Good old Familjen Polethu :)

This week was a great one! Life as normal as a Sweden Stockholm Missionary :)

Found this ancient Bible in our church, from the 1800's (possibly). It was litterally like holding a piece of history, and the Swedish was so old! Swedish has changed so much so fast, the text here isn't even the same language. The S's and K's also look like F's, it uses W's instead of V's, it's super epic. The cover is made of wood. 

We also visited the Polethus again, I love that family! Their oldest son died his hair blond, and it's something special alright. He's obsessed with Elder Prososkis hair, so he also asked us to curl it for him. I got a few pictures, and started filming it, but then the youngest daughter got super defensive and wanted to be the one getting filmed, so I did that too :)

Other than that, I also gave a talk in church! I talked about faith, and how awesome it is. Lots of scriptures were used, lots of stories were told, lots of testimony was born, and lots of Cambodians slept. You win some, you loose some.

But the highlight, Zone Conference! The Sweden Stockholm Mission has been selected as one of two missions out side of the US and Canada to get the churches new technology program for missionaries, so we watched training for a long time. But it was so epic! I'm very exited to get new phones and be able to use Facebook to help my investigators, and I love Elder Bednar!

I'll attach some pictures now :)

Ha det gott!

Äldste Wilson

Picasso strikes again! (|] ^~ % }

This week was awesome. The highlight was this tuesday! There is a family that lives in a little place called Eden, about 2 hours away from Ö-vik. We have permission to go and visit them once every six weeks, and last time we ended up not going there, so this was my first time visiting them, and it was awesome! They're named Hans and Larayne Karlsson and they have a "woofer" (A random young European who lives on their farm for a few weeks or months, just to get away from the world and take a pause by working on a historic farm in Northern Sweden) from France named Marie. Their farm is a special one, it's a historic building and they have some special cows that are native to Sweden or something like that, it's super epic. We climbed up ladders perched on boards that some genius had placed so as to negate the 35 degree incline, spread straw in a cow pasture, and pitched a hay mountain for hours and hours. There was so much hay. Like, the four story barn was full, but they needed us to move the mountain, so we pitched four stories of hay. Luckily both Elder Prososki and I have hay allergies, so we both got destroyed. Not sure why that's lucky, but hey, not every companionship shares a similar allergy which they encounter out of season. We also ate some delicious food, like, the best pork chops and mashed potatoes with mushroom, spinach, and carrot I've ever had before. I've decided that once I'm a millionaire I'm going to buy a historic farm in Norrland and eat tasty foods for my retirement.

Other than that, this week was just fulled of hard work! Nothing beats a week full of contacting, tracting, and teaching! We have this one investigator named Alf who loves the gospel, but just doesn't want to stop drinking coffee. It's sad because we cannot help him until he wants to change (Alma 32:27).

On a more positive note, check out Mosiah 4:30 (and 2 Cor. 10:5, Alma 12:14, and D&C 6:36)! May sound really hard, but there's a simple way to make watching those things a habit, it's called Virtue! PMG says:

"Your mind is like a stage in a theater; in the theater of your mind, however, only one actor can be on stage at a time. If the stage is left bare, thoughts of darkness and sin often enter the stage to tempt. But these thoughts have no power if the stage of your mind is occupied by wholesome thoughts, such as a memorized hymn or verse of scripture that you can call upon in a moment of temptation. By controlling the stage of your mind, you can successfully resist persistent urges to yield to temptation and indulge in sin. You can become pure and virtuous." -PMG pg. 119, emphasis added

One very important skill is to know how to displace the thoughts of darkness that come up, but another skill is knowing how to not let your stage get blank! This isn't only important, it's a commandment! See Alma 37:36 and D&C 6:36. Still sound hard? Memorizing a scripture or hymn works! Not only to displace preexisting thoughts, but also as you memorize and practice the scripture, your mind isn't empty. Listen to good music, and focus on the words! Yet another way to make sure your mind isn't empty. Also, avoid bad media! If you're intentionally filling your mind with thoughts of darkness and sin, you'll have a lot harder time using those memorized scriptures correctly.

