October 19, 2015

Hello everybody! This was a really tiring week! We worked really hard and had a lot of success, but we are beat and ready for a good pday. Here’s a little of what we did...
   On Monday, the Norrköping elders came through town on their way to a weird part of their area to visit a less active, so we went to the Vinåker outlet with them! It was super fun, and may just be the last time I see Elder Jones on my mission. Hopefully not. I think we're going to Norrköping for a baptism this week, so that should be super good! In the evening, we had hemafton with Pia and David, who will be reading this, and I made orange chicken for that. I thickened the sauce too much. I'm sorry :(
   On Tuesday, we visited a friend in the hospital because he had to get checked up for a leg problem. We hung out with him for that. And then the Eskilstuna elders showed up! Why you may ask? Well, we did a thing called splits. That's when I was with Elder Mott in Katrineholm and Elder Johanson was with Elder Thacker in Eskilstuna. Elder Mott and I did a ton of work. We started in Kholm working the streets, and then had a baptismal interview for one of our investigators, had another lesson in town with a young woman learning about the church, then we had another lesson on the street, then I taught a super drunk guy the importance of drinking water, and then committed him to drink eight glasses of water a day. THEN we took a train to Vinåker and had a couple lessons there. Came home, super tired, went to bed after dinner.
   On Wednesday, Elder Mott and I took a train out to Eskilstuna, where we switched back to our normal companionships. When we got home, we cleaned up a bit and had lunch and then my mother’s prayers were answered. We got our hairs cut by an investigator while we taught him. It's been almost three transfers... That dude took so much hair off the top of my head... Everyone in town has noticed. It's a small town, everyone CAN notice. Anyway, we had a couple lessons with some new converts (AKA Pia and Hadi) before we then taught Evangeliets Principer. We had some guests come to that and I taught a little lesson for one of them off on the side, and then afterwards, we split off with members to teach people more individually. It was super good and super long...
   Thursday was kinda weird. It was about the only day that we didn't have anything planned. Then the morning of, we got like four things set up, so we were super busy. We started by taking our bikes to the repair shop because they are missionary bikes and they need it. They said it would be cheaper to buy new bikes. So... yeah. Then we met with a less active man who is going to help us help other less active guys become active. Should be a great plan!  We met with a Chinese lady who was teaching a student to learn English, so we helped out with that. Then afterwards we were invited to the teacher’s home on söndag to grill! We'll get to that... In the evening, we had dinner in Flen with a super cool lady that we have dinner with every week. She likes to scare people. She loves Halloween. She's pretty excited for the coming weeks.
   On Friday, we were in Eskilstuna early for an early district meeting because everyone was too busy to put it at a normal time. We went straight from Eskilstuna to Flen where we had a lesson planned... in a high school! There was a religion class that asked us to come. It was super fun and it could have lasted for forever, but we only had an hour and a half with the kids. We had a great time. We came back to kholm after that and had a couple lessons in the library with Pia and Ferdi! We have some pretty awesome people around here. After that, we had dinner with the Palomino family. I love them too. Super awesome people!
   On Saturday, we taught some temple prep and then had some lessons out of town. We went to Biltema with Ferdi too. He really wanted to show us the joint.
   Sunday was all like... Kyrkan... and then more temple prep... then like we went out to Bie because if you'll remember, we had to have a grill! So we did and it was super fun. We hung out with this super sick family and talked about pretty much everything. I had a ton of fun.

Anyway. That's pretty much all my time! Have a great week all you!
Äldste Heiner

Shopping at the factory outlet.

Elder Mott and I.

Getting a haircut.

The after cut photo.

A doorknob!  WHAT?

We got Reeces.

Some fog pics.

With the class in Flen.

This sign is showing you the way out of the tunnel.
The way out is at the end of the tunnel.

Jul is coming...

Biggest tools I ever did see.

Grace is a super big Star Wars fan.
This is her sick light saber.

And she taught us a little about how to use Chinese characters.
This board is made of fabric that turns black when wet.
It's genius for learning how to write.

