May flowers

There will be no pictures this week...we are so busy! It's great.

This upcoming week we have many amazing missionary moments planned for us. We have zone conference tomorrow in Sundsvall!! I am super excited to travel up north. Then I will have been all over Sweden. I feel very blessed. The most exciting news is that we are having a baptism this Thursday!! We have a very busy week ahead of us.

 

So, I will start off with talking about our baptism. About three weeks ago a couple came in to church late and no one knew who they were. We later found out that the lady goes to the branch in Våsteräs and is moving here soon because she is getting married to her boyfriend. He became interested in learning more about the church, so we started teaching him then. They have become our really good friends now! He is ready for baptism and we are very excited for this next step that he will be taking. He has the full support of his fiance and the branch has done a wonderful job of  welcoming him into the branch. I have a strong testimony of working with the members to help the missionaries teach. All of the lessons that we have with members seem  to always go better. Of course we are still teaching a lot at the church, but we are trying real hard to focus on getting all of our teaches with a member, and most preferable, in members home. This young man decided that he wanted to get baptized and he wanted it to be as soon as possible. So, we have met with him every day since then preparing him for baptism. Yesterday at church we had him try on the baptismal clothing and he was so happy. He came out in pants that were too big and just said "Rapper". Haha. Syster Jacobs and I are very excited for our first baptism together. We feel like we will be able to see many more.

 

This morning I was thinking about prayer and why it is so important. I started thinking about all the times that my prayers have been answered. I realized that Heavenly Father always answers our prayers. Sometimes it just takes longer than other times. I feel like Heavenly Father has recently been answering my prayers like crazy. I prayed to have a companion who would understand me and I got Syster Jenson and then I prayed to have a companion who would be like me. And Bam! Syster Jacobs. Life is going really well here in Gävle and we are witnessing many miracles.

 

Yesterday we had branch conference and a lot of people from the Stockholm stake came up and taught classes and spoke in sacrament meeting. We had five investigators in church and a lot of less-actives came too. The sweet older lady that we visit every week actually had the chance to come! This past week she asked us to pray for her that she would have the opportunity to share the gospel with someone. We gave her some pass-along cards and then the next day some of the nurses where she lives were talking about life after death and she saw that opportunity and took it! She was so proud of herself, telling us that she got to bear her testimony about life after death and that God´s plan is for every person. Evidence once again that God does hear and answer our prayers.

Three of the investigators who were in church were sisters from one of the African families that we have been teaching. They all stayed for all three hours of church and then after we had a big lunch with everyone and they stayed as well. The girls also got invited to come to a YW´s activity this Friday and we did too! So we are looking forward to spending time with the YW. We are also planning on making American nachos with them this week. Fun and Yum. We hope and pray that these girls will eventually get baptized and wíll be the leaders for the rest of theír family. I love how missionary work works!

 

Annicka also made me the coolest bright orange mittens this week! I am so spoiled by her. And yes, mom I did buy that fabric. No worries. I am planning to make a bag or something of that sort. That was my birthday present that you bought me. Thanks. 

Once again life is good and I LOVE you all! Enjoy the spring weather. Because the past two days here it has snowed! Blah. We had some really lovely days and then all of the sudden the rain and snow has come back. But  May is just around the corner. Spring fever is totally all over. Here in Sweden they have this cool tradition of selling a cute May flower pin at the end of April/start of May. Syster Jacobs and I each bought one. Yippee! I was kind of sad though because this year the flower is a brown color. Lame. You buy them from cute little Swedish girls who go around selling them for about 8 bucks and all the money goes towards helping children. I love Sweden!

 

Love, Talisa!

Cake with my face on it.

 Easter Witches! These are all over Sweden for Easter.

So, the highlight of my week was a surprise birthday party for me! Some members in the branch have a tradition that they do with every missionary who has a birthday here.  They order a cake with their picture on it and then invite them over for a party. I thought that we were going to have it this upcoming week.  Then last week this sweet sister called up and said that she wanted us to teach one of her friends-sweet a referral! That is what I was thinking but, then bam! In walked some members to help celebrate. A true surprise birthday party was in store for us! It was so much fun and will be something that I will always remember. Hopefully Syster Jacobs and I will be together for her birthday in June too! 

