Dearest Readers  –  well, week 17 is over.  It was a normal week here in Sweden for us.  Monday was a red day –  which means it was a nationally celebrated holiday.  For some reason the Swedes don’t even know, the day after Easter is a holiday. They call it “Annandag PÃ¥sk”  which kind of means the next day of Easter.   Saturday, April 30 was also a celebration day know as Valborg.  According to the YSA it was originally a day of bonfires to scare away the witches but it has turned into an excuse to drink all you can possibly hold then have a bonfire. (and don’t ask about the witches because they don’t know that either.)  One of our young men recalled a Valborg from his teen years when he and his dad brought the family minivan into Göteborg the day after the celebration and gathered the aluminum beer cans that had been tossed here and there and everywhere.  They filled the van to the max and took them to the store to recycle. (the grocery stores have machines that count the cans or bottles then give you a printout of how many you have recycled and what your “pant” is.  The pant is the money you get back.)  in those days the cans were worth ½ a crown apiece.  They got 10,000 crowns!!  And he claims there were lots more cans to pick up but they had no more room in their van.  The next holiday was Sunday May 1.  It was called “the Workers’ Day”  but we didn’t notice anything actually happening.

As far as our week, it was totally regular until Wednesday evening.  We decided to have a free welcome spring dinner for whoever wanted some.  We had become the recipients of dozens of footlong hotdogs with all their fixings and couldn’t fit all of them in the freezer.  So we cooked hotdogs, had a green salad and some chips and some Swedish kool ade for everyone and anyone who came in and was hungry.  We got rid of about 50 of the critters and everyone had a fun time.  One of our young men ate 10!  He only ate 2 buns, but he downed those dogs like he hadn’t eaten for a week.  Then we served V’s chocolate chip cookies for the after institute treat –  only we had some Swedish M & M’s (which aren’t very tasty) so we chopped them and put them into the cookies as well as the chocolate chips.  I figured we would need about 60 cookies for everyone to have 2.  But we only had 13 show up for classes that night.  So they got as many as they wanted, with milk.  Then on Thursday we had to go to the immigration office to renew our visas.  We had driven to it on Tuesday so that we knew where it was.  It opened at 9am and closed at 12noon.  We got there at 8:45 and had to get in line to get a number.  Our number was 412!  We went in and sat down and at 9:05 the first number came up on the light screen:  number A001!!!  We looked at our number again, and luckily it was B412.  When the B’s finally started being called, the first one was B400.  It took nearly 2 hours to get to B412.  It took 30 minutes for the young man to help us and another 30 minutes for them to decide if they would renew it or not.  We left the building at 11:55am.  We got renewed and can now stay until next June,  if we need to, which I don’t think we do.

We then came down to the center and parked the car and walked downtown to the Pizza Hut.  A man in the ward had invited us out to lunch with the young sister missionaries.  Pizza Hut does a buffet at lunch time with 3 kinds of real American pizza and real green salad.  (Swedish pizza salad is shredded cabbage in a vinegar dressing)  It was a yummy lunch.

Friday was, of course, chill.  They had decided to play ‘kub’  (pronounced:  koob)  it is a really fun outdoor game with wooden sticks and tall cube shaped pillars.  You throw the sticks trying knock down the pillars.  There are more rules than that but that is the gist of the whole thing.

The president of the YSA council has just left on a 3 month vacation

–  he and his best buddy are backpacking around China.  They each quit their jobs, let their hair and beards grow for about a month, and flew out to Beijing on Sunday.  No cell phones, no computers, just some American money and a few Swedish crowns and an airplane ticket.

Robert tried to get in touch with the fellow who is farming Oliver’s farm on Friday to see if we could visit them on Saturday.  He couldn’t get him so we decided to do other things.  We did our shopping then went to Botaniska Trädgårdan.  It is a beautiful public garden that we pass everyday on our way to the center.  The trees and the bushes were in leaf and bloom and there were flowers everywhere.  It must be 40 acres and its right in the center of town.  There were large grassy fields where people were having picnics and there was a band playing in one of the big fields.  We walked all along the main path and sat on benches in several different places.  It was a lovely spring day and the garden was wonderful.  Saturday night about midnight our phone rang and it was the fellow from the farm!  He and dad set up an appointment for Sunday at 2:30.  While we were in sacrament meeting he texted dad and said he wouldn’t be home at all that afternoon.  So we didn’t get to go, but we hope to soon.  Then we will be able to talk with Grandpa and find some answers to several questions, we hope.  We had gone to Alingsås for church so we could get to Lerum in just 30 minutes, and to pick up the elders so they could translate for us.  Since we didn’t get to go, we just went to a local park and ate the lunch I had taken.  It was a long drive all for nothing.

We hope all is going well for each of you.  Thank you for your prayers and your support.  We love you.  Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, Rob and Nikki

Dearest Everyone  –  Happy Easter to all of you!  We have had a wonderful day.  We had 2 (yes, two)  baptisms this morning in Utby.  Ope, a woman whose husband was baptized in January and was ‘infected’ when the missionaries taught him, was baptized by Elder Olsen and Sari, a young man from eastern Europe, was baptized by Elder Carlyle.  It was a great baptism.

There were about 50 ward members present!  It was held at 9am and church started at 10am, which was a good arrangement.  The confirmations then took place during sacrament meeting.  These two young elders have been on fire here in our district the last couple of months.  If my counting is correct, these are baptisms 4 and 5 in just a 2 ½  month span.  And Elder Carlyle goes home in 10 days!  We had a non-member there, even.  Then he wanted to attend church at our home ward so we took him there and missed the confirmations.  Oh well.

We have had a good week.  It started with a wonderful Zone conference on Tuesday.  The conference was held in the chapel by our house.  The zone leaders had planned kebab pizza for lunch –  they went to the pizza place and got it and brought it back.  I suggested that they may want some veggies and a dessert to finish up the meal which they readily agreed to.  The other senior couple in our zone brought the veggies and I made cinnamon rolls for the dessert.  Both were a big success, as was the pizza. (However one of the zone leaders said that the most important thing he learned at zone conference was that Mossen’s pizza is better eaten at Mossen’s than as take away!)   As part of the conference the assistants had a message about working together with the members for greater success.

The missionary companion ships then made these ‘caps’ for the top of a 2 liter coke bottle with a lid, a thumb tack and a mento.  They screwed the ‘cap’ onto the coke bottle, pulled out the tack, which made the mento fall into the coke, and the coke exploded through the little hole in the top of the ‘cap.’ There are about 10 companionships and they all pulled at the same time which gave us 10 old faithfulls shooting into the air at once.  My first thought was “what a fun cub scout activity!”  (or maybe reunion activity)  Anyway, it was quite amazing.

This past week was Påsklov (Easter vacation)  here in Sweden so most schools were closed.  We even closed the center on Thursday and Friday because it was so slow.

