January 19, 2015

This week was a great week. We were able to get a ton of work done, and we really just got back into the groove of missionary work after the entire holiday season finally winded down (It's a lot longer here in Sweden). That being said, our Monday and Tuesday did not really turn out as we wanted them to. We had a bunch of things set up, but they all fell through except for one meeting. That meeting was good. It was with an investigator who kind of just said that she liked where she was spiritually, so it really didn't go as we wanted it to. So those two days were probably our slowest days. But it all changed Wednesday morning.

   On Wednesday, we both decided that we were going to work super hard that day, and it totally payed off. We did swing bys in the morning, which gave us a lesson and a new investigator. After lunch, we met with Huba, and had lessons with two other people we trackted in to, we also got four other TU's on that trackting stund. We ended the evening with Tommy, and then went home, super tired. It was a great day though. We had a really good day that day.

   Thursday ended up being really good too. We had an early morning lesson with on of the TU's, and her husband decided he was interested too, so they both became new investigators. They are both super positive, and I'm excited to see where they go. We were then invited to help out with a member in the ward. It was Brother Rönndahl, and he was trying to get a job at a fitness club and asked us to tag along for the practice class, which was basically his tryout. We agreed and went to the gym to find that we were in a boxing course! We left that place an hour later in pain. That pain lasted for days. It was intense. Anyway, went home and showered after that, and went to another TU who is now a U and had a really good lesson with her. By that time, we were sore, tired, and hungry, so we decided to eat lunch and take our studies, which we had skipped for a lesson. After all that, we had a lesson with a really cool less active who has a testimony, just doesn't come to church for some reason. He won't really say, but we're working on it.

   On Friday, we had zone training! In Göteborg! So we went to Göteborg! It really was a good one, they talked about the importance of planing and using time wisely. It was good. But I also got to see Elder Bradley! He's the second person from my MTC group who I've seen since we got to Sweden. He just transferred in to Utby last week. We caught up quite a bit after the training over Chinese Buffet (which wasn't really that good. If you want buffet in Sweden, go Thai). But yeah, got back to the area late, so we weren't really able to do anything in the evening.

   Saturday morning, we started by playing basketball with the Elders Quorum. It was a lot of fun. I'm slowly getting any basketball skill I had back. But after that, we went out to work and had a lot of success. Had four lessons with a verity of people, including a new investigator who is super positive. We had a really good time with him, and he seems really ready to find the truth in his life.

   Sunday, we had really good church meetings, but didn't have anything set to go afterwards, which was good, in a way, because we hadn't done weekly planning yet because we were too busy in lessons. So we did that for the rest of the day.

Random, at the church, the systers had a lesson in another room, so I took their phone, because they forgot it, and took selfies with all the ward members who were around. I got a good... 35? 40? people in on it. Multiple pictures with people. The systers were not so pleased when they found they had a lot less space on their phone and had to clear them off one by one. Fun stuff.

   I think that pretty much sums up all of my happenings for the week. I had a really good time. But wait! It's Monday! I have to catch up on some other stuff, so I hope you don't mind if I do my thank you notes right now...

Thank you White Handbook for not letting me participate in winter sports. I'm in Sweden, I don't know if you know that...

Thank you 1000 piece puzzle that we're still working on for making us feel weird visiting the lady we borrowed you from because we still haven't finished you.

That's it for me! Have it so good!  Äldste Heiner

In Göteborg.

Selfie excerpts from the phone I stole.

Some members gave us some American soda.

Our district tie.

January 12, 2015

   This week was pretty busy. No sitting around, just working. It was nice. It wasn't all the preaching I would have liked, we did help a few people with their moving woes, so that happened early in the week. Fun stuff.

   On Monday, we didn't really do anything too crazy for pday. We went out to a Thai place for lunch with a member, so that was fun, but other than that, nothing really. Helped a woman clean her apartment to ridiculous levels of cleanliness because that's the law here in Sweden if you want to move out of an apartment. You have to clean it. Remind me to never own a cat. They're the worst for clean apartments. We rounded out the day with a visit to Tommy. He's doing alright. He's trying really hard again to quite tobacco, which is pretty cool. Hopefully he succeeds this time.

