Jakobsberg Week 13 - May 14, 2018

Hello!

Transfers this week! I am now companions with Elder Gordon. He is from Seattle, Washington and has been here one transfer longer than me. We have had a blast the past few days! On the first day we were together, we went over to one of our neighbor's houses and mowed their lawn. We have become really good friends with them, the husband is from Greece and his wife is from Finland. It was fun to mow a lawn again!

Jakobsberg Week 12 - May 7, 2018

Tjena!

This week was good! I know I say that every week, and every week it is true! I also don't know how else to begin.

Elder Petersen and I have been doing lots of finding work this week! On Saturday, we went to Bromma to try to contact a referral that we received. They were not home, but we got to knock the doors of some really nice houses! They were right on the edge of the shoreline and you could see evergreens all around. Sweden is beautiful! 

I was on splits with Elder Berlin (one of the assistants) on Wednesday. It was awesome! We stopped by the house of a person they had tracted into a few days ago. We had a great conversation about family history work. Elder Berlin was able to find the man's ancestors already on the FamilySearch app. What an amazing tool! Now that we have phones, I have been doing some family history work myself during free time! I have loved learning more about my ancestors. I encourage you all to read Elder Renlund's most recent General Conference talk. There are some amazing promises made to us if we do the important work of finding our ancestors.

Jakobsberg Week 11 ~ May 1, 2018

Hello!

This week was so good.

On Thursday evening, we traveled to Gubbängen to pick up our phones, then on Friday morning was zone conference. The first half was all about learning how to use an app on the phones that now serves as both our planner and Area Book! It was crazy. We will be spending time over the next few months transferring paper teaching records onto the phone. Also, we use Facebook now! It is a tool for reaching out to those we teach.

Jakobsberg Week 10 - April 23, 2018

Hello again!

I usually bring my journal or planner with me so that I can remember what happened during the week, but I forgot both of those today! It has been a great week and I will share a few experiences that I can remember. 

On one day this week, I got onto a bus and a guy said 'hey missionary! How ya doin!?' It was an investigator that came to church a few times in Boden, and we met in Stockholm! It was good to see him again, there is a picture of us below.

Stake Conference was this week, and the same Area 70 that spoke at the district conference in Umeå when I was there a few months ago came to the Stockholm Stake. He is from France, and he spoke about the necessity of being able to receive personal revelation. The four steps he talked about were to pray, ponder, write down promptings, and then to act. This is similar to President Nelson's message from General Confrerence!

Elder Petersen felt prompted to visit an area that we hadn't been to before. We got there and began knocking on some doors. After the tracting session was coming to an end, we began talking to a lady who was pushing her two daughters in a stroller. It turned out that her husband, who is from Australia, grew up in an LDS family. She accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon in Swedish and even took a picture of me and Elder Petersen to send to her inlaws! It was a cool experience for us because Elder Petersen and I had specifically prayed that we would be able to find a family and had felt prompted to visit that area. 

We will be receiving our smartphones on Thursday! Basically what will change is that we will have 2 Samsungs instead of one iPhone, we will be be allowed to access social media, and we will begin using the phone as an area book and as a daily planner. Hello Facebook!

Have a great week!

Love,

Äldste Francis

Jakobsberg Week 9 - April 16, 2018

Hello!

This week was so cool!

On Tuesday, we visited the Stockholm Sweden Temple! It was amazing! It is in Västerhanige so we just have to get on the train in Kallhäll and ride about an hour. A companionship is allowed to attend if one of the companions has not been in 6 months, so we switched our p day from Monday to Tuesday and visited then. The session was in Norwegian because a stake from Norway was attending, so we listened with headsets to the Swedish translation.  I turned mine off a few times and the Norwegian was super similar to the Swedish. We have some good pictures!

It also happened to be Elder Petersen's 20th birthday on Tuesday! After visiting the temple, we went and had Pizza Hut buffet! It was super good. Grattis på födelsedag, Äldste Petersen!!!

This week has been full of miracles! Here are a few of them:

Elder Craun and I on splits (on the dock outside our house after a morning run)

Jakobsberg Week 8 - April 9, 2018

Hello!

Another good week full of finding and teaching!

One cool experience from this week happened on splits with Elder Harden! We were at the Kallhäll train station and began talking to a man. He got on the train one car ahead of us, so the conversation ended. Elder Harden and I could tell that he was pretty interested, and we knew that he was getting off at Jakobsberg like we were, so we decided to try to find him again when the train stopped. We got off at Jakobsberg and waited inside the station then stopped him as he walked by. In the end, we switched numbers with him and planned to meet the next morning. He, Markus, came the next morning to the planned meeting at the church! We taught him about prayer and asked him to pray before our next meeting, which will be this Wednesday. Elder Harden and I felt like we had seen a little miracle: we had begun talking to someone that became a pretty positive investigator the next day!

Also on splits with Elder Harden, we had dinner at Antonio's house. He is a member in the ward from Chile. He made SO MUCH chicken and potatis gretang. Being a missionary is so fun!

Jakobsberg Week 7 - April 2, 2018

Glad Påsk!

What an amazing weekend! General conference was great, we have seen all of the sessions except for the Sunday Afternoon. But I found out from others about the new 'ministering' and the temple in Layton, Utah! Wow! I really enjoyed listening to our new prophet and I look forward to studying his words and all of the other talks. 

We moved this week and I just thought of Grandpa and Grandma Hunsaker as the apartment couple in Germany the whole time! My job was to pull out the oven and clean where it had stood. I don't think that behind the oven had been cleaned for a few years! Thank you to them for always having a clean home where the Spirit can abide. I sure look up to my grandparents!