Lucia

Hey Everybody!

  So, I suppose first off, I can follow up a bit to last week's email. One week ago, I mentioned that there was quite a bit of snow on the ground (and there was a few inches). I thought that it was probably here to stay and that it would probably be nice and white for a few months. But I proved to be very wrong, and no more than two days later (likely less), the snow was completely melted. So, now everything is back to normal, which I think is kind of too bad, and it's just been raining a lot instead. 

  In other news, this week there were a number of holiday festivities! First, on Friday we celebrated Lucia, which I guess is a holiday about some Italian saint (?). I'm not entirely sure why it's a large part of Swedish culture, but stores sold a lot of Luciabullar (which are sort of like rolls with saffron and raisins), and on Thursday and Friday the state churches had a few choral productions, where they would sing traditional Lucia songs. Unfortunately, we weren't able to figure out where to get tickets before they were sold out of tickets, so we weren't able to go to that, but instead we found a Lucia production that required no tickets in a park in the city. As it turns out, it was a preschool that was doing their own Lucia show, so the choir wasn't quite as good, but the kids were still pretty dang cute. It was a bit unexpected, but still pretty fun.

  The following day, Friday, we had a branch Christmas party, a Julbord (lots of traditional food in sort of a buffet style). The party ended up being sort of a large pot-luck, but everything tasted pretty good. There were a lot of more traditional foods, such as ham, sausage, Christmas bread, and Julmust (Christmas soda?), as well as a few other interesting options, including curry rice and some hummus dishes (mostly from S's family, so middle eastern dishes). The four missionary's also sung a musical number (Nu Tandas Tusen Juleljus and Silent night-in Swedish) , and the Stake President played guitar and read a poem. Our investigator Marie came also. All in all, it was a lot of fun, and there was plenty of food left over, which the branch ate after church the next day and then we inherited after that). 

  Aside from that, the week has been pretty good, but fairly ordinary. We've been out doing the usual thing (finding, teaching, etc.). It's been a good week, I'd say.

  Hope everything is well with you guys!

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                        Traditional St. Lucia girl

Snow

Hey Everyone!

This week has been good. All in all, it's mostly been pretty ordinary (just doing the stuff we usually do), but good. It's been fun because it's getting closer to Christmas, so a bunch of Christmas decorations are appearing all over the city and members are starting to invite us over for dinners and such (both of which are very fun). There's a lot of more American Christmas decorations in the city, like lights and such, but also there's a few more that we wouldn't see back in the states. I think the most prominant are rows of lights that people put in their windows (they look like candles, and they probably originally were). Honestly, they look kind of like menorahs, but it's pretty cool because just about every window has one lit. Also, a lot of people have an illuminated star in their window as well. I should really try to get a picture of some. 

 We did have our first snow storm this year, we have recieved maybe two to three inches of snow so far. The storm started on Saturday, so it's been pretty cool. The snow has been exceptionally light and powdery, which is cool. It doesn't pack very well, but it would probably be great for snowboarding... in a year or so. But still! 

And we've been invited to a fair number of member's houses. It seems like in the last week or two we've been over to three or four member's houses (which is quite a lot for a small branch in Sweden). It's been a lot of fun, we've had a really good time talking with them and playing with some of their kids. Additionally, we've already been invited over to two more members this week and I think some more next week. It should be good.

  Aside from that, things have been pretty good here. We went to a Zone Training this week in Södertälje, which was kind of nice. At training they talked about serving others and such during the Christmas season. It was pretty good.  Additionally, I went of exchanges with Elder Gray (one of the Elders in the district) this week, and that went well, though we mostly just swung by people. We did have a chance to go to a neat museum in the city for a language study, that was cool. 

  Overall, it was a pretty good week. I hope everything is going well with you all back home! 

  Love you all!

   Eli

ps. I have my camera today, but I'm afraid I don't have any card reader or adapter or what have you, so pictures will have to wait until next week. But I'll have them!

Christmas Season Starts

Hey Everyone!

 

  I'm glad to hear that everything is going well with you all back in California and Utah! It sounds like you all had a pretty good reunion-ish thing in Utah; I bet it would have been a lot of fun.

 

  Things have been going well here. I feel like theres been a few things that have happened over the course of the week that have been pretty interesting.

  On Monday and Tuesday (and some on Wednesday) we were able to help some of our branch members pack up and move out. It turns out that three people were moving, two are heading to Kopperberg (about an hour or two away), and another is heading down to Holland. So we spend quite a bit of time carrying boxes, furniture, appliances, etc down to trailers and cars so that they could get on their way. It was nice to be able to help them, but I'm going to miss them, they were all very nice people. Actually, as it turns out, S may not have actually left yet (we got a text from him this morning), but he will be leaving shortly. He's a really nice guy.

