Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Easter Weekend

Elder Jorgensen and I. Preaching Pose
close up
My son and I
A cool horse with stockholm painted on it!
Love you!
Love you!

This weekend has been pretty great! I just want to thank mother for sending that marvelous easter package, and yes I got it before Easter! The secretaries were able to use the easter eggs with some recent converts and an investigator to show them some tradition! I also got Erik Ward's CD and it is amazing! That man is a stud and i'm sure they'll be able to use his voice in Korea! How great that is to see little Rachie going to Rome Italy! Crazy how there is going to be a temple there soon as well! This weekend has been great. Saturday night we were tracting and we knocked into this man from Mongolia who couldn't speak English or Swedish. We didn't have a Book of Mormon in his language but we did have a pamphlet. So we gave him a pamphlet and told us to come in. We showed him the church's website and showed him on google maps how to get to church. He told us he wasnt interested but he could come to the church. We had invited many other investigators to church and no one showed. Until just before sacrament meeting began, the man walked in... with his wife, and his child as well! They didn't understand much but were able to feel the spirit. We taught them on Monday with a member from Mongolia. The lesson was so good because this member served in Mongolia as a missionary as well and so she knew exactly what to say when the wife said that she was Buddhist and aren't that interested. By the end of the teach, they were able to understand and we taught her how to pray in Mongolian! We gave her a gospel principles book in Mongolian (because the office ran out of Book of Mormons) and the only question she had was... what do you believe in about God? What is he like... it just so happens that the first chapter in Gospel Principles talks ALL about God. So she is excited to read about that! We will be meeting her again tonight and will see some of her friends who live with them as well! The other day we had been doing Finding Work all day and there wasn't much happening, but right at the end when we were on our way to the car... We saw an African family. They come from South Africa! (add one more country to my list) And this family is amazing! It's a mother with her 2 kids and they were VERY interested. The kids were excited, they gave us subway cookies, and we are going to meet THEM tonight as well! We ran into an Ethiopian family the other day and we will be meeting them today as well! This day is going to be awesome! This morning we went to the Royal Castle and just finished the tour up! Unfortunately, they don't allow us taking pictures so I will just save the ticket for memories sake!
Other than that I'll fill you more about transfers and how all that goes next time! We have just been preparing for the new mission presidents and writing down the logistics behind transfers so the Newell's will know! It's going to be pretty crazy this next week so i'm not really sure when the next P-day is going to be! Easter Sunday was just great, there is just a stronger spirit when all the people come testify of the savior! I am thankful for this time that I have a whole two years dedicated to represent Him... To love, to Lift, and to bless. It's an overwhelming, but great and purifying calling!
I'll be calling you all 11:40 your time! 7:40 my time and I look forward to it! Thanks for your prayers and for everything you all do for me!
This weekend there is something called Valborg, where the Swede's gather all of their trash over the winter and make big fires and burn it all. And so we have permission to do join the ward activities. But our ward happens to be going to the Temple on that day! So we got permission to be apart of a different fire.. a spiritual one at the temple! And we will also be able to go with the new missionaries that come! so... twice in 2 weeks!


Love, Äldste Webster
















Saturday, April 23, 2011

PICTURES!

Coke explosion in GöteborgMy 2nd born... Elder Nelson
Elders Francis, Nelson, Olsen, Carlisle, Jorgensen and me!
Elder Jorgensen and I on a long drive
Just a good picture!

Love, Wad

Zone Conference wk.2

Well Hellooo!

