Semlor and Puppies!

Hi everyone sorry if this letter is short this week! Or maybe its a nice break for you all since I ramble too much in my weekly letters lol. Anyways this week was awesome. Last week of being a greenie! How crazy is that? I hit my 4 month mark on Saturday too so that was weird. Time flies when you're having fun. Sadly, my underbar trainer Syster Brink is leaving me and Sundsvall for Södertälje. I hope I can function as a missionary without her lol. So excited for her and definitely a bitter sweet moment. I'm am so grateful for these past 12 weeks with her!! This also means I'm getting a new companion! Syster Hong!! :) I am so excited. She was just serving in Borås. I'm so excited to meet her on Wednesday.

We also went and made homemade Semlor this week at Maj Carlberg's house so that was a blast. We even grated almonds to make the almond paste filling. That's how homemade it was haha. The Syster Training leaders also came for a day to do splits with us. I was with Syster Gardner. It was fun we taught a few lessons and got some hot chocolate since it was freezing out. We even got to hold a baby puppy which is always a delight.

We also went to the Kääriäs, Armin and Shirins', Mona Carlssons, Lisa Österlunds, and Lelemore and Rolands house this week. Since it was Syster Brink's last week, we had a lot of goodbye dinners so that was nice. The members here are so incredible.

Our car got stuck in the snow this week too and the elders quourm came out and helped us get it out. They gave us kladkaka too so that was a double win. :) We also got to see this huge Timrå sculpture too which was cool. We met up with Cassie and Celine on Saturday too and had some fun chats with them. Sunday was so busy. We had 5 investigators at church which was so good. Also stressful because you want to make sure they all know where everything is and that they are all happy and there's only one of you. :) Well I guess two of us haha. It was awesome though it was a great sunday.

That's all I have time for now. Love you all and hope you all have a great Leap Year today. :)
Kärlek,
Syster Davis

The cute Unga Kvinnor in the Branch. They seriously are all models haha.

This guy let us hold his puppy while he took a smoke. :)

Timrå adventures.

Umeå Special Training

Hej hej allihopa. Hur går det med er? :) This week was spanande!

Måndag we took a train up to Umeå for Specialized zone training. It was a bout a 3 hourish train ride so our distrikt went around and told our lifestories. It was so fun haha. Äldste Liddle brought us all these yummy cheese danish things also so that was nice. I ate so many godis though so I got a little tummy ache. Äldste Lohmeier's middle name is Justice and we were all laughing and coming up with cool names for him. ;) We arrived in Umeå and stayed the night at this sweet members house! Her name is Gunvor Wirtala. She told us she had a granddaughter on a mission in Leeds England. I told her I had a friend there! She also had all this yummy food for us and we chatted with her until it was bedtime. :)

Tisdag we had training! It was really good. President and Syster Beckstrand were there and it was a great meeting. It was about conversion and Jacob ch. 5 in Mormons Bok. The Olive tree one. After we had lunch and sang Happy Birthday (på Svenska!) to Syster Jackson and Brother Delgato. Then we all gathered in a little room and had a mini FHE night. We played games and just laughed. We did this M&M game where we had to tell a lifestory about us depending on what color M&M we had. I told the story about my chicken Roxy and how it got taken away by a hawk and everyone laughed. So mean to laugh about that. ;) We then had to åker home back to Sundsvall. It was a great day. Oh we saw the Northern lights again too. :)

Onsdag we met up with Sam and David Nilsson. These 2 sweet Swedish investigators. They are hilarious and always joke around with eachother. We taught them about Frälsningsplanen and they bought us soda pop. After we went walking around talking to people, and ended up walking across the huge sundsvall bridge! Wow it was breathtaking. Later that night we had dinner with the Stegaby Family so that was fun. They are a sweet family. :) I shared Matthew 10:16-20. A great scripture I found one day at the MTC when I wasn't feeling confident being a msisionary.
It's a great one for anyone.

Torsdag we talked to more people and Syster Brink and this mean guy got into a mini throwdown. I just stood there and smiled lol. We then went to Timrå to visit Lisa Svedin. She is so talented at knitting! She knitts huge sweaters and beanies and everything! I kept telling her she was duktig (skilled) and she was happy. :)

Fredag the busses were not working so me and Syster Brink decided to walk to the church to make our meeting with Murre! (Aka a 20 minute bus ride) It was quite the adventure. We walked through this snowy forest and it was beautiful! I literally took a step into the Hobbit movie no joke lol. Half way there we got a call saying Murre was halfway out to Norway...nooo haha. We stopped into ICA and got some snacks and still went to the church anyway. The cute YW were there learning the EFY dance! So many feels. (The one with the 6 flags song that goes like, 'EAT IT.') We then had a meeting with the mission leader Arto and then went home. The busses were still wack so the Stegabys drove us home.

