Hauling Hay, and FREE Chick-Fil-A!

Oh man where do i start... this week has been crazy! it amazes me how fast the weeks go! I'm staying in my same area with Sister Hoffman!!!! I'm soo happy!!!! But anyways probably the coolest thing of this week was that Jeff set another baptism date for september 5th!! please pray for him that he will have strength to make it to this day! oh man he is seriously the greatest, i love him so much and want him to have the gospel in his life soo much!!! His girlfriend emily just isn't to fond of him being baptized and threatens him that she will break up with him, but Jeff said he would choose baptism over her. His faith is so incredible he amazes me each and everyday!! :) He came to church this sunday so that was awesome as well! 

well this week during knock out we were able to teach many people, we taught a family that said they would read the book of mormon together and pray about it! We will go visit them tomorrow! I love teaching families the gospel! its so great! :)

This week i have been studying a lot about the atonement and the power that comes from using it! i was reading in 1 peter 5:7 that says "casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you." i love this scripture soo much! we can literally give all the burdens that are weighing us down to the lord and he will strengthen us and care for us! the atonement is so great!! the power of the atonement can free us from sin, power to heal emotionally, physically, spiritually, and the power to turn our weaknesses into strength! the gospel of Jesus Christ is a way of life not just a section or a part of our lives! It can help us overcome everything! :) I love the peace it can bring into our lives at anytime of day as long as we turn to the lord in prayer! i love John 14:27 "Peace i leave with you,my peace i give unto you, not as the world giveth, give i unto you. let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid." or Isaiah 26:3 "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee."

I seriously love the people here in the YSA ward soo much! they are starting to feel like family now! :) yesterday at church the secretary Brother Ashton came to me and was like hey sister swenson i have something for you. and i was like oh yeah what is it? and then he pulled out 50 free chic fila meals for me! I have never been so happy in my whole life!!! Sacrifice brings for the blessings of Free chic Fila meals!! haha i am going to be gaining some weight this transfer thats for sure :) 

okay so get this... the door bells down here are insane! they have video cameras on them and the owner of the house can talk to you through them when he isn't even at his house, through his phone!!! mind blown! we were at someones house and rang the door bell and he was like hey I'm not home right now what do you guys need... and me and sister hoffman were like what the heck how is that possible haha they are so cool! you should get one mom and dad :) 

So i have the best district leader ever!! the other night he had us come over to the Sister training leaders place and he had a santa clause hat on and he wrapped all these presents and gave them to all of us haha he's so great! :) 

Guess what i hauled hay this week yeah i know who thought sophie swenson would haul hay but i did it! haha :) the place we go for service was like today we need you to haul hay and i was like oh crap i don't know how to do that, but i did it! and there were mice running around and it was disgusting! 

well i love this work, it is great! I'm so grateful for this gospel and my savior jesus christ! He is truly the way for everlasting happiness! :) love you all so much! thank you for your continued prayers they help me so much! :)

Love,

Sister Swenson

All my FREE Chick-Fil-A Meals... YUM!

Jeff with his Baptismal Calendar 

We have the best District around!

The Funniest Elders EVER!!!

Holy crap was it hot this week.... 115 degrees and i didn't even die! its so crazy i got a candy bar and i took it out side and literally after 5 seconds it was completely melted.. its unhealthy to be out in that hot of weather i think haha good thing i love the lord and will do what he asks me to do :) Anyways this week was great!! its so cool how many miracles we see each and everyday! i love being apart of this work! Alexis came to church on sunday!!!!! it was so cool!! i was so happy! and he said he will be coming every week from her out! :) he has been reading 3 chapters a day in the book of mormon! it is soo great!tuesday after district meeting our district leader told us to go find a family to teach during knock out so me and sister hoffman were like okay will do! so we were knocking and we knocked on this house and the man was like yes come on in and i will go grab my wife, we were able to teach them the whole restoration and invite them to baptism! :) the lord answers prayers!!! on wednesday we had exchanges! sister morris came to my area and we had a lesson with a guy named drau! It was the coolest lessons so far on my mission! We taught him the restoration, and the spirit was so strong! I asked him to be baptized and he was like yeah i want to read the book of mormon first just to see! its so cool that when the spirit is truly there in a lesson it will help people know that they should be baptized and testify to them! :) that night we went to cafe rio and the member around here are soo nice and so giving! this lady just came up to me and sister morris and gave us 20$ and said dinner is on us next time! Don't worry mom i am getting taking care of :) oh man so funny story, so me and sister had to go to the bathroom really bad and we were in the middle of knock out so we hurry and ran to the nearest store and we didn't even look at what store we were going in and we get like three steps in and realized we were in a alcohol store and just booked it out haha it was pretty funny! haha and then we went back to knocking door and we were at this house and there was this huge dog behind the fence and he jumps and knocks the lock off the gate and i was like ohhh crap I'm going to die, and then i just ran for my life hah i HATEE dogs so much!! on thursday me and sister hoffman went and helped a member organize her house! it was so much fun! i love serving others, its make me so happy!! :) 

