I've been transferred to Växjö (pronounced vek-whuh with a hard wh with your teeth fairly close together like you're saying sh). The branch has around 25 active members, so pretty small, especially compared to what I was just in. It's awesome though. On my way down here I fell down an escalator (with two 60lbs suitcases), only bled a little bit, but got some gnarly bruises. It must've looked pretty hilarious. The day before that we all went to the temple since I didn't know when the next time I'd be able to go is, and that was a wonderful experience. I love the temple and miss having one so close to me. I've never lived farther than 15 minutes away from a temple my whole life until now. The closest temple to me now is the Copenhagen temple, but we'd be able to go there if I hadn't had gone to the temple last Tuesday. Now I have to wait 6 months before I can go again, and I'll probably be somewhere else by then.
My companion is Elder Hewitt from West Sussex, England. He's really funny, and a great missionary. Maybe I'll be able to pick up on his accent while we're together. We get along great and have a fun time here doing missionary work. We also have a senior couple here, the Delgados. They are a hoot. They originally come from the South Bay area in California, but lived a long time in Cache Valley, near Logan. They were a great help to us getting to know the people here, and have already done tons of great work in our area. I'm excited to keep working with them and helping the work move forward.
The area here is huge. We have the whole county and a little bit to ourselves, but no car. (It's over an hour drive to get to a border of our area, some places would take 9 hours to get to with public transportation and walking, so I'm glad we have a nice senior couple that will drive us there if we need it, but obviously we only spend time there when invited). The members here are super strong, and at one point they got 12 baptisms in one year in this branch (that's pretty crazy to think about)! I got to bless the sacrament for my first time in Swedish this past Sunday, and it went well.
We also had our area seventy Äldste Olsson come visit us yesterday for church. He lived in my last area, so I've had dinner with him a few times, but it is always such a pleasure to be with him. He talked a lot about missionary work and challenged us to read Preach My Gospel 13 and study it. Find out what needs to change for us to better work with the full-time missionaries (or branch leaders in our case). His high councilor companion talked about pride and the importance of watching out for and avoiding it. It was a way cool block of meetings. The work is about to explode in this area. One member here had the idea to link all of the Spanish speaking members in Scandinavia together with a Facebook group, and I'm helping her figure that out so that it can get up and going fast. It's definitely a good place for me to be sent with my IT experience. A lot of help is needed here, and is helping me stay with my skill-set. We also have two young deacons who love American football, and want to play with me sometime. Their dad went to Orem High School. And lots of Spanish speakers who invite us to play football with them on Saturdays. It's an awesome area to be in.
Watch out for pride, and become humble, wanting counsel and accepting it willingly. Respect your leaders and remember not to stand against them but be submissive. I love you all, and hope everything is going great back home. This is my briar patch out here. I grew up with fixing IT problems, and working hard to do seemingly impossible things. This is my style and I'm excited for this area. That's the kind of fire that about missionary work that needs to exist all over the world. Be excited for your home ward. How can you better help the work go forward. I'm not saying that everyone needs to be inviting missionaries over for dinner once a week, and referring all their friends who aren't interested or members to them, but see what needs to be done in your area, and help do it with approval from the proper leadership. If every member not only prayed for the missionaries, but prayed to help strengthen the members of their ward, and for opportunities to share the gospel with non-members then miracles would happen on a large scale, doubling church membership. You are all missionaries, make sure you are strengthening the stakes of Zion, including you and your home. I love you all.
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