Elder Heiner's Mission to Sweden: October 13, 2014

This week was fun, I would say. To start off, last week after we emailed, we went bowling. In proselyting clothes. It was hilarious. And quite the fashion statement. I'll have to send a picture. But then we watched the final session of General Conference. With all this time zone stuff, it really finished up at three the night before, or something, so we missed the final bit, being asleep and all.

We've been meeting with this Assyrian guy now. He's cool. There is a bit of a language barrier, so we talk about things in Swedish, then give him an Arabic thing to read, then clarify in Swedish a bit more. It's weird, but he's awesome and really progressing. We think we'll be able to get him to set a baptismal date this week. We'll see. Our Hungarian guy is now too busy to see us. He is way willing to do it; he just has to be other places for work and stuff. It's really hard. We're thinking about going out to Nässjö and doing some area work, then catching the same tåg with him back so we can sit down with him and teach him. That would work. Things are falling into place a bit better to make that make a little more sense. We'll get to that later.

Other than that, we have about a billion TU's in Öxnehaga now, so we spend most of our free time there, swinging by people who said we could come back, and knocking more doors. It's going great up there. And we still have a few people in the hills of Huskvarna who we visit on occasion. That would be cool if everyone would just take the lessons. And get baptized. All of Sweden. Oh Yeah.

On Wednesday this week, we did service for the Strömberry's up in Bankeryd. Lots of weeding and stuff. It was a good break from the white shirt and tie. Then they fed us. Real food. That really doesn't happen very often. We usually just feed ourselves, and we don't have enough time to really make anything so we often just hit up the bakery in Willie's, a grocery store that is close to the church. So that was fun.

We visited a lady who doesn't like churches. She loves Christ and all, but the buildings themselves. She said that we were to never invite her to church, she would just worship in her own apartment. So that was odd, then she set up an appointment for us to come back. At the same time as her eight other friends from eight other religions. I think she just wants to have a great big Bible Bash, but we're just going to sit back and be nice. I think it will be helpful for me not to quite understand all the insults that will be being hurled. We'll see. Should be fun. She promised food, and we'll be there.

We've still been meeting with the lady whose husband passed away. Then we went to the funeral. The guy from the Swedish Church said a few words, but he never knew the guy. And all he talked about was about how sad it was that he was dead. It wasn't comforting at all. He never mentioned the afterlife. Not even once. After about half an hour of this rambling, he asked if anyone wanted to say stuff. A few of the friends got up and said some really good things. Or so I heard. It was in Farsi. I don't speak Farsi.

We've also been helping out the Wiklöf's with their apartment. They had a ton of water damage done by a repairman (irony...) and they needed us to move a ton of stuff so a different repairman could come in and fix it all. They're both in their nineties, and really just need to not move as much as they do, so we went out to help them. While we worked, they told us stories of their missions. They served five missions together. They are both amazing missionaries who have done so much, it's insane. I'll have to read Brother Wiklöf's book about all his experiences when I can read it well enough to understand. We have a copy of it in the apartment.

Our friend that we are trying to help stop smoking has started to snus again. He's doing it to help him stop smoking, and then he'll use nicotine tablets to get off snus. Apparently it is easier that way. I wouldn't really know. I hope it works. So far he hasn't had any cigarettes since he started, so we'll see.

For the activity we put on this week, we played volleyball! A ton of YSA's showed up, so that was really nice. We had a few investigators there, so it was really cool to have so much support. We had a ton of fun, and so did everyone else, so yeah. Cool.

After church on Sunday, we tåged out to Nässjö to see a referral family. They speak Burmese. We don't. We had this weird translation thing going on with the son who could speak Swedish. Mostly. But they seem really positive, they already believe everything we do, except for the Book of Mormon. Really, they're just dry members. We'll see if we can help with that. But the idea is that if we can meet them during the week, we could catch the tåg back with the Hungarian and teach him! That would be great! We'll see though. That would require a few other things to fall into place. I am amazed how many different languages I have encountered here.

Anyway. Today, we're going to go thrift shopping, we think. Systrarna (the Sisters) are both being transferred out, so we'll see if they end up needing help first.

But today is Monday, and Monday is the time I get to catch up on some personal stuff. I do the laundry, I clean the apartment, and I write my thank you notes. I don't think I'll have time to do them today if I don't do them now, so I hope you don't mind.

Thank you, kebab pizza, for only being served in Sweden because they have no form of FDA to ban in. (I mean really. It's just a slab of meat on a spit that hangs in the open the entire day. It's great.)

Thank you, Communal Dryers, for giving me a new hand towel every time I clean the lint filter.

And finally, thank you, Daily Planner, for not having a time slot for me to plan anything for 6:30 in the morning, and just assuming I won't be up on time. (That's a joke. I really am up on time. You would think missionary planners would have a space for that time of morning.)

That's it for me, have a great week! Äldste Heiner