What up Family!

Cool stuff about your new stake and whatnot, I like the name Boulder Ridge Stake but we've been Little Valley ward forever so that will be different! The snow melted here on tuesday which was a bit depressing. Its been really warm this week, thats super weird. One of the days it literally felt like a summer day. It's crazy to hear that we've been warmer than y'all in St George.

This week was me going around to all the people in my area and saying goodbye. We would come over, eat a little, take a picture and then I'd bear my testimony to them. Even with many cancellations and switching around, we managed to get 20 lessons! But the other numbers weren't so good...Oh well.

Mån: After emailing we decided to go on splits with some other Elders for the rest of Pday so we could go shop for a little Christmas gift for our companions. I also bought me a new backpack, and another sweater for the cold I'm supposed to be in:) 

We all bought backpacks.  Mine is purple.

Tis: My last District meeting in Stockholm.We met up with our investigator and had a really good talk. We showed him all of the links and stuff about lds and mormon.org, which he really loved! He then told us a lot about Iran. My eyes have been really opened about Iran. They get the bad rep because of the Taliban and other things we hear from the news. I would really like to visit there one day. Its amazing how ignorant we can be when we don't know things first hand. We had ward council this day and it was the best! All the representatives were there and they had a great discussion about everything.

Our sticky note Christmas tree.

Ons: Tuesday should have been super busy, never a down time of thinking about what we should do (as it should be), but... the opposite happened. We had 3 cancellations. We then tried to do some swingbys, one was this home that was the spookiest place I had ever seen. Only one light was on upstairs and it was pitch black. I knocked on the door and then we just booked it out of there because we were so scared, haha. While waiting at the bus stop we decided to try different types of screaming and such. haha. I found out that I no longer can go into my super high pitch girl squeal. I am super disappointed with that. I tried so hard to reach up there, but ended up just scratching my voice and losing it for an hour ha.

Tors: We got cancelled on again so we took some time updating the area book, the ward list and things. We then had our church watch duty and tried to do some family history. We had sports night and M came. I had to organize everything again, which I don't mind. One of the investigators there fell and scraped his hand on a nail which opened up his hand all the way to the bone. Elder H patched him up nicely and kept him from going into shock and got  him to the emergency room to receive 9 stitches across the outer rim of his palm. Pretty intense!

St. Lucia Celebration

Fre: The 13:e of December was Lucia's day here in Sweden, which is a big deal. Its a celebration of- I honestly still don't know. People put candles on their head and then they sing. The zone got together to watch one (cause we can't teach or contact during this time) near t-central. It took about 3 hours but we had fun. We went over to the H's to have my final visit with them. After dinner, and an incredible spiritual discussion with each other, they gave me a pink ukelele! Yeah, can you believe that?? I now am in possession of a pink ukelele and Elder H is teaching me a lot! It was super cool and so nice of them!

I love to see the Temple

Lör: TEMPLE!!!!! Man, it was such a great experience going with our friend to the temple for baptisms for the first time! When we entered in the temple, his mouth just dropped and he was amazed at how beautiful it was! I dont know if you can see from my pictures, but it really is such a beautiful temple! I came to the realization that I am going to be married in the STHLM temple. So yup, thats how it is going to be:) I did all of the baptisms.That was my first time ever baptizing someone, and I did it in Swedish! It was really powerful and spiritual. After though my arm was pretty dead:) We visited the temple site afterwards and looked at the Family History center-our friend was in heaven. He is so talented and loves doing family history!

I want to be married here in the Stockholm Temple.

While we were there, we received the TRANSFER CALL..... I will be moving...to Linköping in the Södertälje zone! (it is south and inland from Stockholm). I will be splitting the area with Elder L(who is one group older than me,  his older brother served the same mission like 3 years ago). It will go from 2 to 4 elders there, and we will all be living together. Im super excited and eager to see what happens. I won't actually go there until after the zone conference this thursday because of travel and a batch of new missionaries coming from the MTC this week. But yeah, Linköping! It is the 5th largest city in sweden, it is a branch of about 30 active members that are really close, but lots of potential because there is a University nearby. After the temple, we came back home to celebrate with MAC N CHEESE and Korv [sausage], of course!! Man, that tasted so good. I love that stuff!

Sön: I said the Sacrament prayer for my first time in Swedish! Then I gave a little talk about Christmas where I started off by reading 1 Nephi 11:21-23 where Nephi is shown what the tree of life means-the love of God. And then I tied that, love of God, into Christmas. Now because we have this gift, Love of God-Savior with us, lets share that with everyone around us. It doesnt have to be big things we can do, just simple acts of service go a long way. Christmas is about us giving not receiving. The best thing we can do to show God our love is to serve his children and give of ourselves. After church I took lots of pictures with people and had some write a little message in a Swedish BoM that Im taking around my whole mission. We visited a few more families to share my testimony and gratitude for them and say goodbye. I was pretty bold with one -I have never been that bold before, but I felt like I had to lay it all on the line because I probably won't see him again. The spirit was strong in there, guiding me to what I needed to say.

In my personal studies this week I studied the 2,000 Stripling warriors. NONE of them died because of their exceeding faith and determination to follow God and knew that He would deliver. He always does. It's amazing to see how steadfast and immovable they were, though they were young men who had never fought in war before. But we can see, that when we put our whole heart, might, mind and strength in the Lord, we will be delivered.

As I have been finishing up this transfer I've realized that my pride has blinded me from seeing the good we've done here and how great my companion and I work together. We were told that we have helped strengthen the ward a lot since we've been here. I had been focusing too much on the things we didn't do but now, after I have been humbled -and continue to do so, I can look back on all of these months here in Stockholm and see that we have had success - not baptisms, but success nonetheless.

Stockholm i Mitt Hjarta! (a very old popular song meaning Stockholm will forever be in my heart :) I love my Stockholm and will miss it a lot but now its time for change and I'm excited for what Linköping has to offer. I love you all so much and appreciate all the love, prayers, and support you give to me. Have a fantastic week!

Love,

Äldste Johnson