Oh How Swede It Is!: Uppsala!!

Happy Valentine's Day from Luleå!

Haaaaaappy Valentine's Day/Transfer Calls day!! Haha Saturday was quite eventful :) Drum roll please.....I am going to be leaving Luleå (*Erin's heart breaks in half*) and leaving Syster Stetler (*Erin's heart breaks into quarters*) for UPPSALA on Wednesday!! I am so excited, but I am already homesick for Luleå. I JUST LOVE LULEÅ SO MUCH!

But. There are 3 great things about Uppsala. 1) I get the coolest comp ever, Syster Maxwell! She is "dying" (going home) so we are gonna do all the fun Swedish traditions one last time and have a blast. :) 2) I get to go on splits!! I'm going to be an STL in Uppsala, so I get to go on splits in Luleå and Gävle, two of my old areas. I am SO excited to go to Gävle and have the chance to come back here!! 3) It's warmer. Hahah HALLELUJAH! Uppsala is about 45 minutes north of Stockholm. But yeah I am super excited!! Transfers are always exciting :) It has been hard to say goodbye to all the people here, but I know I am needed in Uppsala. :)

This week has been really good! We got to travel to Umeå on Wednesday for Specialized Zone Training. We were all kind of nervous, because we heard they were upping the standards of excellence, so on and so forth...but it was the BEST. President and Syster Beckstrand are the coolest. We had a really good training, and then they got Meet the Mormons for us to watch! It was SOOOOO good. I don't know if this was because the most recent movie I've seen is The Testaments (for the billionth time, it's great), but I loved it. Especially the part about Utah. And it showed University Mall (missing P-town but it's fine)....hahah everyone was so trunky. We all thought it was such a good way to show the world about Mormons though! They are bringing that movie to Europe in the summer, and we are going to screen it in the chapels and stuff (so I hear). It's going to be really helpful!

Henrik has been doing really really really well! He is down to 3 cigarettes a day (ish), which is super awesome. He came to the last hour of church yesterday, which was huge too. We had a really good lesson on agency and choosing to include the church or not, and he seems really determined to find an answer about church. He was telling us about how he never intended to actually keep meeting with the missionaries, but he feels very uplifted every time he does and he is really glad he has continued with it. He was showing us scriptures that stood out to him, like Moroni 10:4 (about asking and receiving an answer from God) and Helaman 13:29 ("how long will ye choose darkness rather than light?") and we were just like "Bro. THIS IS THE SPIRIT TESTIFYING TO YOU!!!". So now we are working on recognizing the Spirit. Haha it was so cool though!! You can see the Spirit working in him and I love it.

Theresa is also doing well. We weren't able to meet with her this week and she couldn't come to church because she was sick, but she still called and texted and made sure that we knew she was still 100% into being a Mormon for a month. We feel like proud parents. ;)

Andrew, Syster Mod, Ulla Lena & Krister Vinberg

We have one more investigator, Andrew, who is from Russia and is a great guy. He has been coming to church for around 11 years, but just hasn't committed to baptism. We talked about feeling the Holy Ghost this week and how it testifies of truth. One of our members who was at the lesson started going off about how she feels the Spirit when she does baptisms for the dead....normally that would not be good at all in an investigator lesson. They don't really know about all these church things, you kind of have to ease them into it. Haha. But it worked! Our member was inspired :) Everything really hit home with Andrew, and I think he is going to actually get to baptism soon.

Buuuuuuuut yeah. :) It feels so weird to actually be leaving. It's a little like hugging my family goodbye in the MTC again...not fair! Why do missions do this! I have absolutely loved my time in Luleå and would not trade it for the world. I am so lucky to have been up here! And now Norrland has gotten into my blood, so I am a Norrlander forever :)

Fun facts:

-Probs gonna cry when I leave my little Stet-bot. I love my greenie.... *insert crying emoji*

-There is no snow in Uppsala apparently. That will be a big change. Haha!

-The sun stays out until 4 pm now and it is the BEST. I LOVE THE SUNNNN I LOVE VITAMIN D I WILL NEVER COMPLAIN ABOUT A UTAH WINTER EVER AGAIN :)

I just love you all :) Hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day and shout out to my cute parents who celebrated their 23rd anniversary of loooooove!! :) Have a good week everyone!!!!

xoxox Erin

Saying goodbye to: