Scones and Honey Butter-Yum!
Monday, January 27, 2014
Christmas Scones
Elder Cahill's family on his Mom's side has a tradition of having Christmas Scones going back many generations. His Great Grandmother would make them Christmas Morning and invite all the kids and grandkids over for breakfast. Today her kids and grandkids continue the tradition of Christmas Scones, scones are made each Christmas season in Utah, Washington California and sometimes Oregon.. Eli was raised having scones for Christmas every year and wanted to continue this tradition himself in Sweden. Looks like he did a great job and they all enjoyed them!
Finding Fever
Hey everyone!
The shirt and tie that was sacrificed to celebrate the one year anniversary of being a missionary
The last week has been good! We've been focusing on finding work a lot to try to (surprise!) find new people and figure out which of the old people would be willing to meet, etc. Overall, there weren't too many new investigators (etc), but there were a few new people. One of them was this pretty old guy who we found (1) to be really hard to understand, either because of his accent or because he was drunk, I'm not sure, and (2) loves America. A lot. We tried to talk about the gospel some, but as before mentioned, it was a bit hard to understand him, so we ended up talking mostly about America and his background (which isn't bad for a first lesson). He's a super nice guy, though, loves the outdoors and animals, and said he never wants to hurt anything. But, then again, he also said that he wants to kill a wolf before he dies (which will be in 7 years when he turns 78. Whatever.). But he was actually a really nice guy and enjoyed our company a lot, so we'll try to visit him more in the future.
Aside from that... We met a few former investigators and such, but most of them weren't too interested in the gospel. We did contact these two middle eastern people (ironically two men about our age), who we talked to for a while and who were mainly interested in converting us to Islam. That was pretty fun. But they seemed pretty interested when we talked about prophets in the Book of Mormon, so they took a copy. That was pretty good.
Lets see... In other news, President Newell came by for interviews and such. It was a really good visit; he said a lot of really good stuff about missionary work and building a testimony. He also talked about contacting quite a bit, which is good. He always strikes me as a very spiritual man.
Oh yeah! I suppose that last Thursday marked my year mark! I've officially been out for a year now! Yay! We didn't have too many exciting celebrations, but, per tradition, I did burn a white shirt to mark the occasion. Good fun.
It's good to hear from all of you! I hope you all have a great week!
Love you!
Eli's first "selfie"-one happy Mom
Monday, January 20, 2014
Zone Training, etc.
Hey everyone!
The last week has been pretty good. The biggest event to have happened has probably been the Zone Training meeting that we had on Wednesday, but it's been overall a fairly good week.
Yeah, on Wednesday we went down to our Zone Training meeting. It was in Västerfrölunda, which is a suburb of Göteborg (Gothenburg?), which took about 3 hours to get to by train. The meeting itself talked a bit about teaching skills. The zone leader had us do a lot of role plays (practice lessons) that were critiqued by the rest of the zone / district (when we divided into districts). The meeting went well; we focused primarily on how teaching skills and how we can effectively meet our investigator's concerns in a lesson or teaching environment. It also sort of emphasized practicing teaching with other missionaries so that we can develop good lesson plans. Overall, it was pretty interesting. And, of course, everyone got lunch afterward. It was kind of weird, though, because I don't really know anyone in the Zone. I guess I'll be getting to know them better over the next few months.
Aside from that, the week has been fairly good, though someone uneventful. We've been doing a lot of the usual stuffs, swing by's, lessons with investigators, calling people, etc. It's all been good work, but not too much has really happened yet. But we'll have more of interest soon!
Dad has mentioned that friendshipping teens in the branches is important. My main problem is that there just aren't a lot of teens in any of the branches here. I think that there was one in Eskilstuna that we had just started to meet with the play ping pong and such, but then I was transferred out (which is too bad, because he seemed like a pretty cool kid and I was just starting to get to know him because he's less active...). But I definitely thing it's important to be friends with people, especially people that you work with or branch members or what have you. I feel like there's quite a few less actives that just don't come because they don't feel like they have any friends at church. And people are more willing to listen to friends than to random people who just want to come and teach them a lesson and go, like a lot of missionaries do. Anyways, I could rant for a while about this, but I'll spare you.
When we have dinner at someone's house, we usually share a spiritual thought. Usually I just read a passage from the Book of Mormon and elaborate some on it. One of my favorites is reading Alma 5:45-46 and then talk some about Alma the younger's conversion and why and how he gained a testimony of the Gospel. I like that scripture.
As for interesting contacts or investigators... uh, a few weeks ago some drunk guy started talking to us with something like "Hey, Mormons!" He actually ended up being pretty nice, but he was completely intoxicated. I just thought it was kind of funny because he looked, sounded, and acted kind of like a muppet. I wouldn't have been too surprised if marionette strings had been caught on something getting on or off the bus; it was a kind of funny experience.
Either way, I hope all is well with you guys!
Monday, January 13, 2014
IKEA and Farmwork
Hey Everyone!
So the last week has been pretty good. We've been up to a few different things of interest over the course of the week; so it's all in all been a good week.
On Monday, we had our usual p day activities, and then we went to check out the IKEA here for a little while. That turned out to be a lot of fun, but it was really just the usual sort of stuff that we'd do at an IKEA; look at furniture and random things in their market, and ate food (some sort of chicken with mashed peas? I'm not sure, but it tasted pretty good). It was all enjoyable, though, and I did end up buying a few random things but it was Good fun.
