Monday, April 28, 2014

Temple

Hey everyone!
 
  Things are going well here in the crown of the land (Landskrona) (crown of the country? Crown of the countryside? "Land" has a lot of translations). It's all in all been a good week. We've been out visiting people, spreading the Good Word of God, and so on, and there's been a few interesting happenings.  I feel like people in Sweden are probably fairly similar to people in Finland in that they tend to be fairly reserved until they get to know someone. It seems like the Swedes who feel like they can trust someone really do like to talk and such, it's just some sort of a fear of strangers or something. Doing Swedish things like Fika or something probably would help them to feel more at ease.
  I suppose that first off, there are going to be transfers coming up this next Wednesday (the infamous six week transfers). I'll be staying here in Landskrona, but Elder Noso will be making his way to Hägersten, Stockholm (Hägersten being a suburb of Stockholm). So he'll be going from possibly one of the smaller, more quaint areas in the mission to the Big City, which will probably be a bit of a difference, but I'm sure he'll enjoy it. Taking his place, I'll be getting Elder Corbin, who's coming in from Växjö and is apparently a Texan. Aside from that, I don't know too much about him, but it should be an interesting next six weeks (because transfers are always interesting).
  Lets see... The week has been quite good. We've taught a lot of people and have been working a lot with our recent convert, A. On Saturday we were actually able to go to the Temple with her and the ward and do baptisms with her, which was a really good experience. I think that she enjoyed it quite a bit, and it was nice being able to be in the temple again (it's been quite a while since I've been). It was also kind of neat being in the Copenhagen temple, which is sort of in the middle of the city and looks fairly similar to the surrounding city. It's cool, though, and the person who was performing the baptisms had a pretty strong Danish accent, which was kind of different. Anyways, Elder Noso and I also were able to do a session afterwards, which was very enjoyable. The Temple is a cool place.
  On Friday we were also able to play a game of Innebandy with the ward (I think I've talked about Innebandy before, right?). I feel like I've gotten a lot better at it than I was a few weeks ago, despite only playing a few games, and it was actually a lot of fun. We had a few fairly well matched games, and it was a pretty good time.
  On Sunday, there was actually a kind of funny story with A on the way to church. In the morning, we were trying to get ready early so we could go around to a few investigators and then take the bus to the church. We had a bit of trouble getting some of them to come, and we ended up walking to the place where we usually meet A about ten or so minutes before we needed to get the bus. After waiting for about five minutes or so, we started to worry a bit because A is usually really punctual, so we gave her a call to see what was up, and we found that she had actually just taken an earlier bus to Helsingborg so that she could travel with a friend who was heading that way anyways. So all of our worrying was for naught, and she made it to church just fine. I guess the moral there is that it's okay if members find their own way to get to church. Or something like that, I don't really know.

Monday, April 21, 2014

Dopgudstjanst (Baptismal Service)

Hey Everyone!
 This last week has been quite good. There's actually been a lot of interesting happenings over the course of the week, so I have stuff to write about this week! Yay!
First off, on Wednesday (well, not really first in the week but first of interest) we went to help the W Family with gardening at their summer cottage thing (I don't really know what to call it. It's like a tiny house with a garden). That went well, we helped to move some compost and take out some bushes, which was cool. Okay, maybe not all that exciting, but it was good to be able to get out and do some service and then eat some pizza afterwards. 
  On Thursday we had our baptismal service for A in the Helsingborg chapel. That went very well, she seemed to enjoy the service and have a good, spiritual experience, and everything with the service went smoothly. There was also a good turn out from the ward, despite it being a Thursday. The ward here feels very supportive, a lot of the members have been very supportive of A despite the language barriers. It's been very good. At the service, we had a few talks by the ward members as well as some musical numbers that were quite good. And, of course, fika (refreshments) afterward. 
  On Friday I had a leadership training meeting in Stockholm, which was actually kind of crazy/ stressful. Good fun. I traveled there with Elder Knutsson, who stayed Thursday night in our apartment (which we found out about Thursday night), and some of the travel was delayed because the bus we took at the start of the trip was about 15 minutes behind schedule, which caused us to miss the first train and made us spend a lot of time trying to arrange new travel plans with the traffic service here, which was not easy because they had reduced hours for the holiday. In the end, we got there about an hour and a half to two hours into the conference (which actually isn't too bad because with the original plans we were going to be half an hour to an hour late anyways). The meeting was pretty good; it was partly on physical and mental health and helping to motivate people. I enjoyed it, but it only lasted for about three hours and then we got to get on a train to go back. In the end, I traveled for about 15 hours to attend three hours of conference. But at least the three hours of conference was really good, so that's a plus. 
  Saturday was a bit more normal, but we got to go to the N family for Easter Dinner (which is of course on Påskafton, the day before Easter). It was really good! We got to eat plenty of egg with caviar, marinated salmon, cooked salmon, pickled herring, Johans Frestelse (some sort of fish and potatoe dish), as well as some dishes with mushrooms, asparagus, bread and cheese, and so on. And, of course, we had plenty of Påskmust to drink (which is essentially Julmust but with a Påskmust label). It was all in all very good, and I enjoyed spending time with the N's.
  And then Easter day went well, too! In church A was confirmed by the Bishop, and we had a few musical numbers (one of which Elder Noso was involved in and another with Elder Stafford in it). They were good, the talks were good, and we had a good experience. Additionally, A got a temple recommend, so we can go to the temple with her in a few weeks and do baptisms. And then in the evening, we met with C and A. That was nice, we ate pizza and Christian talked about his mission in Texas. It was an enjoyable evening.
 

