Conference was Awesome!

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Man, what a week!! I am on such a spiritual high from conference, I feel like I am on cloud 9! Thank you for all of your prayers on my behalf, the investigators', and everything that is going on here. Unfortunately we didn't have a baptism, but we are still eager to go out and get one. Btw our new apartment is so nice!  We are blessed.

 

I am sleeping really well here. I like working so hard everyday that when I come home, the only thing I can

do is fall right to sleep. I know the Lord has helped me with my insomnia here - I've been blessed to sleep the whole night through, and even get up feeling great! It still kills me that no matter what, I always wake up 2 minutes before my alarm goes off, every time! A lot of missionaries have a hard time getting up in the morning, but not me. If ever I have a thought to stay in bed, I quickly change my attitude and get out. I think about that I am on a mission. I have dedicated and consecrated all of my time to serving the Lord. So waking up exactly on time to go workout and get my exercise only helps me have the energy to go throughout the day serving the Lord. When I think about it this way, its not hard getting up right away. Sure, I would like to sleep in (and sometimes we don't get to bed on time) but thats not why I am here. I am here to serve.

Dad, WHEN we come to Sweden together, we will play some golf with J. Notice the when and not if. "If, if is good." (name that movie!!) NO! "If" is not good! "If" is a possibility of perhaps performing an action. "When" shows and implies action. "When" motivates you to make the action happen rather than wait for a possibility. That was just an interesting thought that popped into my head.

Monday: a bunch of the missionaries went to a Thai food restaurant and then our district took a final photo together before the transfers.

We said our final goodbyes to those who would be leaving, I am really grateful for these guys helping me out in my birthplace of the mission. I am still a little baby, in missionary terms, but now I am an active 7 year old running all over the place getting things done. We had that FHE with the YSAs to try to get to know us better and instill more help in our missionary work. 

Sis L, Elder M and myself all did a little 5 minute thing about us. I actually walked on my hands for a bit and juggled some balls whilst talking a little about myself. It was really fun and cool to kind of break out of my shell. Honestly tho, missionaries have no embarrassment. What need is there? You aren't trying to impress anyone, so be yourself and serve the Lord no matter how weird you may think you are or sound. That's something that has really helped me speak to more people rather than being seclusive and not talking to anyone.

Tuesday: We helped a member move his home from Lidingö to Solna (west side of stockholm). The fresh new grön saker (green things, or greenies) arrived and were at the center of town to do the contacting for a bit. All the missionaries in Stockholm came help out the greenies.

Yes even me, the greeny trying to help another greeny! Wow! That was a lot of responsibility and scared me quite a bit. But i was super excited to bestow my knowledge unto the younguns. It is so great to not be the young one anymore. I feel like a weight has been lifted, kind of. I feel more free and less self conscious about myself. My understanding speaking is getting better. I took one greeny with me and helped him out. Sure, we had no success, but we did talk to some people and let him see how contacting is and how missionary work is in Sweden. I gave him a lot of advice and he is super eager to serve! It got me re-excited about missionary work seeing that spark in him. It went really well, i was sr comp for a good 20 minutes and it was way fun! 

Wednesday: I dropped of my comp at the central station. Man I'm going to miss him, even if we had our differences, like BYU vs Utah:

Met up with a few new guys in the zone, and said goodbyes to some cool guys like elder H. I really hope I can be comps with him sometime. He went to Stansbury, played football, and we get a long great! So me and elder C went on splits because we had to wait for our new comps to arrive. We went to this less active's place and a man let us in. We thought it was the less active guy, M. Nope. It was his roommate E who had us come in without even telling us that he wasn't who we thought he was. He knew we were church people and wanted to hear the word of god. A lot of people called him on the phone while we were talking to him about the restoration, and he got way upset because he wanted to hear the word of God!! Oh man, I love Africans so much! They are so humble and just love hearing the word of God! He really liked what we talked about and we set up a return appointment for Elder C. He gave us this huge sandwich and coke after. We didn't even know him 30 minutes earlier and he is giving us lunch!!! These people are so amazing and loving, its the best! he said it was customary in kenya or africa to always prepare food for an extra person, even if you had no plans of having anyone over, just in case! Wow, that is so cool! He was definitely a great guy!

We then went to central station to wait for our new comps. We actually missed my comp come out, so he was waiting for 10 minutes alone before we saw him! hahaha it was pretty funny. My comps name Elder H, he comes from Washington, has been out for more than a year, he is amazing at the guitar (bought one hear in sweden, plays like august rush, man it is amazing!) He is super hilarious/weird and the biggest thing about him is that he looks EXACTLY like Gru from Despicable Me. I cant even tell you how much he looks and acts like him! He has this black coat that zips up tight, a gray scarf, pointy nose. When it gets colder, I will take a pic of him in his gru outfit. It is unreal!

