can notice that and be interested. Unfortunately, he didn't come to church because the member that would have taken him broke her hands at work and so she couldn't drive, RIP, but there's always next week!

But, there was someone else new that came to church this week and it was such a faith building experience. A few weeks ago, we went to a grill party with a few members right in the middle of the city. As we were grilling, this man came up to us and asked us where the temple was and then kept going on his way. All of the members there were kind of in shock but they were then super pumped to find out who this man was as he had been living in their building for the past few months and had never talked about the church. Randomly, but led by God, this man showed up to church yesterday and we set up a time to meet this Friday. He is from Concepcion Chile and his parents had just been in attendance of the temple dedication there. He met with missionaries in Chile but lost contact as he started studying in Sweden, but now he has contact again. His parents aren't members, but he said that his mom works at a nearby university and some of the leaders of the church visited her and gave her a book about temples and some other things! What a cool miracle!

Additionally, we set a goal this past week to find someone with the best kinds of questions. Since Äldste Butler had broken my bike, we needed to take it in to the shop to get it fixed. Well, the first person that we met at the shop was a middle aged man named Mohammed and he was very curious as to who we were and who we represented. He told us that he would love to receive a Book of Mormon and we told him that we could bring one when we pick up the bike. Well, shortly after that about a couple of days, we got a text that our bike was ready and so we went to pick it up. This time, a woman was working there, who also happened to be quite curious about who we were. We began explaining and then she said that she is deciding between Islam and Christianity right now and needs to learn all she can to make her choice and so she said it was a blessing from God that we were able to meet. She then told us that her biggest questions were, who am I? What is my purpose? How can I know the truth? How can I follow God in the best way? And many more. My jaw almost fell off because of the questions she asked. She gave us her information and told us that she would love a visit. But get this, we mentioned the man that was in the shop that we had first met and she told us that that man was her husband. And so we are going to start teaching a nice couple soon all because one of our bikes broke down!!!!

And then, in conclusion, we got to celebrate Cinco de mayo with our good friend Grisel who was baptized in October. She moved here from Mexico and she made us the best tasting quesadillas that I have ever had. We were able to be there with a man that we are teaching named Donald. The conversation at the dinner table was very spiritual and Donald told everyone how excited he was to be baptized as soon as he has received all the lessons from the missionaries. They then started talking about how big of a blessing the missionaries have been in their lives. They talked about how the missionaries were able to help them in such hard times in their lives and how that missionaries are truly miracle workers. It really hit me hard to listen to what these two people have been saying. Sometimes as a missionary, we can focus on all the people that we weren't able to teach, baptize, all the ones that were rude or didn't want to listen, and we forget about all the many people we have to bless, inspire, and lift. I then shared with both of them that just as missionaries are a blessing, are the people that we teach just as big blessings to us. These people have taught me so many amazing things and it's been a blessing to be teaching the gospel. I look forward to all that can happen in the upcoming weeks! 

Well, we are off to Stockholm in a bit for zone conference. Talk to y'all next week! 

Pictures:

1) Me and Björn!!!! He hosted the Valborg. I told him that he looked like a true Texan

2) Me and Äldste Norin

3) Fufu

4) grilling  

1) Me and Björn!!!! He hosted the Valborg. I told him that he looked like a true Texan

Add caption

3) Fufu

4) grilling

No time to write, but here's some pictures

Email written: 4/29/19

All,

There actually is not an email this week! Äldste Steele was very busy with errands and a fresh new haircut today, so that didn't leave him any time to write a general email. However, I will share the pictures he sent, as well as his parting thought to me in a response to my email:

"And about sharing the gospel! A great philosopher once said, preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words."

"just got a haircut"

On splits with Äldste Bills

Mom: Can you tell me where in general the pics were taken?

Äldste Steele: Some of them were taken in Gävle, some were at members houses to help prepare for Valborg and one is me grilling at a grillfest

The Worst Pizza I've Ever Had in my Life

Email written: 4/22/19

Hey Everyone!!

What a week it has been! Crazy to think that another week has gone by here in Uppsala. I am still getting used to all the bus routes and where everyone lives, but I am coming into everything slowly but surely. 