Monday, April 14, 2014

Many Interviews

Things are going well here in Landskrona! This week has been quite good. I know I say this a lot, but most of the days have been fairly ordinary (well, as ordinary as days are when you're a Mormon missionary working in a city with a large Islamic population with a Fin). But everything has been going fairly well.
  Of note, I suppose that this Wednesday we had a zone training in Malmö. That went well; the zone leaders discussed a lot about how to teach effectively and help people keep commitments. It was good, they had some good insights on how to help our investigators and so on. It was a good meeting, though I honestly don't remember many specifics from it (I have stuff written in my notebook back home). We were also able to have interviews with President Newell, which went well. He's a really, really nice guy, and I think he interviewed everyone in Helsingborg and Malmö zones, which meant that he interviewed people from 8 am to about 4 or 5 pm straight. He's a very hard worker; I'm impressed with his resolve to do all of the interviews at once. After the meeting and interviews and everything, I got to go to the Malmö Migrationsverket (migration office) so that I could take a new picture and fingerprints for some documents here. That went well, although it took us quite a while to find the right place (we went to a migration office at first, only to find that that one was only for refugees and we had to take another buss part of the way across town to get to the right one. But we got there eventually, so it all worked out). Wednesday was an interesting day.
  In terms of events, I'd say that that was the most interesting thing this week. This week we've also, however, been able to work more with our investigator, A, towards baptism this coming Thursday (her birthday). She was interviewed by the Zone Leader and that all went well, despite there being a bit of a language barrier (she speaks fairly broken English). And then on the bus to church we ended up talking about some parts of the Plan of Salvation that we hadn't been able to go through yet in detail (though she had the pamphlet in Albanian, so that helped). At church that day, she ended up spending most of her time (aside from Sacrament Meeting) being interviewed by the bishop (who I think just wanted to talk to her because he hadn't had much time to talk to her before), the Zone Leader (Elder S), and the Mission President. So she was talking to someone or other for probably a good 3 or 4 hours. But she seemed okay with it and now she's good to be baptized on Thursday! We're looking forward to this for her (that's a really weird way to phrase that), I'm sure that she will have a very good experience then.
  Aside from that, things are going well here.

Monday, April 7, 2014

Lord Vader!

Hey Everyone!
  I'm glad to hear that things are going well with everyone back home! Conference this weekend was really good, it was very enjoyable. We were able to watch pretty much everything except the Sunday Afternoon Session, though I'm not sure which were live and which weren't - I think that the only one that was live may have been the Sunday morning session (which we watched at about 6 pm here). Either way, it was really good. Uchdorf's, Neilson, and Holland were all great, and I remember also liking Anderson's talk from the priesthood session. Very good conference.
  This week has been good; we've been very busy going around and teaching and whatnot. Really, there hasn't been too much out of the ordinary, though, we've just been meeting with a lot of people and trying to teach them as much as we can. It's been good, but kind of crazy and busy. 
A is doing well. This week we went over the Word of Wisdom, and she just agreed to stop smoking there, which was really good (and she's been keeping it up so far, which is even better). There's still a bit of a language barrier, but she came to the women's meeting for conference (we were able to arrange to have it in Albanian, which is good). Things are going well with her.
I suppose of note, on Tuesday we went to the L family's house, which was really cool. J L apparently is a professional break dancer, but he also acts in movies and does stunts and stuff, and he has a bunch of friends in the film industry. I guess the point of that is that they have a bunch of movie props at their house and their living room has a strong Lord of the Rings theme (including a model of Anduril, the sword that Aragorn reforged mounted to the wall). They were super friendly, and we had a great time there.
  On Friday we played Innebandy with some of the ward members. It's a pretty fun game; essentially it's floor hockey. Actually, I think that's what it is in English, but there may be some subtle differences, which I don't know enough about either sport to say. But it's all fun, none the less. 
  And on Sunday (and a bit of Saturday) we were in the church watching general conference. It was a really good meeting, but it lasted for about 10 hours on Sunday, which starts to feel a bit long after a while (granted, there are the two hour breaks, but even then). But it was a really good meeting, I feel like they focused a lot on sticking to our values regardless of what others think, which is good. I liked it.
  I hope all is well with you guys!
 
                                    Old Tower in Landskarona that has been made into apartments
                                                              Hanging with Elder Noso
                                                            Lord Vader enjoys his dinner
                                                                           Innebandy