Greatest Weekend EVER!!!

What an amazing weekend this has been. My parents must be feeling old... no more teenagers! Thanks to all who emailed me that was super nice to hear from you guys! Anyways this weekend was pretty amazing! It all started this last saturday. We started out the day by taking the train to Kopenhagen (Köpenhamn). We went together with the elders in Karlskrona and the sisters in Lund (sister page in our stake right?). We started out by taking Michael (recent convert last month) to do baptisms and who do I see? Marvin mulato! My first baptism! He is doing amazing! Turns out he has his patriarchal blessing, second time he came to the temple, and his family is investigating the church. He told me, afterwards as we were taking pictures, that he had learned so much being a member in the church. HE said "I just want to thank you for teaching me the gospel, I can't say anything but thank you for what it has blessed me with" That is something amazing for me to hear! I can die happy now! haha but he is so solid because he is such a strong memebr of the church but is a member of one of the most unstable branches! This guy will go far. We went through a session with two africans Kenneth Anyanwu and John Orji and Elder Winegar had the privilege of assisting Kenneth through the temple. It was so cool to see someone you know go through the first time. They were just smiling and taking it all in and enjoying the amazing spirit that is felt at the temple. Everytime I go I just realize how little I understand of the Atonement, but I definitely leave with a stronger testimony of it!
Sunday, January 30th 2011 I turned 20! And we had an amazing church where Dorothy and Obed showed up and brought a relative with her to see her baptism! It was so cool because after sacrament meeting Obed (9 yrs old) kept tugging on me and asking "When am I going to get baptized?!" After sacrament we had a ward dinner and once dorothy was done she asked me if she could just be baptized already! So we rounded up the ward and got them into the chapel, practiced with them a couple of times and started the service! I was able to baptize Obed first and I had never done a family baptism before so I didn't remember that Dorothy would probably want to witness it! Luckily (i guess) he didn't get all the way under, so I waited for her. And she was just cheering him on! And then after he was baptized we came up the steps and let Dorothy and Bishop go in and witnessed from behind! What an amazing experience! There is definitely a special spirit that comes having a family be baptized. Kinda the "were in this together" feeling. And they just loved it and were just smiling throughout the service. We will be teaching their relative that lives with them soon while we teach them the new member lessons! Cool how that works out! My birthday was just that! We just did what a missionary does all day! We made some cookies (thanks mom for the mix) and they were delicious! I actually slipped some banana in the middle of 3 of them and it was pretty delicious! I was definitely blessed this weekend! Heavenly Father "hooked me up" for sure. It was an amazing weekend. It was a good way to start me off in my grown-up years... a temple visit, baptisms. Plus Elder Winegar is the man! So I am spoiled basically.

Well family, thánks for your prayers and your love!

Go utes! oh wait...

Love,

Äldste Webster

PS Also, there are now only 2 elders here in Malmö because elder bjork got sick and went back home after 23 months. Elder Owens is now in Halmstad! But he should be coming back at the beginning of next transfer! Crazy!

Love,

Wad

OH WHAT JOY!!!! Happy Birthday Aldste Adam!

Filled up!