   On Tuesday morning, we just went to another lady's apartment and moved her all out of it to another apartment. Moving skills... activated! Then we were going to help out at another move, but we weren't needed at it, so we were taken to lunch by a member who was also at the move.  Did some swing bys, but people are just at the end of their holiday celebrations here, so they were not quite ready to meet again, so we did that for a while, then went home for dinner and sleep and important things like that.

   We were feeling the move from Tuesday quite heavily on Wednesday. It was a rough morning, to be sure. We took all of our studies right then so we could kind of ease our way into the day. Then we had an entire afternoon free, so we went trackting. It actually went really well. This was a really productive week for trackting, actually. We didn't do too much of it, but people were interested. That evening, we had an awesome lesson with a member family who totally bought in to our new ward mission plan. It's going to be awesome to have them on board.

   On Thursday, we had a distrikt meeting! It's been about a month since we had one, but it's fine. We have four new people in the distrikt anyway, so it was a good time to meet these new people I'll be working with. Two new greenies in the distrikt. Oh yeah, Syster Bolton got a greeny on Wednesday, but I only met her on Thursday at distrikt meeting. After a pretty good meeting, we all went out to kebab (of course, what else would you eat with other missionaries around?). Elder Jones and I had to split after that because we had to get to a lesson with Huba! Our first real sit down lesson in forever. It went really well. Hopefully we can get another good lesson in with him this week. Did some more area work after that, so that was nice. A member invited us to dinner that evening, so we went to that. The Ahlström's are a great family too. That pretty much finished out the evening.

   Friday morning was weekly planning morning. Gotta set up all those days so you know what you're going to try to do. It was good. We're going to have a great week. Then we had a meeting with Mikeal! It was a really long lesson that covered a ton of topics, and we all felt the spirit, but he kept playing it off as something biological that didn't come from the spirit. It was so frustrating! I know he feels it. Had a YSA activity in the evening, played some card games, and then had dinner. 

   Saturday was really busy, it felt like. We started with playing basketball with the Elders Quorum in the morning. We're trying to make that activity more often so we can use it as a fellowshipping tool. After we got all sweaty and stuff, we went home to shower and get ready for the rest of the day. We had lunch with a member of the stake presidency, and that went really well. We wanted to have some time in our own area that day, so we ran up to Öxnehaga to do some stuff there, but we had to get back to town pretty quickly to help set up for the baptism! There was a woman who approached the church a couple weeks ago who had already done all the research about everything and asked to be baptized. So we held the baptism on Saturday. It was really great, it's a woman from Kenya, so she gets along really well with Tanui. He's from Kenya too. They speak Swahili to each other. It's crazy. Anyway, that was the rest of that day.

   Sunday was a pretty good day. We taught the English class because the snow was too heavy for some of the people to get to church, including the usual teacher. After church, we went to Bankeryd for dinner with the Strömberg's. We had a great time, and had a really good discussion at the end. After church, we got some swing bys done, and called it a week.

   So there you have it folks, my week. I hope you enjoyed it, if you read the entire thing. If I were you, I would have just skipped to this part, where I write the thank you notes...

Thank you cats, for shedding more hair than I ever thought was possible to be found ON a cat, let alone off of one.

Thank you investigators, for all migrating South for the winter, and leaving me all alone here...

That's it from me! I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Sunday Snow

View fro the apartment of one of the ladies we helped move

January 5, 2015

I just emailed on Thursday, so I think you know what's been going on in my life, for the most part. I guess that you don't know that transfer calls came around. Guess what's happening to me! Nothing! So we should be good to work for the next six weeks.

   Let's see... where did I leave off? Friday? Eh. I'll just go for it then. Friday was the last of the sitting around days. We did weekly planning in the morning, so that took up the morning. Then we ate lunch in the apartment, so we didn't leave until 2ish, when we went for church watch. I got some piano practice in, so that was good. And we were able to meet with Huba! Yay! We weren't even on a train! It was great. We weren't able to sit down for multiple weird reasons, but it was fine. We established that we would continue to meet.

