Losing Yourself in the Work

Dear family!

  Guess who has made it safely to Jönköping! yes that would be me. It was great to read all of your letters and know that you are all doing well. Syster Dabb and I were just talking about how reading letters from home and writing home is very therapeutic. So! where to start!! Lets just wrap things up from Uppsala. That wonderful town is always going to be a favorite of mine. There were definitely a lot of hard moments but also a lot of love and happiness. I left Maj with a new baptismal date. She will be getting baptized next Saturday! Wahoo! and she is really doing great. Håkan's daughter is coming to young women's and we had a date set up to come and teach her about the Book of Mormon. There is still plenty to do in Uppsala and the ward is ready for more missionary work. I'm glad I could leave it in good shape.

 It was also rather hard to leave Syster Erickson. She became a mother and a sister and a friend all in one. It felt very weird not having her with me.  Especially when you get used to a person and their habits. It is sometimes hard to transition to getting used to someone else’s habits.  But! Not to worry Syster Dabb is just like me! It’s like having another Jacqueline around. A little bit about Syster Dabb. She has 3 other siblings: An older sister named Katie who is about 28, another sister who just got married who is 26, and a younger brother who is 20 and serving a mission... sound familiar? :)  She is short (probably Katie’s height), brown long hair, laughs a lot, big smile and loves to talk. haha it is going to be a great transfer. 

 So Tuesday evening Syster Erickson had our last dinner and Wednesday morning I was off on a train towards Jönköping. Syster Dabb met me half way and when we got to town the Senior missionary couple picked us up and drove us to the apartment. What service! :) We dropped off my bags and headed right out to a teach.  And we have been busy ever since. Just the way I like it. We have quite a few investigators here and I have met almost all of them.  I like them a lot but there is still a lot of work to do.  Our two most positive are from Africa. It is a little hard though because they only speak English. I worry about investigators who can’t speak Swedish because most of them seem to fall into the inactive category after a few months or a year.  But! We shall see how it goes. We are on the hunt for more Swedish people though... and we have the ward to find them.  This ward is like New Canaan--Swedish style. At least it is compared to Uppsala. We have over 100 active members. At church yesterday almost the whole overflow area was full. OH! it is definitely going to be a challenge to get to know them all though. Especially remembering who is related to whom. They have about three big families here where their grandchildren are starting to raise families.   So this makes me really excited because this means the members can do the finding for me!! (Well.... at least that is what the ideal plan would be). So Syster Dabb and I are working on a plan.  It is called "The Program; Member contacting style."  We have carefully selected a few chosen families who we think would be willing and up for the challenge. We are going to teach them the missionary lessons (one lesson every other week) then practice role-playing with them on how they could teach it to someone on a bus or a friend at work. Their homework assignment will be to study from that lesson in PMG that week every day in their personal study and then teach one person the principle that week. So if it was the restoration... they would have to teach/tell someone about the restoration that week.  Then the next week we follow up with them and see how it went quick 10 min stop by. And then come back the next week with the next lesson.  What do you think!?  We would love feed back for our Program.  

    So we shall let you know how the program goes next week.

One other highlight from this week was going over to a member’s house with a few of our investigators and learning to make Swedish Christmas treats. It was delicious. We made about 6 or 7 different things... and this week we are going to go around and deliver them to inactives and investigators. I have a picture of all the goodies... so ill be sending those home at some time. 

 I love this Christmas time of year. The Christmas fireside was also awesome. Sometimes I wonder why people ever listen to me and would be willing to learn more after I teach them.  My Swedish is not amazing... and I am not the greatest teacher... But when I sit and listen to the Prophet--all those worries go by the way side. This man is definitely called of God. I can feel the power of his calling just from listening to him speak.  I am so grateful we have a prophet on the earth today to lead and guide us.  He is also, in a way, another piece of evidence that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God's church upon the earth. If you haven't seen the devotional yet... it is a must. (http://lds.org/broadcasts/archive/christmas-devotional/2011/12?lang=eng)

And to finish. You know how we often hear the phrase "Losing yourself in the work"... I think I finally figured that out... For me when I sit and draw something... I just get lost in it and suddenly its been an hour and I don’t know where time has gone... or when you read a really good book and suddenly its 2 am in the morning when you started reading at 8 last night. That is what losing yourself in the work means! When you are just enjoying the little moments in life and suddenly it’s been a whole week. So I am trying to lose myself in serving the Lord. :)  It is going very well so far.  I love being happy and trying to come to know my savior more. I hope you all come to know Christ a little bit better this Christmas too. 

 Love Syster Schneiber