Monday, January 26, 2015

Sjukdom, Svenska, Tomte, Undervisningar. Den här är liksom min tidning.

This week has been an adventure to say the least :)

Last P-day we went out and explored this giant rock in the ocean. We walked out on a bridge to get to it and walked around on it and sweden is so pretty at night. We were able to look out at the city and see the lights reflecting off the ocean and it was so beautiful! 

We had snow this week! 

For study I've been reading from Our Search for Happiness by Russel M. Ballard and it's like my new favorite book. Go read it. Give it to your member friends. Give it to your non-member friends. It's simply the greatest. It's written so clearly and has helped me better understand the gospel and our church. I finished it this week and started reading Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage (i think) and holy cow that is some thick reading. I have to take a mental breather every 3 sentences but it's really good :) 

Sofia, the african girl that chased us down in centrum last week insisted we meet with her. We looked her up in the area book and she's been taught before, so we swung by to go teach her but she wasn't home. We decided to walk back instead of taking the bus (like, we never walk so this was some sort of secret spiritual prompting) and we ran into her on the way back home! We were able to set up another appointment to meet with her and it was awesome. Like, thank you Heavenly Father for the direction we sometimes don't realize we're recieving. 

We had pingis again tuesday night and Hasam (the iranian guy from last week) brought a friend! He's like bros with Pres. J now and he's cool. So we were playing pingis and I was working up a sweat (swedes love intense pingis tournaments. its nuts) and suddenly in walks Babu, one of our investigators that had a baptismal date when we got here but then fell off the face of the earth. We had never met with him before so we ran up and introduced ourselves. We sat down and started talking to him about stuff and he's decided he will be baptized in India when he returns home. He's like done his homework and knows the closest temple to him, knows about wards and stakes in his area, I'm not even worried. So we talked with him and got to know him and I'm so happy we were able to meet him before he left back to India!

On Wednesday we went clear out to Bergkvara to go visit one of our new converts Mim-Ariel. She made us lunch and it was really swedish. Fish, bread, gravy, potatoes, tea. She's the sweetest person in the world and we talked about church and favorite scriptures and mini miracles we're been able to see in our lives. She has a cat and I'm secretly the mission cat lady and we talked about cats for like 20 minutes. I love Mim-Ariel. We're soul sisters or something. 

Then we swung by one of the member's houses, Madeline, and she fed us lunch too (two lunches. I was full to bursting.) I had a hard time understanding her because her Blekingska was so strong but she's really cute and uses her hands to talk :)

We went back to Karlskrona and then walked to Sofia for our appointment and contacted along the way. We contacted this dude that looked just like Will Smith and the whole time I was thinking, "Holy cow, I'm telling the fresh prince of Bel-Air about the gospel in swedish." and it turns out he already knows about the church! He had met with elders in another city and now he lives here! We got his number and we're gonna try to start meeting with him! Sofia blåsted us (wasn't home) when we went by so we have yet another appointment with her this friday. It's fine though, walking to and from her apartment has been the coolest thing ever. We call the path the sacred sidewalk because we meet all these solid people on it. Like Will Smith.

On Thursday we had district meeting and it was awesome. I LOVE meeting with other missionaries. When you go the whole week just you and your companion and a whole city of people that know nothing about the gospel it's super comforting to know that there are a bunch of other people out there doing the same thing you are. After district meeting we went to (you guessed it) an asian buffet. What is it with elders and asian buffets? 

We had planned to have 4 lessons on Thursday and we were only scheduled with one. We were determined to achive the 4 lessons. So we went through the area book and found this guy and called him and he seemed interested enough so we asked if he could meet with us. That day. In 15 minutes. And he was like, "yeah! I'll totally do that!" So we met with him and talked about why our church was different from other churches and gave him a bit of a watered down restoration lesson and his first language is Turkish so we told him we'd get him a Book of Mormon in Turkish and it was super awesome. We walk back to the apartment basically floating on air. AND THEN we got a text from him that says "thanks so much, you guys were nice!" and we're like "no problem! we'll be sure to get you that book the next time we meet!" and he says "do you guys wanna go get a drink sometime?" and it was like all my happiness died. COULDN'T SOMEONE BE INTERESTED IN THE GOSPEL FOR ONCE? It's so rough having such positive contacts and then having literally 80% of them text us and ask us out or ask us to marry them and I'm sick of it. Elders don't really have this problem. But we pressed forward because we still had 3 more lessons to teach before we reached our goal of 4. We walked down the sacred sidewalk and on the way gave out 2 Books of Mormon and taught 4 more lessons. And then we went to our appointment and taught that lesson. SIX LESSONS IN ALL. Setting goals works.

