Midsommer!!

Hejsan hejsan! This week was so fun tack vare Midsommer. :) First though, on P-Day we meet up with our favorite Täby Systers (McClatchie and Young) and and went on the most beautiful little Stockholm boat ride ever. Our bus cards got us on them totally free! The weather was perfect, and there were tourists and cruiseships eveywhere. There were all these little houses and islands all through the port. We all kept saying how we can't believe we are actually here right now. It felt surreal. After we got ice cream and checked out the kings palace. :)

We met with Maria this week too. She is hilarious and she just loves telling us all her great life stories. She speaks very fast Swedish so it's hard to understand her sometimes but we manage. We talked about family history with her and she got so excited. Syster Holley was telling her about her family from Sweden and Maria said she had family in the same city! We joked how maybe they were related and how maybe they are long lost cousins. ;) Could be true though! She told us a funny dream she had about a Monk (m-oo-nk in swedish lol) and a black dog (svart hund) and said she was related to the Monk. Haha intressant. We love her.

We had some great lessons this week too. All I'm going to say it's really hard to be a Syster Missionary at times. We don't really know if people are really interested in the gospel or they just want to meet with us because we are 'nice girls from America' haha...it's a struggle sometimes.

The highlight of this week though was the Midsommar weekend!! Midsommar is a huge summer holiday in Sweden comparable to Christmas! The stake/community in Stockholm put on this huge party for it down at this beautiful national park! It is a tradition that it pours rain every single year during the holiday but it didn't this year! :) So happy. Everyone decorates this huge May pole with flowers and such and then they raise it and we all sing and dance around it. Me, Sys Holley, Hall, and Gil went to the flowercrown-making hut and made crowns! We even gathered our own flowers and plants for them. :) It was so fun. There were so many missionaries down there and a huge tug-of-war tournament as well! Best day Ever.

On the bus ride back this Swedish lady asked us about our name tags. :) We were like oh yeah Mormon is our nickname! Have you heard of it before? and she was like, 'Wait what you're mormon? You guys look like normal people though!' We explained to her that we were indeed normal people haha. We told her we don't drink alcohol or smoke or stuff like that and she was happy.

They celebrate two days of Midsommar here so me and Holley decided to take a little trip to the little Swedish town of Sigtuna! Wow it was gorgeous. Definitely taking my family here next year. It actually was the first spot in Sweden I went to when I first got here back in December! So many memories. Sys Holley loves vikings and there were so many runes here so she was in heaven. There we're a lot of tourists there also and some of them were secretly taking pictures of Syster Holley's beautiful red hair. ;) Så roligt. We then visited this castle and hiked through a forest to get there. Me and Holley both agreed we felt like we were in 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'A Room with a View.' People were celebrating everywhere we went. :) Afterwards our favorite American family the Mitchells invited us over for dinner with the Elders and Don, Camillo, and Felicia. It was such a great holiday weekend.

When all the Holidays were over it was so depressing haha. We woke up the next day just so sad because we knew it was all over. It even was pouring rain. So tråkigt lol. Our great sunday meeting though made it better and so many sweet people invited us over this week. I can't even describe how much I love it here. I'm so grateful for this culture, these amazing people and this opportunity to be a missionary in this beautiful country. I know the Lord is watching out for us and is guiding us everyday. I feel blessed everyday to be serving for Him. I know He's changing me so much out here. I love Him and I'm grateful for all the happiness we've had this week.

Hope you all had a great week as well, thanks for all your prayers and support. Jag älskar er. Vi ses nästa vecka!

Många kramar
Syster Davis



Stockholm Port!

Stockholm båt ride.

​Premidsommar faces! :)

​Flower crown hut.

May Pole

Syster Gil, Hall, and Holley

Happy. :)

​Missionary Midsommar fun!

​Sigtuna.

​Sigtuna Houses.

Mission Tour!

Good morning alla. This week was quite eventful! First things first me and Holley had a great P-Day! We decided to do some sight-seeing and check out the Hässelby Slott. :) It was super cute and had a fun little backyard garden. Our best friends (senior missoinary couple) the Robinsons invited us to the cool underground Swedish Record Archives as well! They showed us all around the different floors and chambers of records. :) It was so incredible! They even let us hold this huge book from the 1600s! Jättecool. They had us all over for dinner this week too. :) De är toppen!

