Sweden Stockholm Mission

Monday, August 26, 2013

Sweden at Last!

Hej hej alla!

So let me preface this email by saying that everything here is so swedish, especially the keyboard, so my writing will be weird because the keyboard has moved around a lot of the symbols, so bear with me! Ja så I am officially a Swedish missionary. The mtc is great and all, but at the same time I could not wait to get out here! ha, so yeah, the real work starts now! Thanks to everyone who has written, I apologize if i can not get back to you, but just know I am busy (honestly) and working hard for the Lord. 

Things I would like, maybe with my next bday package, if Im getting one: kraft mac'n cheese, ranch dressing packets (i am so distraught that they do not have ranch here), peanut butter, and reeses puffs and or capn crunch for my bday cereal along with a hackey sack just for fun. Tack så mycket!  Remember packages have to be less than four pounds and send it to the mission home address on my blog.

So the past week has been jätte (giant or big or ya, just context) crazy! Last sunday I stayed up all night waiting to leave for the slc airport and Sverige!
Last night at MTC
it was long but way great! I got lots of food so i was taken care of! I slept great on the plane, pretty much the whole way except for like maybe 30 minutes. Flying over the atlantic was SICK! Amsterdam was legit and ya, everything was just jätte bra!

So that was all monday, which actually went into tuesday, I only lived through 6 hours of monday for real though. Tuesday, we got off the plane where the welcoming committee was-the APs, the president and his wife, and a couple of senior couples. They are all so great! Especially President Newell! He is very soft but so powerful and just stares into your soul!! We had a quick interview with him immediately and just talked about expectations for the mission. Amazing. We got all of our us money changed to kronas and got mission cards to use for buying things. 

We toured the city of Stockholm, got our visas cleared and then went to a YSA center where we had a meeting. We then went out and did some contacting!! It was so crazy and scary!! Nothing big happened, but we placed a lot of mormon.org cards so that was way cool to just talk to people and see how some were slightly interested. Some missionaries got BoMs out to people! Wow! we then went to a church in Täby and had more meetings and dinner and just talked. We then, the elders, went to the mission home with the pres while the sisters went to a hotel. Everyone was dead when we got back home at about 7 here time so everyone went right to bed, i took my sleeping pill mom sent and joined in.

Wednesday morning we went on a run with president, so beautiful! I love Sweden! we then had some amazing breakfast from Sis N and then went to the church again for a big meeting until it was time to find out where we were to go! So I was nearly the last person to get my letter from pres where we would read it out loud with everyone (all the trainers were there at the meeting too) and see who our trainers were! So i read mine and ..... I am staying in Stockholm!!!!! I totally called it so yup, thats my assignment. 

I expect you all to google map stalk me and see where i am:
Elder Johnson
C/O Jensen 
Katarinavägen 20 
116 45 Stockholm
I honestly don't know yet where is best to send letters, but try this one or the mission home.  Postage is 1.10 dollars so use the international stamp

The actual letter said Stockholm Stav area with Äldste M. 
He has been out for 5 months and has trained before. He is from Sandy Utah and is way sick, likes lax and the lake and all that jazz. We then all went to T-central (the main area of Stockholm) and said goodbye to everyone as people caught their trains, buses, tunnelbanas (subways) and all other sorts of transportation things to take everyone their separate ways.

So we are whitewashing the area, he has only been in Lund the whole time he has been in sweden so we obviously got lost trying to find our appartment, which by the way is the best one in the whole mission.
Notice the two pillowcases

The ZLs  helped us out and got us to the right place where we unpacked and talked. My comp is the DL in our district, and the ZLs are in our district too along with 2 sisters. We got everything set up and headed out for the town to talk to people.

The rest of the week, sorry I have to go by fast, but we met with some members, contacted, visited people, tracted, looked for inactives/less actives and taught some lessons. All of this is in Swedish, so it is very intimidating but I just smile and act like I know whats going on. I tell people i am really new and everyone is so nice and just is really helpful to me when I try to talk to them and then if not they go to english sometimes. Every swede knows english, so i dont understand why they dont all just change to english haha. But it is way cool! I already challenged someone to baptism (in english, half of the lessons are this way cuz some people dont even know swedish-a lot of immigrants here from all over!) ! Its been great, I am picking it up every day a little more and more. My comp is way awesome and nice to me and helps me out a lot. On sunday, someone bore their testimony in spanish and then had a swedish translation, and i honestly understood more from the spanish haha! Oh well, i will get it soon. Its hard because I cant contribute a lot, but I still have a positive outlook on everything here. Things are going good, everyone is just so awesome and the best so jag älskar Sverige.

I saw this hilarious warning on our elevator for when you bring your trash can in it.  Evidently this must happen a lot(?)


I'm so sorry, there is just so much that I want to say, but I don't have any time. I love all of you, I am working hard and having amazing experiences left and right. The language is coming, I'm about at twenty-five percent of understanding things so its good. Keep up the good work. I love My savior and know that everything good in my life comes from him, and every bad thing he has suffered for. He helps me every day with the language and I am so grateful for him, I love him.

Med Kärlek
Äldste Johnson

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