On Friday we woke up really tired. Syster Allred was nauseous and I was exhausted. We taught one of our new converts, Irene. She's from El Salvador and she's beyond strong in the faith. They fed us typical swedish breakfast (smörgåsar. I'm in love. I'll be eating them everyday when I get back) and we talked about Uchtdorf's talk "Lord, Is it I?" and it was awesome. Friday was supposed to be Paulina's baptismal date but she wasn't able to be baptized because she wasn't at church. So we stopped by and asked about her general feelings on things and decided that we'd keep meeting with her and prepare her for baptism in March. 

Poor Syster Allred was really not good on Friday. We went home after open church and I made her some soup. We tried to go out contacting but everybody was so rude and no one would stop for even 2 minutes. The worst was this one girl who was like, "what do you people want?!" and rolled her eyes when she saw our name tags and said, "Pfft. I know what I know." and walked away. I wanted to throw her in the ocean. Here we were, out on the street in the middle of swedish winter, thousands of miles from our homes, Syster Allred sick to her stomach, trying to talk to people in their own language, and all we want to do is help people. Friday night was hard. And then both of us got this sudden prompting that we needed to be in. So we basically ran back to the apartment. We still don't know what that was about. But at least we were inside. 

On Saturday we taught Ereleng. He's awesome. Our lesson on the plan of salvation went super well and he had questions like, "wait, after everyone's been ressurected how are we all going to fit on the earth?" and "what do people in your church do if someone doesn't come one day?" and it was super awesome. He's got great questions that I love answering and he is super open to commitments. I really enjoy teaching Ereleng. I think he's golden. 

Then we taught Tobias, the guy we had the member present lesson with last week at pingis. We tried talking about church but he kept asking weird questions like "are there more sharks in Hawaii than California?" and "have you ever seen Las Vegas?" and everytime we tried to say something to him he's pick apart our swedish. So the spirit wasn't there. I didn't understand his norweigan accent. He kept correcting us even when we said things right. We invited him to church but he said he didn't believe that one church can have the whole truth so he needs to research all these other churches in order to figure it out. In my mind I'm like, "Oh my goodness, stop complicating things and just pray about it." I think if we ever meet with him again I'm just going to speak english because he understands it perfectly. 

We went to Birgitta's house (the less active sister that knows about lehi and highland) and I brought my picture book :) we had a great time talking about the mountains and places around town. She looked at the picture of mom and dad and was like, "they're so cute! your parents look so young!" and we talked about family and temples and left her with a prayer. I LOVE HER. 

On Sunday we had church. None of our investigators showed up. It's sad. We'll just keep inviting them. We met with this african man named Nebie. He's a super devout Christian and loves everything about Jesus. We gave him a lesson on the restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon. As I was saying the closing prayer he was like, "yes, thank you Jeses, amen Jesus, hallelujah, amen" the whole time and it totally made my day. He met with the sisters here before because he found one of their name tags on the ground and returned it. He said he just wouldn't feel right if he had held on to it. He's one of my new favorites. 

random stories:
- in branch council this week they asked me a question and I hadn't understood a single thing they'd been saying. So I just kind of blinked at them and said, "...uhhhh... jag förstod ingenting." and they laughed and looked back at me like, "well, answer the question." and  it was super embarassing. 
- we were in Ronneby and this guy is so drunk he can't even walk straight and he comes up to us and says "Ni ser ut tomte." and I've been laughing about it all weekend. He said we looked like tomte. A tomte is a little swedish troll dwarf thing. I can't even handle how funny that encounter was.
- We contacted this adorable old swedish lady. She's a professor of religion and says she thinks we represent our church in the greatest way and invited us over. 
- We contacted this swedish kid that was maybe 18 on the same day Tobias dissected our svenska and he came up to us about 5 minutes after we contacted him and told us we had very good swedish. I'm so thankful for those people.
- we found the cutest park near our apartment in Karlskrona. 
- Sometimes we sprint after buses and bus drivers laugh at us
- Syster Allred accidenally lit one of our dish towels on fire yesterday hahaha

