We are out sharing the gift of Jesus Christ (12/15/14)

Hello World!

The winter continued this week. With cold, cold, cold temperatures. We are getting down to 0 degrees but the weather is bouncing around there so we aren't getting any snow! Which is sad, because of the darkness and the lack of sun, the snow brings a sense of light to the country so we are early awaiting the first arrival. It is raining right now, I would say that we are maybe a little far away from that. Of well! Life moves on! and it is moving fast! Christmas Eve is in 9 days! Wow! In Sweden, I don't know if you guys remember but the big day that they all celebrate is Christmas Eve that is when Santa comes and they open all the presents and stuff. So we are just well on our way to the big day. All effective missionary work is about to get in the holiday mode, meaning we are getting the responses: "How about we just plan something for after Christmas?"  The whole missionary side is upset but Kaleb is far too deep in the Christmas spirit to be anything but happy and over joyed! 

Last night we went the The Bertilson's house and we watched as a ward the Christmas Devotional. Believe it or not but it was the first address from the Church I have watched all in Swedish. It was really cool to hear all the messages and better it was really cool to understand them too! I love Swedish. That is quickly becoming my favorite thing. I love the Swedish Accent and just everything that it includes. Ah. I love Sweden.

Our investigator is doing really good. He is getting really excited about his Baptism. We finally got through all the lessons and he is like set. He is so ready and it was really awesome to teach him he last few lessons and just to see his trust in the Lord and how accepting he is and it is a huge blessing to see his faith that he has in the answers that he has gotten. I think that is something that is really interesting to see. We are promised answers to our prayers if we are really honestly searching. However, the search or journey isn't over once we just get the answer, in my opinion, that is when the journey begins. That is when the "doing" starts. We have to have faith to follow the council we receive or we have to have faith that it plainly came from God. It has been cool to see that when we challenge him to pray about, The Book of Mormon for example. When he got the answer it was true, the follow-up question is: Now what are you going to DO with that knowledge? That is the important and character defining part to me! All the same, he has decided to act and he is so sure in his choice, I am so excited for him and grateful to be involved in the process. Such a blessing. 

Well we had a real adventure this week. Yes we did. The young women had there own little Lucia Night. So we did a Luciatåg- Google it if you don't know what is it. I will send some pictures of the night. Remember that it isn't a joke, we are the Star Boys. Not sure what role we play but we just stood there and sung our little hearts out. It was a good time.  

This is not a joke!

Well Christmas is here. We are out and sharing the gift of Jesus Christ and I loving every minute of it. I hope you are all enjoying the holidays!

I love you all! 

Äldste Farnworth

I am eager to serve others and make it a Christmas to remember (12/8/14)

Dear Everyone!

Well I am so glad to hear that Jacob is okay, I can't believe he was in such a bad car accident! That is like the news of the year!! So glad to hear to that he wasn't injured, I hope the girls that were injured will heal quickly. That is a good way to get my blood pumping, but I can just say that I am really happy that everything is good! 

Well this week we have been going! It has been a crazy ride and I have LOVED every moment of it. We started it out kinda slow and we hard some dark days ( literally there was no sun ) and we didn't have to much going on but the we had an amazing lesson that just made my entire week amazing! We met with our investigator and we decided on a date for him to be baptized.  We are looking at the 28th of December and I am so excited. He is such a strong faithful man! I love it! He is going great and I love him. So humble. 

Our cool little group!

We had a lot of great things happen. We had a few members take us to IKEA for a Christmas buffet! It was soo good and it was just like the most selfless thing ever. She just took us to a store and told us to buy whatever we wanted and she would pay for it. We, of course, were ever cheap and didn't drive her to the bank. I got myself a Christmas Star and and I just feel really Swedish now. Members in Hägersten are totally rocking it. I just hope that we will get invited somewhere for Christmas Eve, we will see. Don't worry I am thinking we will. 

I got my Christmas Package and I loved it! It was a great pick-me-up in the cold winter weather! The stocking was a great touch and my companion and I were very grateful! You guys totally rock! 

For Lucia day, our young women are doing there own program for the ward. Guess who they asked to be the "Star Boys"...us. We look really funny but just know. THIS ISNT A JOKE. We are really dressing like this because of the Swedish tradition. I will just be blunt, we look like KKK members, but we aren't so stop thinking that. Haha, it is an awesome experience for us Americans, once in a life time right? :) We will probably have more picture with the actually performance on Thursday! 

