Mission Stories - The Arts

So as you've figured, I'm an artist-type. And as a missionary you put aside all things and focus on serving the Lord. Which is awesome, really is. But an artist that doesn't draw at all for two years might be in trouble later. But the good news is that I found ways to put the creative bone to use on my mission. I did a number of different little things, nothing that would go in my professional portfolio, but enough to be able to keep that "idea to execution" and the technical skills afloat.

When I arrived the mission president's wife syster Anderson talked to me about the crest. The Sweden Stockholm Mission has a coat of arms, but it's old and made a long time ago. They also had an elder there at the same time whose dad had a company that makes those badge-thingies (you know, the machine-stitched thingies that people like boyscouts sew on their clothes) and they wanted to make a thingie like that of the coat of arms - but they wanted it redesigned first, but they didn't know how or who... And then I show up, and am given this task to do it.

And there was a time when my companion wasn't feeling well and wasn't getting enough sleep, so all of a sudden I had very much time in the mornings. So everything worked out: we stayed at home and my companion recovered and I had something to do to keep me from feeling guilty over staying at home so much. So I drew the new coat of arms and coloured it (using Photoshop at a member's house for it). They sent it to the place, and they made this really darn cool badges out of it. And ow every missionary in the Sweden Stockholm Mission gets one when they come. They all have one, and this makes me very happy :)



I drew other stuff too.

With one elder I had a trade agreement. He could crochet, so he promised to crochet me a hat, and I promised to draw him something in return. He told me of these two songs that he'd like combined in a picture, so I did it (eventually - we were both transferred a number of times before we finished, and I'm still waiting for my hat :P)



For another elder I drew a chess piece. We were playing phone chess on text messages (we were in the same district but didn't get to meet each other because they were on an island, so all collaboration was done on the phone). And he was really into chess (and David Bowie - as you can see we learnt to like each other quite easily :P) so I drew him a little card which was a combination of a chess piece and a chester. I think it looked really cool, but I don't think I got a picture of it (maybe when he gets back from his mission he can scan it for me... if he still hs it. You never know with elders...)

And then when his companion (my district leader) was about to die (aka finish his mission) I drew him a picture of the naked cowboy riding to the sunset.

We also visited this really sweet girl who was really into Japan and manga, and had the sweetest dog, so for our next visit I drew her nd her dog in manga style for her.

The best one, though, was almost-real art in the end. The Fishers of Men. I drew it in Örebro, my last area, of my second-to-last district. It started on a day of a huge snow storm when me and my companion were sitting in the dark church, waiting for our Swedish class students to arrive. They never arrived because the buses weren't running because of the snow. But we sat there in the corridor, in front of a mirror, and started talking how it would make a really good painting. So we took some photographs of it to make reference pictures for me, then I photographed the elders in Zone Conference doing a waiting pose, and I did a sketch. And by this time I'd decided to make one each, everyone would get a copy: us four and the Andersons would get one.

So I invented a method of office-art. First I inked the completely black parts of the image, then took photocopies of that. Then onto the photocopies I shaded the other dark parts with ballpointpen (leaving the original ink one unfinished). So each is a copy, each is original, and it's all done with basic office supplies. I was pretty stoked about all this :P And everyone really liked them. Later I even used one botched up copy as planner decoration.

In the image you have two sets of missionaries, elders and sisters, sitting on a bench, expectant, waiting. Above them is the (in mormon-circles well-known) painting of Jesus calling the Fishermen.

My last thing was also rather successful I dare say. I made it for my going-home group. We were twelve missionaries going home at the same time. So I drew a picture and cut it up to twelve puzzle pieces, so that everyone would get one piece. We would all be given a piece, we'd put the puzzle together together at the mission home, then take our pieces and go our separate ways, the puzzle never being assembled again.

The picture was of a door in a stone wall. The door was opening and light pouring out of it, and a text (indicating the voice of the person opening the door for us) that said "Well done, thous good and faithful servant. Enter into the rest of thy Lord." Each puzzle piece was named, and each had a different scripture reference to the Book of Mormon. They were all dying words of prophets, so things like "I go to my grave, knowing that my garments are clean" or "and it came to pass that Nephi died" and stuff like that :P



The damper on all this was one elder, who became seriously ill right before his mission ended and he left before the rest of us. So he never got to see the puzzle or got his piece. My plan is to mail it to him, along with a photo of the completed puzzle, and say that we missd him - but I'm bad at stuff >_> So I'll do it eventually.