As always I love being a missionary. Sister Allred and I have been sick this weekend but we can see the blessings of strength throughout the day. We know that we have family and friends praying for us and feel uplifted when we work. We have been so blessed to be in this area serving with the people that we serve with. I love this branch. There are few members here but they are spiritual giants. I learn and grown so much from them and their examples. I love helping people and talking to people and sometimes I remember "Oh my goodness I'm living in sweden, speaking swedish, telling people about the greatest news to ever hit the earth" and I feel like it's not even real sometimes. I love being a missionary. I LOVE IT. I'm so grateful I have these next 16 months to continue serving! 

Have an amazing week!
Love, Syster Janessa Brink
sometimes I make houses of cards

standing on the peir with this fish woman statue.  Red eye like crazy.

snow in Karlskrona! standing on the sacred sidewalk!

burnt dish towel.

this is how we're going to get all our potential investigators to stop asking us out

on the bus, super tired

Monday, January 19, 2015

Happy 2 months :)

Hej hej familj och vänner!
Ah sweden is te best :) I finally found the apostrophe mark so you can all be happy that I can now use a swedish keyboard haha
Last week I was able to buy myself a real swedish coat so hooray for warmth and quality jackets :) Swedes know how to make durable stuff. ALSO. I made spaghetti. Be so proud.
We tried tracting together last week. It was super awkward cuz people answer the door and their apartment smells disgusting and then the neighbors hear us talking to them in the hall and don't answer the door and then they have these weird creepy swedish elevators that are like a closet on a pulley and I secretly never want to tract again. Hahaha missionaries have the best job even if it is really awkward sometimes.
We had open church and the elders were supposed to take over for us but then Ä. Simonson was sick. Again. Like the kid has been sick since the first day here in Karlskrona and he hasn't been able to leave the apartment. So we ended up staying at the church for their open church time too. And we took over their appointment with Lina because she was already in Karlskrona when they cancelled on her and then we had our pingis (ping pong) activity at the church. THAT'S LIKE 8 HOURS AT THE CHURCH. THAT'S A LONG TIME. But Heavenly Father knows about sucky days like the ones where you spend 8 hours stuck at the church. And then he sends you stuff to brighten your day. Lina brought a friend to pingis and we taught him the restoration and he was really interested and had a lot of questions and we had a really really great member present lesson with him and Lina. Lina is like the coolest person in the entire world. THEN, this Iranian guy basically came in off the street and started playing pingis with us and like, he's coming back next week and we wanna start teaching him. THEN, Pres. Jusinski showed up with his kids Jakob and Simon (p.s. Jakob is secretly like pingis master) and we were able to talk to him about the area. AND THEN we finally got out of the church and went contacting and we met these 2 indian guys and had a lesson ON THE STREET and we got their phone number. We had to stop in the middle of contacting and say a gratitude prayer because everything was just going so well!
We visited this super cute member named Gun Britt on wednesday and she's like this really awesome swedish grandma and I love her. I could write books about all the members here, they are the best people in the whole entire world and they are so SO strong in the faith.
For språk study I've started translating songs into swedish. I'm currently doing Fancy by Iggy Azaelia (?) and it's hilarious.
ALSO learned this week that heavenly father directs your path when you don't even realise it. We were doing a lot of swing by's one day and we were trying soooo hard to get to this one less active lady's house and we took the wrong bus, got on the right one, missed the stop, took the wrong street. It was bad. We we're like, "maybe we're not supposed to visit this lady for some reason." But then in the middle of all the weird traveling confusion we ran into Paulina, one of our investigators with a baptismal date, and were able to talk to her for a little while. We were able to change our appointment with her and just say hi and it was good! We did make it to the Less Active's house though! She was home and she was like, "yeah I don't go to church." and we want to start stopping by every week and leaving cookies or something with her and just love her. She's totes gonna be on the straight and narrow by the time I'm done with my training.
