traveling the world in 7 days!

I cannot believe how long it has been since I last e-mailed. Either that or how much i've been doing the past weeks. WOW. Brace yourselves for the length of this letter.

We can start off by Malmö's Zone Conference. It was amazing, it was about Strengthening the church through the missionaries home teaching. It was awesome because the bishop from Malmö cqame in after we had taught it all to give a little spiritual thought and at the end he was so enthused he said "As a matter of fact, I would like to ask permission from your mission president to get the full-time missionaries out teaching with the part-member families.. would that be alright? After a couple of laughs in the audience President said "permission granted!" It is amazing to see the spirit move the leadership of the full-time missionaries and membership for the same cause. And that is to strengthen the church! The following day we did our ward visit with the VÄXJÖ branch! ( that was my second area with Elders Takahashi and Barlow as my companions) And it was amazing to see the members there. Too bad Marvin wasn't there but he was with his family in another town! But he is very active and doing great otherwise. But the biggest highlight of going to Växjö was to see a woman that we had taught. Her problem was that she was co-habitating with this man and so her decision is if she had the faith to leave her partner (he didn't want to get married) and join the church... or not. During my time I remember praying so hard that a path would be provided. As soon as I left Växjö, her problem was solved and she was baptized. Coming back to visit I found out that she married a member of the church, he moved to Växjö and and they are both working on the kids to get baptized! The climax was to walk in and to look at her and see hoe much her countenance had changed! The gift of the Holy Ghost is real and changes lives if they just have the faith to follow the influence of it. What stunk the most is that we were in a hurry to get to the next fireside and we were in some Elders car. And I left my backback with my quad, camera, preach my gospel and study journal in there. So the past week and a half (a lot has happened) Elder Jorgensen has taken pictures for me. Luckily we will be headed down to Malmö later in the month so I'll get it back. So that sunday morning we saw thast we would be very busy and wouldn't have time to eat. And luckily we were staying in a hotel the night before and my companion had a brilliant idea to make some sandwiches in the morning. So we used napkins and new (un-used) trash bags to pack up our sandwiches for later use.

P.S. I would tell you each of the wards and branches we visited but I figured I can just print out a calendar later as we look back at it all! Crazy.

On Monday the 25th of July we had Joseph (Congo) invite his family over for dinner and it went amazingly well. We found out he wasn't in Stockholm's area. So we invited the mission leader in his new ward to the Newell's house for dinner. So it was Joseph, and his sister and mother with us there. They can only speak french for the main part. So the Newell's taught them the most because they can speak the language! Joseph told us that they had been reading in the Book of Mormon together for the past couple of days so that's super nice! He is super willing to be baptized and the mom doesn't seem to mind so we will be trying to get the whole family into the water.

We then had Stockholm Zone Conference and the following day was Stockholm South's Zone Conference. This weeks special hymn that Elder Jorgensen and I have been singing has been "where can I turn for peace?" It's got a great tenor line. The following day we went to Norrland Zone Conference and it was very special. The following day we spent in Skellefteå (second highest area in sweden) and we had an amazing contacting time together. We found a bunch of people from Ethiopia. For lunch, the Elders there surprised my companion and I with a Swedish delicacy. The fermented baltic herring (syrströmming). It was served with Potatoes and Meatballs with dill sauce. Let's just say it tastes like sewage. Anyways... I got a really good video about it all and ya'll will love it.

We then took a quick flight back down to Stockholm because we found out that Emma's husband was in town and so we met with him and the Newell's and had an awesome dinner with them. He is willing to be baptized but is under pressure with his career and government so he is just going to wait until the opportunity presents itself for him! Once that family gets sealed in the temple I am going to China to witness of it!

