All Things Are Possible

Jaså!

Oh man! Vilken vecka! It has been a good one, this week is a “double whammy,” of quotes.

1)     1) Missionary I was able to go on exchanges with, “So like after your mission…. Are you going to date girls?”

Me:”... is this a trick question?”

2)     2)  (Explanation after.) “If you don’t get here with a laptop the blood of all the Iranians is on your hands.”

Background: So we have been helping a church service missionary with getting things set up for translation for Persian speakers. She is awesome and is doing a fantastic job but her work load is just a little too much. So we now are assisting her with that. She had been in the hospital, for different health issues, so we had come and given her a blessing the day before and she is now on the rise.

Now, flash to yesterday after church. We are in our car driving to a place called Åkersberga which is probably about 45 minutes north of Stockholm. On the way we get a call from her, furiously upset! Because she won’t be able to teach her Persian class because she is in the hospital. That’s when she cursed us with the blood of these Persian speakers if we don’t get her a laptop before 14:00. Well the thing is the call was made at 13:30. There was no physical way that I could pick up a laptop and get to the hospital before the class started.

We had the phone connected to the speakers in the car, so we could hear her yelling at us in surround sound. We are probably 1 hour away from the hospital. We don’t have a laptop. It was pretty much a game over. But then I remembered something in my patriarchal blessing, “You will been blessed to see problems and tasks, and prayerfully make solutions.” So I hung up the phone. Turned the car back around and drove directly to the hospital. In her yelling she said if we are late she won’t do the class because at that validity of the church would already be lost. So we had to get there in 30 minutes, (through downtown Stockholm), with a working device or the blood of the Persians were on us. So my companion prayed and I just drove.

Somehow the red sea of Stockholm parted and there were no cars. We made it to the Sjukhus in a 28 minutes. Then as we are running in the hospital we downloaded the app on our iPhone, got connected to the Persian group in the elevator and at 2 o’clock on the dot, gave the iPhone too her. And she just started going off teaching.

This was nothing short of a miracle. Helped us understand that literally anything is possible with the Lord, even if that is just getting us to a hospital in time.

This week has been a good one for the work. We have several people that we are progressing super well and we are just doing everything to raise the bar in our missionary work. (See attached file. It was our message for the mission.) Just loving live and loving being a missionary. It is so cool to see these people that we are working with change. We have a Chinese family that is preparing for baptism who only a few months ago met with us and wanted to learn about “The God.” Now is planning on getting baptized and absolutely love the church.

I love this work, I love being a missionary. “Vad mer kan jag saga?

Love,

Elder Haddon

Pictures:
(Our Message)
1) No Junk mail! Or we'll go crazy!!!
2) Nothing like a surprise carnival!
3) Viking graveyard.
4) Sister Beckstrand reading us a bedtimes story

Check out tannerandtaylor.blogspot.com
For our big news! :)

Member Missionary Work

Hej mine damer og herrer (Dansk)

Quote of the Week: “Nothing like running the streets of Stockholm, with a crazy Iranian in trash bags!”

We had a lesson with our good friend from Iran, and as we were about to leave, it was just pouring rain. So we were ready to just run about a mile in the rain to our car, but then she busted out some black garbage bags and made us some nice little ponchos! Still got soaked… but hey we tried. (See Pictures.)

This week was fantastic! It was like the week of “Member Missionary Work.” I throughout my mission have had the hardest time getting the members to get involved in the missionary work. People are too busy or have had bad experiences or just simple don’t feel like it! But this week we had I believe almost in every lesson with our investigators a member was there, or we taught at a member’s home. It was fantastic to see how much of a difference it can make, that when we all work together how much better things go! It also feels like our companionship got just a little bigger, now it’s not just Elder Mangum and I. Now it’s Elder Mangum, Täby ward, and I. It’s been so phenomenal.

Had a wonderful experience last Friday, which not too many people get to be a part of especially here in Sweden. Lennart Nyblom he was a man that I had the privilege to teach and baptize when I was in Jakobsberg, and I was able to go with him to the temple for him to go through for his first time. Not only that I got to be with Elder Allsop and Faylor. They had been taking care of him and really made it possible for him to be ready for this. I owe them a lot for that.

But it was just so cool to see him and it was like my mission flashed before my eyes. I remember the first time knocking his door and teaching him for the first time. Then when he came to church for the first time with his jeans and a flannel shirt on. Going through all the lessons, and commandments help him to stop drinking coffee and then to see him in White, the day of his baptism. Lastly getting to sit next to him in the temple, there is nothing that can describe the joy I felt. It simply doesn’t get much better than that!

