SISTER POWELL: Sweden

Hellllllllllooooo from Sweden!!! WHAT? I still can’t believe I’m here. I am serving in a tiny town called Katrineholm. Apparently it is the armpit of Sweden but I just love it. My trainer is Sister Emi Christison from Holladay, Utah. She has been out for 11 months and is AMAZING. I have been praying for this girl for about 6 months now and the Lord really delivered. I love her and I am so glad she is my trainer. She is so patient with me as I ask her a bunch of pointless questions and constantly ask her Swedish questions. Her Swedish is AMAZING. She had a Swede as a comp once so her pronunciation is spot on. I love her!

“Yeah, I have no idea what you just said.”

This week’s Swedish surprise: We were tracting an apartment and it’s Sister Christison’s door and we knock, and a huge, buff guy opens the door wearing not much at all. Yup. I just stood there and Sister Christison handles it like a pro, totally used to such things. I wasn’t. Obviously. He asks if we can come in and talk more about our church, ya no, sorry buddy. hahaha We offer him our number and he says, “wait! I have it!” He pulls out his phone and starts calling someone. Sure enough our phone starts ringing. Poor sisters who tracted him last time. Also, my first day here in Katrineholm we went out contacting. The very first guy I spoke to, I gave him my spill in Swedish and he just stood there, “Yeah, I have no idea what you just said.” I kinda wanted to cry but I just laughed and laughed because this is my life. This is my weird missionary life. The next guy I spoke to, I gave him my spill and he said, “Are you allowed to make babies on your mission?” Again, I just stood there wanting to cry but instead I just laughed and laughed. This is so funny.

“No, I can’t talk to you today because it is far too hot.”

This week has been quite warm here in Katrineholm, getting up to about 88 degrees. The Swedes are so confused and DO NOT know how to handle it. At all. Every single person we call, contact, or tract says “No, I can’t talk to you today because it is far too hot.” We have had 3 investigators/members go the emergency room this week because of the heat. It is rough stuff, hahaha. Sweden has no air conditioning anywhere because it is so darn cold for so many months out of the year that they just can’t justify installing it. So we are left with ice cream shops and the LDS chapel as the only places in Sweden that are cool. That gets people to church, let me tell you. We get texts from our zone leaders every night and they’re like, “We’ve got a scorcher tomorrow! Drink water!” Elders. It’s like 85 degrees. That is not a scorcher. So funny.

“Girl, don’t even worry about Swedish. I don’t remember the last time I taught someone in Swedish! It’s all in English!”

I have been able to see Sister Hosenfeld since being in Sweden, we went to high school together. It has been SO FUN to see someone I know! Such a nice taste of home. She called me the other night and asked how I was doing, what was overwhelming me, how the comp was, all that. She said, “Girl, don’t even worry about Swedish. I don’t remember the last time I taught someone in Swedish! It’s all in English!” hahaha I just died. It’s true. There are a lot of immigrants here who don’t speak much Swedish or English. It’s a lot of google translate and sign language. It’s hilarious. And the few Swedes that do want to hear our message just want to practice their English! With one of our investigators I told her, “Okay, you can respond in English but I NEED to respond in Swedish, because I need to practice Swedish!” So funny.

Well, this week I have been thinking about a lot. As you can all imagine. In district meeting on Thursday, Elder Sheldon showed us a Mormon Message by President Uchtdorf about privileges and potential. There are 3 greenies in our district so Elder Sheldon talked a lot about how we are just starting out: we have so much potential. We can be any kind of missionary we want to be. We can be obedient, we can be happy, we can laugh, we can love, or we cannot. It’s all up to us.

2 Nephi 26:28, “Behold, hath the Lord commanded any that they should not partake of His goodness? Behold, I say unto you, nay; but all men are privileged the one like unto the other, and none are forbidden.”

None are forbidden. We are all privileged. I have always loved Mondays. No one seems to understand my weird obsession with Mondays but I love them. I love the fact that I get to start over. I get a brand new week, one that I can make really great or one that I can make really bad. None are forbidden. I have the potential to have a really great week or not. I love New Year’s. I’m the freak who makes 35 New Year’s resolutions. Will I have a really good year or a really bad year? I have always loved mornings. Will I have a good day or will I have a bad one?

