December 28th 2009 - last time in 09!

HEY!!!

Christmas is over, I got to talk to pretty much everyone I know that lives in Utah, Arizona, and the western states, that was crazy.  But it was good!  SO on

Oh my gosh, there are these drunk guys at the library next to us.  One of them just started crying, and then they turned on this song that lyrics say "you got a reason to cry"  pretty ironic...  What a baby.  He is like a 40 year old guy, in a public library, monday morning, who smells like alcohol really strong and needs a pampering song, from some american country singer.  Go home and get a job.  Oh no, now they are talking to us... gosh they want help with the computer.

Note to self- never drink.  And dont go to the library drunk after the age of 40 and ask everyone for help.

OK well on a happy note!  We had a great Christmas!!!  We went Ice Fishing!!!!!
Click on the picture below to see more pictures.

07 Luleå Clarke

And here are some other pictures.

From 07 Luleå Clarke

Anyway!  I was pretty excited to get a fish!  I actually got 2 of them.  It was SO cold!!!  It was -22 Degrees Celsius which is about -8 Degrees Fahrenheit.  It was SUPER cold!!

Christmas Eve is the big day in Sweden.  We had the elders from Skellfteå over, and all 4 of us went over to the Näslunds.  We had a good time, watched "Calle Anke" aka Donald Duck!  It was pretty fun.  We just ate alot of Christmas food, and had a good old time.  None of my packages made it in time for christmas, which was fine with me, i dont really need any more stuff, but just to have something to open, i wrapped up a bunch of the stuff I already had and then when i opened them I was happy to have them!!!  I thought it was a really good idea, and I plan on doing it more in the future.  But yes- tami your package for me is just waiting down in Stockholm.  I'll get it in like 10 days or something.

But we couldn't meet with many of our investigators this week.  We did do some fun stuff like make cookies with some of our english class students.  that was pretty fun!  And then we kept making them for our swedish and english class for older people.  that was fun, and we decorated them, (they were sugar cookies) and super good, and we then gave them to members and other people we have contact with.

Well thats about it!  Thanks for all the conversations, and the gifts and all the great stuff.  Keep serving people!  And family have lots of fun in St. George and I hope bear gets to ride his dirtbike!!!

Have a good one!

ÄA

Dec 21nd 2009

Hey Family!

OK pretty crazy!!  So Matt is home!  It's crazy!!  So in his honor, this whole week I'm wearing nametags that I got that say "Äldste Liljegren"  his swedish name.

So that's pretty cool!  This week was kinda a weird one... some cool things happened-
we saw it -20 degrees Celsius!  Thats like -4 degrees Fahrenheit!!  It was WAY cold!  and we were outside for like 1½ hrs helping Marike chopping wood so she can live.  That was pretty crazy!  It think i would have died if i didnt have handwarmers in i think they would have fallen off.

I've also been studying Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon.  They are super cool!  If any of you have any idea what they are, I'm going thru them and studying them.  They are really fun to study.

I like my comp.  We get along pretty well.  we were in Umeå so we never got around to buying food this week, so we were pretty creative.  We'll go buy lots of food so that we are all stocked up.

The Elders in Skellefeå have no where to go for christmas so they are coming up with us!  It'll be lots of fun.  We might to to Jokkmokk (above the artic circle) on the shortest day of the year, therefore it'll be dark at noon.  And that is Joseph Smiths birthday!  We'll close to it.

We'll be at the Näslunds on Christmas Eve.  That's the big day here.  The actual day is just a chill day.  We'll see what we end up doing.

But yep that's our plans for this week, except we are going to make some sugar cookies with our english discussion group!  and then in our swedish and english class we are going to decorate some of them, and then we are going to take some more to members and less actives and investigators the next few days!  So we've got LOTS of cookies to make!  It'll be pretty fun.

Here are some videos of us doing stuff... like our christmas tree.  We went and cut one down, and then we have it hanging in our room haha.  In the video you can pretty much see our whole appartment.  It's slightly bigger then the appartment gma and gpa had in Bermuda.

I'm excited to talk to you guys on christmas!  Expect a call sometime!

ÄA





hopefully i didn't say anything stupid in these videos

Ok! This week! 091205

Sorry I didn't email yesterday!  It wasn't our pday! cause we were in Umeå for zone conference, so now, the day after is our pday.

So this week was a fairly good week.  We had some good things happen.

Ok first, it is dark ALL the time!!!  It is kinda light from like 10:00 to 1:30.  But we almost never actually see the sun, cause it is cloudy usually, and it is way way far down.  The sunrise is the sunset.... and it's miserable.

But i'm doing pretty good.  It is kinda crazy tho with it always being dark.  I can feel it inside me.  Our investigators from Iran have the same thing... I dont think they really like it here to be honest haha.

BUT on the good side, we taught our best investigator, Fred, the guy married to the member this week.  We'll see what happens with him.  And we also taught a man named Altai, he is really a good guy, but we'll see if he needs the gospel, or can muster up enough faith to ask.  We'll see!

And our teenage friends just came to the church and we had a good old time with them.  They are really great kids, I think we've helped them quite a bit.  I didnt know what we were going to talk about (religious wise) and then i looked up and there was a drawing of Lehi's dream!  It was perfect for them!  It was pretty cool, to go over that and talk about what it was symbolic of, and that we are kinda at the tree asking them to come to it.
But we did play a fun word game where we wrote down a funny sentence, kinda like in story form, and then folded over the paper, and the next person writes a sentence of the last one.  (so you only can see 1 sentence above) and then it makes really funny stories!  It was good.

We also had zone conference, and that was really really good.  I was really impressed with our zone leaders actually.  I'm sorry but sometimes i have had a hard time looking up to leaders cause usually they aren't much of a good example of following the rules, or they are kinda prideful about it, but I was really really impressed. They gave some really good talks, that I was blown away with how they worded their sentences and the depth of their talks.  For some reason it really got to me.  they are both really good orators- however you spell that, and they bore a strong testimony.  It was a really good zc.  It made me want to be better!

Anyway I hope you all serve someone this christmas time, and don't think about yourself.  Some of my best christmas memories, were...
1, when i got my rifle.  I was so happy.
2, when we went and gave blankets to kids at the hospital
3, when we helped some families with the sub-for-santa.  I cant think of anything i've pretty much ever got for christmas (ok thats not true, i remember alot) but I remember better those service projects we did.

So SERVE!!!

I was telling Matt Lyons (I first said Matt L. but that could be Lelegren too) that I wish that christmas was a Worldwide Service Day.  That would be the best ever.

Hejdå!

ÄA

Hey! Dec 07 2009

Well i hope everyone is having an awesome time!
This week was pretty good, we kinda had a slow start but it turned out good. We had a goal to get 2 more member teaches this week then we got last week. And we did it! so that was sucessful. We also got our Li our chinese investigator to come to church... I dont know if we basically forced him to come, and if he actually liked it, but it was a good experience for him!

We had a good time with the skellefteå elders making our christmas card! so expect that coming soon.

We taught Fred, the man who is married to a member, but never really came! That was awesome! He is doing good, and hopefully starts taking more steps to being baptized. He is an awesome man. His wife is crippled and he helps her every day. He is a really good guy.

We also found a new investigator Altai from Iran, but he has lived in sweden for 20 years about. He is awesome!

We have the christmas party for the branch this week, we'll see how that turns out. the branch here is kinda un-organized at the moment. anyway we are working hard! Sorry so short!

ÄA

Hello Family!

Ok so I gotta lot of stuff to say, and it's actually pretty late and yeah....