On Thursday after we got the laundry done we went downtown and meet our friend Mazio.  We then walked through a part of Göteborg called Haga – a part of the community where the workers lived in the days of long ago.  The streets are very narrow and the apartment buildings are large but full of small apartments.  Now it is a trendy place and has a large student population.  There were lots of cafes and shops.  Just to the south of Haga is a hill with an old fort on top, which we desired to visit.  The fort is visible from the road we take to and from the center each day.  On the very top it has a tower with a large gold crown on top.  It was originally constructed as a defense outpost for the city.  The canon point out to sea in case of invasion.   It was built in the 1700’s and by the time it was finished, it was obsolete.  It’s canon were outdated.  It was never used for anything.  The town had run out of funds so they couldn’t replace the canon with the newer type.  They didn’t even have enough money to tear the place down.  So there it sits.

Nowadays it has a Sunday brunch inside it and you can rent the place for receptions and parties.  We had to walk up about 300 stairs to reach the top!  They were on the steepness order of the stairway in our Junction house (just less steep than a straight up ladder!).  I made it, but just barely.  When we got to the top we found a nicely sloping road that zigged up the right side and a steeper pathway that zagged up the left side.  We took the sloping road down!!

On Friday we met our friend from the center, Talitha, at the tram stop and went out to the Göteborg archipelago –  the bunch of islands that are just off the coast to the west.  To get there you take the #11 tram to the end stop which is called Saltholman.  There you get on a ferry that visits each of the inhabited islands, getting off at the one you want.  Your tram ticket will get you on the ferry (if it is less than 90 minutes since you got on the tram.)  For us it was, just barely.  The tram ride takes about an hour and our wait for the ferry was 20 minutes.  No autos are allowed on the islands at all, so all the island residents park their cars at Saltholman, which means there is little or no parking for visitors, hence the tram ride.  It was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed the ferry ride.

We rode to the last island before we got off.  Our guide book said there were 3 eating places on this island but we only found 1 of them to be open.  We even walked through the inhabited part of the island without finding anything but nice houses and 2 harbors full of boats.  Because there aren’t any cars the streets are narrow and most people either walk or ride bikes.  We did see a couple of scooters that had been converted into 3 wheeled motorized carts.  We walked from one side to the other in about 15 minutes and ended up back at the beginning to have a hamburger at the only little kiosk that was available.  The burger was unusually good and for dessert we had a Magnum ice cream bar, possibly the best ice cream bar I have ever tried.   The ferry captains could drive those 80 foot boats like they were in the family car, docking at the islands, backing away, turning to head out into the sea.  It was amazing to be a part of it.  The ferry ride was an hour in each direction so we were 4 hours in transit and 2 hours on the island.  It was enjoyable but I don’t think it is a destination for enjoying the beach.   The islands are huge rocks and they just jut up out of the sea with no gentle sloping sandy beaches or rocky beaches or any beaches. There is dirt on the islands for growing grass and flowers and such but where the island touches the sea, it is rock.   There are quite a few of these islands, some inhabited some not, but all of the same composition.

Both of these trips were recommended to us by Göteborg residents as places not to miss.  We have included some photos that we hope give a feel of each trip.  When Dad posts this to the blog he is going to add more of the photos.  They won’t all fit in an e-mail.  So in a day or two check out the blog for some more pictures.

To finish up our Easter Sunday we had all the missionaries in our district to dinner.  It was the typical Easter dinner –  ham, cheesy potatoes, jello salad, rolls, veggies.  Then to end, birthday cupcakes and ice cream (2 of our elders have birthdays this coming week.)  They enjoyed Dad’s stash of cinnamon candies and they enjoy being together.  As they were leaving one of them said, “Why don’t we make this a tradition –  Sunday district dinner at the Anderson’s every week?”

I didn’t say anything but…..  there were nine of us in this little place, Dad had to unbolt the legs from the kitchen table to move it into the front room so we could all sit down together,  the kitchen has about 3 square feet of counter space, and we have dirtied nearly every dish we have trying to make a place setting for everyone.  Other than that,  I think it should be a tradition, too!!  Dad had everyone give a report (of course) on the most important thing they have learned on their mission, so far.  It led to an interesting conversation.  In fact it was the perfect ending to a wonderful Easter Sunday that had started in the perfect way, as well.

We hope your Easter is wonderful, too.  You’ll have to eat an orange jelly bean for me because I couldn’t find any jelly beans in Göteborg at all.  In fact here they don’t do Easter baskets, they do Påsk ägger  (Easter Eggs)  which are paper Mache eggs that open in half and get filled with candy and prizes.  Another thing they do is put Easter feathers on the bushes in their yards.  These are brightly colored  – orange, pink, yellow, blue, green – large ones that are very wispy.  The bushes look very nice.

We love you all.  Hope all is going well.  You are always in our thoughts and prayers.  All our love,  Mom and Dad,  Grandma and Grandpa,  Nikki and Robert

Dearest Family and friends  –  Well, it’s the middle of March and still winter in the frozen north.  We get tantalized by a day or two of clear skies then plunge into another week of clouds, fog and storm.  Had a Swedish member tell me this week that she never remembers a worse winter for snow and cold  –  and she has lived in Göteborg for the last 69 years!  We had a very normal week otherwise.  Monday we inspected the missionary apartment in AlingsÃ¥s and gave the elders there a ride down to the zone P day activity in Göteborg  (bowling).  Tuesday was an early district meeting because Wednesday the zone leaders and district leaders from our zone traveled to Malmo for a big meeting  (and a trip to the Denmark temple).  Thursday we drove 1 ½ hours north to Trollhättan to inspect another apartment, were there about 30 minutes, then drove 1 ½ hours home.  It wouldn’t have seemed so long but the entire road was under construction.  I am not kidding you.  It is a drive of 70+ kilometers and all but 10 of them were a detour!!   We served shepherd’s pie for the meals this week with pineapple up-side down cake for the institute treat.  No one had even seen a pineapple up-side down cake before!  They all liked it though.

Saturday was the most awesome day of our whole mission so far.  Our district of 3 companionships had 3 baptisms!  The first one was in Kungsbacka, a 20 year old boy who comes to the center a lot.  His name is Kim.

