Halla Halla

This week was the first week in July that it has rained. Members are saying that it is the warmest summer they have had in a while! I am loving the sunshine but it is definitely not as green here as when I first got here... So the rain is much needed.

 This week we went over to Bonnie's house and painted her fence with her and had lunch and then we went to the beach in åhus with our relief society on Pioneer Day. We had Sister exchanges (with Sister Pieksma), and President Newell came over to our apartment for an interview.

 I have been learning how to cook thanks to Julie Ethington and her healthy recipes she sent me last week.

And we are so close to getting baptismal dates with some of our investigators and I am just praying that they will accept the invitation to be baptized this week. In all, LIFE IS GOOD.

 Me and Sister Pieksma hahahahahaha

This week in a Zone meeting, one of the elders shared a quote from President Hinckley that is for missionary work that says

"Do your best. Your very very best. 

Say your prayers, work hard, and leave the harvest to the Lord." 

What an amazing quote. I was thinking this week a lot about what I am doing to contribute as a missionary. We have not seen very much success here in Kristianstad and at times I feel like it personally is my fault and that I am not doing the very best I can do. Of course I am not a perfect missionary- I don't think anyone ever told me I had to be, but it is still hard to not have those thoughts. However, this quote by President Hinckley, perfectly describes the kind of missionary that we should be. And that is our best. My best. And my best is all I can do.

 An Elder that recently went home sent me a talk called "The Fourth Missionary." I read the talk this week with Sister Swenson and what I kept getting from it was exactly what President Hinckley is saying... To be your best, to be full of charity, to have your heart be in the work- to LOVE what you are doing. Once I realized that I truly do love what I am doing, that I am saying my prayers and working hard then the Lord truly will do the rest. He will lead us to those that are prepared or those that are prepared will be lead to us.

I can't say right now that I have seen a lot of baptisms and that the work is rapidly growing here in Kristianstad, but I can say that the Lord is blessing and helping us. We have so many awesome investigators and I know that with the Lords timing, they will accept the gospel and it will be so joyful when they do.

Here is a picture of one of my favorite people INGE. She is amazing and is so humble. She would literally give her shirt off of her back to us. I don't think we have ever left her house with out 2 arms full of bags of food. She just finds whatever she can in her kitchen to give to us. So sweet.

Good luck on TREK! I cant wait to hear all about your amazing experiences! Love you all.

 Sister C

PS- It was cool to get the letter in the mail this week from mom with a letter that Papa sent to her while she was on her mission. Although his words were for mom 25 years ago, they were exactly what I needed to hear this week- I felt like he was writing them to me.

Trip to Denmark and an Accident

Dear ones...

I received a special gift in the mail this week. A ring made out of a Swedish Coin. Who else would have thought of finding a ring like that besides my wonderful mother... Thank you so so much mommy-- It is so cool. I also received a cute package from Grace with pictures from Ralph's wedding etc. Everyone looks so cute and happy--- Henry, nice suspenders. 

At the beginning of last week we were riding our bikes around the loop we normally do in the mornings for exercise and I turned the corner super fast and went down with my bike. I got a gnarly scrape on my knee and literally everyone we have visited has given me something to treat it- haha. It might not look that big in the pictures but it is pretty deep and has not stopped bleeding since it happened #battlewounds.

Torsten fixing me up

 On Friday morning we were on the train at 7 am with Isam on our way to Denmark. The train goes right over the ocean on a long skinny bridge. It was beautiful. We arrived in the Denmark train station and I really felt like I was in another Country. I was looking around listening to the people talk and I could not understand anything! I turned to Sister Swenson and said "Its so weird to be in a Country where we cant understand anyone!" And then I realized that I was living in Sweden. Hahaha- But it is weird how I am so used to hearing Swedish and how I am already adjusted to the Swedish Culture. It all seems normal to me now so it is funny to read my journal entries from when i first got here and everything was so unique. 

  We met up with the missionaries from Karls Corona and two of their newly baptized members at the Denmark Temple. As we sat in the waiting room all dressed in our white baptismal suits, listening to a Danish Temple Worker explain why we do Baptisms for the dead to these newly converted people, I was filled with joy. The spirit that I felt there was so strong but so familiar. It made me think about how amazing it is that our gospel is the exact same anywhere we go. All over the world we believe the same things, we do the same things in church and in the temple. It is constant. It is familiar. And it is comforting. I also was reminded of how important the process of "enduring to the end" is. We are here to convert others by baptism but even more so to help others continue on the path... to keep going and hålla ut intill änden. Endure to the end. 

