Feb 22nd 2010

This week was a pretty good week.  Let me tell you about it.  We went on splits with some members of the Ward.  Our 2 awesome members.  and taught some people.  I was with Oliver and we taught our 2 spanish kids.  They are awesome!  They didn't come to church though... which was sad.  And we worked really hard at getting them a ride.  so we'll have to see what the problem was.  But they are good, especially the daughter- she has a pretty good understanding and spiritual side.

IT HAS SNOWED HERE ALOT!! and it's REALLY COLD!  It was LOTS colder in Luleå, but we had a car.  it was snowing sideways for a couple days.  we got quite a bit of snow.  I'll add a picture.

Here is what I wrote President
"

This week was a good week for V.H.  We didn't teach as many times as I wanted, but we got quite a few member teaches and a golden referral from a member!  THAT WAS GREAT!  He lives in the first ward, and is very religious, and pretty open, but not too open.  I'm excited to work with him.  the member that has helped us did an EXCELLENT job.  

Other things... we got 2 new investigators, which is great.  we cannot find the romanians- but we haven't tried too hard.  we'll be doing that here soon.  we found someone who could speak romainain in visby actually.

what we've done the past couple weeks is...

we took every past investigator out of our area book, and got a new copy of our ward list.  Then we organized them all by area, and street.

Now we are pounding out it area by area.  On saturday when it was really cold and snowy, and probably alot of poeple at home, we pounded out a good area.  probably 80% of past investigators are completely unable to find.  they have moved and have changed phone numbers.  So we've been doing a lot of clean up. It'll be good for sure for future missionaries, and also probably a good way to find new and old people.  And we did some tracting.  It was good.

"

Sunday was a good day.  We had a member dinner with some temple workers and their family.  that was really good.  We had a good discussion.  and then after we went to some members with a bunch of youth and watched "the other side of heaven".  I had never seen it and it was really good!!  Our bishop was with us, and he knew the main charators brother, and told us it was all real!  pretty impressive.  It was a really good show of how missionary life is in general, and probably pretty good for Tonga!  I enjoyed it!

On saturday when we did all this crazy work, like i mentioned in my letter to president, we ran into this less active.  Boy he is LOST.  It was quite sad.  We testified pretty strongly of the book of Mormon and he kinda just danced around it.  It was sad.  Hopefully one day that guy figures it out.

TODAY for P-DAY we are going to tour the COCA-COLA FACTORY!!!  It'll be lots of fun and we are getting some missionaries together and some members, and other people.  It'll be really good.  the factory is in our area, and is the only one in Sweden.  Hopefully it's cool.

Update:

This is us at the factory!  We got a tour of the whole place and it was pretty amazing!  they have quite the system.  It was really intense to see how they do it all- but we couldn't take pictures.

the best was the unusual stuff like where all the "defect" coke goes.

this is us drinking unlimited amounts of Coke and coke products for about 5 minutes!!

then we played a fun game. Our tour guide was really cool.  we gave her a Book of Mormon. Great!!!

Feb 15th 2010

Hey family!

Another missionary sent me an email-  I did some research into it and there are some very interesting things out there!!

go to http://rileyadamson.blogspot.com/2010/02/gold-plates-not-only-in-mormon.html

Anyway!  Reporting this week.  We had a pretty good week!  We had 13 teaches (we wanted quite a bit more, but things just didn't work out.  we want to get 25 sometime.) and 2 people in sacrament and 3 member teaches!  it was pretty great.

We are learning spanish pretty much.  We are teaching 2 kids that come from Equador, and then we just meet tons of members and stuff that are spanish speakers!  I wish I could speak Spanish!  Maybe i'll learn it when i get home- that or Portugeuse.

Haha so I compeletly forgot yesterday was valentines day.  - it's no big day for missionaries.  7 hrs of church is just too much for me sometimes.  Yesterday I just had to get out of that building.  my feet start iching, and I cant sit still, and pay attention.  Its good though.  I translated for the 2nd sacrement meeting for this girl.  That was good.  It's hard to do- especially when I haven't translated for about 1 year.  I couldn't figure out how to say hjälpförening in english.  it's the Relief Society, but i was thrown off.  and also by how you say Wit's proposed" when sustaining people.

Anyway everything is pretty good!  I like this area nand I'm having a good time.  Talk to you later!

ÄA

"gold plates" not only in Mormon "mythology"

hahaha check this out.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2939362.stm

"Unique book goes on display 

The world's oldest multiple-page book - in the lost Etruscan language - has gone on display in Bulgaria's National History Museum in Sofia.

It contains six bound sheets of 24 carat gold, with illustrations of a horse-rider, a mermaid, a harp and soldiers.