So, since it was the second week of the transfer, all of us in our district got together here in Uppsala for our district council. Since 1/3 of our district is Swedes (Äldste Karlsson and Norin), we decided to have my first ever district council in Swedish. It was legendary, probably the first time it's been done in this mission for quite some time now! As part of our district council, we thought it would be fun to order some pizzas. We found a student deli close by that had the cheapest food and it was only a few minutes away and so we decided to order pizzas from there. We also decided to read the reviews for fun and came across this one:

'I’m honestly just waiting for the food poisoning to come about right now. I advise all potential customers to hold their fingers and steer their feet in another direction. This is the worst restaurant in Uppsala.'  

So, we went there anyways, brought our pizzas back just to realize that they didn't put my pizza back in the bag and so we had to go back and get my pizza. Well, when I opened the box, all the cheese had fallen off and was in the corner of the box and then I thought back to the review that the man had given and wished I had listened to him. It was literally the worst pizza I have ever had. But anyways, you see, sometimes, we know something is bad and we go ahead and buy it anyways. Make sure that you always choose the right and be sure not to make choices that will damage you. We have prophets and scriptures for a reason, so listen to them. 

After that pizza fiasco and interviews with President Youngberg, we got to hang out with Elder Butler and Elder Derr for the rest of the afternoon because their train back to Borlänge wasn't leaving until like 18.30 RIP, but we got to make them a nice dinner and have a good time :D

A huge miracle this week happened Friday afternoon when we got a call from an unknown number. We answered and told him who we were and then he goes 'YES THIS IS MEMBER OF CHURCH LATTER DAY SAINT JESUS CHRIST LATTER DAY SAINTS AND I BAPTIZE I GERMANY FROM BUDAPEST YES IS THIS THE MISSIONARIES?' It was something like that hahah, but it turns out that a man from Nigeria who was baptized in Germany 2006, who lived also in Hungary and Spain, was now here in Uppsala and wanted to find the church because he was a member. This was a huge miracle because 1. This member has so much energy and loves the church with all his heart and 2. Our most positive investigator Donald is also from Nigeria and they became instant friends at church this past sunday!! 

And so there's a lot of exciting stuff happening here in Uppsala. 2 more returning members expressed a desire to go to the temple for the first time, and Donald told us that he wants to prepare for baptism. I get to go on splits tomorrow in Gävle and so that will be fun/weird being back in my old area. Hopefully I can help a few of those that I taught a year and a half ago. But that's about it for the week. Ha det bra!

Pictures:

1) Dinner 

2) Påsk godis 

3) Uppsala fort 

4) riding bikes through the country

1) Dinner 

2) Påsk godis 

3) Uppsala fort 

4) riding bikes through the country

Uppsala Vecka 1

Email written: 4/15/19

Hey everyone! 

Wow, what a week it has been. The first few days I was chillin' in Täby with tons of missionaries, incoming and outgoing, and then next thing I know, I'm on a train headed to Uppsala. It's been such a wild ride, but I'm loving it here. We mostly use bikes here and so I realize now how lazy one gets when they have a car to do missionary work haha!

But, let me hop right in to explaining what is going on here in Uppsala, and while I can't write everything today, these are at least some of the highlights! 

We invited a man we were teaching to be baptized this week and he told us that he would. Want to know why? Well, it's because 10 years ago, when he was given a Book of Mormon by the missionaries in his home country, he had a dream that night about the book and has since believed in the words, but because of so many moves, he never actually had the chance to be baptized. 

Right before I got here, Elder Bird and Norin found a young man on the train called Juan. Juan originally comes from Colombia but has now lived in Sweden for quite some time. But anyways, we really wanted to try to get a meeting set up with him as soon as possible so that I could meet him. Well, after messaging each other a little back and forth, we found out that he was leaving for a cruise the next day and the only day that he could meet was the evening. He asked us how quick we could get there, and after checking the time the train left to get to his area, we knew that we needed to leave almost immediately to catch the train to where he lived. So, we dropped everything we were doing, got our shoes on and biked like there was no tomorrow to try and make the train. There was quite a bit of uphill battles, but knowing that our lesson was on the line, we kept biking. We parked them right outside the station and started into a full out sprint for the train and caught it just 1 minute before it took off. And even though the train was pretty full, Elder Norin and I found the two empty spots and both taught lessons there right on the train! Well, we finally came to the little city where Juan lived and he took us to a local pizzeria. He wanted to know more about Joseph Smith and so we taught him all about the great miracle of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He then told us that a few days ago in his religion class, the teacher told the students that only members were allowed to read the Book of Mormon, to which Juan interrupted and said, that's not true. I have a book at home that I read, to which the startled teacher then asked Juan where she could get a copy to read :)

On Sunday, when I went to church, I was able to meet a bunch of new people and I probably forgot everyone's names by now, but after a few weeks, I'll be able to get everyone's names down. But what I do remember was the joy that 2 returning members had as they shared their experiences of going into the temple for the first time. They were just glowing with excitement for the peace that was felt in the temple. They are now helping those around them catch the vision and feel that same peace that they are feeling. 

