Book of Mormon to the Max

At the castle we went to last week!

WOW. Another temple in PROVO!! I am so excited and happy about that. Thanks Dad for sending me the picture of the drawing. It looks lovely. It will be really neat to go to the temple in the Tabernacle where I grew up performing and attending stake conferences.

Well...this past week we met with our Bishop and had a great meeting about planning a big ward activity to try and get the ward more involved in missionary work. Our ward is huge and our bishop has told us that they need our help. So, on Dec. 10th, we have a big Jul party! Jul means Christmas. We are going to start visiting all the members and sharing with them the message of the restoration, so they can see how we teach and then they will trust us to give us referrals. The work here in Göteborg is really taking off and we have some amazing plans for the end of the year. We also met with the YSA council yesterday, in between sessions, and made plans for a missionary fireside to help get the YSA's more excited about doing missionary work. We are planning some amazing activities and I feel like I am getting to use some of my talents to help with the work. Which is what I should be doing in life..Right? Actually using my talents. Remember to be active in the church and USE your talents to help strengthen the Lord's kingdom.

We are really focusing on helping the less-actives and we have seen some of them start coming to activities and back to church! I have a strong testimony of how well the Lord knows each of us and how each person we meet in our lives we meet for a reason. Look for ways to uplift someone else and I promise you, you will be happier. Like President Monson said in conference - when we are busy with the Lord's work the time flies past!

Conference was amazing! On Saturday we went to the church and watched the Relief Society session- Elder Uchtdorf's talk was my favorite and was very powerful. I think that during this conference we all got to see powerfully strong testimonies from all of the Apostles. I know this church is true and that we can all help spread the truth, even if we are not full time missionaries! Even though I am. Haha. After the Relief Society session Syster Juker and I headed to the tram stop to pick up an investigator for the session. The plan is that he will be baptized on Oct. 29th. It was an amazing experience to sit next to an investigator during conference. I will never forget how it felt to watch conference with someone who doesn't know the truth. We actually had an investigator at every session!! Life is grand and I am happy. And Ely, who is getting baptized this weekend watched all the sessions at home with the member family she is living with. They all loved conference and we have plans to meet with all of them this week and discuss what they learned.

Some of my favorite parts from conference:

We must be worthy to receive inspiration and then ACT upon it. We must trust and communicate with our Heavenly Father. -President Monson

I really enjoyed how BOLD all of the Apostles were and how a lot of them stressed the importance of being a bold witness of Christ.

Repentance is a divine gift for each one of us. - Todd Christofferson

LOVE = TIME.

Elder Uchtdorf was so powerful and I enjoyed both of his talks. In Relief Society and General Conference. We must ALWAYS remember that we matter.

Do the right thing at the right time without delay. -Jose Alonso

Here are my questions I had for conference: 1. How can I find the balance of being myself and a missionary? 2. How can I help others see the importance of the gospel? 3. How do I strengthen my weaknesses? 4. What is the best way to strengthen less-activies? 5. How do I lose myself in the work?

Welp, I love you all so much! And I thank you for your great examples to me and support. One more little story: This past week I was a walking heart attack. Haha. We have decided to start heart attacking some of our members and less actives and let them know how much we love and care about them. We wrote scriptures on the hearts and then my companions stuck them all over me because we wanted to not make a lot of noise by the door, and then we transferred them to the persons door. Lovely indeed. A picture should be included. Enjoy.

Love, Talisa! Your rockin missionary.

Happy Birthday to the Rocktober birthdays! Suzanne, Kate, Frances, Ilse, Serina, Mom, Danny, Donnette, Crew, Dad, and Wendy! And I am excited for Traci and Justin for their new baby that will be coming soon! Yipee.

We gave a heart attack!

I love this store...we walk by it daily.

Ray Bans!

Part 2.

Hello once again!

So, this week has been amazing and I have decided that I need to be better at writing more details. So, here we go. We have a solid baptism set up for Oct. 8th with a girl from Peru. We have been meeting twice a week with her for about a month and I have become really close to her. We love her! We actually had a lady from the ward come to the teach with us and she added so much. We LOVE having members come on teaches with us because they always bring such a special spirit with them. It also helps with Swedish teaches because they usually can understand much more than we can. Haha. I am learning to make my weaknesses strengths.

