Christmas Letter

Dear friends and family,

 

I'm nearing the 7-month mark on my mission, and so far, it has been an incredible experience. I will forever be grateful for this unique opportunity to serve the Lord and to impact so many lives. I've learned a lot and I'm really enjoying it!

 

I spent 2 amazing months in the MTC, and now I've been in Sweden for almost 5 months. I've spent that time serving in the beautiful city of Karlstad, Sweden. It's right on the north tip of the biggest lake in Sweden. The greenery and the water remind me so much of Washington. The weather has been fun (a sunny summer, a rainy fall and a very cold winter). And I've got to know so many great people, both in our friendly little branch and as I walk the same streets over and over again. I love it here.

 

I've grown so much closer to our Savior in this time. I've seen Him work miracles in the lives of others--changing their hearts, healing and strengthening them. He loves His children so much, and it's been incredible to be so involved with that work.

 

To sum up how it feels, I would like to quote 2 Nephi 26:24-25.

 

"He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him. Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation.

 

"Behold, doth he cry unto any, saying: Depart from me? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; but he saith: Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price."

 

I'm being transferred soon, and it will be exciting to meet a new set of people and to take part in a new work. God definitely has a plan for Karlstad--I've seen that time and time again. I'm looking forward to getting to know the plan He has for the next city I will serve in.

 

I know that Christ loves each and every one of us. And I know that through Him we can be saved. Nothing is beyond His power to save, and He wants nothing more than to have us back in His loving presence. It is such a privilege to participate in that work, helping His children prepare for that day.

 

I wish you all the best! Have a very merry Christmas!

 

Äldste Lawrence

Note from the Mission Home

Dear Brother & Sister Lawrence,

Just a quick note to let you know Äldste Lawrence arrived safely in Sweden and we just love him.  In the next two days he will go through further training, find out who his first companion will be, and what area he will be serving in; I’ll send you more information at that time. 

We appreciate the sacrifice you and your family are making so Äldste Lawrence can share the gospel with those who have been prepared for him here in Sweden.

Kindest regards,

Syster Oscarson

Mission Office Secretary

Last Letter from the MTC

HI! Everything is great!

 

So we got our travel plans! It turns out that we're leaving on SUNDAY! The 15th! Super cool! We report to the travel office at 5:00 AM. Our flight leaves at 8:30 AM and it's a 5 hour flight to JFK in New York. We're there from 3:11 to 5:10 and then we take an 8.5 hour flight to Sweden and land at 7:45 AM. That should be really fun! I've never been to New York before, let alone Sweden! Hopefully I'll be able to talk to some people on the way and have some great experiences.

 

I bought a cheap calling card ($3.50) that should work at the airport. If there's time I might try and call before my flight in SLC, so anytime from 5:30-7:30 your time. I have no idea, so I guess just have the phone close. Then I'll definitely try to call in NY, but that's such a quick layover I might not have much time. But maybe from 12:30-2:00 your time. I guess you'll have to miss the last two hours of church! Sorry!

 

I'm looking forward to talking with you. :) Hopefully that all works out okay.

 

I've heard that I'll get a chance to email home when I get there. Mondays are P-days. I'm not sure when I'll know my address, but I'll get it to you when I can.

 

Mom, when you find out my address in Sweden, could you get it to Kaylyn? It would take me awhile to get it to her otherwise, so that would really help a lot. Thanks!

 

Apparently there's a facebook group where Sister Newell puts up all kinds of stuff about the missionaries. Maybe you should find and stay informed.

 

So Dear Elder tomorrow is the last chance you'll have to contact me before I leave. I'm pretty sure I have everything I need. My money and bags should work.

 

Some cool stories: Last week we got to clean the Provo temple! It's closed this month, so they assigned us to go over there and volunteer for a few hours. That was really cool! And it was super weird to see the temple in disrepair, with custodial closets open, wallpaper taken off and everything not in use. We cleaned the men's and women's ordinance worker locker rooms with toothbrushes and toothpicks. I actually enjoyed it since it was in the temple.

 

On Friday in the TRC Elder Tomlinson and I got to teach a whole family! The mother spoke really good Swedish, though with an American accent so it was easy to understand. She learned from her parents, and she's been teacher her kids, who were really good. The 14-year old girl and the 10-year old boy were excellent. The 1-year old boy was super cute! When the mother asked him, "Var är missionärerna?" (Where are the missionaries?) he looked right at us! And she had a 12-year old non-member step daughter who couldn't speak Swedish very much. I hope that was a good experience for her.

