I Love Stockholm!

3 Lone Peak grads. Small world! Mecham, Mod & Jensen

This one is gonna be short.....I always run out of time. Always always! Sorry!!

This week was a blast!! I feel like I am actually settled into Hägersten! We have been really busy with lots of good things and it has been a lot of fun.

George is SO awesome. Every time we meet with him, I am blown away by how cool and prepared he is. We brought our ward mission leader on a lesson with us (he loves missionary work) and he and George were talking about how long he has been in the church. Patrik (ward mission leader) joked about how he had been a member for too long, and how he needed to take a break from church. George looked him straight in the eye and said "Haha yeah, too bad there is no half-time here." I died laughing hahah it was PERFECT. George is going to be the most awesome member EVER. He came to church and participated and everyone is getting really excited for his baptism on the 10th! Woohooooo!!!

This ward is so cool....We got fed by two African members this week, one from the Ivory Coast and one from Ghana. I LOVE the African people. Seriously. Their houses just have permanent party atmospheres...haha I feel so at home. We also got fed by a Peruvian member, Latvian members, Swedish members, and went out for lunch and got curry. Stockholm is just a giant melting pot and I think it is the funnest thing. Plus good food...and actually getting fed by members...this whole 4 weeks to fabulous things needs to start like...now. #30minutesaday Hahah.

Sweden is sooo pretty!

At church, I led the music, we sang with the Relief Society in sacrament meeting, and I translated Relief Society. We had zone training this week and talked about how Sundays are the most special day of the week, and I am convinced that not only is it special, but it is the most exhausting day of the week! Your brain just melts after 3 hours of making sure everything is taken care of. But I love Sundays. It is so fun to be around people who believe the same thing you do. I took that for granted in Utah, that is for sure... But now I know!

I am SO SO SO excited for conference!!! Everyone send me their thoughts, because I have to talk in sacrament about it on the 11th...haha but yay. I love this church. Matilda (my giiiiirl from Lund) is going to Conference in Utah, so if anyone is there and hears Swedish, say HI! :)

Swedish fun facts:

- If you wanna eat with the missionaries on Sunday but you don't have any food, you can take them to a pizza place. Hahaha. :)

- Swedish chocolate is my favorite thing in the universe. Just saying. They sell it at IKEA so go and try some Marabou!! :)

Sorry for the lamest email ever but I LOVE YOU GUYSSS!!!!! Have the best week!!

xoxoxo Mod

Shopping in Stockholm on PDay!

Syster Mod and Äldste Jensen are from the same home stake and in the same zone!

Hägersten!!

Hello hello!!

I am emailing from the Hägersten chapel and life is oh so good!! I made it here safe and sound and I really do love it. I miss Lund and Syster Beckstrom SO much, but Hägersten is so different that it can't even be compared. There are not very many native Swedes here...hahah. It's the coolest place. I may leave this area learning Arabic, Persian, Spanish, and Russian! ;) Stockholm is just a giant melting pot and I am really excited to be here.

Syster Mecham & Syster Mod

My new companion is Syster Makenna Mecham from Alpine, Utah! We actually both went to Lone Peak at the same time, but we both had no idea who each other was....hahah. Small world! We have been chatting a ton about all of our mutual friends and the places we love and giving each other directions to our houses. Haha! It has been a lot of fun to be with someone who understands a huge part of my life. She did a semester at BYU, and we celebrated her 7 month mark this week :) I really like being with her and we are going to have a blast this transfer!! We will never run out of things to talk about, that is for sure ;) I could talk about Snoasis for at least 2 hours at a time...hahah.

The ward in Hägersten is about 60 active people, which is a big change from my 100-something in Lund. I really love it though. We get fed about 5 times a week......I have not had that my entire mission. I honestly don't even know what to do with myself. Haha! SO. Much. Food. There are some really wonderful people here that I have met before, and I feel like I am really going to love being here. Church yesterday was a lot of fun, and I can't wait to get to know more people!

Beckstrom & Mod were so sad to leave each other.