He and Dad have had several long talks during his conversion process and Dad has been the member at several of his discussions (now called ‘teaches’).  The first thing he says every time he comes into the center is “where is Anderson?”  Anyway, he asked Dad to baptize him!  The font in the Kungsbacka chapel is beautiful.  (The hot water heater was broken and going to be fixed next week, so the water was “invigorating”.[Dad])  It is on the south end of the building with windows of etched glass as the south wall, in a v shape, like the hull of a ship.  The ward had placed 2 large planters of beautiful flowers in front of the windows.  The entire program was in the font room.  The sister missionaries sang a beautiful song, Kim’s friend who introduced him to the gospel spoke, Dad baptized him (in English), and I said the closing prayer.  After we dropped Kim at his home we hustled up the freeway to Utby and baptism #2,  a 25 year old Indian boy whom I had not meet before.  Apparently his brother from India sent an e-mail to the mission president at Christmas saying that his brother in Göteborg wanted to join the church.  The e-mail was forwarded to the elders in Utby.  It took them almost 2 months of hunting to finally catch up to him.  At that point he accepted the Book of Mormon, was taught about twice a week or more, never missed being at church, read from the Book of Mormon every day, prayed regularly, and begged to be baptized.  His name is Chandu

.  Chandu, who is about 5’6’’ tall, was baptized by Elder Carlyle  –  who is about 6”9” tall.  The last baptism was in Västra Frölunda.  He is a fellow who is about 35 years old, and speaks very little English and no Swedish.  Fortunately there is a member in Utby from the same country who translated everything into Arabic for him.  The missionaries would say something in Swedish, Shant would say it in Arabic,  and Fadi

would accept it and reply in Arabic, which Shant would then translate into Swedish and tell the missionaries what he had said.  What a process!!  But the center had an Arabic Book of Mormon, which he read.  Shant baptized him.  It was a great Saturday!  All the newly baptized were confirmed Sunday, each in a different ward, of course.  We went to Kungsbacka to be at Kim’s confirmation.  Dad got to stand in the circle with the missionaries and the Bishop and Brother Moraby,

who did the confirming.  It was in Swedish but I could tell it was marvelous.  In the middle of the meeting, the bishop announced that Kim would say a few words.  He got up and bore his testimony and read a scripture out of the Book of Mormon that he said was one of his favorites.  It was great!!  We never dreamed with our assignment that we would get to be a part of something so wonderful.  I need to tell you a couple more things about Kim.  Part way into the discussions, I think it was after about 2 months of teaching and investigating, Kim called the missionaries and told them he had found some videos on the internet that he wanted to show them about the church.  They made arrangements to meet at the center and invited Dad in to the meeting, not knowing exactly what to expect.  Kim showed them 2 or 3 of some anti-church videos and asked them what they were all about.  Dad and the elders explained to him as best they could.  He then replied that he sure had ‘felt’ that they just weren’t right and that each time he watched them he felt bad but when he talked with the missionaries and Dad he felt good. (At that point in his teaches he hadn’t even heard about the Holy Ghost.  He had no religious background at all  –  didn’t know about Adam and Eve, Moses, Abraham, Noah. Had no background in any religion.  Needless to say, the missionaries explained the Holy Ghost to him at their very next teach!)   About 2 weeks before his baptism, the missionaries had a talk with him about tattoos and piercings and about how his body was a temple, etc.  (he had no tattoos but had several piercings.)  He accepted every word they said and removed every one of his earrings.  (Do you call them an earring if they are in an eyebrow?)   His parents are divorced and his father lives in Du Bois. (That island over in the Persian Gulf)  He didn’t remember his father but during his conversion time he somehow located him and with his mother’s permission traveled to Du Bois to meet him.  He was gone about 3 weeks.  When he got back he contacted the missionaries and told them he had given his father a Book of Mormon!  I’m not sure that is even legal in Du Bois.  Anyway, I have probably bored you stiff with my rattling on and on.  But he is an amazing young man.  And now he is a member of the Lord’s church.  And Dad and I love him and wish that you could all meet him and see for yourselves what a fine young man he is.

We hope all of you are well and happy.  Has spring come to your part of the world?  How are work and/or school?  Are the daffodils growing?  We love you all so very much and miss you terribly.  But we know we are here for some purpose and are doing what we need to do for this time in our lives.  Thank you all so much for your support of us and for carrying on in our place while we are gone.  This is such an amazing experience.  I hope each one of you can have just such a wonderful experience in your lives, doing what your Heavenly Father wants you to do.  You know what I mean:  please enjoy being who you are, where you are, and what you are.  And always try to be what the Lord wants you to be.  As we serve Him, we come to know ourselves and to know Him –  two of the most important things to ever know.  We love you.  And your Father in Heaven loves you. You are always in our thoughts and prayers.  We’d love to hear from you sometime.

All our love, Mom and Dad,  Grandma and Grandpa, Robert and Nikki

Elder and Sister Anderson

Another week has past.  It was a busy one and I am having a hard time remembering what exactly we did that we haven’t done before.  Our FHE lesson giver called at 5 Monday night and was unable to be to FHE so Nikki did a last minute lesson –  never as good as when you have time to prepare.  Tuesday and Wednesday we served fried rice and Chinese dumplings for dinner.  Thursday was district meeting.  Friday was chill – one of the YSA taught us all how to paint with water colors.  Very interesting, but I am not Picasso!!  Saturday we had to inspect the missionary apartment in KÃ¥llered and do a bunch of shopping for stuff that is needed in the various apartments as well as groceries.  The apartment isn’t far from the IKEA but of course we were finished 45 minutes before IKEA opened.  So we came home, got our grocery list and decided to return to IKEA via a back road we had never driven on.  I had asked one of the boys at the center about it and he said it ran close to the sea but you had to get off the hiway and go into the little town of Särö to actually see the ocean.  So we did.  And we took some pictures.  It was a trying-to-storm type of day, which was typical for last week  –  it snowed or rained every day all week.  On Sunday we went to Utby for church because one of the investigators wanted us to be there when she was.  She is the aunt of a boy in the Swedish class who often comes to activities at the center and she only speaks Chinese and a little bit of Swedish.  Luckily there is a Sister Falk in Utby who also speaks Chinese and Swedish and a little bit of English.  They were at the center Friday evening and the Chinese was really flowing!!  Talk about a head ache –  Swedish and Chinese at every turn.  Whew!!    Then Sunday evening was a rebroadcast of a CES fireside with Elder L. Tom Perry.  It was really good.  You can see it on line, if you’d like to.  Luckily Dad had downloaded it onto his computer.  Because the US had switched to daylight savings time and we have not, the broadcast was at 6 instead of the advertised 7.  So when we got to the center to get set up at 6:30, it was half over!  But Dad saved us and everything turned out ok.

The work is going well in the Göteborg (pronounced:  Ute-a-bore- ee) Zone.  All our missionaries are busy and happy.  This coming Saturday our district has 3 baptisms!  One for each companionship in the district.  One of the candidates is a young man who comes to the center often with a friend.  He had no religious background at all when he first started investigating.  He and Dad have had several long talks during his conversion process.  And he has asked Dad to baptize him!  His name is Kim Nikius and he is a remarkable young man.  Dad is learning the baptismal  prayer in Swedish.  Kim speaks both English and Swedish but Swedish is his original language.  He had a really good friend die last week (a young man) and we are praying that he still has the desire to follow through with his decision.

We hope all is well with each of you.  We’d love to hear what is happening in your lives.  Remember that you are always in our thoughts and prayers.