 

We taught how to receive answers through prayer. The Swedish in that lesson was just flowing. It was so cool! The mother said at one point, "Of course prayer works! Your Swedish is amazing! It's the gift of tongues!" It was so cool that we had that miracle to really make it an impactful lesson for the family.

 

I feel that I'm basically ready for Sweden. It will be a shock, but there's not much more I can learn here. So here I go!

 

Last Friday we had a super epic soccer game. It was 6 Britts verses 5 Americans, and somehow it was actually quite evenly matched! I like playing with fewer players like that because we all participate quite a bit. I usually play defense, but halfway through I got moved to offense. At the very end of the game, I was running towards the goal on the left side, and got this awesome cross to me. I sped up as much as I could and was able to get my right foot on it. It bounced in the air right in front of me, and I smashed it with my left past Elder Tomlinson's fingers, behind the crossbar and into the top of the goal. It was so awesome! Elder Tomlinson later described it as a "screamer" because of how everyone reacted. :) Run, bounce, smash. Yes.

 

Mom, that's really funny about Sister Hess speaking Swedish to you. I wonder how good she is. It'll be fun to converse with her when I get back.

 

Yesterday we learned that Äldste is actually an adjective rather than a noun. Brother Winegar told us about one elder he knew named Äldste Drake, which translated literally as "Oldest Dragon." YES! :D

 

Elder Tomlinson and I have been teaching two of our teachers as investigators. One of them, Viktor, got "baptized" last Saturday! It was really cool to work with him to get all the way there. I'm looking forward to real experiences like that in the field.

 

Yesterday we got to host again and help the arriving missionaries get their nametag, keys and books, find their residence nad get to their classroom. That was really cool! I helped an Elder Atwood from Alberta going to Provo, and an Elder Christiansen from Sandy, UT going to Thailand. That moment when they get out of the car and say good-bye for two years is crazy intense. And to see that repeated over and over again down the sidewalk! I was glad to be able to help those two elders in that very critical part of their mission--the very beginning.

 

I hope all is well for all of you. I hope you're enjoying your summer! I'm SO excited to get to Sweden! I'll take lots of pictures and send home plenty in letters. Hopefull you'll be able to experience some of that with me. I'll have plenty to talk about when I get home.

 

I finally feel like a real missionary. I'm ready to do this. This last week was so great! I've had so many amazing experiences and I've grown tons. Thank you so much for all of your prayers! I can feel them.

 

I know this church is true. I can feel Christ's love for me constantly. I'm so excited to share that good news with the world!

 

Love,

Elder Lawrence

Fourth of July with a British Companion

The 4th of July was pretty good here. We had a special devotional that was a lot of fun (including 2000 missionaries singing Popcorn Popping and Once There Was A Snowman). Then we got to go outside and watch the firework show over The Stadium of Fire from a distance. It was funny to be 2.5 seconds away by sound. I'd never seen a real show like that, so it was way cool to see such huge fireworks. Though nothing could compare with watching all of Marysville blow up. I hope you all had a great day. And Jacob, I hope you had a FANTASTIC birthday!

 

We all got way into it, even reading 1 Nephi 13 together in class. Elder Tomlinson was really funny. He made fun of us for stealing the tune (pronounced chune) of God Save the Queen for My Country Tis of Thee. The idea at the fireside was that we're celebrating all nations' freedom, but Elder Tomlinson just likes to make fun of America. The way he says the word "dollars" is so funny--it's just not natural on his tongue!

 

On Tuesday we had Elder Kikuchi speak to us. He told us about how he was sitting on his couch relaxing after just being released from 36 years of service in the First Quorum of the Seventy when he got a call asking him to speak. Lol. :D He's REALLY funny, so it was great to see him! Especially since I have such fond memories of him coming to our stake conference all those years ago.

 

That's so cool about Kimball's mission call! I hope he really enjoys it. I happen to like Provo a lot, so I'm excited for him.

 

Elder Tomlinson was telling us about how growing up they would play in the castle in their backyard, which dates back to about 800 AD. What a different world! Our house was forest until 10 years ago.

 

I leave pretty soon now. Wow! I'm really excited, and I'm striving to make this last week and a half here as effective as possible. We don't have our travel plans yet, but we're pretty sure we're leaving on Monday the 16th. And we do have our visas already. I'm excited.

 

Sweden is one of the few missions in the world that has 9-week transfers. So I'll have 10 of those while I'm there (with one of them being 5 weeks longer). President Newell was called last June, so he'll be there until just after I leave. Apparently he doesn't do a lot of transfers, so I'll have maybe 4 or 5 areas my whole time there. That should be really fun! I'll let you know where I'll be when I can. Brother Bush, one of our teachers, was an AP and he says that we'll get a chance to email home the first day we're there.

