Can't Believe It's Been 7 Months

This week was really great week. Elder Landeen and I held out strong for the beginning of the week, then I sent him on his way to Katrineholm! It was a really good transfer, I learned a ton and I am super grateful to be able to be with Elder Landeen for the last 6 weeks. I can't believe that it has already have been here in Linköping for 6 weeks and on my mission for 7 months! Where is the time going? I want it all to slow down. I don't want to go home, like ever ... sorry. My new companion is really awesome. His name is crazy - I think it is Elder Stoeltzing he is from California and has been in Sweden for like 12 weeks, I am his senior companion which means pretty much if we screw up at all I am the one who gets in trouble. Haha just kidding I am supposed to also be his example! He is like already awesome so I don't know how I am suppose to help him. We will see.

So this week I got sick. Like it sucks, I have never missed my own bed so much. I was okay for the first part of the week but from Friday to Saturday it went downhill pretty fast, yesterday was the worst and I actually stayed home from church. It was my first time missing church in 7 months it was so weird. I just slept all day then at night the fevers started but it actually was good cause then they broke and today I am feeling good. Okay so yeah that is my illness in way more details than I am sure anyone cares to know. But yeah not to much happened this week, I have a spiritual thought to end this whole thing off:

So this week I have realized the difference between believing the gospel is true and knowing the gospel is true. I heard a really good talk from Elder Holland which really helped me see that even if we don't know that the gospel is true believing in it is so important as well. I am really earnestly been praying in the last while to feel those feelings of the beliefs that I know to be true. When I honestly and truly ask God for those feelings it was amazing to feel them so strongly in the next few days. I know and believe that God lives and know every single of His children by name. He loves us and wants us to come to him with open arms and allowing Him, through Jesus Christ, to change ourselves to become the children that he wants us to be. I am so grateful for the plan that The Lord has for me and that he has given me what he has. I love Him with everything I am. I am here for that reason alone. I love him.

I hope you all have a great week! I look forward to hearing from you next week!

Äldste Farnworth

I finally saw it.. the Sweden Stockholm Temple! It was beautiful! (3/17/14)

Dear Mother, Father, and Friends. 

Well I would just like to start this email off by tell you that I am writing it with my brand new iPhone 5. Yes, you read that right, we got iPhones! That are like the coolest things in the entire world. As you can imagine they have these things pretty locked up, but they still make the work we are doing 100 times easier. I love them. So yeah that was a huge part of this week. The mission life is just becoming better an better. I have to send pictures of me apartment today, then you will see that I am a spoiled. All I am saying is there is NO complains on the quality of life here in Linköping. It is nice. 

So we got the transfer calls this Saturday and to no surprise I am staying here. Elder Landeen is going to Katrineholm! He is going to be a district leader there, so that is going to be so awesome for him. Only like 45 minutes away by train so not to far but he is going to love it! I am getting a pretty young missionary. He is just out of his training so I am pretty excited to get him. He was in Göteborg before, so I am met him a few times. He is a super nice and I am looking forward to serving with him. 

I finally saw it.. The Sweden Stockholm Temple! It was beautiful. I seriously was like blown away. It's weird being here in Sweden and not really seeing much of the church like you see in the states and honestly I like forgot what they looked like. So when I say it right in front of me it was like the first time I had seen a temple. I was down in Stockholm on Thursday for Zone Conference. It was really good. The first section of the meeting was tribute to Elder Bailey. It was really amazing. Sister Newell spoke as well as President Newell. There were a few others who spoke, including his old companions, it was really amazing. They related it all to the temple and really how that is how we can help those missionaries who are working on the other side. It was a really cool thought. We must go to the temple and help out our missionaries on the other side. That is my homework/commitment to you all, everyone that can, go to temple this week! It changes and blesses everyone involved. It was a really cool way to look at the situation. 

We had a really good lesson with our investigator yesterday, we have really been pushing for baptism with her. Mainly because she is a member in every other way possible. She is just amazing. She has such a strong testimony, and really shows it. She just needs to see that this step of baptism is just going help her in every part of her life. The spirit was really strong during the lesson and it was really cool to have that feeling that I have the ability to be a vessel that the Lord could use. I just sat and listened to what she was telling us and it was weird that didn't think about what I was going to say next, I allowed the spirit to take over. It was really a great moment. We had a member who has helped to fellowship her. It was a ton a fun with her. I took a funny picture with our new iPhone :) so I will include that.