One day while we were contacting this dude was like, "mmmmm I don't know if I wanna meet and talk about religion." and Sister Allred was like, "just take the card and look at the website" and they just walked away and like, I guess that's how missionary work is done. I may as well just drop the mic and walk away. Hahahah she's like "I'm so sorry you got me as a trainer, I suck sometimes" but we have literally had so much fun together!
We have a baptismal date with Ereleng for valentines day :) we are super excited! I told him I worked at an ice cream shop for 2 years and he was like "so ice cream is your specialty eh? whats the best flavor?" and we chatted about ice cream for a while. I like Ereleng. He's like my new swedish uncle.
We met a less active woman in Ronneby and she's into bead work and jewelry and let us make bracelets while we were there. Also she TOTALLY KNOWS highland utah and lehi and american fork and I'm gonna have to go back and bring my pictures and we can talk about our common places. Her daughter and her family live in Lehi and she's really cool. Gonna get her back to church in no time! 
Zone Training in Malmö this week and that was fun. We ate at an asian buffet and the asian buffets here are just as bad as the ones in the states so none of you are missing out on anything special.
The elders FINALLY went to the doctor to figure out what's up with Ä. Simonson. He's totally fine. lol.
Paulina didn't come to church this week so she won't be eligible for baptism. Which might actually be a good thing. She doesn't really have a testimony about the Book of Mormon and she basically just wants to be baptized because she's never been baptized before. We were able to have a really REALLY great restoration lesson with her and I was able to really bear testimony of him and the spirit was totally there. We're gonna move her baptismal date to March.
Cool thing, I got drunk texted like 5 times and basically proposed to twice this week. So. that's really cool. The first guy that proposed was some dude we texted about our pingis activity and he's like "can you send me a picture? I wanna meet with you." and we're like "we only talk about god" and he's all, "Oh i wanna talk about everything! God, life, everything!" and then he proceeds to try and sell himself to us like "I'm 25 and tired of single life, I have a job...." and then he sends us this weird picture and he's like "I took this last year in morocco." and we never texted him again. The other guy was one of our potential investigators that drunk texted us like 5 times at 3 am and was like "I am god's warrior" but we were like, It's chill he was just drunk last night, so we texted him and invited him to church and he's like "wow, you are so forgiving and nice, can I marry you? I'm 35, can I get married?" and we were didn't respond and he didn't come to church but we have an appointment with him today and we think we're just gonna pass him on to the elders.
Finally, today is my month mark! HAPPY TWO MONTHS OF MISSIONARY LIFE!!! To celebrate, Sister Allred and I bought swedish godis and ate some smörgåsar and saft. Let me just tell you missionary life is the complete best. I'm loving serving here and I meet the coolest people every single day. The other day some african girl chased us down in centrum and insisted we met with her. The Lord prepares people and he prepares you, he directs your path and puts you in the right place. I LOVE THIS CHURCH. I LOVE THIS GOSPEL. I LOVE SPREADING THE WORD.
Frid och kärlek,
Syster Janessa Brink



^this is how you celebrate two months. saft, smörgås, mustache straws, cool home made bracelets, and my sister missionary fjall backpack. I'm a swede.^




^penguin steps in ronneby, celebrating the two month mark like a swede! Smörgås, saft, mustache straws and cute bracelets made with less active members^




^cool graffiti wall in ronneby, we were excited cuz we got a baptismal date!, miss kebab (?), me in front of an antique shop in the middle of nowhere^

Monday, January 12, 2015

such is life

Hej hej everybody!

Flights over the ocean suck so I think I´m just going to stay in Sweden forever and ever so I don´t ever have to do that again :) the keyboards here are super weird so until I can figure them out I´m using the accent mark as an apostrophe and I´m not even going to apologize, 

Basically I pulled an all nighter the day we left the MTC cuz I was stressing about heavy bags and stuff like that (books weigh like 800 pounds I´m not even joking) and then we get to the airport and the TSA lady didn´t even weigh my bag so like, whatevs. (BTW parents, did you get my blanket I sent home? I had to leave it with my cute Dutchie roommate and I hope she was able to send it!) I got on the plane wearing tights, leggings, socks, boots, two undershirts, a sweater, a hat, two coats and 3 pairs of gloves. Stupid weight limits, I wore like half my wardrobe.