Oh! Speaking of performances, you know those missionaries that sing in church during Christmas time? Well I am now one of them. This lady asked if I would sing in church and I said yes after we had so much fun singing with the Young Women a few weeks ago. I didn't know she meant ONLY me singing. So yes, I am doing a solo of the song, O' Holy Night. Should be good, pray for me just in case. That will be on the 21st of December... 

Time is really going fast. I love my mission so much. The time I have here I am starting to feel is short but I am really confident that I am giving the Lord my best. I am trying my hardest to bring the souls of the people in Sweden unto Christ. 

This is my subway stop!

I love that new Church video! Wow, we have shared that with EVERYONE. Even after seeing that film like 50 or 60 times I still just get this overwhelming spirit that is there and testifying of the birth of our Savior. I had the chance yesterday to bare testimony of that in church and the words came so easy, I knew the spirit was with me. 

I miss you all this wonderful Christmas Season. However, I am eager to serve 
others and make it a Christmas to remember. I love you all so much. 

With love from Sweden,

Äldste Farnworth 

#SharetheGift (12/1/14)

Dear everyone!

Well it is Christmas here and I LOVE IT. We had a great Thanksgiving and we made quite the dinner. We had these amazing members offer to buy whatever we needed but we had to make all the food. It was pretty scary but we did it and it went really well! We spent a good part of our P day just cooking and I have to say that I gained a whole new respect for the parents (mostly the mothers) who have been preparing these meals! Wow. You guys are strong. Towards the end of meal, all the elders decided that it would be the last time we did that! haha I doubt that will actually happen but I guess we can hope! He had some really finds with the food, we visited an 'American Store' and found Kraft Stuffing, Jell-o, and A&W Rootbeer. So basically we just took a trip home to the USA. Great night!

The results!

This week the church released the new film called He is the Gift. I just love that more than anything else! We have adjusted our entire mission plan to wrap around this new film. I love it, we are out everyday talking to people about the true meaning of Christmas we are getting a while new response to people. It isn't a huge secret that when we randomly go up to someone on the street and ask them about God they aren't super interested to talk about it, but EVERYONE loves to talk about Christmas. It is like so fun to go out and tell people to look up #SharetheGift on Twitter and just go through what people are saying. It is like the big thing right now. You guys should totally look it up if you haven't seen it. I love it. 

We have been meeting a lot with this investigator that is making plans to be baptized in December! He came to church yesterday and just loved it! We were at his house on Saturday night and we had a strong lesson about The Plan of Salvation. We challenge him to pray about baptism and he said that he would, the next day in church he told us he got his answer and he wanted to be baptized! We are really excited and just feeling so blessed to have the chance to teach this man! He is from Iran and has lived in Sweden for about 10 years, he loves it here and it probably one of the most humble people I have ever met. He is such an example of faith. What a blessing. Please pray for him as he prepares for this wonderful step! 

There are this awesome couple in here and they are very quickly making it to the top of my list. I love going to their house and spending time with them, they are both recent RM's and we just have a blast with them. They make the best food ever and their company is even better. The members here are really so sick. The Relief Society had this huge Turkey dinner on Thankgiving (except Thanksgiving isn't a think here) So it was just a random Turkey dinner, kind of a smack to the face of Americans. But they had an entire turkey left over so they just put in the fridge and put a "For the Missionaries" Sign on it. #ILoveThem It was really good and I just was so happy to eat Thanksgiving twice this year. I think it makes up for not having one last year at all. 

Diego

Well we have no snow yet. The weather is just like right above freezing but not cold enough... I want snow but then I just don't. I am very tied here. I love it though, Stockholm is my city. So fast pace and just fun, always something happening! So cool. 

These cool people we showed the video too! #sharethegift

I know this church is true! I just do. Plain and simple. I love the Gospel and I love Jesus. He is my friend and brother. 

I also love my Brothers and Sister. And my Parents. And everyone. Lots of love here. 

Äldste Farnworth

We are here to love and be loved. Be happy! (11/24/12)

Well this week is faster than the last we did a lot though. With the cold coming up it is a great motivation to teach more and have a lot planned. That mean a lot less time outside. We have no snow yet, so we are still counting our blessings but the wind is putting up a real fight. My favorite part of winter though? It would be that it is TEA season! I finally want to start drinking that again. Oh man, I love that. I can't believe I went 18 years without. It is good. My favorite is probably, Classic Peppermint or like a good Blueberry. But it changes so often so tomorrow it could be different. 

