Midsommer.

Hello!

So, this past week was Midsommer, which is Sweden´s big summer holiday. It was so much fun. We are not allowed to do missionary work so we got to go to the country side with our ward and enjoy the party! We got a ride with the Bishop and his wife. The woman wearing the traditional clothing in the picture is the Bishop's wife. She is super nice.

My companion will be going home soon. The ward is very sad to be losing her and so am I. Because of that we are getting a lot of dinner appointments, which we LOVE. Haha. It is so strange being with a companion who is going home so soon. Sometimes it makes me feel like I am going home soon too. But, then I remember... wait, I have my whole mission still! Kind of exciting.

Anyway.. back to Midsommer. We got to the members house out in the country side around 2ish and the festivities began! We played fotboll which, surprisingly, I am starting to like. Soccer.. wow. Then we grilled some food and everyone ate. Then we played a really cool game from Finland, because two boys from Finland came with their friend from Sweden. The game was kind of like bowling and I WON! It was a good game and they kept saying "you are finnish"! Haha. Oh yeah, the may pole. I helped to build it. It is the pole grassy thing I am standing by. We picked all the flowers and such and decorated it. Then everyone danced around it and sang. It was so much fun! I love the swedish traditions! Then we played a bunch of games.. like a big competition. Sweden is super pretty and I am loving it here. Now I just need to speak the language. Haha. We got back home around 8:30pm. It was a grand day, we even had one of our investigators there.

We got three new investigators this past week! Yipee! All Africans- one girl and two boys. They all live about 40 mins away.. which is a bummer. They are all really positive and are totally open to talking about religion. Then one of our amazing investigators came to church again yesterday! She loves it and learns so much when she comes. She said she probably could only stay for an hour, but she ended up staying all 3 hours and then came to a members house afterwards for dinner!! Awesome. The Spirit was so strong and I am so grateful for her. We are planning on dinner tomorrow night. I love sharing the gospel. We even asked her for referrals and she said she would talk with her friends about us. And when she says she will do something she does it. She is totally reading the Book of Mormon too!

Life is good here and we are heading to Stockholm again today for P-day! It is one of Syster Gotberg´s last p-days and so it will be good. I guess there is a cool viking ship museum there. I love life! Remember to read your scriptures, pray, and smile everyday! And then the Spirit will be your companion! I LOVE and miss you all!

Love, Talisa!
Aka: Syster Vistaunet

Record shop for Dad!

Well, I LOVE you all! This picture is me in a sweet record shop today in Örebro! Haha.

Love, Talisa!

Kommer du ihåg mig?

---

Hello once again!

Well, today was a lovely p-day, we went into town and did some walking and looking at the cool city art exhibit. The whole city has art all over! 67 pieces in total.. I love it! The elders from our district came with us. It was a good day and we ate lunch at a yummy Thai buffet. And now we are emailing and later we will have FHE. I love mondays!

Syster Gotberg, my trainer, now has only 2 1/2 weeks left! She leaves Sweden on July 8th. I will be getting a new companion on July 7th. Crazy. The time has gone by so fast! This past week she bought a little kids swedish music cd.. haha which is awesome. And one of the songs is Kommer du ihåg mig? which means..Do you remember me?

I am super excited to meet the new Mission Pres. and his wife, they both sound really great. I am glad you guys went to their farewell and that you got to meet them. That makes it more real.

This past week was a good one! The pictures this time are from the Svampen which is a cool water tower in Örebro, we had district meeting up there this past week. I have the coolest district! We all get along so well. I am going to miss Syster Gotberg.

We also got to go a wedding! It was of two YSA´s here in our ward. They got married in the Stockholm temple and then we got to go to the ring ceremony with the rest of the ward here on Saturday. It was really fun and we met tons of new people who are not members. We also helped set up and clean up. Missionary work is always available, we just have to open our eyes and ask the Lord for more opportunities.

We had Stake Conference last Sunday and it was broadcast from SLC. Elder Malm, Sister Beck, Elder Bednar, and Elder Eyring spoke. I listened to the first two speakers in Swedish and then realized that I couldn´t understand anything, so I left and went to the english room. We also had a really cool investigator come to church and she loved all the talks! She is the really nice school teacher and we taught her classes the plan of salvation. The ward was very welcoming and everyone liked her. She is leaving on vacation which is called semester here this week so we will see her next week. Anyway, the talks at the conference were AMAZING! They were special for the Scandinavian countries. Elder Erying was my favorite speaker, he talked about the Prophet and how special it is to have a Prophet on the earth today. The more I teach people, the more I realize how different our message really is. Elder Bednar talked about how hard Satan is working to destroy us. The whole theme of the conference was that the days ahead are just going to get worse and Satan will never stop. We must figure out NOW what we believe and stand up for it when we can. I can say now more than ever before that I know this is the true church. I have seen the difference it can make in a person's life and the difference it has made in mine. I am so grateful for the chance that I had to come on a mission.. I am learning so much.