Lördag we talked to some more people and met up with our friend Patrik from Lund. Since this was his last time he would see Syster Brink we took us to this amazing Italian resturant called Dolcetto. He treated us. Patrik is toppen. :) We had a really great deep discussion. After we all went to the church together for this branch Meet the Mormons movie night! Sam and David came too so that was awesome. They really seemed to enjoy the movie. We had sockerkaka after.

Söndag we had branch conference and the Beckstrands came up to speak. It was fun to see them so much this week. They are like our parents away from home. We sang in the choir and had a few other meetings. After church Farhad and Bakhtiar came up to us and were like 'We have a surprise for you!' We were like what is it? :) And they were like we made you guys Persian food!! So sweet of them! They are just my favorite. I took a sneaky video of Armin too and it was hilarious, I'll try to send it. Anyways after our yummy persian feast we all went to the bus stop to travel home. It was a great sunday.

I alla fall, thats what happened this week. I love being a missionary. I love the church. And I love life. Until nästa vecka. Hejdå for now. :)
P.s. See Zoolander 2 for me. ;)

Selfie with the great Farhad and Bakhtiar while waiting for the bus. :)

Picture of yummy Persian food from last week

Glad Alla Hjärtans Dag!

This week was härligt (glorious) compared to last week. :)
P-Day was good. We did our normal emailing and grocery shopping and then we all met up at the church and the older missionaries showed me all their fun pictures and videos from all the different places they've served in. It's weird to see how long some of them have been here and how many places they've been to! I've just been in little (not so little ;)) Norrland and it's strange that I'll be moving somewhere else soon.

Tuesday we met up with this sweet older Swedish guy named Sam. He was adorable and had a lot of good questions for us. It was fun teaching him about our beliefs. He even was like how much does it cost? (The Book of Mormon) and we were like Det är grattis. :) (It's free!) And he was like what?! Are you sure? It was so cute. He was all smiling and happy when he left. Hopefully we meet again someday! We then took a lunch break at this cute Swedish cafe called Barista! BEST place ever. I got this yummy chocolate muffin for only 15 kronor (a very good deal).

Wednesday we had absolutley nothing planned. Those days are so long. We did our morning studies and were like, 'Whelp, looks like were knocking on doors...all day.' Then all of a sudden out of the blue, Karin Lundkuist, (this sweet member) called us and was like 'Hey do you want to come visiting teaching with me today? My friend I usually go with is sick.' And we were like YES PLEASE. :) She has this cute dog named Looda who came with us too. We went to the Stegaby's first and had homemade semlor and had a little bible study it was so fun. Then we went to visit Eva who has been very ill lately. Lastly we went to Inga-Britts house. She gave us all this candy and fruit haha. It was a busy day!

Thursday the zone leaders came down to do splits with the elders and we had a great Distrkts Möte. We all went to this yummy Swedish Mcdonalds place called MAX. Det var toppen och jag tycker det är bättre än Mcdonalds. ;) We then made a trip to Sundsbruk and met this really nice guy named Jimmy. He was in a wheelchair and explained he fell from a balcony about 16 years ago and that he knew something saved him. He knew it was a miracle he was alive.

Friday we went to Timrå and knocked on some doors and we talked to this funny guy who was a little contradictive in everything he said but it was a fun conversation lol. Right before we left I noticed he had some video games hung up on his wall. One of them was Final Fantasy. I was like 'Tycker du om Final Fantasy?' haha. And he was like 'Ja!!' And then he went off in swedish about it and I laughed. I told him me and my brother liked to play those back in the day. After we went to visit Armin and Shirin! Something I always look forward too. :) They have been through so much and they are trying so hard to be able to get residents here. I pray for them everyday and that they will be in safe care whatever happens. I know the Lord is watching over them.