We had mission tour this week also!! Äldste and Syster Dyches from the 70 came and talked to us. It was a great meeting and training. They gave us some tips about missionary work and we had a question and answer session with them. Four zones in the mission all gathered together for it! We even did a fun little origami activity with Äldste Dyches. ;) It was so great to see almost my entire MTC group as well. We got many pictures and caught up on life. They seriously are my family here. :) Love them.

This week me and Syster Holley decided we really wanted to find a new person to teach since we haven't had so many in a while. We said a very faithful prayer and 'ironed our skirts' ;) and went out determined to find someone the Lord would put in our path. It was the usual hand-in-the-face by everyone we talked to but this last lady we contacted, stopped and listened. :) She then went on to tell us that she was a Medium! Just like Theresa Caputo. ;) I asked her if she knew the show Long-island Medium and she said yeah. I told her me and my mom loved that show haha. We then brought out a Book of Mormon and she flipped out! She grabbed it and her eyes grew super wide. Me and Holley looked at eachother confused haha. She then asked us, 'Is this a Book of Mormon?... Can I please buy this from you?!' We were shocked and happily told her it was free. :) She was shocked as well and told us she was going to read it and meet with us again with many questions! We told her it talked a little about the spirit world and what happens after this life and she was so excited. She then gave us two huge hugs and left. Afterwards we both jumped for joy and knew the Lord guided us to her. :) We said a thank you prayer.

The amazing Don and Camillo got baptized this week as well! They are these two young guys who have been investigating the church. They are some of the greatest people I have ever met and are so knowledgeable in the scriptures. They've had so many miracles happen to them with the scriptures. Me and Holley chatted with them after church for a long time and shared some amazing spiritual experiences we've had. It was so fun. :) Vi älskar dem!

I alla fall, this week has been great. So many great things happening in Jakobsberg and I am so blessed to be a part of it. We are so excited to see what the Lord has in store for the future. :) We are also so stoked for Midsommar this week! It's going to be a fun one. Love you all and until next week.

Kram,
Syster Davis

​Me and Holley in another skog. :)

​Cute houses.

​Pretty field we found on the way to a members house!

​Skön

Swedish Archive Chamber!

​MTC family.

​Mission Tour! Ä.Scott and Moultron :)

​Some Artsy daisies vi hittade.

Summer Lovin' VASA

Hej hej this week was a blast. It started with us having such a fun national Sweden Day on P-Day! Some of us missionaries went down to the VASA museet. It is this huge Swedish Boat that sunk just out of the harbor in 1628 because the Swedish king put too many canons on it lol. It was such a sight to see! We then walked around Stockholm and watched a little parade celebrating the Swedish Holiday. There were Swedish flags everywhere. :) This member from Peru who only knew spanish stopped us on the train too and was so excited to see missionaries! So cute. :)

We had splits this week too. Syster Holley got to go up to Uppsala with Syster Harkness and Syster Mecham came down here to Jakobsberg. It was super fun. We did some usually contakting and this dude we talked to went off for about 30 minutes about how he was some kind of spy so that was interesting. We found this cool compass stature too. Later we met with this sweet member named Renee. We had a great conversations with her. She made us some authentic swedish chocolate pudding. Det var toppen. :)

The next day we switched back and headed to Täby for distrikt möte. It was fun. We got pizza and salad after. Såååå bra. We have the best distrikt ever.

This week we had dinner with the amazing Mitchell Family as well! They seriously are my favorite. They are from American but have lived in Sweden for a while. They have the most beautiful house I have ever seen. They had a trampoline too that I jumped on and a mini tennis court in their backyard! So many friends came over and they made us some classic american cheese burgers. :) It felt like I was at home again. Love them so much! Nice talking to Americans too. ;)

Me and Holley went to Skatteverket to get her her personnumber this week too! It felt like yesterday Me and my mama Brink went to get mine and now I got to take Holley to get hers. ;) So many feels lol.

We had a lesson this week with our really good fried Jai. She is from Thailand and she made us this amazing cake! We talked about temples and how grateful we are for them and how strong the spirit is in them. We all shared cool experiences we've had in them and cool miracles that have happened. It was so great. I love having deep talks. :) We planned to meet again and go together to see the Stockholm temple soon! Love Jai so much.

