February 19, 2018 Välkommen till Göteborg!

On the train

What a week!

With Äldste Harden outside the chapel

Normally a 3.5 hour train ride to a new city might not sound all to exciting (especially as a missionary when you don't have a whole lot to do), but I loved it. Sweden must be the most beautiful land in the world, and to get to see so much of it from the train was an incredible blessing. As I arrived in Göteborg, I was blown away by the size and beauty of the city. Coming from a city as small as Eskilstuna to Sweden's second largest city is quite the change, and I still haven't stopped looking around in amazement. As the train arrived, I received an incredible feeling of love, happiness, and optimism, that truly confirmed to me that this is the place the Lord would have me be.


My new companion is Elder Harden, who comes from Salt Lake, and has been out a year and a half now.
Interestingly enough, his mom actually comes from Sweden, although he didn't know any Swedish before he came... I feel incredibly blessed to be with such an experienced missionary (he just finished serving as a zone leader in Northern Sweden) who is incredibly dedicated and diligent, and I can't tell you how much I love him. With his desire to work hard, we started running as soon as we met each other, and haven't slowed down a bit. With the Lord's guidance, we have set high goals for the work here Göteborg, and I can't wait to see what miracles the Lord will work as we move forward together in faith.

As said before, Göteborg is Sweden's second largest city, and our area covers the whole thing. While most missionaries serve in smaller towns outside the big cities, we get to be smack in the middle of downtown, and I absolutely love it. Sometimes it can seem a little overwhelming to think that the only missionaries for the whole city are us and a companionship of sisters, but it's exciting to have so many people to talk to (sometimes it felt like I just about knew everybody in Eskilstuna) and to always have so much going on. Besides that, Göteborg is absolutely beautiful, and the ward here has around 120 active members which gives us a lot to work with as well! Elder Harden and I are also "YSA" missionaries (the only YSA missionaries in Sweden) which means that along with a senior missionary couple, the Kelleys, we get to help with YSA activities and serve in the YSA center in Göteborg (There are only two YSA centers in Sweden, one is in Stockholm and the other is here.) I am so excited to be in this area, and all the opportunities that lie ahead of us. When we had transfer calls and the zone leaders told me that I would be leaving Eskilstuna to go to Göteborg, they told me that I had hit the jackpot, and I couldn't agree more.

Äldste Sirrine

Äldste Harden in the woods and snow

Arrival in Göteborg

Semlor! This is a super Swedish dessert. The tradition is that back

in the old days they would make semlor at the start of the 40 fast leading

up to Easter as a way to use all the dairy and fat in the house so it wouldn't go bad.

What does that tell you about their nutritional value? I don't really want to know....

Now it has turned into a national Holiday called "Fat Tuesday",

which is the second Tuesday of February, and everybody has semlor.

February 12, 2018 From Fröslunda to (Västra) Frölunda

Saying goodbye to members...

Amrita and Johan Persson

Well the day has come to leave the land of my fathers and travel to the promised land (at least I hope it's a promised land...). We received transfer calls last night and found out that after 6 months here in Eskilstuna, I will be transferring to Västra Frölunda, Göteborg. Saying goodbye to the branch and investigators here has been difficult, but I look forward to the opportunities that await me in VF. Tuesday night we will visit Mekonen one last time in Fröslunda, Eskilstuna, and then Wednesday morning I will hop on a 3.5 hour train ride to Västra Frölunda.

Karwo, Younus, and Yosef

This last week has once again deepened my testimony of the power of fasting. On the first Sunday of this month I fasted for help in finding new investigators, and it was only a matter of hours before I received the help and answers I was searching for. That very same evening, we went to contact a referral that we had received from a member, and were pleasantly surprised when there was no port-code on the building so we could knock directly on his apartment door. When no one answered, we decided that we might as well tract the area, which we had never been to before. We had knocked about 15 doors without success when suddenly an old investigator, Hamid, opened the door. I was absolutely shocked to be standing face to face with him after about 3 months of no contact, and he seemed just as surprised and happy to let us in. We were able to catch up with him, and in the course of our conversation we discovered that he had moved to the apartment just two days before. We set up a return appointment with him, and have since had the opportunity to teach him again. While Hamid may not be a "new investigator" by traditional standards, we are now able to meet him regularly, he is once again making progress, and I consider it an absolute miraculous answer to fasting and prayer.

