Find, Teach, and Baptize 2012

These feather trees are placed all over the city around Easter time every year..kinda neat.

We went to Ikea and had a blast. The food is super yummy and really cheap. I have the feeling that I will be eating there quite often once summer time gets here.

This past week has been amazing. Every time I sit down to think about my past week and write my emails I am just filled with so much happiness. Being a missionary really is a HUGE blessing and I am so grateful for the chance I have to be here in Gävle. This city is prepared for the second harvest and Syster Jacobs and I are seeing it unfold right before our eyes.

I have such a testimony of my Mission President. I was reminded a couple of different times within the past couple of weeks that my goal as a missionary is to find, teach, and baptize. With my re-focus and opening my mouth more we have seen the blessings pour out. We had 25 teaches this past week and 20 of them where with investigators!

As a mission we have a standard of excellence that we are focusing on this year and the focus is on these three areas of missionary work:

Find- To talk to ten people daily and have 5 new investigators weekly.

Teach- To have 20 teaches weekly and to have 3 investigators in church every week.

Baptize- To have a new baptismal date every week and to have a baptism weekly withing our zone.

When I first heard these goals I didn´t have much faith because my numbers were only that high some weeks. I didn´t really see it reachable. I now know that these goals are very reachable and I am very grateful for the chance I have to be a missionary here in Sweden where we find, teach, and baptize! We have a goal for our mission to see 260+ baptisms for this year. I know that is possible.

Syster Jacobs and I made some goals for our time together and we want to see 7 bapitsms together.Which is very possible because we have three people that we are working with right now towards baptism. April 21st is the day that we are aiming towards. We have some great people we are teaching now. It is amazing to see how Heavenly Father really leads us to his children who are prepared. It is great to have members willing to help us do missionary work too.

We had four investigators at church on Sunday and it was quite the show. We were running back and forth like chicken´s with their heads cut off. Haha. I was very grateful for the wonderful members that we have here in Gävle and the support we felt from them. Kurt Sjöqvist actually taught the investigator class. We taught a class in English in another room. It was the most amazing Sunday I have had on my mission! Syster Jacobs and I are really seeing Heavenly Fathers hands in our work and we know that we could not do this work without His help. It brings me so much joy to see my brothers and sisters accept and learn more about the gospel.

After church we went over to a wonderful member's house and had a wonderful birthday lunch and made her feel like a princess. I love birthdays and making people feel loved.

Okay, so every single day we have amazing, very memorable experiences and it´s very hard to write about all of them. I will share one of them. Last Wednesday we had a youth activity. Missionaries in Gavle have done activites every Wednesday night for the past year or so. It´s a great chance for us as missionaries to really get to know the youth and then it is a great chance for them to invite their friends to meet the missionaries. This past week we had two investigators come to the activity and we gave them a church tour with the help of two young members.The spirit was present and you could tell that these two young people were really understanding everything we were saying. Then we had a lovely night playing a bunch of get to know you games. We are making so many friends here in Gävle-since both my companion and I are very social- that´s what happens. Haha.

I am excited for General Conference. We have been invited to drive down to Uppsala with our ward mission leader for Saturday and then on Sunday we have been invited over to a families house here in Gävle for dinner and then to watch the Sunday morning session. We have been going around and visiting lots of members and challenging them to come up with questions that they want answered through general conference. I know that if you do that then you will have your questions answered. Remember that God´s living Prophet is speaking to us this weekend. I am grateful for that.

Our district leader has challenged our district to focus on three things:

1. Talk with everyone!

2. To teach in Unity.

3. To boldly invite.

Heavenly Father is blessing our missionary efforts here in Gävle. Syster Jacobs and I are on fire and we are just going to keep working as hard as we can.

I love being busy and doing Heavenly Father´s work. I love you all! And wish everyone a happy general conference watching.

Love, Talisa!
AkA:Syster Vistaunet

Miracle Week

WOWOWOW!

The past couple of days have been insane. Ever since Syster Jacobs arrived here we have been very busy. It seems like we don´t even have time to think. Haha. I seriously am in Heaven. Syster Jacobs is so much like me that it is sometimes quite scary. Haha.

We really work well together. I can tell that we are going to see a lot of success here in Gävle together. We had 22 teaches last week- the highest I have had since coming on my mission and we already have 2 baptismal dates!!! One for April 7th and one for April 14th. Yippee!!

Sunday was an amazing day. The branch loves Syster Jacobs and we had a fun lunch after church and we really got to know the branch members better. I feel very blessed to be able to be here. We had one of our investigator families come to church on Sunday and they loved it. The 14 year old daughter wants to get baptized on April 7th! My birthday weekend. I am so happy.

