Dancing Queen

Hi Everyone!

  This last week has been fairly... interesting. It's kind of been surprisingly unsurprising, meaning that we've had a few appointments and meetings and whatnot, but they've tended to be in areas that are either hard to get to or just a ways away, so we've had a few days where it's been difficult to schedule things so we'll have, say, a zone training, and then just do some contacting and head home for dinner. All in all, it's been fairly good, just kind of oddly scheduled.

  But on the more interesting side of things, last P day we had a chance to go to the ABBA museum, of all places. And, also somewhat surprising, it was actually a lot of fun! The museum focused some on the history of ABBA and such, but also a little on the development of modern music and things like that. And they had a lot of fun little exhibits and whatnot, like karaoke to their songs and this fancy projector setup so that you could perform "on stage" with a CGI ABBA. It was just a lot of really fun / funny stuff, probably one of my more enjoyable p days. 

  Outside of that, the week has been good, kind of interesting. On Wednesday we had zone training in Västerhaninge, which was okay. The zone leaders talked a lot about overcoming "mountains" in missionary work. I felt like they  had some good insights on how to make the work go a bit better, so it was all-in-all a good meeting. And afterwards we went to pizza hut and I had American Pizza for the first time in quite a while, which was nice.

  On Thursday, we had a few ward activities; we helped the youth have a game of American football, and then had a "ward home evening." I learned I'm not very good at American Football, but we had a really good time playing anyways. And then for the home evening activity we answered a bunch of random questions with scriptures and put the answers in a story. It was a pretty cool activity; I may see if I can get it from the guy who organized it so I can use it back home. We were supposed to have one of our investigators, R, come, but he couldn't make it, which was too bad. 

You asked about the last time I laughed and about my companion well, I have had a good laugh or two during the week. Elder Beck's a pretty cool guy, so we've been having a fairly good time together and we joke and whatnot when we're in the apartment at the end of the day and such. He actually told me a pretty funny joke about a ding dong (I don't think it would work too well over the email), and I laughed pretty hard at that. But all in all we've just had a good time together.

 I've seen some of Stockholm, though we mostly spend time in our area which is predominantly residential. But last night we had an appointment cancel in the center of Stockholm, so we contacted and such around there and ended up walking in to Old Town, which was really cool. We'll probably head back there today. It does feel like a "big city," especially compared to pretty much anywhere else I've lived before (I get to ride the subway to church and stuff, it's pretty cool). That being said, we could walk for not too long, maybe half an hour or so, at most times and get to a forest, because most of the neighborhoods just sort of string out along the subway lines (you can kind of see it if you look at google maps, our area is the string that goes out through Skärholmen). But yeah, it does feel more urban.

  Aside from that things have been going fairly well. We did a lot of contacting, but taught occasional lessons as well. Things are going good.

  Have a great week!

 

Apostle Conference

Hi Everyone!

  This week has been all in all pretty good. There's been a few interesting happenings during the week, the most prominent of which is probably the conference we had last Thursday with President Bednar. It was a really good meeting. He talked a little bit at first, but spent most of the time in a Q and A session with the missionaries, so we could ask him questions and he could answer them. He went over a lot of different subjects. He actually kind of encouraged us to focus on questions that would have relevance beyond the mission, so it was all in all pretty interesting. I feel like one of the main topics he talked about a lot was agency and what it really means to be an agent, especially in regards to covenants we make. It was kind of interesting. It sounded like he said that we use our agency when we make choices to follow God, not just when we make choices. Because of that there wasn't really any specific topic, but one thing that he talked about that I liked focused on Agency and how we use it. I enjoyed it all quite a bit.

You asked about finding joy?  joy this week... I feel like this week (and probably in general) it's just being able to teach people and see them have the chance to learn about the Gospel. We have an investigator named R who is pretty new and we're trying to teach fairly often, and it's always great to see his enthusiasm regarding learning new things about Christ and the Gospel. It's pretty cool.

  Let's see... On Saturday afternoon there was a baptismal service for someone named J (apparently the other Hägersten Elders's investigator). I can't exactly say that I know him terribly well, but it is still good to see that the work is still moving forward in the congregations around the country. I'm sure that his baptism will be a blessing to him and his family. And there was cake served afterwards, which is always a plus. 

  The rest of the week has been pretty good, though not too exciting. It's sort of missionary work like normal: we meet with whoever is willing to meet and then we end up spending the rest of the time contacting or tracting. Admittedly sometimes contacting turns into more us talking and walking along the streets and stopping occasional people, but I feel like we usually try to do a good job of it. All in all things are going fairly well here, though.