Nina and Sarah

In the course of our tracting this week,we were in an apartment building with four doors per floor, and in order to save power, the lights in the hallway would turn off after about 10 seconds of standing still. Unfortunately this made our work rather difficult, as you typically wait for someone to answer the door after knocking, and it would be rather awkward for someone to answer the door while we're standing in the dark... Usually buildings like this have a button on the wall that you push to reactivate the lights, but the buttons in this building didn't work, and they lights seemed to be motion activated. The weird thing was that the lights would only sometimes turn on when we moved, and sometimes they would turn on when we didn't move at all. Not wanting someone to answer their door while we were standing in the dark, we did our best to fight the lights, which included a lot of frustrated waving and moving around. After tracting the whole building, I was putting notes in the phone when Elder Cotton started laughing and said, "You'll never believe what I just discovered." My gaze followed the direction he was pointing, only to discover a white box on the wall, attached to the lights, that said "Acoustic Detector". The whole time we had thought our motion was activating the lights, when in reality it was the sound caused by our motion. Suddenly everything became clear, and we couldn't help but laugh at all our frustrated waving when all we needed to do was make a sound.


Our experience trying to activate the lights is similar to the way we receive blessings. In D&C 130:20-21 it says, "There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundation of the world, upon which all blessings are predicated. And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to the law upon which it is predicated." When we entered that apartment building, the lights were activated by sound, nothing we could do would change that, just as nothing we do can change the laws of God. Regardless of whether or not we believe in God, we will receive the blessings that come from adhering to His laws. Someone who has absolutely no belief in God will still be blessed for keeping the Word of Wisdom or Law of Chastity, just as we were able to activate the lights at times without knowing they were sound activated. However, The knowledge of the gospel is like the knowledge that the lights are activated by sound. When we know and accept the gospel, we know exactly what we need to do to receive blessings. No longer do blessings seem to come at random, and we are spared the efforts of "frantically waving in the dark" in search of blessings. God doesn't give us commandments to limit or restrict us, he gives us commandments so that he might more richly bless us. If we desire any blessing in our life, we must first search the words of the scriptures and prophets to know what we must do (we need to understand how that particular blessing is "activated"), and then we must act in faith, believing that when we do as the scriptures instruct, we will receive the blessings promised.


Äldste Sirrine

February 5, 2018 The Stockholm Crusades

Zone Conference! Elders from my MTC district.

From left to right: Elder Moss, Me, Elder Strong, Elder Langford

This week was an absolute whirlwind of adventure! We had Elder Paul V. Johnson come tour our mission this week, so the highlight of the week was our zone conference on Thursday where he spoke to us. The adventures began Wednesday night when we traveled to Stockholm to spend the night before zone conference. Because it was mission tour, the zone conference was actually 3 of the 5 zones in our mission combined, which meant that a lot of missionaries needed a place to stay the night before. As a result, we had 12 elders all staying in one apartment, and after sleeping on the hardwood floor with no blanket I have a whole new appreciation for my bed...


Zone conference was absolutely incredible, and as I sat listening to Elder Johnson I couldn't help but feel the spirit confirm to me that he is truly called of God, and I marveled at the opportunity to sit at the feet of a General Authority and learn. At one point he opened it up for questions, and an Elder asked him what he has learned through his experiences working with other General Authorities and

Service! Removing nails from wood

so it can be used for firewood.