The next day President Newell gave a speech at Fest i nord (which is a YSA's around Europe gathering). He was crazy enough to invite my companion and I along and it was pretty fun! I got to see a bunch of YSA's that I had gotten to know in Lund and Växjö (including MARVIN!) and Borås and Malmö. Very happy time for me. We then were able to visit Vingåker which is this factory outlet place where they sell Tiger of Sweden suits for cheap so we went there for Thomas to go mission shopping because this is his last week here in Sweden before he leaves for his mission! The following day we took a flight to Gothenburg and went to Borås that sunday! There I was able to see Joseph and Elvis there at church and others that I had baptized were out of town (unfortunately) but I told them I would be back with my parents on September 11th! The ward is very excited. I got to bare my testimony there and after the Ward mission leader there (my hero) volunteered to giving us a ride to the next ward we would visit and gave us food for lunch! He is fantastic. I gave him your e-mails so he will be contacting ya'll soon. That night we went to a fireside in Jönköping and stayed at Sture Nilsson's house and he told me to tell grandfather hello because he had had him at dinner with his family there in Jönköping before when he visited!

The following day we had FHE with an investigator we found whose name is Johan. He is a swede with a wife and 3 kids. I would not be surprised if he was baptized in the next month either. He is a very good listener, honest and a warm peronality. We had a strong lesson about Christ and the Book of Mormon and he committed to read in it and pray to know if it's true!

A while back Elder Jorgensen and I had contacted this man right in the middle of downtown Stockholm as he was passing out Scientology pamphlets. After talking to him he told us of his interest to find out more about the Book of Mormon and he was very interested to hear about that.

Just two weeks later (just yesterday) the elders who we referred him to call us and tell us that he knows the book is true and is getting baptized this saturday! Wowee that is fantastic!

I am so thankful to being a missionary! I am loving life, staying busy, and feeling the spirit stronger and stronger every day guiding me to do HIS will. I love you all! Thank you for your prayers and support!

Love,

Äldste Webster (Wad)

Mission Flesh Press 1

Well here we are mid-way through this wonderful week and we are BUSY as ever! So a while back, President Newell felt that he, along with us and his wife would visit each of the units in Sweden (40-43) by the time I go home. Each of these will consist of a talk/testimony given by the Newells and it would either be a Fireside (during the week) or during sacrament meetings. And also it would consist of a music number (given by us two). So just this last sunday, the games began. Just this last sunday we went around to 5 different wards / branches. You know, the smart thing to do would have been to take pictures at each of these places... but I'm not! HAIGH.

We got up early sunday morning and our first stop was a ward where Elder Jorgensen had served. Immediately following we went to the Stockholm ward where we had some investigators coming so it was a little stressful but it ended up working out! Elder Jorgensen went with Thomas to pick up the investigators at the train station and I was in sacrament meeting. The saacrament rolls around, then presdient newell's talk, and then up comes mine and Elder Jorgensen's duet... was he there yet? no! So I go out of the church to see if he was coming and he was no where to be found. So I walk back in, they turn the time over to us. I walk up to the stage, syster Newell asks me "are you going to do a solo?" Seeing how they couldn't just skip the number... and I don't back down.... I got up there and sang a solo for a long 3 verses to Joseph Smith's first vision! Man that was scary! But it was fun! half way through the song he walks in with both of our investigators... it made me happy! The following meeting we a place called Jakobsberg and that ward was amazing! Half of the members came from Chile so it was really cool to see and feel like I was in Brazil! Also, I'm pretty sure I can understand spanish 90% now. My plan is to study Spanish, Portuguese and swedish while I am here because the Lord provides a way to learn really fast here! Then on the following monday we spent booking train and flight and hotel to travel around the south this week, and also prepare for Zone Conference which would happen on the FOLLOWING DAY! So we did that and woke up early the next morning for a flight to Göteborg! we were about to print out the tickets and then it machine told us that we were too late to print them out so we had to go to the service desk (ironic right?!) so we got our tickets, ran to the plane and as soon as we got in our seats, the plane was off! Thank goodness! Zone Conference went really well! It is always so good to be back in the Göteborg Zone in the summer! It reminds me of Borås! Loved it. Our message ended up being about Strengthening the church. It was a message about how as we go to the bishop... we don't say "How can we help?" thats just the attitude we have. We gave a comparison to how the bishop has so much on his plate! So we had someone hold a jug of water, and then told some bread (food), and then have a blanket over their heads (shelter), going to the temple (picture of the temple)... and then we had an elder come up and put 4 books on his hands as well. And it said "HOW" "Can" "We" "Help?" To compare to the fact that sometime the bishop doesn't really know what the missionaries could to... so to ask him that type of a question would be putting more on his plate. So throughout the mission we are putting an emphasis on home teaching and how strengthening the members by "lifting the load" would enable trust with missionaries. After that we took a train half way down to Malmö to a place called Halmstad. So that's where I am today because we have a fireside here tonight. So Elder Jorgensen and I stayed in a Hotel (classy.. i know..) last night because we would usually stay with the missionaries here... but they are sisters... so thats a no go!