The last class period we had with one of our MTC teachers, Brother Marchant, he had us all offer a prayer and ask God what kind of mission He wanted us to have. What did He want us to learn? What did He want us to do? Those brief moments where I asked God what He wanted with me have been on my mind this week. I know the kind of missionary He wants me to be. He was very specific in telling me things He hopes I will learn. I began to see the world of possibilities that exist on a mission–the lessons I can learn the lives I can help. I am so grateful for that.

I arrived in the Sweden and I was very tired and very overwhelmed. I saw a lot of missionaries who were leaving–they all gave me advice and hugged me and shook my hand and promised me a wonderful and beautiful experience. I saw them and I felt so very hopeful, so very excited for all the things that await me. I saw them light up as they talked about old companions, old areas, and old investigators. I saw them laugh and giggle and share stories. It made me so excited. I am so excited to create my own mission memories. I am so excited to work hard–to tract every last apartment and every last house here in Katrineholm. To contact everyone and invite them to this glorious and eternal gospel. It just made me so excited and so hopeful. I saw my possibilities and my privileges. I said my first prayer here in Sweden and I just thanked my Heavenly Father for this time. For this once in a lifetime chance that I have to be here.

“Today is a day of potential and privileges. I am gonna take it”.

I believe that every day we wake up and we get to choose. We get to choose if we will reach that day’s potential. Will we remember than none are forbidden? None are exempt from God’s goodness and His love. Every day we get to look at ourselves in the mirror and say, “Today is a day of potential and privileges. I am gonna take it”. EVERY SINGLE DAY. How very lucky we are.

When I first got to the MTC, my friend Seth had sent me a letter and told me to read it the first day in Provo. He had included a poem that has hung on my wall ever since, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, entitled “It’s The Set of The Sail” :

But to every mind there openeth
a way, and way, and a way,

a high soul climbs the highway,
and the low souls grasps the low.
And in between on the misty flats
the rest drift to and fro.

But to every man there openth,
a highway and a low,
and every mind decideth,
the way his soul shall go,

one ship sails east,
and another west,
by the self-same winds that blow,
’tis the set of the sails
and not the gales
that tells the way we go.
Like the winds of the sea
are the waves of time,
as we journey along through life,
’tis the set of our sails

that determines the goal,
and not the calm or the strife.

Here I am in Sweden, celebrating my first p-day in Katrineholm. I am here with my companion, in city I have never seen before, going to teach and love people I do not yet know. I am here and I love it. I am here and I am choosing today to take the highway–to set our sails to reach heights that I have only dreamed about before. I am here to utilize Christ’s grace–to use His power to reach those heights, His power to choose the highway. I have a whole world of possibility awaiting me and I have a very grand potential through the atonement of Jesus Christ.

“Not long ago you came to mortality with all the magnificent capacities and endless possibilities. Yet there is real danger in the environment surrounding you. Your great potential and ability could be limited or destroyed if you yield to the devil-inspired contamination around you. However, Satan is no match for the Savior. Satan’s fate is decided. He knows he has lost, but he wants to take as many with him as he can. He will try to ruin your goodness and abilities by exploiting your weaknesses. Stay on the Lord’s side, and you will win every time.”–Elder Scott.

Choose every day to stay on the Lord’s side, for you shall win every time. Don’t run from your weakness, but love them. Love them so much that one day you wake up and you realize they are strengths. I am choosing today to love this time of possibilities, to stay on the Lord’s side, to love my weaknesses and to reach my full potential. I am choosing today to run hard, to run fast, and to leave nothing left in the tank. I know that none are forbidden, I am not forbidden. I can have the beautiful, cherished, “life-determining” (in the words of my mom) mission if I choose to. If I stay on the Lord’s side.

I am so thankful to be here and so thankful to have the knowledge I have of this gospel. I am excited to get to work and bring my “greenie magic” as Elders Sheldon and Avenius always say, to Katrineholm. Thank you all for the love and the prayers–I swear I can feel them throughout the day. I miss you all but am so happy to be doing what I am doing.

Sister Hannah Powell