   Saturday was good. We got back into real work. We tracked for a while, got let in a couple of times, got blåsted... the works. I thought it was really good to get into that again. That was pretty much the day... for such a long day, there really isn't anything to say about it.

   Söndag. Had a correlation meeting. It was good. We have a new ward mission leader, and I really like his plans for the next coming year. This area is about to catch fire, I can just feel it. Church went well, I can understand anything I actually listen to, so that's a nice little thing. Had a meeting with Tanui about the priesthood. He's ready, just needs to have all those interviews done. After church, we did a bunch of swing bys, which turned out well. A member family invited us over for dinner, which was nice. They are very nice people, I love 'em. It turned out to be the last thing we did during the week, so that was that.

   This one is a lot shorter than normal... I guess that's what happens when you get two pdays really close together. But enough with that, I have some thank you notes to write!

Thank you kebab pizza, for being a missionary's crack cocaine. You never want it again afterwards, but you always go back for more...

Thank you hockey fans, for making it take longer to take the bus than to walk home after the match. It's really convenient when we're already pushing curfew.

Anyway, that's all for me! Have a good week!

Äldste Heiner

Here's a random selfie because I don't have
pictures from the past couple of days.
I like the tie.

January 1, 2015

Would you look at that? I've been in Sweden for four months already. What is life? I'm not even sure how that happened. I'm telling you folks, when you go on a mission, don't sit around. You'll miss the entire thing before you even start working. I'm just going to start telling you all about things from Monday on. I would be way too jobbigt to find out what you don't know about. So if you would please, fasten your seat belts, the emergency exits will be different for all of you, so figure them out, keep your arms and left foot inside of the vehicle if the whales are out, and here we go!

   On Monday, we got up all normal like and got ready to do studies but we walked over to the train station instead. Syster Lindsay was transferring to Norrköping and we were going to lend a bit of a hand. She had three 50 pound bags to carry (Systers... they accumulate so much STUFF), and she had a short train switch in Nässjö. We just happen to have a little card that gets us there for free, so we just took our language study on the train and helped out with the luggage so she could calm down a bit. Then we came back just in time to catch another train to Nässjö with Huba, who found out that his job in Nässjö has been playing him, so he was going out there to quit. We found out that if we waited an hour out there, we could catch the tåg back with him, so we ate lunch out there. Then got on the train back with him. Worked pretty well, actually. He was a lot happier coming back. Anyway, by the time we were done with all this travel stuff, it was about 1:30. Elder Jones needed to renew his visa, so we went to the migrationsverket to do that. Actually we didn't. The migrationsverket is where you would go for visa stuff. It's a big deal. Usually they are out in the open. In Jönköping, it's hidden. Quite well. We asked people, we went to other government buildings to ask them, we went to the church to look it up, we looked everywhere... and we found it. Ten minutes after it closed after three hours of looking. Turns out, it's a block away from our apartment in the corner of a huge department store. Whatever. Found it. Then we went to the church to play basketball with the Elders Quorum. It was a lot of fun. Had a visit with Tommy afterwards.

   On Tuesday, we got up and had a lesson with Alex right before church watch. Went up to Öxnehaga and knocked some doors before it got dark. We would have kept going, but we had the realization that it was almost New Years. In an immigrant rich area. With lots of explosives. I would have loved to stay and watch, but it just wasn't safe. So we worked somewhere else. Had a lesson with the Schelin's. It was good. They have family in town who were really great in contributing to the lesson. It was fantastic.

   Wednesday held a very boring day. We were going to meet with people, but they realized it was New Years Eve, and didn't want to do that. We decided to do area book work. Stuff that needed to be done eventually, when we weren't going to have a good proselyting day, and there we go! President said that we were not to proselyte after five, so we hung around the apartment. Lasse invited us over so we could go watch the fireworks at midnight. Curfew was 12:30, so we went for it. It was a ton of fun. Everyone had fireworks, all through the town. We went up to the top of the town to watch as everyone blew stuff off through the town. It was really great to watch. I had a good time.