Had another cool experience as well, we were teaching one of our investigators that has a baptismal date, he has a small family of 4 with 2 sons. No one else except for the dad has been interested, until last week. We would always go in and chat with the kids and then when we would start to teach they would go into the other room. But not on Wednesday. We watched “Finding Faith in Chirst,” in Chinese with them and after as we started to teach the father. The older son just asked us, “Can you speak in Swedish so I can understand the way of God too?” (In Swedish.)

 So at that point we were able to start teaching him as well. He came to church and we had a member who could speak Chinese there and he helped translate and teach. After it all the 17 year old boy just looked at us and said, “I believe everything that you said, it is all true.” We will be working on him and his father for baptism in the next month or so.

(Funny side note: The kids’ names are ridiculously hard, so I gave them nicknames Bruce (Lee maybe racist) and Kobe (Bryant he likes basketball).)

Love you all and take care! Hope to get many packages and letters from you all this week! (hint hint)

Elder Haddon

Hold On and Buckle Up

God Morgon!

This has been a fantastic week! But first the quote of the week goes to Elder Bednar and Sister Bednar, they were speaking to us and she had made a joke in her talk earlier about how the picture we used for the program was when he first became an apostle about 10 years ago. He kept making comments the rest of the conference that, “I’m old, my wife says.” Or “I just don’t understand that because I’m old.” Finally after he makes another comment, she runs up to the stand and grabs the microphone and says, “No, I said you are GOLD!”

It was very funny and cool to see how they interacted with each other, and how much they loved and cared for each other. And even though they are in the 60’s they still flirt and joke around, which is great. He also said, "You don't find a good marriage, you create one." (Why does everything worth it take work! Gosh dang it! ;))

Like I said this week has been great, we had a lot of things going a Mission Leadership Council that we had to train in, then the day after we had Elder Bednar. But we got some amazing things done in the Proselyting side of things. We have 3 people set up for baptism in the next couple weeks, one of which was a man who’s name we will say is Tyson, (for security purposes.)
He was a taxi driver and a vivid video game player for the majority of his life. He had really been living in a way that he was only searching for pleasure. Games, Girls, and drugs was the way he was going with his life. In the last couple of years he had felt the need to change that. To start to grow up and give up those things. (This is his preparation.) He about 2 weeks ago, was driving this couple from the Airport to a church. He said there was just something about them, he wanted to be around them. He finally dropped them off and right before he left the church Tyson asked them to talk to them a little about the church. The couple started to give some information to him and then said, you should talk to the missionaries, and they can help you. So they got his information, and promised him they would contact him that night. Which we did but had a very hard time getting a hold of him.

But finally this week, because of his schedule and things was able to meet with us and we just had a fantastic meeting with him. He gladly accepted baptism, and wants to follow this. They was something that he said that I found to be very special. The reason why he wanted to know more about this church was from the light in the eyes of that couple. He wanted that. He went to church and said he could see it in all of the people. It was fantastic. I just want to say that there are prepare people in every part of the world. No matter where we are the Lord is preparing his children for the gospel.

I just want to quickly talk about the Bednar Conference, it was one of the most powerful meetings that I had ever been a part of. Words of wisdom in these coming days. “Get in, Stay in, and Buckle up, because the fight is coming. The storm clouds are no longer on the horizon, they are here.” He was a voice of warning, and of hope. There were a lot of things that he said that hit me to the heart and are going to change how I do a lot of things. That is really all I can say. It was terrific!
At the Mission Leadership Conference, (MLC,) we trained about not letting expectations and weak goals from keeping us from achieving greatness. So what we did is we got 3 people, Elder Allsop, another Elder and another Sister, got them to stretch out because they were going to be doing some major jumping. We walked out with a broom and said we are going to hold it and you all have to jump over it. So we brought it to the front and dropped it on the floor. Told them to get over that broom stick. The first elder kind of chuckled and stepped over it, the sister the same, and then Allsop came in like a wild banshee and ran and jumper as high as he could over it. We then asked the two who just stepped over it.... Is that as high as you could jump? They said no... Then asked, why didn't you jump higher then? “Because we didn’t have too. The bar was set on the ground.” Then asked Allsop why did he jump as high as he could? He said, "Eh just wanted to show everyone how high could jump..." 
But the principal is the same with life. We have our low expectations, small goals and weak quotas. We can easily just step over them and keep going on with our lives. But we have so much more potential. We can't let those things bring us down, every one of us has the potential to do some amazing things! We can’t let the low bar from us achieving our full potential!!

Well once again, I love you guys, thank you for everything, i know I am weak in writing, but I hope that you got something out of it!