 

Dearest Friends and family, we have had a very busy week, full of all kinds of discoveries.   Monday was of course FHE.  We started meeting in the lobby over the Christmas break because there weren’t many of us.  Now when we start at 7 pm, there are still just a few of us so the YSA elect to stay in the lobby.  Then by about 7:20 more have arrived and there are so many of us that we can’t fit any more chairs in the lobby.  We either have to get different couches that hold more people or a bigger lobby!  The YSA claim that meeting on the couches is more like a real family night!  (without the whining or fighting, of course.)  this week the game was sardines.  The one that was the hardest to find was in the lunch room, under the table but on the seat of the chairs.  After about 6 or 8 minutes of looking, no one had found him.  So his youngest brother who hadn’t been playing said, “he thinks just like me.  I’ll find him.”  And sure enough, he did.  He walked into the lunch room and found him instantly!

Tuesday morning we got a call from the fellow who lives across the street from the center, his name is Marzio, asking if we wanted to go for a walk in old Göteborg.  We met him in front of the center at 11 and he toured us through the oldest part of the city.  It was a beautiful clear-sky day with the sun shining brightly.  But there was a wind that shot ice cycles right through you, so we were bundled to the eyes.  Three of the interesting things we saw were:  1)  the Domkyrken  –  the Göteborg cathedral of the Swedish church.  It takes up a block in this section of town.  The building isn’t that big but it has lots of space and garden around it.  It is right across the street from a Pizza Hut.  It is called Gustavi Cathedral after the king who founded Göteborg in 1621.  There has been a church on the site since 1633.  It isn’t a beautiful building –  just plain on the outside —  but it has a huge organ on the south end  and the north end,  where the altar is, has a very unusual cross.  It is probably 15 or 16 feet tall and looks as if it were made of logs.  It is gilded with gold and has what appears to be a sunburst behind it.  The strangest thing is, there is no crucified Christ on it.  It is empty!  The literature says that what appears to be cloth draped over the cross arm represents the grave cloth from the Savior’s tomb.  And there are several angels around it.  The story is that when the Swedish church broke from the catholic church they did whatever they could to be just the opposite of the mother church.  Whatever the reason, I thought it was very interesting.     2)  the old armory  –  it was a huge brick building, right in the middle of a very busy part of the old town,

with huge iron shutters on all the windows.  Apparently Göteborg burned several times and to keep the fire away from the powder that was stored in the building the shutters were made of iron.  No other building that we saw in the whole of the old town had shutters of any kind, let alone iron.  The doors were also iron. 
3)   Christinae Kyrka  –  the German church.   It is named after a queen who gave them her patronage but called the German church by the locals.   The

congregation was established just 2 years after the city was founded by protestant immigrants from the Netherlands, Scotland and Germany.  Their church burned to the ground in 1669 when the entire city was destroyed by fire and another  building was erected in 1672. It too burned to the ground in 1746 and the current building was built in 1748.  It is a yellow building right next to the outer canal nestled between several other large buildings.  Unlike the cathedral which had no stained glass, this church had nothing but stained glass windows.  The pictures in them were mostly the ancient apostles.  Behind the altar was a private ‘chapel’ that had been constructed by a prominent general who was a parishioner.  It contained his large tomb as well as the burial spots of his wife and several of their small children.  (he and his wife had 22 children, only 3 of whom lived to adulthood)  it is a rounded room with nooks and each nook has 2 statues of the ancient apostles in it.  The most interesting things in the building were the window with Peter in it and the Peter statue –  they both pictured him with a large key in one hand and a large book in the other.  I have no clue if anyone connected to that church has any idea what the key means.  But it reminded me of a story of President Kimball and several of the Quorum of the Twelve visiting a church somewhere in Europe (Germany, I think)  and seeing just such a picture and telling the minister that was showing them around this famous church that the key Peter was holding represented the keys of the priesthood and that they were once again on the earth and he and those men with him held them.

 

The rest of the week was pretty normal with taco casserole for dinner and Friday chill was ‘China Night’

–  one of the boys who was doing it brought his aunt and she cooked Chinese food for us all  –  about 15 of us!  Dumplings, a rice noodle salad, some sort of seasoned meat and a wonderful baked chicken with honey and stuff on it.  The sauce for the dumplings looked like soy sauce with some little green onions in it.  The first bite was fine. The second bite, bit back.  And the third bite turned me into a fire breathing dragon!  I have no clue what it was called, but eat it with caution!  Special note:  I ate the entire meal with chop sticks!

 

 

So much for Sweden.  We hope all of you have had great a week, too.  We sure miss all of you.  And we love you.

Äldste and Syster Anderson

Ps.  Hope you enjoy some pictures of the churches and a picture of us and our friend who showed us around, Marzio DeMari. The statue we are standing in front of is King Gustav II Adolf, the founder of Göteborg.

 

I hope this finds all of you well and happy.  January is almost over here in the frozen north.   We have now been in Sweden for 7 months and have seen abnormally warm temperatures in August and abnormally cold temperatures in December.  Our layers of ice and snow are beginning to melt.  Some days the temperature reaches +4, which really helps the melting along.  While other days the temperature remains in the -2 to -5 range all day.  (+4 is about 38F to 40F and -5 is about +20F)  there are still spots that are extremely slick while in other spots we have grass showing.  I saw a swan a couple of weeks ago in the local canal and was told it was a sign of spring.  Spring will be here in about 6 months!!  The kids at the center are hoping for an early spring, about May.   We have also enjoyed (??) some fog recently, the first of the winter.  As close as we are to the sea I thought fog would be a regular part of nearly every day, but it isn’t.