Anyways, basically I'm just writing this because I can, because I have time, because no one emails me and everyone emails my companion. Well, that's all though.

Hejdå!

Äldste Wilson

This one'll be short

So this was a great week and I loved it, but nothing out of the usual happened that I can write about except for branch council! That was actually super good though, it was super cool to be with President Youngberg for a long time. We talked about joy for Sunday school, and dissected 2 Nephi 5 to figure out what we need to do to be happy in our lives, it was really good! President Youngberg has such a strong testimony and understands the scriptures very well, I loved listening to his lesson. It was exactly what the branch needed.

Here's the recipe for joy though:

2 Nephi 5:1 -- prayer

5:6 -- Listen to God and His servants

5:10 -- Keep the commandments!

5:11 -- Work!

5:12 -- Read the scriptures and follow the spirits guidance

5:15 -- once again, WORK!

5:16 -- Participate in the Temple

5:17 -- WORK!!! WORK!!! WORK!!!

5:24 -- what not to do

5:26 -- The establishment of church

Put that all together, and 2 Nephi 5:27 will be said of you as well.

But wait, what about all the people that do those things and cannot afford to live in a nice home, drive a car, eat food that tastes good, or eat at all, or that are lacking the things that are needed to be happy? Well that's the problem, no "thing" is needed to be happy, just God! (Mosiah 24:13-15) I've seen plenty of people here in Sweden that witness their families get slaughtered in the middle east, abandon everything they have to flee to a country with nothing more than the cloths on their backs, no friends, and not able to speak Swedish. Surely if there is anyone who lacks the "things" needed to be happy, it's these people. But they are happy, because they have God.

I to have God in my life, and that blessing is the greatest I've been given. However, what I don't have in my life is pictures of this week, so hopefully you will all be able to be happy with out those :,^(

Mycket kärlek,

Äldste Wilson

Pictures are worth a thousand words, right?

This week we got transfer calls, and my entire district is staying the same! However, this transfer is an important one because the Sisters that entered the MTC with me are going home this Tuesday! So sad! All six of them have done great work in Sweden, they are great examples to me of dedicated service and sacrificing for the Lord.

But up here in Örnsköldsvik the work goes forwards! We've been working hard, the Lord is blessing us. This Sunday was the first time an investigator came to church in at least 4.5 months, probably closer to 9 months. But my man Alf came and participated in class more than the other 7 members who came that week :)

​Left to right: Sister Heaps, Botchway, Cappuccio, Gow, Elder Wilson, Malone, Harrell

It's also semlor season in Sweden, and those are my favorite desserts ever! I'll attach a picture of the district eating them after district meeting, then the one I just ate. A semla is a sweet bun with almond cream and whipped cream sandwiched in the middle, and the traditional way to eat them is in a deep plate drowned in warm milk. Yummm, I could eat 3 more if I had the money for it!

3373- Disection of a Semla

3330- The district and our Semlor

3328- Elder Prososki making his favorite, Haluushka (?) a traditional Polish dish. Fried cabbage, noodles, and more Paprika then you'd think acceptable. 

Well this week was crazy

There are three parts to the crazyness of this week, all of which were awesome! To start off, we went to Stockholm for a mission tour by President Johnson, President over the Europe area. But it was super fun, because I got to fly to Stockholm and sleep on Handens, my previous areas, couch. We then had this big meeting with three zones, so around 80 missionaries, which also included almost every missionary I've served around except for a few. The meeting was super good, very spiritual, and lunch was a party as I got to play the part of social butterfly and walk around and talk to lots of people. It's super weird though, I'm one of the "oldest" missionaries left in the mission! The Sister missionaries that came into the MTC with me are going home in two weeks, so this was also my chance to say goodbye to most of them. After the meeting was a little leadership meeting I went to and that meeting went a little overtime, which leads to the next exiting event this week!

We almost missed our plain! Because the meeting went over, first off I didn't get any pictures with the other missionaries (very sad day) but second off we missed the intended train and had to get a ride to the train station to catch the next train. We then got to the airport 30 minutes before the plain left, and we got to the baggage station 28 minutes before the plain left, so they wouldn't let us check my suitcase. Luckily for us though, the Umeå Elders were also at the airport and Elder Stapley offered to take my suitcase with him, so I sent that to Umeå with him and we begged the lady to print off our boarding passes. We then ran though security and got onto our plain just as they were closing boarding. It was close, but we made it! Then we landed at Ö-vik in time for crazy event three!

