The end is nigh!

This week we got our flight plans, I am so exited to get out of here! I mean, the MTC is super great and all and I love being here, but nothing compares to Svergia. 

O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto the Swedes!

Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of Sweden.

But behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the time at the MTC which the Lord hath allotted unto me.

Anyways, I leave on monday, so I'm pretty much gone. I mean, by the time Dad reads this to the familj and Mom posts this on my blog thing, I'll definately be in Sweden already.

Our MTC zone is all of scandinavia and this week the Finns left us, so we were all super sad monday and tuesday because the Finns were the coolest people I know. There were so many of them and they really knew how to live MTC life. I mean, they were here for over two months! I've been here five weeks and can't wait to leave, I cannot imagine having another three weeks! Finnish is so crazy though, you know in English how if you wanted to go onto a house you could take a sentance about going into a house and just change one word? "He went into the house" becomes "He went onto the house". Pretty simple. In Finnish, every single word gets conjugated based on the extent of action the verb has, literally every word! Like, your name changes when you enter a place, when you leave a place, when you cross through a place, when your on a place, when you go up to a place but don't enter it, you enter a place without a roof, the weather can affect sentances, literally everything makes a change to how every word ends. It's crazy. I'll stick to Swedish, where the hardest rule to understand is that commas can be removed by switching word order of the second phrase, "I wonder what will happen, that is a big plug" becomes "I wonder what will happen is that a big plug".

Other Swedish trivia, Att Döpa means to baptize, and Att Dopa means to be high (on drugs), and Ett Val is a choice, and En Val is a whale. So I may have told an investigator that Jesus wants him to be high. And that we have a being-high-service next saterday. But he must make the Whale to join us.

I actually didn't say that, but I could have.

The hardest thing so far for me to adjust to was when I experienced how much math I forgot. At the bookstore I went to buy something and the total was $4.96 and I wanted to get rid of the maximum about of change I had but I couldn't figure out how to do it so I ended up paying $5 and getting four cents back. If I had paid $5.06 cents I would have traded six pennies for a dime, but I literally had to work that out on a piece of paper in the Res. Life was sad that day. I miss being able to math.

Fun fact of the day: if you connect the reference numbers in Facsimile 2 in the Book of Abraham in order, then turn it upside down, it makes Abrahams face. Try it, I kid you not.

The Finns left on Monday, but yesterday (Wednesday) we got new Finns. They are pretty cool and all, and there is another Swede going to Finnland in this group. He's from Boden, the furthest north area where everyone wants to go because it's on the Arctic Circle, so he has a nice Norrland accent. As a whole, this group of Finns is not quite as good as the old group of Finns, but they will suffice. I only have to be with them for a total of four days.

Well, my laundry still has 25 minutes until it's dry, so I'm pretty much wasting time. As a missionary that is not good because I'm actually wasting the Lords time, so I'm going to get off now and do something productive.

Älskar er!

Äldste Wilson

Family,

I'd like to start this letter with an awesome experience. Tuesday night the 13th was the third time in a row that we had a member of The Twelve speak to us. It started with Elder Christofferson, then we had Elder Ballard, then Elder Cook. No one really knows why this happened, but it did. Chief Justice of the Lunch Room General Managership and Head of the Committee to Feed MTC Speakers said he cannot remember the last time three members of the twelve spoke in a row. Side note, Chief Justice is actually this guys name, it says so on his name tag. So anyways, that was awesome, I got a lot of great notes and heard a lot of answers. Something that really stood out to me was from Elder Cooks talk. He was something like Head of the Development of Preach My Gospel so he talked a lot about that, and he said that PMG was written so that it cannot be memorized, but that it can be learned, carried in your heart, then shared in your own words. It reminded me of Joel 2:28. Also, they all mentioned that we have the same calling as they do, and they all called us their companions, prophets with a little p, or something along those lines. Good stuff.

In personal study I realized something awesome. In D&C 138:57 we are told that in the spirit world we will serve mission. In Alma 34:34 we are told that when we die, our knowledge stays the same. In D&C 90:11 we are told that everyone shall be taught the gospel in their native tongue. In PMG chapter 7 section "be dedicated and diligent" paragraph 3 we are told The Lord wants us to learn our language for more then our language. Put it all together, and we come to understand that in the spirit world missionary work for dead Swedes is being carried out by the dead that can speak Swedish. Missionary work for dead Brazilians is being carried out by missionaries that can speak Portuguese, and ext. ext. ext. So my call to Sweden is for a lot longer than two years. That is this weeks food for thought.