Ok Stig got baptized!  I called him a few days before to ask him who he wanted to do it and he said "someone with authority"  haha haha!!! what a smart guy!  and a sense of humor!

But anyway I got the honors, it was pretty awesome.

From 06 Luleå w. Hanes

From 06 Luleå w. Hanes

From 06 Luleå w. Hanes

Some other cool things....

It was thanksgiving!  and I had lots of fun with some Americans!  they are in our branch and super awesome.

We also are trying to fix some of the underlying problems here in Luleå by helping them understand the importance of meetings, especially PVC etc.  They havnt had that in years haha.  Anyway help them with Home teaching etc.  Trying to build up Zion, which doesnt always mean knocking on doors.

Anyway I'm sorry it was so short...

I love you all, miss you all.  You guys are great.

ÄA

Hello Family! Nearly Thanksgiving!

Hey well I guess since it's nearly thanksgiving I'll say a bunch of stuff I'm thankful for!

• My Family
• They do so much for me!  they are still alive and doing well after all the crazy stuff they've been thru!  They are so awesome and I love them lots!!!!
• That I'm a missionary!
• I get to help a bunch of people understand that there is a God and that he still loves us even today.  And that I get to be in Sweden.  That is pretty cool.
• I dont think i'd be fair unless I name some spicific people in my family.  Especially my mom and all that she does for me and my family.  She is super awesome.
• I'm grateful for my Dad, and all that he taught me.  He taught me so many good principles, like to work hard and to play hard.  And true success isn't a material possession-- It's family and contention with what you have.
• I'm grateful for the awesome grandparents and great-grandparents I have.  Especially supporting me as a missionary and basically I couldn't be out here without them!
• I've also gotta say thanks to Matt.  I'm very grateful that he takes care of my family and that he could come visit me.  I'm grateful that he is a respectable man and respects my family and me.
• I'm grateful for THE GOSPEL!!!!  and that I know about the Book of Mormon!!!!!
• Sometimes still as a missionary it just feels like heavy sometimes and wow, like I know all this stuff, am I really doing all I can.  Is it really true??  Is all this worth it???  Is the Atonement real????  Well it is!
• I'm grateful for all the wonderful friends I had growing up- Matt and Bryce.  They are awesome.  And they are coming home soon.  Well I'm glad that I can know them and that they made good choices and helped me follow the gospel.
• I'm grateful for AMERICA!!!!  You guys have no idea.  I'm super grateful that we have the Bill of Rights, and that we are Free to believe what we want and say what we want.  I'm grateful that it was Possible for Joseph Smith to last 40 years or however long he actually made it.  Only in america and he barely did it.
• I'm grateful for my Investigators and all that they do.  That they were brave enough to ask God if the Book of Mormon is true.  
• I'm grateful for every person that stands up for what they honestly believe in-- No matter what that is.
• I'm grateful for spell check, and that I'm not spelling these all "greatful"
• I'm grateful for all the missionaries I know, cause they stand up for what they believe and sacrifice a lot to be in Sweden telling these people all this stuff, and It can be extremely hard. 

Anyway that is just a small list of the stuff I'm grateful for.  I hope all of you celibrate THE BEST HOLIDAY EVER by saying and thinking about the things you are grateful for.

OK about this week.

Stig is going to get baptized!!!!!!!!

This saturday!  we dont know all that much about what is going on, cause he lives so far away.  He said to us that he "wants this to be between God the Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost and himself"  haha so that's awesome!!!!!  he is a great guy.

We had some awesome stuff happen to us this week.  We went to Umeå for Transfers and I was with Elder Bennion, we had a good time and taught some awesome people and had some awesome teaches.

The most important thing we are working on is making a Branch Mission Plan.  We are working on making it, and making sure everyone understands it.

Have a great week!!

ÄA

Hey Family!

This week was pretty awesome!!

We had a killer week.  At the beginning we set up some awesome goals and worked really hard at them.  For a while, like the first couple days it looked like there was no way to get them.... we had almost no teaches until thursday.  Then after that we got kicking trash somehow and it was awesome!!  I guess the good thing was that we got several member teaches early in the week, but that was it.  Anyway it was a great week.

Sunday was probably one of the best days of my mission so far.  We had an investigator sing in Sacrement!!!  It was really really good.  If i could just explain how funny it was tho.... k so it was the Young womens turn to be in charge of sacrement meeting, so they all gave talks and were up on the stand.  And then Andreas after came and sang, and blew everyone away (and he played the piano at the same time) and it was super super good.  But the best part was all the young women were just mesmorized, they were completely out.  All of them were just staring at him with their mouths open.  And the other girls that came with Andreas got it all on video!!!!  HAHA!!!  I'll try to get the video so you guys can see it.

Anyway it was really good.
AND then after Andreas sang in sacrement a member of the Mission Presidency got up and talked to them and basically said thanks for sharing your tallents, but we got something to share with you guys, and taught the restoration to them.  It was pretty intense and i was scared they would get scared aweay, but they came 2 days later to our English Discussion Group!  AND AND they knew that my companion Elder Hanes was going to leave, and they wrote up a funny patition, and paper to "the big man" about that he should stay here, and if they fail to get him to stay then they wish him a good life.  It was so awesome!!!  They are way cool kids.

We had alot of good teaches too.  It was a really good week.

Tomorrow is transfers, and I'm staying in Luleå, and getting Elder Clarke (i know little about him, but i've meet him before and i'm excited for the next 2 months) and Elder Hanes is going to Stockholm inerstan to be with Elder Drake.  So yup thats the current sitiuation.

Also i've been collecting stamps of all things... I actually have had lots of fun with it.  We have some members that gave me some stamps, and I bought some.  It's been pretty cool.  Oh and this one investigator gave me some.  Anyway I'm having lots of fun in Sweden!!! It's great to be a missionary and bear testimony every day.

But i do miss home, and my bro Jeremy, i usually call him Bear, so it's weird to see Jeremy written.

anywya gotta go!

ÄA

Hey Fam! 10th Nov 2009

OK!

So we officially went into the Artic Circle yesterday!! it was way cool!  My comp had never been in the 6 months that he had been here so we took a bus up there and had a pretty good time.  We walked around the tiny tiny little city, and went to the church and some of the shops.  It was a good experience!

We went to a little shop and got some saumi stuff.  That was cool. I got a sami bracelet, they are really cool, and the cheapest up there.  That was good.  And we just went around and saw it all.

They have these funny things called "sparks" and they are little sled skooter things that everyone takes around.  I'll get a picture of them and send it to you.  They are pretty awesome.  Everyone had them up there.  It was frozen over everywhere.  Pretty much it was a frozen winter wonderland.  it was really cool acutally.

We went to Umeå and had sharpening with the assistants and president and our leader, it was pretty cool.  It sounds like my companion will be leaving me next week, and i'll get a new one.   But that isnt sure and we'll have to see what actually happens.  I would like to train but we'll have to see.

Everything is going pretty good.  Stig is awesome, he is going to get baptized pretty soon, and we are working hard with him.  He knows everything.  We working super hard this week to get 2 baptismal dates, even tho we have no idea who the next one will be.  We had set up some way hard goals, and working hard to get them.  It'll be lots of fun, but lots of work this week!  We are trying to make everything the best we can up her, and help the branch realize we are serious and want to work hard.  It's pretty good.

Life is good!

here are some random pictures.

From 06 Luleå w. Hanes

Thats us going into the Artic Circle

From 06 Luleå w. Hanes

This is the cool church in Jokkmokk

From 06 Luleå w. Hanes

This is what EVERYTHING looks like up here.  Trees white, water, sky, fog, it's pretty cool.

