Malmö stake

 We went sight-seeing at the tip of Sweden. Beautiful.

We had an amazing girls day for our last pday. We spent the day with two awesome women. Bonnie drove us all the way down to the very tip of Sweden. It was quite an amazing drive and we saw some really neat Viking stones in the shape of an old Viking boat. It was really neat to see and it was super windy. On the way home we stopped at a market - supposedly one of Swedens biggest. It was neat. Then today we had another pday with Bonnie. She invited us to go and pick blueberries with her! When you are in Sweden that is something that you must do. We had a really nice day with her again and then she made us really yummy blueberry pancakes with the blueberries we had just picked in the woods!

WHAT!?!? I can´t believe that you guys have received my travel plans. That makes this all so much more real. I really will be home in no time. That is a crazy thought. You were the first ones to tell me that I would be flying home direct from Paris. Wow. That's really all that I can say.

This may be a short email this week because we are just having way too much fun hanging out with the members on pday and seeing all of Sweden. I love busy adventure full pdays! I know that sometimes poor Syster Jacobs just wants a relaxing pday. But she is with a dying companion who just wants to see everything and do everything. Haha. She is a great sport and I love her! Syster Jacobs and I have become great friends. We don´t know what is going to happen when we will have to part. Nothing is ever for sure...you know. But, we do have our hopes up that we will stay together until I leave.

 

Yesterday at church the Stake President and his counselors came and spoke to us and it was great. They are amazing men and we could tell that they are called of God to serve the Malmö stake at this time. They recently got a new Stake President. We are still working on helping the members think of how and who they can give away their Book of Mormons before stake conference, which is in about a month and a half.  In fact it is the Sunday before I go home! Crazy. 

So, I hope all of you have not forgotten my challenge to give out a Book of Mormon before I come home. We are truly seeing miracles happening here because of the members actually talking with their friends and sharing the gospel. We love this place and the members are great. While the stake people were at church they kept giving props to our branch because of all the hard work that they are doing. Our branch is actually leading the Malmö stake in many different ways. The area that our branch and the rest of Sweden needs to really work on is re-activing YSA´s. My age group is such a crucial age group and so Syster Jacobs and I have decided to start visiting all of the YSA´s who live in our branch and inviting them to the Lund center.

 

Which reminds me, our new convert is going to Festinord this week! Which is a HUGE YSA activity in Denmark this year. We have heard that about 700 people are coming and about 200 of those people are coming from different lands other than the Scandanavian countries. Super rad. I hope to go someday... maybe next year. I will save up my money now. Haha. 

 

Lately we have been really working with less-actives and it seems to be picking up. We have one cute girl who is 18 years old that we have been working with recently and she spent the entire day with us on Friday and then today too. She is super cute and wants to come back to church, she just needs love and a ride. Friday was a miracle day. We picked up this girl and headed out to Tyringe where Bonnie lives and we first visited another member and shared a great message on letting our lights shine! Then we headed to teach a referral that we got from a member in our branch. We taught the plan of salvation and it went pretty well. After that we went and did some service and then Bonnie fed us all dinner. We ended the night on a spiritual high of talking about scripture power and why we study the scriptures. The spirit was very strong and this young girl, who had spent the entire day with us, felt it as well and she told us that she has been reading in her scriptures recently because someone in the branch actually gave her a new set of scriptures for her birthday. The time is now. I am so grateful for how Heavenly Father talks to each one of his children in the exact way that they need. I love the spirit!

 

Oh, yeah we had another neat experience with a referral from one of Syster Jacobs friends from home! Way cool. We met a young woman, her boyfriend, and their baby last Thursday in Malmö right after district meeting and had lunch with them and talked about what we are doing and our message. We hope that we helped them see that we Mormons are not that strange.

Life is grand as you can see!

 

Love, Talisa!