This week i have been studying obedience and attitude a lot in my personal studies! obedience is so great, when we obey, we increase our faith, knowledge, wisdom, testimony, protection, and freedom :) true freedom comes only from following him! it is so true! our obedience to the commandments is the expression of our love for our savior! :) he gives us commandments to bring us true joy! :) on thursday at knock out there was this really mean man that just swore at us and didn't say very kind things and i was just thinking well i can either choose to hate this man for the things he is saying to me or i can choose to love him and pray for him! Attitude is seriously everything! it determines how your life will be! 

so it was way cool, on saturday we finally got a hold of ashton!! we have been trying to contact him and haven't talked to him for 3 weeks! He has been going through some crazy trials and we were able to help him out! We got him a bunch of food because and took it to his house and it just hit me right at that time that this is truly gods church, the way this church is set up is to help others and to let them know they are truly loved by their heavenly father :) 

I just want to let you all know how much i love this gospel, it is truly the way for everlasting happiness! we can overcome ALL things through the savior jesus christ! i think that is the biggest lesson i have learned out here. i have never truly had to rely on the savior this much ever in my life until now where i have nothing else to lean on than him! :) i know that as we are trying our best each and everyday to follow him he will bless you soo much! never ever give up, be obedient and you will be blessed! :) 

thank you all so much for your prayers and all the kind letters and emails! i love you all so much! this saturday i find out if i will be transferred or not! ahh I'm so scared!!! I'm just praying so hard i can stay here with sister hoffman!! holy moly i can't believe its already been a transfer! the time is flying! 

Love you!!! xoxox

Love,

Sister swenson!

Hello Everyone!! I hope you all had a great week!!! :)

Well this week was pretty good for the most part! it hasn't been too hot this week which has been nice! its been only 100! im starting to feel when it gets into the 90 that its cold, im going to turn into a jojo haha ;) just kidding but really! the other day I had on a cardigan because I was cold in 90 degrees! Also Im getting some pretty nasty tan lines! haha

oh man one thing that is really weird about California at least the part that im at is that there are so many dang ice cream trucks and they are soo creepy everytime I hear them down the street it just makes me cringe haha

On tuesday during knock out we found a very cool guy named Christopher! He is 18 and was super interested in the message that we shared! we will be meeting with him on Friday! :) He is really into religion and loves God!

Then later that day we met with a girl named Brittany and she has gone through so much in her life! she is so amazing and her story in how she found goes is so incredible! I love these people so much! :)

on Wednesday me and Sister Hoffman made brownies for a bunch of less actives in the ward and took them around it was really fun! I love doing service! we also do a service activity every Wednesday and Friday! we go to a place called heart park and help feed animals and rack up leaves and stuff!

Sad story so we had to drop our investigator Omar because he wasn't progressing and wasn't keeping any of our commitments :( so keep him in your prayers! Hes such a good guy and I know that one day he will be baptized, its just not his time right now!

On Thursday during knock out we met the two most amazing girls ever! I love them so much! Their names are Kayla and Jordan, and they actually served missions for their Christian church so we talked to them for an hour about what they believed in and we told them our beliefs and they asked us if they could have a book of Mormon, it was soo cool! people out here are so kind and friendly! I love these people soo much!! That night me and sister Hoffman went and visited Alexis and had a really good lesson with him :) He has been reading the book of Mormon a lot more and he said he can feel him starting to become happier each and everyday! he said that he would come to church thiscoming sunday so pray for him! its so cool seeing all these people really being prepared by the lord, we just need to go find them :) later that night we had nothing planned to do so we were praying to know who we should go see and the thought came to me that we needed to go see this girl named Bailey, so we did and when we knocked on her door she was so happy to see us. She was having a really bad day that day and said she was praying for peace and comfort and then we showed up! :) its so cool being able to be answers to peoples prayers! im so grateful for the spirit and how if we listen carefully to it we can be lead and guided to those people we need to meet and see! :)

Friday we had a zone training for most of the day which was fun! I loveee my zone so much they are all so great!! :) that night for knock out we met 3 new investigators! We have been finding so many people through knock out and its soo great! I'm so grateful for a president who received revelation to have us missionaries do knock from 4-6 so that we can truly find all these people the lord has prepared for us :)

Saturday me and sister Hoffman made a cute poster to help our ward get more involved in missionary work! I hope it helps them! member work is sooo important! we need to find our friends that don't have the gospel and invite them to activities and church! for dinner on Saturday we went to the bishops and had a BBQ! Our bishop is so great! I love him so much!! later that night we went and visited a less active named Samantha! she is soo great! I can truly feel the love that our savior has for her! she has been struggling with many different things in her life that have made her fall away from the church but she still knows the gospel is true so that's good :) we just need to get her back to church :) We had the opportunity to go to a baptism of one of the others sisters in our district! I LOVE BAPTISMS they are soo happy!! :)

This week I studied a lot about prayer and how powerful prayer can be in our lives! its so amazing and I love it! I encourage all of you to make your prayers more meaningful! its cool to think that without prayer there is no possible way to return to our father in heaven, without prayer there would be no atonement, without prayer this church wouldn't be on the earth today!