Anywya have a great week!

ÄA

Hey! Just Quick!

We went to Jokkmokk today.
It's above the Artic Circle and so we are heading back today, and probably wont have time to email when we get back to Luleå.

I'll email tomorrow morning.

Love ya'll

ÄA

Hey Family!! 091102

Hey!

Ok for things this week,

We had a pretty good week.  We got 13 teaches, and my comp was sick for most of the time.  It was good tho.  We also went on splits.  i went to Umeå with Elder Kroff.  That was pretty fun.  We taught a 11 year old kid that one day walked in their appartment and started talking to them.  He's an awesome kid.  His whole family is slowly starting to investigate the church.  It was pretty cool.  His dad died a few weeks ago, so i talked to him with that.  We did some good stuff tho there.  It was pretty fun.

We also had our english discussion class with our awesome high school friends.  They are troopers.  We play games with them for a little bit and then we talk about the gospel for a little.  Andreas is going to sing in sacrement meeting!!  I'm way excited for that.  He is awesome!!! we actually taught their english class again today.  High school classes can be an awesome way to find people if you do them right.  We did a pretty good job.

Another cool thing this week was what happened with our Iranian friends.  Parvaneh, the wife texted us asking if she can come to chruch on sunday.  It was pretty cool!!!  she came and she just wanted to sit in the hall way and read her koran.  She said that she hasn't had time to just think and do religious stuff sense she came to sweden.  I really care about them, they are so awesome!!  We are going to go to their house again sometime soon.  THat'll be fun.  I'm glad we got to be friends with them.  It's pretty cool to go see other people and what is going on in the world.  Parvaneh said she was really said that we could move in a few weeks, she said she considers us best friends.  That was pretty awesome, and she said that 4 months ago she lost her two best friends in all the troubles that happend in Iran.  one of her friends got thrown off a bridge and she was the first one to get to him, and he was dead.  Then another one of her best friends got shot right in front of her at a protest thing.  It's pretty sad...  I'm so glad we live in a peaceful nation!!!  America is one heck of a great place to live in.  I've never had such a great appreciation.

ANother note is that Thanksgiving is the best holiday in the world.  That's what i think all holidays should be like.  Family gets togther, have good food and say what they are thankful for!!!   Isn't that what christmas and easter should be like???  Where did all this greed and presents and materializm come from??  Anyway enjoy Thanksgiving because it's the most Godly and Holy holiday in my mind.

Other things....
Stig, our friend that is going to get baptized is doing awesome!!!  we went to his place and walked to the resturant where his newly married to wife works, and had some Thai dinner.  That was awesome!! we got to meet her for the first time, and Stig is fully ready for baptism.  He is one awesome guy!!!  I'm way excited for him.  He will be baptized on the 28th of November.  That is my 1½ year mark.  He is also a doctor, and has one funny sense of humor.  He is so funny.  We were talking about repentance and "change" in sunday school and he said something so funny.  I was laughing so hard.  He said something to the effect of "sounds like Obama".  It was so funny to hear him say that.

Anyway life is going pretty good!  this week a head will be pretty awesome.  Back down to Umeå for sharpening... and interviews, which means transfers are coming soon!!!!

anyway gotta go.  I love to hear from you guys!

Thanks,

ÄA

October 26th 2009

Hey Family!

I had a pretty good week this week.  Let me tell you a little of what happened.

Well this week we did pretty good with teaching people.  It was our focus again to get 15 total teaches-- and we got it!

We taught quite a few english classes, one religion class, that was awesome.  We had a member come and he really laid it down how it is.  He explained that we are all trying to find happiness and that if you dont define it now while your young, and don't try to figure out what is going to make you actually happy- then go get it.  And if there is a God then he obviously knows what will actually make us happy and he will actually help us get there.  It was pretty cool.  We gave out 5 books of Mormon to that class.  That was good.

I've found one of my talents.  I love making effective systems and programs in a way, that help get something done.  Like when we visit high schools I have these papers that we use, that I designed to help us stay organized and so we don't double book.  Then we have good surveys that we've designed that help us know what we did good in the class, and most importantly get students contact info.  So in all these billion english classes we've found all the ones that want to talk about religion, and then I have a good sheet that helps us stay on track of who is interested, who we've called or not.

And we are going to do a similar thing in this Swedish-English class we have.  My comp teaches swedish and we are going to add a english class too.  We've done this before but it wasn't very effective.  So we revised and rethought it and have a good system that we are going to use to actually help people learn languages, but also feel comfortable asking us questions about the gospel (aka, the real reason we are here)

So i've got some funny stories from this week.

1.we found a hedgehog.  That was fun.  Here is a picture of him.
A.He came to district meeting with us in the church.  It was pretty cool.  So swedes are really protective of nature... Idk why but they are kinda crazy about it.  The other missionaries said they saw a hedge hog so I sprinted out to go find him-- then I couldnt find him so I was looking around and then I spotted him in the middle of the road!  So I hopped this little fence and grabbed him.  Just my luck this old grandma was there and got mad at me.  I just told her it was my pet and walked away.  I'm pretty tired of swedes freaking out about stupid stuff like that.

2.Oh we cleaned some Graffitti off this thing by the church.
A.And then I ticked off another grandma.... gosh how can a grandma get mad at me for cleaning graphitti?? definitely possible somehow.  So I was painting it off (this is fully on church property anyway) and she comes kinda by us and says we should stop painting and it's a waste of our time b.c it will just be back there the next day.  And we said have a great day woman but we are not just going to leave graphitti here.  So she kept arguing with us that we should stop, I'm pretty sure it was her that tagged our wall.  She said we should let the government do it, cause they have a crew do it. Anyway we kinda just said ok have a good day woman and she walked away.
B.I'm just confused on how she could get mad at us for CLEANING graphitti.  I'm pretty sure she wouldn't care if she saw the person actually tagging it.  As you can tell I was kinda offended.  I'm pretty sure she is just a hard-core socialist and wants the government to have to give out meaninless jobs like cleaning graphitti.

3.We helped a chinese refugee apply to be in the US military.
A.It's true we really did.  He is this crazy guy that we went by last week who “trust in god but wont read the bible(or bom).”  He emailed this other missionary that was here that he had “very important questions” for us... so we called him and set up another time.  He told us this crazy story of how he escaped china and got to sweden.  And the other day on the internet he saw that refugees can now apply for the US military.  I dont know if that is true but we helped him email this recruter person that he had his email address.  It was halarious actually-- and we really helped him, he was super serious about it.  He would be one dedicated dude if they could understand his very choppy english and swedish.

Well that is it for funny stories!!  It was pretty entertaining.

So the past couple days I have not been feeling too well (I'm better now) and my comp was even worse.  I'm actually pretty sure he has a mild case of the swine flu or something.  It's not too bad, but i'm expecting him to grow a pig tail sometime within the next few days.

Hopefully he gets better soon cause we have lots to do this week.  It was kinda funny yesterday.  We were late to church cause he wanted a blessing, and just being sick doesnt help, and when we were there everyone was like terrified that he was sick.  This older woman named Siw had the funniest look on her face when she found out.  But then we just went home and slept and stuff and did some other paper work that we needed to.

Our English Discussion Group didn't turn out too well this week.  We are changing the time to Tuesdays at 3:00 to help it because we already have several students who come at that time.  It should be very good.  Most of the ones that come are also interested in religion- so hopefully we get to share the gospel a little bit. (or a lot, that would always be good)

I dont know if i've told you guys but I have an investigator from when I was in Kristianstad who we found in an English class that is getting baptized on the 14th of November.  I'm pretty excited about that!!!  I'm kinda sad that I cannot be there, but I'm perfectly fine being all the way up here working on baptizing more people.

