Monday, June 30, 2014

Open Church

Hi Everybody!
  Things have been going well this week. Admittedly, it wasn't quite as awesome as last week; midsommar and everything would be pretty hard to top, so to speak, but it's been okay.
  Lets see... On Tuesday we had out Open Church day (i.e. we were at the church in case someone wanted to come in sort of a thing), and someone actually came in! If memory serves, his name was E, and he just saw the welcome sign outside of the door and decided to come in and check it out. He said he had met some missionaries on the street a few months ago, but he still didn't really know that much about the church, so I had the opportunity to sort of explain a little about who we are and what we believe in. He really seemed to appreciate the visit, and seemed to like the church and the experience overall. It was quite nice. Hopefully we'll be able to see him again before too long. 
  Later in the week (Friday, I think? Not exactly sure), we had a kind of interesting lesson at T and L's place (a very nice less active couple). We had been trying to set up an appointment with them for a while and were finally able to make it over there, and when we got there, somewhat to our surprise, Kr and I (L's parents) were there as well. Which is really okay, but it just made for a kind of interesting time trying to juggle conversation with them and L. And then shortly after we were invited to K and I's place, where some of their other children / grandchildren were visiting from Costa Rica, so there were a bunch of kids running around and playing with each other and such. Which isn't bad, it just made for a kind of crazy meeting or two. But all in all, it was a pretty good day.
  I hope all is well with you guys!


Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Midsommar

Hi Everyone!
  This week has actually been really good! It's been Midsommar week, when Swedes come out, put a giant pole with flowers on it and sing and dance around it to celebrate the summer solstice. All in all the celebrations were a lot of fun; I'll cover it in more detail further down...
  On Monday we had a pretty ordinary p day. We actually ended up going down to Malmö and looking around there some, which was pretty cool. Malmö is much larger than a lot of the other cities here, so it was kind of cool to look around and see what's in the city. I ended up buying a card game called Bang! (which I still haven't had a chance to play with anyone, but we're trying to figure something out with the Helsingborg Elders). And then in the evening we went to a sort of FHE (but not really FHE) sort of social event, which was on a beach between here and Helsingborg. It was fun, we played football (soccer) and Kubb with some members and investigators and such. I enjoyed it.
  On Tuesday we traveled back down to Malmö for a zone Conference. It focused a lot on temple work and using the 5th lesson when we're teaching. Apparently we're now supposed to teach investigators all 5 lessons before baptism instead of the first 4, which is kind of different, but it should be good.
  On Wednesday I headed up to Halmstad for a baptismal intervew with one of the investigators in Halmstad. It was good, the guy I was interviewing seemed really well studied; I almost felt like I was talking with a member when I was asking him the questions and everything. He seemed pretty solid. And then we came back and had some sort of mini-exchanges with the Zone  Leaders, which was fine. We largely just tried to visit some people in Helsingborg and then had dinner. I was with Elder Svensson for the day (he actually went to Halmstad with me), which was cool. He's a nice guy.
  Skipping ahead to Friday we had Midsommar! Yay! It was a bit of a confusing day because I didn't really know what was going on for travel and where we were going and such. I thought we were originally going to the Svensson's and then to the Nilssons, but instead we ended up meeting the Svennsons in a town near here and then just stayed in that town and went to a big park by a castle on the coast where a lot of people (including a lot of the ward members) had gathered for the midsommar celebrations. It was a lot of fun, though, we decorated the Maypole with a bunch of flowers and then we were told to help carry it to where we were setting it up. Much to our suprise, when we picked up the maypole to set it up, they started playing music and the guy at the front of the pole sort of led us around the entire crowd before going to where the pole was to stand. It was kind of funny. And then we put the pole upright and spent a few hours dancing around it, singing songs, and having a good time. I have a few pictures / videos I can upload, perhaps tomorrow when we're at the church. Either way, after we were done there (at about 4 or so), we went to the W's house for dinner / games. We chatted for a while, played a board game called Formula D (which was a lot of fun, sort of a racing game with a lot of dice and stats and stuff), and ate a good dinner of potatoes, eggs, and pickled herring (which is honestly a lot better than it sounds. I may end up buying some herring today). Either way, it was a very fun day.
  I hope all is well with you guys!