Saturday we met up with Celine at Barista! It was so fun I absolutley love Celine. We helped her write a speech for Sunday. She did it on the Plan of Salvation and we had a fun time talking about it. We talked about the millenium too or in swedish 'tusenårsrika.' She was like wait what do you call in it America? 'Millenium' haha. And she was like, 'I'm never gonna be able to pronounce that haha.' I keep telling her that she needs to come visit us in the States when we come home! ;) Love that girl! She knows Sweidsh, English, and French! Så duktig lol.

Sunday was Valentines' day! They call it Alla Hjärtans Dag here. The elders sent us this funny Valentines day holiday gram via video. We decided to do one back and we sang this funny song to Kelly Clarkson 'Since You've Been Gone.' We then took the bus to church. Celine gave her amazing talk and we gave Farhad and Bakhtiar persian Mormons Boks that we finally got! They were so happy. After church we all decided to do the branch choir for grens conference next week. We sang Called to Serve in Swedish, Finnish, French, and English. :) It was really fun. This cute little girl named Salome kept saying 'Titta!' (Look!) when she was playing the piano haha. It was so cute. We then went home and had pink banana bread and stir fry. To end the night we went out and talked to 70 people on the street in the blistering cold. It was a valentines day to remember. :)

I alla fall, Hope you all had a great week. Vi ses snart. :)
P.s. The pictures are some cool places we found while walking around talking to people! Så jätte vacker!

Sundsvall University. :)

Sundsvall Univeristy Student wanna-be. ;)

​Me and Brink :)

Patience Week

Hej allihopa! This week was pretty hard not gonna lie. Me and Sys Brink decided it would be fun to have a theme for this week and work on our patience. How hard could that be right? Everyone needs more patience eller hur? ;) Well, let me just say, everything this week defiently came crashing down on us and our tålamod (patience) was tested.

The week started out great actually. We had a fun P-Day activity up in the mountains and we roasted korv and Äldste Pearson played some Zelda tunes on his mini flute. We explored through the forests and we could see all of Sundsvall up there and it was gorgeous. It felt like Narnia and the Hobbit haha. I dumbly only wore converse and my feet were about to freeze off but I survived! We found all these goats and a huge cabin kid play area and we played on it for a while it was really fun.

The next day we spend all day driving around to our appointments and every single one got bloasted. We then had to find this lost package place and we kept having to drive around in circles because the entrance was nonexistant! After like 20 minutes we finally found it. On top of all that, we got dropped by almost all of our investigators. It's always sad when that happens and it means we have to do a lot more knocking on doors and chatting with people on the streets. We also decided to do an entire day of no English, just Swedish. I. completley. lost it. I just started bawling and said I couldn't do it anymore. I was so tired of not understanding people, people not wanting talk to us, being so cold, missing my family, wanting to eat tacobell, having the worst Sweidsh grammar and just having the biggest desire to help people who don't want to be bothered. During our lunch break I just laid in my bed and cried in my pillow. I hit the greenie wall.

I prayed probably the hardest I ever had in my life. Asking for help and guidance and for anything that could help me stop feeling all this stress that has built up. The first feeling I had was to get a priesthood blessing. So we called up the Äldster and we met them at the church. I was kinda embaressed to even ask them for this because I felt like I was being I little bit dramatic but I just had a feeling it was what I should do. They asked me what was wrong and I tried to hold back the tears but I coudn't and I just let everything out (again haha). I told them I hit the greenie wall. They were so comforting and they told me this is what priesthood blessings were for. After I got my blessing, every single negative feeling and sadness I felt disappeared. It was seriously the most amazing thing. I could feel the saviors love saving me from the adversary.

After that little incident everything was all better again. :) We met with some sweet members and they gave us a scarf an all this fika! It just shows you when you are at your worst state and you feel like giving up, the Lord is always there to lift you back up.

Me and Syster Brink were feeling spontaneuous and we made this potato salmon casserole for dinner. It was pretty good. We had Kladkaka to go with it as well! I can't tell you how much I LOVE Syster Brink. She really is my mom away from home. She makes me yummy food, she listens to my problems, helps me calm down when I get stressed out, and is just the BEST. I only have 3 more weeks with her so I'm making everyday count!!

Sunday was fast söndag too and it was just the best. These cute little twin girls went up and bore their testimony. They were talking about Meet the Mormons and how good of a movie it was hahah. It was adorable.