Our investigator is going to get baptized pretty soon.  I'm so excited for him!!!  He is so awesome!!!!!  One of the best guys i've ever met.  He is a doctor, and used to be a surgeon.  I know i've told you a little about him, but he is going to get baptized on the 28th of Nov. or maybe the 14th....

Anyway that's kinda been a lot about all the different stuff we've done!  This week was pretty good, cause even tho we were sick we still got 15 teaches.

This is a picture of these really good candy things that Parvaneh made for us, they are from Iran.

From 06 Luleå w. Hanes

This is a picture of us and Parvaneh Tofigh. They are our friends from Iran.

From 06 Luleå w. Hanes

This is our pet Hedgehog - Sonic

From 06 Luleå w. Hanes

October 19th 2009

Hey Family!

This week we drove 830 American miles! sense Tuesday!  That is OVER driving to Vegas and back from Draper UT.  It was recidulous.  We drove to Umeå twice.  And then to this city by boden, and then to boden.  We were in the car definately over 15 hrs this week. if not more.  And i drove most of it....

Yeah as you can tell sweden is huge, the closest elders live 135 km from us.  it's pretty crazy.

Anyway for more exciting news...

WE got a baptismal date!  in Luleå!  Our dear friend Stig decided to get baptized.  He's changed so much of his life around it's so awesome.  It's cool to see the final/beginning stages (depending on how you look at it haha).  Well that was pretty awesome.  And we got 3 new investigators.  We've taught alot of english classes in high schools and now they are paying off a little bit.  I dont think we'll really see how much good we actually did from all of those, but we got 3 new investigators, and hopefully more to come!  They were some awesome kids.  They were really cool.  Andreas could sing so awesomely!  We asked them about themselves and he said he liked to sing, and he said he'd sing us a song!  It was a religious song none the less!! almost unheard of in sweden!  And it was really powerful.  I want to get him to sing it in sacrement meeting.  It would be really cool experience for him, and then all the members would love him haha.

We have been working so hard!  Its crazy!  I like it alot tho, i'm just trying to pace myself so i dont get worn out.  we havent really been taking pdays to be honest.  Cause we've been teaching too much.  We almost didnt have time to email today.  Well i need a break now and again, like once a week is perfect, so we'll come up with something fun and relaxing to do.  It's crazy having seriously a 24-7 job.  absoluletly every waking moment is spent on missionary work basically.   It's crazy.  And some not waking moments- I'm still not sure what language i dream in, it's a mix i think.

Well i'm stoked that i've got a cousin ty now save and sound in his new area in Brazil and then a future missionary cousin going to CA.  and a cousin in Vegas-- he'll be home soon huh? weird.

We went to Umeå (3hr ride down and 3 hrs back) 2x once to have district meeting bc the Johnsons from the Office were coming and needed to tell us car safty stuff, and the other time because they were having district conference.  you who are from Utah, or never served a mission, or left the bubble, a District is a stake before a stake.  Well it was a good meeting!  We got a new district presidency and it's more connected to the missionpresidency so that will be good at helping with missionary work.

OH!  I nearly forgot!  So my 2 best friends here are named Parvaneh and Tofigh.  They are from Iran, and we went to their appartment and had an Iranian meal!  It was so awesome!! it was really good, and it was so fun to talk to them and then we also taught them about Joseph Smith.  They have lots of questions, and I love talking to them cause it is so genuine.  We dont really try to convince them, just inform them, and if feels good to not try to pressure them actually.  I wish more people in sweden would want to be taught cause then it's alot easier.  I feel like alot of times we have to try to trick people to listen to us, and no one wants to do that.  but they are SO busy here, sometimes it's just hard to get anyone to listen even with all our thousand tricks!  but we keep working!!!

My grandpa told me about how my great-grandparents are still working hard up in Nampa ID.  What great people!!  They are still just working away after a great life and still holding strong to that Iorn Rod, and just doing their best!  what great examples of Enduring to the End!!  I sure appreicate them and all my family and friends.  You guys are so awesome.  Most families in sweden are so small and when i show them pictures of my family they are always suprised!  I love having a large strong family.  Count your blessigns every day!  haha even the ones you dont know about hhaha.

Anyway i think that was it for this week.  It's weird having friends who are headed home soon, and just life coming by.  And my sister is going to live in Hawaii and study there.  it's just crazy!

Anyway have a great week!

Keep doing the things you need to!

President Anderson said something in his talk at District Confrerece-  he held up his GPS - they call it their "liahona".  He said this thing is unbelievable- it always works, all we have to do is use it.  Then he asked us what are the liahonas we have in our lives?  It was pretty cool.  It made alot of poeple think, and it was cool.  He said we just have to dial in where we want to go and it takes us there!  sounds similar to prayer and scriptures study!

I've been thinking when i wanna go home that i wanna be a "internet missionary" and just talk to people on chats and stuff and basically just inform them, and direct them to Elder Hollands awesome talk, if they disagree with me haha.  Elder Holland did a pretty good job at kinda the all inclusive answer of the book of mormon had to come from somewhere so you better read it and find out if it is true!  cause none of those "frankly pathetic answers" are working explain the book of mormon.

Anyway have a great week!
love you all,

ÄA

091012

Hey Fam!

Ok i'll just get the business stuff out of the way first.

WOW!  Last Christmas $443.28 was spent on shipping stuff to me.  As seeing that thats lots of money, and I dont really need anything this upcoming christmas so I'm asking that you don't send packages-- but LETTERS in stead.  I would like as many genuine letters as possible.  That would be the best gift.  Letters are awesome.

But if you insist on sending something- I can make a "Elder Adamson College Book Fund" that you can donate to....
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX email me if you need this


THANKS!

I probably should clarify a little.  I super appreciate all the packages that were sent to me last year.  Thanks to each of you that did that.  It was understandably a hard time in my life and I sure enjoyed opening them all and everything.  I really appreciate it, but I just don't need anything now!  I've got all the stuff I need!  I'll need money for college alot more!



OK so news for this week!





The RIVER IS STARTING TO FREEZE OVER!
it's scary!  it's starting to snow, and we dont have our snow tires on... and it's pretty scary.  I'm super newrvous about the whole driving in the snow situation, and on ice roads etc.  It'll be pretty scary.  Hopefully i survive.  Pray that i dont die- I'm serious.  Most missionaries pray that they dont get shot or something, i'm praying that i dont die in a car reck.

Some better news!
Our best investigator got married!  now he is completely ready for baptism!  He is so awesome!  He has gone thru a lot.  He was one of the best surgeons in sweden, but had lots of problems.  He was an alchaholic, and nothing helped him, he snused (drugged up chewing tobacco) and lived with someone and all this stuff but now he's overcome it all and is ready!  we went thru the baptismal questions with him, and he said yes to all of them.  The best was he didnt have any problems with abortion- i was worried about that one.  Really worried.  BUT it all went great!  So we just have to set a date with him, he has to be offically interviewed, and get in the water!

We met with our 2 iranian friends, they are so cool.  I love them to death.  they are so honest and polite and appreciative.  I really like them.  I wanna go to iran and visit them, or whereever in the world they end up.

We also went by our chinese investigator- he works SO HARD.  he works 12+ hrs a day, and EVERY day.  even sunday.  He is working on getting his doctorate in 2 years.  It's unbelievable.  He said it will be hard to learn abt religion now... so we'll see where it all goes.