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were somewhat more ordinary. We met with a few investigators (who were nice, but very intellectual about things) and less actives (who were quite friendly). Things went well, though it wasn't too exciting.
On Friday, we went out to the L's, a less active family who lives a few hours away. We spent the day at their house; we visited for a little while and then helped them move a bunch of hay they had (they own some sort of an ranch). It was fun, though a lot of work. I think we moved somewhere around 300 bales of hay, which was pretty cool. Hay is surprisingly heavy. Either way, they're a really cool family; we had a good time helping them out.
On Saturday we helped run the family history center in the branch, which is normally not too exciting of a job, but we ended up having a whole bunch of people come (I think at the peak we had about 6 people here, which is fun with only 2 working computers). It was kind of hectic trying to help everyone, especially when I don't understand the church's family history program that well, but it was okay in the end. Afterwards, we tried to visit an investigator, but she wasn't there (despite saying she was a half an hour before), so we ended up walking down this random trail. That actually ended up being quite cool, and was a nice way to end a kind of crazy day. The trail mainly just lead through the woods around a lake, but there were occasional structures so people could step out of the wind and such, and an one end of it there was a really big tower that overlooked the lake. It was pretty dang cool.
Anyways, I hope that all is well with you guys!
Out on a hike
Huge Hamburger, Julmust Soda and Backgammon-Yummy!
Monday, January 6, 2014
New Year/New Area
Hey Everyone!
Christmas Tree and Elder Schindler-Thanks to everyone who sent decorations!
Eskilstuna at night
A memorial in a cemetery
So, it's P day again. Not too much has happened since last I wrote (about 4 days ago), but things are still going good here. We've been doing a lot of organizing and such in the area, which has been good, so we should be able to find people and such effectively soon. We just organized all the information on a spreadsheet, and that took quite a bit of time. But all of the papers were more or less in their places.
It's a bit interesting, because Elder Christensen has only been here for about a week longer than I, and that was over Christmas, so he didn't meet that many people, so neither of us really know anyone here. So it'll be fun trying to meet people. The branch is good; I'm sure they'll be willing to help teach people if we have appointments. I've been able to bear my testimony and bless the sacrament in the new area.I think I'm in the Göteborg zone, but I'm not really sure. I don't know where we'll be having zone meetings, but I'll find out in two weeks, I think.
Aside from that... On Saturday we went to visit one of the members here. Her name is I, she's a super nice, old Swedish lady. She invited us over, gave us lunch (sandwiches), and then we helped her move a TV that she was getting from a friend of hers. It was nice to be able to help out, and she was very nice. We also visited someone who the senior couple knows here (well, in a city near here), who apparently helped to translate when the missionaries were teaching another investigator. Either way, it was a decent lesson; she seemed kind of interested in learning more about the church. We're planning on going back later this week.
And... on Sunday we had church. The branch here seems pretty nice, they all seem like good people. It should be good trying to serve with them.
Here are some pictures from my last area Eskilstuna-
A cool family from our branch!
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Holiday Seasons
So the last few weeks have been surprisingly interesting, mainly because of the holidays, but there's also been a few other things of interest.
Karlstad Sweden
I suppose that, starting last week, the biggest event was Christmas. Christmas day was, in and of itself, pretty boring. We mainly hung out with the other missionaries, ate a good sized dinner, skyped with the family, etc. However, Christmas eve, which seems to be the day that is actually celebrated in Sweden (I don't really understand why), was really quite festive and enjoyable. We ended up having breakfast at the K family's house, which was good. It was a traditional breakfast of rice pudding and sandwiches with various foods like cheese, sausage, ham, liver paste, and so on. All in all, it tasted very good, and afterward we played with their kids some and then helped with some other cooking. It was pretty fun. Then we went to the L family's home, where we watched the traditional Donald Duck broadcast (again, I don't understand why...), as well as a few other Disney films and we played a few board games and such. All in all, it was a fun day.
The rest of the week was fairly ordinary. The day after Christmas was p day, which was largely spent shopping and trying to see what we could find on sale after Christmas (which is part of the reason I didn't write last week).
Then, on Saturday, we were at an activity we'd organized for the youth in the branch to go to, and we received a call from President Newell, and I found that I would be transferring the following Monday. So, I'm actually writing this right now from Karlstad with my new companion, Elder Christensen. All in all, the transfer went well, though it would have been nice to be able to have more time to say goodbye to people and such.
The weather is just about the same here as in Eskilstuna (it's only a few hours away). Maybe it's a bit wetter and slightly more humid, but largely the same
Things have been going fairly well here. Not too much has happened, though; I was transferred in on Monday, Tuesday was New Years Eve and was fairly uneventful aside from a branch New Years party, which was fun. The New Years party had a bunch of games like musical chairs and some game where you blow a ping pong ball across a table. A lot of the kind of games you'd play at a child's birthday party, which is kind of funny because the attendees were mostly elderly. We also watched A Christmas Carol (some animated one or other), and light fireworks. Wednesday was New Years Day, and we largely organized paperwork and tried to figure out what to do in the area (though we're still working on that; the papers here were pretty scattered), and today we've just done laundry, food shopping, etc. Things haven't been too exciting yet, but I think it'll be a fun transfer.
Love you all! Hope you all had a great holiday!
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