 

Monday, June 16, 2014

Mid June

Hey Everybody!
  I'm glad to hear that things are generally going well back home. Things are going well here. All in all, this week has been fairly ordinary; We've done a lot of contacting and tracting and it's been going well.
  Last Monday we actually decided to go bowling for p day. That was a lot of fun! There's a fairly nice bowling Alley here in Landskrona, so we went and did an hour of bowling. I wasn't very good because I'm a bit out of practice, but it was still good fun. And my first game was actually pretty decent (I don't remember my score, though... I think it was around 120 or something). I think when I get back to the Y, I may try to find some time to just go bowling during the week. It's fun and (if I remember right) fairly cheap at BYU.
  On Tuesday we were on our way home from our open Church time when we got a call from the Young Mens leader asking if we could come to a home teaching activity that evening. It's good he called when he did because we were on the platform waiting for the train, but he came and picked us up and gave us a ride to one of the member's house (an elderly guy who's name I don't really remember) and we sort of hopped out with one of the Young men, S, and tried to figure out what we want to give for a message. We sort of improvised a lesson about family history work and temple work and such (which ended up being pretty good, you get pretty good at improvising lessons on a mission), and then we read a little in the Bible (because he likes the Bible). Either way, it all turned out pretty good and was a kind of funny last minute thing.
  On Saturday we got a call out of the blue from one of the members here who said that he met someone on the train that wanted to meet us. It was kind of a surprise for us, but we certainly wouldn't complain about a chance to meet and teach someone new, so we found ourselves over at the M's house talking with this guy (who's name I also don't remember... I'm still really bad with names) from South Africa. He was really nice, although seemed very insistent that the most important thing that we have is faith in Christ. Which is absolutely true, but faith needs to be followed by action and prayer and such, and baptism by proper authority.  I hope we can meet him again, but he's going out of town for a while and I think will talk to the M's again when he gets back.
  Either way, I hope all is going well with you guys.
 

Monday, June 9, 2014

Pancakes!

Hi Everyone!
  Things are going well here. As the subject line suggests, we did indeed make pancakes this last week. We actually ended up showing up at the Church at 6:30 for the pancake breakfast and found that a relative of the Young men leader had actually already made the batter and was planning on cooking the pancakes. So we didn't do too much of the actual cooking (though we helped some), and instead we helped set the table, get everything ready, and then helped cook a little bit. But in the end the pancakes tasted really good (though maybe not quite as good as  the batch I made a home a few days before), and we had a good time with the young men and everyone. The ward here has pretty cool youth.
  Lets see... What else has been going on... On Tuesday we were able to go with some of the ward members for an activity where we were essentially trying to swing by less active members in the ward. We went to a nice family here in Landskrona and chatted for a little while. I suppose that the visit wasn't too out of the ordinary, but it was just kind of nice having some help from the Ward that was initiated by the ward, so to speak. I feel like it sort of shows that they actually care about reactivating people or helping the missionary work, instead of just feeling obligated to go with the missionaries to appointments. It was nice.
  Aaand later in the week we found ourselves talking to a group of Muslems in the park. They were nice enough, but it was kind of interesting. They started by just asking questions about our faith and our commandments and such and then ended up just sort of rambling about how right Islam is. Don't get me wrong, I think that overall Islam is a great faith, but it did sort of make me glad that I'm with this church, which at least is pretty dang cohesive (much more so than I think a 14 year old boy would be able to just make up). It was a kind of funny experience.
  Either way, I hope all is well with you guys!

Thursday, June 5, 2014

June!

Hi everybody!
  Things have been going well here. 
  Honestly, this week has been fairly routine (and I suppose most weeks are). Though there have been a few interesting happenings. One is that we've been asked to make American pancakes for the youth in the ward this Wednesday (I think it's sort of an after seminary breakfast). Of course, that hasn't happened yet, but I made some pancakes this morning using the ihop recipe that we used to have, and they tasted absolutely amazing. I got to say that I'm pretty dang happy that I actually had good American pancakes. I tried making a batch with Elder Corbin a few weeks ago from the mission cookbook, and they tasted pretty awful. As in, they were arguably some of the worst pancakes I've had, so I'm glad these ones turned out well. The youth should be impressed in a few days.
  In other news, one of the families here had a son return home from his mission this week. It seems all in all pretty cool that he's back.
The Days are getting longer. We don't have "blackout" curtains (I think), but the ones we have a pretty good and it's dark enough to sleep when they're drawn. I'm far enough South that it's not really light after 9:30 or 10 or so, so sleeping isn't bad yet (well, it wasn't ever bad last year, either).
  My companion and I do some fun stuff together. Occasionally we play cards as a district before district meetings and on p Days, and Elder Martinsson and I have Pokemon cards, so we sometimes play that in the evenings.
 It is definitely time for a haircut. I've been telling myself that for a few weeks, but we just got this months money, so I'm going to try to buy some clippers or something. Barbers are kind of expensive. They're not too bad here in Southern Sweden, but I think it'd be cool to learn to cut it myself. Then I save money here and at home.
  Things have really been pretty good here, overall. We've had a few good lessons, had a nice dinner with some of Elder Martinsson's relatives at the O's residence (apparently he's from Sweden originally and moved to the States when he was young, so he has some family here.), and things have, overall, been quite good. I hope all is well for you back home!
 
                                                 The Elders in the Helsingborg Ward