I have a HUGE testimony of just opening your mouth. Syster Jacobs and I have been doing that all last week and we have been getting so very blessed because of it. We have obtained nine new phone numbers and all of them seem pretty interested in learning more about the gospel. I know that the second harvest is real and we are lucky enough to be a big part of it.

The church is true! I have felt the Holy Ghost testify to me personally many times this past week about the church. I love being a missionary.

I am sorry - we seriously have been very busy these past couple of days so that today we don't have much time to write emails. So sorry. Just know that I am thinking of all of you and I send my love and birthday wishes to Aspen and Ann! I love them so much.

I love missionary life.

Well, I love you all. Sorry my time is short. Enjoy . And that is super cool that you went to Syster Jenson's homecoming!! I love it. I promise next weeks email will be much better and much longer. Enjoy the pictures.

Love, Talisa!

Beautiful Sweden.

Transfers just happened and I will be staying here in Gävle and training again. Yay! Syster Jenson and I leave very early Wednesday morning and a cute member is going to drive us to the train station. I am so grateful for nice members. Then I will get back into Gävle around 5pm and after that we have a welcoming party at the church for the new missionary. So, hardly any time to drop off luggage. Straight to missionary work baby! Another cool thing that I found out is that Systers Juker, Detinne-Cassel, and I will all be training at the same time!! I am so excited to see them.

Last pday we had a blast! Eight Elders came to Gävle to play football and frisbee. Even though I didn´t really play I still had a lot of fun with them. We also stopped and got hot choclate and talked. I love finding other missionaries who love music just as much as I do and talking with them. The first couple of pictures are from that fun pday last week.

I have found a great friend here in Sweden. The picture is of us goofing off. She is a 16 year old girl who was baptized a couple of years ago. Every Wednesday night we have an activity at the church for the youth. It is a fun night where the youth can invite their friends to come to church and meet the missionaries in a non-threatening way. It's a really good resource for us here and I love being able to meet so many young people and be able to help them understand more about how to be happy in life.

This past week we played ping pong and we both got really hyper and were laughing a lot. We had a young girl investigator come and she could not understand why we were so happy and laughing all the time. Everyone there just said "oh, that's just who they are". Haha. I love her. She really reminds me a lot of me when I was younger. She even wore a crazy 1960´s outfit last week.

This past weekend Syster Jenson and I got spoiled! We started the day off with a lovely ride out to the ocean with some great people. They had packed a breakfast-lunch for us to eat. We saw the ocean and then took another little drive and pulled over in the middle of the woods to picnic. I love Sweden! They keep promising me lots of berry picking during the summer.

After that we got on a train to visit some amazing friends that are investigators. They live about an hour away. Once we got there we were welcomed with hugs and lots of laughs. They are always so happy. We helped cook some African food with them for lunch-dinner and while we were doing that the Dad kept quizzing us on our Bible knowledge. He knows the Bible really well and it was a lot of fun to see how much we actually knew. We focused most of the discussion on Jesus Christ and the Dad asked us why we call ourselves Christian. I said because everything is focused around Jesus Christ and His life. He is our perfect example and I try everyday to live like He did. It was a great Bible time. They had invited two more friends to come over and listen to us too. By the end of the night we gave everyone a Book of Mormon and left with really good memories. We also got to try on some amazing African clothes!! It was a great time!

This week we had district meeting over skype again. It´s super strange. But, Elder Davis, our district leader wanted all of us to try and teach people using it. He had invitied one of their investigators to join us and we all took different turns teaching this investigator over skype! It was really neat to see how much good can come form technogly. It really is a huge blessing for missionary work and now we have yet another resource to use when invesitgators live too far away. Wow. We are supposed to use skype every other week.

This week we get to travel to Borlänge for district meeting and then after it we are going to do a finding activity with all the other missionaries there. A great way to welcome the three new missionaries to missionary work here in Sweden! I am looking forward to it.

Yesterday at church we had an amazing day. The theme was missionary work and after that we seemed to get a lot of members talking to us and we even scheduled more dinners. Haha.

The best thing that happened yesterday was that a member who hadn't been to church in a while came to church! She is a wonderful woman. After church she took us home to her house and made us really yummy food and we watched "Legacy" together. I love her, she's my Swedish Auntie. Every time we go over she always teaches us some Swedish culture and we eat or make some Swedish food. I love her! I really want her to know how much Heavenly Father loves her. She's great!