 

Friday the 13th was an amazing day full of wonderful miracles. We visited so many of our wonderful friends and taught lots of great lessons. We even ran into some members while we were out and about on the busses. Syster Jacobs is a great missionary and I reallly am learning a lot from her every day. She has such a big heart and all she wants to do is serve Heavenly Father. We had a girls night and had six girls show up. Life is good here and we all had such a great time together just being girls. We gave a great lesson on inner beauty and remembering to tell yourself every day that you are a daughter of God. Then our friends Jay and Ullis called us and told us that they were in Gävle and would be coming to pick us up to "kidnap" us and take us to dinner. It was great. They picked us up around 8pm from the church after our girls party and then took us to Max hamburgers. We had a lovely night together. I know that I will remain friends with them forever.

 

Sunday was such an amazing day! We had a total of 6 investigators in church!! Syster Jacobs and I just kept watching all the members faces in the branch when investigator after investigator walked in. It was a great day. We are showing the branch that we are working really hard and finding people to teach and we have some great appointments and plans with some of the members this week. We hope to start getting some referrals. The people here really want to help. Our job as missionaries is to help them share the gospel with their friends and family. We have about five really positive investigators that we are working with right now. The work is really moving forward here in Gävle and Syster Jacobs and I are busier than ever! I love keeping busy and relying so much on the Spirit. We both have had some amazing experiences this past week with the Holy Ghost and following those promptings. If I can give everyone one word of advice it would be for every person who reads this to really figure out how the Holy Ghost speaks to you and always ACT upon those promptings.

 

During sunday school we taught two women in English and I kept getting the feeling that we needed to talk about  the ten commandments. Then one of them asked, "So, I have noticed that no one here takes the name of God in vain...why?"  Thank you Holy Ghost. We explained that was because we want to show respect to God and then she answered herself and said "why would you put the blame on Him when it´s your own fault?" She is truly amazing and such a sweetheart. She has never had nachos before and amazingly enough none of the other YW have either.. so we are going to have a nacho making party soon. Funny.

 

The more the days go by the more Syster Jacobs and I find out about each other and how similar we really are. Haha. She loves Labyrinth! And we tend to quote it quite often. Haha. Two of these pictures are us with some Easter witches. Sweden is a little strange in that sense. At Easter time all the little kids dress up as witches or old ladies and go around trick or treating, pretty much. So, lovely Veikko drove us around last pday and we took some pictures by some of those witches.

 

Well, I love you all! I loved all the pictures of Corryn´s baby shower and her BIG belly. Cute. Keep pushing through the end of school and rock n´roll when May gets here! Today I actually purchased another Swedish cd. Håkan Hellström again. Really good. And Syster Jacobs got some really good jazz Swedish music. Oh, music. 

Life is good and the church is true.

 

Love, Talisa!

Aka: Syster Vistaunet

Conference, Birthday, and Påsk!

My heart is so full of LOVE today. I really feel very blessed to be on a mission in Sweden. Sometimes it´s hard to remember the life that I had before I came on a mission. The people that I am meeting here already feel like life long friends.

The Birthday adventure:

I woke up to the sound of my companion singing Happy Birthday and then saw that our Vin Diesel poster said Happy Birthday to me. Haha.

Then we got a phone call from one of our investigators who needed help around 7am. So, we called our ward mission leader, and asked him if he could give him a blessing. We were all at the church by 8:30am to give him a blessing. I am so grateful for priesthood power and for worthy men who can call upon the powers of God to heal and comfort. It was an amazing experience to be able to sit there and watch Viekko give him a blessing in Swedish and to be able to understand what was going on and feeling the Spirit that strongly. We will be meeting with this investigator again this upcoming Saturday.

After that we got dropped off at the place where we pick up packages and I got my birthday package! Thank you family! I loved the signs and all the fun letters from the people I love. Thank you to Jane Stewart for the little miss sunshine shirt. I loved the yellow tights and I wore them yesterday for easter. Then we did our studies and ate a lovely birthday breakfast.