Speaking of peace, I was super stressed coming into church yesterday, but then we sang a hymn, 'Master the tempest is raging' and when I sang the words 'Peace,peace be still' well, in Swedish, it was 'Frid var lugn'. So comforting to sing!! It's great to be here in Uppsala and to work with Äldste Norin! More to come!!

Ha det bra!

Pictures:

1) Uppsala station

2/3) Kyrkan 

4) Vattentorn

5) 4 levande assistenter 

6) Roomates for the past 6 weeks

Täby--->Uppsala

Email written: 4/8/19

Hej! 

Well transfers have now snuck up on me. My time in Täby as assistant to President Youngberg has now come to a close. I will now be headed to the wonderful city of Uppsala for the last 3 months of my mission. My new companion is going to be Äldste Norin, one of the only Swedes in the mission! I'm about to go to straight Swedish and I couldn't be more excited. I hope to learn a lot from him, and not just when it comes to the language.

General conference was a success, and I say success because I got answers to my questions. The questions that I wanted an answer to had a lot to do with prayer and also about missionary work and many of the talks covered just those topics and I am thankful for the great leaders of the church that continue to inspire us to be better. President Nelsons words were so powerful! "The Lord needs selfless men who put the welfare of others ahead of their own."

One of my favorite experiences was this past week with the guy that we saw in Vaxholm last week. Gustaf decided to follow us around as we knocked on doors and visited a few others. There was a certain member and another man that wasn't a member that I have been trying to visit the past 5 months and after many attempts I gave up for a time. But then with Gustaf, he seemed to be the magic trick as both this member and other man we were trying to teach were home! We had a super nice visit with both of them and we got some lessons set up right from it. As I said goodbye to Gustaf yesterday I told him that I knew it was no coincidence we have known each other for 1.5 years. I knew him back in Gävle and worked closely with him in Täby. He then thanked me for all I did for him as he started his whole mission process after meeting me and my companions in Gävle. It was heartwarming and I look forward to the day he gets his mission call. 

-- Äldste Steele

Coast to Coast

Email written: 4/1/19

Hey everyone!!

All of the zone conferences have now come to close and we've come to the final week of the transfer and my final week here in Täby. All of the members came up to me at church yesterday and they tried to say their final goodbyes because they thought I was going back to the United States this week. Like nope, I've still got 3 months left, just going to move to my final area.

Zone Conferences were a blast! We first flew all the way down to Skåne for the Malmö zone conference and then after that conference, we drove up to Göteborg before we flew home again. All that traveling, plus spirtually packed meetings not mention sleeping on the floor really takes it out of you, but it's been such a fun week. I got to see my son Elder Thompson...the boys getting so old now, been a missionary for an entire year now!! I also got to eat Domino's pizza because yes, even Domino's has made it way to Sweden. 

The biggest focus from zone conference was the reminder that we are here in Sweden to TEACH!! After getting the results for the biannual survey from the missionary department, President Youngberg knew that the number of lessons being taught per week was nowhere near what it could be. So, it will be fun to see how we as a mission can begin teaching more lesson, and thus baptizing more converts. President Youngberg also got us super hyped up about the apostalic promises when it comes to the church in Sweden. 

Saturday was probably one of my favorite days of this week. So, we felt strongly that we needed to visit an area called Vaxholm. Vaxholm is a huge tourist spot in the summer and is the location of a large fort built a couple hundred years ago. That fort was the biggest defense against Russia if they were to attack by sea because they have to enter Stockholm through Vaxholm, but anyways, after we made it out to Vaxholm and got pretty lost, we found the closest bus stop. Right before we get there, the bus comes and leaves and so there we are just left waiting for a bus that didn't come for another 20-30 minutes. Well, not even 5 minuters later, one of our good friends from the ward, Gustaf, pulls up in his old beat up Alfa Romeo and asks us if we want a ride. This man straight up lives like 45-50 mins away and so we're like, what in the world are you doing in Vaxholm, to which he replied 'I wanted to eat some ice cream'. The sad news was the ice cream place, glass på hörnet, was closed.