The last week or so have been just normal for us:  at the center every day, doing the normal things.  Last Friday’s chill (Jan. 21) was a really fun ice cream party.  Monday’s family night was well attended and the lesson was interesting, about what makes something precious.  As soon as the word was said I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about “the Ring.”  Gollum, from whom Bilbo Baggins won the ring in the riddles contest, called the ring ‘my precious’ and even Baggins slipped once or twice and called it that.  Anyway, back to FHE, the precious thing the lesson was about was, of course, the gospel  –  not a fantastically powerful ring that can make you invisible.  (see 1Nephi 19:7)   Tuesday was institute and dad had to teach the lesson again, but this time he was asked about 7am by the instructor who was sick.  Wednesday was also institute and we had cake and ice cream for the treat.  Both Thursday and Friday were very slow.  We closed early both days.  Friday was chill. It was sports night at the ward building.  Just as we got there, 5 of the YSA were leaving the building on their way to the hospital.  Michael Baker had crashed into the gym wall (which is brick) and had split his head open.  The Sisters (what everyone calls the sister missionaries)  had cleaned up the blood, which apparently was everywhere.  We shooed everyone out of the building and locked up.  We were no sooner in the door at home than the Sisters called and said someone was knocking on their door and trying to get in.  just as Dad was saying ‘I’ll be right over’ they said ‘oh!’ and ‘it’s a letter!’  The boy that lives under them was bringing them a letter that had been delivered to him by mistake.  When they wouldn’t answer the door, he dropped it in their mail slot and left.  William, the under floor neighbor, asked us in church today if we knew why the sisters wouldn’t answer their door!  I don’t think that they realize it was only William, even now.  Back to Michael – he required 3 stitches and was woozy but was back at the church Saturday for the weekly Innebunde game for investigators.  (It’s a thing the missionaries have organized to get members and investigators together in a comfortable setting so when the investigators are taught the missionaries can have a member who is known by the investigator at the meeting.)  We did our weekly shopping trip Friday before the sport night because Saturday we drove 315 Kilometers to Jonköpping (pronounced: yawn-shepping)  to deliver a vacuum to the missionary couple who moved in to the center there in January.  2 hours to get there, a visit of 2 hours, and 2 hours to get home.  Part of the way is freeway with a speed limit of 110K (about 65mph) the rest is 2 lane road with a limit of 80K (about 50mph).  The highest speed limit I have seen here in Sweden is 120K, or about 70mph,  and all the 2 lane roads have speed cameras on them.  You get about a 20 yard warning that there is a camera ahead.  The worst part of the cameras for us is the picture of the license plate shows that the car is owned by the church so the ticket goes to Salt Lake City, where they determine it is a car from the Swedish Mission and send it to the Mission President.  The office couple determine who the car is being driven by and send them the ticket.  It can take months!  When the ticket finally comes you say,  ‘but I haven’t been there in months! How could I have a ticket?’   One of the senior couples was home before their ticket came!  I guess we haven’t been here long enough to know if we have a ticket or not!  Another funny thing about the cameras is that the government got all these cameras installed then determined that the film was horribly expensive and there wasn’t enough money in the budget for film for all the cameras.  So, many of the cameras have no film in them and couldn’t issue a ticket if they wanted.  But drivers never know which ones have film and which ones don’t!!  it’s a game of Russian roulette.

As we inspected the missionary apartments last quarter we gathered up all the ‘extra’ stuff that was cluttering their places.  It now clutters our place!  One of the things we collected was a large sack full of old Liahonas and Ensigns.  I have been reading through them before I throw them away and have found some very interesting articles.  One of them is an article on Mr. Dahlquist’s family that I thought you might be interested in.  it was in the September 2002 Ensign and is titled “In a Quiet House.”      I think you could look it up on the church’s web site but the archived articles do not include the photos, and the pictures are an integral part of the story.  We have scanned it and could send it to anyone who may not have access to the actual magazine.  Email:  Robert@oranderson.com

Our elders who were shipped to the north of the mission 3 weeks ago have been replaced by a set of sisters.  The missionary apartment for the elders is big enough for 4 sets of elders and has 1.  The sisters’ apartment is big enough for 1 person and now has 4!  We met the new set at church and they are wonderful.  One is Sister Maxwell from North Carolina and the other is a part time missionary from Umeå (pronounced:  oo-me-o) who will be here for 2 months.  Several members asked me why we have sisters instead of elders.  I have no clue.  I’m just  glad that the Lord is running the mission, not me.

We tried for several days to get help in the Family History Center at the ward, but the room was being used or the person was sick, or they didn’t have the key.  Finally we got in and got some help last Tuesday.  We found several original certificates for Oliver and his family.  And we have determined where the family farm was originally located – about a 15 minute drive from us!  It’s in a little town called Larum  (pronounced:  lair-room, accent on the last syllable).  We hope to visit the land registry office and get a map then drive up there on a nice day and take some pictures.  We’ll keep you posted on what else we can find in the Swedish Church archives.

We were invited for a middag on Friday with the Sisters.  Middag (pronounced:  mead-dog)  is the word for dinner.  It’s what the missionaries call an invitation to have dinner with a member family.  This member is a single man who joined the church many years ago when he was 12.  This time he invited us and we all went to Pizza Hut!  It was only about 4 blocks from the center and was a delightful taste of home.  Thick, soft crust pizza with green salad on a buffet.  I ate 3 pieces and so did Dad!  It was heaven compared to the kebab pizza that the missionaries like to eat every week after district meeting.  Now we have two choices when we crave a taste of home that I don’t have to cook  –  a MacDonald’s burger or Pizza Hut.

Thank you very much for your love and friendship.  We hope you remember how much we love you and that you are always in our thoughts and prayers.  We hope you have a wonderful week, filled with happiness and success.

Dearest Family and friends  –  once again it is Sunday evening here in Göteborg and time for the weekly update of life in the frozen north.  Last week was an event called Fokus in a community near Stockholm called Enköping (pronounced  n – shepping.  In Swedish köp means to buy so a town with ‘köping’ in its name is an old market town where people used to go to do all their shopping and trading.  There are quite a number of them throughout Sweden.)  Many of our YSA were going and the stake president called us a couple of weeks ago asking us to attend.  We left Tuesday morning about 9 because we wanted to drive in the daylight hours.  It was a good thing we did.  The trip up was through a constant snow storm.  Several times we got stuck in a long line of cars behind a snow plow.  Once even behind 2 snow plows side by side.  Part of the time the road was a freeway, part of the time just a 2 lane road with very little shoulder.  About 11 we stopped for a rest at a McDonalds.  Dad had a burger but I just had a small shake, thinking we would surely stop again for lunch.  Well, we didn’t and by the time we got to Fokus I was starving.  We got there about 3:30.  Our GPS  was very little help as it had us driving out in the middle of the forest and just kept repeating “please return to the marked route.”  The event was held at a school.  The YSA stayed at the school.  Luckily the local hotel was decent  –  not a mini Hilton but very nice.  It even had a very good buffet breakfast every morning.  We spent each day in the ‘outreach room’  –  a room with tables and games and movies and a piano and guitar.  The YSA would come in and chill and play games when they didn’t want to do whatever the conference activity was.  We were actually quite busy most of the time.  And we got to know several people from all over Sweden.  It snowed every day we were there, piling up about a foot of new snow in 3 days.  Each evening was a dance, with the Thursday night dance being a dressy affair with a really nice dinner beforehand.  All the adults who had been helping at the conference got to be the wait-staff for the dinner.  It was in the lunch room but the lights were dimmed and the tables had candles.  The dinner was very nice and the YSA looked great all fancied up.  We took many pictures but when we looked at them this afternoon, they were blurry and not very good.  I don’t know if it was the camera or the photographer (me).  We left Friday morning about 9 to come back to Göteborg, even though the conference wasn’t quite over.  They were serving a late brunch and having a testimony meeting.  We wanted to again travel in the day light hours.  The weather actually cleared for our drive home  –  the sky was beautifully blue all the way home.  Of course we were driving south – south west and the sun was right in our eyes for a good portion of the afternoon.  We used up all our window washing fluid about an hour before home and had to stop a couple of times to wash the window with snow from the side of the road.  But we got home about 3:30.  I don’t know why I was so tired from just driving all day but I sure was.  I was very glad that Saturday was our p-day.  It started raining Saturday morning – the temperature rose to 2+ — and it continued all the day.  In the afternoon we went grocery shopping and the roads were terrible – either icy or awash in water.  One of the roads just before the store was under about 6 to 8 inches of water for nearly 100 yards.  I thought we would stall in the middle of the lake, but we didn’t.  Today it is still cloudy and just as warm but the rain has stopped.  Warmer weather is predicted for next week so our 2 feet of snow will surely be melted and the roads will be even worse.  The rain has of course turned what snow was still on the roads into ice.  And our parking lot is once again a skating rink.  The parking lot at church was also an ice rink, with some cars unable to turn into their parking spots because they couldn’t get any traction.  ( the parking lot is a little hill  that you go up then turn into the spaces.  Even on warm, no ice days it is often difficult to turn into a parking spot without making a couple of tries.)