Love y’all,

Elder Haddon

PICTURES:
1) 10 lbs on my wife.... CRAP!
2) Same ties..... But look at the elders in the background.... What an embrace. 
3) Elders took my car.... The White Knight, had a nervous breakdown. But i'll be fine.
4) That was something some elder made us for our iPhone background... pretty sick
5) Celebrated a good week, with American hamburgers

Meeting True Disciples

Chello! (Got yourself a Bass)

Herro! Great to hear from you all! We’ll get down to the nitty gritty.
Quote of the week goes to Elder Mangum. (Last night when we got back at 12:00 PM.)  ”It’s official…. This week we have racked up a total of 26 Hours of driving! I never want to see a car again!” We had the opportunity to do a super-secret mission and drive all the way to the most northern area and back. Which was about a 20 hour trip. But while we were there we went on Exchanges with the Elders up there.

I was able to go with one of the greatest people I have ever met. It was Finnish elder who was a convert of about 3 years. He was a street contact, so it is something is very good at doing, just talking with everyone on the street, in cars, stores, wherever. It was so cool to go with him and to learn from each other. But we had a specific experience together that was
just amazing.

We had the chance to teach this lady who referred herself online, and kind
of lived in the middle of nowhere. But we talked to her and she was very interested and we felt prompted and good about meeting her. We traveled out there and she lived in one of these immigration camps that they have here in Sweden. It was an old hotel that they switched out into a refugee center. We met her and walked through this camp, which had people from everywhere. Iraq, Iran, Siberia, Lebanon, Eretria, and other war torn countries. We got to go through and everyone was just so friendly coming up and giving us hugs and handshakes. The majority of the people there were Christians, and that was the reason why they were there because people all
over the world are killing them and persecuting them.

But we get through and meet with this woman from Iran. She was about 35 and just a cute small lady. Something we noticed really early on was she shakes, quite a bit. She said it started when she was a little girl because of the terrible upbringing she had. We felt so bad for this woman. She just explained to us that has only wanted to follow Jesus Christ. She had explained to us for the longest time she had been going to all of the churches around trying to learn more of Christ, but none of them were ever opened or would speak to her. Until we came and visited her. The spirit was
so strong, it was hard not to tear up. We just taught her about Christ, and
all the things we can do to get closer to him. She was just so happy to
actually have someone to be there to help her and teach her more about Christ. She accepted following Christ’s example in being baptized, and now they are going to be preparing her for that.

It has been a fantastic week, we also went to Göteborg again for a
missionary meeting which President Hallstrom was able to come and do some instruction. As well this week Elder Bednar will be coming and visiting with the Northern Zones. So that will be great.

The work here in Täby is going fantastic. We were only in the area for about 3 days, but had some fantastic experiences in teaching some of these families we have met. Having our recent convert Jeremie come with us and he is inviting people like crazy to baptism. "I did it, it was the greatest thing in my life. Do it man!!!" We have a goal that we all will baptize a family into the Täby ward, and teach them together all 3 of us. So we are working towards that!

I’m so thankful to be serving. I know I say that every week, but it is
true. I really don’t want to go back. I love this land, the language, and
the experiences I have here. Love you all and hear from you soon!

Ha det Gött!

Elder Haddon

(Wow, we are so blessed to live in America and worship how we believe!)

A Week of Miracles

Tjabba grabbar!

I have a couple amazing quotes of the week, but we will start out with a funny one with our recent convert Jeremie. “I have never eaten grass soup…. And I grew up in Africa!”

We had the opportunity to do a service project with Jeremie and it was to this family who are… well Hippies. They decided to treat us to one of their favorite dishes…… Grass Soup. Let’s just say, it was not as good as you would probably imagine.

This week has been full of miracles. I’ll start with Tuesday’s Miracle. On Tuesday, we received a call from a part time missionary who is an interpreter to Farsi. She needed someone to come with her to teach this old friend about the Gospel. She has had a terrible time in the last couple of years. She was a member to a Christian church that ended up destroying her faith, and her family. She didn’t understand Swedish or English, so she had to interpret everything that we said.

We ended up teaching her the Restoration, which was so powerful. At the end she started to cry and grabbed my shoulder and she was just speaking in Persian. Finally after she was done speaking, I was able to hear the interpretation of what she said. It was something like this, “I have been searching for the truth, every day for that last 3 years. I have walked the streets in my walker, in pain trying to find someone to talk to me about my God. Someone that would just stop me and talk to me about Jesus Christ. And I have felt like my prayers have been unanswered, until today.”