Every week we have usually at least 2 dinners with the Elders and Members. This past week we had a really fun dinner with a cute girl that made us the entire dinner and then we shared an amazing spiritual thought on prayer after. All five of us missionaries went around and shared our favorite scripture on prayer. Mine is Alma 37:37. I shared how when I was at girl's camp one year, we made a little heart flyer with that scripture on it and then put it in our scriptures. Then, years later when I was having a hard time, I looked through my scriptures and that little heart flyer fell out and I re-read that scripture and ever since that day my prayers became much more spiritual. The gospel is real and I know that prayer works.

Be good this week and listen to general conference! It will be super amazing and I know that you will be uplifted. We will be watching conference on Saturday at 4pm- the relief society session, 6pm the sat. morning session, and then on sunday we will watch it at 2pm and then 6pm. And then the last session we will watch together on Monday. I believe on Saturday we will be watching it at the church and on Sunday we will be watching it at the Center. Life is good and the Church is true!

I LOVE you all!

Love, Talisa!

Aka: Syster Vistaunet

One Year ago.. and 7 months on a mission!

Howdy! And Congrats to Nate and Kia!!

One year ago, on Sept. 22nd, I received my mission call. I thought that was insane. I am amazed at how fast time goes by! I have also been here in Göteborg for a little over a month now. Wow. I am still loving it here and getting to know the ward better and better every week at church.

Yesterday we had an amazing relief society lesson and I actually understood what was going on. The lady who gave it was an American who married a Swede. I have found that I can understand Swedish a lot more when it is a persons second language. Go figure. Anyway, it was on Quentin L. Cook's talk from the last general conference titled " LDS women are incredible!" I thought you would enjoy this quote she shared:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Last night we had dinner at The Anstensens and you all would love them! They are amazing and the dad really reminds me of my dad. He is a curator for art and has his own modern art gallery. I really felt at home there. Their oldest daughter is my age and is studying social work and they have a son on a mission and then their youngest daughter is 16 and reminds me a lot of Serina. So crazy. We shared a spiritual message with them about prayer and they loved it and we talked about some names of people who we can pray for together and showed them that missionary work starts with a prayer and that's all.

Well, the picture of us in the stripes is from today! My companions keep saying "I want to be more swedish" and it turns out that they just dress up like me. Haha. Guess I am more Swedish than I thought. So, they both are wearing my shirts and shoes. Well, except for the red converse- those are a girl's from the ward. Seriously everyone here dresses like me and its fun. I have never seen so many converse in my whole life.

Love, Talisa!

We are going to a castle here that closes soon so I will be back later and I will send more then.

I made sushi!

I made sushi and it was delicious.

Boat ride!

And that's my brain thought.

Boat ride!

We ate at the Hard Rock Cafe, and this was hanging above our table.

Hello one and all!

I have come to the conclusion that I am in Heaven. I love it here and would be happy if I served the rest of my mission here. This morning I came to the conclusion that I need to become better friends with all the YSA's and YW in my ward. And then get them to come on teaches with us and start teaching their friends. So, this week I am going to really focus on building strong relationships and making sure that I am always uplifting the person I am talking to. Last week we had a teach with a very amazing investigator! We had the bishops daughter, who is almost 17 years old, come and help teach with us. She brought such a sweet spirit and we really enjoy working with the cute younger girls. We have had many of them ask us if they could help us with teaches. We are making a difference! I love them.

If you ever have the chance to help the missionaries out and go on teaches...do it! You will have an amazing experience and it will change your life. I have a much bigger love for the missionaries of the church now that I am one. I can see how much work goes into strengthening the church and how important working with members is. You can make a difference! Don't ever be afraid to talk about the gospel with a friend, because you never know what could happen. Miracles happen, especially when you put all of your faith and trust in the Lord.