Goodbye Dinner with sister Hill! I am gonna miss her!

The time has come, my trainer Elder Olson is going home. I am really going to miss having him here. He is pretty much the coolest. Which is funny to say, I was such a butt head when we were together but now I think he is my favorite companion. Such a good guy. I said goodbye to him on Saturday Night. Sister Hill from Gävle is also going home and that is kinda mind blowing! She is awesome too. I will miss her a ton for sure. If I can say anything certain about my time here on my mission, it is that I am forming some of my most fond friendships here. I love it. 

#SabbathDaySelfie from Anton. 

  

The work is going great! At Stake Conference they assigned us (Hägersten Ward) a new Stake Missionary pair. They are amazing, they are really going to change this ward, I am really excited to work with them. We have been contacting a lot lately looking for new people to teach and something really funny happened. We were walking down a street and talking to everyone and no one would even let us get past us saying that we were talking about our church...! It was pretty hard. Then I had this idea to just start contacting in English, to throw off my companion and stuff. It work! All the contacts after that were like good! They listened! English is the secret. They are like curious where we come from and then they love USA so that works for the ice breaker... Who would have known? Why have I been speaking Swedish the last 15 months...? haha

Me and TOM. He is so cool.

Well Mr. Steenblik (Highschool Choir teacher) would be pretty proud of me for church yesterday. Yes, we did a musical number! Elder Sandquist, Me and the young women sang the EFY Medley for Ward Conference. It sound pretty great actually and we had a ton of fun getting that ready. I would lead the practices and I loved acting just like Mr. Steenblik did when he taught us! I decided I know my dream calling in the church. Ward Choir Director. I am totally talking with God about that. 

A letter that just made my week.

Saturday was a pretty awesome day, I'll end with that. So Annika Sjökvist (My Swedish mother from Gävle) had a niece that lives in my area! We just discovered that a few weeks ago, So we planned a time that we could come and Fika with her. So she told me that her husband was out of town so we would have to wait a few weeks until her brother could be there too. So we planned for this last Saturday. Well little to my knowledge, Annika and Monika had planned to surprise me with all the kids when I got there. So it was a very well kept secret, I had my suspicions. I think to much into things not to catch on a little but it was so good. We had a great time and I loved being with all of them. Annika brought me some Homemade Apple sauce so basically it was 100% perfect day.

A bunch of my favorite people in Sweden. 

I love you all so much. I just know that this church is true. It has to be. I love God so much and His Son, Jesus Christ is my savior and my best friend. I believe that with my whole heart. I also know that we are here on the earth to ENJOY life! We are here to love and be loved. Be happy! There is only one other choice and being sad is not as FUN! I love you all! 

We are SO cool.

Have a great week!

Äldste Farnworth

I love Sweden. You all know that. I love Stockholm too! (11/17/14)

Well this week is like really cool, we are seeing a lot of cool things happen that we are seeing as a direct reflection from our hard work and obedience! I love it a lot! We had Stake Conference this last weekend which honestly felt like it was a fashion show instead of a church meeting. People have pretty high standards for what they wear to church but to this conference people were really looking awesome. It was really fun to see and I just enjoyed myself. The conference it self was amazing, in Sweden they rent a huge conference center to have the conference because the meeting houses are big enough for everyone. So we went into Stockholm for the meeting and that made everything about 10x cooler. 

We have really gotten good at Selfies!

   

Our promising investigator is looking really good. We are excited to continue to meet with him and see how we can help him grow more and more. He had accepted the invitation to be baptized and we are hoping to set up a date with him this week! Hopefully all goes according to plan! We love him and he is very real and ready to take the step in his life. The work is a bit slow but the stuff we DO have is like unreal. So we can't complain at all!

Proof that sun exists. A picture is needed after you go a week without seeing it.

Well to catch you all up on the Sun. It is gone right now and looks like 8:00 at night and it is about 2:30 right now. So that is a huge bummer and something that is taking some getting used to! We are going to try to get over it though! Life goes on! Other than that, I love Sweden. You all know that. I love Stockholm too! The Subways are still so fun. Mother, I took a lot of pictures for you this week but I forgot my iPhone cord so I will do those another time! Maybe later today!

My saving grace.

Okay, so we are going to making a huge Thanksgiving meal for a few families in the ward, they are paying for all the food but we are COOKING it all! Ah- so I need all of your guys recipes! So send those to me like ASAP!

