Feb. 23rd 2009

Alright this week was really good overall. we kinda had some stupid stuff, like no one was in school and no one wanted to talk to us, so that wasnt very fun. yeah most of our investigators didnt want to meet with us but we are doing good. This was parts of my letter to President Anderson "hello President. This week was a tough one. no one wanted to meet with us because it was spring break thing. That wasnt very good. Sunday was a very sucessful day. We went home with the Appelqvists and ate dinner with them and just chatted about the gospel -- kept it light. I think we almost overdosed them a while ago. we are just taking it slow and showing them the path. But the best part was that Jolanka wanted to go to a teach with us in Hässelholm. It is far away but it helped us SO much. We are teaching a girl named Erica and she is in her mid 20's we are guessing, and there are somethings that only Jolanka could help her with. It worked out perfect. The Lord knows what he is doing and sets up everything. Erica is one of the best investigators i've ever heard of. She is almost scared to go to church because if she finds out it is true then she would feel obligated to come every week. we told her that it is not just coming that is the commitment part, but baptism is when you actually commit. Jolanka really helped us with that teach. And they both want to meet again this friday, and Erica said she would come to church next week. Now she has a friend and everything. She also liked the idea of Relief society. I'm very excited for her to keep progressing. She accepts everything we say, and she said that if she finds out the Book of Mormon is true she will be baptised. She has said many times that everything just feels right. It just had such a great spirit there yesterday. David Gustafsson is going to get baptised this saturday! It will definately go thrugh too. He is serious and so is his family and the branch. It is going to be very good. It will really help their whole family. We have tried to get them to read the BoM as a family every time we go by, and have pulled out every trick we possibly could to get them to follow thrugh with their commitment. We we're going to just swing by one night for 15 minutes or so, but ended up staying for about 45, we read with them 3 nephi 11, and had each person just read a verse and go around in a circle. Just like i did in my family back home. I hope they actually did the same thing the next day, we havnt checked with them. The trip to the temple was fantastic. It really felt good. It was so worth it. We can get there just as easily as any other area that normally goes there. It felt really good. I like that temple alot. And denmark was cool. I really like the Kristus statue and the 12 apostles. that felt so good there too. The city was pretty dirty though. They definately had more innapropriate advertisments and things like that. Very sad to see the world falling apart spiritually around us. This week will be a very good week. We are very busy and back on track. We need to get back to 15 total teaches and focus on making more member teaches. With Alexander Appelqvist i think we are going to take him to lunch again and explain to him that if you dont keep showing your faith by actions that the spirit leaves and you dont learn as much. Hopefully it works out good.
"Oh yeah, we visited the temple in denmark this week!!! it was so great!!! and we saw the Kristus statue (alot of members have it in their house, and its the one in the visitors center at temple square) Well i saw the origional and all of the 12 apostles. It was so beautiful. It really was great. T Then we went and saw the little mirmaid thing. just this little bronze mirmaid by the ocean -- not very exciting. but yeah we had a good time! All the missionaries here are doing really good. the other 2 are getting things going and Elder Clark is catching on to what is going on here. it will be really good. I DONT WANT TO LEAVE THIS PLACE. Kristiandstad is the best ever. There si just no place better. It use to be a unsucessful area until Langston came. Something just happened to it. We have all swedish investigators who are super positive and are willing to act. it will be really good. I wanted to get Alexander baptized also on the 28th, but he wasnt so into that. This week we are visiting alot of english and religion classes in highschools. it is really fun, and hopefully we can make them really sucessful and show people that there are people who actually believe in God and are willing to do something about it. We just got back from an english class, and it was really cool. one of the questions we got was "are more people religious in USA."I just pulled out my 1 dollar bill that i've always had in my wallet, and pointed to "in God we trust." and explained it. it was really cool. JUST BE GRATEFUL YOU LIVE IN A COUNTRY THAT CARES ABOUT GOD. Americans TRY to follow God. usually. we expect him to guide us and help us. That has to be the most fundemental diffrence between America and Sweden. Love everyone lots!! ÄA

