Vecka Arton [Week 18]

Happy New Year,

I'm getting transferred to an area in Småland, Sweden, named Växjö.  If you look on google maps you will see it's a little bigger than my current area.  If you look on their ward list, you will find about 20-30 active members though.  It is one of the smallest branches in Sweden, and one of the most isolated as well.  That'll be a big change since I was just in probably the largest ward in Sweden.  My companion will be Elder Hewitt who's an English man.  It's a 3 hour train ride down from Stockholm, so that'll be fun.  The dialect down there is really hard to understand because of the Danish influence, but it's mixed with the Göteborg dialect which is harder than pure Stockholm Swedish to understand, but easier for me because the people who I learned Swedish from here are from Göteborg areas.  I leave on Wednesday, and am one of the few who get transferred out of their greenie areas right after training.

This week was amazing!  I got a lot of cool letters to start the week, then we had some amazing contacts, and lessons.  Some of the most powerful I've had on my mission.  I taught two Spanish lessons this week, one of them we didn't have a translator though, so I'm glad I've had the Spanish experience I've had, but wish I had more.  The one with a translator was incredible though.  I had a strong prompting to put the mom on date for the 17th, so we did it.  This was before we got the transfer call, so we got super excited, and I thought I'd stay here and be able to baptize her family and her.  Incredible experience.  Sadly I will be about 5 hours of travel away from them when they get baptized.

We also taught a sweet old lady from Norrland.  She is hilarious, and jokes around with us a lot.  She couldn't figure out how to move pictures from her SD card onto her computer though, so I showed her how to open her SD card on her computer, and she told me to report to my leaders I gave her revelation.  She's so funny, and wouldn't make us leave until we drank something other than water with her (we chose saft over tea), and we received each a book from her.  I got a joke book of 3000 jokes.  I'm not sure I like Swedish humor though, because a lot of the jokes go kinda like this:

-How does his name go?

-Petersson

-First name?

-No last name.

Pretty funny right?  Sadly she's not too interested in the gospel yet.  She has a great love for the missionaries though, and wants us to come back a lot, and especially wants computer help.

New Year's Eve was pretty fun.  Lots of fireworks out here.  This week we've had a lot of good times.  It's weird to think I've been out for 4 months already.  In someways it feels like I've been out my whole life, but at the same time it feels like yesterday I was at home going to school, running and working.  This week has been full of miracles, so my little spiritual thought I'd like to share is about that.  It is crazy how big every little miracle we receive is.  Think about the power that made that happen.  It is the same power that created the universe and everything in it.  God used it to make you smile one more time.  That's how important we are to God, and the more we recognize those small miracles in our lives, the more we will receive them.  God blesses the grateful.  Be grateful, since God blesses you.  I love you all.

Mvh,

Äldste Liddle