OH k, i posted 2 posts this week.  Make sure you look at the other one.  We watched elder Hollands talk.  That guy owned the place.  I cannot believe it's possible to have that strong of a testimony.  He was so incredible!  I can competely see him as one of the 2 apostles in the last days in jerusalem.  that'd be cool.  And the choir rocked the song before.  I was blown away.  I guess i've gained a little more appreciation for that kinda stuff these 2 years.


and we've been teaching lots of english classes and that's been fun.  I think i've learned alot on my mission. especially about loving people, and taking care of random people and just caring about them.  It's kinda weird cause I absolutly hate abortion, and all it includes, and it makes me just super sad, even tho i dont really care in a way, cause it doesnt effect me.  but just living with these people and seeint that they do stupid stuff.  Idk, it makes me love them more, and care about them.  Swedes in all honesty are pretty hard to love.  But it's coming.  I dont think anyone quite understand how it is to live in the most godless nation on earth, and probably one of the most "unhumble".  pride sounds a little harsh... cause they are not really prideful, ok yeah they are.

We went tracting for 2½ hrs... I really dont like tracting.  every time i do i think there has gotta be a better way.  No one gives us the time of day to present what we believe.  but that's life.

AND that way tho is members.  The members are going to really have to step up and start taking over in sweden.  Now is the time.  We started a Branch Mission Plan- a plan of action to get this place on fire!  It'll be pretty good.  Honestly us as missionaries cannot do too much without the members, so that is why we are trying to help them understand missionary work.  Most of them wanna do missionary stuff, just dont really know how. or they are crazy, so it doesnt matter what they say to their friends haha.  But anyway we are trying to also get a Mission Prep class going for all the members in Luleå so they know what to say to their friends.  I think it will be really good!

Our ZC in Stockholm was really good!  on the way back i sat next to this guy on the plane he was pretty cool, not really intested, but he told me all about his work on the trains and stuff.  that was cool.

The ZC was about stepping it up and getting baptisms.  Ä. Paya talked about how if we gain christlike attributes, then we will be spiritual, then we will love the people, and then we will build up zion.  and if we are spiritual we can follow the spirit and find the elect people.  if we love we will have a trusting relationship w. them, and be able to teach them.  and if we do that then we will convert people to the gospel!

Anyway love you all!

Have a great week!

ÄA

don't forget to look at the other post

Nati sent this to me-

Well last P-day we watched this, cause we didn't get to watch it during confrence.

Elder Holland owns, and the choir before set the perfect scene.





I wish people would keep the door open long enough for us to explain this!

This is the part Nati sent to me:
If one scoffs at the explanation of the Book of Mormon, he is in so many words claiming it to be false: that it is a deceiving fraud formulated through the efforts and talents of a common man. Occasionally you hear someone say, "I could believe your Mormon Doctrine if I just didn't have to swallow the story about Joseph Smith being a man of God and that he translated the Book of Mormon from some golden plates with he claimed he found on a hillside." It is even possible that you, yourself, have doubted the story.

What can be or is produced by one man, can always be duplicated by another man. The challenge the Book of Mormon makes to the world is that of duplication. Well, let us consider some facts or conditions that must be complied with in order for you or any one else to produce a similar record under comparable conditions. Because the book complies with everyone of the following conditions, and in order for you to produce a similar record, you must comply with the same conditions:

Write a history of ancient Tibet covering a period from 2200 BC to 400 AD. Why ancient Tibet? Because it is likely that you know no more about ancient Tibet than Joseph Smith (or anyone else) knew about ancient America.

You're 21 years of age.

You cannot be a college graduate. In fact you have had no more than three years of formal school education, and have spent your life in backwoods farming communities.

Your history must be written on the basis of what you now know. There was no library that held information for Joseph Smith. You must use none. There is to be no research of any kind.

Your book must be long, containing 522 pages with over 150 words per page and over 300,000 words from start to finish. It must contain 239 chapters. You must include in your book 54 chapters dealing with wars, 21 historical chapters, 55 chapters on visions and prophecies, and remember, when you begin to write visions and prophecies you must have your record agree meticulously with the Bible. You must write 71 chapters on doctrine and exhortation, and here too, you must check every statement with the scriptures or yours will be proven to be fraud. You must write 21 chapters on the ministry of Jesus Christ, and everything you claim He said and did and every testimony you write in your book about Him must agree absolutely with the New Testament.

Other than a few grammatical corrections, you must have no changes in the text. The first edition as you dictate it to your secretary must stand forever.

You must not write it yourself, you must dictate it to a scribe. You must sit on opposite sides of a curtain and never see each other as you speak and he/she writes.

After pauses for sleep and food, if you are dictating to a stenographer, you must never ask to have the last paragraph or last sentence read back to you.

This record is to contain the history of two distinct and separate nations, along with histories of different contemporary nations or groups of people.

You must describe their religious, economic, political, and social cultures and institutions. Cover every phase of their society, including the names of their coins. Your description of the cultures in the civilizations of which you will write about cannot be known about when you publish your manuscript.

Change your style of writing many times. Many ancient authors contributed to the Book of Mormon each with his own style.



Weave into your history the religion of Jesus Christ and the Pattern of Christian Living.

You must claim or announce that your "smooth narrative" is not fiction with moral value, but is true and sacred history.

Many of the facts, claims, ideas, and statements given as absolutely true in your writings must be entirely inconsistent with the prevailing beliefs of the world. Some of these worldly beliefs must prove to be a direct opposite of your claims.

Included in your narration will be authentic modes of travel; whether or not those ancient people used fire; descriptions of their clothing, crops, mourning customs, and types of government. You must invent about 280 new names (William Shakespeare in all his writings added approximately 30) that will stand up under scrutiny through the years as to their proper application and derivation.

You will have to use, properly, figures of speech, similes, metaphors, narration, exposition, description, oratory, epic lyric, and parables.

You must invite the ablest scholars and experts to examine the text with care, and you must strive diligently to see that your book gets into the hands of those eager to prove it a forgery, and who are most competent to expose every flaw in it.

Thorough investigation, scientific and historical evidence, and archaeological discovery for the next 125 years must verify its claims and prove detail after detail to be true, for many of the details you put in your history are still buried beneath the soil of Tibet.

You must publish it to every nation, kindred, tongue and people declaring it to be the word of God and another witness for the Lord Jesus Christ.

The book must not contain any absurd, impossible, or contradictory statements. Your history must not contain any statement that will contradict any other statement elsewhere in the volume.

Many theories and ideas as to its origin must arise, and after discovering and examining the facts, they must fall. You have claimed that your knowledge had come from a divine origin, and this claim continues to stand as the only possible explanation. The strength of this explanation must not decrease as time passes, but actually increases to the point where it becomes the only logical explanation.

Your record is to fulfill many Bible prophecies, even in the exact manner in which it shall come forth, to whom it will be delivered, it's purposes, it's accomplishments.

Call down an angel from heaven in the middle of the day and have him bear testimony to three honest, dignified citizens of your community that the record is the word of God. These witnesses must bear the angel's testimony to the world, even to their death beds. You must put that testimony to the test by becoming an enemy to these men.

You must call out of heaven the voice of the Redeemer, to declare to the three witnesses that your record is true and that it is their responsibility to bear their testimonies to the world, and they must do so.



Eight other witnesses must testify to the world that they saw the ancient records in broad daylight and they handled them and felt the engravings thereon.

The first three and the second eight must bear their testimonies not for profit, not for gain, but under great personal sacrifice and severe persecution, even to their deaths.