Hejsan!
This week has been a pretty great week! We were able to teach Dorothy's son Obed who is 9 years old! He is amazing! As we were able to teach the plan of salvation to them we asked Obed if he wanted to be baptized! This experience led me to an amazing memory I had while in Brazil on a teach with my parents and Sam! The mother of the family said that she wanted to be baptized because she wanted to go to the Celestial Kingdom! And that is exactly what Obed told us. He said I want to go to the "Sun" to live with God and my mom forever! The spirit was so strong there! The whole week after that teach we tried to have our ward mission leader (newly called) come with us to teach her. Unfortunately, Satan was pulling every trick out of the book to get her to cancel on us to get the Ward Mission Leader to not be excited about the work here in Malmö. She canceled on us twice this week. But the the Lord always wins! They kept coming to church their top priority and they came! The members did an amazing job with fellowshipping her into the ward. After the 2nd hour, just before sacrament meeting, Obed was getting tired and she told us that they wanted to go home! You could only imagine our shock to that! But the Lord provided another miracle through a recent convert. John Orji. He came up to her and said "You're are leaving already? Why? what else do you have to do today? You need to endure to the end!" That was a deep lesson that she really needed to learn and her and her kid both decided to stay! During sacrament meeting, a lady bore testimony how thankful she was for Dorothy and her joy-lit face, and her faith!" Everything just ran so smoothly and after church we asked them about baptism on the 30th and they said they were Anxious (in a good way)! So we need to teach them a lot before their baptism.
Zone Conference was amazing! They introduced the New Standards of Excellence! And they are....
Weekly Baptisms
1+ Baptismal Dates (meaning 1 new one every week)
3 in Sacrament meeting
10 member present teaches 20 given to a non-member
5 New Investigators a week.
It was a pretty exciting Conference! Our message was about Asking Good Questions. We started out our message with an interrogation. Elder Winegar was the interrogator and I was the interrogatee (investigator). We gave the Zone a horrible example on how we get answers from our investigators and that was super funny. Ex. (Chairs falling to the ground, shouting, dark room with one interrogation light on, "where are they!" quote from batman...). The assisstants introduced the Standards of Excellence. President and Sister Anderson taught the topic "We Invite, They Commit, We Follow up" and it really was an amazing thing to cover on how important it is to let our investigators know that the commitments and everything we tell them to do is for their eternal benefit! Prayer, the Book of Mormon reading, church attendance, keeping the commandments ALL change the lives of our investigators. I also really realized how important it is to follow up with people. IT's kinda like taking a test but getting no grade!
This week was great overall, I love this gospel. This is the Lords work and it will go on no matter what! It's up to us as the missionaries to excercizing the Faith to be Obedient, and Follow the Spirit to become in line with Heavenly Father's will!

Love you all! Happy Birthday to me! 20? weird...

Besos,
Äldste Webster


was not able to get my package by Zone Conference... but now I know I have one coming! tack så mycket!
Love you mamma!

also.... You have a package with a bunch of letters that I have gotten on the mission. And another one will come with my USB! thats right! Pictures from christmas and new years. there's A LOT!
love, wad

just kidding.... no go on the USB... my camera takes too big of pictures. I think I will be keeping my pictures for the rest of the time i am in sweden. maybe I will be sending you some from time to time.
Sorry!
Love, wad

Bittersweet!

Hej kära familj. Right now I am realizing my dreams. Here at the hi-tec library in malmö I am sitting on a new iMac. It's been a while since i've been on one of these. They also give you the option to borrow iPad's in exchange with some ID. I chose the iMac because I would glave out too much on an iPad! Haigh! This week has been amazing! We have been going by some investigators that have fallen between the cracks. One day we decided to run by an investigator who was supposed to come back from Stockholm but hasn't come back. As we got there, we knocked on the door and a woman answered the door and said she wasn't there and wouldn't be back for some months. The lord blessed us as we talked to her and she told us she would be interested in hearing our message! The first time we met her she was super happy of our message and believed what we said. The next time we came we saw that apparently she had a nine year old son! The mother's name is Dorothy and the son is Obed. We gave her 2 Nephi 31 to read and we came back the next time and followed up on what she read and what she liked.... she said "BAPTISM!" Seeing how that was the highlight of her reading we commited her to be baptized! On the 30th of January! Investigators have to come to church at least twice and she couldn't come yesterday! So it fell upon January 30th.... as we commited her she said YES, what time? So Elder Winegar and I will be setting up a baptismal calendar with her at making sure she is ready for her first covenant! She is a very amazing woman. Obed wasn't there so we will be meeting them both tonight to see if he will also be baptized at that date! Happy Birthday to me I guess! The Stake will be having a temple trip on the 29th and we have 2 recent converts that are taking out their endowments so we will be going with them! the day after, a Baptism! I've got quite the amazing birthday planned!

This week will be Zone Conference on Thursday the 20th. We will be holding it at the chapel in Lund. Great memories in that chapel (my first ward). By the way do any of you know the location of Nils Kristian Andersson's birthplace or where he served or whatever? It would be pretty cool to go there! I am loving the work. On sunday we just got a new bishoric! Our old bishopric barely recognized us four! But the new bishop got up and bore his testimony about missionary work. And that THIS IS THE TIME! Malmö becomes the only 4- missionary ward in Sweden... a solid african, latino, and american foundation, then a new bishopric gets called, the Bishop is a Enthusiastic Swede (hard to find), the 1st counselor is a danish man who speaks swedish and spanish. The 2nd counselor is a NEWLY returned missionary (Leonard Saffer who came back from his mission when I was in Lund). Incredibly young! He speaks spanish and english because of his mission. The bishopric combined speaks English, Swedish, Danish, Spanish! All four of us feel that this really is the time for the work in the South to explode! If we do our part, we feel that the Lord will pour out so many blessings in this area! So exciting!