Feb. 16th 2009

Alright, This week was not too exciting. We meet with almost all our investigators and tried to get as much work done. We did pretty good. I'm still kinda the point man of our area because i've been here for quite a long time. It's interesting to see them. They dont know the busses or anything yet, and it is kinda funny. I pay attention to completely diffrent things, because not everything is new to me. I'm not concerned about when to get off the bus, and where we are going to go, because I already know. I notice completely diffrent things, and weird patterns and stuff. Interesting stuff. Being in an area for 4 months is good and bad. Missionaries are like the masters of the land. If you ever want to go on vacation, just hire a RM to show you around the cities they served. They know ALOT of stuff. I'm well aquainted with all sorts of funny things, know where all the best food is, and who is cool, and where everyone is from and stuff. Sometimes i feel like a professional information collector haha. So we are trying hard to get a babtisimal date with Alexander Appelqvist. Hopefully he finds out its right soon. I guess it takes time with some people. Kinda not fun, when you are only in an area for a few months. David Gustavsson is going to get babtized on the 28th of Febuary!!! It will be really good! We are also teaching a girl who is in her 20s, We are pretty sure she dated a member in Helsingborg. We know they were friends, but not sure if they dated or not. But i'm guessing they did. Well she is super positive and very cool. One of the coolest swedes I've actally meet. She for one believes in God. (that is really not common here), and is actually searching for the truth! She likes the Book of Mormon, and she said that every time we come by she feels like this is more true. It is really cool to see someone slowly find the truth. We'll see how the situation develops. We are also going to go to Simrisham today. It is the southrn most city in our area, and almost at the very tip of sweden. pretty cool. hopefully it is fun! like a 1½ hr bus drive, so better be worth it. I dont think i have much more to say. Oh well we have 4 missionaries in our appartment and we played rook the other day! that was fun! I'm not sure how much they liked it, but i thought it was really fun! I LOVE THAT GAME!!!! it is lots of fun here! and lots of good work is going on!
ÄA

Feb. 9th 2009

Alright!! So now I got Elder Clark as my companion, and we also have another 2 missionaries working in the same area and living in our appartment!! It is really great! We have an extra companionship for this one transfer, becuase we have some extra elders now. So we have alot of work to do!! It is really cool, we got 4 elders now and alot of work to do. We all gave a 5 minute talk in sacrament meeting and it was very good. we basically pleaded with the members to use us for this transfer and lets get some work done!! I'm very excited. Basically being a good missionary (effective) includes -- incredible people skills, incredible planning skills, and obedience and all the other stuff. but you guys probably dont realize how much planning and preparing we actually do. It's crazy. We can spend hours planning and calling people, setting up appointments, rides to church and activites and all sorts of other stuff. it's a pretty stressful job sometimes! but good! We really do plan and plan and plan. its cool. one thing we are going to try to do is set up more religion classes. Ive found those to be very effective and fun. It is a good chance to fairly present our church and believes. We have 20 kids, and force them to listen to the whole message for 1½ hours haha. It's really good. so hopefully we get a few of those set up. THis is the letter I wrote to President Anderson --"This week has been quite good. It feels good to work hard and continue this work that we started. Elder Langston was a really good missionary, he got alot of stuff going in this area. I'm excited I get to work hard and keep my shoulder too the wheel in the same area. It looks like Elder Lewis and Parkin are getting along and getting used to the area and preparing to get alot of work done here and find lots of people. We are preparing Familjen Gustavsson for their sons babtism. The dad and the daughter came to church this week! That was very good. Our concern this whole time was reactivating their whole family and also bringing David to the gospel. It looks like it is going to go thrugh! David didnt come to church because he was sick, but looks like he will come next week. We are trying to meet with them every week 2 times, and then get them to church. It has been pretty good so far. We basically weekly plan the whole week. There are too many variables to take the friday before, so we get the shell done on Friday during weekly planning and keep filling it in the rest of the week. We want to take Alexander Appelqvist to lunch one day, where he can hopefully be a little more open with us about why he is not babtized. I thing he really feels pressure from his family and friends and church members, and this will possibly work. Our Zone set some impressive goals yesterday. I'm very excited! We have an awesome zone. As you know last time our district did like 3x the amount of work, and I feel that everyone in the zone is ready to do it too! Everyone is ready for full speed ahead! "
My new companion is Elder Clark, as i said, he is pretty cool, he has been in sweden 10 months, and was in downtown stockholm before. pretty cool. hopefully we get along and stuff! Haha it kinda was messing with him yesterday, we were waiting for a bus for like 20 minutes and i said "oh we got to develop our fight plan!" and so i pretended like i was serious and like if a swedish gang tried to take us out, basically to see how he would react. it was pretty funny. he took me seriously, and i was pretending to be serious, but wasnt at all. this is the most chill place ever. I heard that sweden has the crime rate of provo haha. it is a very chill place. no one had any reason to do any crime. we ourselves have a pretty demanding presence. people think we are way old and stuff haha. well thanks alot everyone!!! love yall