Last night we got to go to the institute and watch the CES fireside with Elder and Sister Oaks. It was amazing! They were both really powerful. Elder Oaks focused on being bold when we are talking with people about our faith. We must always remember that there is a God, and it is our duty as members to tell the world that God exists. My favorite part was when he quoted President Hinckley and said, "We must be in the world, but not of the world."

This past week Syster Juker and I had three teaches by ourselves. Luckily they were all in english. We both had the moment of realization that we are missionaries. It is a really neat experience to teach with your companion from the mtc. I am loving life. We have two investigators who are getting baptized soon! Oct. 1st during the day is the first baptism and then that night we will go to General Conference. That will be an amazing day. Our other baptism is a man from Ghana, Africa and it is planned for Oct. 8th. The work is moving forward like crazy and I am so thankful that I have the chance to be a part of it.

We teach Swedish class every week to about ten people and this week we did one-on-one reading activities and it was amazing how much the Lord helped me to be able to speak in Swedish. I am amazed that I can speak Swedish. We also made sushi at chill night this past week and it was really good and really easy! I loved it. We were amazed at how many investigators and less actives came to chill night. I felt so popular... talking to everyone and trying to be the best missionary I can. Every day I can feel myself coming closer and closer to Christ and our Heavenly Father. I love the gospel!

Love, Talisa!

Aka: Syster Vistaunet

All of these pictures are from our Island adventure last p-day. Off the coast of Göteborg there are a bunch of islands and with our bus card we could ride the boat and go around the islands. It was really cool! We didn't get off the boat, we just went on a ride around and enjoyed being on the ocean. It was a lot of fun! Then after the island boat trip we went back into town and went to eat lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe! I was in heaven. We sat at a table with Sid Vicous' vest. Rad. Rock N' Roll is here to stay! So, enjoy the pictures from my past week.

Peanut Butter and Jelly

Hej!

So, last pday was lame, we didn't go bowling and I still don't know why. All the missionaries in our zone came here and we just stayed at the center. So, around 3:00 I called my YSA friends and asked them if they would be willing to take me out. They came and we had a ball! They took me around Goteborg and to some amazing candy shops! YUM. And to a store called "Beyond Retro". Which I loved! These pictures are from my adventure last pday with some YSAs. I LOVE them! And today we are going to hang out with them again and go to the islands. I am excited.

Let's see...this past week we had a lot of teaches. They went pretty well. We finally got the chance to teach the man who stopped me on the tram a couple of weeks ago to pray for his son! He came to the center and we talked about prayer and why it works. We also taught him how to pray, so he can pray for his son as well. We found out that he is really depressed and on the weekends he goes out with his friends and drinks a lot. But, he did tell us that he wanted to stop drinking. So, that's a good sign. He is amazing and is so ready for our message. We will be meeting with him this week as well. We will see if he has done any reading and praying. We send him texts almost every day with a scripture for him to read. The whole mission got new phones this week! They are wonderful- and have some really good ring tones.

A couple of weeks ago we found a list entitled "People to call" so we have been calling them and seeing if they are still interested in meeting and from that list we have gotten many appointments and new investigators. We have a total of 12 investigators right now and we are still finding people to teach when we are on the tram. Almost every day we get a new phone number. I love Goteborg!! We actually got to go to Chamlers- which is the University here- and teach a couple of students there this week. When we were walking around the campus it made me miss UVU.... a lot. I am excited for when I get back home to continue on and get my Masters degree.

We had four member middags (dinners) this past week and three of them were with the Elders. There is a lot of work to do here in Goteborg! We actually have a total of seven missionaries in our ward including the older couple- The Andersons. Lovely. Syster Juker and I gave the spiritual thought yesterday, all in Swedish, about prayer! It was really neat because we are the two least experienced missionaries. We are really trying to get this language down.

Guess what!? I am the official cook. That's right everyone - I can cook! And when I get home I will be cooking like crazy. I LOVE it! I make almost every lunch and I have been making tons of treats to bring to people. Life is good.

Syster Juker has a song called PB and J and we have been listening to it all week. Then on Saturday we went to a members house and they fed us PB and J for lunch! It was so much fun- all five of us missionaries went over there and we did service for them in their yard. It made me miss working in the yard. Which I really never did before.. Haha. But, I am telling you, I love it! We did so much work.