Then we had an amazing teach with one of our investigators. She is planning on getting baptized on April 21st. We are hoping and praying for that. She is so prepared and knows this is the truth. We watched conference with her last week and she loved it.

After that we headed to a Birthday-Easter lunch with AnneLill and Janne. They have a tradition for every missionary who has a birthday here to make them a cake with their face on it. I was really looking forward to that. Then they told me that I will have to wait until April 19th for that so we can have a real party because that is when the Elders from our district are coming down for district meeting and lunch with them. So, I have something to look forward to. They gave me cute blue earrings. Then we left to find a mormon.org referral. A Chinese student. We did not find her but, we did end up talking to some nice people when we were out and about.

Syster Jacobs, Syster Vistaunet and our Ward Mission Leaders, who are so great!

Conference was such a wonderful experience this year. We had the chance to watch most of the sessions with members and investigators. We even watched some of it in Swedish! It was neat to watch it in Swedish and then go back and watch the same talk in English. I had different notes from both experiences. Knowing another language is really neat. I still get frustrated sometimes when speaking Swedish, but my love for the people and the language is huge. Sweden will be a huge part of my life forever.

Now I will share with you some of my favorite notes that I made from conference:

The truth will go forth boldly! The purposes of God will be accomplished. -Monson

How much faith do we really have? -Hallstrom

"Don´t judge me because I sin differently than you." -Uchtdorf

What does Christ think of me? -Andersen

Come back, come home, come unto me. -Monson

It seemed to me that theme of conference was repentance and how Jesus Christ died for each one of us. It is never to late to come back. Another theme was the importance of families and many Apostles gave great ideas of how to be a good teacher for your kids. I know that Thomas S. Monson is God´s prophet today on the earth. Whenever he speaks to us it is as if Heavenly Father is speaking to us.

Yesterday, Syster Jacobs and I had the opportunity to teach Relief Society on sustaining your leaders. Syster Jacobs took the lead and it was such a great lesson. I was praying for her the entire time and she did a great job with speaking and understanding Swedish. I know that we are called of God to be here in Gävle at this time for a specific reason.

Later on my birthday an awesome member picked us up for a birthday dinner in the woods. We changed into pants and then headed to a really cool place, about 10 minutes away from the church building, for a campfire and fun. She had her cute kids with her and we had a blast running around and seeing the view of Gävle from on top of a skiing hill. She also fed us a great dinner cooked over the fire. The best part of the night was that Syster Jacobs was pretending to be a T-rex and chasing the kids all over the place. They loved it.

I got a really sweet turquoise necklace from her for my birthday. Her daughter picked it out for me. The entire night that we were together her daughter kept saying, "I love you Vistaunet". Haha. It was cute. I really love talking with younger Swedish people because I feel like I can really connect with them, that might be because I have somewhat of the same vocabulary.

I had an amazing birthday here in Sweden! 24 years old. Crazy. Through out the day Syster Jacobs would give me a little present every time the clock said 24. She would start singing Happy Birthday and then reach into her bag and pull out a gift for me. Haha. I loved it.

THANK YOU ALL for the birthday wishes! I love you all and wish you a wonderful week. Enjoy the spring weather. I know I am.

I love you all. Please don´t worry about me. I am well taken care of here. Our ward mission leader and his wife are picking us up in about 15 minutes and taking us to see the beach and eat lunch with them. Wow. I love my life. And then tonight we are going to have an FHE with Annicka (in the above photo). Yipee.

It looks like you all had a great weekend too. Corryn is due so soon and you know what that means!? That means that our Mother's day skype is coming up soon too!! I miss you all so much but I will be home before we know it.

I am so happy for Serina to be going to UVU. Tell me which classes she gets and who her teachers are. I am so happy for her. Is she planning on moving out when she gets home? Or will we be roommates?

Well, the rest of the week was wonderful as well. But, I think that is all that I will write at this time. I love you!

Syster Talisa Vistaunet!

Ps... Tell Caitlin thank you for all the love lately. She is wonderful and I can tell that she is happy too.

Vägen till Glädje!

