Week 68; February 23, 2015 - Photo Album

The Lord of the Rings!

Viking Graffiti? 

Halmstad Ward Members

Claus with Elder Cushing and me

Elder Cushing saying goodbye to Trang and Lassie before transfers

P-day at the beach!

Seems like a bit of California in Sweden

Helping Heekee dig-out his guest house foundation

Removing large rocks

Raina saying goodbye to Elder Cushing

Week 67: February 23. 2015 – The Secret is Work, Work, Work!

Well our last week together has been good. Yep, sadly Elder Cushing is moving back up to Stockholm this week and I'll be getting a new companion, Elder Bybee. It's been an incredible six weeks with Elder Cushing and he's taught me a ton about working hard. We've had some amazing experiences together and I'm so thankful for our time together. He helped me work harder than I've ever worked, and it feels great! He's one of the best missionaries I know and I’m sure he'll do a fantastic job in Stockholm.  

P-day was clear and sunny, over 40 degrees Fahrenheit. By the way, that would be like 4.4 degrees Celsius, but it felt nice to have the temperature well over freezing again. So, we went to look at the ocean and we took some pictures there, it was beautiful and looked more like California than Sweden.   

Later that night we did a swing-by to see a Syrian girl we met and her whole family was there and they listened to the lesson! They didn't have much time, but they invited us over whenever we’d like and they seemed really interested! 

On Tuesday we helped Hekke with his project. We removed some large rocks out of the foundation he was laying for his guest home and we did a lot of digging. I think the worst part is out of the way. One of the members came over later in the week and helped Hekke blow-up the last two large rocks, so the worst part is done and now we can get to the good stuff! 

We visited Karin on Wednesday and she gave me some knitting lessons. So far, I’ve finished about three inches of a 55 stich wide scarf. So needless to say, I'm pretty proud of myself! Later that week we gave her son a blessing and it seemed like it helped. 

Elder Cushing conducted his last district meeting on Thursday and he did a great job teaching us about the atonement. He explained why we need to focus our lessons on Jesus Christ as our top priority. It was a great lesson and we finished-up the transfer with a district party and went bowling! 

Afterward, Elder Clausen and I went on splits to Landskrona about an hour and a half south of Halmstad. We had a great time there, teaching a Muslim guy on the street and then we had a quick meeting with the ward mission leader, ending the night with a fantastically good kebab pizza!

We went back to Halmstad and had a busy day teaching Lena and another family. That night we had our last Innabondi (floor hockey) game. I tried to give Elder Cushing a run for his money. I had one of my best nights and scored a ton, but Elder Cushing scored even more and went out big! I hope my new companion will be as competitive when we play! 

On Saturday we had an amazing lesson together! We found a man named Stefan a few weeks ago and we went by to teach him the second lesson! He loved it and he felt like the plan of salvation answered a lot of his questions. He said he's going to study the Book of Mormon really hard this week and then he hopes we can show him some scriptures to read to build on the lesson. He's definitely moving forward and making great progress!

  

 Later, we went over to Raina's and she was pleased with my knitting process. I think I've mastered the art of knitting, or at least don't ruin it every time! So, she taught me how to do the pearl stich, and I can do it now! 

Sunday was really good. I gave a talk on charity and Elder Cushing gave a talk on hope. They went really well, but Elder Cushing’s talk was fantastic.  

This was one of the busiest and fastest transfers of my mission. Ezra Taft Benson's quote that the secret to missionary work is just, “work, work, work,” is so true. We gave it everything we had over the last six weeks and everything went great! I am super thankful for this area and the time I've had with Elder Cushing and I know we’re both going to sprint to the finish line and give our last month’s our best effort!  

Jag alskar er! (I love you!)

Äldste Stoeltzing 

Week 66, February 9, 2015 – The Healing Power of the Priesthood

This has been quite a week… It's been up and down and everything in between. But it has left me with a stronger testimony of the power of the Priesthood and a knowledge that God's hand guides this work. 

The beginning of the week was really fun. We found a place where we could go bowling super cheaply and we spent the afternoon trying to remember how to bowl. It's been awhile, and I was rusty, but it was still really fun! Afterward, we finished up our letter writing and we planned our week a little more. We ended-up with a fantastic list of goals and high hopes for the week. 