 

They say paper mail takes about a week and a half to get there and a week to get back. That's not too long. Though it will be hard without the convenience of getting Dear Elders almost every day. That really does a lot to boost me. The work isn't the hard part, it's being so far away from those I'm closest to. But I'm doing fine. I'll have a lot to talk about when I get home! Until then, this will have to do.

 

Thinking about having to talk to people in the airport and then on the streets of Sweden when we get there is a little scary though. This is real!

 

Maybe someday I'll come back and be an MTC teacher. That would be a really cool thing to do.

 

I had a really spiritual experience in the TRC last week. We were teaching a member about the restoration, and when I told Joseph Smith's record of the first vision from memory (in Swedish of course) it was so powerful. That's the strongest I've ever felt the spirit in a lesson before! I'm sure I'll have many many more amazing experiences.

 

And I like Swedish a lot. Mybe I'll get stuck there forever. :)

 

Jacob, I hope your health is doing well. Stay strong! I'm proud of you.

 

Jag kan försäkta att skriv på Svenska. Jag kan Svenska bra nu! Jag hoppas att jag kan lära mig merr Svenka i Sverige.

 

Jag vet att Mormons Bok är sann. Jag är så tacksam för Guds kärlek till mig! Jag kan känna det varje dag. Jag vet att Han kan ge mig styrke och att jag kan göra detta.

 

I hope that I spelled everything right! I can say most things now, which is SO cool! Hopefully it won't take me too long in Sweden to be able to speak and understand comfortably.

 

I love you all very much! Know that I'm doing really well here. I think about you quite a bit, and I'm so grateful for your support. Thanks for everything!

 

Love,

Äldste Lawrence

This weekend was the New Mission Presidents' Seminar, so 110 new mission presidents and almost all the apostles were wandering around the whole time. We hardly saw them at all because security was so tight around the admin building, but Brother Harris, our teacher, got to help out with the whole thing since he's been a teacher for a year and a half. He told us about how he saw 13 of the 15 apostles (Elders Packer and Hales weren't there) and shook hands with about 10 of them. President Monson even made fun of him for being 23 and not married! :) And Elder Oaks gave him a hug because he does that for everyone he meets named Dallin. What a great group of people! It was fun to hear some stories about them all having a good time.

 

Also, Presidident Monson had a tie on with a bunch of world flags. Brother Harris said he overheard him say, "Do you know what flag this is?" pointing at one of them. When the person he was talking to didn't know he said, "It's Sweden!" Yes. :)

 

We spent all weekend checking everyone we saw with the question, "Is that an apostle?" but the real event was the Tuesday night devotional. Just before it started, 10 apostles and their wives walked in. Wow. It was the whole Quorum of the 12 except for Elders Packer and Hales, and they brought such a power to the room! Elder Perry gave a great talk, and his testimony at the end was very powerful as the 9 other apostles behind him all joined in in spirit. What a meeting to be at!

 

That morning we washed windows, and it was cool to know that I was the one who washed the glass doors that 10 apostles walked through 7 hours later to get into the building for the meeting. Awesome, right? :D

 

Another amazing experience: On the Sunday night Devotional, we sang We'll Bring the World His Truth for the opening hymn. That song is meant to be sung with a little over 2000 missionaries. There's just no other way. :D

 

We get mail twice a day, right after lunch and then dinner (1:00 and 6:00). Except not Sundays and just afternoons on Saturdays. We all go to the mail room together and the district leader gets it from the box and hands it out. Elder Francom is our new district leader.

 

I often get letters from Kaylyn, and I've gotten some from some other friends, including April and Jenni. Mail means SO much to a missionary, so I'm grateful for everything I've received.

 

Apparently the article in The Times (a London newspaper) is out now. Maybe it's online--I don't know.

 

Jacob, I found you in the new testament! It's Mark 5:9. :D Keep it up you vast body of the priesthood!

 

Did Bishop Kent go to Denmark on his mission? I can't remember. If he did, that's really cool because I can pretty much understand Dainish now. It's weird but fun. Since we have a lot of ancestry there, Jacob might go there. That would be REALLY fun. :D

 

Every Friday we get to teach at the TRC where real people come in and we teach them as themselves in Swedish. That's always really fun! Last week we taught Marcus Mathews, who is apparently on the BYU football team. That's cool I guess.

 

Fun fact: In Swedish, "dog" means "died." I think you might appreciate that.

 

We learned a new word this week. It's jo (pronounced yo). It's a disagreeing yes, so if someone asks, "Did you forget to do your studying?" you can say, "Jo!" meaning, yes I did it or no I didn't forget. That's so useful! English is confusing!