Thousands of great men, intellectual giants, national and international personalities, and scholars for 125 years must accept your history and its teachings even to the point of laying down their lives rather than deny their testimony of it.

You must include within your record this strange but wonderful promise; "And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, He will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."

Millions must bear record to the world for the next 125 years that they know the record to be true because they put the promise to the test and round it to be true. The truth of it was manifested to them by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Over 80,000 competent salesmen must be so sold on your book that they gladly give up two years of their lives to take it to all parts of the world for distribution. They not only pay their own way during these years, but return bearing testimony that the time spent will remain as one of the highlights of their lives. They receive nothing in return for their efforts but the joy of having shared your book with others.

Your book must not only raise the standards of millions of people but do it in such a way that they become one of the great moral, ethical and dynamic marvels of the day. They must become world reknowned for this.

For the next 20 years you must watch those that follow you, your family, and the dearest of your loved ones persecuted, driven time after time from their homes, beaten, tortured, starved, frozen, and killed. Tens of thousands must undergo the most extreme hardships in your presence just because they believe your claims concerning the origin and content of what you have written on ancient Tibet.

You must gain no wealth from your work, but many times lose all that you have. Like those that believe you, you must submit yourself to the most vile persecution. And finally after 20 years of this, give your own life in a very savage and brutal manner, for you testimony concerning your book. This must be done willingly on your part.

Start right now and produce this record which covers 2,600 years of history, doing it, not in the peaceful atmosphere of your community, but under the most trying of circumstances which includes being driven from your home several times, and receiving constant threats upon your life. Please have your book completed, talk a friend into mortgaging his farm to raise money to have it printed with the understanding that neither he nor yourself will ever receive monetary enumeration from it. You must sell the book at cost or less.

Do this all in 60 days!!

If no one can comply exactly to this criteria: There Is Only One Answer:

THE BOOK OF MORMON IS A DIVINE RECORD

Okt. 5th 2009 General Conference!

Ok!! this week was pretty aweome I gotta lot to say

Ok so we have this swedish class, where we teach swedish to these people that wanted to come.  It's pretty cool- I told you guys a little about it.  Well there are lots of them from Iran and they are so awesome!!!  You guys have no idea how awesome muslims are and how nice they are!  they are really some of the greatest people.  I'd trust them any day over your average christian.  They are so awesome.  Well there are these 2 of them, they have been married for about a year, and they come.  They got out of Iran and went to Malasia or something, and then ended up here.  They are studying.  They are so cool.  Well like i said, last week, they all started asking us about what we believe.  Well the husband, Tophie(?) he wanted to speak english with us and also learn about what we believe, and his wife Pavaneh also!  we called and asked President Anderson if we could teach them and he said yes, but we cannot promise that they can get baptised- until they are legal long term residents of sweden or some stable country.  Anyway so we met with them and it was so good!  One of my favorite scriptures is Mosiah 3:13 -- I use it all the time.  Anyway they do have alot of truths and good /great values.  They are awesome people.  Well it was so fun to talk to them and not feel like we were trying to convert them, but we were just discussing different things, similarites and differences between our beliefs.  It was really cool.

And we also saw general conference.  Like everyone else it appears that I also liked Pres. Monsons talk about charity and good work.  It kinda made me home sick and really miss my dad.  He did alot of charity and good works, that people kinda didnt know about.  He did some great stuff, and i was thinking about how awesome he is, and he was probably listening somewhere in heaven doing his fistpump and touchdown call when all the different apostles nailed different topics.

I dont think i've ever eaten so much candy in my life.  We bought so much candy for conference- I kinda felt sick after.  I'm sure i ate over a kilo.  It was so good tho.  Yes i brushed my teeth after.

So we've been kinda deciding our strategies here of how we are going to do missionary work.  these are the things we kinda came up with...  strenthen the members- and help them know how to do missionary work.  So we are working with the bishop with maybe doing a mission prep class for any of the members, and also the branch mission plan.  Also i want to target swedes.  We have been visiting lots of English classes in highschools- I've done so many of them in my day.  Some of them we talked alot about what we believed and got to testify, and others we just showed them that we are normal people and basically just planted 1000 good seeds for future missionaries.  Its really good to give them a good perspective of us and that we are kinda normal.... and just so they know who we are.

And we also when we have extra time we are going to swing by 1 less active, and then tract in their area.  That seems the best to me.

It's essencially the first time i've really been seinor.  The office doesnt count, for one cause Edmunds is the most awesome missioanry ever, and we dont even do missionary work in the office, just service work all day. so yeah this is pretty much my first time being senior in a normal missionary setting.

Tonight we are flying to Stockholm to have a zone conference tomorrow.  That'll be cool to fly as a missionary!!  I'm pretty excited about it.

Ok i'll keep talkinga bout missionar work, we actually ahd one killer week.  We got 4 new investigators, and next week we seriously could get like 8.  We had alot of good teaches this week with some new people. 

We had a teach with this kid from an english class who asked us (they all ask us 1 question) and he asked us what is our opinion about gay marriage.  Haha what would you say??  and another girl asked us about contraceptives- and my comp didnt know what that ment.  I just about died laughing.  It was so funny.  They must of thought we were the most sheltered people ever.  well this kid that asked about gays, well ok basically i feel like i can answer every freaking crazy question on earth, and in the middle of this class i explained how we believe it is a choice etc. and stuff, and he wanted to know more so we met with him the next day and talked about it.  we had to stop ½ way cause his bus was going to leave, so we are going to continue.  The things we do as a missionary are sometimes crazy.  You'd never believe some of the questions we get.

I've gotten alot of quesitons about weather.  And i'm sad to say it SNOWED this morning.  Yes when we woke up there was a little snow.... pretty sad.  The sun is up quiet a bit tho still.  it's up during most of studies and until like 6pm.  So that isnt too bad.  but where we are at, for about 2 weeks it never gets light... maybe a little bit, but not really.  we are pretty close to the artic circle. 

we didnt have a car for a few days this week, cause it was getting repaired. so taht was kinda fun to take the buses again, but kinda a pain.

I dont have tons more to say, except for i love Luleå, it's a great place.  The members are awesome altho a little crazy haha. but it is awesome to be a missioanry!  even you nomal members should study pmg a little haha.

talk to you later!

ÄA

2nd week in Luleå

Ok so i've been here about 10 days, and now i'm pretty adjusted.  It's already pretty cold!

so last pday we decided to take it chill and go to the beach and roast hotdogs and just chill.  It's pretty cold already, but it was fun!

We really have alot to do here!  We want to be in a newspaper cause someone reciently wrote an anti article, so we are working on that.

Oh this was kinda cool- we were working on getting a whiteboard, so we could have a sick setup so we had all our stuff orginized.  well we couldnt find what we wanted... and we found one for 100kr.... that was rediculous!  so we kept looking, and we went to a loppis- or garage sale/di thing and we found 2 for 155kr!!  it was the best deal ever!  it was so awesome!  it is huge and prefect for what we need!  we got it all planned out and working great. we are also working on getting all the members, less actives and inactives on some maps.  that'll be this weeks project.

we had some awesome teaches.  we had one with this couple that live right by us, and it was awesome!  it was just what PMG says to do!  we had another with some guys from africa.  and that was good, and intersting haha.  they were pretty into it, and kinda loud and argued.  those arn't very swedish qualities haha.  but it was really good.  one of them we had taught before and he helped suport what we said.

we also had a really good teach with this woman who wanted to give her book of mormon back.  that was kinda funny... she dindn't even read it and was all anti- but we handled each of her concern.  She pretty clearly said that she wouldn't accept it even tho she admitted it was possible it could be from god.  it was intresting, but we handled it well.
so i'm not using the spellcorrector thing that this has cause i dont have time.

we also had a swedish class, well kinda.  last transfer up here they had a swedish class wehre they would teach immigrants basic swedish stuff and oh yeah this was way cool.  I forgot about it.  most of them are from Iran, and some from china.  so we have to be careful- especially with the ones from iran.... anyway we got some farsi boms and some chinese, and set them on this table.  then randomly after class they all came to me and my comp and wanted us to sign them!  it was pretty cool.  so we did, and talked to them about having a prophet today, and they all thought that was really cool.  the chinese guy apparently has read the bom several times!!! already!!  and so we were super excited about that.  hopefully he becomes an investigator!  they are awesome tho!  we explained all about prophets and apostles and stuff.  hopefully the come to conference.  that would be awesome.