We land, in the middle of a massive snowstorm! It's crazy, we must have gotten around a meter of snow, I'll send pictures but they don't do it justice. There was so much snow, that they couldn't plow it! Our parking spot is out of commission, there is a pile about 3.5 meters tall just behind it, and the stall itself has a meter of snow on it. It's also super cold! Like, this morning was -24 C. Like, it's insane how much snow appeared over the 24 hours we were in Stockholm. 

Now, crazy event related to event 2, the trip up to Umeå! Because my suitcase had everything needed to be a missionary (scriptures, phone charger, toiletries, PJs, ext.) in it, we stayed the night in Ö-vik then the next day drove up to Umeå to get our stuff, then since we were in Umeå we decided to do work-overs with the Umeå ZL's, so that was a party! I love those two, Elder Stapley and Bringhurst. Great missionaries, the both. We also had a member meal with a family from Colombia and that was tasty :)

Also, crazy event related to event 1. We show up at the airport an hour early to fly down to Stockholm, and the airport parking machine won't take our cards! We try both our mission credit cards, then we both try our personal cards, and we try the other parking machine, and it also doesn't work. So we go in and try talking to people there but no one knows how to help us, and at this point in time the plain was about to board, so we call the mission financial person and he says to call the parking company, so we call the number on the parking machine, and no one answers! What kind of help line doesn't answer? The one to the parking meters in Ö-Vik airport.

Well that was long. I'll now attach some pictures and sign out. Thanks for reading and have a great week!

Äldste Wilson

 The time we did P90X with one of the Cambodian families on p-day

IMG_3305 is a sign that says "Eat, Drink, Enjoy (in a "be merry" manner)", sounds familiar, right?

Well this week was sure something

Remember how I mentioned quickly last week that I'd been a little sick? I was a little sick for all of this week to :( It's fine though, a little sickness never killed nobody. A lot of sickness has, but I didn't have that. And besides, I'm better now, I just sound like I've chain smoked every day of my life.

But unfortunatly, that does mean that I don't really have a lot of stories to tell this week. Just this one:

It was a Tuesday night. We had had to replan the day multiple times already, because when you're a missionary nothing ever goes to plan. Ever. Anyways, we had just driven back to the apartment after a lesson, and the clock was 20:28, meaning we had 32 minutes left in the day. I was pretty sick at this time of the week, and my body was completely dead. We pull into our parking stall as Elder Prososki looks at me and asks "What do you want to do?" We had origionally planned to study the language at this time, but ended up having to do that earlier in the day, so we had nothing planned. I responded with "Well, I'm pretty tired now, to be honest I just want to go to bed. What do you want to do?" Elder Prososki then looked at me and said, "Do you think Paul ever went to bed early on his mission?" I then realized that I had three options:

1- Be lame and use sickness and a tool to do nothing

2- Work, but also use sickness as an excuse to not work hard, but also keep saying how hard I want to work, I'm just sick and cannot speak anyways so there was no point in me working hard

3- Actually be a man and work

Up to this point in the day, I'd been working at option 2, so I decided then to "gird up my loins like a man" and do what Paul, Stephen, Peter, John, Ammon, Moroni, Mormon, Moroni, Nephi x3, Jacob, Joseph, Helaman, Dan Jones, Parly P. Pratt, and Samuel Smith would do and get to work. So we went out and contacted in the city and found 4 people who are willing to meet up again and give us their telephone numbers. Moral of this story, don't be lame and don't pretend to work but actually be lame at the same time, just work and even though you may feel like someone is sandpapering your esophogous whenever you breath in cold air as you're walking around in freezing Örnsköldsvik you're going to be happy anyways.

Sorry for the terrible spelling, the wifi at the church went out so I'm emailing from the library and the computers here are stuck in Swedish so I lost my spell-checking abilities. Sad day.

Elder Wilson