This week is Midsommer!! It is a big holiday here. I am very excited. It is treated like Christmas and so the whole day we get to wear p-day clothes. Our ward is having a big party out in the country, so we are getting a ride with the Bishop and his family and one of our investigators. The work is moving forward and this week we are really busy. I am starting to really feel more comfortable and because of that I can feel the Swedish language coming easier.

Well, I LOVE you all!

Love, Talisa!

Photos...

These pictures are from the past week. The first one is when we played mini golf with the YSA's for FHE. It was way fun and I totally lost. Haha. Some things will never change...like not being good at mini golf. Haha. The other pictures are from downtown Örebro! From June 11 to September 11 the whole city has been turned into ART city. I LOVE IT!!! There are 67 art installations throughout the city. Like the shovel, van full of rocks, and an airplane in the water by the castle! So rad. I was meant to live in Sweden.


Today the Elders in our district are coming into town to play with us and see all the art. So, we just came real fast to look at emails.. I will do my major email later today. But, just know that I love you all! And it looks like life is good. I am so glad that the Lord is blessing you all. I will continue to be the best missionary I can. That is super cool that you met my new Mission President!! I am very excited to meet them!! Ahhhh.


Love, ya! and I will write more later. Peace.

-Talisa!

Pictures from P-day in Stockholm

Pictures from Sweden!!

Syster Gotberg and Syster Vistaunet.
Pictures of Karlsland, a large Manor house.

Rock N' Roll Sweden!

Hello one and all!

This has been a good week filled with ups and downs. Haha. Sounds like life. The most exciting news is that I finished reading the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price! Yeehaw! The church is true and Joseph Smith was a Prophet! Now I am reading the Bible like I have never before. Right now we are teaching many Africans and they all love their Bible, so they ask us questions all the time. Sometimes I don't know what they are talking about, so I realized that I needed to read the Bible again. Well, finish it for the first time. It is amazing and I love reading it with the JST´s too.

Last p-day we went to Karlslund, which is a big manor house. It is so pretty and the gardens were amazing with horses everywhere. The horses really loved Sister Gotberg. I forgot my camera this week.. but we might have time later today to upload some pictures so I will try. Today we are going to STOCKHOLM! This time we are meeting up with 6 Elders and we are going to tour Stockholm and see all the museums, cool streets, and people! I am very excited... it should be fun.

Sharpening, which is what Zone Conference is called here, was this past week. We traveled to Stockholm and went straight to the church building for meetings. It was the last time we will see President and Syster Anderson, because the new Mission President and his wife come on July 3rd! I am excited to meet them. It was a good, long day. We left at 9am and got home around 9:30pm. Crazy. President Anderson has really made a difference here in Sweden and everyone is excited to see the work increase.

Our investigators are doing well. But, we had none come to church this week, which was sad. We are trying so hard. Tonight we are having FHE with the ward and we are all going to play mini golf! I LOVE this ward. Last week in the mission was the week of invitations. So, we ínvited all of our investigators to be baptized. They all said they were not ready yet.. but when they know they would be baptized. I even asked one of them in Swedish! Cool.

We went to the neatest thing last week - Studenten! That is the High School graduations. They do a little ceremony at the high school and then they get on floats pulled by huge tractors and dance and party in them all around town. It was CRAZY! One of our investigators invited us to come and see her. The saddest part was how drunk all the students were... but not our investigator! You can drink here at age 18. The entire town was out and partying and I am told that at night the whole town has a huge dance party in the park. So cool. I took some pictures, I will try to send them later.

We have been reading Mosiah 18 a lot with our investigators to get them ready for baptism, so read it again and remember why you were baptized. It´s great. Also, we have been inviting our members to do more missionary work so we read Alma 37: 8-10 and 36-37 with them. The scriptures and the Spirit are the things that bring true conversion. And we must Pray for our answers. I LOVE YOU ALL!!

Love, Syster Vistaunet!

Thanks to everyone who emailed me this week! It was a grand week. I will try and write real letters on the train ride today! Much love to you!

Pictures from Sweden!!

This is how I get around every day. I love it!
Promenade, Swedish style. The Prom was held in a castle in Orebro. Awesome!
Syster Hegstrom (MTC teacher visiting Sweden), Syster Gotberg and Syster Vistaunet.

In 5 years time...

After our district meeting we visited a Viking cemetary in Vasteras, Sweden. It was so cool.




Howdy!

Man.. when I read the email from you guys, and saw the picture of all of you with Noah and The Whale, I got a little sad. It made me miss home and going to concerts. But, alas, I knew this would happen. Life will go on. Maybe when they come to Sweden I will be able to sneak by and hear a song.. haha. Even better, I will share the gospel with them! After all the gospel is for everyone.

Wow. The weeks really go by so fast. Yesterday in church we had 3 investigators!! We were so happy. And that day President and Syster Anderson came as well. It was a good day for my Mission President to come. And Syster Hegstrom, my teacher in the MTC, came as well. She is in Sweden visiting. It was really nice to see her again. We had dinner yesterday with her and her dad at the Ward mission leaders home. It was lovely and we had rhubarb pie for dessert! People here love rhubarb and make the pie all the time... I LOVE it.