Me and Holley just got incredibility lost this week too. We weren't complaining though because we got to go through the most gorgeous forest ever. We both agreed we felt like we were in Lord of the Rings. ;)

Sunday was super super busy. We had so many visitors come so that was great! These two sweet girls from Gävle came down to visit Jakobsberg ward. :) Our friends Reza and Mohammad came too so that was cool. They said they loved how happy they felt at church! And they said we were angels haha. Nicki gave her farewell talk too. She is leaving on her mission to the Salt Lake City Temple Square mission soon. She is going to be so great and I want to find her there next year. :)

Any who, this week was good and the next few weeks are going to be even greater! We have Midsommer and Mission Tour coming up. :) So happy for summer and to be able to spend it in this beautiful country! I love Sverige and I love sharing gospel!! Life is good. Tack för att ni lyssnar till mig. Jag saknar er och hoppas ni har en underbar vecka. :) Hejdå!

Mvh
Syster Davis

​Distrikt Lunch

National Swedish Day

​Swedish Parade. :)

VASA

​Photo creds to Kristopher

Stockholm Overload

Hejsan härliga manniskor! Sorry this letter is going to be a little short but all and all this week was great. We got a lot of great pictures from our Stockholm sight-seeing extravaganza! I'll be sending a lot of those to you all.

This week was a little hard since almost all our lessons got canceled so we had a lot of finding activities. ;) We decided to use släktforskning (geneology) while kontankting people on the streets and it worked so well! (My mama would be so proud) ;)

We had a fun little nature walk with our friend Peter this week too. The weather was phenomenal this week. I hope it stays this nice for midsommar in 3 weeks. ;)

This week was graduation for a lot of the Swedish seniors here too so to celebrate they gather in these huge trucks and scream and dance all through the streets of stockholm and pour soda/possibly alcohol all over everthing and everyone. haha It was a sight to see! So weird because I feel like I just graduated but that was almost 2 years ago.

We had zone conference this week too! It was a great meeting about temples and cool stories about different ones all around the world! We picked up some Thai food for lunch. Det var toppen.

We got to teach Na this week too so that was great! She told us she was pregnant and we were so happy! Teng is going to be in China for a little bit so he will be missed. They kept telling us that this child was a huge blessing from God. So cute. :) Hope to meet their little baby someday!

Luis got baptized this week too! It was an amazing day filled with the spirit. At church this creepy oldguywmet on the bus showed up to church with all these flowers for us! It was nice but I think he wants us to marry him so that's interesting. lol Fast sunday was great though. Cute Holley introduced herself to the ward. We talked to some people n the way home and then just did some scripture study together.

It was a nice week and the summer vibes here are so cheerful! I love how lugt everyone is. Have a great summer everyone and har det så gott och njutar solen!

Kärlek,
Syster Davis

​Promenad med Peter

Stockholm Conference

First week with Holley. :)

This week was just wonderful and so eventful! On Monday we all gathered at the YSA center and played games and Syster Adamson met up with her MTC group to have one last gathering together. It was a fun one. Later in the evening we went out to the boonies of Mörsta and had dinner with the sweet Nilsson Family. Lars Nilsson and his sweet little wife from Norway. We had the most amazing Norwegian food and chatted in swedish/norwegian. De är så sötta;)

The next day was Greenie Kontakting day! Since we are serving in the Stockhom area, we were the lucky ones chosen to take the greenies out kontakting their first day. :) It was so great to meet them all and tell them a little about Sweden. We we're allowed to tell them that we were going to be trainers either. ;) It was fun trying to guess who I would be training. :) We had a delicious lunch and then we headed back to Jakobsberg to have one last dinner with the Robinsons before Syster Adamsson left. She requested a huge breakfast for dinner. :) It's been such a good transfer together and it's weird that she is home now! Gonna miss Adamsson.

Finally the day came we have all been waiting for...to get our greenies!! It was such a party. We met at the Täby chapel and all the trainers snuck to the back room to hide. ;) We were all so giddy and going crazy about how excited we were. After their little meeting we came in and did the same thing when I first got here. The little 'Harry Potter' type-thing letter opening thing and found out who were getting. There were 7 Systers who just came in from the MTC and 3 who just came in from VISA waiting.