Also the first time in public as a missionary is terrifying. That name tag glows like a ray from the sun I swear. Literally everybody sees your name tag and notices you and some people switch which side of the street they walk on when they see you and then some people run right up to you and wanna ask you all about their cousin´s uncle´s friend´s kid that was in the MTC with you and you have no idea what they´re even talking about.

We get off the plane and meet the mission president and his wife and I´ve got plane hair and I´m all gross and they want to take all these pictures and stuff, You can probably find them on the mission blog (swedenstockholmldsmission.blogspot.com i think) We drove to the mission office and watched this super long super cheesy video about driving and I don´t even remember most of it other than the apostles standing in apple orchards or something. Then we went out contacting. I felt so bad for the sister I was paired up with because I was like sleepwalking and could not understand people at all so the contacting was really really rough hahahah, welcome to the mission field.

We slept at the mission home that first night and Sister Beckstrand made dinner and I will eat anything she makes because that food was so amazing compared to the MTC cardboard stuff we ate for six weeks. Also the mission home is beautiful and I want to live in Sweden forever. That night was so great because we didn´t have the MTC prison blankets and the beds were soft and I hadn´t slept for 40 hours. Also that whole sweden being dark thing? 100% true. I keep thinking it´s like 9:00 when it´s only 4.

Migrations the next day was super easy. I hope my little visa picture isn´t as scary as my passport picture haha :) I got my new comp and trainer Syster Allred. It was so sad saying goodbye to Syster Giles but we´re still in the same country so we´ll see each other around and stuff! I´ve been assigned to serve in Karlskrona and it´s way down south. 

I really don´t think I´ve had a normal missionary day yet. That first day trying to get down here our train was super delayed so we ended up having to stay the night in Malmö with Syster Bateman and her trainer. Then we got on the train the next day and had to do a district meeting. As I was getting off the train I got stuck between the wall, my suitcases and some drunk swedish dude. And he was swearing at me in swedish and I´m just like "...förlåt..." 

and then district meeting went too long so we missed our train. So I ate this weird cardboard swedish bread called knackabröd and we waited for the next train to come. As we were boarding the train we saw the drunk guy laying on the ground so that was cool.

WE FINALLY MADE IT TO KARLSKRONA AFTER ALL THIS TIME AND CLIMBED THIS SCARY SPIRAL PRISON STAIRCASE WITH ALL MY HEAVY BAGS TO THE VERY TOP FLOOR. But it´s completely fine because the apartment is adorable, I´m stealing it from the missionaries after I get released and living here forever.We live between two pizza places (swedes love pizza, probably more than americans) and sometimes it smells like pizza and it´s delicious. 

We had a little meeting with the ward mission leader, Tony. He speaks skånska and Sister Giles would have killed to be there and hear it I´m sure. I honestly didn´t understand most of anything anyone said and then Tony stood up and started playing the guitar and singing Elvis and his mom was like, "elvis would have been 80 this year if he lived" and that was like the first experience I had with real swedes. 

I AM SO HAPPY TO COOK HERE. Home made food is delicious and Sister Allred and I are chefs. I made this great breakfast one morning with hashbrowns and eggs and stuff and I´m totally positive dad would be so proud. And I´ve been making healthy food too so mom can be proud as well :)

Äldste Simonson has been really sick this week and the elders haven´t been able to leave their apartment (oops, forgot to mention their in our area too. It´s Ä. Simonson and Ä. Silvenionen. He´s finnish and I think he sounds like the little bat on anastasia but you didn´t hear that from me.)

We taught Ulf, one of the investigators here with a baptismal date. I didn´t understand much of anything that was said but piped in once with a comment I´m sure was completely out of context but at least I said something right? 

We ate dinner with the Branch President and we accidentally knocked on some random dude´s door and that´s how we accidentally went tracting. Swedes eat ketchup on their spaghetti and salted black licorice tastes like playdoh. I really like Pres. Juzinski and his family! they are so cute!