 

  On Thursday we had a little "Thanksgiving" meal with one of the American families in the branch. We ended up getting Mongolian food, but it was an all-you-can-eat buffet, so it was kind of like Thanksgiving. Either way, it tasted really good and it as nice being able to talk some with them. It was a good evening. Actually, it was a really good evening, because right before we met with a bunch of other branch members for branch council, and immediately afterward we went to a really cool less active family, the P's. It was nice.

 

  I suppose that in general we've been able to meet with quite a few branch members this week. Aside from moving people and an Asian thanksgiving, we also were able to have dinner with R, the Branch President's, family, as well as later in the week with M (the Stake President's) family. It was all very enjoyable; they're super nice families. And the K's have really cute, funny little kids. It was a lot of fun.

 

  Also, earlier this week we went to a choral concert by the Swedish Church (because one of our investigators was performing in it). It was a really cool performance, and a lot of the music that they sang reminded me a lot of the kind I used to sing (or listen to) in Madrigal Dinner. A very old but beautiful sound. It reminded me a lot of the Dinner, and made me feel like it's almost time for Christmas. Also, Christmas lights and decorations are appearing all over the city and people are starting the stock on traditional Christmas food (which I'm still not entirely sure what is traditionally eaten; I'll find out). It should be a good holiday season.

 

                                                      Interesting Door Knocker

                                    A statue in the city with Kloister Kyrka in the background

District Meeting

Hey everyone!

  Things are going pretty well here in Eskilstuna. This last week has been fairly ordinary, but it's been good.

  I suppose that the day of most note would have been last Thursday for a number of reasons. First off, it was my first day being in charge of a district meeting, so I got to give a lesson (this week it was about setting goals and planning, etc.). Overall, that went well, for a first meeting. To make it a little more interesting, though, the zone leaders asked if they could come on splits that day (which thrilled me, it seems like they were just here a couple of weeks ago), so I got to have the zone leaders at my first district meeting. Yay! It actually went well, though, and afterwards I got to meet with them and go over district leader responsibilities, etc. But then, just to make things a bit more interesting, President Newell decided to come then for interviews. He doesn't really give a lot of warning (we found out an hour before he showed up), so we found ourselves in the afternoon meeting him at the train station. Though despite all of that, the day actually went well. We met with President (because he's going around interviewing everyone in the mission), and I split off with Elder Jones. 

  We ended up having a good day together. I accidentally forgot something in the apartment, and Elder Jones accidentally forgot something at the church, so we ended up not being able to do what we had originally planned on (swinging by people across town), but we did some calling, looked in the area book, and tried to visit some people closer to the apartment and the church. Actually, it was good, and we got in contact with a former investigator, which was cool. It proved to be a good day.

  Aside from that.... Things have mainly just been work as usual. We've been trying to swing by a lot of potential investigators and old investigators, as well as tracting, contacting, etc. It's been good, I suppose. 

 I'm glad to hear that everything is good with you guys. Hope you all have a fun time in Utah! 

  Love you all,

   Eli

Zone Conference

Hey everyone!

 

  It's been good to be able to hear from you all this week and everything. It sounds like things are going pretty well back home. I'm sure you've all already heard this a million times, but it's super exciting that Kimberly got her mission call to Romania. That should be a super cool experience for her; I hope she enjoys it. 

  This week has been fairly good. Earlier in the week I had my last few days with Elder Miller. They went well; we were able to visit with several of the families in the branch here and have a good time with them, and we had a good last little bit together. I really enjoyed my time working with Elder Miller, he was a super nice guy and a good friend.

  On Wednesday came transfers. Miller left at just about 8 in the morning, and I got Elder Schindler about 2 hours later. So far things have been good with him. He seems like a really nice, amiable guy and he's a very motivated, hard worker. Based on our only few days together thus far, I have a feeling it's going to be a very productive transfer; I think we'll get a lot of work done. 

  On Thursday we had some sort of a crazy zone conference thing with about half of the mission. It was actually a really pretty good conference, it was focused largely on stress management and the like (because the church just released some sort of big program on training new missionaries for managing stress, etc.). It was good though, I feel like there was some good advice given.

  Also, it was pretty fun because it was with a solid half of the mission. I don't really know why they decided to have so many zones come to each conference, but I liked it. I was able to see a lot of people I have hardly seen since the MTC and talk some with old companions, etc (actually, all but one of my previous companions were there. cool!). But it was good. 