   That was the last few days. They were good. I enjoyed them. This will be the last weird pday in the holiday schedule, thank goodness. We have no idea what we are going to do today. Nothing is open. Everyone is inside recovering from all the drinking last night. We'll figure something out, I'm sure. But today is pday, and I need to catch up a little bit on some thank you notes, so I hope you don't mind if I go ahead and do those now...

Thank you Swedes, for being so worried about the dogs that you don't start fireworks until 11:55 at night to minimize dogs being injured. Thank you Arabs for not being so full of it, and starting your fireworks at 7 in the morning. A week before.

Thank you Migrationsverket, for being that very important office that every foreigner needs to visit. Hidden away from where any foreigner would look.

That's it from me! I hope you all have a great week and a wonderful New Year!

Äldste Heiner

The Christmas breakfast.

Got a new tie from Grandma.  How does it look?

Nativity in Stan.  It is cool.

Robayos!

Snow at Sofiakyrkan.

Fireworks!

December 26, 2014

So. Today we have a pday, so I guess I'll do a bit of emailing before we head out and hit up the stores for ridiculous sales (I need white shirts. Mine are way to big now). We actually don't have too much time, so I'm just going to give a rundown on the last three days. Sorry if you really wanted a synopsis of the other week too. Fine. Here's one: Swedes don't talk to you if Christmas is within two weeks. Now back to our regularly scheduled program...

   On Christmas eve, we chilled out for the morning. Opened all our presents. In Sweden, you do that on Christmas eve, so it's okay. And we weren't going to have time on Christmas day, so it makes it even better. Got some really useful things. Had a good time. I guess I should send some pictures. To be honest, pictures are going to be better at telling the story than I am. Anyway, we went to the Robayos for Christmas eve, and we pretty much just hung out there. Watched Kalle Anka, which is a very Swedish thing you're just going to have to look up. We watched the Polar Express while we were there. It was fun. Later, we went home and started this huge puzzle that we should not have started, because now we have to finish it.

   Christmas day, we woke up and went to the church and had breakfast with the systers. Waffles, eggs, and bacon. That kind of thing. It was a lot of fun. Then Marcus picked us up and took us to his house to watch Frozen and play some card games for the morning. I had a really good time. In the Afternoon, we went to Alex's parent's home to have American Christmas and to Skype my family. It's a little odd to be on this end of the computer, I'll tell you that. But they're doing well, unless they all just put up a front to make it seem like they are all fine. Anyway. Lots of food, lots of fun. It was good.

   Today, we'll be going to the British home for Boxing day. It'll be fun. The only other Boxing day thing I ever did was going to the Litchfield's hockey game and getting hit in the face two or three times with the puck. This should be less painful, I think. Anyway, I should go now! Have it good!

   But first, I have some things to thank!

Thank you, Legion, the thirty elders going home in three days, for being the death of about a fourth of the serving elders. I sense a small shake up in the mission community...

Thank you, Christmas, for being a non proselyting day. Too many drunk people inside, and no sober people on the outside.

That's all for me! I have too many pictures to send, so here's just a few.

Äldste Heiner

Jul Dessert!

All the windows have these decorations.
They are cool (but didn't photograph well).

Love that the Bible is in the fact section at the bookstore.

December 15, 2014

Okay... I think I'm just going to have to get used to the fact that while on a mission, weeks consist of three or four days. Not seven. That would be ridiculous and way too consistent. But anyway. This was a good week. Full of crazy stuff. I liked it. I always do.

   Last Monday after we emailed, the systers decided they wanted to go bowling. So we went bowling because it sounded fun. Did pretty well too. After that they ran out to do syster stuff, Elder Jones and I went to a TU who had asked us to come by during Monday, and we stupidly said yes. And he blåsted. Don't schedule stuff on a divinely inspired break, okay people. It never works out. Anyway, we shifted proselyting time because of that and went to some thrift shops because that's what we do. I was good. We ended the day at Tommy's, and he's ready to try stopping tobacco again! We're going to get this guy off of everything!