But, anyways, we got to tract his old neighborhood out there, and he gave us a clutch ride home! Well, just a few hours later, we went to visit the ambassador with Gustaf's little brother, Jacob. The lesson went so well and the ambassador was hilarious. He kept applying everything we were doing to some kind of bible story. His wife was in the kitchen making a fruit plate for us and so as we were having our converstaion, he said they were like mary and martha when one was listening to Jesus and the other one was busy doing doing service. What a guy!

Well, that's about it! Ha det gott! 

Pictures:

1) some of the grabbar from the MTC group

2) Äldste Thompson!!

3/4) dominos 

1) some of the grabbar from the MTC group

2) Äldste Thompson!!

3/4) dominos 

3/4) dominos

BONUS PIC: Wonderful Zone Conference in Gothenburg

BONUS PIC 2: Another Zone Conference

Stand-By

Email written: 3/25/19

Hallå!!

What a great week it has been. We had a total of 3 zone conferences this week and so the time has just flown by. It's been kind of hard to keep all the days straight and I've been so exhausted after every zone conference because we have a training segment and then an additional speaking assignment at the conference. The first two were here in Stockholm and the last one was up in the promised land aka, Norrland. I felt such at home when we were up there in Umeå. 

Speaking of Umeå though, when we arrived to the airport, we went to the kiosk to print out our boarding passes. When we print them out, it says that we are on stand by and that we won't get our seat until we talk with the personnel at the gate. Well, we thought that was a little weird, but just hoped for the best as we went to the gate. Well, as we are sitting there, the flight gets delayed and then they finally get the boarding process started. We go up to the desk, but there are already like 12 people on stand by and we just watched as each person goes in front of us and gets a seat on the plane, but then as they get to us, the woman takes our ticket and starts talking on the walkie talkie and on the phone samtidigt and then after about 5-10 minutes of confusion, all we head is 'Boarding is complete'. And so, right in front of our eyes, we see our seats given up to other people and so they tell us that we won't be taking a flight until 11 pm that night. So, we were stranded in the airport for over 5 hours just waiting for the next plane. It was quite the adventure. And so we ended up eating a baguette and some ice cream and then taught a man for about 3 hours in the airport who also didn't get a seat on the plane. We didn't get to Umeå until almost 1am. We then woke up just a few hours later for the conference and so elder lewis was totally zonking out the entire conference. It was golden!

Later on in the week, on Sunday, we decide to go out to a certain area to knock on some doors before we eat our dinner. Well, as we are walking around after knocking on about 20 doors and getting lots of no's, we decide that the next house we knock on will be the last house of that time frame and so we prayerfully seek after the right house. Well, after going through a few different houses, and ending up on a random street, we saw a huge white house with a mysterious (mysterious just because i didn't know what it was) flag and we knew immediately that we needed to knock on that house. When we came to the door, a woman answered the door and then she said you are welcome. She then asks us, *Do you want to meet the ambassador?' And we're just like, um of course, and we come into this fancy house and this shorter man is sitting there tying his tennis shoes. He was about to leave for church. But, we began talking with him and he sees that we are missionaries and he tells us to come back and teach him next Saturday. And so, just like that, we got a lesson set up with the ambassador of the republic of Tanzania. Pretty cool stuff going on here!

Talk to y'all next week! Hejdå!

Pictures:

1) Umeå!!

2) snow mountain

-- Äldste Steele

1) Umeå!!

2) snow mountain

Isaiah 9:6

Email written: 3/18/19

Well, I'm kind of getting to that point where instead if emailing I just go out into the woods, have a grillfest with the other missionaries and film trick shot videos, so my apologies for those that have really enjoyed reading these :)

As we were out on a member meal this past week, we realised that we did not have another man to come with us on a lesson to an older woman that lived by herself, so we decided to ask the 16 year old young man in the family if he wanted to hang with us the rest of the evening and help out with the lesson. It took a little bit of convincing from both us and his dad, but he decided to come on and it was an absolute blast! This kid was so mature and so enjoyable to be around as we went to visit this lady, Brigitta. When we got there, she had forgotten we were coming to visit and so she wanted to reschedule. Definitely not that first time that has happened to me haha. But we decided to go to our bishops house because he lived like 1 minute away. Well, the time we went wasn't the best, since it turns out they were trying to give the kids baths and pit them to bed and also clean up the kitchen, but they let us in anyways and let us read a scripture. The scripture that we read reminded the bishop of a moment on his mission when he had just gotten to France and was feeling pretty homesick and then he read the verse in Isaiah 9:6 where it gives the name of Christ...Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace...He was so happy for the visit and our young man kompis was able to read the scripture with power and authority!! He decided to make some Snapchat videos and post them on his story so that all his followers could know that he was out 'preaching with the missionaries'. What a fun night it was :D