  Aside from that, the week has been  good. We've been doing a lot of work, swinging by old investigators, tracting, etc. A lot of stuff to keep us busy, but nothing too interesting...

 

Eli

Transfer News

Hey everyone!

  Everything is going pretty well here in Eskilstuna. This week has been pretty good, though not terribly out of the ordinary.

The weather here is starting to get a bit chillier around here; the temperatures are down around freezing, but it's not too bad. I think it'll probably be a bit colder in a month or two.

Our investigators are doing alright. L says she can't come to church very much because there's something in the air that bothers her lungs, but aside from that she seems really positive and really seems to like meeting with us (she actually called us earlier this week to set up an appointment). Our other investigators are doing okay, not too much is different with them.

  Probably of most note is the fact that there's going to another transfer (again). Elder Miller will be heading to Gävle and I'll be getting Elder Schindler as my new companion. I don't really know too much about him; apparently he came here about three months ago, so he's just finishing his training. Should be interesting. It was good being able to work with Elder Miller, though, I feel like we got along well and did some good work here. It's been good, and I'm looking forward to seeing how things go with Elder Schindler.

  Aside from that... umm... On Friday I got to try to make a video for Mom's birthday, so I was going around with a camera for most of the day. I hope that the investigators and branch members that I was filming didn't mind me filming them too much. I don't think they did, though. It was kind of fun trying to put something together. 

  I guess it's a bit of a short email this week. Next week should be more interesting because I'll have a new companion and we have a conference planned and a few meetings with some branch members and so on. 

Hope you have a great week,

    Eli

 

 

 

 

 

Halloween

Hey Everyone!

 

  I hope everything is going well for all of you guys back in the States! I hope you all had a good week. Things have been pretty good here, we've been out doing our thing. But it's been a good week.

 

  Earlier in the week (on Wednesday, I think), we ended up going on splits with the other Elders in our district, so I spent the day with Elder Grey. All in all, it was a pretty good day, but it was kind of interesting because they had apparently just called through a list of Potential Investigators and had set up a few appointments with people they hadn't met before. One of them was a guy that owned some sort of a business aimed at helping people from Somalia acclimate to Swedish society. When we met him he started showing us around his office and I honestly wasn't sure if he realized that we were missionaries and not business men. But eventually he did talk with us a little about what we can do to work together, and we ended up setting up an English class. It was, all in all, a pretty interesting meeting. 

 

  Later in the day we had a few other appointments that were a little more normal (though we did get to listen to an Irish lady explaining where Halloween came from and a middle eastern man talk about  Islam, and a few other interesting conversations). That evening, though, we went to the church because we were going to meet an old investigator there, and we found out that branch council was apparently that night (we thought it was a day later, but apparently not because of a Relief Society activity). So we were trying to arrange with the other Elders to have someone at the meeting and the investigator showed up, and we had to sort of stall until we could get everything sorted out. It was kind of interesting. We did eventually end up meeting with him, though, and it turned out that he mainly wanted to meet so he could teach us how to juggle. It was nice meeting with him, though, he was a super nice guy. Also, I can now kind of juggle 3 balls.

 

  The next day was Halloween. We met in the morning for a district meeting, and, after a somewhat shortened lesson, we ended up getting a pumpkin to carve, eating pumpkin pie (that was baked by Elder Grey the night before), and planning on carving a jack o lantern, though we didn't get around to it just then. So we had a few sort of Halloween related activities, and then we split and went our separate ways. Elder Miller and I actually ended up cleaning the apartment for a cleaning check and then carving the pumpkin we got. We made a pretty cool Jack O Lantern, though it's just an ordinary looking Jack O Lantern. And that was about all of the excitement for Halloween itself... there wasn't too much in way of celebration in Sweden. Apparently a few days later there was some sort of event on All Saints Day where they put a bunch of candles in a graveyard, but we didn't end up going because there isn't a cemetery easily accessible in town and the buses were on a holiday schedule. But next time, if we get a chance, it would be cool. 

  Aside from that, things have been going pretty well. I didn't actually get a chance to meet with L (our Finnish investigator) this week because Elder Miller met with her while we were on splits and she was feeling sick later in the week (which I believe; there's been some sort of bug going around). But we did meet with some of our other investigators, including another Finnish guy named S and a woman from Congo named F. We also met a few times with a less active member, P, who actually ended up coming to church yesterday, which was awesome. Either way, things are going pretty well here.

 Have a great week!

 

                                                              Halloween Jack'o lantern