   Tuesday was crazy even though we weren't really expecting it to be too busy. The morning was quite slow because we had two appointments cancelled right in a row. We had church watch and just chilled out a bit to regroup. Then we went up to Huskvarna to see Elizabeth. More on her later. We then did two swing bys that both let us in. It went really well with both of them. We were invited to dinner from a member in town, so we bussed down to Torpa from Österängen. The dinner ended up being quite nice. Afterward, we went to Juan's place again to play dress up and to take some Christmas pictures. They turned out quite funny, I think.

   Wednesday. Yes. That was a thing. Not productive in any way, shape, or form, but a thing it was. We got up and got on our normal bus 200 to Borås. Okay, that's when things fall apart. The bus was on a special route because of construction. The Systers didn't know that. So they went to their normal stop that wasn't going to get stopped at. So they missed the bus. So we're on our way, and we make it in time. The Systers, on the other hand, find their way onto a charter bus without any tickets and start to Borås as well, all the while on the phone with the bus company, trying to get tickets before the bus driver really gets frustrated with them. That doesn't happen ever because they're systers and they somehow just get to Borås with a free ride on a charter bus. Anyway, we end up just waiting for them because charter buses are pretty fast and they ended up just being half and hour late. During the meeting, we decide to put together a... something for zone conference this week. I'll say what it is later. Hopefully I'll be able to get a bit of it home too. It'll be good. We're super excited for it. Anyway, the meeting was good, but we all missed our normal bus home, so we just hopped on the next bus 200 there was. About two hours later is when we realized that the bus 200 has three different routes. Two normal ones to and from Borås and Jönköping, which we usually take.  And one from Borås to the middle of nowhere and back to Borås, which we happened to be on. So basically we were on the bus the entire time. It kind of sucked because it took so much time and we couldn't do any work what so ever.  Anyway, we got back and then we went and picked up some pizzas and took 'em to the church and the the Systers joined us. It was an end to a wacky day.

   Thursday was pretty crazy too. We found out that Elizabeth doesn’t want to meet again because she wasn't wanting to change her life. But she still believes Joseph is a prophet. And that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. You know, we’ll have to try and find out what’s going on. Anyway, we had about thirty plan changes during the day. In the evening we had Lucia! It was good. Lots of singing and candles. So I enjoyed it. The one we went to was quite modernized, so I don't think I liked it as much as I would have a traditional one, but it was still really good. We have some pictures, too. It was cool.

   Friday was lungt. We did we weekly planning, so that took up a big chunk of the day. We did some walking around, and did a lesson on our phone because we can't speak Farsi. So that's chill. In the evening, Rikki, a recent convert, led a large group of YSAs in yoga. On a completely unrelated note, my body is in pain. So yeah. Friday in short.

   Before daily planning Friday evening, Saturday was completely blank. But I called six people. And they all picked up. And they all made appointments. So our seemingly blank Saturday turned into one of the busiest days of the week. Like, I'm not even going to explain all that happened. But we met with Edwin, and it turns out that he and Paul are really good friends, and Paul just happened to be over when we met with Edwin. It went really well. Paul is really good at testifying simply and powerfully.  It was a good day. We liked it.

   Sunday was good. They always are. After church, we went to a member's place for dinner. They had really good food. And we got to help out with their Christmas trees too. It was fun. Our evening was a blåsty thing, but that's fine, really. So we went home and finished out there.

   So that was the week! I liked it. We had a good time. And now we're getting ready for zone conference. That is really going to take up the rest of our day, so I'm going to have no time to write any thank you notes if I don't do that right now. I hope you don't mind...

Thank you Swedish bus system for being as incomprehensible as a Japanese game show.

Thank you cold weather for somehow being an impassible barrier at my African investigators' front door.

Anyway... that's all for me! Hope y'all have a wonderful day!

Äldste Heiner

P-day bowling.  It was fun.

Here's me and my candy.  

Playing dress up at Juan's again.  We had a good
time.  We are thinking about using one of these
pictures and making a card that says "joined
the Lord's army" or something like that.  