Things are going great!

I love you family!

Talk to ya'll next week!

Äldste Webster

*********************************

(A p.s. that came right after he sent the weekly letter! He's so funny!)

SORRY

I am a horrible person! I always think to congratulate Dan and Laura about Benjamin! Thats so awesome! Also, thank you so much for the family pictures! It will be awesome to show investigators and members! Thanks for everything! And send some pics of my 3rd unknown face! Also tell Sam to get going because it takes 9 months to have a baby so he's gotta get going!

Thanks for everything mom!

Love, your favorite son

Wad

News flash from the Swedish Liahona!!

Who is that on the stand, next Elder Russell M. Nelson and an interpretter????
Oh, I know who it is... why it's Aldste Webster!!! FOR THE LOVE!!! AWESOME!

letter 1/10/11

New Year... New Malmö!

Hello family! This week has been a really good week. It has been an amazing turn around as far as numbers for the Zone. We have come out of the Holiday season and the Zone and our Area are doing amazing. This week we have been looking for places to do finding work. Turns out that a lot of places here in Malmö have locked doors that you need a code to. This week we found a place where there is a good mix of nationalities and the doors aren't locked! Something that has been working out for us recently is going to old investigators apartments where they have the port code on it and been tracting those buildings.
We have found a family from Iraq who are muslim but as we taught them the restoration, their eyes literally opened and wanted to read, pray and come to church! The family doens't understand but their son translates for us and he is the most positive!
We went by to check what had happened to an old investigator and she wasn't home. But her friend opened the door, taught her the restoration and She is from the Pentecostal church but she really realizes the impotance of the Book of Mormon and the Restoration. Wouldn't be surprised if she got in the water soon!
Diego was able to come to church and is less busy on Sundays now. He needs to get married with NAncy (a less active) and be taught the commandments. He has a desire to be baptized but has a lot preventing him.
Today we are going to be going to Helsingborg for a sports day with the Zone. But I am healthy, loving life, and looking for the prepared!

Love,
Äldste Webster

Gott Nytt År!‏

Hello fam-bamily!

This week has been pretty exciting! Zone Leader Råd was amazing. We flew from Malmö Airport to Stockholm in the morning. As we got there we went to the mission home and had breakfast with the 10 ZL's the Assistants and President and Sister Anderson. After that we had a meeting until 4pm. And then we went out to play some snow football! It was amazingly fun. We have a Zone Leader who is 385lbs and he was a football player. So it was entertaining to be on his opposing team. Luckily it was two hand touch and I got to rush him so it was entertaining. the meeting we got to talk about the new Standards of Excellence for the mission and it's going to be exciting. Right now it is weekly: 1 Baptism, 2 Dates, 3 in Sacrament, 10 member teaches, 20 total, and 5 new investigators. And here's the thing the main change that we will be making is that the only way we can achieve a baptism a week is if we are getting a NEW baptismal date every week. And so instead of it being just having 2 dates, we have to GET 1 New every week. Things are exciting in the Sweden Stockholm Mission. We talked about Zone Conference, and the topic will be about We Invite, They Commit, We follow up. Also the mission is going to be going through a Area Book renovation. President gave us Baptismal dates that had been missed the past 2 years in our Zone and we really look forward to seeing what searching after these people will bring. New Years Eve President turned the clock forward to mid-night and we all opened up those poppers that we (as a family) open up at christmas time! So that was fun! Church was fun because we had our investigator Diego bring his two kids to church! 3 Potential baptisms and an eternal family sounds like a great thing to me! Recently we have decided to take advantage of our car and find a place to tract along the bus lines that go straight to the chapel. And after a long time of searching, and continuous running into port-coded doors. We found a whole neighborhood of tall buildings! The first day we tracted that building we talked to this family from Iraq. It was a mom and her daughter. Although they couldn't understand much and the knowledge of their Islamic beliefs didn't blind them too much, they took us in. We couldn't communicate much to them so we gave them the plan of salvation pamphlet in Arabic and the mom said that she wanted us to come back so her son could translate for us! It was a miracle! Currently we are just enjoying the fact that members, less-actives, and especially investigators are coming back from the Holidays!
We were able to teach an investigator named Somayeh who I contacted into about a year ago in Växjö! She is STILL an investigator so she was visiting Malmö one day and Elder Winegar and I decided to give her an ultimatum. We told her our purpose as missionaries and after a little bit of hesitation, we asked her what she had against being baptized! And she said nothing. We went through the baptimsal questions and she just has trouble accepting a prophet. turns out she hasn't been reading the Book of Mormon as sincerely as we thought.