Anyways, those are the highlights of this week. It was a tough one but the hard weeks are definitley the ones you learn the most from. I'm so grateful to be a missionary for the Lord in this beautiful country. I love this gospel with all my heart and I love teaching it to those who are seeking it. I love learning about others faith as well and getting perspectives from all kinds of different individuals. I know God loves every single one of his childeren and wants us to know that we don't have to ever feel alone in this hard life. I love you all and continuing being great. :) Till nästa vecka!
Kärlek
Syster Davis

View of Sundsvall from our hike. :)

The best Distrikt.

Frozen Lakes!

Februari is here! So crazy. This week was another golden one yet again. :)

Monday January 26: Förberedelsedagen (P-Day) was great like always. We did some emailing and then me and Syster Brink decided we needed a shopping spree day! ;) It was much needed. It's hard though because you want to buy everything but you have such limited space as a missonary so you have to be carfeful how much you get. ;) I was good and only got three beanies haha. After we met up at the church with the Elders and one of our investigators and played some cards!

Tuesday: It was a high 37 degress Farenherit so that was glorious! We had to wait for the mail man today too because he called and told us he had a few packages that we needed to be home for. We had a feeling it was the Persian Book of Mormons we have been waiting for. He finally came and we were so excited, we ripped open the boxes and to our surprise it was like 50 more swedish Mormons Boks. Noooooo. ;) We already had so many of those lol. I guess you can never have enough. We met up with Farhad and Bakhtiar today too. We talked to them about the getting the preisthood and the branch temple trip coming up soon! They were so excited. :)

Wednesday: Busy driving day! We met up with our friend Lisa in Kvisslebey and taught her about Jesu Kristi Evangelium. :) She said she is too shy to come to church though so were tried our best to tell her all about it and to make her feel comfortable enough to come. We told her all about the sweet people there too. After, we met up Armin and Shirin in Timrå again! On the way to meeting them me and Syster Brink found this huge frozen lake and we ran across it! It was so fun! There were even car tracks on it so we knew there shouldn't be any harm. ;) We took somefunny videos haha. We got to meet with the amazing NoeNoe and SaySay too! They are so sweet and are so patient with my oduktig svenska. We helped them with their english homework too so that was great. After that we met up with these two guys at the church we met on the street. The one who had the cool near death experience. They were really nice and we had a cool lesson with them.

Thursday: It was my 3 month mark today! So insane. I offically finished 1 sixth of my mission! Today we got bloasted all day so me and Syster Brink went talking to random people. We meet a lot of sweethearts and a lot of jerks haha. The norm. We also got some Semlar! This delicious swedish almond paste treat. After we went to this really good relief society activity all about how we can be healthy and some tips on that. We had carrot cake afterwards too. :)

Friday: Zone training! We all took norrtåg up to Umeå for the day! Umeå is gorgeous. It was fun looking at all the pretty cities while we traavelled. We played some more cards on the train and played this funny swedish story game. We met up with all our zone at this pizza kebab place when we got there and chatted with everyone. Its fun to be with the zone. :) After we had our meeting. It was about new goals for 2016. It was really good. We had chocolate chip cookies afterwards too!! They don't have chocolate chips in Sweden so it was a nice. After we went back home and for språk study I tried to read this Swedish magazine on the train.

Saturday: We had a member dinner! Those are the best. :) It was with the Nedergårds. I can't even begin to describe how luxurious it was. Ulf Nedergård used to work at a resturant so he made us the most wonderful Swedish food I ever had. It was so beautifully decorated and they kept laughing because I took a picture of every course we ate! It was a full three course meal!! We definetly got spoiled. :) We shared a little message with them about tro (faith) and how faith is something that is hoped for and not always seen. I could understand a lot so that was good. :)

Sunday: Church was awesome. Armin taught an amazing lesson about the Plan of Salvation and families and temples and stuff. Its so cute seeing converts so intelligent in the gospel. :) I love them so much! After we had ANOTHER member dinner! This time at the cute organist lady's house. Maj Carlberg is her name. :) She is just the cutest thing ever. She had this cute bandana thing on her head and this cute apron. She made us this yummy soup and rolls and we had this yummy swedish pancake icecream for dessert. I love the Swedish members so much.

Well that's all I have for now. Happy Februari and stay warm. :)
Kärlek Syster Davis

Walking on a frozen lake in Timrå!

The amazing Swedish food the Nedergårds made for us.

​Zone Conference in Umeå!

This is what Semlar look like. :) (the ones of the top that look like bread bowls)