Feb. 4th 2009

Alright... I have alot to say. So on saturday we had interviews with President, he came to Växjö and he told us what was going to happen to us on transfers, so this is what he said, "Elder Langston has been in Kristianstad for quite some time (8 months) and so I'm having him go, but I want you to stay, And like you have requested we are going to give you an extra companionship for the month of febuary (because we will have extra missionaries in this weird transfer.)" So I'm staying in the best area ever!! It is the best branch and the best investigators. I'm sure you guys are surpised at this statement, but most of our investigators are swedish. VERY unusual in sweden. Elder Cambell who went home last transfer said it best. He was saying how on his homecoming speach, there was going to be an elder from mexico also. He didnt know what he was going to do. He was like "how do i explain what i've been doing for the past 2 years? All i've done is taught Athiests and Muslims!" It is very true, but we are somehow doing something right here because we are teaching swedes who are unbelievably humble and willing to find the truth! It's GREAT!
Well so Elder Langston, who has been my companion for the last 4 months, is going to down town stockholm. His area is about the size of south town mall. ok well it is a little bigger, but you get the point. So Elder Clark is going to be my new companion. Elder Lewis and Elder Parkin are the 2 other elders who are coming. SO It is going to be pretty crazy that I will have 3 new companions basically and am in charge of getting them familiar with the area and the investigators. I'm not sure how we are going to devide stuff. We'll see. It will be really good. This area is going to have 2 extra elders for just 1 month. So Sunday was like a farewell for Langston. Because he has been here 8 months. Everyone loves him and was super sad to hear he was going to leave. He bore his testimony and that is when he told most people, so yeah. And then everyone went up and said thanks. Then I went up and said that that he was so good it took 3 to fill his place! It was pretty funny. But true! We have a lot of sucess going on. It will be really really good. So my Birthday. Not too exciting. I woke up and was like oh yeah, it is my birthday, ok..... cool. and then just did the everything normal basically the rest of the day. not exciting, but not bad! So first off we went to church, and that was cool, but then this was pretty cool, one of my favorite families here, the Erikssons, they have 2 boys who both have bdays on Feb 1st! So we had 3 people whose birthday it was! Birthdays are not so big here, you usually just get 1 or 2 gifts and thats it! So it was pretty cool, we just ate and hung out. We took it pretty easy that day. My favorite kid is yo-na-ton, he is 5 years old and just this crazy kid! He climbs on me all the time and we had lots of fun. He is crazy crazy crazy. He cannot talk, just yell and scream. It is really funny! I got some good pictures i'll put on. He was climbing on my back and i'd go around and ask if anything was on me, like we used to do back home, well he said he was a backpack, or a giant spider and stuff and then i'd run around and stuff. it was really fun. That kid, i'm going to miss him. He cannot say his Rs. People here in Scåne dont say them very much anyway, but he doesnt say them at all. It is really funny. Ok so monday we had a appointment at the Grigers, the live right by the ocean, and it was Very cold. we went on a walk on the beach and it was freezing!! That was some really good food. And then we went to the Gustavssons, and said goodbye, and then on tuesday we went and said goodbye to Daniel Petersen, and then to the Appelqvists. That was hard for Elder Langston to say goodbye to them. They are so cool. He cried like a baby. Not joking. They are like family here! I'm serious, the branch really takes care of us! And then we went and got a bunk bed from the Brajics and said goodbye to them, and now it is wednesday and we are writing emails, and then we are going to go to the Wennerlunds, and then to the Arvidssons, and then to a meeting at the church! Elder Langston has not had much time to pack, but we did find the best invention ever. We got these vaccum bags things, where you put a bunch of cloths in this big bag and then they have this special device and you put a vaccum on it and it sucks out all the air and saves tons of space! We got SO much stuff in ½ of his suitcase! It was unbelievable. and kinda fun! Well i think that is all I have to say! Oh my trainer is training agian. for the 5th time haha! Apparently he enjoys it! whatever!