What an amazing week you all had! Congrats to Jake and Ailin on graduating from LDSBC and blessing the baby boy! That is so exciting! I also want to congratulate whoosie on purchasing a truck (Ford? I didn't know our family was a Ford one) Anywho... that is crazy that Davi has come home! And B-man is on his way! Time flies by. Speaking of time flying, Zone Conference weeks are over! I can now say I have gone all around the mission and seen all the missionaries! Sweden is such a beautiful place! The snow is now all melted throughout Sweden and the nature is growing and it really is just a beautiful place! Last week we had planned on taking a 7 1/2 hour car ride up to Malmö but President offered to have us flown up there. So we gladly accepted! Elder Jorgensen and I took a one hour plane ride from Stockholm to Umeå up to the northern part of sweden! There really is a special feeling up north. As we came back for the weekend, the secretaries got a baptismal date and later on, we did as well! An investigator named Urjee (from Mongolia) who is a professional singer in Mongolia is set for the 21st of May because she will be going on tour to Norway for a week or so! She's a big deal. That sunday we had Natalie (Vietnam) come to church with her 2 year old son! It turned out that she lives in the same apartment building as one of our members and their kids go to pre-school together! Automatic fellowshipper! It was super great. She was able to enjoy church and her kid was taken care of in primary! Elder Jorgensen and I had a pleasant drive down to Göteborg and out message was the most powerful there I would say. We did coke bottle explosions (with mentos) at the end and Göteborg Zone's exploded the highest. (Yeah the coke bottle's lid had hole's drilled in them. Then we attached the mentos to a pin. The we unplugged the pic, the mentos dropped, and CABOOM!) We took a little detour on the way to this factory outlet. My companion and I were going to by some REALLY nice swedish suits with the brand name (Tiger of Sweden). But I backed out because it was too much money... he got his half off which was fortunate but it still cost him 2500 crowns. I got myself a nice shirt (Jake, one with an amazing collar), two ties and a tiger of Sweden belt! It looks fancy. But now I don't have to but anything else here in Sweden! All done... hopefully. Thanks to sam and Lara I was able to use those pictures of the temple and write one to everyone I have baptized and gave it to the elders in the specific areas. The biggest highlight of my trip was to hear about my recent converts in Borås. Joseph (Nigeria), Allan (India), and Li (China) have all recieved the Melkisedek priesthood! I was so happy for them that they have progressed so far in the gospel! I am thankful that they have been worthy to become such great priesthood bearers! It was really good to drive down to Malmö again. I was talking to Elder Winegar about Mothers Day calls and he reminded me that he would be on the other side of the line by then. Ha! So that's exciting! While we were there we were also talking about driving the speed limit. Which posed a question, is going over the speed limit not keeping the law of the land? So in experiment, on the way back from Malmö to Stockholm we decided to go the speed limit the whole way. Interestingly enough we saw President pass us 3 times on the way back. One of the blessings that came was that half way through the trip the Andersons invited us for lunch. If we would have been speeding, we would have already eaten, but because we weren't, we ate all four of us together! That was a plus! Tomorrow is Easter Sunday and is a marvelous time to remember the savior. What an amazing time it is now to testify of the Living Christ! The sun never sets on righteous missionaries testifying of the savior! And here I am! today we look forward to finding and inviting people to Easter Sunday for them to really have a chance to Remember Him. How thankful I am for Him, for the enabling power of His Atonement. How his life has changed mine and everyone's I meet.
I love you all and I will be emailing again this next wednesday! I am thinking that 11 am your time and 7pm my time would be best. Hopefully I will be able to hear from my WHOLE family this time... why not?

Love,
Äldste Webster

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Oliver's tests are back!

Yay for good results! We have another P-day today because we won't be by a computer until the 23rd of april! so get all the e-mailing in you need by the 23rd of April! That would be grand! I'm so grateful that baby Oliver is all good! Really nice that I was able to hear the bad news and good news in the same day!
We just finished with 2 of our 5 Zone Conferences and it's going great, just changing small things here and there in our message.

Well momma, I love you!

Wad


Monday, April 11, 2011

Prophecies

sorry.. just giving you a heads up in case you are on right now! I'll be writing... just tell me whats been up this past week. (This email was written by surprise... we didn't know when his p-day would be so we had to scramble to write him while he was still on... he didn't get the news about Oliver till four days later... which is probably a good thing... don't need to worry him.)

wait... testing for what?? what are you SAYING? WHAT AM I NOT TO WORRY ABOUT?!?!?!?
haha... but seriously... whats up?