Anyway. This week was really good! And sucky at the same time. haha Leaving Lund was SO so so hard!! We had a little get together party with a bunch of the YSAs, including Elin and Matilda, and it was the funnest. We played cards and ate cake and had spiritual moments and I had so much fun. Matilda gave me a little ring with an angel cut out of it because I'm "her angel". I LOVE HER. I know I say that every email, but I really do mean it!! She is one of my best friends and I miss her like crazy. We are going to be friends forever. But the party was definitely one of the best nights I have had in Lund, and I feel SO blessed that I got to be there for 3 months. It wasn't long enough! :)

I moved up here on Wednesday and it was so great to walk into the Stockholm Central Station again! We got to meet all of the greenies and their trainers, and that was awesome. One of them came up to me and was all, "this is SO weird because I totally read your blog before I came...". Hahahah I felt so cool. Blogs bringing the people together <3 After all of that, we went straight to Hägersten and got to work!

We have a super cool investigator named George, who is from Ghana. He lived in Spain for like 10+ years while he played professional soccer, and now he lives here and works a ton. He has an afro and is AWESOME. I really like him. We taught him this week, and he decided he is going to get baptized October 10th! He really is so solid and I am so excited for him. He was sharing all his thoughts in Gospel Principles on Sunday and is just awesome.

We have a ton to do here, lots of less actives and people to go by! The ward list has like.....315 members on record, so we have a LOT to do. I love less active work though, so it's good with me!

Sooooo yeah :) Sorry forever long email haha but it has been a really good week!! I am loving life and I am just ready to party it up in Stockholm!!

Swedish Fun Facts:

-They don't have programs for church here....you just kinda show up and they say what is going to happen. They had a program on Sunday for this ward and I about died of happiness....haha home!!

-Swedes like to dish your food for you....which is so interesting at member meals. You never know how many courses you are going to get. This is one problem I never thought I would have on my mission. Hahaha.

LOVE YOU GUYS! Have a great week!!

xoxox Mod

Saying goodbye to friends in Lund:

The Lund crew.

Matilda

Szilvia Forró and her son Aron

The Niebuhrs

Welcome to Hägersten!!

Birthday celebration for Äldste Rhoades.

Scenery pics:

A Six Week Surprise

Hiiii everyone!!

So I think this week was one of the more surprising weeks of my mission.....We got transfer calls, and I am leaving for my last transfer to Hägersten, an area in Stockholm! My thoughts are kind of like:

1. AHH MY LAST TRANSFER. I can't deal with this!!

2. I CAN'T LEAVE BECKSTROM

3. I CAN'T LEAVE LUND

4. Oooooh Stockholm!

Hahahah. So yeah. We are confused why I am leaving, and honestly I am devastated to leave Lund, but I am 100% sure that Heavenly Father has a plan for me and this last transfer will be one of the best ones yet. My new companion will be Syster Mecham, and we went to the same high school (even though I didn't meet her until the mission...haha small world!), so that will be fun! I know it will be good. It will just be hard to leave this place and the people that I love :( 12 weeks was not long enough for Lund! But here we go to Hägersten!!!! :)

I guess I can describe my last week in Lund now...hahah sorry for the sad beginning. But. We had so much fun! We did splits in Malmö, and I went with Syster Barrett, who is so hilarious. I love her! We bonded and got a baptismal date for one of their investigators and it was a great day :)

Syster Beckstrom, Syster Mod & Syster Niebuhr

Last pday, we went to Ales Stenar! I seriously think I found the most beautiful place in Sweden. The ocean goes on for miles and it was perfect weather, so we just sat on a cliff in our sweaters and looked out over the water :) I LOVE THIS COUNTRY. The elders made a game where they threw rocks in the water for like 2 hours....missionaries. The entertainment level drops the second you go to the MTC. Hahah. But it was the most wonderful pday I have had in a long, long time! It was nice to just relax and not stress about a single thing :)

Ummm...they are wearing sweaters and coats on September 4th. Oh my.

The big hill. What are these two going to do when they get back to Utah?

Throwing rocks in the water. :)

I think yesterday was one of my favorite Sundays I have ever had too. So strange, but so good...haha. We have a girl in the ward named Miriam Ahlström who is headed on her mission to Australia in t-minus 8 days. Her farewell was this past Sunday, and it was SO cool. They had the entire sacrament meeting themed on missionary work. A member gave her testimony about her mission 31 years ago, then a member who returned 6-ish years ago from her mission, and then I bore my testimony about my time as a missionary. I was so touched as the other two sisters shared how much they loved their missions, and I was so happy to get up and share the exact same message. I feel like my farewell was yesterday, and I knew exactly how Miriam was feeling when she got up to talk about how excited she was to go. I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK. I love being here. I love serving my Heavenly Father. It was just so good to get a confirmation that I am where I am supposed to be, doing what I am supposed to do!