Subways.... I love them

This is really funny... If you can speak Swedish. #sorrynotsorry

I love you all so much! 

Äldste Farnworth

It was amazing to the reminders of what we are, who we are and what we stand for. (11/10/14)

Dear Mother and All,

This week has been a great week! It included probably one of the greatest days of my mission! The weather is really crazy, we got snow on Thursday and it seem to be Christmas. Not really just really starting to feel like it! I love living in Stockholm more than anything else. I don't understand why anyone lives anywhere else. This is the dang place to be. I love where I live. In Hornstull, when we tell people that they are always surprised and jealous of how close we are to the city, I am sure if they saw the size of our apartment they would very quickly loose their jealousy. Needless to say, we are just nice and cozy at home. I will take some pictures next time we are on them, they are like NYC subways but like a million times cleaner. Okay... gross story. We were on the train and I was kinda not thinking just relaxing, looking out the window and watching everyone at the different stations we were going past. When we pulled up to a station I see this women that doesn't seem to be doing anything weird at all. Then she just leaned up against this wall and pulls her pants down! AHHH... She was going to the bathroom. I like yelled on the train, it was terrible. But I guess that is what happens when Sweden doesn't have free bathrooms. The worst thing about the entire situation is that is not my first experience with this. It 2014 but I guess not everyone has gotten the memo. #ew

On Saturday, we had a glorious day. I will start from the beginning. We started off with a baptism here in Hägersten, the other Elders had two people that were doing that! It was great and just an awesome service, the greatest part for me was that Sofia came from Linköping came! The Linköping branch is in Stockholm to have a temple day, so she was able to come from the Temple Guest House for that. Then it gets better, we went back to the Temple with her and we did baptisms for the dead with her and the members from the Linköping branch, it was so great to see them and catch up with all of them.  It reminded me how many people I have served with, that is a small branch and seeing them all just reminded me how great they all are. Then after baptisms were over, the other Elders came and we did a session in the Temple. Amazing. Seriously, incredible. It was amazing to have the reminders of what we are, who we are what we stand for! I loved it so much, it made me really excited to be home and be able to go all the time. I loved it.

After the temple we met back up with Sofia and we went into Stockholm to get some food. She wanted to take us out somewhere nice (she is a saint)  so we went into Gamla Stan (Old Town) which is like the NICE part of town and we went to a 5 star restaurant, I honestly couldn't believe it. The meal was heavenly... I got Reindeer. I am so sorry Rudolph, but his brother was very yummy. I loved it. We had a great time and it was seriously like the nicest trip ever, but the greatest nice didn't even stop there!

We then went to Stockholm Central to meet with our most promising investigator. We took him to the YSA center and taught him there. The center is like a cool building in the middle of Stockholm where youth can go and they have activities and stuff. We talked with him a lot about baptism and how important that step was for him to take! We ended with him decided that he wanted to take that step! It was so excited! We are going to be getting a firm date this week but we are really excited! 

Well I am not feeling like writing a ton this week, so I am going to cut it short and just let you all know that I love Sweden, just in case you didn't know. This place has a spirit to it, and I believe with my whole heart, that even though, not everyone wants to listen all the time, the moral standards are remarkable low, and people are pooping in the streets... The Lord is here and he is blessing the lives of people here. I love to be a SMALL part of that. What a gift? I am going to be singing in church pretty soon, so get yourselves ready for that. Oh man... How great is this church? I love it. 

OH BIG SHOUT OUT TO MY WARD. HOLY BEST PACKAGE EVER! I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH. THANK YOU A TON. 

Don't worry about me, I am still skinny and loving it. haha

Your Swede, 

Äldste Farnworth

#sabbathdayselfies generally make any day brighter. (11/3/14)

Dear All, 

Well this week has been a really fast one! Time is just becoming to fast to handle. It is a really good thing though, because when time goes fast that generally means that good things are happening! And they are! 

Thanks to the iPhone Editing.. I am slowly becoming a H&M model... 