Thursday: did some swing-bys to get to know our area a little better for my new comp. I was putting too much stress on myself trying to set up appointments and call people and all of that jazz, but he said I need not worry. We will figure it out together. So that was really helpful for me. Its still hard though trying to get him up to date with everything, but it will be just fine. We taught a boy whose dad, wants him to get baptized. The boy is interested and wants to know more and get baptized too! We don't have a date yet but hopefully soon! We talked with the dad about being the one to baptize him and he said its been on his mind a lot! He knows he needs to get active to do that and wants to! Man, how cool is that! we talked with him about conference (and the need to watch it and how they can grow when they watch it) and he wants to watch it! A great thing with that lesson was that we taught roughly 50-50! Something that I haven't done before! We are already working so well together. One of the first things H said to me when we met was that I am not a greeny anymore so he wont treat me that way. We are going to work together in unity! At sports nite we got to play football (anytime i say football it is soccer) I was so stoked! We had a lot of Africans and Swedes who knew how to play so that was a lot of fun for me! I scored a couple of times and did some fancy tricks and impressed a lot of people ha. I still got it:)

Early morning fog

Friday: this week we were low on lessons to teach because of all of the switches in the area and conference, but we took a lot of time getting to know the area. H has been in areas where there aren't that many people so he is constantly amazed at how many people are in Stockholm, how the tunnelbanas work along with the buses, seeing other missionaries very often, and things like that. It makes me laugh because I don't know any different, but for him it is so new! I guess I will experience the isolated areas eventually. Something interesting to know is that I still get hot so easy, even in Sweden. I have to sleep with the window open because I get too hot at night, and in my personal studies I like to be right up next to the nice cool air emanating from the window. 

We taught D who is waiting for something before he will get baptized. We need to pray that his family will be open to us so that D can be baptized and bless them all! D and I always have our own private conversations about missionaries and things like that. I love that man and I want to see him in the water!! 

Saturday and Sunday: We had a plan to meet with Y to teach him but he could only do it when we would be at the chapel for conference. So the G's stepped in and said they would teach him and have him watch conference with them, after feeding us of course! Man, they are just the best! So we then went to the chapel in gubbängen for conference. Here's how we watched conference: saturday morning we watched at 6pm and then went home. Priesthood was on sunday morning at 11am, then saturday's afternoon session was Sunday at 2pm, then sunday morning session we watched at 6pm then went home, I need to watch sunday afternoon sometime this week. 3 different rooms to watch in swedish, english, or spanish) watching THE GREATEST SESSION OF CONFERENCE EVER!!!!!! It was seriously so good and perfect! Everything was so powerful and inspired and just the best! I cried during most of the talks because it was that powerful! Everything seemed to be exactly what I needed to hear, and what Sweden needed to hear.

I love how Uchtdorf invited everyone to our church and everything with that. Home teaching was thrown down, something much needed here to be picked up on. Showing love to everyone was a major thing that I picked out of conference. We need not judge, but love and bring people the gospel of joy!! Don't be a sayer of the word, but a doer of the word and testimony that you have. Conversion is a process, not a destination. Always strive to be better and help other people! I want to go out now and apply everything that I learned and help everyone come to the Savior! I would love to hear from all of you what your favorite talk was and why! please, I would love to hear this! I honestly have no one favorite, they were all my favorite! Pres Monson's about his wife was so tender and loving, we need to follow him!

Something absolutely crazy that happened was with S. We haven't had too much contact with him for the past 2 weeks (he's been sick) M called him and invited him to conference, and he didn't seem to excited about it. He still has been reading the bom everyday, but we challenged him to really pray about it. Sunday morning at 3 am, he texted that He knew the BOOK OF MORMON IS TRUE!!! He was so excited that he had to tell us immediately! He came to priesthood and another session. When he got off of the train at the station, he ran to us and gave us a big hug!! It was the greatest thing ever! HE IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!!

I am sooo happy for him and excited!!! It will be on the 20:e (the way of making it 20th, or tjugonde) of oktober!! Man, it was just the greatest feeling in the world, to be a part of teaching him the gospel and seeing him making the decision for himself that will make him so happy! WOW, what a great feeling!

I had transfers this week. You may all have transfers in your life: into a new home, new lifestyle, big decisions, etc. Along with these transfers, it is a good time to reflect on what is going on in your life. See where you are and what you can do to get to where you would like to be. Conference helped with this for me. Constantly check up on your life and see if it is in line with the savior. We can always work a little bit harder, a little bit longer on things that will bless us and our families. See where you are right now in your life with your testimony. Ask yourself where you would like to be, and then get to work on getting there. I know that I have a lot to work on and make better. Its going to be hard at times, but I know that as I always have a goal to be like the savior and rely on him, I can do it. You can do it now. 

I love you all so much and so greatful for you. Apply what you have learned and see how the Lord will bless you. Have a wonderful week, Ha ett underbart vecka! Jag älskar er!

Äldste Johnson