Life here is really good! I hope everyone is enjoying school and work! Remember - every morning we choose if we are going to be happy or not. Ask the Lord every day.. how can I be your instrument? I know that He will lead you to who you can help that day. Miracles happen.. if you believe! I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Love, Talisa!

Jesus was like a Hippie.

Syster Jenson, Syster Juker and Syster Vistaunet in Goteberg!

Hello everyone!

Well, the church is true. This past week has been a crazy organization week. Syster Juker and I got our new companion- Syster Jenson. Who we LOVE! We all get along really well and it feels like a sister type relationship already. It is really nice. Syster Jenson is from Utah as well. On Thursday we went to this really neat watch tower place in the city and looked out over the whole city. When we were up there we made transfer goals and talked about all the people that we need to find. This city is huge and we are really grateful that we have two Elders who will be helping us with the work. It has been crazy this week trying to figure out which investigators to give to the Elders and showing them around the city.

Yesterday a family from the ward invited all five of us missionaries over for dinner. It was so much fun and so strange to have Elders with us. We can tell that we are going to become one big family. We have seen them every day since they arrived. Haha. Elder Smith and Elder DeLow. It's going to be a good transfer. We have some plans for doing finding work together - Like singing, chalk drawings, or setting up a table! The future is bright and we have some good things in store.

This is my schedule every week-

Monday- P-day! Institute meeting at 6pm and then FHE at 7pm.

Tuesday- Teaching, Finding, and then 6pm Movie night at the institute.

Wednesday- Teaching, Finding, teach Swedish class 5pm, usually a middag- dinner, and then institute at 7pm.

Thursday- District Meeting, Lunch with everyone, teaching our dopdatum (investigator!), and teaching and finding.

Friday- Teaching, Finding, Weekly Planning, and then chill at the institute- 7pm.

Saturday- Teach Swedish class- 1pm, service, teaching, finding.

Sunday- Meeting, Church, Middag, and then teaching or calling people!

This past week I had an amazing experience at the Institute!! On Friday night we had Chill and at the chill 16 year olds and up were invited. I was in heaven! It was a pie night. I met so many people and talked to so many new faces. It is an amazing feeling being a missionary at these events. I felt so loved and so looked up to. I was the cool, older, sister missionary. I made friends with some young girls around Serina's age. I have heard that in the past, they have gone out on splits with the sisters and I really hope that I get to do that! I totally want to work with teenagers for the rest of my life. I had so much fun and they really helped me with my Swedish! But, for the most part we did speak English. I am SO grateful that almost everyone here can speak english.

My testimony regarding prayer has grown so much this past week. When we go to middags (dinners) we leave a spiritual thought and ask them if they have anyone that they would like us to pray for and then we can be praying together for them. Since doing this we have gotten two really positive investigators and some less actives showing up to activities! Prayer is a real tool that everyone can use everyday at any moment. Sometimes life gets so hectic and we forget to pray. Which is silly because it is the most important thing that we can do to become closer to our Heavenly father. Prayer works and Heavenly Father often answers our prayers through another person. Look for the ways your prayers have been answered and thank Heavenly Father for answering your prayers. Read Mosiah 27: 14. It is where Alma the younger gets visited by an angel because his father has been praying for him.

Our investigator, the one who is getting baptized on Oct. 1st, is amazing. We learn something new from her every week. This past week we asked her how she grew up- religious wise and who Jesus was to her. She answered us by saying he was like a Hippie. Haha. Good to know.

Well, I LOVE you all! We are off to do a zone activity today! We are going BOWLING! I am very excited. I haven't been for 6 months! Hopefully I will get more than 50. Haha.

Love, Talisa!

Aka: Syster Vistaunet

Happy Birthday to my sweet cuz Alex tomorrow!!

And Happy Birthday to those September birthdays!- Tom Taylor, Zoe Taylor, Penelope, Grandpa Vistaunet, Evelyn Paulos, Jared Parker, Uncle Matt,and Grace!

Transferring to Goteberg....riding the train alone!

Photos...

At a music festival in Goteberg.

Pictures from Sweden!!