On Tuesday we met with this man from Iraq. He was the nicest man ever, really humble and just very plainly wanted to know about our church. The lesson went great! Probably the best lesson I have had in a really long time! It was really neat. Something that was cool about him, is when we asked him to be baptized he really wanted to be sure that we was making the right choice. So we showed him that in Moroni 10: 3-5 it tells us exactly how he could know for himself. He seemed really pumped and so happy! Teaching with a new missionary is so different then being with companions older then you (which has been more than half my mission) but I like it a lot. It is really cool to see what Elder Nielsen can say really well. He can't talk about deep doctrine, he can't explain entire lessons, but he studies what he found to be most important, his personal testimony. I wish you could all hear him testify about the sprint. He spirit is so strong as he relies on it completely to carry him through! It really is a neat experience. Teaching is going great!

"Hey! Would you like to learn about the Mormons!?"

Halloween. Not very big here, to bad. But the stake had their first "Trunk or Treat" yes... The tradition of "the Utah Mormons" have made it all the way here to Sweden. Probably the funniest thing is explaining what a trunk or treat is to the ward members: "...then we all go outside and the kids go around and ask for candy from people trunks!" Haha they were pretty confused but the part went really well actually! Halloween isn't even a holiday here so it was really funny to see what people did. Walking through Stockholm that night was a really interesting experience for sure. No complains. The tradition that they do have here is SO cool. The day after our Halloween, with no relation to our holiday in Sweden it is tradition to light and place candles on the grave stones of your loved ones. So after the party a bunch of missionaries all went to a graveyard and it was seriously so cool. I have some pictures for that!

My Halloween Costume! #systerwilhite

We were already in Stockholm to help a member with service.. And we though we would treat ourselves to come good food for dinner! 

Well a little update on the weather... The sun is currently going down at about 3:45pm. And it is raining season. So basically, cold, dark, coldness, and more darkness. I am living the dream. I actually don't mind the dark at all. The only bummer is that it becomes a little creepy to stop people in the dark and ask them about the gospel. We haven't had to many positive moments with that... Haha but other than that all it really great with the weather! I have a bunch of warm clothes and I can't complain!

#sabbathdayselfies generally make any day brighter.

We have met with a lot of Africans this week. Sometimes I think I am living in Ghana. It is awesome, let me tell you. Africa has it right, spiritually and physically! I love African food! Last night for Sunday dinner we went to this member that we call Mama Phyllis and we had a dish called Fufu [foo-foo] it was so good. There is a twist though, you eat with your hands! So basically fufu is just a dough type stuff that is hard to describe but you have that and then they cover it in soup that usually has fish, chicken, lamb, or beef. Then you grab some fufu with your hands dip it in the sauce and throw it in your mouth, but you DON'T chew the fufu you just swallow it whole. It is really unlike anything else but it was really good!

Remember... Don't chew it. 

So as always I have a blast with the other elders here. Last week for P day we went to this arena and we took a glass ball tour to the top! It is really hard to explain exactly what we did so I will just send pictures... But it was a great time. I really like these guys.

So we got into this....

... And we went up there!

Life is good. No worries about Elder Farnworth. I am continuing to miss Gälve a ton, my companion is funny. When I talk about someone he doesn't know he asks: "Does this person live in Utah or Gävle?" I guess I refer to both of them as home to much! Hehe!

Prayer is real. I know this, Sofia mother got really sick and it was a hard thing so I asked the members of our zone to pray for her and she really is making a ton of progress. Such an amazing thing.

We met with the Record Preservation couple and they gave a really cool tour!

They take pictures of the old Swedish book for FamilySearch! My new dream mission!

So continue to pray and have faith. I love you all, and miss you! Have a great week! I know I will!

Äldste Farnworth

Holy cow, this is how I'm going to die... (10/27/14)

The adventure continues! Week number 2 in Stockholm was really great actually! I am just coming to realize that I am truly a city-boy. I love it so much, it is all so fast paced here. Everyone has somewhere to go and someplace to be. You would think that it wouldn't have a effect on the work but it does! You just have to be quick and hope you are fast enough as well! It is fun! 

We have from Liljeholmen to Norsborg and we live in Hornstull... SO it is close to Stockholm Central. 

Basically I can explain what it is like here in Hägersten, there are 3 subway line in Stockholm, The Red, Green, and Blue. They all run through The Center of Stockholm. Our area is pretty much half of the Red line, so we don't take that many buses just travel on the line! I love it, we are the subways everyday and it really hasn't gotten old yet!