Robert and I were the preachers of righteousness at church today.  Our topic was ‘Be Thou an Example’ from 1 Timothy 4:18.  Because we don’t speak Swedish enough to give a talk, we had translators beside us.  They did a very good job but having a talk translated makes the talk twice as long as you figured it would be.  We had 20 minutes for the 2 of us.  My 7 minute talk took nearly 15 minutes to present, leaving Dad barely 5 minutes.  But the Bishop let him have his own 15 minutes.  It is a very strange feeling, having a translator.  You can’t ramble.  All your sentences have to be complete and understandable – the kind you could diagram, if needed. And the constant stopping and starting is disconcerting and often made me feel like I had lost the flow of thought.  But it seemed to work for both of us.  And it is over.  I really have to concentrate on learning Swedish.

The center opens again tomorrow for normal hours  –  2pm to 9:30.  While the break has been nice, it will be good to get back on a schedule again.   Our weather wasn’t good enough for any sightseeing or being out and about so we didn’t accomplish much while we were off.  But we have discovered, by visiting with some of the others at Fokus, that the Swedish church has kept, since the 1500’s, a complete record of all the people who live in Sweden.  The priests had to go to every home twice a year and record all births, deaths, moves, marriages, even literacy levels.  Those records are available to the public through the Family History Library at the ward building.  Our Family History person was not at church today,  but we will keep trying to catch her.  The records also include land ownership, sales and purchases.  The numbering system for the property here is the very same as it has always been, we are told.  So we should hopefully be able to find the birthplace and home for the original Oliver.  We are excited to get going on it.

We hope all is well with each of you.  That work and school and everything is going well.  We’d love to hear from you when you have a few minutes.  We are both doing well.  Remember how much we love you.  You are always in our thoughts and prayers.  Remember your name.  we love you,   Mom and Dad,  Grandpa and Grandma,  Elder and Sister Anderson

Dearest Family and friends –  here it is,  Sunday night once more and I have the opportunity to write to all of you while Dad naps.  He stayed up last night and watched the TCU football game (the Rose Bowl) until the final batted down pass and is very tired today.  Luckily, I resisted and went to bed about 10:45!!  (Although it was an afternoon game for you guys it was a late night game for us, starting at 11pm.)

Our weather has warmed and we have had 2 beautiful days of blue skies and sunshine, with the temperature around 0 C.  The snow is slowly melting, only to refreeze as soon as the sun sets.  Rather than melt and soak into the ground, which is also frozen and not thawing, it melts and just sits there only to become ice about 4pm.  In many places the ice is so thick it doesn’t melt at all.  One of the roads we have to take to get to the center has some ice mounds in it that could high center the car if Dad didn’t drive just right.  I knew it would warm up as soon as Dad bought me my Christmas/birthday present –  a new Swedish coat!  It is marvelous with a fur trimmed collar/hood, a thinsilate layer between the lining and the coat, made of wool and cashmere, and as long as 6 inches above my ankles.  I love it.  But it is definitely for the cold weather, and our weather has definitely warmed up.  But I wear it anyway!

Last week was a real lazy one for us.  We went to the center on Monday for family night but no one else came so we turned around and came home at 8pm.  Tuesday and Wednesday were laze around and do very little that didn’t absolutely have to be done days.  Thursday we had district meeting at the center at noon.  The missionaries had gone for kebab pizza at 11am and we met them at the center afterward.  The lesson was on goal setting and achieving.  The young elder who is our district leader is an amazing young man.  The message was very well organized and well delivered and everyone gained something from it –  even the 2 old missionaries on the end of the row!  After the meeting we went shopping and bought my coat then came home and had the last of the leftovers for dinner.  Friday we had to pick up the zone leaders and take them to the airport.  Pick up time: 7:15 am!  That is an excellent way to make sure we are up on time.  Later that day we decided to go grocery shopping.  The line of cars to our usual store was longer than ever so we decided to go to one that is fancier and more expensive, but less crowded.  We wandered around inside for about an hour, finally buying some window washing fluid for the car.  As we came out and were putting the cart away we heard some fireworks going off.  They appeared above the store so we decided to drive around and find them.  The neighboring store had several clerks in the parking lot shooting off the fireworks by the boxes full.  We watched for a few minutes then came home.  For about 4 days every evening we had been hearing fireworks but hadn’t been able to see them.  That evening (New Year’s Eve)  they started again about 8.  By 10 we could see them shooting into the air all around us.  Our bedroom window has about a 150 degree view and we counted 9 places where the fireworks were happening.  Our living room window has a 90 degree view (the building is an ‘L’ and we are at the bend.) and we could see 6 places where they were going off.  They are the kind that shoot into the air,  like Genola or Junction does.  They are available to be purchased at several of the stores we shop at as well as at kiosks, and apparently anyone can buy them.  I don’t know what the laws are, I only saw one sign and it said they could only be used December 24 to January 1.  The display New Year’s Eve was amazing.  It lasted over 2 hours!  Just when we thought that must be the end, they would start again.  They didn’t seem to be at parks, but came from housing areas.  It was a real thrill.  If that’s what happens on a ‘normal’ New Year’s Eve,  what did it look like at the turn of the century?

At church today a ward member (Sister Jeaneen Andersson) came up to me and said they had missed us New Year’s Eve.  I wondered what she was talking about and she said her husband Benny had invited us by talking to Dad.  Dad had told me the young ward mission leader had asked us, which Benny is NOT.  I spaced it until that evening and when we remembered we decided not to go (to the wrong house, I might add) because we didn’t know when or if we should take anything or what.  Sister Andersson said that in the ‘feed the missionaries’ notebook several of the families that invited the young missionaries had also written ‘äldste and syster Anderson, too’.  I said I don’t even look in that notebook because I thought it was just for the young ones.  So now I guess several families in the ward think we are anti-social.  We have to speak in church next week so I will use part of my allotted time to apologize to everyone for our ignorance of the local customs and our lack of knowledge of the  Swedish language.  That alone gets us into more trouble than anything.