Dinner at the Rönndahls.

We walked to the train station after church, and found a poor little lost boy who was maybe 1 or 2 years old. It was so scary!! But we got him reunited with his mom after a little bit, and then we went to one of my favorite families, the Rönndahls! They have a daughter that served with my cousin, McCall, in France, so it just feels like I have a little connection to home whenever I go there :) We ate and quoted Napoleon Dynamite and shared our testimonies and I just loved it. There are the most amazing people in this ward!

Life is just way good and happy. I am excited to see what this next transfer brings. Hooray for Gamla Stan and pretty pictures and exciting new things!!

Love you all! :)

xoxoxo Syster Mod

Sweden Scenery Pics:

Service with a smile. :)

These are the backpacks to have. B's, Mod's & Matilda's.

The Week We Contacted 210 People

Hello hello hello!!! Okay so first emailing was sketch today so if I haven't emailed you back yet, I am gonna try to tonight....haha life is NUTS! We are going on a big old district field trip to what I think is the southernmost tip of Sweden....a super cool viking place called Ales Stenar!! Everyone knows how much I love vikings. It's creepy. But I am so excited!!

THIS WEEK! It was weird. Haha. I don't even know how to describe it. I guess we could start with contacting....Literally all Syster Beckstrom and I do is contact. Every day, without fail. The standard of excellence (Pres Beckstrand would say "standard of hastening the work" instead) is 105 street contacts in a week, which equals out to about 15 contacts a day. Our ward mission leader decided that Lund is going to take it to the next level, so our new standard of excellence specific to Lund is 210 contacts, which is 30 people a day. That is a lot. Haha! Beckstrom and I tried our very hardest this week and went out of our way to make sure to talk to a ton of people, and we ended up getting the 210! The sad part of the 210 people that we talked to is that we got just one phone number, who hasn't answered our calls and texts so far..so. I feel like this week describes my entire mission. I cannot tell you how many blank days I have had without a single appointment, or cancellations, or baptismal dates falling through.... It kinda makes you think about yourself as a missionary, and what being a successful missionary is, because by the numbers I have not been a successful missionary at all.

Syster Mod, King, Sandberg & Beckstrom

But I was thinking. I have a folder on my email that is called "Friends from Sweden" that is full of emails from members and investigators from other areas. I have been so incredibly blessed with friends. I have had more than one person tell me that I have affected them in some way. I really don't even care for a minute if they remember my name the week after I transfer, but I feel like I have made a big difference here in Sweden. I have a strong testimony that people are called to specific places for a reason. I know I needed to be here, if not for anyone else but me. All my mission has been is a learning experience :)

Aaaaannnywayyyyy. Sorry for the missionary thing haha but on the touristy side of things. I finally checked off all of my Sweden bucket list!! I have been dying to go to a city called Göteborg since day one. And we just conveniently had a zone conference there on Friday :) I got to sleep over with my bestie Syster King and it was a super great conference on how we can become better Preach My Gospel missionaries! I love Preach My Gospel. So much genius in one book :) It is always so wonderful to hear from President and Syster Beckstrand and get some help with the work :)

So green and beautiful!

Other than that, we have had a pretty uneventful week. We are teaching a new lady named Jacqueline who is so sweet! She always tells us how impressed she is by missionaries. She also thought it was pretty impressive when she talked to the elders on Sunday and realized they wore a shirt and tie every single day. Hahaha. But she is really positive!

Forever friends!

We get transfer calls this week, and Beckstrom and I are absolutely devastated. This has been the fastest 12 weeks in history......oh. So sad. So if next week's email is pretty miserable, you guys will know why....I have the best comps EVER.

I love you all!!! Have the best week ever!!

xoxox Erin

 

Erin and her MTC crew. Äldste Pearson and Äldste Sweat.

Dinner with Hyacinth and Annie

Göteborg

Looking out the window as their train goes right by the coast.