 

We also like Elder Day's name. Day sounds like dig which means you in Swedish. They other way, day is dag (pronounced dog) in Swedish, and dog is hund in Swedish. So he has a lot of names, leading to a lot of puns. It's funny.

 

I know this church is true. I know that God cares about each one of us and is guiding our lives. I hope to learn how to better follow His will. His will is to bring the salvation of every one of His children. He's preparing each one of them to hear the gospel constantly. So I hope to be the best tool in His hands I can be to bring to pass that marvelous work.

 

I love you all very much! Thanks for all you've taught me and every opportunity you've given me to learn and grow, spiritually, musically and socially. Things are great here. I'm so excited for Sweden!

 

You're all in my prayers.

 

Love,

Elder Lawrence

Playing for Sister Elaine S. Dalton

HI!! Things are really well! I'm still improving on the Swedish and I'm looking forward to Sweden! It's getting closer!

 

Apparently I'll get to call you at the airport. I'll let you know if I find out any more info, but I'm pretty sure we're travelling on July 16th.

 

So I have a really cool story! I told you about how I accompanied Sister Ewell (pronounced Yule) auditioning last Thursday singing Savior, Redeemer of My Soul. That went really well and we were selected to be the musical number at the combined MTC Relief Society meeting last Sunday.

 

And guess what? Sister Elaine S. Dalton, the Young Women's General President, was the guest speaker! The spirit was SO strong when she walked in the room! The musical number went really well, and it was such a privilege to be able to play for Sister Dalton. That was an experience I'll never forget!

 

When we finished, Sister Dalton had us come up to the pulpit with her, along with the sister from Rome and her companion, who started the meeting with her conversion story. She said we were examples of extraordinary people. She said it was an incredible opportunity to all meet together like that, and to me she said, "You are a very lucky elder. Aren't you glad your mom made you practice?" She talked about how everything has a purpose, and how that was evident in our mission calls. About mine she said, "You're going to Sweden? You look so Swedish! You will fit right in. You will find your people." That was really cool.

 

It turned out that Sister Ewell was the one who gave the prayer at A Brand New Year 2009 and sat by Sister Dalton then. That was a powerful moment. Sister Dalton said, "I always pay attention when I meet someone twice."

 

So I won't ever make fun of Sister Dalton or ABNY 2009 again. That experience was just too powerful.

 

Sister Dalton then said that the message of our musical number was so powerful and relevant that she wanted us to do it again from the second verse to the end. That was so powerful. After that perfect moment, Sister Dalton gave us each a big smile and then Elder Tomlinson and I excused ourselves from the meeting as we had been previously asked.

 

What a miracle! I wanted to share my talents, and God dropped that INCREDIBLE opportunity right into my lap! That was really cool. And now I can say that Sister Dalton likes my piano playing. :D

 

I got all kinds of compliments that whole day, and it was nice to know that I had a real effect on the meeting. Sister Waitts, my branch president's wife, said she really admired my accompanying skills, how I let the singer shine but made it an equal performance between the two of us. So thanks Mom for all the experience you gave me to develop that skill! It gave me an opportunity I'll never forget.

 

Other than that, some other cool things happened this week. I finally convinced Elder Francom to go with me to choir. We sang Mack Wilberg's arrangement of Lead Kindly Light, which was really cool. I've done it before, but not in a choir of 530! We performed it at the devotional on Tuesday, which was great.

 

Soccer has been fun! There are 4 Elders from Brittain going to Greece that have been playing with us. It's so much fun to play soccer with 5 Britts on my team! Jacob, I'm sure you're a little jealous. :) I'm slowly getting better.

 

Apparently England beat Sweden in the World Cup 3-2. Beforehand, Elder Tomlinson wasn't sure which team to support since he's not too pleased with England's team right now. But when England won he was really happy. It was funny. :)

 

On Friday we were all sitting in class and we were like, "Hey, it's Friday. What plans do you have tonight?" And we were like, "Oh, some basketball, maybe a little language study, etc." Then a teacher walked in and we asked him. He was like, "I'm going to dinner with a date, watching a movie, etc." It was depressing. :D I almost forget what real life is like! But life is good now.

 

Apparently there's a Sweden Missionary Moms website (maybe on facebook?) that is really cool and super exclusive. Mom, maybe you can find it! Apparently some moms of elders in our district are talking.

 

Sheri Dew spoke on Sunday. That was really good!

 

You can go ahead and send me back the SD card. First though, make sure it still works. I'll try to send you copies of pictures on another card in a padded envelope. Hopefully that works!

