Zone conference! Gotland! Yay!

This week we had zone conference, and it was way good! President and Sister Youngberg talked a lot about the Plan of Salvation, and the moral of their presentation is that the plan is true. Then we had trainings on how to plan the day, and have effective personal and companionship studies. It was super good, and super fun to be with all the other missionaries. The Sweden Stockholm mission is the seventh largest (geographically speaking) mission in the world and there are missionaries in every corner of Sweden, so it's not often we get to meet up. It was super fun to see lots of my friends again, and the trainings were super spiritually uplifting. 

Also we got to go do work overs on Gotland! Gotland is the island in the Baltic Sea, it's a very cool spot. The big city is surrounded by a wall that's almost a thousand years old and super tall and thick, with towers, and there were crazy old churches all over on the inside, and the whole city has cobble stone streets, it was a little hard to tell if we were contacting or had accidentally jumped back 500 years into the Feudal ages. The branch on Gotland only has around 12-15 active members, so it was super awesome to get to know them. One of them gave me this super cool rock that says (in ancient rune-script Swedish) "The old Vikings say: If we had known about Christ, we would have been Mormon Missionaries too!"

We don't have that much time now, have a great day! Masoud is doing great still, keep praying for him!
Elder Wilson

So this guy's pretty cool

So this week has been pretty normal. Lots of good stuff has happened, including splits with Elder Warnick. He also went to Lone Peak so it was fun to talk with him. We actually had math together in 9th grade. If you were to have told 9th grade Elder Wilson that he would meet a (very) drunk Cuban named Farmor Ben (Uncle Ben) on a tunnelbanna in Sweden with his classmate 9th grade Elder Warnick, I don't think he would have believed you. Or he would have thought "That is super specific, you must be right." I guess we'll never know until someone invents time travel.

Also, Elder Jackson and I started teaching a man named Masid, and he's got a cool story. He is a world famous Kick-boxer and has won world championships and has documentaries published about him. He's from Iran and was known for being the "Christian Kick-boxer". The Iranians loved him. So the Government asked him to get on the radio and say that the Government is awesome, but he said no. After that the Government took everything he had, tried to kill him, he fled to Sweden, and now loves meeting his new family Jackson and Wilson. So that's cool! Also, we don't have to worry about teaching him then having other people find out and try to kill him, because that's already happened! Besides, any assassin would have to be really sneaky to catch him off guard, and he would destroy them in any kind of physical battle.

I also found a tattoo parlor that makes me re-think my no-tattoo mentalitet. 

This graffiti describes life as a Sweden Stockholm Missionary.

Hejdå!

Äldste Wilson

The Vasa

Pretty much this week was awesome, but the part that will interest y'all most is the pictures of the Vasa. For those of you who don't know what that is, I'd suggest looking it up, it's way cool. The height of Swedish military.

Other than that, this week was full of lots of work and teaching and motab. Last week we had this one guy just walk into sacrament meeting who needed translation so I translated for him, then after that started talking to him and he really want to be a missionary. So we explained that there's a path to get there, and we would love to help him with that ;) Cool stuff. His name is Saladin, pray for him.

Well, now I'll just attach some of those pictures from the Vasa! Way cool stuff.

Elder Wilson

Swedish History Museum

Family, friends, and others,

Last p-day we went to the Swedish History Museum and it was super cool! I'll attach a lot of pictures. 

Funny story, there is this one person we are teaching who is from Nicaragua (shout out to Elder Gonzalez!) and we were talking about how God is our Heavenly Father and so I asked this man if he's a papa and he says yes then askes if I'm a papa and I say "Nej, men jag har en papa" but the man missed that first part and thought that I'm a dad. Funny story. 

Something that's cool about Sweden is that I get to meet people from everywhere. There are probably more countries of which I've met someone native to it than there are countries I haven't met someone native to it. I've covered almost all of Europe, all of Asia, and most of South America and Africa. So that's pretty neat!

Also, one day I thought to myself "Self? What do you want to study today? Well, Self, I would like to read from a random spot in the Book of Mormon." so I opened up to Alma 11 and read all the way up through 16, super good chapters. Zeezrom was literally doing the same thing as Alma had done, and had the same experience (substitute Angel for Alma) as Alma, and ended up being a missionary like Alma. Moral of the story, the Lord knows each of us personally and sent someone to Zeezrom who would know what Zeezrom was going through. Thus, Alma is also a type of Christ in this story and Christ went though the atonement so as to "[S] suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me." (Alma 7:11-13)

Moral of the story, the scriptures are good. 

I am doing great, still in Handen and having a party with Elder Jackson, have a great week because I know I will,

Elder Wilson

A super big snail

Kära familj och vänner,

This week I saw a super big snail. I took a picture but you cannot really tell how big it is, so you'll have to trust me that the snail was massive.

I also went on splits again with Vendeslö and that was a party! I was with Elder Ashford and we had a blast. Afterwards we found out that the church was getting deep cleaned so we couldn't walk in it. That meant we had to have our companionship study and ringstund outside so that was a party. 

This week is also transfers, but both Elder Jackson and I will stay in Handen. We are also getting two sets of missionaries from Hägersten, one of which is Elder Warnick who is also from Lone Peak! That also means my district is made up of what once was a zone until recent changes, so that's fun. 

We have this one member who is friends with one of our investigators and this week was the investigators birthday so the member invited her and us to pizza hut buffet. If you want the missionaries to like you, be like this member. Nothing is better than teaching members friends while eating american pizza. 

Gotta bounce, we're going to Stockholm to look at some museums today, hejdå!

Äldste Wilson

ps, looks like Sweden if considering the separation of state and church.

Hum...

I don't really know what to put down here now. I mean, this week was amazing and full of funny and awesome moments, I just forgot them all. But I do have pictures!

I was finally blessed to find the one licence plate I've been looking for my almost year in Sweden

We walked 30 min to the right address of the wrong member for dinner so I took a "sorry Sister Olsson we'll be more than a little late to dinner" seflie

I passed my year-mark so Elder Jackson made me some pancakes for breakfast (don't worry, we didn't light the candle)

I alphabetized our books of mormon, we have 53 different languages (most used in this area are Swedish, Spanish, English, Arabic, Persian, and Polish, not in that order)

But ya, life is going great! My companion is amazing, I'm loving Handen a ton, the members here love having the missionaries over for dinner, I made it a year without ironing my non-iron Kirkland signature shirts, life is a party!

Side note, everyone should give President Monson a birthday present by doing a good deed to some one else.

Elder Wilson

The highlight of this week was definitaly zone conference, which is when the mission president and the assistants to the president come and give a training to the whole zone. They talked about 1 Timothy 4:12, it was super good. I've had a lot of people tell me I'm only a missionary because I'm still young and I'm just doing what my parents told me to do, but they don't understand what it's like to pray about the Book of Mormon. 

Other then that this week was just a good week of hard work and Bulgar! Fun fact of the day, ever since Christmas I've been making the same food every day for lunch and dinner, Bulgar and meatballs or chicken with creme frech and sweet and sour sauce. It literally never gets old. Never.

Also this week I saw a Chevy! It's been a long time since I've seen one of those so I had to take a picture. We also found a CTR licence plate. Elder Jackson is super good with licence plates, in his short 4 weeks here we've already found his and his dads initials, CTR, LDS, NRA, A**, SOB, and many others. I, on the other hand, am still looking for MEW.

One last thing, I also met some members from Västra Frölunda this week, that was way cool! Shout out to Leo! Lycka till och kom ihåg jag vill besöka dig efter min mission!

Love y'alls

Äldste Wilson