This coming week we are driving to Enköping (pronounced: en-shepping) for a YSA conference called Fokus.  Hopefully we will be staying at the only hotel in Enköping.  If not we will be on an inflatable mattress  at Fokus with the students.  We could call ahead for reservations but don’t know where it is in relation to the conference, if it is decent, or anything.  Hopefully it is a mini-Hilton!  (keep your fingers crossed.)  We will be there from Tuesday to Friday, possibly Saturday depending on timing.  We also hope Google knows where Enköping is compared to where we are and can get us there! (keep your fingers crossed.)

We hope all is well with each of you.  A very happy birthday to all the January birthday people

We love you all and would enjoy hearing from you.  How did your Christmas go?  What fun things did you do while the kids were out of school?  Have any bears been to your house this winter?  (I just threw that in to see if you were paying any attention!)  any way,  we love you all.  May this coming week be great for each of you.  Remember your names and always remember that someone way over in Sweden is praying for you.    Love,  Mom and Dad,  Grandma and Grandpa,  Elder and Sister Anderson

Our past week has been not quite as hectic as the few before it.  On Monday we had FHE at the center.  There weren’t very many of us as the evening started but more came before it was over.  Of course we talked about Christmas and had cake for the fica.  Tuesday was our last meeting with the old institute presidency.  The meeting took about 6 minutes then we had a party  –  drank jul must (pronounced Yule moost)  and ate snacks and gave Oscar a few presents.  We gave him 2 ties and Shara gave him a pair of  bright yellow and blue socks with crowns all over them and an “I love Göteborg” pen.  He leaves Tuesday morning for Toronto.  We will get the new presidency the first of January.   Wednesday Oscar and Josephine came in.  Then Shara wandered in and in 30 minutes there were about 12 YSA in the center playing ping-pong and chatting.  Then they blindfolded Oscar and led him down the street to a farewell dinner.  Thursday was district meeting.  Of course the missionaries all went to Mossin’s for kebab pizza. Then came back to the center and we read and acted out the nativity.  Dad and I were Mary and Joseph with the others being angels, shepherds, wise men, and the evil king.  It was great!!  However, we had planned to have the missionaries at the center on Christmas day for games, etc.  but Dad got a phone call from a fellow in the stake asking if he could come by and get Dad’s key to the center because Erik had told him that the stake single adults (31 to 45) could use the center Christmas afternoon for a social.  After several phone calls and much thought we moved the missionaries to the church and gave him Dad’s keys.   Thursday late afternoon we shopped for Christmas eve and Christmas day.  We were at the first store and the machine wouldn’t accept any of our Visa cards!  We paid with all the cash we had then went to the bank hoping that machine would take our card – it wouldn’t!!  we came home and waited for about an hour for the bank in Spanish Fork to open and Dad got them on the phone.  They called Visa and Visa had put a fraud alert on our card because it had been used the day before in Sweden and they have been overwhelmed this season with card fraud.  After several explanations, Visa lifted the fraud alert and we were able to finish our shopping.  How blessed we are to have so many people watching over us, protecting our money and our good name.  we were so grateful that our bank account hadn’t been emptied by someone and left us stranded here in Sweden!  When we got back to the store the crowd was gone and shopping was easy.  Friday was wash day and we had to be to the Malm’s by 2pm.  We cooked a ham and made a green salad and I curled my hair and we left about 2:15.  Our GPS couldn’t find the satellites and we wandered around the back streets of our neighborhood for 30 minutes before it found them.  Come to discover we had turned right when we should have turned left.  We got to their house just in time to watch  “Kalle Anka”  at 3pm.  It is a show on TV that has been a tradition in Sweden for 50 years.  It is several shorts from Disney animated movies and cartoons featuring Donald Duck (aka Kalle Anka) and friends  with a voice over in Swedish.  It has been the same for all 50 years, but in the last about 5 years they have added 2 shorts from recent movies to update things.  It was so old it was funny.  Dinner was a small traditional julbord  –  meatballs, plain;  tiny hotdogs, plain; ham; boiled potatoes, plain; scalloped potatoes; salad; smoked salmon; hot rolls (should have been hard bread); and Brussel sprouts.  We drank jul must (Dad calls it mule juice)  or water with limes in.  the 4 year old daughter asked why there were  green vegetables in her water!!  After dinner we cleared up then Santa came.  He isn’t our red clothed Santa  —  he wears gray pants and a kind of maroon coat.  He knocks at the door and asks  “are there any good children living here?”  everyone claps and shouts  yes!  yes!  And he comes in with bags of gifts for the family.  The gifts are opened as they are passed out,  he is offered a snack and a nice drink  and he leaves amid more clapping and shouted thank you’s.  he is usually a family friend or even the dad of the family and has been given the gifts before hand by the mom.  Here his official name is Tom Tim.  Then we served the desserts and had a white elephant gift exchange and drove home 2 sets of missionaries and finally got home about 9:45.  Dad had chosen little flashlights for our white elephant gifts.  The 4 year old daughter (Sofia)  picked one and started to cry every time someone looked like they wanted to trade with her!  She would say No!  I need it!  And hide it under her night gown.  Luckily there was another and it changed hands several times before the game was over!

Saturday started about 11:30 and we got home about 7  after food and games and all the missionaries calling home.  We think they enjoyed themselves.  Sunday we drove 20 kilometers to Kungsbacka and attended church there then went home with the retiring institute director and his wife for dinner.  We ate Reindeer!!  In a casserole with bananas.  It was really good.  We got home about 7 and have just been waiting for it to get late enough to go to bed.  We are exhausted!!!

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.   We love you.     Mom and Dad,    Grandma and Grandpa,    Elder and Sister Anderson

INFORMATION ON FAITH

Hebrews 11; James 1:5–6; 2:14–26; Ether 12:4–27; Moroni 7:20–48; D&C 63:7–11; 90:24

The Apostle Paul taught that “faith is the substance [assurance] of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Alma made a similar statement: “If ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true” (Alma 32:21). Faith is a principle of action and power. Whenever we work toward a worthy goal, we exercise faith. We show our hope for something that we cannot yet see.

Excerpts from Lectures on Faith

1. NOW faith is the substance [assurance] of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

2. For by it the elders obtained a good report.

3. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

From this we learn that faith is the assurance which men have of the existence of things which they have not seen, and the principle of action in all intelligent beings.

If men were duly to consider themselves, and turn their thoughts and reflections to the operations of their own minds, they would readily discover that it is faith, and faith only, which is the moving cause of all action in them; that without it both mind and body would be in a state of inactivity, and all their exertions would cease, both physical and mental.