One of the days we had to go and give the elders a phone charger (woot for being the only european mission with iphones!) because they left theirs in Malmö when we were traveling. We tried to get there as soon as possible because Ä. Simonson is sick and we were super worried about him. But we ended up getting off at completely the wrong bus stop and stood in a puddle in the rain for an hour while we waited for the next bus to come. And I´m walking around with my hydraulic missionary mall umbrella and every time the wind blows it inside out I can hear the guy from the store saying "this is insured!" When we finally got on the right bus and off at the right stop we realized sister allred left her gloves on the seat and was freezing. And then we took every wrong street possible to get to the elders and when we finally got there we needed a code to get up to their door but we couldn´t call them because their phone was dead and we had the charger. So we stood in the rain throwing rocks at their window and then a ward member drove by and helped us get in. So we finally make it and give them the charger and that was a really fun adventure.

We went to Ronneby to teach an investigator who offered to buy us coffee and thought it was super weird we didn´t drink it. So he bought us soda instead. Swedes are like, the nicest people ever :) We taught him a little about the restoration and gave him a book of mormon, which I was able to bear testimony on. The spirit was totally there, I hope he felt it!! 

Then while we were in Ronneby we met with this super cute member named Lina. She knows like every missionary that´s served in sweden since she was converted two years ago. The missionaries are her friends so she´s got like a collection of old name tags from years ago hahaha :) I wanna give her one of mine someday! Also she´s got this prime video of Brother Whitworth with a buzz cut and Brother Cheney on a skateboard. She´s my new favorite person, we´re gonna hang out all the time when I´m off the mish. 

We went and got some groceries for the elders, they were starving in their apartment with only noodles and rice. Ä. Simonson had been sleeping for like 2 days straight at that point. 

Church in Sweden. Where do I start? Well, we got here early to set up the church and found this gigantic spider by the sacrament table and I was going to kill it and then the family history lady showed up and grabbed it WITH HER BARE HANDS. WHAT. Swedes are crazy. She showed me some cool stuff that I could potentially use to find our lost family so whoop whoop she and I are going to be friends. In sacrament I got up and introduced myself and everybody understood what I was saying even though I didn´t understand what they were saying. In relief society I was the object for the object lesson because I had hearts on my shirt and the lesson was on loving god with all your heart. 

Yesterday in Centrum we contacted 40 people and got three phone numbers and the swedes here are much nicer than the ones in Stockholm. 


RANDOM STUFF
*swedish chocolate is better than american chocolate in every way possible
*they say ja while they breathe in and it sounds like a gasp like they´re surprised and I think its super funny
*skånska is swedish but it sounds like they have a potato in their throat.

That´s all for this week. This email was really long. I love you all and hope you have a great week! Go share the gospel with someone! Go give the missionaries a referral! Go enjoy the privilege of not having to use public transportation! 

Until next week,
Syster Janessa Brink



me and my district, we are super pumped for sweden! 


also the plane had this awesome movie called map that we watched for 12 hours. it was literally just the map. You´ve gotta invent your own fun as a missionary sometimes.
 
Flying into Sverige!!

Sweden Temple!  SOOO PRETTY!!!

mission pres gave us these cute mittens!

me and my trainer sister Allred!! pointing at our area, Karlskrona

okay, this is me in Ronneby

me attempting to kill the spider at church

drunk guy on the ground 



\/ this is my cute apartment!! I´m living here forever!!\/




Safe Arrival of your Missionary

Attached you will find a letter from President Beckstrand, some pictures of your son in Sweden and some helpful mailing information.  Thank you for all you do and have a great day. 
Syster Taylor
Mission Secretary
Sweden Stockholm

08 544 70 930





Dear Family and Friends of our Missionaries,
We want to pass along some important information and tips that will assist you in getting mail and packages to your missionary.   

Letters and packages sent through the Postal Services that are four (4) pounds and under are forwarded immediately to your missionary.