 Splitting the area is a little harder than we thought it would be. It is hard to find out that pretty much everyone you meet on the bus lives in the Elders area... On the other hand it is has been a lot of fun to have the elders here. Our investigator Torsten has back problems and it is really hard for him to sit in sacrament meeting. So since I got here, we have been joking about getting him a special chair to sit in but this last week we really did it. We brought a comfortable chair from our apartment down to the church just for Torsten. Haha. He was happy about that. 

 On Sunday I spoke for the 4th time in this ward now but it was a lot easier than the first three times. I talked about Joseph Smith and my testimony of the Restoration. I read a couple verses from D&C 122 and again became overwhelmed with the love and appreciation that I have for Joseph Smith and his curiosity to know which church to join... And for all that he went through so that I can know that I have a purpose here on this Earth.

Our district in Kristianstad

Still doing headstands

 I hope Cali is treating you well. Send my love to the family. I love and miss you all so much but  I am so grateful to have the amazing family that I have.

Love you from Sweden to Utah to Sweden to California to Denmark and back a couple more times. xoxo Adelide

p.s.  Kristin seriously is so awesome. Please send my love to their family and all of the other cousins. I love that scripture and it is so true that we have to humble ourselves like little children, and that is why the gift of agency sometimes is so hard to understand because no one can control it besides ourselves. I have really seen that on my mission that the gift of agency is so hard to work with... but then again it is such an amazing gift and I am so grateful for my agency and that I get to choose to do good but choose to do it my way. I am excited to get your hand written letter this week. Thank you for writing me and sending me special little things. I am so lucky and blessed. I love you so much. Tell hen and lil that i love them and would love to hear from them!!! I hope they are having fun on the beach. xoxoxo

adelight hahaha

Love Life

The new Elders in our District

Accomplishment: I have almost been in Sweden for 4 months and I have only brushed my hair twice. Wait, I am not kidding though. I literally have three huge dreads and I am scared to brush my hair out.

Thank you for the letters this week! I LOVED them. I got letters from mom and lil in the mail that were awesome and I wrote a handwritten letters back this week but you probs won't get them until you get home from Cali. I hope you guys have a blast and you better send me pictures. It feels like we were just there hiking in Yosemite and then playing at the beach and that was a YEAR AGO. What the.

Me and Sister Swensen at a local fair

The past three weeks have literally been the BEST. I am just loving every single minute of being here. Sister Swenson and I are laughing at something from the minute we wake up at 6:30 am until we go to bed. We split the area this week and got two Elders which is weird because its normally just us two here. On their first night here we were all planning on meeting at the bus stop to go out to Åhus (where we went for midsommar) to play volleyball and grill with our ward. Sister Swenson and I were teaching Isam at the park right before we were supposed to get on the bus and Isam had the great idea to go there a little early and pretend to be an investigator to the Elders. We role played it out at the park because thats what we do as missionaries- we role play EVERYTHING haha and I needed to know exactly what was happening because otherwise I would ruin it and laugh. SO anyways the bus came to us and we got on and there was the two elders sitting in the back with Isam in the middle of them and they were getting so into teaching him hahaha we let it go on for a while but I was dying and ruined it. It was HIL-larious. The new Elder was like wait whaa? hehahahehohoaha

Poor Elders, we played a trick on them :)

On Tuesday night we went down to Malmö to sleep over with Sister Taylor because her companion was being transferred. The whole train ride I was reading the letters I had recieved from mom in the mail and there was a picture of Jesus and the two old ladies sitting acrossed from us thought it was the prettiest picture they had ever seen. They were so funny. One was dressed in ALL red from head to toe and the other was in all purple hahaha what? Anyways we got off of the train and walked up the escalator taking our time until we started walking towards a bus and Sister Swenson turned around and said WE LEFT OUR SUITCASES ON THE TRAIN! We stood there for a good 30 seconds before we started running back down to the train station to watch the train start pulling away and the two little ladies smiling and waving at us through the window.