Sorry, i'm afraid this is how it's going to be while i'm here in the Office. P-days will switch pretty often. These upcoming 2 weeks we have Zone Conferences! Crazy how instead of being the little 13 year old boy sleeping in the back of the chapel to wait for Zone conference to be over... I'm on the other side... at the front of the chapel looking forward to give the Zone Conference messages! Our message is amazing! At the beginning of this transfer Elder Jorgensen and I knew exactly what we wanted to give our message about. That is The Re-dedicatory prayer for the Land of Sweden that the, then, Elder Monson gave for the Swedish people and missionaries!
We will be talking about the things that we need to do as missionaries, to bring to pass the prophecies of President Monson. I attached the prayer so you all can read and look at it yourselves. We will be focusing on 5 things. 1. Meeting with bishop 2. Member teaches 3. Progress records 4. Member referrals 5. Prayers for those in the ward, and ward's prayers for their missionaries by name.

This will happen throughout the whole country! Just imagine, Every family praying for the missionaries in their wards by name, and every missionary praying for their members to have missionary experience! The work is going to go forward in Sweden!
Some inspiring quotes,
"We know that when this attitude of cooperation permeates the missionaries and the members, the leaders of the stake and the leaders of the missions will be in a position to direct the efforts in such a way that the objectives will become realities." Our objectives (standards of excellence) is to baptize weekly! We look forward to the day when this will happen.

"Let this apply uppermost to the land of Sweden this day, let this be the day for Sweden, the time for dedication, and the hour where a great upsurge in the work will take place." Indeed, it will!

"...that this nation may indeed be an example to others, of that which can take place when the membership of the Church, the missionaries assigned, and the watchful care of the Lord all combine to bring about the desired result." It is through the Lord that will allow this to happen!

Anyways... we are really looking forward to the messages that the mission will be giving. This week we were really blessed! We have been praying that we would be able to find a place in the area that great success could occur. The beginning weeks had been quite humbling, the Lord was letting us know that he is the one that provides the miracle. And this week we were blessed! We have found families who are interested, some from Vietnam, Phillipines, Mongolia, SWEDEN, Poland, All over! the super cool thing about this area that we found is that it is a bunch of tall apartment buildings! And in each one of the 6 buildings there is a member that lives in each of them! Easy to get fellowshippers as well! Golden!

I'm not sure when I will be writing next but just to be safe, ya'll should write on Sunday or Monday of next week. Also, Mother's day call... we should probably start to figure out a time and if it is still the 2962114 number I will call!

Love, you all!

Äldste Webster


Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Surprise pictures!!!

I LOVE when I get pictures after receiving our weekly email!
Makes this momma very happy!
Anyway... Adam mentions the Koch family in his letter... this is the Koch family. She fed the elders steaks and yummy food, not to mention the donuts she made... keeping up with tradition!
Downtown Stockhom
The office elders
by the palace
A cool picture

Conference Weekend!

What a great weekend this has been! How blessed I am to have such a GIGANTIC FAMILY. Oliver being born on April 1st (judging by the pictures... I assume it's no joke) Congrats to Jake and Swaticus! I've got 5 new faces that I have yet to squeeze! Give them an extra one for me. I have noticed so much that the babies now a days have such a light in their eyes! It's really cool to see! Emma and Reed and Andrew are all growing up so much! Crazy little ones...