One last thing.. I was looking through my notes that I got from people before I came here of Swedish people that any of my friends or family knew. I found one of those and read off the names of Kurt and Gerd Sjöqvist, friends of Caitlin´s grandparents!! They are the artists that I talked about a couple of weeks ago. But, I just put two and two together that they are friends with Donnette´s parents! Small world in the church.

Love, Talisa!

AkA: Syster Vistaunet

I am happy.

Musikafton

My District.

We teach on the bus!

Music night. This was so much fun!

Well howdy everyone!

This has been a week full of music and that has made me very happy. I have the coolest district ever and before I came here they had planned a music night wih our branch, Uppsala. and Borlänge. The music night was held on Saturday and we had about 70 people show up!! We had a potluck dinner and then the music began. We had about 15 different numbers. One of my favorites was Kurt Sjöqvist. He sang some Swedish folk songs with his guitar and it reminded me a lot of Dad and Brian´s music. I was happy. I kept thinking that you guys were probably playing around the same time! Cute. Thanks for emailing me the pictures from your show. It looks like it was great! Everyone looks so happy. I am imagining your music now. Lovely.

My district leader writes his own music, so he wrote us a district song and we sang it together that night. Lots of people came up to us afterwords and told us that they loved the night and can´t wait to do it again. It was an amazing activity and I think we really impressed the branches that we are working in. The next day was fast Sunday and a lot of people from our ward shared their testimonies about the music night. We had about seven investigators show up as well! It was a night full of fun and the we could really feel the Spirit there. We plan on having another one in May. In about a week Elder Davis, Elder Smith, and I will all be training! 3 greenies all in the same district. I am looking forward to that.

Syster Jenson and I are having so much fun together and we are having so much success! I love being able to be with her again. Tonight we are going to teach a family with a new convert who is preparing to serve a mission. My birthday weekend will be a good one, with a baptism we hope! Booya! Well, that´s the plan. Please pray for us and the work here in Gävle to go forward.

We are working with two amazing African families right now and I love them so much. One is an amazing couple who are so Christ like. He comes from Africa and she is Swedish. They are the happiest people I have ever met. He drives the bus here in Gävle and we have taught him a couple of times while he has been driving. He calls them Mobile teaches. Haha. Last time we came on the bus he said he needed a sign that said, "Daughters of God on board". Haha. I love making so many friends and bringing them closer to our Savior.

Well, so it happened, my one year mark came and went pretty quickly. We didn't do anything super exciting other than the traditional one year phone call with your MTC district. That was super fun to hear about everyone and where everyone is at this point in our missions. We have all grown up so much. It was a great call and I love my MTC group. It looks like a handful of us will be training this next week. I am excited to see everyone.

As far as the Rosen family, yes I know them! And I remember them telling me that there son was on a mission in England and I was wondering if Zack would know him. And by golly he does. Way cool. They are a wonderful, big mormon family! They have ten kids and are all super active and strong in the church. They are great examples to me. The Dad is an amazing musician and has a really wonderful music room which I took some pictures in this last week when we were over there for lunch. One of the pictures is me standing by some really old accordions. And then Syster Jenson and I in his music room. I guess he is pretty well known and every night at 6pm a church here in Gävle plays his music.

Oh yeah! Last week on pday we did a little bit of shopping and I found a sweet cd store with tons of amazing Swedish music! I got Rock Olga, who is Sveriges rockdrottning! Which means Swedish Rock Queen. She was big in the 50´s and 60´s here. I love her music. Kind of a Swedish Wanda Jackson. And I most likely will go back and purchase Britt Damberg, another Swedish Wanda Jackson. I am happy.

So, another crazy thing happened this week with our district. The other Systers in our district got moved from Uppsala to Vasterhenige. Which is where the temple is, right in Stockholm! I love that systers are now in Stockholm! I hope I get the chance to go there on splits. It looks like a possibility. Elders got moved to Uppsala. We went to Uppsala this past week for district meeting- that is a very awesome city! Next week for pday we will be going there as well. Syster Jenson wants to spend her last pday in Uppsala with some of the members she knows. Hopefully I will finally get the chance to go inside the Domkyrkan. That is the biggest church in Sweden. This is Syster Jenson´s last full week of missionary work and we have a pretty full amazing week planned! I am trying to learn everything I can from her this last week before I train again. I am feeling better about being here in Gävle and I am loving the branch here.

I think that´s about all! I love you all. Spring is coming, so go and spread joy! Start preparing for General Conference because it´s coming sooner then we realize.

Love, Talisa!