But faith is not only the principle of action, but of power also, in all intelligent beings, whether in heaven or on earth. Thus says the author of the epistle to the Hebrews (11:3): “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”

Who cannot see, that if God framed the worlds by faith, that it is by faith that he exercises power over them, and that faith is the principle of power? And if the principle of power, it must be so in man as well as in the Deity? This is the testimony of all the sacred writers, and the lesson which they have been endeavouring to teach to man.

24. Faith, then, is the first great governing principle which has power, dominion, and authority over all things; by it they exist, by it they are upheld, by it they are changed, or by it they remain, agreeable to the will of God. Without it there is no power, and without power there could be no creation nor existence!

3:13. First, that he was God before the world was created, and the same God that he was after it was created.

Secondly, that he is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in goodness, and that he was so from everlasting, and will be to everlasting. 3:15.

Thirdly, that he changes not, neither is there variableness with him; but that he is the same from everlasting to everlasting, being the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and that his course is one eternal round, without variation. 3:16.

Fourthly, that he is a God of truth and cannot lie. 17.

Fifthly, that he is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that fears God and works righteousness is accepted of him. 3:18.

Sixthly, that he is love.

Faith yields priesthood power

Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is the priesthood’s dynamic power source. By failing to put faith first in our callings, we reduce the priesthood’s light and power. Other obstacles also block its beneficial rays.

Oliver Cowdery thought he could translate under the flickering light of a candle. The Lord instructed him, “Remember that without faith you can do nothing; therefore ask in faith.” (D&C 8:10.)

Past priesthood leaders such as Peter, Paul, Joseph, and Brigham accomplished amazing results in their callings. How? They all did it with faith. They had no computers or fax machines. Their power depended on faith. Jesus often answered pleas for his miraculous intervention, “According to your faith be it unto you.” (See Matt. 9:29; Matt 15:28.)

Rather than relying on faith, we are tempted to stay with the comfortable and tangible tools of our temporal lives to accomplish priesthood callings. The Church has also provided some tools. These tools are useful. They have helped us achieve success, power, and control over our time. They include our natural intelligence; education and training; preparation, with manuals, handbooks, agendas, and budgets.

We operate with diligent, purposeful effort using management concepts and systems we have learned. I wouldn’t say a word against these tools. They serve us well. Often they have come themselves through a process of faith and inspiration, trial and error, and intelligent effort. After all, the Lord said, “Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing.” (D&C 88:119.)

Add faith, however, and priesthood service becomes magnificent. Two candles suddenly burst into four hundred watts of light. More to the point, we tap into the Lord’s power source, and our actions move in rhythm with His. The Lord compensates for our deficiencies. Vast, unseen reservoirs of dynamic power supply our needs.     [John K. Carmack, “Faith Yields Priesthood Power,” Ensign, May 1993, 41]

Ask in Faith

“My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join” (Joseph Smith—History 1:10, 18).

Joseph’s questions focused not just on what he needed to know but also on what was to be done! His prayer was not simply, “Which church is right?” His question was, “Which church should I join?” Joseph went to the grove to ask in faith, and he was determined to act.

True faith is focused in and on the Lord Jesus Christ and always leads to righteous action. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that “faith [is] the first principle in revealed religion, and the foundation of all righteousness” and that it is also “the principle of action in all intelligent beings” (Lectures on Faith [1985], 1). Action alone is not faith in the Savior, but acting in accordance with correct principles is a central component of faith. Thus, “faith without works is dead” (James 2:20).

The Prophet Joseph further explained that “faith is not only the principle of action, but of power also, in all intelligent beings, whether in heaven or on earth” (Lectures on Faith, 3). Thus, faith in Christ leads to righteous action, which increases our spiritual capacity and power. Understanding that faith is a principle of action and of power inspires us to exercise our moral agency in compliance with gospel truth, invites the redeeming and strengthening powers of the Savior’s Atonement into our lives, and enlarges the power within us whereby we are agents unto ourselves (see D&C 58:28).

I long have been impressed with the truth that meaningful prayer requires both holy communication and consecrated work. Blessings require some effort on our part before we can obtain them, and prayer, as “a form of work, … is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings” (Bible Dictionary, “Prayer,” 753). We press forward and persevere in the consecrated work of prayer, after we say “amen,” by acting upon the things we have expressed to Heavenly Father.

“Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other” (Bible Dictionary, “Prayer,” 752–53). Humble, earnest, and persistent prayer enables us to recognize and align ourselves with the will of our Heavenly Father. And in this the Savior provided the perfect example as He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. … And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly” (Luke 22:42, 44). [David A. Bednar, “Ask in Faith,” Ensign, May 2008, 94–9]

Faith is always a gift of God to man, which is obtained by obedience, as all other blessings are. The man or woman in this Church who desires to enrich his or her faith to the highest possible degree will desire to observe every rite and ordinance in the Church in conformity to the law of obedience to the will of God. In these things, and through them, man gains a more perfect knowledge of God’s purposes in the world. An enriched faith means an enlarged power, and though man may not have in this life an occasion to exercise all the powers that come to him through the enrichment of his faith, those powers may be exercised in their fulness in eternity, if not in time. [Gospel Doctrine, 444–45]

Faith is always a gift of God to man, which is obtained by obedience, as all other blessings are. The man or woman in this Church who desires to enrich his or her faith to the highest possible degree will desire to observe every rite and ordinance in the Church in conformity to the law of obedience to the will of God. In these things, and through them, man gains a more perfect knowledge of God’s purposes in the world. An enriched faith means an enlarged power, and though man may not have in this life an occasion to exercise all the powers that come to him through the enrichment of his faith, those powers may be exercised in their fulness in eternity, if not in time. [Gospel Doctrine, 444–45]

Faith exists when absolute confidence in that which we cannot see combines with action that is in absolute conformity to the will of our Heavenly Father. Without all three—first, absolute confidence; second, action; and third, absolute conformity—without these three all we have is a counterfeit, a weak and watered-down faith. Let me discuss each of these three imperatives of faith.

Often what passes for faith in this world is little more than gullibility. It is distressing to see how eager some people are to embrace fads and theories while rejecting or giving less credence and attention to the everlasting principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is distressing how eagerly some rush into foolish or unethical behavior, believing that God will somehow deliver them from the inevitable tragic consequences of their actions. They even go so far as to ask for the blessings of heaven, knowing in their hearts that what they do is contrary to the will of our Father in Heaven.                                                                                                                                                    Faith is not so much something we believe; faith is something we live.                                                                                                                         [Joseph B. Wirthlin, “Shall He Find Faith on the Earth?,” Ensign, Nov 2002, 82]

Faith does not exist by itself. Faith requires an object. It must be faith in something or someone.  In that respect, faith is like love. Love cannot exist without an object.

[Dallin H. Oaks, “‘Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ’,” Ensign, May 1994, 98]