I had felt the spirit so strongly at that point, I then was able to give her a blessing in the back of a car. (Not really the most acceptable place to give a blessing,) but did it anyway. I gave it to her and she didn't understand it I’m sure, but I can tell you we all felt it. We left that lesson with that women with tears in our eyes, and a prayer of thanksgiving in our hearts. We are now going to be teaching her and preparing her for baptism.

The miracles didn’t cease then, On Thursday I was able to go on exchanges with a missionary in Gubbängen where I have previously served. I had gotten a cold and a GNARLY sore throat so couldn’t speak very well in the morning. I felt so bad that I probably would be able to contribute so much for the day. And that missionary really wanted some help to get new investigators and get the place rolling again. But I was able to pray that I could be able to speak so that I could help this missionary in his missionary work, and help the work go forward there again. After I had this prayer, something fantastic happened. I could speak, I sounded like a horse at times, but I could speak without any pain. I personally was able to contact over 50 people, without any problems. We got several numbers and got in contact with people i had worked with previously. (Also somehow figure out a locked gate code, for these people they have been praying for and wanted to visit. I just started pounding on the keys, and figured it out. Got to see the little miracles things too.)

But we had one more miracle. On Saturday night, I was not doing so hot, we had a hard day of work and I really needed a rest with my cold. But it sounds weird, but I felt like we needed to go out to place called Åkersberga. It’s not the closest place in our area, but I just felt like we needed to work out there a bit. So we went out there to this place where we both felt was a good place to contact and knock some doors. Everyone was pretty rude, and not interested until our last door. We knock it and nothing happened… we started to walk down the stairs and this jacked African man, opened the door and asked if we were police, we said no. We told him we were missionaries from our church. He asked if we were Jehovah Witnesses, we told him again… no no no. And then he said, “Come in Brothers!” So we came in to him and his wife who were both very interested with their 3 cute little kids. They had moved to Sweden about 2 years ago, and wanted to find a church, but somehow it found them! So we are excited to start working with them, and bring that little family to the church.

I just want to thank you all for the prayers, emails, and the love I get from you all. I couldn't do it without it. I am so thankful to my God, for the wonderful week we have had. So many wonderful things happened this week. We ended up finding 7 new investigators this week and it was all from the guidance of the Spirit and I know that it was the Lord trusting us. I’m so thankful that the Lord is trusting me to be a tool in his hands. I love this work, and I love this people.

Love you all, Ha det Gött!

Long Drives and Conferences

Здраво ТХЕРЕ партнер! (Serbian),

Well howdy there folks! How's it hanging? We'll just jump right into some of the quotes of the week:

1) Jeremie (Recent Convert) while we were going through "The Kingdoms of Glory," in the Plan of Salvation.

*Jeremie*: "I don't really remember too much about the differences of the 3 kingdoms, but I do know that I want to go here. (Pointing to the Sun.) We all should, it's like the world's best movie theater, you gotta book your seat man!"

Jeremie is "The Man," every time we meet with him and teach him it's just the greatest experience, I'm so glad I followed the prompting to go play some basketball with him the first time I met him. (Even though I don't think I've ever passed up the opportunity to shoot some hoops with anyone.)

2) This was from Elder José A. Teixeira. He had come and was touring the mission. We had driven all the way to Gothenburg, to pick them up, (5.5 hours.) So at this point we had picked them up and were unloading there things at the hotel.

*Me:* "Is there anything we can do to help this Conference run a little
more smoothly?"

*Teixeira:* "No you’re doing a marvelous job, just go and contact at least one person before you go home tonight."

So that is what we did, it was super late and were exhausted from the
drive, and there had happened to be one man relaxing and smoking a
cigarette, by a building. But what we did is pulled over and did as the
general authority asked, and contacted that man. He was actually very, very
interested and is hopefully going to be taught by some of the Elders in the near future.

This week we had a fantastic time, having a Mission Tour with Elder
Teixeira. We also got to spend some quality time with him, and I felt like
I was able to receive some fantastic personal training, on being a
missionary, leader, priesthood bearer and becoming the man I want to be. To be honest it helped me see the very short time that I have left and see what I can actually do with it. He helped me get that vision back, and
helped me see how I need to live every single day to the fullest.

So after that, it was time.... to not just talk about it and feel good
about it, but to go out there and do something about it. So the last few
days, fueled with the Spirit and just going out and working our hardest, in about 3 days we have about 5 families that we are going to start/are working with. That is almost unheard of! Elder Allsop and I were able to baptize a family, and that was the greatest things ever. But other thanthat I have been able to really help individuals. (Which is fantastic, the worth of *one* soul is great, in the eyes of the Lord.) But now we really are working on getting one of these families the blessing of the gospel.

When I think of my family and how much I love every one of them, and how much the gospel has blessed us, all I want to do now is help another family receive those blessings.