Anyway we are going to teach a bunch of engish and religion classes this week.  that'll be lots of fun.  we taught one today, but it was only 5 students.  it was kinda crazy cause they were pretty shy.  but it worked out really good!

next monday i'm pretty sure we will email, but we might be flying to stockholm.  we are going to have a zone conf. with elder paja or something from Spain.  that'll be cool cause we get to fly down!  i'm not sure where we'll stay, but mabye back at the office.

We are doing great up here.  It's pretty awesome.  I like my comp, even tho we dont have the same agreeance on stuff haha, but most of it we work awesome toghether.  i think this will be a great transfer.

haha i also came up with a cool way to make pancakes fluffy.  just add emergen-C

Anyway talk to ya later!

ÄA

In Norrland! 21 Sept 2009

Ok so like i said now i'm in Luleå!  It's way way far up north.  The Artic Circle is not too far away.  I'll probably go up there sometime during my time here.  We'll see!

So on thrusday we just got on a night train and it was pretty crazy.  It was awesome!  We had our own little cabin and we all climbed in there.  Here is a video of the whole ordeal.

I haven't watched this so... haha.  hopefully it works.


Then on friday we woke up in Umeå.  That was cool.  We had lunch with the elders there, and then drove another 3 hours (after a nearly 10 hr train ride) to get home.  Then once we got home we planned and visited some people pretty much both friday and staturday.

Then on sunday some members invited us to their house for dinner after church.  Guess what it was?? Never believe it, but it was Sörrströmming!!  The stinkiest stuff on earth.  It is fermented fish... and it is crazy... anyway you flop the rotten fish on your plate and then dig off the bones and the guts, and then the skin and some meat is left, put the meat on a piece of thin hard bread and put some potatoes and onion(thank goodness, they dominate the taste) and eat it!  It wasn't too bad, just smells super bad and thatsa about it.

From 06 Luleå w. Hanes

Other stuff, So my companion is elder Hanes.  He went to Alta, and is 1 year younger then me in school.  So we know a ton of the same people and have had some fun talking about people and life.  It's been great.  I'm excited for this transfer.  We can do really really awesome if we just keep up the work.  It'll be really good.  And hopefully i stay next transfer and then i can have christmas in the north pole with santa!  That'll be fun!

Elder Hanes has been on  in Sweden for 4 months, so we've still got stuff to learn.  But he is super awesome.  He knows how to plan really well.  So that is good.  We are going to work on getting our transfer goals up.  I'm stoked about it all.  I wanna get a huge whiteboard in our appartment like i had in Kristianstad.  It'll be good if i get that.  Elder Drake was up in Luleå- he was my comp when i first went to the Office.  He was in Luleå and loved it.  They taught alot of english classes, and we are going to try to do that too, but also religion classes, and Swedish classes.  That's one thing cool that's going on here. they have a swedish class every tuesday and thurs night.  And they have 14-20 people come every week!!!  super good.  And we just practice swedish with them.  Most of them are imigrants of some sort... i haven't met them yet, but i'll do that soon.  It's a good way to reach out, but not push anything on them and show those that come that we care about them and love them.

I'm pretty sad byu lost.  If they keep it up tho, they still might have a chance at the big stuff maybe.... pretty sad.  I'm glad to be out of the office, no one has called me and wanted me to do some random favor or something haha.  It's been nice!  I like the office, and i learned alot, but i'm so excited to start teaching people agian.  It'll be lots of fun.  And to have normal pdays where you actually email. I promise I'll get better at emailing!!!  And writing letters.  Write me and I'll write you back.

We have some potential investigators, and that'll be good.  I'm excited for them.  And we have a few investigators who are coming and hopefully get baptised soon.  There are people here that have been kinda the eternal investigators, but are starting to get their act together.  It'll be good to see it all come along.

I'm kinda disapointed with the blog that i made for the memories of my dad.  some of you guys were awesome about it, but it didn't work out like i wanted.  We'll see.  Maybe if i get these a huge almost book of memories of my dad, maybe i'll post them on it.  Nati will just have to email me the link.

Luleå is a great place.  I'm excited about it.  There are some native people that still live in our area.  They are called the Saumi- something like that.  Anyway they make some really cool jewlery and stuff.  and they eat reindeer.  That's about it with them.  We also have the ice hotel in our area.  that's pretty exciting.

I was kinda missing my dad lately... just cause it is hunting season, and it feels like i should be wearing hunter orange and walking around out in all the forest here.  And i was looking thru pictures.  It's kinda hard to explain to people too when they ask about my family and stuff... but it is all good.  I guess it is all part of life!  I'm doing good tho.  It's been hard but i've grown alot.  I'm excited to go deer hunting next year.  Tha'll be lots of fun.  A time to relax and think about things all on my own out in the wild.

I cannot think of anything else i've gotta add.  Except all you guys keep it up.  I'm wondering also how my fam is doing after they now all moved to the same house.

Have a great week!

ÄA

Out of the Office

Ok, sorry i havn't written on here lately. I have alot to talk about actually.
We have transfers this thursday, and I'm leaving. I'm headed to the coolest place in the mission!

I'm headed to Luleå!

It is the most north area in the mission. Here is a map.

                                          

My area is super huge. It is one of the biggest areas- if not the biggest area in all of Europe geographically. 98,000 square kilometers, or 38,000 square miles. That's about half the size of Utah. This is my area. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norrbotten_County

Some cool stuff that is in my new area- the Ice Hotel, lots of reindeer, and the Arctic Circle.


So some other stuff that happened. We went to an art class! That was kinda fun. This member she is an painter and a graphic designer and so every month she has a class thing at the ward. It was her, one other woman from the ward, syster Johnson, and me and my companion. I was really glad we went cause that is kinda sad there wasn't very many people!

What else happened.... not much....

I've put a bunch of pictures on picasa- you can see pictures of my transfers--

aug last year w. Killian
oktober to feb w. Langston
mar to may w. Clark
may to july w. Drake
aug to sept w. Edmunds

So yeah you can see pretty much every picture i've taken on my mission there. haha.

Other things... We went to the National Art Museum of Sweden. (not super cool)
but we got some good pictures.

OH MY MOM GOT MARRIED!

AND WE HAD A LITTLE PARTY HERE  IN THE OFFICE TO CELEBRATE.

From 05 Täby w. Edmunds

we're all giving a thumbs up.

From 05 Täby w. Edmunds

This is us painting, well the results. Mine is the blue one-- it's suppose to be stockholm.


Anyway! I'll be on my night train soon!!!

I'll now be emailing every Monday morning Sweden time. So it'll be alot more consistent. So yeah... email me so I have people to email... i've been a little more chaotic in my emailing in the office.