Our Relief Society dinner.

Dragon Gate: just outside of Gavle.

Man alive! Conference was so great! I am so grateful that I am a missionary right now.

We had some amazing experiences with watching Conference. We watched the first session by ourselves on the computer at the church and ate lots of Swedish candy. Haha.

The next morning we went over to an investigator's house to make lunch and watch the Saturday afternoon session with her. She is amazing and she is preparing to get baptized in April. She had even watched the Saturday morning session the day before by herself!

Watching conference while on a mission is such a different experience because the whole time you are watching you just keep thinking about the people you are working with and how this message can and will change there lives for the better.

I loved Elder Nelson´s talk about just making sure people know that there is a God and who He is. Every single day we come in contact with so many different people and I feel very blessed when, after talking with them, I can feel God´s love for them.

I know that God exists! He is there and He hears and answers our prayers. I am so grateful for the chance that I have right now to declare that wonderful message to the people of Sweden.

After watching Conference we went and visited a sweet old lady and told her what we had learned from Conference. She is the sweetest old lady who has quite the personality. She loves to speak English with us. Haha. Then we headed over to visit another family in the branch. They are wonderful and have four children. We tried really hard to have one of our investigator families come over for dinner and to watch conference with them, but something happened that they couldn´t get a ride. We hope that they watched it by themselves anyways. It was really nice to watch conference with a family and Syster Jacobs made a yummy lemon cake to share. She is a really good cook... I feel very lucky. My cooking skills will improve a lot more. I can´t wait to make all the yummy things I am eating for you all! I am going to have parties all the time and say come and fika! "Fika" means to have tea with a cake of some sort. Swedes love there fika time and as missionaries we eat a lot of fikas.

This past week we had a meal with a member every day. Gävle is going to make me fat. Haha. I feel so loved. The best part about the Gävle branch is that they really want to do all they can to help with missionary work.

We have not yet watched all sessions of conference. We will be watching the last session with some members later this week. I am looking forward to that. And I am looking forward to watching President Monson´s talk again because we watched it in Swedish. I got most of it but we both really want to make sure we fully understood. We watched three talks in Swedish and that was quite the treat. I am happy to report that I could understand most of what was being said.

This past week we have had some amazing teaches. Syster Jacobs and I are such a power team. We are both very happy people and all we want to do is serve those around us. The more we get to know each other the more we realize that we are together now for a reason. Gävle is in need of happy missionaries who will talk to everyone.

This past week we have started to go out with our ward mission leader and his wife to visit all the less-actives in the branch. It has been quite the adventure. They took us to this really cool Chinese place in the middle of nowhere and we had fun taking pictures. Haha. We have met some really nice people who are less-active just because they don´t have the energy to keep going. But, after this Conference I have so much energy and the faith to know that anyone has the ability to come back. All we have to do is trust in God and His plan for us and USE the atonement. When I ask people who Jesus Christ is to them.. I am surprised at the answers I get. Many people just know that he was a good man but they don´t understand that he took upon himself all of our sins and died for us. Wow.

We also had an amazing night with some investigators.They have become very good friends. We had an amazing lesson with them about who God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are. And about the Book of Mormon and why we read it. I have learned that many people just doesn´t seem to understand the importance of the Book of Mormon. They love the Bible so much and they believe that they don´t need anything more. But, I am hear to testify and let everyone know that we have a living Prophet today and that his name is Thomas S. Monson. I know that he is God´s prophet today, especially after watching conference.

Something we have started doing with our branch is going around to all the members and dropping off a vägen till glädje calendar. This means the Road to Joy! On every single day it is marked with two very important things that we can do with our families in order to receive more joy.

1. Family prayer.

2. Family scripture study.

We believe that people just need to be reminded of the basics again.

As a missionary I have been blessed to really feel God´s love for His children. I LOVE every single person that I meet. Even if they don´t understand why I am doing what I am doing. I know that God has a plan for every one of His children and I am here to help them remember that plan.


Life is grand and the church is true! Remember to be an active Latter-day Saint and help our Heavenly Father rescue His sheep.

Love, Talisa!