We were able to teach a family tonight about the gospel in Chinese.... (I wish Hunter Anderson would have been there.) And now we are helping them with toward the path to baptism, and having an eternal famiry.... I mean
family ;)

I am so thankful for this gospel, and that I have been able to serve in
Sweden. The time has gone incredibly fast, and I want to use the last bit that I have to its fullest. I love you all and pray for you all.

Much Love,

Elder Haddon

Two weeks in one!

So sorry, we were up at bear lake last week so I didn't post like usual, plus he didn't email until Thursday so first is Thursday's email, and then today's!

Kas ir līdz?

Herrrrow!!!! Nice to hear from you all just want to say I had a decent
amount emails from you all, so keep it up!

This week’s quote is from President Beckstrand, “Man I didn’t know Bilbo
Baggins could jump so high!” (See Picture. Enough said.)

The beginning of the week I was able to spend a good time with my to best buddies Elder Allsop and Faylor, at a fabulous place called “Tom Tits,” (It is like a science museum thing.) It was cool, for small children, but us three still had a blast. (Shows our level of maturity.)

We had the privilege to go to one of the units on Gotland. Gotland is a
larger island south of Stockholm. We went there to check on the small
branch there and see what is going on down there. It is one of the coolest places in Sweden because it was one of the largest Viking trading places. So it has these fantastic old buildings. It is quite a hit in the summer months. (See Pictures.)

We had to take a large boat there and back, and on the way back we got to the mainland around 11:00 and had a large leadership conference at 12:00. And we were about 1 ½ hours away from the meeting. SO that was stressful, I
was actually encouraged by the mission president to speed to get there. Butgot there and had a fantastic meeting with all of the Leadership of the mission.

Then on Saturday, we had the chance to drive to Göteborg, and go do some good work up there. That is where I started my mission so it was really cool to go back there. I actually had the privilege to go to church in my ward Kungsbacka, on Sunday. That was a fantastic experience, just being able to meet those people that I met first in Sweden, now being able to speak Swedish with them and to see how they are doing now.

One thing that I really sad about that ward, is several of the families
that I knew really well have gone less active, or written themselves out of the church. There was a man who went there who was actually a higher up leader in the church, who now goes around and is trying to take people away from the church. So I could tell the ward was a little beaten up, but was still fantastic to see them all.

We have been traveling all around to visit all of the wards in Sweden,
which has been a cool experience. Everytime we go there we get to go on splits, with the Elders there and it has been a really cool thing, to go
around and help build up some of these other areas. We’ve been able to on this tour with our exchanges get several baptismal dates, new
investigators, and help find less actives as well. So it has been a great experience to be able to work all over the place and simply help others EVERYWHERE come unto Christ.

I am so thankful to be a missionary and to be serving in Sweden. I
absolutely love this place.

Love you all,

Elder Haddon

Today:

Well… Hello there!

It has been a long time sense I have been able to write you all! Oh man!
(Sarcasm through email has never been one of my strong suits.)

But anyway one of the quotes of the week comes from one of our recent
converts Jeremie. (The discussion was on the topic, “Marriage.”) ”Do not rush for marriage, do not rush for kids, what you need is to be stable.
STABILITY! If you get married before you are stable, I will personally come to your wedding and when someone asks does anyone object. I will raise my hand high, and tell your future wife to find someone else! Believe me, frankly speaking I will do it!”

So if anyone thought I was getting married young….. Think again, Jeremie will not allow that!

Quote number two, comes from our dear missionary mom, Sister Beckstrand,”I just farted.”

….. Now I will explain. We were driving in Uppsala doing this mission tour, where we visit all of the units in Sweden. We drove by this biker who was just waving his arm all over the place behind him. I then said, “I don’t speak Swedish-sign language, I don’t know what that means.” Then about a
good 20 seconds after that, we hear sister Beckstrand say, “I just farted.”
We then both proceed to roll down our windows. As she is laughing
hysterically, trying to explain that the man’s arm gestures were indicating that he had passed gas, not that she had.

But anyway, sense the last time that I wrote, things have been going super well. We have had some time in our area finally and we are just working as hard as we can here. I can honestly say, I’ve never been so exhausted in my life, from traveling, training, then coming back and trying to take care of Täby as well. But I know that the Lord is blessing us for our efforts and that it’s what is necessary right now. We have had like 3 super new referrals that we are going to be working with, and it is something that I know is when we work hard, are obedient, the Lord blesses us. But I’ll keep you posted on all of those people next time!

Sorry it’s short but not much to report from 4 days ago. I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week!

Love,

Elder Haddon