Well family... here I am... 2011! It's going to be an amazing year. I can feel it!

Kärlek!

Äldste Webster

An article in the paper... "Mormon Times". Check out the last paragraph!

Strengthing the church, youths in Sweden

Author: Kristine Frederickson : LDS World See all from this author
Source: For Mormon Times
02 January 2011

Although Sweden is an increasingly secular nation, with few Christians to be found among the rising generation, it is quite nice to be reminded that in this beautiful country there are strong, devoted Latter-day Saints. I sat down recently with Jennifer, a third generation LDS Church member and BYU student from Borås, a town in southern Sweden, to learn more about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints there.

Typical of many European Saints, the members are quite spread out — the stake center is one hour away — and official church buildings are at a premium. Recently Jennifer's Mormon ward began meeting in a school as decisions are being made about whether to restore the old church building they have used for some time. There are about 120 members in her ward, and some drive one hour to attend church although most are within 30 minutes of the building.

Jennifer attended a high school with 1,600 students. She, her sister and one young man are the only LDS youths in their school. The drinking age in Sweden is 18, and drinking and partying are part of the lifestyle, as is sexual immorality. Most of Jennifer's friends believe in fate but not in God. Lots of them are scared of and do not believe in marriage because their parents divorced. If they plan to have children — one, maybe two — it will be later in life after they have traveled and seen the world.

As she explained, "They really don't believe in much of anything." While the Plan of Salvation is central to the gospel of Jesus Christ, Jennifer's friends don't want to talk much about life, its purpose or death — especially death because for them it is a scary, fearful topic. So how do LDS youths remain strong and adhere to gospel standards?

Two things stood out as Jennifer and I talked. The first was, of course, personal testimony and living the principles of the gospel. Jennifer works on her testimony and spoke freely of spiritual experiences, miracles in her life and answers to prayers. She is both active and involved at church. This is characteristic of active members in Sweden. Jennifer had her first calling in the church at age 16 when she began leading music. Her cousin began teaching priesthood lessons when he was 17.

She lives the standards of the church and has good friends who respect her, "I accept them for who they are and expect them to accept me for not drinking and doing what they do." She is not pushy about the church, but she is proud of her faith: "If someone asks me what did you do this weekend, I say, I went to church." This is often surprising to her acquaintances and leads to some discussion about the church. "If they stop asking questions, I stop. I don't want to force it."

Jennifer has been told, "I have light in my eyes." She remembered one time that she was at a party when three of her friends were drinking, and they confided to her that "they respected her for not drinking and wish that they had never started."

Another important factor in keeping her testimony strong is attending activities with other young people in the church. There are many youth and single adult activities. Every summer there are four- to five-day youth conferences that sometimes involve up to 21 different countries. Especially For Youth conferences and girls camp are eagerly anticipated events. Holidays provide opportunities for getting together. Regular young women and young men activities and sporting events are held for youths. Jennifer and her friends love the activities: "We all want to be there. The testimony meetings are super strong and they strengthen you. Those on the edge (of activity), after the testimony meetings, are totally changed."

Jennifer explained, "I am always super happy when I return, and friends (who aren't members of the church) see that, and they see you value these things and that you are having fun." It is uplifting and comforting for youths in the church to join with others who share common beliefs, to hear and bear testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jennifer also acknowledged, "It's hard (at times), you have to be strong." She described four friends who became inactive, but over time three felt the loss and came back to the church and "two are readying for missions."

Jennifer proudly announced that there are about 9,000 members in Sweden, one mission, four stakes, and 43 to 45 wards and branches. She spoke with joy of four baptisms within a two-month period and four full-time missionaries serving from her ward. The church is not only alive and well in Sweden, but it is in good hands. It is also populated with faithful, devoted youths with firm testimonies who treasure the myriad blessings that membership in Christ's church provide and who will prove able strong leaders in the near future.