Well, zone conference this week! Hopefully Elder Lewis and I can pull through with our responsibilities and make it to Umeå safely this Friday. It will be a great week. Hopefully you all have a great one as well!!

-- Äldste Steele

Äldste Ahonen and Äldste Steele

Grillfest?

La Neta

Email written: 3/11/19

Hejsan allihopa!

What a fantastic week! Why was it such a good week you ask? Well it's because I got to eat at my favourite restaurant in Sweden 2 times this week. The restaurant is called La Netas and it's pretty much the only good Mexican food you can find in Sweden and wow it's some good stuff. As we were helping a member move some heavy furniture this past Saturday, one of the members told us that if we could throw a snowball and hit the far away garbage can, he would take us all out to la netas,and so elder Lewis took one for the team and hit it after just a few attempts and so that's where got to go this morning with a member and his son. I was in heaven!

In a big moment of confusion, elder Lewis and I also had to travel two additional times to the doctor's for elder Lewis TB test. It took 4 nurses and a doctor to make the diagnosis and even when they diagnosed elder Lewis, they said, well it SEEMS to he okay, but it is a difficult diagnosis. Always comforting when the doctor tells you that right?

This week was filled with a lot of other good things too, including MLC. As MLC approached, President youngberg came down with a pretty bad sickness, as most people are this time of year, and so he called an audible and had elder Lewis and I lead most of the MLC. It was a little nerve racking but it went pretty good and we got to talk a lot about our expectations and how we all can improve in our mission and so I look forward to zone conference next week where we get to teach some of the topics that were discussed! We all had a sad realisation when we realised that all of the elders in the MLC all go home by the end of August and so the leadership in this mission is about to complete shift to new leaders. 

As we were out tracting this week, we had no idea what to say when we came to a certain door. Elder Lewis ended up talking first and the first thing that came into his head was family history and it turned out this guy loved doing family history and welcomed us in to talk more. When we got to come back, we compared family trees and shared stories from our family and the Spirit came into the room. Because the Spirit was there, the conversation was able to go to a more spiritual note and we began talking about why we look for ancestors and how we can build those relationships we have and make them last for eternity. The conversation sparked such an interest that he now wants a Book of Mormon and to continue to learn more from us. It was a great experience! You never know who is ready to accept the gospel and what will interest them, but once the Spirit touches them, it changes their life. 

Hope y'all have a good week! Take care!

-- Äldste Steele

Bonus pic: The squad on Pday

Happy March!

Email written: 3/4/19

Hey everyone!

It's been a tough, but great week here in Täby because of all the different things we needed to get done on the first week of the transfer.

We got to welcome in the new missionaries to Sweden and they were all so excited to come in and go to work. They were all pretty tired and so I felt bad when we tried to speak Swedish to them and they just started at us like we were crazy, but I understood them. It's a new country, a new language, and the jet lag huts you hard. It's not easy being a new missionary, but I'm thankful they are here ready to learn.

We also had to go to the doctor's office this past week because apparently someone down in Malmö that Äldste Lewis had contact with, had TB and so we had to get that checked out. The doctor that talked with elder Lewis actually had contact before with missionaries and he has a Book of Mormon and he always respected us missionaries and so that was a great opportunity for him to answer questions!

Also, this past week, this 18 year old Swede called up the just doubled in that elders and asked them if this was the number he calls to become a member of the church or Jesus Christ of latter day saints. So, they went to go meet with him and after they met with him and teaching about baptism, they set a date for the 23rd of March! They went from a straight double in with nothing in their area book to a baptismal date in the matter of a few days. It was remarkable and it was such a miracle, mostly because the number this man called is only going to be active in a certain 6 week period. What a miracle!

Hope you all have a great week!!

Pictures:

1) we got free milk on drottninggatan 

2) my street!

3) Kyrka 

-- Äldste Steele

1) we got free milk on drottninggatan 

2) my street!

3) Kyrka