See the jacket I'm wearing there?  The authentic
WWII British pilot jacket?  Juan gave it to me
because it had a tear.  I already fixed it.
It is great!

At St. Lucia

Those are all real candles.  In a church.

A little break from maturity, that's all we got here,
just a little pause.

Legitimately my favorite ad campaign ever.

December 8, 2014

Okay, whoever is in charge of the dial that determines how fast time goes, would you please just cut that out? I won't get any time on my mission if you keep this up. I've been in Sweden for just a few weeks, and I'm already over three transfers in.

   On Monday, we went thrift shopping, and found a ridiculous amount of deals. So I bought things. Like books in Swedish. They were, like, 8:- each, so that is dirt cheap. I'll send 'em home so I don't have to lug them around. But we did that for the entire day, and then realized that all the good stores weren't even open on Mondays, so we've been in the habit of taking our lunch hours in the stores that are only open, like, two days a week. We have so much good stuff. I'm almost done with all my mission shopping for the entire two years. I'm never buying anything new again. Ha.

Anyway... back to Monday, we finished the evening with Paul and Tommy. It was really good. We're beginning to see Tommy progress again, so that is really awesome. And Paul is just a bro.

   On Tuesday, we got up a bit early for Huba on the train. It was pretty good. Then the day just went down the drain. Nothing went as planned until eight in the evening. We got blåsted a ton, and then tried to talk to a bunch of people, but they weren't having it. So then we went home for dinner. Tuesday, man. That was a rough day.

   Wednesday, though, we got blåsted just as much, but we did get a meeting with Elizabeth in, so that was good. She is having a bit of a doctrine problem that we're not quite understanding. We'll get it sometime.  Hopefully soon. Then we had more area work. Took lunch in a second hand.  Got a few books that I was looking for. Then we ended the evening with Tommy and introduced a few ideas to him so that he can start thinking about approaches he wants to take with his smoking and snusing problems.

   Thursday was another day of blåsts. T'is the season, you know. So after the first two blåsts, we kind of just ditched the afternoon and did weekly planning. The relief society was finishing with their party at the church by that time, so we helped... clean up... we're so helpful. Got blåsted a few more times, then walked to a members house for dinner, and felt like we needed to check out a store. It was kind of weird. We walked in and started to look around, not really sure what we were doing in there, when we were stopped by a guy with a bunch of questions. He seemed satisfied and told us we were having a prayer together, and so we did. Right there in the middle of the store. I felt the spirit. It was kind of amazing. The we got to Juan's (the member) house for dinner. He is a really good cook. And he collects lots of really cool things. Like original presses of all the Beetle's albums. And Queen. And Kansas. And a ton more. It is really cool.  So then we went home because it was time to do so.

   On Friday we had distrikt meeting. And then everyone blåsted the rest of the day. Literally everyone. It's a hard to be a missionary during this time of year. In the evening, we would have had an activity, but no one came, so we ended up talking to Alex for a while about how it's going with him getting on a mission. Pretty well, so far.

   Saturday people were quite blåsty too. But we were able to talk to Elizabeth. Then we went and did a bunch of area work where we would have had lessons if people were there. Had a lesson with Tommy. He doesn't blåst us. But that was a day.

   Sunday was good. I always like it. I can understand essentially everything in every meeting if I pay attention to it. We got invited to the Rönndahl's after church for their now two year old's birthday party. It was really fun, and we got to leave a really good message with a bunch of people. We had to leave a little early to get blåsted just one more time this week. Then we knocked a few doors to run the week out.  Things will pick up.

      But we do have big plans for the rest of the day, so we'll be quite busy. Oh dang! I forgot! I need to write my thank you notes today! I better do them now, I won't have time any other moment. I hope you don't mind.

Thank you Apartment Couple for saying you would come around for cleaning checks and never showing up. We cleaned for nothing!

Thank you piri piri, for being so small that I think it would be fine to eat with no milk in the house. I was wrong. I just about died.

Anyway, that's it from me! Have a good week everyone!

Äldste Heiner

Juan let us play dress up.

Sweden. You know. It snows here.