Hej Hej

 Tjena!  This past week I dropped off Syster Kearns in Stockholm, and then picked up Syster Welton!  She was serving in Umeå (way up in the northern part of Sweden) for almost 8 months, so her Swedish is a little different than mine. It has been pretty funny to compare and contrast our pronunciation of certain words.  We were able to get moving pretty quickly in Lund when we arrived here from Stockholm, and so that was really nice. She's an experienced missionary, so the transition went pretty smoothly.  On Friday though, one of our family history lessons canceled, and so we decided to do a little bit of family history for ourselves! (It's considered service in our mission.) One thing I found out is that one of my ancestors who converted to this church in the 1800s actually had a carpenter shop HERE IN LUND before he emigrated to Utah. Pretty awesome. I have a newfound appreciation for not just Skåne, but this specific little town. Happy day.   We also...

  Hejsan!  This week was good. It simply always is!  Syster Kearns' last full week as a missionary was this past week, and I asked her beforehand if there's anything she wanted to do--SPECIFICALLY--to make it awesome.  All she said was "enjoy it." So we did :)  We: - Bought falafel.  - Went to Zonskonferens up in Helsingborg. - Bought naturgodis as always.  - Swung by inactives and got contact with them!  - Gave testimonies on the fly in Sacrament meeting on Sunday.  - Accidentally got stuck on the phone with an old lady for almost an hour and listened to her talk about an experience where she "left her body"? - Had English class with our friend named *Aidan, who is SUPER NICE.  - Met with our old Romanian friend named *John and answered all of his questions about his experience at church  - Went and helped out at Seminary for the youth here  - Had two powerful lessons with a family who's praying over a baptismal date right now...

  Hello everyone! We're going to hop straight in.  This week we: -Gave out more Books of Mormon on the street and by knocking doors. Always fun.  - Finally met with a really cute family that had been difficult to meet with! - Met with one of Syster Kearns' distant relatives who lives right outside of Lund! They got in contact with one another through ancestry and were able to meet and talk Swedish together! It was actually really cool. Syster Kearns got to explain that it was because of our religion that their common ancestors fled to the US, and is also now the reason why she's back here in Sweden. #fullcircle - Got kicked out of a Svenska Kyrka by a svenska kyrka priest who asked us to take off our name tags. Classy.  - Met a man who had no idea that his wife of 35 years is a member of our church and listened to him explain his deep, complicated, philosophical ideas.  - Got rejected many times on the street. -Had FIVE PEOPLE come to church yesterday! It was IN...

  Hejsan!  Okay, many things happened this week. Far too much to cover in one email. So I'll stick to the highlights, and the lowlights. Because both are equally important!  Highlights: - We went on Splits in Malmö and we had an MTC Reunion! Syster Bryson and Syster Cook are awesome, and it was really great to see them again.  - Our friend *Oliver, who is of the Muslim faith, surprised us by asking if he could say the prayer to start our lesson! It was incredibly powerful, and he even ended it in Jesus Christ's name. Which is a HUGE step, for someone who never learned about Christ as the Savior and Reedemer of the world.  - We gave out 7 Book of Mormons! Which is quite a few for one week here in Sweden. - A family that has been hard to consistently meet with came to church yesterday!  - Syster Kearns has decided that she loves falafel and so we got some this week. Det smakar alltid gott.  Lowlights: - We were supposed to have ZonsKonferens on Thursday,...

  Gott nytt år! I hope all is well with everyone.  This past week was good, per usual. I have a great companion, a great area, and I officially hit my six month mark! We met with a lot of people who come from the Islam faith this week, and it's been an interesting challenge to convince them of the divinity of Christ. They like a lot of the doctrines we talk about-- but Christ being the Savior and redeemer of the world is a unique stumbling block for them. Which is, as we know, pretty much the #1 most important truth! We're working on it.  We also met with a woman named Maria, but not the Maria we THOUGHT we were meeting.  A week or two ago, Syster Kearns contacted an adorable old woman from Hungary (Maria), and she began crying when we talked about God with her. She really wanted to meet with us! It was a miracle. Unfortunately-- we wrote down her number incorrectly, and haven't been able to get in touch. Which is incredibly disappointing, but it happens.  About...