October 12, 2015

Hej everyone! There are people needing to use these computers, so this is going to be quick.
   We met with a lot of people this week. We taught a bunch of lessons on the street and we taught a bunch of lessons in people's homes, so it was a good balance. Just some highlights, everyone came to Katrineholm for district meeting, Elder Johanson and I won the district picture competition and have the honor of having the district flag in our apartment this week. YAY! We had a really long ring stund and got into contact with a lot of people. It was interesting to hear. People often loose contact with the missionaries during transfers. If/When you go on a mission, don't accidentally drop positive people. It kinda ridiculous. I've also begun teaching a temple preparation course, so that's interesting. It’s super good to study for it in preparation, and it’s pretty fun to teach too.
   Well, I don't have any other specific things to bring up. If you have any questions you want to know about, let me know! Have a good one!
Äldste Heiner

The roaring streets of Katrineholm

Elder Johanson being attacked by a cat

McDonald's

October 5, 2015

Hey to all of you all! We had a really good week this week. We were able to meet with a lot of people and do a goodly amount of sharing the truth which is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Also, something that I learned again this week, if you eat a kilo and a half of godies, your body is going to hate you. Specifically your stomach. Because mine does right now.
   Last week on Monday we went to a place called Vinåker. It has exactly nothing in the town except for a factory outlet which has super cheep clothing. Like Tiger suits. Really cheep Tiger suits. So we went and looked at them. I really want one... Then we had hemafton with Pia and David (HI!) and we had food and had a good time and it's always super good.
   Tuesday was cool. We were going to meet with a bunch of peeps and then they were all, "Nah..." But we were able to meet with some other people that wanted to talk, so that was nice.
   We probably had the highlight of Gospel Principles on Wednesday. We taught about how the priesthood is organized in the church. There's not too much to question on that one. It's was just like, "Så är det..."
   We went to Södertälje for district meeting, and coming back was the fist time that we didn't have any problems with travel in that town. I've been lost there so many times. But something cool we did was ukulele contacting. We all went out on the street and sang hymns to the uke and contacted people as a district. It went pretty well. It was fun. It was weird. When we got back from the meeting, we met with  few more investigators, and even got a new investigating family! We're pretty excited.
   Friday was full of impromptu lessons with investigators that we weren't expecting to meet with. Then we went out to Flen and had dinner with a very nice member woman.
   Saturday was conference! If you didn't do conference, get to lds.org and watch it. It's super good.I really liked the testimony of Elder Renlund. I'm going to really like hearing from him, I can feel it.  I bought about 1.3 kilo godies and ate it all in two days. Well... one 24 hour period of time. It feels not too great. And then Sunday too. All of Sunday was conference. Super awesome stuff.
   That was my week! I hope everyone has a great one and watch more conference!!
Äldste Heiner

The Bible is in the detective section.

Sweater Weather!

Julmust is back!

We were in Stockholm Central.

A cool building for mother to look at.

Getting a little artsy with flowers.

Cool sunset picture from the train.

Conference selfie.

I decided I wanted to see what my hair
 looked like slicked back.
So I tried Elder Johanson's super strong strength gel.
My hair is too strong for it.
Then we found hair wax in our apartment. So... yeah.