Oh if you know what Stockholm Syndrome is (everyone should know that) well I went in the bank that it happened at, and got some pictures.   I'll have to put them on later.  It was pretty awesome.  We even saw the vault that they locked themselves in.

OH I also posted my Stamp Collection. You can see it all here. I think my dad also had a stamp collection- well i just bought mine so that's kinda cheating.

Anyway have a great day!
go BYU!

ÄA

August 29th 2009

Ok! This was a pretty crazy week, so crazy I just decided to make a video about it instead of typing about it...

We have some pretty cool video editing software here- so thats what I did pday morning.

We also went to Sys. Carlssons house today and had lunch. She is awesome. We had way good food at her little cottage outside in her little garden type thing. It was pretty cool.
We did some teaching, kinda.  We taught this guy, but it was like a nice bash the whole time...  It was just a tough situation.  He is super positive tho.  We also met some cool people on the street tho.  This one guy talked to us for a long time about if it is even possible if God exists, and if he does then why is this life so hard.   It was really interesting.  Learn alot out here!

Oh and I didnt explain too well, but my finger is healed all back to almost perfect. It healed super fast and way easily. I'm pretty much doing everything normal this whole time. Except I didnt go golfing today, I kinda wanted to go to the range just cause it is across the street and have fun with that.

Other then that I think I'm outta here!

Hejdå!

Äldste Adamson

22 August 2009

Hello Family!

I hope you all enjoyed Lake Powell! Yeppy! It's the last one I'll miss! Lake Powell is my favorite place on earth. I love that place. We'd have so much fun there-- Sleeping under the stars waiting for a huge crazy storm while wakeboarding and kneeboarding and skiing. So much fun!

Anyway, what happened this week....

We'll we dropped off Elder Reid at the airport today- That was kinda sad. He was our 3rd companion for a while- I thought having 3 of us was going to be hard and way awkward, but it wasn't! I really liked him and we had lots of fun. I've grown a lot on my nerd side since I've been to the office. I know all the linux terminology and super nerdy stuff. But it's been lots of fun. We have techtalk and googletalk all the time- where we just talk about computers and nerdy stuff. But it's lots of fun. Reid is going to BYU so I'll see him when i go home. Nati watch out he is after you!

Speaking of that... Here is "the Office" video we made...

Hope you enjoyed that. It was so fun to make! It took one whole pday pretty much. We weren't completely done then cause we needed the 2 first scenes- the Stockholm scenes. You might not know what those buildings are in the first 2 little clips- but those are probably 2 of the most famous Swedish land icons.

We do plan on making tiny episodes- that are like 2 minutes long that just deal with office stuff. Hopefully we get around to doing that.

Oh I'll quickly go over the cast of the office. I'm in there running the shredder; Elder Edmunds (my comp) does the phone switch; Elder Reid fixes his tie; Elder Jackson catches the pen; Elder Langston is the guy who moves the little award at the end; Sister Johnson is the only female... and her husband is the boss guy who lectures us in the first clip.

Thats us here in the office!!

Yesterday we went out contacting and tracking for Elder Reids last time and we actually had a pretty cool story. We met a way open guy who was way familiar with our religion and was super positive and honest. It was so refreshing to meet a honest person who would listen! I'm sorry but most people are horrible at listening... I'm sure I am too but it's super important to listen to what people actually say and what they are trying to convey. Anyway this guy was way cool! He took the Book of Mormon and said that we could come back next Wednesday or Thursday. He was really familiar with the Bible and had read the Book of Mormon one time (didn't meet with the missionaries though, or he could be a member now.) Anyway when we were talking to him I just was way happy. We finally met someone who had their head on straight and would listen to what we said. I really hope he keeps listening to us. He was an awesome guy. He is in his 40's I would guess. I'm really excited to have a actual investigator and someone to kinda think about and worry about. The office is good... but I feel like a service missionary, not a proselyting missionary....

Elder Reid wanted to go to the temple before he left so we got to go! It was pretty cool like always. The session was actually in Norwegian. All the Scandinavia languages are really similar, especially Swedish and Norwegian, so I understood pretty much all of it. Sometimes I was surprised how similar it was. It was almost exactly the same, just with a Norrland accent.

To office stuff- I fixed most of SJ Prio Cards problems... Most of them... I emailed them and they never responded so I called them up and asked what was up and so they replied with our current account info- It was pretty close, I was actually pretty impressed besides the fact they deleted 4 missionaries off our account. Hopefully they don't need to take a train anytime soon.

Last night was Elder Reids last night. We played Scum (best card game ever) and stuff, and then Langston stole my pillow so I had to get it back and then we had a techtalk. It was pretty fun.

Oh I did a little work on- LakeSideArt.com

you can go see some slight changes (more like just fixed a few typos etc.)

Keep visiting and posting on- jcadamson.blogspot.com

Well that's about it!

Hejdå

Äldste Adamson

August 18th 2009

Well my whole family is in Lake Powell.... so I'm not quite sure why I'm writing. Ok well I guess I'll write so they know what I was doing when they were gone!

Ok well we did a ton of office work this week. ALOT! We actually got a lot of problems solved. 1 massive problem we've had is that the long distance trains here, well you need this card to get tickets. Our account should be hooked up to all the missionaries cards, and it's not. The past 6 months they didnt always get hooked up... Well and also we have alot of missionaries that are now home with active cards. Thats not good, so I spent alot of time emailing this company telling them what to do. No one in Sweden works during the summer. That's just how it is. So it's been pretty frustrating to do anything that envolves swedes during the summer. But we got that solved -- hopefully. We are waiting for a email from them confirming that they actually did that stuff.

Oh and another kinda fun thing that we did was order nametags! Alot of missionaries wanted nametags but the ordering system isn't the best and how to work it has kinda been lost down the generations of secretaries. We'll we texted every missionary in the mission and asked them if they wanted nametags. So basically we got a huge order put together and hopefully they arrive soon!

Oh for P-day we went and played basketball, then we went to stockholm - parking was 138 kronor. It was a holiday of sorts (not really sure what they were celebrating, culture or something) Anyway the cool thing was they had lots of really nice cars around. So I got some cool pictures of them. We also ate lunch with Vanim - a recent convert swede who now lives in utah! He lived in Kristianstad so I knew him from that. He was just back in Sweden for his brothers wedding.

Here is a picture of some guy and his car.

We also had a pretty interesting teach the other day. A few weeks ago we contacted this pretty young girl - we dont normally do this, but she talked to us, and later her friend came over too and we were just talking about religion on a bench and stuff. It was pretty cool-- but they said they would read and pray (yeah they kinda did that actually) and we'd meet again sometime. So we finally met again and it was pretty good. They both felt like they didnt get an answer, so we explained Moroni 10 a little better- hopefully they got it! AND they said they would come to church! So we'll have to see about that. The good thing is that here in Täby we have tons of young women in the ward, so they could help them out.

The assistants are teaching this couple that is awesome! It's way cool. At first they were not so interested but for some reason the girl, they just contacted her on the street, gave her information without really thinking about it cause she was in a hurry. And sence then they've really read and started to get answers! They are awesome! They are moving to France soon to study, but the missionaries there will hopefully keep them going. They had a really cool story about it.

Anyway I'll report more as it comes!

Have a great week! And hopefully my family reads this when they get back from Lake Powell!

OH I ALMOST FORGOT! My mom is getting married on 2009 09 09 So that will be pretty exciting. I think it will be really good for my family! Sounds like everyone back home is excited for it.

Hejdå

ÄA

Next week i'll post our office intro video.