Dear Family!

Sorry this letter is coming super LATE! But one of our investigators could really only meet during our e-mail hours so we got permission to e-mail later so that we could teach him. His name is Jean... (pronounced Jon, and I've mentioned him before... but I'd been spelling his name wrong, and so now I'm doing my best to correct that.) :D Anyways, we've been talking to Jean about baptism as of late... and... Well, he's going to be baptized! On February the 22nd. It's very exciting! It's funny, because we met with him last week, and we decided to go over the restoration again and we were going to ask him to be baptized... but before we said that he said 'I've decided, I want to do it!' We were like... 'Oh? What do you want to do?' 'Be baptized.' Moment of silence... '...That's Awesome! When!?!?' But we were just a little bit surprised. He said he wasn't ready to set a date and that he'd let us know on Sunday... and then he forgot to show up to church... so that's what we talked about today! Pretty exciting right!

But first-Yes Dad I actually do sing that song... ALOT! I just love singing. Unfortunately I no longer remember all of the words to most songs so I only sing parts of songs... Oh well. I still sing! Singing is so good for the soul!

And... HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEANA!!! (On Sunday... but hey, I won't have any way to contact you before that.) You're going to be OLD! (Like 17!!!)

John Wayne Movies? That's a little strange... Well, not strange. I mean, there still, well, movies like any other movie. But... I don't know. Maybe that just seems strange to me.

Haha, sometimes the simplest things seem strange to me. 

I think it's amazing that the Lord knows what is best for us, and that he helps us be where we need to be to become what we need to become, and help others become what they need to become, so long as we are willing to listen and follow him.

Kay... So I don't have a whole lot to update on, since, I have also written you lot very recently.

Ah,

But it's me, so I'll probably find a way to make it all REALLY long-winded... but that's all pretty normal.

These past few days have been pretty fun. I've really enjoyed them! On Friday we had EVERYTHING planned out... and it ALL fell through. Of course, that's fairly normal as a missionary. At some point I'll be used to it. But I did get to know Sister Lowe even better, and she's still super fun and amazing! So... That's all good! And then that night we made brownies and banana bread... And I can see your mind's whirling... why is this an important piece of information? Well, let me tell you! 

The next day was Nana's Birthday. (Nana was the one that got baptized in November...) And... well, all of his family is in Ghana... So we decided to do something small for him. So we invited Jean and Emy and Isam and the Elders... and we threw a small party. It was nice for a lot of reasons. 1) It made Nana feel like he had people here that cared about him and that he wasn't alone. 2) It was really good for Jean and Emy. Emy and Jean are both investigators. Jean and Nana were friends before. It was actually through Jean that we met Nana, but Emy met Nana through us, but he really likes Nana and during lessons he'll often refer to Nana. And Emy met with us before Nana's surprise party and we talked about the Book of Mormon, and then he met with us after again (he more sat in on Jean's lesson with Nana). But it was just really good! And Nana is such a positive influence on everyone. He is always happy and he has such a simple faith and steady testimony about him. He just loves Christ. 

But... Back-track. So Isam came and he helped us make food for the party. More he made all of it and we tried to help but we really just aren't as amazing as Isam is. But really, Isam really helped out LOADS with getting everything prepared for Nana. And I'm not talking about something super simple. He just went all out. Above and Beyond. Some people are just so wonderful! Isam is one of them. But he was a load of help. And then he took care of so much of the cleaning while we were in a lesson with Emy, Jean, and Nana. He made a potentially stressful situation nearly stress free.

Funny story! Kay... so I said that we made Banana bread right? Well, at the party there was no Banana Bread served... Feel free to wonder why for a moment.

Alright, did you wonder? Well, let me answer your wondering. If you thought. 'Did they put in too much salt?' No... Don't worry, we didn't mess it up that way. But we did mess it up. But we're not quite sure WHAT we did... You see... for some reason it just didn't rise in the oven. Like AT all. So it didn't really cook all the way... and... it was in there for a LONG time, like more than an hour by far. We have no clue what went wrong. But let's just say it was not fit for public viewing... or tasting for that matter. (Taste wise it was actually still pretty good, it just... wasn't cooked all the way...) Anyway, that was my funny story... but now that I reread that it wasn't all that funny. But trust me, it was funny. I just can't go through a play by play of everything we attempted to fix it. It would take to long and then you'd be stuck reading my letter for like an hour... and you don't want that.

But... while we were with all of these fun people celebrating Nana's 22nd Birthday... we played Ping-Pong. And... Emy was the champion! (By... yeah... by a lot!) (But, ...I put in a good showing if I say so myself. :D Ok... so, I wasn't magnificent... but it was fun. Nonetheless...) And Nana had so much fun as well. It was just... Fun. And, it was good for all who were involved, at least that's how it felt to me.

Kay... And then Sunday came along.

Let me take a moment to state a simple truth.

Language Barriers... are... so... annoying. Sometimes I'm not very happy with those people at the Tower of Babel. (For the most part I'm joking... But.. not completely.)