Bowling in Halmstad

On Tuesday, things started getting interesting. We had planned to meet two new investigators with a handful of other lessons. So, we started by teaching Goga, the lady from Croatia we met a few weeks ago. It was up-and-down with her. She has a strong faith in God, but she has no desire to go into a church building. She is very uneasy about organized religion, so she did not seem excited to learn any more about the church. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she said she would at least read it. We've heard so many amazing stories about the Book of Mormon's power to change hearts, so we are praying that as she reads, her heart will soften towards the church in ways that we would never be able to accomplish on our own.   

Later, we went out to tract and we had one of the more interesting experiences I've had on my mission. Right away we found someone that was interested and they asked us to come back next week. After that we got a referral at another door and the family ended-up being really interested as well, and they asked that we come back the next week too. 

The next door approach was funny when this lady opened her door really fast and said “BOO”! She actually startled us a bit. We asked her about faith and she said that she was very religious. We asked her what religion she belonged to and she said, Jehovah’s Witness. There was an awkward silence for a few seconds and she smiled at us. We exchanged cards and moved on to the next door laughing that we had been scared by a JW. The last door we knocked-on ended up turning into a full lesson about family history at the door. She was an interesting lady, probably in her late 40's. But, when she heard we were Americans she reached-out and touched both of our faces... It was pretty weird. But, in the end, she wasn't interested in the church. She just thought that family history and Americans were really cool, so she listened to us for a while. Unfortunately, I started feeling sick, so we went back to rest before teaching our next lesson.

Mohamed was a man we met during my first week in Halmstad, who finally had some time to meet. He's from Syria and he comes from a Muslim background, although he was very respectful of our message and had lots of great questions. He took a Book of Mormon in Arabic and committed to read it. He was really positive and we are hoping to keep meeting with him every week and start teaching him in Swedish as well. 

After visiting with Mohamed I started feeling really sick. I got the shivers and a very bad headache. I was really scared, because we had such a great week planned and I did not want anything to get in our way. We went back to our apartment and we ended-up canceling our last appointment for the day. I tried to rest and got about 30 minutes of sleep, but I woke-up and felt supper hot and I was achy everywhere. I had a temperature of 103. Elder Cushing gave me a blessing and then we called Sister Beckstrand and we decided it would be best if I went to the hospital. José helped us out a ton and drove us across town to take me in. They ran some tests and said I had tonsillitis and possibly the flu. They gave me a bunch of medicine and sent me back. I actually ended-up sleeping really well that night and I slept late into the next day.

When we woke up, I actually felt a lot better. But, Elder Cushing started feeling sick as well, so I gave him a blessing. We took it easy the rest of the day, and by that evening, we were feeling pretty good again. We called Sister Beckstrand and told her about our recovery, and she said that it would be okay if we came down to Malmö the next day for our mission conference.  

Welcome to Malmo!

When we woke up for conference we felt great! It was a miracle! The conference was awesome!  President Beckstrand introduced our new standards of excellence and then we got to watch a new movie called, Meet the Mormons! It was really good and it was a very cool surprise that we all finally got to see it! The Beckstrand's had to pull some strings to get it here for us to see and we were all really excited. 

Later that night we taught Raustin, the man that we had met Sunday night when we felt like we needed to go back out and street contact. He was awesome! He's only lived in Sweden about as long as I have, and he’s been looking for some friends. He's interested in studying religion and he thought it would be cool to learn about a new faith that he didn't know too much about. He accepted a Book of Mormon as well!  

After the lesson Elder Cushing told me that he knew we'd regain our health on Wednesday. He asked me if I remembered the words that were said in both of our blessings that we had given each other, I couldn't recall, but he said in the blessing he had said that my sickness would pass quickly and it would not hinder me. He said when I gave him a blessing, I had used the same phrase that the sickness would not hinder him. I didn't remember too much more about what I said, but he told me as soon as I said that, he knew everything would be okay with us. It was incredible that on Tuesday night I felt as sick as could be, and by Thursday night we both felt close to 100% again. It was scary that we both got so sick, but we really felt the hand of the Lord take care of us and we both received a powerful witness of the healing power of the Priesthood.
  

We felt so good, we even helped our ward mission leader with some construction work on Friday and we still felt like we were getting better. 

The rest of the week we ended-up finding three more potential investigators and setting-up two more lessons with new investigators, and I even learned to knit along the way! Even though our contacting time was shortened due to our illness, this week was incredible. God saw that we turned to him when we were sick and He quickly helped us back on our feet. Despite the loss of time, He helped us find as many, or more people to teach than we would usually find in a normal week.        