Thanks for all your prayers! I am so grateful for all of you and the examples you are in my life! I love you all so much! and I hope you have a great week! talk to you soon!! xoxox

Love,

Sister Sassy Swenson 

Our poster for the Ward Members

We like to have Camera Wars every night!

Just a view of the San Fernando Valley

110 Degrees....

Well this week was one adventure that's for sure! I don't even know where to begin haha! sometimes I feel like I should be hospitalized from all the different emotions I feel In one day... it is seriously sooo crazy!! well I finally hit my 1 month mark!!! wahoo 17 more to go!! its crazy how fast its going but yet it seems like its been 20 years since ive seen you all! :) Well on Tuesday during knock out we met a really cool guy named cody, he is YSA aged so that is always so great!! We told him about the plan of salvation and he was super interested in it, he said that its really cool to know where we are going after death! I have seriously taken so much for granted! I cant even understand not knowing where we will go after this life.. Then later that day we met with our new investigator Ashton! He is so great! we talked to him about the Restoration! Ashton has been an atheist his whole life and has only prayed once or twice in his life. He has met missionaries a lot but he said when he met us a week ago something was different about us, which caused him to want to learn more! So during his lesson we were talking about the atonement, he was in awe that we could be forgiven about anything bad we have done in our lives. He was like wow is that what it means when people say Christ died for our sins? Me and sister Hoffman were like YES that's exactly what it means! it is so amazing to see the hope and light that comes into people eyes when they hear that beautiful truth that we can literally be forgiven of anything! :) That was seriously the coolest lesson I have taught so far on my mission! The atonement is so amazing and I am soo grateful for my savior Jesus Christ for dying for me so that I can live with my heavenly father again! :) Later that night we went and visited a less active named alexis the guys door we knocked on last week! we were just talking about the book of Mormon and told him to start reading it again and so he said that he would and after he was like wow I feel like im on a high right now and we told him that, that was the spirit he was feeling! it was so cool to witness him feeling the spirit again :)

Oh man do I have a story for you! get ready to hear this one!! so probably the biggest trial I have faced on my mission was probably killing our 1 st spider in our apartment! ;) I really realized how much i take my dad for granted when he kills the spiders for me! it took us 45 mins to kill it!! haha so me and sister Hoffman were saying our companion ship prayers on Tuesday night when I looked up at our bedroom ceiling to find a spider... yeah not okay! so we both just sat there for a good 10 mins wondering what the heck we were going to do... so sister Hoffman being the good companion that she is got some toilet paper and a shoe and tried to kill it! This spider would not DIE!!! so it started running across the celling real fast and so we tried again and it still wouldn't die so finally we got a box and we slapped the box on it, and me and sister Hoffman were both on this chair holding the box when out of the corner of my eye I see it climbing up her arm... oh man I have never been so scared in my life haha so she got it off her arm and we hurried and trapped it with a clear container so it couldn't crawl away haha then we scooted it all the way to the door way to let it out... its was soo crazy!

Wednesday we were out knocking and we knocked on this born again Christians house, and she invited us in and all that to talk with us. she was really nice but oh man does she hate the Mormons! She was so concerned for us and was like you guys have been deceived... you are on the path way to hell! It kind of hurt to hear someone tell me im going to hell for believing in Jesus! but Then she was going off about Jospeh smith and how much she hates him and it made me so sad to see someone that sacrificed his life for this wonderful gospel to be chewed out by a lady that knows nothing about him! that day as I walked out of her house I knew more than ever that Joseph Smith was a prophet of god! Josephs name really will be heard for good and evil as it has been told! We should never doubt gods prophets!! :) something I read in my personal studies this week was "Why does the lord allow the evil speaking to chase after the good? one reason is that opposition against the things of god sends seekers of truth to their knees for answers" I love that soo much because that is truly how we find our answers as we ask god! :)

So of course the hottest week of my mission so far our car would break down and our air conditioning in our apartment would stop working...it has been 110 everyday here! our car hasn't been starting so its been in the shop the last 4 days, hopefully it gets done today!! we have been living with the other sisters so we have been fine but its hard not being able to get around to where we need to be!!

so on knock out on Friday I had the feeling we needed to go to this certain street so we went to this street and there were these 2 14 year old girls standing there so we started talking to them about the gospel and asked them if they would read the book of Mormon and they said YES!! its so cool how the spirit really leads you to those people that are prepared to hear this wonderful message!

we found 5 new investigators this week so that was awesome! im so excited to start teaching them :) Being a missionary is GREAT and I love it, but it is very hard! I love the quote "We don't conquer the mountain we conquer ourselves." Its so true! we just gotta be strong and endure to the end! :) I love this gospel and love sharing it each and everyday with these wonderful people of California!! Thanks for all your prayers! I truly feel them each and everyday! :) Love you all!

Classic "Sophie Selfie" :)