 We did have a really scary moment a few nights ago on the subway though, allow me to explain. We just got on and this guy started asking us where we were from and we told him England, (because he was very drunk and drunk people generally don't like the US) So then he was joking around and be really rude, basically like a drunk man would. Then his language changed and he used words that I hadn't heard in a LONG time. It was really scary, then he looks at my companion (who is probably in this moment rethinking his entire mission) and he says to him: "Go ahead and tell me where the [explicit language] I am from... do it and I will STAB you." I was like, "Holy cow, so this is how I am going to die. But luckily the train was slowing down and we just told him we were getting off here, so we were spared... Or so we thought. We were really trying to get to the next stop, so we waited for the next train coming like 5 minutes later, and we took it and while on the train I turn to Nielsen and say "If he is at the next stop, you just turn and RUN." Yep. You guessed it. The doors to the train open and there was our best friend. We just start walking away, trying not to be noticed and then we hear: "Hey look! Our English friends." So we just booked it. I was so scared.. But do not worry, we are fine. He never caught us, I am not even sure if he followed us but we ran fast. So that was the scariest moment of my entire mission, but no big deal.

This week we have really been trying to get our feet on the ground in this new area, it is going really well. Elder Nielsen is really amazing, he taking on a lot and it is really nice. I am still trying to allow him to relax and understand that he is in a stage where he needs to focus on learning the ways and he has no need to be stressed. It has been really good, we have had some good long talks about stress management and it seems to really help us both. He is SO good at Swedish and I am realized that I am not to shabby myself. It is really fun actually-- I continue to miss Gävle with almost my whole heart but I am starting to shift my mindset. Hägersten is a seriously great ward. I am really excited to get to know everyone and form some relationships here! It is really exciting!

We had received a LOT of referrals this last week, from here and there and we are SO excited to get to meet these guys this week! The work is going forward here, I can just feel it. We are working hard and we are really obedient so I just have such a testimony that the Lord is going to bless our efforts. I am really excited, we have this one guy that we got and when we called him, he was SO grateful that we would take the time to me with him! Usually I feel like we have to drag a time and date our of people but he was like so eager! I swear he needs to talk with like all of the non members here in Sweden! It was awesome! We will be meeting with him tomorrow night, we don't know what will happen but we are looking forward to it surely! 

There are a lot of non-swedes here, like I said last week! I am pretty sure that I like the switch up from the norm. I mean, don't get me wrong... I LOVE Swedish people, I mean, come on. I basically am a Swede, but the other cultures bring so much to the table and I LOVE it, the South American Member bring a energy of home. They are loud and they laugh so much and it is like Utah, while the African members understand the gospel in a different way that is amazing to me. They see this very pure version of God and life, they come from not that much so they see the blessings in everything. I am so grateful. For a quick example, We were asked yesterday in class: "Why is important to know God?" I thought in my head, "So we can know how to talk so he can help me, and I can hear him.." Seemed like a good answer to much until this lady opened my eyes in a whole new way, her  answer: "So we can know how to serve him will our whole being." It was so, amazing. A simple answer but she said it without even thinking, that was her first thought, to serve God. Such an example to me. Ah! I am learning so much! 

Well if you have any question if I am loving it, let me assure you, I LOVE SWEDEN. My life is great, the ward is hard, this church is worth it. 

I love you all.

Äldste Farnworth

I'm in Stockholm! My favorite thing is the subways, imagine them CLEAN and Swedish. (10/20/14)

Hello World,

This week is just change, change and more change. I can't say I like it completely yet, but I cannot say that I am not have a great time, I guess I can just list off all of the change to start. I am not in Gävle, I am in a Stockholm ward, I take the Subways everywhere, I don't know anyone here, I am training and responsible for my greenies life, and no one is speaking the way they did in Gävle... #stockholmska 

A picture I got from Gävle... I miss these boys!

 So, I got my son. His name is Elder Taylor Nielsen and he is from New Mexico! He is really great and we are really getting along great. He just finished High school, which is weird to me, and he is so excited to be here! So that makes me really excited! Training is really hard, but in a way that is hard to explain. I just have to know everything, and it is pretty mentally demanding. Like in the different stress than I have had before. One really cool think is to see the progress that my Swedish has made. I think it is super fun to have him ask me a million Swedish question and the fact that I can answer about 95% of them makes me pretty happy, I must say. 

Elder Nielsen, Me, and my trainer Elder Olson

We are just living us two in a small apartment in a AMAZING area. We live IN the city, which is like the coolest thing ever. My favorite part of living here is the subways, just imagine how fun the New York Subways are... then make them like really clean and Swedish. So basically perfect for Elder Farnworth. We actually don't even live in our area, we have to take a train into everyday, we have nothing to complain about though. The train ride is about 5 minutes, the other elders have to train about 45 minutes everyday, so that is a travel. 