I know the power of the Priesthood can work miracles. And, for me, this week was nothing short of a miracle! I thought I'd be sick in bed for at least three or four days, but the Lord’s work needed to be done and were blessed greatly!  I am so thankful for every week I have to serve here in Halmstad, and for the amazing help that God is giving to us! 

I hope everyone has an amazing week… Thanks for reading!!!

Äldste Stoeltzing 

Week 65; February 2, 2015 – A Birthday to Remember!

Wow this has been an amazing week! There were some challenges along the way, but the Lord really blessed us and some great things happened. Oh yeah, I guess I'm an official adult to now… I’m 21 years old!  

On Monday we met with Jeff and heard his stories of when he used to work in a recording studio in Los Angeles. We also got to hear his story about how he was married to David Hasselhoff’s sister, so that was interesting. We also started talking about how we could help him start preparing to attend the temple.  

Tuesday was hard. A lot of appointments cancelled on us, but we contacted a lot of others and just worked hard, and it felt good! 

On Wednesday, we had the apartment inspection couple come by our place. They liked the job we did cleaning it and then took us shopping for some new lamps and they got us a fast boiling kettle for hot chocolate. Later, we provided some service for a member and helped her take down her Christmas decorations. We then visited with Ingvar again and gave her a message about the Plan of Salvation with our ward mission leader. 

Thursday was a really cool day. We were going on splits, and we had a beautiful day planned that just sort of feel apart. All three of our lessons called us and said this week just wouldn't work for them, so a busy day turned into a pretty open day. Elder George and I decided not to let it get the better of us and we decided to go for it. We contacted about 30 people in the middle of a snow storm, and the decided that wasn't going anywhere, so we started tracting and doing swing-bys. The first door we knocked on was someone that Elders Brown and Cushing contacted. He'd been kind of hard to get ahold of, but he said we could come back on Saturday! Afterward, we tracted a little more and we found a man that accepted a Book of Mormon and we taught him a lesson about the restoration of the gospel. We stopped by another person’s home, but she said she wasn't interested, but she asked us to try her neighbor up stairs. Her neighbor let us in and we taught a lesson to her. It turned-out that she wasn't too interested either, but it was allot better than tracting in the cold. Otherwise, it turned out to be a great day that actually began with nothing.  

Friday was awesome! Before we went back to our regular companions, Elder George and I taught one of our investigators named Ann-Sofie. We had a “get to know you” lesson during our first-time meeting with her, but this time we taught her a full lesson about the restoration. She really enjoyed the message and accepted our challenge of Reading the Book of Mormon. She also said if she knew it was true she would be willing to take action, but wanted to read the book first, before she made any bigger commitments. But, she is definitely embracing the idea of moving forward!

On Saturday we taught Stephan and we didn't really know what to expect. He's in his early 60's and he’s had a lot of Snus out on his table (that's a Swedish tobacco product similar to chewing tobacco. The lesson went really great though, and we had answers to questions that he'd wondering about his whole life. He agreed with nearly everything we taught him! He also said if the Book of Mormon felt right and he continued to feel right, he would be open to baptism in the future as well!

Later that night we met a lady named Raine. She's probably one of the coolest people I've ever met and she always teaches us how to cook a new dish every time we go over. This time she taught us how to make Pasta Carbonara which was a lot simpler then I thought it would be. Her birthday was the day after mine, so we had a little party together! 

Sunday was a Birthday to remember… It started off Amazing! Elder Cushing, Senja, and my Mom pulled-off the best present I've ever had for a Birthday! The three of them planned a way to have emails sent from my home ward and from my relatives. Then Senja printed them all off for me and I got an envelope with all of the letters from everyone back home on Sunday! It was so awesome to read all of those! Thank you to everyone that sent a letter!!! 

Afterward, we went to the first counselor, José's, home for dinner. An investigator ended-up a cancelling, so we stayed at José's longer than we had planned. A member called and said she was really sick. We told her we were at José's and she was really thankful because his wife Tina is a nurse. She told us everything she needed and then we bought her medicine and drinks to help her feel better. Then we gave her a blessing. José dropped us off, and we had planned on just calling it a night and making some phone calls, but we both felt we needed to be out a little longer and that we'd find someone else that night.  We contacted people in town for a while and got some bad rejections. We prayed again and felt even stronger that we needed to be out. So, we got rejected six or seven more times and we decided to contact a few more people down to the end of the street. There was hardly anyone out and we got three more no's. At the very end of the street a man walked out in front of us and we asked him if he'd be interested in talking about Jesus Christ. He said he be happy to, and he gave us his number. It was an amazing lesson in faith. I know we were guided by the Holy Ghost that night. 