They opened their letters and I got the sweet little Syster Sarah Holley!! She was on of the Visa waiters and the most cutest thing I've ever seen. She graduated in 2015 and went to BYU for a little bit. She is studying Linguistics so she is soooo good at Swedish already. :) Seriously though, we went to our first little meeting together with this sweet lady in the ward and it was all in Swedish. I was excepting little Holley to not really be able to know what was going on but she totally did and chatted back so easily! I was so impressed and am so lucky. :) I remember barley saying a word when I first got to Sweden lol. Hon är så duktig. ❤

It rained a lot this week too which was perfect since Holley loves the rain! ;) It was fun to show her all around the area and show her the busses and stuff. It's been such an experience training. I feel inadequate but I have seen the Lord by my side the whole time and everything has just been great.

We even met this Orthodox lady on the street who couldn't believe we have been in Sweden for such a short time and knew Swedish! She said she knows we have to gift of tongues. We even explained to her all about the Book of Mormon and she said she could feel in her heart that what we were saying was true. So cool. :)

We went to Jai's summer home this week too so that was fun. We also met with Teng and Na and our chinese translator friend Jasemin came along as well! It was a great lesson. They talked for a long time together in chinese. It's great for them to be able to ask about the gospel and here about it in their own tongue, not from google translate lol. We met this Finnish guy on the street too who bible bashed us so that was interesting haha. I was kinda like uhhh...and then Holley stepped up to the plate and talked to him and I was like what the heck, so impressed again! ;) Love her so much.

Church was great too. It was mothers day in Sweden so all the cute Primary kids went up and did an entire program for sakrament! It was adorable. I got to translate for these two people from Syria too! They only knew Arabic so I used google translate for them and they were so happy. They gave me and Holley a kiss on the head as a sign of respect too. It was so sweet. I just love Persians.

Anyways all and all this week was good and I am so grateful to be a trainer to the sweetest greenie ever. She already has taught me so much and it has only been a week! So excited to see what the next ones bring. :) I love seeing how much the Lord really is there for us too. I know this is His work and I'm grateful to be apart of it. Enjoying everyday here and I hope you all have a fantastic summer! Bye for now. :)

Kärlek,
Syster Davis

P.s. Gonna show Holley all around Stockholm today!

​Going to Jakobsberg! :)

​Be and little Holley on the bus. :)

​Jai's artsy summer house in the rain.

​Selfie Sunday in the Swedish fields. They gave us flowers at church. :)

Sundbyberg färg

​Our favorite Chinese friends. :)

Last week with Adamsson!

Hey there! This week was jammed packed with stuff to do! This was Sys Adamsson's last week in Sweden so everyone invited us over for dinner woot woot. :) Such a week. I can not believe how quick this transfer has gone.

For P-day we met up with some missionaries at this cool Museum in Stockholm! It's called the Nordiska Museet and it all a lot of different artifacts in there from all these different eras. We all explored and had some McDonalds too lol. We had another FHE with the Robinsons again too. Love them!

The next day we decided to visit our favorite little Vällingby spot and go kontakting all day and talk to everyone people since we were so busy to rest of the week to do it. We met this really nice guy named Pascal who was strolling his little baby along as we stopped him. We was so friendly and bought us soda! He was from Africa and his girlfriend was a Swede. He kept calling his baby his 'cappuccino baby' lol. So cute. Later we went to this ladies house who made us this yummy broccoli cheddar soup! I told her it reminded me of Disneyland and she was so happy.

Our missionary correlation meeting this week was so fun too! Our amazing mission leader Kristopher invited us over for breakfast and study at his house. It was super fun and we even did some rolspel. We got so spoiled this week. :)

We had our Train the Trainers meeting this week too! Every Syster from my MTC is training! We soon will be the oldest Systers in the mission. So crazy. Syster Wilson, Anderson, and McClatchie will also be training too. They are even younger than us! It's so exciting. :) Shout out to the cute greenies coming in!! You're in for a treat. :) This week was a special week too in Sundsvall. Muhammad and Samira and two more of their neighbors got baptized!! So happy for them and wish I could of seen it. :) Miss Sundsvall so much! Love how much the Lord is hastening his work. :) Life is so good!