Anyways, so Friday we had contacted a guy on the bus to Hanaskog, and he didn't speak Swedish but his English seemed, you know, decent. And he actually knows one of the Elders investigators. (It's a small world after all...) Anyways, so he came to church. (Which was SUPER exciting! It's not often that someone comes to church BEFORE meeting with us. But he did! And it was wonderful) Anyways, so he was the only investigator there for Sunday School, so the lesson was very much focused for him... Which was a good thing... Because... It was hard. So, um... yeah, language barriers. Syster Lowe had the rather brilliant idea of drawing on the white board The Restoration. You know that's not exactly the easiest thing to draw in the world (But she did rather magnificently... if I do say so myself.) And that helped him understand better, but still, we're going to have to figure something out. I think we have the Restoration Film in Arabic, but after that... I don't know what we're going to do. But Heavenly Father loves all his children, he'll help us figure out what to do.

And sometimes... It's like. Wow. This world, all of it's complexities and intricacies. Sometimes

life is just.... I am so happy to be alive.

So, I mentioned that I'm emailing late today because we had a lesson with Jean... Well, after Jean we actually had another lesson, this time with Henric. I've been working with Henric since I got here to Sweden, which isn't Uber-long in the grand scheme of things, though it often feels like it is. And today, we decided to talk about Goals. And why we have them... We have them to help us become better. To improve ourselves and our lives. They are essential. Often without goals we grow static and allow ourselves to be satisfied with less than we can become. (We didn't use the word static... because we don't know that på svenska)... But we talked about how here on Earth we often have people who see our potential and encourage us to make goals that seem hard or even impossible (Here we used Dallin and Dad as an example with Dallin's X-Country) and then we likened that to our Heavenly Father and how he often sees what we can become (take out that often, he always sees what we can become) more clearly than we ourselves can see it. And we talked about how sometimes it seems like he expects a LOT from us, more than we feel we can give. But that it is always for our benefit. Henric mentioned his own goal to work on thinking more positively this year. And we talked a little about how prayer could help him with that. Then... we said we had a REALLY big goal for him, that we wanted to help him with if he so chose to accept it. We said we'd like to prepare him for baptism. He was very honest with us. He felt like that would be hard. That sometimes he doesn't feel like he has enough Faith for a step like that. And that sometimes he doubts an existence of a Heavenly Father and his love for him because of some of his personal trials (he has Schizophrenia, and of course there are other things, but that was what he mentioned.) We talked a little about Alma 32, and then gave it to him as a homework assignment. (He agreed to it... even though we really did call it Homework...). And then we asked him again what his thoughts were on the baptismal date. He said... Yes. That he'd work for it. It was truly wonderful. After the lesson Syster Lowe and I said a prayer of Gratitude.

Gratitude that Heavenly Father is willing to let his young and inexperienced children go out and be a part of blessing all of his other children. I'm 19. And I'm not all that knowledgable. I don't feel like I'm the best person for the job. But Heavenly Father has not only accepted to have me out here, but he has invited me, and he has given me amazing companions. (And here I'm talking about both Syster Richins and Syster Lowe... but even more specifically I'm talking about the Holy Ghost.) This would not be possible without the Spirit. 

But... I was thinking about Faith, that's something we've talked to Henric about. And really, it's a little overwhelming sometimes how big Faith is. We have Faith in Christ, in the Book of Mormon, in our prophets, in Eternal Life, in the Church, in our Father in Heaven... So many things to have Faith in. And later those things can grow into a surety... but it all starts with Faith. 

But... I think I'm going to draw this letter to a close.

It's been good writing to you all. And I hope you all have a wonderful wonderful week! I know I will.

Oh, did you know that Today is a Holiday? No? Neither did I. It's tretton dag (or something like that) but that means Thirteenth Day... It's been thirteen days since Christmas, but I'm still not completely sure what we're celebrating... not that I've actually seen people doing anything to celebrate... but... well, apparently lots of people had work off and school still hadn't started... all I know is that it is a holiday. Just so you know...

Anyways, for real this time, I'm for real ending this.

Love,

Kjanela

Wait wait wait! Cut! I have to do my ending thing!

1. If it's not a problem could you send me a jump rope... and... if possible my camera cord? (But if it's a problem don't worry about it. I'll be fine and creative...)

2. Thank you for the Cereal Bread recipe... I shall let you know how it turns out... I LOVE Cereal Bread... And I'm really missing the Bosch right now... :( For some sensible reason those aren't mission required. :D Haha.

3. Any advice for me as we begin this New Year? (I know, technically this Year has already been in progress for like... I don't know 6 days... but still! It's never to late!)

4. I just love you, but my letter felt really empty without my little numbers at the end with the recap and questions... although I'm a little sad. I don't feel as though I have many questions these days... Except I always have questions... I just never remember them at email time.

5. I just remembered a question. (One of the important ones too...) Kay, so where should I direct someone (as well as myself) if I want to help them with their acceptance of the Book of Mormon. (We've talked a lot about how we need to READ it and pray about it) But... They would like some connections between the BoM and Bible (We've looked in Isaiah and Ezekiel with them). Do you have any other advice. (This is for Emy, he mentions how Prophets were foretelling Christ and John the Baptists, and so it would also be sensible for them to mention the Book of Mormon.) (We've also talked about how God loves all his children, and about how God is the same Yesterday, Today, and Forever.) Anyways... wow, that was a long one, again, and as always, any and all advice would be nice.

Med Kärlek,

Syster Kjanela Fawcett

You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

Don't lose hope. When the sun goes down, the stars come up.

(And I'm sorry my emails have been on the short side as of late...) (But still know that I love you)