It was a great end to a great week. A week like this would have crushed me in the past. Even though we had ten cancelations, we worked our hardest and trusted the Lord and we ended up finding almost as many new opportunities as we had originally planned on. So, the Lord really did help us make this week count!

I hope everyone has a great week… Thanks for Reading!!!

Aldste Stoeltzing 

Week 64: January 26, 2015 – It’s All About The Food! 

Another fantastic week! Things are going so good and the work is really picking up!

Monday we visited a less-active member named Riana. She’s probably the coolest lady on earth! She's in her 60's, but she plays video games recreationally, and she is a crazy good cook! She taught us how to make authentic Swedish meat balls! They were 100 times better than the out-of-the-bag stuff we usually eat. 

  

Swedish Meatballs Anyone?

Tuesday was awesome too! Elder Cushing taught a district meeting about planning. Afterward we ate at my favorite place, Cleopatra's, and had another outstanding pizza. The rest of the day was pretty cool. I finally got to go on splits with Elder Corbin, one of my old MTC friends. We taught a lesson then set-up another lesson while doing swing-byes.  

Elder Cushing and I set a goal that we would both find as many new contacts as possible during our time apart on splits, and the number we were shooting for was 40. We had an open hour and we decided to buckle down and go on a contacting marathon. It was amazing! The first guy we talked to said he had investigated the church in a city called Borås and he had lost contact with missionaries after he moved. He said he would be excited to meet again and he wanted us to call him early next week. I feel like we set a big goal and had the intention of doing it, so we were blessed right away. We had enough positive energy to speak with 30 more people. We also ended-up teaching a good street lesson, before we went to our last appointment.  

We taught a less-active named Carl who is one of the ward’s few young adults that lives close enough to get church, and they really want to see him come back. We're trying to build a close relationship with him, so he will want to come back to church. He opened-up to us about some of his struggles and gave us an idea about how we should move forward with him.  

Afterward, we went back and I shared a lesson over the phone with the best new member in the world named Claus. He is the most fired-up person for the gospel that I think I've ever met. He has been going through some hard times, so I called to give a little support. It went really well and we shared some scriptures and prayed together before ending the call.  

On Wednesday we switched back to our regular companionships and we met with Ingvar again. She said that she'd come to church this week, so that was awesome! Then, on Thursday, Carl got us some free gym passes and we both lifted weights for the first time on our mission. I had a big ego in the weight room before I left, but this time I was going as light as possible. Carl kept telling me to lift more, but I had no desire to show off. Even going super light we both felt really sore and realized we need to get gym memberships when we get back. Neither of us are as strong as we used to be. Ha-ha!  

Friday was a great day of contacting. We both felt super tired from lifting, but we planned another big contacting day. We didn't know where we'd get the energy to do it, but we got a nice helping hand almost as soon as we got out the door. We both felt like we needed to contact the first lady we saw, and as soon as we stopped her she just lit up. She spoke English and was from Croatia. I told her about my old Stake President, President Hill, who had served there as a Mission President for three years. She thought it was so fantastic that people like us were serving missions in Croatia also. She absolutely loved Christ and shared her testimony of him with us. 

She was one of the happiest people I've met during my whole mission. We asked her what her secret was about being happy. She said, in Sweden and America people have money and they like to buy things. She explained that people get so caught-up in social media and buying bigger and better toys than everyone else, that they forget each other. She said her secret to being happy was to focus as much energy as possible on other people and making them happy. She said she plays the accordion in the street for a living and she couldn't possibly be happier, because she gets to share her passion, music, all day long with people. She taught me a lot that day and we’re so excited to meet with her again this Tuesday. Her name is Goga, by the way.

We had another great contact later that day and we met a girl in her early 20's named Victoria. She said she was an atheist, which is a pretty common thing to hear for people her age. But, I felt like she was different, so we kept talking and she said she'd actually be really interested to hear what we have to talk about, so we'll also be meeting with her in the upcoming week!  

That night we had our last innebandi (Floorball) night with one of the YSA's named Sam. He's probably the best player I've ever seen and he scored more goals than I could count! I'm really sad that he's moving, but we'll see him around, he's just going down to Helsingborg. I'll probably score a little more from now on… Ha-ha!