 So... there went our luggage.

TO DENMARK.

We have tried calling the lost and found but haven't heard anything yet... I think we will hear back in a couple of days- it is either stolen or sitting in Denmark so we will hopefully figure it out soon!

At the train station waiting for the new Elders to arrive

We have awesome investigators right now. Torsten finally came to church. It has been sunny everyday. The amount of Swedish that I can understand is truly incredible and a gift from God. I think I have really realized how far I have come this week when we received the new Elder straight from the MTC. I am loving life- exercising, meditating, working hard, and enjoying every minute of this adventure.

A cute little girl from Iraq wanted a picture with us because we are Americans

 "Don't be gloomy. Do not dwell on unkind things. Stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight. Even if you are not happy, put a smile on your face. Accentuate the positive. Look a little deeper for the good. Go forward in  life with a twinkle in your eye and a smile on your face, with great and strong purpose in your heart. LOVE LIFE." -- President Hinckley

My pen obsession :)

Love life. Be happy. I love you all.

Sister Adelide

TAKE COURAGE

Hello Hello Hello

How was your 4th of July!? It was weird to not be with you guys this year but we had a fun BBQ to celebrate with my favorite person in the world: Bonnie Jamison. She is from the US and has literally been my mom here. She is so sweet and has fed us every single week since I got here and goes on teaches with us all of the time. She lives in the cutest cottage house with little gardens all around- we have so much fun picking strawberries from her back yard for dinner. She is kind of a hippy and I love it. Her story of how she got to where she is today is so inspiring and her testimony has really helped mine. She devotes so much of herself and time to missionary work and I am so grateful for her and her friendship.

This week I recieved the CUTEST package in the mail from Kristin Christensen with shirts, granola bars, candy, little journals, the cutest picture of Truman, and a letter from Grant and Truman. She seriously is the best & knows exactly what I love. I am so blessed and grateful. In her letter she said that Truman keeps asking her what kind of animals I have seen and if my kids will like him. Hahaha Oh I miss that kid. She also gave me this quote by Mary Anne Radamacher that I love that says: "Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying I will try again tomorrow." YES. I love that. And that is truly all we are asked to do- to have enough courage to try again and again and again.

Grant and Truman with Adelide last summer. Adelide loves her little cousins.

 

I am especially grateful for my companion and area this week because we got a call on Friday from our zone leaders asking if we had received our TRANSFER CALL yet... I was literally in panic mode because that meant that either Sister Swenson or I was leaving and I feel like I JUST got here! We stared at the phone all night waiting for a call and it did not seem right for one of us to be leaving right now... By 9:00 we called our zone leaders back and told them we didnt get a call and they said oh that makes sense because you guys are both staying... hahaha Thannnnk youuuuu. So we are staying together until the end of August! But we are splitting our area and the saddest part is that we have to give up Leonard and Sabrina, the two with the baptismal dates. But we feel really good about how we split the area and we are ready to get a lot of work done in other parts of Kristianstad that we normally dont have time to do.

One thing I can say about this week, is that it is a good thing that I am a blunt person myself and can take criticsm because in the same day we were told by a member in our ward that we need to wear make up, that we are curvey, and that the members hate that I am a vegetarian. Haaa... Not joking. She said "Do you guys own make up? Because it would be really nice if you guys could look a little nicer to reperesent the church." Yes. That really happened. We were DYING. And of course we are still not wearing make up. I asked Isam what he thought about it and he said "natural is better". Haha I completely agree. Plus Isam said if there was one word he could describe me as it would be: natural. haha

at cute carnival by our apartment

 Scripture I love: D&C 138 25-26- Joseph Smith says "I marveled for I UNDERSTOOD... that the Savior taught for three years and performed mighty works and miracles but FEW hearkened to His voice." I love how Joseph Smith is almost in shock when he understands all that the Savior had done and all the work that he had performed and that only a FEW listened to his voice. This is so amazing to read especially while I am here on my mission and very few want to listen to our voices, that the Savior, Jesus Christ, taught for three years and there were few who listened. Everday he took courage and kept trying again and again to bring the people to the knowledge of the gospel. Christ himself did that. That gives me great courage.