 

Also, could you send me that book of Marshall McDonald piano solos? I feel like I might need it at some point. Also, could you send me about 25 sheet protectors? The few I have are working really well for organizing papers, and I need some more.

 

Elder Tomlinson got to go do a session in the Salt Lake temple last Friday. I hope to do that someday because it sounded way cool! I'll admit, I missed him while he was gone. :) When you get used to being with someone 24/7, it's weird when they're gone! He's a great guy and I'm glad he's my companion.

 

I love you all very much. Thanks for everything!

 

I know that this church is true. I know that God WANTS us to succeed more than we can know, and so everything is being taken care of. If our wills are aligned with his, he WILL guide us. We CAN succeed. I am so grateful for that guidance and love in my life. Hopefully I can share that with the Svenska folket.

 

You're all amazing! You have my prayers!

 

Elder Lawrence

Swedish Fish

"But we've been here a month already." --Obi-Wan Kenobi

HI! Everything is going well! Every day is a little better, and I'm finally to the point where I'm enjoying it here. :)

Now I'll try and write a cheerful letter. :)

Elder Per G. Malm of the Seventy came on Tuesday to speak. It was really cool because he's Swedish! He even told us how to say Shadrach, Meeshach and Abednego in Swedish, "for any of you going to Sweden." YES! He's a really cool guy.

The guy from the BBC came on Friday. He was really cool! Elder Tomlinson, Elder Tietjen and I all answered some questions He wrote down our answers and got our names and pictures, so we'll probably all be quoted. I'll get you the link when the article comes out.

After two weeks of volleyball, we played soccer again yesterday. That was fun! It turns out that Elder Tomlinson didn't ever play for Notts County FC, he just has their jersey with his name on the back. He played for his local Scarborough team.

Elder Tomlinson and I are getting along really well. Our whole district is having a lot of fun! Yesterday we put some Swedish fish into a bag of water and brought them to the class as pets. We named 6 of them Jonas and 1 Nemo, which really touched Jonas (Brother Winegar). Sadly, they all dissolved by the end of the day.

Our lessons with our "investigators" are going really well. We're good enough at Swedish now to have basic conversations and answer questions rather than just give a rote presentation. It's fun! We've also started speaking only in Swedish at lunch times, which is hard, but fun. We still can't understand the native Swedes here though because of the accent.

Swedish is fun! Mom, it's cool that you tried to follow some Swedish! I like Swedish because the vowels are very consistent. There's 3 extra, but that makes each just have 1 short sound and 1 long sound, so it's really easy to pronounce once you know how. The consonants are fun too. There are a few combinations English speakers wouldn't expect, and a soft k makes a sh sound, but that's also really fun.

Sister Ewell, going to Romania, asked me to accompany her singing Savior, Redeemer of My Soul by Rob Gardner. She is REALLY good!! We auditioned this afternoon and it went really well, so we'll probably be preforming in some event this Sunday before she leaves on Monday.

She gave the music to me yesterday and I was amazed at how fast I picked it up. It was pretty hard stuff, so I guess those lessons at BYU really worked!

It's good to be learning so much here, and not just the Swedish. This is the BEST place in the world to learn the gospel! I'm learning so much about the message I'll be teaching, and why it's important.

Thank you for all the spiritual thoughts you've shared with me. They've been matching up with everything I've been learning.

There's really not too much to talk about anymore now that I'm in a pattern. Each day goes by fairly consistently, with a couple main poiunts learned each day. And the steadily increasing testimony, language skills and district unity.

Even though I don't have too much to say, I do miss hanging out with you all somewhat. No one here really gets my randomness or my singing, and I can't tell any inside jokes because I just met everyone I know. But I'm getting used to it and coming to love the people I'm with.

I think it's interesting here how there's a time and a place for everything. There's a time for each type of studying (personal, companion and language). There's a time for learning and a time for teaching. And there's a time for rest, 8 hours of it per day. They don't really overlap at all, even the different types of studying. That really simplifies life because all you have to do at a specific time is what you planned. That's why planning correctly is so important.

I've done a little comparing of D&C 130 with Abraham 3, especially with the word "order." It's fascinating stuff!

I hope I can be inspiring! I hope my prayers can help you stay safe and happy! I love you all very much and wish you the best.

Jag vet att Mormons Bok är sann. Jag vet att Gud älskar oss och kan hjälpa oss bli lycklig. Jag vet att Jesus Kristus är min frälsare och att hans evangelium är sant. Jag älskar Gud och jag älskar ni.

Thanks for everything! You're the best!

Äldste Lawrence