Saturday was another awesome day! We helped a member move his daughter out and then went to the Bishop’s home to do some service for him. We moved fire wood into his cellar and we rode in the back of his tractor. We had a giant sausage called korv, stuffed with cheese and onions for lunch. It was kind of ironic because a few nights before, we made a similar meal, except we stuffed it with bacon and put garlic butter over the top. That was pretty good too. They used a Finnish mustard that I've never had before and it defiantly beat ours! But yeah, the Lindahl's was still the best!  

Later that day we went over to Lassie's house. Trang was out of town, but we kept him company and played some guitar with him.

Sunday was great. The stake Relief Society came, so we got to teach the primary kids, it was the best! The Stake Relief Society actually said that she served in the Sacramento Mission! That was way cool and the best part was that she served in Rancho Cordova and Carmichael was in her district! You've got to love the small world of Mormonism! She's probably the first person I've ever met in Sweden that actually knew where Carmichael was and had also been there!  

After church we planned some more and we had a family night with Karin and her son. She's recovering really well from her broken knee. We got to help her feel better, but she always leaves us feeling a lot better too!  

Well, awesome week… I love it here and we've been really blessed!  I love you all and I hope everyone has a great week! 

Aldste Stoeltzing

Week 63: January 19, 2015 – The Metropolis of Malmö!  

Wow, this has been one of the best weeks of my mission! The work in Halmstad is going really well! We did our best this week and the Lord has blessed us so much!  

The week started great! After our P-day we went to dinner with the Bishop’s family. They are the best people in the world! The ward here is tiny, but the two of them are fantastic! They make you feel like family right away! 

Tuesday was great as well. We visited another member that was just as fantastic! Her name is Karin. We've been visiting her a lot because she fell and broke her knee, but she's probably the toughest person I know. She broke it less than a week ago and she’s already walking on it. In fact, she's so determined to recover quickly, you can barely tell she just had a major injury. Anyway, she is a super positive person and she also helped me feel super welcome here. Later that day we visited a member by the name of Paula who is just starting to come back. She had some questions about prayer, so we did our best to help her understand her challenges associated with prayer. It was a really good lesson and it gave us a lot to prepare for our next meeting.

The following day, we held “open church” and we made tacos with Marcus, one of our investigators. That night we visited another less-active lady. She used to be in a traveling jazz band called The Five Swedes. We played guitar together then we listened to her stories about her old band.  

Thursday was our zone training meeting. Finally, after months of waiting I got the opportunity to go to Sweden’s southern metropolis of Malmö. I've wanted to see it my whole mission and it was awesome! The training was super good. Elders Barker and Krebs presented goal setting messages and taught us about becoming united as a zone to find and prepare at least three people for baptism before the end of the next transfer. 

After our training, I got to go on splits in Malmö!  It was awesome, I went with Elder Krebs and we taught four times during our half-day together. We literally had no down time! The best lesson we taught was with a guy from Gaza. He had an amazing story about how he became a Christian and how he made his way to Sweden. He had some concerns with the Book of Mormon, but we clarified them and shared our testimonies. At the end, he committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon! Next we went to a member’s house and ate African food, it was a bit different, but it was super good! It was beef in a traditional spicy sauce. It was a chunky dark brown sauce, that didn't look like much, but it packed a punch and had a great spicy, tangy sort of flavor.

We ended the night teaching a less-active member that spoke a very old version of the Skånish dialect. Many people consider modern Skånish one of the hardest dialects to understand in Sweden because of the Danish influence on it. Old Skånish was next to impossible to understand, but fortunately we brought a member that had lived there his whole life and he covered for us. Elder Krebs understood most of it, but next to actually hearing real Danish, this was the hardest Swedish dialect I've ever heard.  

The next day we got to have lunch at one of the best Pizzeria’s in Sweden, Lamari's, and it was quite an experience! The kebab meat was incredible. I was honestly expecting a little more because the place was pretty talked-up, but it was still potentially the best pizza I've had in Sweden. We've found a place in Halmstad, however, that gives it a run for its money, Cleopatra's. The kebab isn't quite as good there, but the sauce is world class! After lunch we did another open church, unfortunately Elder Krebs got sick. We think the African food caught up to him. Later, we went to a lady the Sister missionaries were working with and we gave her a blessing. We ended the evening with sports night with innebandi (Floorball) and soccer. My team didn't do so well, but it was super fun anyway. 