Making dinner for my son... Such a good dad.

Stockholm is pretty fast pace, people have places to go and things to do, which makes our job a little harder. But it really is cool to find those people that are willing to take time to listen to us, we are working on different ways to find more people to teach, it is a really good thing and I am learning a lot! SO that is a fun twist. 

Oh... Look who I ran into in Stockholm? Best moment all week! 

 So basically time is resetting a little, this week was probably the longest week I have had in a lot time and that is not a bad thing but just really weird to have that happen, we had a pretty great miracle happen on the train ride home one night, we were sitting there and this couple from Peru came and sat next to us and in Spanish, the wife was talking about us being missionaries and then her husband looked over so of course, I said hello and the man started to talk to me. Nothing to big was happening until we found out that they were members! They actually didn't know that the church was here in Sweden so they were so excited to see us! They told us that they wanted to find out which church they could go to and then the wife said something in Spanish and the husband looks at me and says in Swedish: "Can you guys help me and my wife get sealed for eternity in the temple?" Then the wife pulled up a picture of the temple in Peru to be sure we understood... We got the message, loud and clear. It was amazing. They lived out of our area so we referred them to the right missionaries. It was amazing, we were placed in that moments for a reason and it was no chance. Just the hand of the Lord in the work.

The other missionaries here are really cool. Elder Sandquist from Riverton and Elder Kapp from Layton. They are really cool and I am pretty excited to serve here with them! We have met with a few of the investigators here and to be honest, there is a lot of good stuff happening. Church on Sunday made me really excited to be here, the ward seems great and I think we are going to be able to help them a lot. There are a lot of people from CHILE here. So I am feeling a little bit like I am experience what Zach had on his mission. If so, He is was a lucky missionary! They are the nicest people ever. 

The New gang... They are pretty cool.

Yeah... Life is different and I am having a hard time not looking back because Gävle was SO amazing, but I am really trying to live up to my own words... Forward with FAITH! This week should be amazing, I am really excited for what is going to happen. Life is good. The Lord is really and mindful of us. 

I love you all. Have a great week! Pray for me and the missionaries here! 
Äldste Farnworth

I love you Gävle, I will miss you. (10/13/14)

This week is a week of change and moving! Yes, that is right I am being transferred from what feels like home! I am going to Stockholm, the Hägersten Ward. My first ward!! I am really excited to be in Stockholm and one of the biggest things I am excited for is that I am living like 10 minutes away from the center of Stockholm. That should be so different than anything I have experienced before! Oh and I am also excited that I AM TRAINING. Yes, that is true I am training a fresh missionary from the MTC, so it should be totally awesome and a huge new experience. I have heard that training is hard, but totally worth it. I just really hope that I can help this Elder see how blessed he is to serve in the amazing country. It should be awesome. So this is all going down on Wednesday so I just ask that you all pray the whole day for me. haha, not joking. 

Leaving Gävle is probably going to be harder than it was to leave the United States. I just feel so much love for this branch and the people here. Yesterday in church, I gave a talk as they usually have missionary that are being transferred do and it was really hard. I talked about the talk from Elder Holland: Remember Lot's Wife. It is a great talk that I love to listen to again and again, it talks about how much we need to learn from the past but live in the present and look forward to the future. I love that talk and recommend you all listen to/read it. It is amazing. Towards the end I just felt the love of the entire branch in one moment. It was amazing, I just can't believe that this could all happen so fast, I have only been here for 4 months. It's amazing.

The matching sweaters just don't get old. We are so cool.

You try and tell me we aren't hyp-sters

My last full week in Gävle was definitely a great one to end with. We did a ton and we had a BLAST. We met with Henry our investigator again and it was amazing, we read through the chapter in 3 Nephi where Christ comes and establishes the church in The America's to the people and as we went through his teaching about baptism it clicked in Henry's mind that he too needed to follow the council of Christ and be baptize to take a step and show his faith in Christ, we set a date and it was an amazing moment, I am really excited for him to be baptized. He came to church the next day and you can tell he is really taking this choice seriously. Amazing to see. I am so proud of him

Fika after a Young Men's service project. Anton and his dad Johan... and me.