This week has been a week preparing people to LISTEN TO A PROPHETS VOICE! The first session began saturday night at 6 pm. So the morning of we took the elders in the office and went in to the city and sang Hymns of the restoration! 3 of us were singing and then 2 of us contacted! It was really an awesome time that we had together to sing the hymns of the Restoration the day the prophet was going to speak! We printed out flyers to the website and location where they could watch conference! There was a whole different element to talking to people because we could testify of a living prophet and say He is speaking today! Come and SEE!
In preparation for Conference I had thought of many questions that I needed answered. How thankful I am for Living Prophets and Apostles who receive inspiration to the worlds question and unfold it in such a simple way. I loved to see Grandfather speak! The picture of Nicholas(?) and Olivia was so cool to see! It's pretty cool to look at pictures of my family the same time as the whole world! (His last talk as well). Sunday morning we watched priesthood first. Bishop Koch was there with a whole BOX of home-made donuts! I was the happiest man on earth! It was really cool to finally see them! The Priesthood session was amazing! It was pretty exciting to hear how many times Elder Andersen used the words "missionary work" and "second coming". It definitely was a favorite among the missionaries. Then the first presidency spoke about Learning your duties and by Faith and Humility going out and accomplishing them. Also, an incredible amount of talks focused on marriage throughout all of conference! But we need not talk about that... yet.
After priesthood we got to take a drive to the Koch family's house. Their kids are so fun, and we watched the saturday afternoon session together. Prayers were DEFINITELY answered during Conference and I am so grateful that I can be a missionary at this time!
We had a cool experience with one of our investigators. Mario from Montenegro. Friday night we had planned on inviting him to church. We wanted to swing by another investigator who lived right next door. On the wat to the apartment we found her outside with her husband anyways! We were able to invite them to come! then we went by Mario's. He was not home and it was 10 minutes before we had to head home. My companion and I felt the strong desire to stay out for 10 more minutes and to invite whoever we see to listen to a prophets voice! The first person we saw... mario! He told us he didn't have his phone all day and said he wanted to invite his friend to conference too! After conference was over we were disappointed that he couldn't come. So the next day we headed out to see what happened. He was not home again... we called his phone and swedish man answered telling us that he had found this phone on the train. Mario had lost his phone. So we went to the man's place and got it from him. Now we will get in contact with Mario a lot quicker! haha
As we went to get the phone we tracted the houses next to him. We found a woman who was muslim, but was interested in a living prophet. So we will be going back to meet her and her husband and 7 year old daughter. On the way back, we decided to contact this man in his car... while we were in OURS! He said he believed in God but needed to get to another place in town, he was lost. (which is where we needed to go) so we told him to follow us. When we showed him the place he thanked us and he gave us his number! Quite a miraculous day!

I am so happy to be a missionary and have the chance to testify to this people. It was a cool thought to know that no matter what time it is... there is missionaries testifying of Jesus Christ. How grateful I am to be a part of His work.

Love,
Äldste Webster

Congrats to the birthdays in April! Laurie, Lara & David! I love you guys!

Sunday, April 3, 2011

A sweet sister in Sweden, and friend of Brynns!! HOORAY!

This is a friend of Brynn's who's living in Sweden. She had the assistants over today for dinner. She was sweet to send this message to Brynn as an update on it all! Ahhh... I feel better now! An actual Aldste sighting!!! LOVE IT!!! Thanks Laura... forever! That does a mother's heart so good! LOVE you and love that you took care of my son!!


Laura Conover Koch
Laura Conover KochApril 3, 2011 at 6:27pm
Subject: your bro
He seems happy. We didn't get to chat too much--they watched conference for a bit, ate, and ran, but he's very nice. I sent donuts with Ryan to Priesthood session this morning so we could have steak and Lion House cheesecake this afternoon. Äldste Webster says hello to his family (what else can he say to tell you on Facebook? He may not even really be allowed to think the word Facebook.) It was lovely to have him here along with his companion and the missionaries serving in our ward. I think Ryan's going to post the picture he took for you.

I had an epiphany this morning--I remembered a general conference where an apostle talked about his family tradition of conference donuts. As I thought about it, I was pretty sure it was Elder Nelson. A search on http://www.facebook.com/l/712c6Qgv4Dbz9d6N2fCo0DDAJHw/lds.org confirmed it, so I felt cool that I was somehow participating in keeping the tradition up for your brother while he is on his mission.

Happy General Conference!
Laura