Hello Family!!! 

I hope you all had a wonderful week! :) 

This week was a growing week for sure, I have had a lot of health problems like many of you may have heard since I have been out on my mission, and ive been wondering why I have to go through this and why cant I just be a normal missionary... but the lord likes us to learn and grow and stretch! It was really cool, I was sitting in church the other week pondering on why I was going through these things and what Heavenly Father wanted me to learn through it all... and I had this overwhelming feeling that I am going through these things/struggles so I can be able to help others cope with it later on in the future and with companions I will have! I know there is a reason why we go through everything, we may not realize why we have to at the moment but heavenly father has a reason behind everything! :) I love the talk by Elder Holland- "Like a Broken Vessel" it has helped me so much on my mission! Depression and Anxiety are such real things and so common now days! It says "Never lose faith in your Heavenly Father who loves you more than you can comprehend." "That love never changes. it is there for you when you are sad or happy, discouraged or hopeful. gods love is there for you whether or not you feel you deserve it. it is simply always there." "If the bitter cup does not pass, drink it and be strong, trusting in happier days ahead." "Like a broken vessel that vessel is in the hands of the divine potter. broken minds can be healed just the way broken bones and broken hearts are healed." This talk Is so amazing! I Know that Heavenly Father can help us overcome every challenge we face as long as we have faith that he can! All he asks of us is to do our best each day! :) I know the gospel can heal everyone if we will let it! The gospel is so amazing and I love it more each and everyday! 

This week I have been studying more about faith! I was reading in Matthew 9:28-29 and it says half way down "Believe ye that I am able to do this? they said unto him, yea lord." "According to your faith be it unto you." Our Heavenly Father has given us so many blessings and we can receive those blessings if we have enough faith that we know we will receive them! I think that it is so cool in that verse how it says according to your faith be it unto you! its so true he blesses us and say well okay now its up to you to believe if it will really happen! :) I am so grateful for this gospel! and for my savior jesus Christ! He is always there for us and knows every pain and discomfort we feel! 

Well on Wednesday we went to service and we do service at a Animal place and after service the lady that runs it told us we could go feed the deer with her! so I was able to feed a real life deer, I was in the cage and everything with it! it was so cool! :) I will send a picture next week! :)  The work has been really slow the last couple of week, we haven't found any investigators and we aren't teaching anyone... but we did meet a potential investigator this week during knock out which was a blessing! He seems pretty interested so we will be setting up an appointment with him this coming week! :) We have been working with a lot of recent converts and less actives, which is fun! we have been able to bring back 3 people! I love seeing people come back to church and really seeing the light come back into their lives! It has been so cool to see Alexis coming each week and having greater strength to resist temptation! He has been reading 3 chapters a day in the book of Mormon and is preparing himself to take the sacrament again! :) The work is truly so great! I love being a missionary even though it is the hardest thing I have ever done, it is so worth every slammed door in my face, every hard day I have had, and every little moment of homesickness to see people come and change their lives to experience complete happiness! :) 

I Hope you all have a great week! thanks for all your prayers and support! I truly have the best family and friends anyone could ever have!! :) 

I love you all! xoxo

Love,

Sister Swenson

Best companion ever! haha

RAIN!!!

Well this week i learned a lot and saw a lot of miracles happen!! :) 

This week in my studies i have learned so much about trusting in the lord and having peace through trials we face! i love the hymn where can i turn for peace! It has become one of my favorites on my mission! "Who, Who can understand? he only one! he answers privately, reaches my reaching. in my gethsemane, savior and friend. gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching. constant he is and kind, love without end." Our savior Jesus Christ is the one who truly understands us! He is with us each and everyday! he really does reach our reaching! I think the reason i really needed to come on a mission was so that i could learn to really gain more trust in my heavenly father and savior! i have had to rely on them each and everyday to face my fears and to find comfort as i am away from home :) I know that as we do our part and do everything that we can to be the best and be obedient that our savior will take care of the rest and help us! 