September 28, 2015

Hello to all the people. This was a week. And for the first time on my mission, life is moving at normal speed. It's super weird. I do not have much time writing time and my mother wants lots of details. This will be interesting.
   We had pday on Monday. We walked around and had a good time and then emailed a bunch and then went to Pia's (Hi Pia!) house for hemafton with her and David (Hi David) for the evening. Super good stuff. Pia made pizza. It was really good.
   Tuesday was all over the place. We were out in Flen for a woman that wanted to meet with us and also her friend. It was interesting. I think they were just old ladies who were bored so they invited us over. They live out in Flen, so we ended up coming back later in the day. Then we met with Ferdi. Then we worked. On the street. You know, like we do.
   We had liksom nothing for Wednesday, so we did some area book stuff, making lists for people to swing by and then we went out to talk to people. Then we met with Ferdi again. He's a bro. Then we met up with Pia right before we had Gospel Principals. Then Pia gave me a bit of a hair trim (Thanks Pia!) because President was going to be at meeting this week and I hadn't had a haircut in a transfer or two. I actually forget when I had a haircut last.
   Thursday was good. Nothing interesting enough to tell you about.
   We had a zone training on Friday! In the words of Elder Colton Smith, "On Friday we went to Södertälje (near Stockholm) for zone training. President and Sister Beckstrand were there as well as the assistants. I got an interview with President Beckstrand and it went well. Our zone training was mostly about chapter 13 in Preach My Gospel, how we can help investigators to feel comfortable and prepared in church and how we can work better with members." We had dinner with a super awesome family that evening too.
   I'm just going to send a picture of my planner for Saturday.
   Sunday was super crazy. Lots of people talked to us and we had church and a bunch of people came and we worked really hard and then had dinner with some super cool people.
   I love my mission! I love the Lord! Have it good!
Äldste Heiner

Interesting things around Flen.

Ferdi and a white shirt and tie.

Haircut.

Train ride.

Zone training.

What! A water fountain!

A pretty lake.

Somebody put dish soap in the fountain.  Not funny.

Okej. Pretty funny.

These two people we contacted wanted pictures
and so we got some too.

These things aren't used for this,
 but Elder Johanson will tell you otherwise.
 We actually have no idea what they're for,
but they are all around Sweden.

Saturday.

September 21, 2015

   Hello everybody! If you read the little note from last week, you know that I moved! To Katrineholm! It's been super good so far.
   Monday and Tuesday were all just saying goodbye to people and taking last minute pictures of things and people. On Wednesday I was all packed up and moved. I had to get up pretty early in the morning to catch the train. About an hour and a half later, I was sitting in my new area, and had met my new companion. Elder Johanson is a super cool dude. He works really hard and we get along really well. I've only been super happy in the week I've spent with him. But yeah, Wednesday had us out and around talking to people about truth and God and things like that. We were stopped by a couple of Persians who wanted to know who we were, so we told them all about it. In the evening we were part of a gospel principles class. It was super good. We had two new converts with us. The two new converts are super cool. Shout out to them because I know at least Pia reads this!
   Thursday we were out working like usual, talking to people. Then we took a train to a place called Flen! It's in our area. And it's even smaller than Kholm. But we talked to people out there for a while and then we came back. Talked to more people and then we went to institute! It was cool.
   We had district meeting on Friday. Our district is pretty loaded. Some of my favorite people in the world work really close to me. District meeting went really well, and then we ate at this super good Mongolian place. I really like food from that part of the world. I should figure out how to make more of it. I ordered train tickets for a few people in the district who hadn't done that yet and didn't want to because it's annoying and then we came home. And talked to people. We do that a lot. Then we went to visit Per, who is a less active man who promised to come back in two weeks. He's a pretty cool dude.
   On Saturday we went to the TEMPLE! I haven't been to the temple in so long. Like a year. And we were able to a session in Swedish (super cool!), and then we helped out in the baptistry where we had a couple of new converts doing baptisms. We were able to do some confirmations and then we did witnessing. It was super great. I love the temple. It's just a really great place. Anyway, we came back from the temple and had a couple lessons and dinner.
   Sunday was super good. We went to church and had some super cool people show up. The town here is super small. It's really fun though. Good branch of twentyish. We had 25 in church and they were feeling good. We had two investigators in sacrament meeting and also a less active man. After church we went home for lunch but immediately turned around to go back because a man said he wanted to meet. And then he said he would be baptized! We're super excited and we’re praying a lot for him.
   Anyway, that was my week. It was super good. I hope everyone has a great one! Thanks for all that you do!

Äldste Heiner

District Flag.

Really Long Grass!

Read that Sign.  It is pretty funny.

We went shopping and I didn't have enough room in my bag.
And then I did.

At the temple with Pia and Hadi.

Elder Johanson and I.