Anyways... one really good thing that happened during the week is that just before we had to leave, we got to teach out investigator from Peru and she is awesome! We brought her to a Peruvian family's house and just had a great time there. Her only concern before baptism is the Word of Wisdom and so we had a Famly Home Evening with another Peruvian family and it went incredibly well! Every member of the family ad a very strong testimony of it so it was perfect!

Thank you all so much for your Love and Letters and look forward to hearing from you all! I love being here and can't wait to report to you all about this coming week! It will be exciting!

Love,

Äldste Webster

Families!

Well this has been a fantastic week! It has been sad but there is
opposition to everything! This week is the beginning of Sharpening
where we have been invited to go around to Sharpening with President
and Syster Anderson for their concluding testimonies! Our part in
sharpening is challenging the missionaries to the MONTH of Invitation!
This month the Europe Area Presidency has asked that the members fast
for MISSIONARY WORK! And seeing how it was a combine fast and the
members will be going the extra mile, we decided to have all the
missionaries go the extra mile and commit ALL of their investigators
to baptism! Unless prompted NOT to, they will commit all of them to
baptism in the month of June on the first teach! It is exciting! To
not be hypocritical, we had three teaches lined up the night after we
did it with a zone in Stockholm. First teach, Miguel (Colombia) is a
man who has been to church once, one time he couldn't meet with us so
he sent his wife to the church instead to be taught and she was into
it. Anyways, we taught Miguel at a new converts place (where he
actually might be moving into) and it was me, elder jorgensen,
Margaretha (new convert) and Elder Oscarson (new financial secretary),
and Miguel. The trick is that Miguel could ONLY speak Spanish. So all
five of us were there and I ended up sitting next to him. And so it
went to all five talking, and me translating (I'm surprised how much
Spanish I understand) for them, to just me teaching him out of a
Pamphlet that we had about the Restoration, and the Gospel. So I
taught my first lesson in Spanish! At the end he completely understood
authority, and he said so... basically I need to be baptized again,
but with the right authority this time? And I said, "exactamente!" Ha
ha so I committed him to the end of June, and he just wanted to make
sure he knows everything before, but he ACCEPTED! Him and his wife
Maricel will go far! The teach afterwards we went to a Korean family
(yes, I told them about the Ringwoods) and they were christian! It was
the parents, a 19 year old and a 14 year old! We taught them the
Restoration and it went so smoothly! We committed them to read and
Pray about the Book of Mormon and the Father said, I won't let my
family read something that isn't true. So I will read and Pray about
it first! So we took that! Very sincere follower of Christ, he'll come
around. The teach after, we invited President Anderson to come along
with us! This was to a Great Chinese mother and Son we tracted into
(2nd to last door in the building) Emma, and ADAM! Adam is a 10 year
old. Super smart, wants to be a scientist, looking for the right
church to join, and reads COLLEGE texts books for fun! We taught him
for the first time the other day and he told us that he didn't like
the catholic church because he they killed scientists so he knew that
wasn't the true church! But we brought President with because he is a
scientist! the teach was amazing because we talked about commandments
and the path that leads to eternal life, and as we taught about the
Holy Ghost the 10 year old said "Well I will DEFINITELY follow the
Holy Ghost ALWAYS because he will never go the wrong way! That give
the phrase "become as a little CHILD." more meaning! As we asked him
where he had read... over 3 days... the 10 YEAR OLD said "Mosiah 12!"
Are you kidding me? All I am saying is ya'll will DEFINITELY be
meeting this kid when mom and Dad come! Stud! So we challenged
him to Baptism and he agreed to it, but he had to ask his Dad
who lived in China before he would accept! So his homework
assignment was to ask his Father in Heaven, and his Father
in China! haha He liked that one. The other day we were