The book dates back to 600BC

The small manuscript, which is more than two-and-a-half millennia old, was discovered 60 years ago in a tomb uncovered during digging for a canal along the Strouma river in south-western Bulgaria.

It has now been donated to the museum by its finder, on condition of anonymity.

Reports say the unidentified donor is now 87 years old and lives in Macedonia.

The authenticity of the book has been confirmed by two experts in Sofia and London, museum director Bojidar Dimitrov said quoted by AFP.

The six sheets are believed to be the oldest comprehensive work involving multiple pages, said Elka Penkova, who heads the museum's archaeological department.

There are around 30 similar pages known in the world, Ms Penkova said, "but they are not linked together in a book".

The Etruscans - one of Europe's most mysterious ancient peoples - are believed to have migrated from Lydia, in modern western Turkey, settling in northern and central Italy nearly 3,000 years ago.

They were wiped out by the conquering Romans in the fourth century BC, leaving few written records."



Well what do you know!
And the funny thing is that all the people who BELIEVE the Book of Mormon is not true will continue to do so. and all the people that BELIEVE in the Book of Mormon will continue to do so.

Feb. 8th 2010

This week was pretty awesome!

We had some great things happen.  On Saturday we were swinging by our huge list of less actives and previous investigators etc. and we went to this one door looking for Eva.  A man answered, (an imigrant by the way) and said that was his wive, and she is not home.  But then he said, wait a second, and went and got this woman, and there was a TON of poeple in this appartment.  The kinda looked like gypsies to be honest.  But the woman couldn't speak anything but Romanian!  her and her husband and 5 kids or something just came to Sweden like a week ago or something.  So we had extremely minimal communication.  but this guy could translate, but he wasn't there the whole time.  Anyway So they started crying when we told them what we were up to, and they would point up, and then point to us, and stuff, basically saying that we were from God.  It was pretty cool.  Then we somehow organized that we would pick them up to go to chruch the next day!!  It was awesome!!!  So we had 5 in sacrement meeting!  pretty AWESOME!!!  but they couldn't understand anything, and we learned some basic Romanian stuff it was pretty funny.  They were kinda confused when the book we gave them said mormon on it and not the bible. hahah.  but we are working on getting a translator.

Anway other then that we had a good time!  We taugt a bunch of times, like 17, and just had a good week.  Next week is going to be even better.

Have a good one!

ÄA

Feb. 1st 2010! Birthday!

So I've got lots of questions of what on earth does a missionary do on his birthday?
Answer: Email his family if he's lucky!  1/7 get to!

Yeah it's cool I guess.  We are going to have a fun day though.  Hopefully.  We are just going to go around Stockholm, and i'm not sure what we'll do after that.

Anyway I'm here in Västerhaninge.  It's a really good place, TONS of members.  It's crazy actually.  I'm kinda used to being the only people anywhere who believe in God, and now we see members all the time.  I imagine it's somewhat similar to California.  A good mix of members... but still not 50%, and everyone knows about the church.  It's good and bad.  The bad part is we have pretty much NO investigators...  We've tried to call and set up stuff with the past investigators, but it's not really worked out.  it was kinda a bad week.  This next week will be good.  We've got a good plan.  We went thru the area book, and got all the past investigators that live in Jordbro.  Just this little area, that is somewhat poorer.  Then we went and got all the less actives that live there too.  Then we got them all organized by street etc.  and now we are just going to pound thrugh them, and go tracting at the same time.  Hopefully something will turn up.

The good thing is I really like my companion.  He's awesome!!!  He's a really good guy and we have some good conversations.  I've really developed a love for serious conversations thinking about deep stuff, and trying to come up with solutions for "world problems." like wouldn't be cool if businesses gave out scholarships for HS students?  like if Boeing said any student who gets a 5 on 5 AP science tests, we'll pay for the exam fees, and give you a scolorship for college or something.  And like if OGIO gave out backpacks to any students who get like a 5 on the calculus AP test, and then maybe a job or something.  I'd be cool.

But yeah my companion is 6'5" and weighs in at 360 lbs.  he's a big kid!!  I love him to death tho.  We get along pretty good.  He's pretty funny.  We're just going to start working harder and pounding out this area.

Being a missionary, I'm not going to lie, it's pretty hard.  I was pretty excited/sad when we went to dinner with some members and he started telling us about his hunting trips!  and showing us his guns, and I knew all about them.  I just miss shooting stuff!!  And creating stuff. Like working with my hands and building something in the garage and improving it or something.  Just that kinda stuff we don't really get to do as a missionary.

Anyway have a great day!

ÄA