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!

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!

Sunday night dancing

(This picture is a group of sculptures by Carl Milles - "Five Musical Geniuses" - they are often referred to as the Angels in the Forest. He is a famous Swedish sculptor. The building across the little river is the Concert Hall - it is right behind the sculptures.)

We went on splits last week. So fun!

Wow. Mondays just seem to be coming faster and faster. This week I will hit my one year mark!!! Can you believe that? It really freaks me out to think about how fast time goes by.

Thus far on my mission I have been in six cities and seen four baptisms. Örebro, Norrköping, Göteborg, Halmstad, Karlskrona, and Gävle. I feel very blessed to be able to see so much of Sweden. One of my dreams was to be able to travel a lot and see Sweden and that dream has really come true. I have now been in all five zones and for our next zone conference I will get to travel up to Sundsvall and get to experience some of northen Sweden. Finally. Haha. Next zone conference will be in April.

This past week we got to the chance to go on splits. And because of that I have been thinking a lot about what I have learned so far on my mission and what I want to do with the time I have left. I have six months left! I got the chance to go on splits with Syster Hill who is training right now in Uppsala. She served in Gävle for the first six months of her mission and loves it here- so she came here and taught me a lot about the area. Syster Jenson went to Uppsala to be with Syster Talbot- a new missionary. We met up on Friday for district meeting here in Gävle and switched and then Sunday after church we switched back. It was a very fun weekend.

It is always fun to be with other missionaries and see what their talents are. And see how I can help them progress as well. I have come to realize that a lot of missionaries really stress themselves out for no reason at all. Life is so much better when we hand over our stress to our Savior. I have been studying the atonement a lot this week and I have been reminded about how much we are loved.

We got six new investigators this week!!! Heavenly Father really prepares His children and Syster Jenson and I have been the lucky ones to see teach many of them about the truth.

We have found two different, very strong African families that both really want to learn what we have to offer. Actually I am on the phone right now with the Dad of one of the families. He is super nice and he is saying that since we left his house last week he has felt God's love again and has been listening to worship music and he is telling me that he can feel heaven close around him. Amazing. We will be trying to meet with him and his family again this week and hopefully they will be able to come to our music night this Saturday night.

We are having a music night on Saturday with people in Borlange, Uppsala, and Gavle. We have about 15 different music numbers performing. I am very excited.

Now that we have so many new investigators we will be working really hard on getting them baptized! Our mission has a standard of excellence that we are all working towards right now and that includes:

Talking to ten people every day, finding 5 new investigators every week, and seeing 260 baptisms in Sweden for 2012! We are working on strengthening our faith as a mission and I strongly believe that we are starting to see more miracles because our faith is growing.

This past week we have used mormon.org a lot. I LOVE that website. It is easily one of my favorite tools as a missionary. I love showing people videos of people who they can relate to. It is a wonderful thing. Lately we have been getting referrals from mormon.org as well which makes me love that website even more. We have received two this past week and went and visited them. The one is a chinese girl who doesn't even know anything about God and is wanting to hear more about Him. The other we are still trying to get in touch with. Life is grand. Use mormon.org and tell people about the true church!

I have a strong testimony that God loves and prepares all of His children to hear the truth at some point in their lives. And then He gives us this wonderful gift called agency, where we get the chance to choose for ourselves what is true.

I am so grateful that I have been blessed to learn the truth and that I now get the chance share this truth with the people of Sweden.

Yesterday when Syster Jenson and I were on our way back to Gävle from Uppsala we sat across from a man who kept looking at us and smiling. We finally tried to talk to him and found out that he was deaf! Syster Jenson knows a little of american sign language and they started talking. Then he got some paper and we wrote in Swedish back and forth for about 15 minutes. It was a really neat experience and made me realize how important it is to learn Swedish in every form. Even writing because you never know when you will have the chance to teach someone about the church only through writing. I was very grateful for Syster Jenson at that moment. It was such a neat experience to "talk" with a deaf person. He goes to some deaf church in Gävle and wasn't really interested in learning more about our church.

Also this week I had the chance while Syster Hill was here to visit some members and have lunch. Kurt and Gerd Sjöqvist - who are both amazing artists! She actually went to BYU and James Christensen was her teacher. They are the mormon artists who made the really neat Tree of Life model that was in the conference center a couple of years ago. The big model with lots of color. Really breath taking. Anyways, I felt right at home when I was there.

It´s been a good week and I can tell that things are just going to keep getting better here in Gävle.

Syster Jenson goes home in 2 weeks and then I will train again. I remembered that you guys went to Syster Gotberg´s homecoming, so I thought it would be sweet if you went to Syster Jenson´s too! She is amazing and we have become really good friends! And she would love to get some good music from you.

I love you all! I am getting more and more excited about Corryn having her baby! Keep sending me pictures of her belly! Haha. 2 more months! Crazy.

Love, your Swedish daughter.

Talisa Vistaunet!

Beautiful Sweden.

Gavle is a beautiful, very Swedish town and I love it!

This is our chapel here. Cute and pretty big.

This statue that I am standing next to is of the first missionary in Sweden! I guess he was from Gävle. Very neat. Gävle is the city where the church was started here a long time ago. Rich history. Whenever I am feeling down I think of the missionaries who came before me and what I am doing to help with the work.

(I found more information on the "first missionary" monument. It is of John Erick Forsgren. He was a sailor stationed in Boston in 1843 when he joined the church. He later returned to his home town of Gavle as a missionary and baptised his brother, Peter, in 1850. Peter was the first convert in all of Scandinavia. The commemoration was just a year ago. It is in a city park right next door to the family estate! There is a somewhat sad ending to that first missionary story. He baptized others, but was eventually kicked out of Sweden by authorities who did not approve of a new religion being introduced in their country! The statue was dedicated in July of 2001.)

Listen to some Futureheads for me. And Tom´s new band. Caitlin told me that they are getting well known there. And that they are a 50-60 rock n roll type band. Tell Tom to write me and tell me about his new band. Thanks. Oh and tell Caitiln and Kamalei thanks for their letters! I really am blessed with the best friends ever. I am working on writing them back. But, as a missionary we really don't have much time to write.

Oh yeah, this weekend we are going on spilts! Syster Hill is coming up here and will be spending a couple of days with me. Then we will switch back on Sunday after church. Should be fun.

love love love you all!

Love, Talisa igen!