I also love the hymn "does the Journey seem long?" i love the line "There is one who still beckons to you, look up and grab hold of his hand." The Gospel is truly so simple. All we have to do is turn to our savior and be obedient, and we will be blessed! yeah there will be trials that come along our way but thats just apart of life. the Gospel can give you comfort through those times! 

I was reading a really good talk by Dallan R. Moody, called "What happens when life gets 1 degree colder" i encourage you all to read it! it is so awesome!!! :)

Well anyways this week was really awesome!!! 

IT RAINED!!! funny story! so the night before it rained i prayed for rain, and i woke up and there were no clouds to be found in the sky and it made me a little sad but i didn't loose hope. so i packed my rain coat and umbrella just to show my faith that it would rain haha and sister hoffman was like uhh sister swenson why are you bringing your rain coat and i was like its going to rain! and she was like uhh okay whatever you say :) and then the clouds started to roll in and IT RAINED!!! Heavenly Father answers prayers everyone!!! :) it was a miracle!!! 

on Friday during knock out we found so many potential investigators, it was awesome!! :) I'm so excited to start teaching them! :) They all seem really interested and have a desire to learn more! so hopefully it all goes well!

On saturday sister hoffman had the feeling we should go over to our neighbors house and ask her if we could help her clean her house! so we did! our neighbor has been going through a lot her husband has been gone for a while visiting family in mexico and we could just tell she had been really stressed lately, with trying to take care of her daughter and go to work, so we went over and asked her if we could help her clean! she said we could and she had piles and piles of dishes and poop from there cats all over, it was really gross but it felt good to help someone out and to get to know our neighbor better :) she was telling us that she had been praying before we came for help to make it through the day! its so cool to be an answer to someones prayer! God is so aware of our lives and wants to help us, so he sends people to help ease our burdens! She was so sweet, after we got done cleaning she took us out to lunch! people are so kind out here and really follow christ example even if they aren't members of our church! :) 

Sunday was so amazing! we were able to attend the YSA devotional where elder whitney clayton talked! his talk was so inspiring! it made me so excited for conference!!! :)

Well i hope you all have a fabulous week! i love you all so much! thanks for all your prayers and support! talk to you next week! :)

Love,

Sister Swenson

Jamie, a recent convert in our area. She's so great!

P-Day Fun

RAIN!!! Miracles do happen! 

Hello Family and Friends,

well not much has happened this week! its been kind of slow, we don't have any progressing investigators so thats sad! :/ This week we will find some though :) Yesterday we had dinner with Jeff and his brother and Sister in law that want to start taking the discussions so that was awesome!! :) They are seriously so great and so kind to us!! 

This week in my personal studies i have been studying about faith and i was reading in Mark 4:38-41, "and he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?" "And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, peace, be still. and the wind ceased, and there was a great calm." " and he said unto them, why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?" i love this scripture so much because at least for me sometimes i feel like heavenly father hello do you not care that I'm freaking out right now and scared out of my mind but then he says now now sophie why are ye so fearful and I'm like oh yeah i have heavenly father on my side and he can help me through everything! :) i love the scriptures so much, i wish i could just read them all day! :) i know that when we make God a bigger part of our lives our problems will become smaller :)

Also today i was reading in the bible dictionary under the word sheep and it says "Shepherds still, as of old, go before the sheep, and the sheep follow, being apparently more or less attached to their masters, whose voice they instantly recognize" i love how at the end it says whose voice they instantly recognize! its true we can truly always recognize the sweet calm peace we receive or the voice of the prophets as his voice! 

This week when we were knocking doors we ran into a lot of Jehovah witnesses, and this one particular lady was getting all up in our face about how the book of mormon is false and how it only talks about joseph smith and so i said oh no the book of mormon is only about jesus christ, have you read it before? and she was like yeah i have and it only talks about joseph smith... i was like well thats weird because the book of mormon i read only talks about Jesus Christ! haha i wish people would just really find out for themselves! the book of mormon is truly from god and only speaks of christ! I know that we can find greater happiness by reading it! i know because i have seen it in my life! :) 

Im so excited for general conference, i cannot wait to listen to a prophet of God!! only a couple of weeks!!! YAY! 

