Christmas Conference 2

Hi Everyone!

    So this last week has been good. Of most significant note, this Friday we had  zone conference up in Gothenburg, which went well. The week hasn't been too exciting outside of that (it's generally been a lot of the stuff we usually do), but that's okay. And this week looks like it should be interesting, which is exciting. You know, Christmas and all of that stuff.

  So, this week we actually ended up meeting M on Wednesday instead of Tuesday again because the Delgado's were busy on Tuesday (pretty crazy stuff, right?). But we met Mia early in the week and had a pretty good meeting. We ended up talking for a bit and then going through most of the rest of lesson 5. We're planning on talking about the rest of the lesson tomorrow (there's only one or two more points), and then we'll have gone through all of the new member lessons! Which is pretty cool! And, all in all, things seem to be going fairly well with M. We also helped her fix her computer, which is also pretty neat too. 

  Anyways, on Wednesday we also had lunch with A and J-E at their company, and ended up talking for a while to one of their co-workers, who said that she might come to church. She ended up being busy this last Sunday, but we have our fingers crossed for the next meeting. 

  On Friday we had the Christmas conference in Göteborg. All in all, I thought the conference was  good. President and Sister Beckstrand talked quite a bit about Christmas and how we can use it and the "He is the Gift" program in our teaching and contacting. It's largely what we've been talking about at district meetings and zone training recently, but it was still cool. After the lunch we had skits from each of the districts in the Göteborg and Malmö zones. The districts are weirdly huge now, so there was only four or five of them in the two zones, but the skits that everyone did were actually good. Most of them were just parodies of Christmas songs, but a lot were still pretty funny and one group made a mock video of "The District." We did this thing where we read a short story (ish thing), but with the syllables in the words switched around. It was pretty fun. 

  On Sunday we only had one hour of church, due to the holidays. It was kind of nice, but it also felt a little weird being in church for such a short amount of time. Afterwards we dropped off invitations to a party the Delgado's are having on the 25th, and then wrote an area transfer report. Pretty exciting.

  Anyways, I hope you all have a great Christmas! Happy Holidays! Also, See y'all in (a little over) a week!

Lucia

Hi Everyone!

  This week has been pretty good. The most interesting happening of the week was probably the Lucia concert which we watched this last Saturday. It was very good.

  Because of a schedule conflict, we ended up meeting M on Wednesday instead of Tuesday like we usually do (and, as it turns out, we may do the same thing this week). But that went well, we came and chatted for a while and then went through part of Lesson 5 (we ended up talking a lot about missionary work and enduring to the end and taking the sacrament and other similar things). It was good; those visits always seem nice. 

  Then on Thursday we traveled to Kristianstad for district meeting, incidentally possibly my last district meeting. We actually spent some time working out a skit that we're apparently going to have to perform at the Christmas Conference this week, and then we talked some about using Christmas for our contacting and finding work. Pretty exciting. 

  On Saturday, we had the chance to go to Lucia! Yay! We actually barely missed the first concert (they run about once every two hours or so), so we ended up waiting in a line outside for a while (which wasn't all that bad, just a bit chilly). But then we finally got in, took a seat, and were able to watch the concert. And I've got to say, it was really pretty good! I liked it quite a bit! It was essentially just a winter choir concert except everyone was dressed kind of funny and they were all holding candles, but they did a pretty good job of singing and the music was good. It probably wasn't as good as Mad Dinner (because that knocks the socks off of everything else), but I still enjoyed it. 

  On Sunday we had church as normal, and then during Sacrament meeting we watched the first presidency Christmas fireside.  I liked it; I thought the talks were good, and I also enjoyed the music between speakers. It was a kind of cool change to the usual Sunday.

  I hope everything is going well with you all!

 

 

 

Juletidens Borjan

Hey everyone!

  Things are going pretty well here in Växjö.

  Last Tuesday we had our usual open church time, which went well. But then afterwards, we actually didn't go to M's (surprised you, didn't I), because she invited us over on Wednesday instead so she could cook us (me, Elder Higham, and the Delgado's) a Bosnian dinner. So on Tuesday we ended up doing some swing by's and tracting in the evening, and then we found ourselves at M's on Wednesday evening, where we ate some savory cheese, spinach, and potato pies, and then went through the lesson on the commandments. All in all, it was good. Especially the pies, they were tasty.

  On Thursday we had District meeting here in Växjö, which was a kind of nice change. The meeting itself was good; we have a new District Leader, and he talked about prayer in missionary work. But it was good. And then afterwards we ate at a fake KFC (which was actually surprisingly decent), and then we had some extra time for work here in Växjö, which was nice.

  And then on Saturday we had a branch Christmas activity here at the church. It was really pretty good; they (I'm not sure who exactly, maybe the branch presidency) had printed out a bunch of pamphlet-like things with lyrics to a bunch of Christmas songs from the hymn book and other traditional songs, and we sang those for a while, then played some Christmas-based Pictionary (which is kind of hard in Swedish), and then ate some snacks and socialized. All in all, it was pretty fun, and it felt like kind of a "start" to the Christmas season. It should be a good December. 

Next week we're planning on going to Lucia this weekend at the Domkyrka (the... cathedral thing? The big state church.), so that should be fun. I'm looking forward to going to a real Lucia concert. 

  It's honestly kind of surreal now that it's actually getting close to the end of the mission. It's kind of bittersweet; I'm really looking forward to being home and seeing everyone back home again and everything, but it's also going to be weird just doing something so different from what I've been doing the last two years. It'll probably be kind of an adjustment getting back into the swing of "normal" life, just like it was a bit of an adjustment getting used to the mission life.

  Anyways, I hope all is well with you guys.

 

                                                At the Copenhagen Denmark Temple

Happy Thanksgiving

Hi Everyone! This week has been going well. Of most note, this week was Thanksgiving (and I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving), which was fun, and then later in the week we had a zone meeting. Aside from that, the week hasn't been too out of the ordinary, but it's been good.

  So, I guess starting towards the beginning of the week, on Tuesday we had open church and then the usual meeting with M. That went well, we were able to go and review the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson. And, as usual, it was nice to be able to visit with her and the D's, as well. 

  On Thursday, we were invited over to the D's for Thanksgiving dinner, which was super nice of them! In preparation for the dinner, I baked a pumpkin pie for dessert. I just used the pie recipe on the side of the can of pumpkin I had (which was kind of a tricky item to find, actually), but the pie actually turned out really good. I don't think the flavor was quite a strong as it usually is, but the recipe called for a lot of evaporated milk, which made for a very, very creamy pie. It was really pretty good. 

  Okay, enough bragging. The dinner itself was very good as well, the D's made some very good turkey and stuffing and everything. We didn't have cranberry sauce, but we used some lingonberry jam, and it was pretty close. So, all in all, we had a pretty dang good dinner. It was nice.

  On Friday we went down to Malmö for a zone training meeting. The training was good, we talked about this new Christmas contacting program that the church gave us training about. It sounds like it should be interesting. 

  Anyways, the rest of the week wasn't too exciting. It's been good and all, just not a ton out of the ordinary. I hope you guys had a great thanksgiving, and I hope you have a good week!