trying to get a hold of an inactive member that we teach who has a
non-member wife. And we were tracting around his house, it just so
happens that my bloody nose, leads me to their house (because I needed
tissue) and they were just outside... plucking weeds in their yard! We
we said hi, and then went in and taught them both the Restoration!
They committed to read and pray so that was AMAZING! the following day
we went by surprised and De-weeded their WHOLE yard! In the last part
of the evening! (you can do that here in sweden... it's VERY BRIGHT at
9 p.m.) Afterward, he called us and said that he was going to thank
us... at church! Charity NEVER Faileth. Another great miracle... My
companion and I have been invited to attend a stake conference from
the Stake President. He told us that he wanted us to show "The Second
Harvest" movie with a 5 minute presentation before at the Adult
Session of stake conference! How crazy is that! the members are
catching the vision! There is a great feeling in the air now in June,
and we can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for us! There will
be a broadcast from Salt Lake City the day after from the Area
Presidency and we look forward to see what they have to say!
This is a great time, change is happening for the better, and
President Anderson has laid an amazing foundation for President Newell
to hit the ground running!
Thanks for your support! Congrats mother on your lovely iPad 2 (iPod 5
for Wad with Verizon when I get back why not?) and HAPPY birthday to
you and Brynn! I will be sending you a letter but know that I love you
both! This upcoming week I will be in the Southern zones so I will be
out of town. It's best if the family just writes every Sunday night...
that way I won't miss it!

I love you all!

Puss och Kram,
Äldste Webster

Pictures courtesy of "Blue and Yellow" Mission blog

I LOVE it when the mission posts pictures on their blog! With Adam being an assistant, I get to see him more! (Can you find him??) :D I LOVE IT!! Anyway, here are pictures of their zone conference groups, plus some commentary by the Andersons. I love the idea of this training, being blindfolded and relying on each other to do what is needed!! We did that in our mission... VERY effective! Adam and Elder Jorgensen also made an incredible video for all the stake presidents/wives... I'm still trying to figure out a way to post it here, but until then.... Enjoy!

Norrland Zone Conference April 2011

SS Zone Conference

Stockholm Zone Conference ... April 2011

Malmö Zone Conference April 2011

Goteborg Zone Conference

"The past month all the zones met together and were edified by our leaders and the spirit. We were taught about extending commitments, revelation through church attendance and how we can work with the church members to help full fill the prophecies in the Re-Dedicatory Prayer of Sweden. We learned from the Assistants that it is only by working with the members in our area that we will see the work in our Area's progress."

"Part of the Assistants activity was some activities on how we can work better with our ward leaders. All the senior companions were blindfolded so the junior companions had to take control and lead them around during the activity."

"And as we learned about working with our ward members, we realized that it would be the key to seeing success in the Sweden Stockholm Mission Explode!!
(Working with Members, works!!)
Because............ In the Sweden Stockholm Mission........... We BAPTIZE!!"

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

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

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

Zone conference and Special Visitors

Where's Aldste Webster??? ;)
Malmö Zone Conference... March 2010

The Göteborg and Malmö Zones enjoy a visit
from President Snow and Elder Caussé
at the Malmö Chapel... April 2010
Can you find Aldste Webster AND Aldste Winegar???

HOORAY!! Alive and well! :)