Okay, I am a Family History MASTER. I love it so much, I think I could family history for hours and hour and never get bored. It is amazing... Allow me to explain. We have these friends from Canada. I think I have talked about them before, they are really interested in the church but they are just so cool. They come to Innebandy and we sometimes take them to the Sjökvist and have dinner, but this week Erin wanted to do her Family History so I was like: "Why not!" 

So when I was on splits with Elder Bradley (who is the coolest guy ever...) on thursday we sat down and with the information that we had we started to find some people, with not much success we started to get a little discouraged, and then BAM! It all just started to explode and it was amazing, with that day and then a little more time on Saturday we were able to find her entire family 4 generation back and then a ton more almost the entire 6 generation full. It was amazing. SO much fun. 

Annika and Johan Sjökvist's Family with Elder Bradley and the Canadian's Erin and Conner!

So needless to say, I love life. I am SO grateful for the people I have in my life now. Although, this week is going to suck with all the goodbyes, I decided that we will not be saying goodbye, but just I will see you later! I love this area, and I love this work. The church is true. God is there, you can deny it. He listens and more than that he TALKS back. He is my best friend and my Heavenly Father. I trust him with my mission. I trust him that this will be a positive change. I am going to cry, no doubt about that. But that only means I am leaving something amazing. 

Peter Sjökvist's Family, I love these guys so much! I will surely miss them SO much.

Thank you all. Not only the people reading this at home in Utah but thank you to anyone who has helped me get here, I will be forever in your debt. I am totally a different person, I have been changed by this mission and I am not even done. What a blessing. I love you Gävle, I will miss you. Thank you for everything you do to me. 

Pure Bliss. What a blessing.

Äldste Farnworth

We all have different size testimonies and THAT IS OKAY! (10/6/14)

Well this week gets a huge two thumbs up. It was Conference Week so how could it not? The focus for all of our lessons and messages that we left this week was about Conference and how important it was that we have a living prophet today! It was really such a great thing to be able to tell these people that the Lord and God is living today and they are actively leading us. It was a great reminder for me as well! 

We had some great lessons this week. We met with some really amazing people. It amazes me how many amazing people are in my life right now. I guess we can start with our splits on the Zone Leaders, it was really cool. On my one year mark in Sweden I was with my trainer! It was really cool, they came for Wednesday and it was a super cool day. Elder Olson is a freaking cool elder. I am really happy that we were able to teach together again. He is a rocking missionary, and even a better friend. It was an awesome day. We went to a member who has a book with pictures of every missionary that even goes home to them. So the most pictures that anyone has is 5 pictures in the book and with my splits with Olson, I got my 6th picture in the book! It was a proud moment for me.

Exchanges with the Zone Leaders!

We just taught a ton of investigators this week. It was really so sick, I feel super blessed.  Conference though was really cool. So the way that it works in Sweden is that we watched both opening sessions at 6.00 at night live, so that was really cool. We spent the day with the Sjökvist's on Sunday for the most part, it was really fun. We went there early for breakfast and then watch Priesthood. Then we had these less actives come for lunch, and that was awesome. Annika had pretty much set up this whole missionary day for us. It was really nice. She is awesome. Then her nephew came to have dinner and watch the Sunday morning session and have tacos with us! That was super cool, he isn't a member and a super cool guy. Pretty much it was the best day ever. 

Us on the walk... Most epic picture. 

We are cool. No discussion.

Kodak Moment 

With the other sessions I just have to watch them over the Kodak Moment next few days, I am really excited cause I have heard the best things. My favorite talk was probably Utchdorf. I loved his talk about how we all have different sizes of testimonies and THAT IS OKAY!  It was a huge moment for me, I just realized that this isn't a church of perfect people. This is a church for everyone! I don't know, I think I had forgotten that. Sometimes I think that I forget that we are here to learn and grow, not to be perfect. It was a big talk for me! While I have been writing emails though, I listened Elder Hollands talk and his is just so amazing.  #ldsconf was the best. 

The Sjökvist after a day of Conference. 

 

double Anton... Crazy

I would say that there is a pretty good chance that I will be moving, I have been here a while and I think it is my time. Which makes me sad but at the same time I think I need to move and grow and meet new people! I don't know, I am just trying to be open to new things and whatever comes my way! Sorry this was a little shorter but there is no need to worry about me, I can promise you that! Sweden is so good to me! I love it here so much! I am so happy! 

Pretty much the cutest little kid ever. 

I love you all! 

Äldste Farnworth