Hope you have a great week!

Big Apple

Hey Guys!

  This week has been pretty good. Lets see... Last Monday we went to Imporium, which is a really big mall in Malmö. It was okay; there were a lot of clothing stores and such. It was pretty interesting at first, but after a little while I got kind of tired of it. But we had a good time with the Sisters and the Elders in our district. Then on Tuesday we had open church and taught a few lessons. We also had lunch at a Filipino family's house (well, the wife is Filipino and the husband is Swedish), which was fun. Aaaand then on Wednesday we had transfers, and I was sent to Hägersten in Stockholm! Yay! I guess! But I had a nice little train ride to Stockholm from Skåne, but now I'm here! There are 4 elders in our ward. Geographically it's relatively small area for a ward; we just take a subway line around. We just started teaching someone named R who seems pretty positive.

  So things have been kind of busy since I got here. I pretty much got into town, dropped off my bags, and then went to M, one of the members, house for dinner. It was good; we talked for a while with her and a senior couple who just stopped in. She's super nice and really wants to help people, which is cool. Anyways, I've actually ended up having dinner at member's houses most of the days I've been here, which has been really nice, though apparently somewhat unusual. The food's been good, though! 

  Anyways, the next day we had district meeting and then we went on exchanges with the district leader, Elder Steen. Well, I went with his companion, Elder Kapp. It was good; we tried to visit some people, contacted some people, and then ate dinner at another member's house (who's name I don't remember right now... But they're from Lithuania, I think). Sort of just missionary work as usual, with food. I just thought it was kind of funny that I went on exchanges when I hadn't even fully unpacked yet. Or even very much unpacked. 

  The rest of the week has good. Church on Sunday went well. We ended up teaching Young Womens as well as Priesthood and Relief Society (though we admittedly had planned on giving a presentation on member missionary work in the combined Priesthood and RS meeting). Kind of a busy day, but all in all good. We also discovered that taco spices in mashed potatoes tastes a lot like chili. Who knew?

Also, the weather's good. It's probably in the 60's or 70's (whatever 20 Celsius is in Fahrenheit) and it's been sunny, so it's been fairly comfortable.

  Anyways, I hope all is well with you guys!

 

                                                          Scenes from a Malmo Mall

Surstromming!

Hi everyone!

  This week has been pretty good so far. I suppose the first and foremost, there's been notification of an upcoming transfer. This Wednesday I'll be leaving Landskrona and Helsingborg (aww...), and I'll be heading up north to Stockholm (yay?) the borough of Hagersten. It should be good. I've had a great time getting to know the people down here in Skåne, and I like them a lot, but it should be good having a bit of change of scenery, too.

  In other news, this week has all in all been good. On Monday we went to this place called Ales Stenar (maybe I mentioned that last week?). It's sort of like a Swedish Stonehenge, and was apparently an old Viking graveyard type of a thing. It's pretty cool, we have a lot of pictures, which I will send soon.

  On Wednesday we went to the W's (a member family's) house (garden thing), and we had the opportunity of trying the very Swedish dish of Surströmming, which is essentially fermented herring. The smell was really rather terrible, but the fish itself didn't taste bad at all. It smelled kind of like a toilet, but just tasted like fish and salt. We ate it with a lot of potatoes and onion, and it tasted pretty good (I thought, anyways, my companion didn't like it at all). It was, all in all, an experience. No one else liked the Surströmming. They all thought it was pretty gross.

  The rest of the week has gone fairly well. We're still teaching N and some of our other investigators, and we've started trying to teach A Swedish, which is going fairly well. So far we've really just covered greetings and such, but it's good. All in all things are going fairly well here. Today we're planning on heading down to a shopping center in Malmö, which should be fun.

 

You asked about a favorite scripture? Umm... I feel like it's kind of hard to say what my favorite scripture is. One that I like a lot is D&C 18: 10, 15-16 (well, 10-16 are all good), which you probably recognize as one of the scripture masteries from this year. But I like a lot how it sort of emphasizes how much the Lord values us. God cares about us individually, and He wants us to find happiness and help others find it, as well. I also kind of like Alma 5:45-46 because it emphasizes how important prayer is (i.e. despite the fact that Alma saw an angel and had a vision and everything, he still attributes his testimony to prayer and the Holy Ghost).

 

Hope you all have a great week.