The next day we had a huge Chinese feast made by Teng and Na! They honestly are the best people ever. They gave me and Syster Adamsson some more presents too! Some stuffed animals lol and cat and a wolf named Tenger and Fiona. They always call us their angels too. It is the cutest thing ever. ❤

We got to go do baptisms in the Stockholm temple too!! It was so cool to finally get to go in and hear the baptisms in Swedish. I got chills it was so beautiful. We were going to go with Emilliano the new convert but he didn't end up getting to go due to the timing. :( Oh well, just means we'll have to go again sometime. :)

Söndag was great too. Syster Adamsson gave her dying testimony. It was so sweet. I also threw a funeral for her this week too (we do that to missionaries who are going home haha).

It was fun! I wrote her a little eulogy. We had a fun dinner at the Woods this week too! So grateful for all the fun and excitement we've had this week. The next time I write I will be with my little greenie! I am so nervous but very excited at the same time. :) I know the Lord will guide me. Can't wait to get her on Wednesday! Wish me luck and see you next week. :)

Kärlek,
Syster Davis

Nordiska Museet!

​Beautiful Stockholm!

More Stockholm. :)

​Visiting Jai in her summer home again!

​Temple in Stockholm!

​Teng and Na's Chinese food!!

​The famous Teng and Na!

I'm gonna be a Trainer!!

Hej hej underbara manniskor! Hope you all had a great week. :) This week was oh so fun. On P-Day us missionaries met to the beautiful Handen and played games. I can't even describe how pretty it was. There was a huge green grass field and a huge lake with all these forest trees around and hike paths all around. There were people tanning in swimsuits all around too lol. Some, not even in anything clothes...ha. It was a great day nonetheless. We had FHE with the Robinsons again in the evening so that's always fun. We had the spiritual thought and we shared the starfish story and making a difference and read D&C 18:10.

The next day was my Birthday! It was a good day. :) We went on splits with the STLs so I was with the amazing Syster Harkness. We went to this yummy Italian cafe called Vapianos. It was to die for! Then we just went out talking to people the rest of the day in Vällingby. We talked to this hilarious American guy who laughed at us when we asked him what he believed. He was like, 'You don't wanna hear my opinion.' And I was like like 'what of course we do! That's why were here, to hear everyone's opinion!' ;) And he was like okay if you say so. ;) So he went off for an hour picking apart all the stories in the Bible telling us how they were impossible to be true. For example, 'When Moses parted the Red Sea, there were too many old grandmas and grandpas who could not of walked that far a distant across.' lol I found it funny that he thought the trek across the Red Sea was more impossible than the sea actually splitting. ;) He was super nice though and we told him all about the book of mormon and said he never heard of it and would love to read it. We gave him one right there and he told us to come back in one year and he would have it memorized. haha! Cool dude. :) Anyways ya it was a nice day. We got icecream too. Oh and the elders made some banana bread. ;) So weird to be 20 years old! Best way to spend my birthday, being a missionary. :)

We met with sweet Jai and Kenneth this week too. They texted us and told us to meet at their adorable Swedish summer cabin! It was the cutest place I've ever seen! They had this table outside and all this Fika for us. :) We taught about the Jesu Kristi Evangeliet, while enjoying the sunny day and listening to the birds sing.

We met with Teng and Na this week as well. :) We had no translator this week so we körde with google translate and scriptures! It actually went really well. The Lords hand was definitely in that. They even agreed to be baptized in July! So exciting. :) Love them so much! The elders investigator Fredrick got baptized this week too. It was such a great day. Teng and Na came and watched too and took pictures of the whole thing. So cute. :)

Sunday was nice too. Back to the normal ward and it felt like it has been so long since I've seen people since we had Stavs conference last week. We had some nice meetings and I met the Woods, who knew my best friend Katie Mason and her family back home! Such a small world! He served with Katie's Dad in Norway. :)

Later in the evening we got an exciting call from President Beckstrand who told us....I WAS GOING TO BE A TRAINER!! Or in missionary terms, I'M GONNA HAVE A BABY! ;) Best news ever. :) 7 new Systers will be coming next week to start their mission here in Sweden. I am so excited for this next adventure. I'm so excited and scared because I now I really have to know Swedish. :O lol. It's going to be a great growing experience and I know the Lord is going to have to help me a lot. Can't wait to hear who my greenie is and I will try my best to be the best mom to her! ;)

That's all for this week. :) I apologize for being a weak writer haha. English and Writing aren't my strength so thanks for bearing with me. ;) Have a great week and vi hörs nästa vecka!

Kärlek,
Syster Davis

​Hallå värld!

Beautiful Handen!