Take courage my sweet family. I love you dearly. I am off to Malmö to go to the raw foods resturant with the Lund and Malmö sisters. xoxo.

Sister Christensen

Life is Beautiful

Tracting in Kristianstad with Sister Swensen

First of all I just want to say that life is SO beautiful! I am so full of gratitude today. I love Sweden so much. I love the people here. I love my area and I love my companion. I am so grateful for her and for her friendship. We have so much fun together and she is great for dealing with me as I become more and more like my parents. Hahaha You guys would be shocked at how I am starting to do all of the things that I used to make fun of you for doing. She is even getting used to me stopping to pick up all of the garbage that I see.The other day we turned the corner to find a lot of wet paper all over the street and she looked at me and said "are we going to pick all of this up?" Haha- we did. Thanks to my dad always trying to make the world a little greener.

Du behöver att inte äte kött (You don't need to eat meat) hahahahahahahaha yesss.

This week I had the opportunity to watch the Missionary Conference that was held the other week where about 3,000 missionaries from the MTC sang. If you havent watched it... WATCH IT! It is worth the full two hours. It made me so happy to be a part of missionary work right now and my eyes were filled with tears the entire time as I listened to the apostles speak about missionary work. (Russell M Nelsons parable about righteous fathers brought me to tears. It reminded me so much of you, dad).

distrikts möte idag (district meeting today)

This week I have been thinking a lot about what it means to have strength. The strength I am talking about is like the strength of Henry running back to me to take my pack off my back when I had no strength on Kings Peak. This strength is both physical and spiritual. After receiving three phone calls on Tuesday from three different Investigators that were all drpping us, we were feeling pretty discouraged and stressed and tired. We walked into our apartment after a full days work, soaking wet from the pouring rain and I went over to my desk which had my scriptures opened, dads email he had written me last week and an unopened letter from Emma Brinton (Adelide's cousin).

Phoebe, Emma, Adelide and Ellie

I began reading Emma's letter which was a story of something that had happened to her while she was up at Hebgen Lake. She had just finished dropping off Ellie at work and decided to drive around for a while, when she all of a sudden had a thought to go to the beach. She went to the beach and sat down and an lady came over and sat down near to her. Emma simply asked how this lady was doing and the lady broke down crying and told Emma of how stressed she was because she needed to clean her entire cabin before the next day and she was too sick to do it. . . Anyways, Emma ended up going over to this woman's cabin and cleaning the entire thing while the lady told Emma her whole life story. Afterwards the woman smiled and told Emma that she couldn't remember the last time she had smiled. - I just had to share this with you because I think it is such an amazing story of being in tune with the spirit and ACTING on it. Emma was in tune with the spirit to go to the beach, to meet this lady and help her because she had the strength to do so. That is what missionary work is all about. It is about service and love. It is about having extra strength to bear one another burdens.

Investigators Roland and Ingrid -the best people

The scripture that was opened up on my desk was D&C 84:106

"And if any man among you be strong in the spirit, let him take with him, him that is weak that he may be edified in all meekness, that he may become strong also."

That is what we all should be doing all of the time. Giving of our strength to lift others up. Being in tune with the spirit to bear up others and make them strong also.  In dad's letter he told of mom doing about the same thing- out helping new neighbors clean up their yards after 2 full weeks of her moving into our new home. Her strength never seems to end. I am grateful for that example.

another searcher for the truth, Thorsten

We are so blessed to have the spirit with us always and I have found that it can truly work miracles through us if we are worthy of having it. I had an amazing experience this week with one of our investigators, Thorsten, as I bore my testimony on Christ's love for him. I ended and he said "I can feel the Holy Ghost and all of this just feels right." The strength of the spirit is undeniable and it can lead us to those that need our help and the Lords help. It can speak through us, the truths of this gospel that are all based on love, hope, and peace. I am so grateful to be a missionary. I love it.

Last week was seriously awesome though and it FLEWWW by. I have been on my mission for 3 months! C R A Z Y . but that also doesn't sound like that long of a time hahah...But don't worry I am not ready to come home yet. I still have a lot to see and a lot of people to meet and help and a lot of things to learn.

I love you. Be happy!

Sister Christensen

Life is Beautiful

Swedish Windmills June 2013