Things that cause delay to your packages:
·         Packages over four (4) pounds
·         Overnight packages
·         Certified or Registered mail
·         Using any carrier other than the Post Office

We suggest the following for your packages to arrive in a timely manner:
·         Send your packages through the Post Office
·         Don’t put more than four (4) pounds in a package, send more packages if required
·         Plan ahead to meet your deadlines

Packages heavier than 4 pounds may be sent directly to the missionaries’ apartment.  However, if your missionary is transferred and your package arrives, it will be the responsibility of your missionary to pay to have the package sent to their new area.  Please keep in mind transfers do not always happen at regularly scheduled times.   If you send a package, be sure to write the address exactly as it is given to you by your missionary.  In Sweden there are names on the doors that are required to be part of the address in order for the mail to be delivered, otherwise it will be returned. 

The tithing funds can not be used to forward packages to missionaries.  If a package arrives in the office that is over four (4) pounds or if it is sent by a carrier other than the Post Office, we will inform the missionary and ask if he/she wants us to charge their personal account for the cost to forward it to them, or if they are willing to wait until someone will be visiting that area, which may take up to a month.    .

Please remember that ALL medication sent need to be listed as Missionary Supplies on the customs declaration (green) form.  Be sure you tape all boxes well, especially corners.  We have received several packages where the corners have been torn and contents have been lost.

Be sure to use this address when sending mail and packages to your missionary through the mission office
Äldste/Syster Missionary Name
Enebybergsvägen 38
182 46 Enebyberg
Sweden

Please share this information with your family members and friends to ensure that your missionary receives packages and mail in a timely manner.

Thank you for your understanding and support.

Sweden Stockholm Mission 

Missionaries Arrived Safe

Sent January 6, 2015

Just a quick note to let you know that your missionaries arrived safely this morning in good spirits.  They were excited to finally be here and are ready to go to work.  We will do a follow-up email in a day or two with some pictures.  Just wanted you to know that they are here.
 
Syster Taylor
Mission Secretary
Sweden Stockholm

08 544 70 930

Saturday, January 3, 2015

ÖVERÄSKA!!!

Hey hey!! I got an extra P-day today to pack stuff up and write home. You won't be getting another email from me until I'm in SVERIGE!!!!  

Lots has happened this week and it's only been a few days since the last time I wrote! On Wednesday after emailing home we went to clean the Provo temple. We got to wear these super comfy white doctor scrubs and I seriously want to buy some when I come back home. We started in the Baptistry and I got to touch an ox so like hey, that's pretty cool! We also got to assemble the biggest sealing room, they replaced the carpet last week so we got to put all the chairs back in and put together the alter.  We also put the chairs back in the celestial room. They cleaned the chandelier last week so we didn't get to do that, BUT it was all sparkly and beautiful so we were able to appreciate that :) I also somehow collected every watch from all the people cleaning so by the end of the day I was wearing 12 watches.

I got the boxes on new years and vi hade en NY ÅR FEST!!! Det var so bra!!! Tack så mycket för allting ni sänder till mig! :) We counted down to 10 o'clock and popped some martinelli's and celebrated with the other swedish district. All the food was great and we had a grand old time with those party poppers and horns! We had all these toasts to sweden and to missions and it was such the best :)

We taught Nilla her last lesson and she was baptized! SO proud and excited :) :) :)

It's so crazy how a year ago things were so different! This time last year I think mom was going to disown me for dropping Chemistry and AP Calculus. I was worried about Mater Dei dropping to small coed and I had my own room and I was able to drive places when I wanted to.  Dad made breakfast burritos in the morning and mom did my laundry.  I still worked at Coldstone and I was applying to colleges. 

If there's anything I have to say about the last 12 months of my life it's that the Lord knows me and knew how to prepare me to be here. He put me through trials and different situations and led me to this life where everyday I wake up and do His work. I am 2 days away from Sweden and life doesn't even feel real! I would have never in my wildest dreams thought I would be here a year ago! 

Yesterday we had in-field orientation and it lasted about 7 hours. I just want to get myself on that plane! The MTC has been great and I love all the people in my zone but I am so so SOO ready for the next step! Can't even wait to get to Sweden! 

I love you all lots! I'll be calling from the airport :) Catch ya later! The next time you hear from me I'll be in sweden!

LOVE, Syster Brink <3


Hur mycket är klockan?

Scary turkey thing ironing some pants

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM THE SWEDES!!!