On Sundays we get to watch a movie (like Joseph Smith, the Prophet of the Restoration or This Good Talk that This Member of the Twelve Gave Seven Years Ago) and this Sunday we watched three new segments from Meet the Mormons 2. It was pretty good, when it comes out y'all should go watch it. One of the Mormons you get to meet is a Cowboy from Southern Utah and his segment is a little weird because you watch him train horses for a while, but it's all good. Another segment is on The Blessed Four, a Japanese band. That was the best part by far because we got to listen to music and see dancing and cool stuff like that.

Syster Gifford och Syster Fairbanks are on the same floor as me for class, so I've run into them a couple of times. That's pretty neat.

One of the Öldungurs broke his elbow playing soccer, and it's a month long fix. But don't worry, he has to learn Icelandic, so even after he gets all healed up, he has another month here.

Still no pictures because I still don't have a camera that works.

I'm pretty much just typing now because my companions are still typing, so I'm gunna be done now.

Älska,

Äldste Wilson

What's your favorite idea?

Outside World,

Lots of good stuff happened this week, along with some sad stuff, so it evened out to be an OK week. One of the Systers was in a car crash a while ago and kept feeling lost, confused, and irritable. She talked to the Doctor about it and got diagnosed with something like Post Concussive Syndrome, basically she got a concussion and it didn't heal and won't heal for at least six months, so she went home. That was sad. 

On Tisdag we had a devotional from Elder Christofferson. He talked a lot about our new focus as missionaries, "Preach repentance and Baptize converts". It was super good, lots of good scriptures, and he passed around a microphone to get interaction from the audience, it was all super cool. Someone in my room is having a super hard time now because they can feel Satan trying to mess them up, so we gave them blessings and stuff and they pray for help a ton, then in the devotional Syster Christofferson shared two quick stories about missionaries who were having a hard time then prayed then something happened and they had a great time. It made things quite ironic actually, here's this missionary whose praying about a hard time and his answer is a devotional saying you should pray when you're having a hard time. 

So as for my email subject today, my favorite idea is to set a goal for everything: personal study, devotional, sacrament meeting, class, sleep, exercise time, language study, email, you name it and I set a goal for it. Doing this is a goal of mine, so you should try it. Jag vet det, i ni komma till familij sckriftellen studier med en mal, Gud vill hjelpa ni ta emot en svall genom Mormons Bok, Bibelen, eller Läran och Förbuden. Han har hjelpa mig i personlilghet studier, Han vill hjelpa er.

Other cool things I did this week include my first anointing of the sick and afflicted, giving my first blessing of comfort, eating some cookies a Syster got mailed that were the absolute best, meeting Jacob Nelsen, watching Joseph Smith, the Prophet of the Restoration (great movie, find and watch it) three times (once after a devotional in a normal movie-watching setting, twice while running on an elipticle), eating temple food for breakfast and thus solidifying my testimony that the church is true, and committing our first "investigator" to baptism. Good stuff.

Kärlek,

Äldste Wilson

Life Goes On...

This week, I realized how glad I am to not go to Finland, Japan, Korea, or anywhere Mandarin speaking. Each day my journal entries get shorter and shorter, as every day is pretty much the same. Wake up. Eat breakfast. Play Volleyball. Loose to the Finns. Personal study. Companion study. Language study. Lunch. Class. Dinner. Class. Personal/Companion/Language study again. Bed.

On a bright note, President Maynes of the 70 gave an amazing talk about the BOM's power in conversion. Something that he said is that when Joseph Smith was moved upon by the Spirit of Revelation he was a very eloquent speaker and dictator, even though he could not even form the sentences





required for a journal with out serious thought. Gives me hope that with the spirit of revelation, I can do the same for the Swedish People. After all, Elder Bednar did say that missionaries are "prophets with a little p".

My district is beyond awesome, all the Äldster are as close of friends as any, and all the Syster are similarly awesome. The food is also awesome, at clogging people up. One of the Vanhins has not had a good poop for over four weeks, and he eats more than Brady! We've given him laxatives, prune juice, spinach, it does nothing. Poor fellow.

Kärlek,

Äldste Wilson