Apostles. His reply was that he has learned the most by watching their examples. The Apostles are all very successful men who have sacrificed all their time and energy to serving the Lord, and they do so in a most humble and genuine manner. The focus of our zone conference was faith and setting goals, and Elder Johnson shared with us the importance of having faith in the promises of the Lord. He recounted the story of Abraham, who was promised a son despite his old age and his wife being past the age of bearing children. Despite the impossibility of the situation, they had faith in the Lord, and Sarah conceived Isaac. In the New Testament; Paul comments on this story, saying, "And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara’s womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform." (Roman 4:19-21) Abraham was given a magnificent promise, and although it seemed impossible, he staggered not. The Lord has given us promises in relation to covenants that are just as glorious. Do we believe them? Just as the Lord did with Abraham, I testify that He will indeed fulfill all His promises, so let us do our part by acting in faith by making and keeping covenants.


Following Zone Conference we went on exchanges, so I went straight to Södertälje with Elder Pack (one of the zone leaders) while Elder Cotton and Elder Malone went to Eskilstuna. Exchanges were fast paced and full of adventure, but one of the best parts was on Friday when we went to The Book

The Book of Mormon Musical

of Mormon musical in Stockholm. Yep, we went to the musical! Well kind of... The missionaries and wards around Stockholm coordinate to get 2-3 missionary companionships and several members to go hand out copies of the Book of Mormon after every showing of the musical as those attending the show exit the building. We left Södertälje at about 9:20 pm, drove about 50 min to Stockholm (which is absolutely stunning to drive through), placed a whole bunch of Book of Mormons by each door, and waited for people to come out after the show ended at 10:15. As people poured out of the building, we would leave a copy of the

These are the boxes containing copies

of the Book of Mormon to be passed out

at The Book of Mormon musical.

What do you do when you have 35 boxes

of Book of Mormons? (That's 700 copies

total) You make a throne.

Book of Mormon in the hands of anyone we could reach. The reactions from different people were pretty good, and varied greatly. Some did not want the book at all, but there were many who were curious as to what it was and wanted to read it, while there were yet others who smiled or laughed as we gave them a copy because they thought we were just an employee and it was part of the show. After just 15-20 min everyone had left and we had handed out a grand total of 180 copies of the Book of Mormon. By the time we got back to Södertälje for the night it was about 11:45 pm, but as we missionaries do, we were back up and at it again by 6:30 ready to spread the gospel to all who will hear.


On Saturday, we had an incredible opportunity to serve the Wesemeyer family. The Wesemeyers live about an hour drive out in the countryside, so missionaries don't get to go there very often, but we had the chance to go and do two hours of service for them. Their house was built in the 1800's, but the inside has been renovated a few times, and they are in the middle of renovating a bathroom. We were able to help them remove a bunch of scrap material and load it onto trailer to be taken to the dump, as well as sort wood and remove nails from the wood so it can be used as firewood. I have to admit that when I got my call to Sweden, I imagined the quaint, colorful homes of Sweden, and going house to house out in the countryside preaching the gospel to Swedish families. Boy was I

The Wesemeyer's home.

Swedish houses are incredibly beautiful...

surprised when I discovered that we are in the city and half the people we talk to aren't Swedish and live in apartments. Serving the Wesemeyers enabled me to fulfill my dream in some measure as we were indeed out in the countryside, serving a Swedish family by helping them with their beautiful home. They also live by a lake, so they took us on a hike through the woods surrounding their home so we could see it, which was absolutely beautiful. It's been a while since I've been out in nature like that, and the beauty of God's creations were overwhelming.


This week was almost as packed as church was yesterday. We had 65 people attend, which is definitely pushing the limits of our building, and I was told that is the most people we've had attend church in over 10 years (the previous record was 59). Our Branch President, Rolf Lundkvist, was released after 6 and a half years as serving as such, and our new Branch President, David Newell was sustained. The service President Lundkvist has rendered is absolutely incredible, and I hope that I can serve with the same energy and zeal that he has shown.


Äldste Sirrine


Sorry the email is so long this week! Too much good stuff happened!

Me and Elder Pack by the lake

Our hike through the woods.

Driving to Wessmeyer's

Beautiful pictures from our hike.