This week was a good week for the work. We went back to that school that we taught in and taught the teacher. She is amazing and is so prepared for the gospel. She was introduced to it when she was 22 while being a nanny in New Jersey. She had always remembered it, but never went again. Then she invites the missionaries to speak to her class. She is ready to hear the message now. We had a great discussion about Prophets and authority.

This week we watched The Testament. I love that movie. It can really bring the Spirit and helps people to understand more of the gospel. A wonderful lady we have become good friends with and have been teaching came to church on Sunday!! She sat by me and loved it. It was fast sunday so people bore their testimonies and she loved that. She told me that she had stopped going to church, any church, because it never gave her a uplifting happy feeling. She said our church was different and we are excited to meet with her again this week.

Our ward mission leader is amazing and is always at the church cleaning it and taking care of the yard. So, we did a lot of service this week helping him. He always says he does it for the new members who will be coming. He has so much faith and is a great example to me.

Last thursday we went to a viking graveyard in Vasterås. It was really cool.. we had district meeting there. The AP´s came to it as well. We had a lovely walk in the country side of Sweden. Tomorrow we are going to Stockholm for Zone Conference. I am very excited to meet more missionaries and talk about the work. Missionary work is amazing and I will continue to do it my whole life.

Much Love, Talisa!
Aka: Syster Vistaunet

P.S. We are meeting with the Rockabilly investigator today on P-day! That´s right we are always doing the work. I am excited to see him again, it's been a couple of weeks.

Happy Birthday!! To those in June!! To my sweet cousin Ashley today! And Alex Morrise, Donna Ridge, Brent Hutchison, Noah Kershisnik, Caleb, Andrea Carrier, and Kendra!!

Ice cream that melts in your mouth!

Yummy! Best ice cream ever!
Caught in a downpour!

Hello one and all!

My talk went really well on Sunday! Thanks everyone for your support and prayers. I was really nervous, so I started out my talk by saying "I am stressed so if you could just smile at me throughout my talk that would help." And everyone laughed. And then they all smiled at me throughout my talk. I love this ward. I really felt the help from my Heavenly Father when I was speaking. I know the gift of tongues is real because after I was done everyone said that I did a great job at pronunciation. Which is the hardest part for me. Everyone said I did a great job and I got a lot of hugs today. I am starting to feel more confident with the language all though it is still really hard. I spoke for about ten minutes! I was happy.

This has been a very eventful week. Last p-day we took it easy and went to a second hand shop that I loved! I got a sweet vintage skirt and yellow shoes! And I only spent about 20 bucks with some records and cds thrown in as well. Haha.

Today we are going to Maribery, which I guess is a huge shopping area. I love shopping and seeing what Sweden has to offer and since it is my companions last transfer she likes to go as well. That makes me happy. We get along so well.. we are very much the same, but at the same time we are SO different. Haha. It's wonderful and our lessons go so well because we are such good friends! We are about half way through the transfer-which is CRAZY!! The time is flying by.

I saw a poster the other day for a concert head lining: Coldplay, Glasvegas, and Brandon Flowers. Oh baby. Luckily I have all ready seen two of those bands and I was even kissed by the lead singer of one of them. Oh, Glasvegas! Haha. Life is good.

This past week we went to Nora, which is about 40 minutes away, to visit a new convert and he had a friend for us to meet as well. We met with his friend for a while and we taught the first lesson in English, because they are Africans. He already had a Book of Mormon and had been reading it when we met him. This was the first time I have taught the whole first lesson to a investigator and the Spirit was so strong! Oh, my goodness I am loving missionary work! We will be meeting him again this week. Nora is also where the BEST ice cream in the whole world is! It costs 5 bucks but it is so worth it. Peaches, hazelnut, and vanilla all in a waffle cone. YUM!

We taught at a high school again this week and we are hoping to teach the teacher because she was very interested. Then we ate with the nice lady we met last week, twice this week! She is like our mom here in Örebro. We even went shopping with her because she wanted to show us all the good deals. When we left her house she gave us tons of bread, goodies, and veggies. We love her! And a young woman we are teaching is getting closer and closer to her baptismal date. We meet with her all the time as well. She will be graduating from High School next week and she invited us to go! I am so excited to see how they celebrate graduations here. Because it sounds very different.

Thank you SO much for sending me my rain jacket. As you can see from the pictures I really have used it a lot. We rode our bikes home the other day in the rain! It just came out of nowhere and it was insane. But, really fun. A member even said she saw us. We also play fotboll (soccer) all the time and I hate it. Haha. But, my companion loves it and it is a good way to get to know all the members and we invite our investigators. I pretty much sing and talk with anyone who seems like they don't want to play either.

Wow- this was a long letter. Haha. I guess I am just so excited. I love you all!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CORRYN!!! And Happy birthday to Lindsay, Leah K., Lynn, Zach, Mat6t, Luke, Tee-Tah, Char, Christopher, and both Grandmas! May was a good month. Just know that I thought of each of you on your special day!

Love, Talisa!!