Well i love you all so much, sorry it was kind of a boring email! but i hope you all had a great week! thanks for all your prayers and emails! Talk to you next week :)

Love,

Sista Swenson

We are REAL cute!!! :)

1st Baptism!!!

Well if you're into adventure, go on a mission.. each and everyday is a new adventure haha thats all i can say about this week. it was one big adventure! :) 

On tuesday we said goodbye to all the missionaries that went home! it was heart breaking haha i didnt like it! its crazy how just in 6 weeks people can become such a huge part of your life! :) 

Wednesday was quite a day! Jeff called us at 3:00 and asked if he could get baptized that night at 8:00, me and sister hoffman looked at each other in panic and were like i guess so haha we both have never done a baptism before and we planned it in 3 hours! it was so crazy! we called the whole ward and invited them so he could have a ton of support and then we got our talks ready and went and filled up the font! talk about one crazy day! then we had jeffs baptism! its was the most beautiful thing i have seen! right before his baptism his girl friend came to the church and since she thinks mormons are evil she was at jeffs feet begging him to not get baptized and he just sat there so calmly and said emily, Im going to get baptized because i know its the true church and she flipped! she through flowers at him and soy sauce (because he is ocd about sticky things and he hates when soy sauce gets on his hands) and it got all over him... but he didn't even flinch! he just got up walked calmly to the bathroom and changed his white clothing and sat back down :) me and sister hoffman were just praying the whole time that he would be strong and he did it! he truly gave up the thing that meant the most to him and he passed the test! :) during his baptism emily was screaming and freaking out outside so someone had to guard the door! it was so sad! i just feel so bad for her because this gospel could truly bring so much happiness to her! it was so cool though, jeffs whole family was there supporting him! the spirit was so strong! it was truly amazing seeing someone make covenants with heavenly father! :) Jeff gave the most beautiful testimony, He is really OCD about things and one of them is about getting water in his ear and while he was being baptized he got water in his ear and he was like through my savior jesus christ i can overcome these challenges i face and he will give me strength to do so! :) after the baptism jeffs parents and sister in law came up and talked to us and was like the spirit here is truly amazing can we come and learn more and go to church! It was so cool they were all there on sunday and his mom and his sister stayed the whole 3 hours and loved it!! i hope they can be baptized one day :) That night while me and sister Hoffman were asleep i woke up to this beeping noise at 2:00 in the morning, so i was like what the heck is that noise and looked around and it was the carbon monoxide machine going off so we hurry and got out of our apartment and stayed at the sisters it was so crazy! then the next night it happened again! so we've just been living at the sisters house for this last week! haha me and sister hoffman have the greatest luck with our apartment... NOT ;) but its okay we just laugh about it! :) 

Thursday we went to lunch with jeff and his mom! it was so fun to get to know her better! she is so great i love their family so much! i can't wait until you meet them one day mom and dad!! :) I have truly come to love these people out here so much! i don't know what I'm going to do when i have to leave :( I'm going to miss them so much! The ward is truly amazing and they have become my family out here :) 

Funny story so we were at jeffs house having dinner and doing a jewish worship thing with him and his family and we were saying goodbye to them and his dad just gives me and sister hoffman both these huge hugs and we just looked at each other in panic haha it was so awkward, we didn't know what to do! 

On monday we were priviliaged to be apart of a mission conference and Elder Hamula and his wife taught us! it was so great! i learned so much and this mission is truly white and ready to harvest! we will be focusing more on part member families and less actives which I'm super excited about :) this work is so great! 

Sorry that this letter was all over the place but it was such a crazy week! i love you all and hope you're doing well! thanks for your support and letters! i love them!! :) i can't believe i have been out for two months now! time is going by way too fast! :) 

Love,

Sister Swenson 

Jeff dressed in white ready to be baptized!

Jeff and a member of the ward

Sassafras road, named after Sister Sassy Sophie!!! :)

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