We switched back with our regular companions the next day and Elder Cushing said his time with Elder Barker went fantastic. They found a new investigator named Mulay from Eritrea, the small country between Ethiopia and Sudan. They'd also taught a ton of lessons in Halmstad, so things went great. We taught a few more discussions and ended the week with 20 lessons! It was a fantastic week and things are really moving forward with in this area!

Love you guys!

Aldste Stoeltzing    

Week 62; January 12, 2015 – At Home in Halmstad!

Great week! My last P-day in Stockholm was super fun. A lot of us met in the Young Single Adult (YSA) center to hang out before transfers. I'm sad to leave everyone up in Stockholm, but at least Elder Mott will be in my new district. Elder Moe trained him and he's been in Stockholm for the last six months. I said goodbye to all the other missionaries and I went to my last dinner at a member’s home in Stockholm.

Hello Halmstad!

It was a dinner to remember! So, one of our favorite members, by the name of Mama Phyllis, wanted us over before Elder Neilson and I moved. So, she made her specialty, an African dish called Fufu.

Enjoying a traditional African dish called Fufu!

Basically, Fufu is a giant ball of dough-like stuff that you put in a soup that's sort of similar to gumbo. It was made with shrimp and beef. The dough ball sticks out of the soup and you eat it with your hands. What you do is rip-off a peace of the dough and dip it in the soup then swallow it whole. It may sound a little strange, but I thought it was awesome! Mama Phyllis will actually be going back to Ghana for an 18 month service mission and she is very excited.

  

Farewell Stockholm

Tuesday was pretty uneventful. We did some swing-by's and I taught my last lesson in the area with a nice less-active guy named Ralph.  Afterwards, I spent the night packing. And boy, was it hard to get my suit cases zipped-up!  

Wednesday was the big move! We went in to Stockholm and I said goodbye to Elder Ogaard. I couldn't sleep much on the train though, I was a little anxious about the transfer. I got to Göteborg central after about three hours. It felt like coming home. I've missed Göteborg so much. A man saw me struggling with my luggage. He said let me help you and brought me to my platform. He sat my bags down and looked me in the eye and said don't worry, everything’s going to be okay… You'll do great, and then he walked away. Very Christlike!

The train ride down was awesome! I sat next to a lady with a young kid. She was afraid her kid would cause trouble, but I played with the kid the whole time and kept her laughing the whole ride down. I made her laugh so much we kept the whole train entertained! People like watching happy little kids as much as they dislike crying kids, so her Mom was super thankful that I was there! 

Halmstad is beautiful! I met my new companion, Elder Cushing at about 8:30 and he took me to the apartment. The town is perfect, it’s not too big, and not too small. It's the 20th largest city in Sweden and it already feels like home. The apartment is awesome! It's not too big and not too small as well. Everything here already feels really good! 

On Thursday we went down to one of the most beautiful cities in Sweden, Helsingborg, for district meeting! It was amazing, it had a huge castle in the middle of town, and you can see Denmark across the bay from there. We met the rest of the district and I'm super happy to be working with these guys. There are a lot of good friends that I've met through my mission in this district, so everyone already loves each other! 

The meeting started in literally the coolest way possible. We were all talking in the lobby before the meeting and a women walked in and said that she felt the strangest impression that she needed to look into our church. We we're all a little shocked actually. It’s very, very rare in Sweden for someone to just walk in! We were a little taken back at first and thought that we were being pranked, but Elder Clausen jumped in and started teaching her. She said she wanted to move across the street and asked if we could actually give her a blessing, or if we even did those things. Surprised, we said of course, and we all gave her a blessing. She said she'd be happy to come back to the Church when she gets the apartment! It was the coolest way ever to start-out in a new district! Elder Cushing’s lesson in our district meeting was awesome, it was about being a light to everyone we meet. 

Elders Stoeltzing and Cushing

That night we met a handful of investigators and less-active members that we will be working with. They we're awesome and I already feel really connected to the people in this area! Friday was another great day. We met a guy named Marcus that came to play floor hockey with us! It's really good to participate in sports night and play my favorite sport again!

Church was great! The ward here is small, but they are mighty and they make you feel like family right away. I love them and can't wait to work side-by-side with them. The stake President came and helped the ward build a vision to re-activate young adults. It was the best way to start-out in a ward and it helped us feel united in the work! I can't wait to get to know them better! 

Well this has been a beautiful start to serving in a new area! I love it here, I love the people here, and I can't wait to give it my all! 

I Love you guys and I hope everyone has a great week back home… Your all the best! 

Äldste Stoeltzing