Well that's about it.  I have a ton of pictures I am sending.  I love you, have a great week!

Äldste Farnworth

The Stockholm Sweden Temple!

Elder Muirbrook and me, he goes home on Wednesday! Crazy!

Elder Hills, Annelie, Me, Elder Steen, Elder Landeen

                                      

Kaleb's kitchen 

His apartment

Doing service!

Riding the bus 

Do you think Kaleb is a little OCD?

I'm not like this idiot, well like I guess sorta...(3/10/14)

Hey Mother!

Sorry this is getting to you so late. We just didn't have the will power to wake up early this week to chat with you guys, but I promise that next week we will get it on. Okay, I am going to start off by answering you questions before I get all distracted. Do they have Costco in Sweden? No, they don't. The don't even have Wal-mart. The only store that they have here that we share would be IKEA. I really like it though, I really am in a completely different world. Sweden is crazy. I have like "holy crap I am in Sweden..." moments every single day. Okay so transfer calls go out this Friday, I don't know if I will be transferred but I do know that I will be stressing about it this whole week! I will know next week. I did not go to the service for Elder Bailey, they could not allow everyone to travel in because the chapel wasn't big enough, so only people that knew him on the mission were given permission. It was a really sad week here. It is just something that you never think is going to happen. It's just another one of those moments where we have to have trust in the Lord that we have a plan. We have this investigator who is like the sweetest person ever. When she found out she called us right away and totally we telling me how cool it is that we have the Plan of Salvation. She then told me that she knew that God just needed him to be a missionary on the other side. She is like the greatest investigator ever. I really hope I am able to help her come closer to Christ through Baptism.

This week was really good. We have had a few things that over the last few weeks we had going into bad habits, like a little lazy with a few small things. So this week we made it a special effort and we saw like really great things come from it. We have had a great amount of teaching this week, and we really were able to help a few people! This week was very rewarding. The work in Linköping is going forward at a very fast rate.

Holy cow the weather here has be beautiful. Swedish people love to talk about the weather. All I have to say to get a conversation going is "Wow, it a really nice day!" Or "Can you believe how cold it is?" I will generally always get a pretty big response from that. The times that I don't are really awkward. I am not kidding sometimes when I try to talk with people they will straight up look me in the eyes and like just not respond to me. So that is dumb. Swedish people can be very awkward but you kind of just have to learn to love it and laugh at yourself sometimes. When I get like hard core rejected, I just laugh right then a there. Then I just assume they think I am insane. It's a really good time. Something that I LOVE to do that really messes with the people here is sing on the buses. Just like a side note, the buses here are always so quite. NO ONE talks. Like the bus can be 102% full and not one person is talking so I just like start singing really to my self and my companion gets embarrassed so I get louder and louder then the whole bus is looking at me. It just is so awesome. Don't worry. I am not like this idiot, well like I guess sorta.

So in not so good news, my knee is getting really bad. I have these pills that are supposed to reduce the swelling and then I put this cream on it and I have these wraps but the fact that I walk around all day on it just means every night it hurts a little more than the last. Today it was terrible. But don't worry I am still pushing. Just pray for me. I don't want to have this hinder any work that could be done here.

You guys are changing the house so much I don't think I recognize it when I get home. I cannot believe that I have been out almost 7 months that just doesn't seem real to me. I just want to stay forever. Okay maybe not forever but a long time for sure. I love it here so much. I didn't think that I would like Linköping at first just coming from a small branch and going into a smaller branch but I have really been able love this branch. I am so excited for the work that is going to take place here.

This week has been great. I am so excited for this upcoming week and I am so excited for what the future holds. Thank you for all you do for me. I can feel the love that I am getting for back home. Continue to pray for the people here. The Lord is real. He loves us. All of us. Pray to him. The song 'A Child's Prayer' comes to mind.

Heavenly Father, are you really there?
And do you hear and answer every child's prayer?
Some say that heaven is far away,
But I feel it close around me as I pray.
Heavenly Father, I remember now
Something that Jesus told disciples long ago:
"Suffer the children to come to me."
Father, in prayer I'm coming now to thee.

Pray, he is there;
Speak, he is listening.
You are his child;
His love now surrounds you.
He hears your prayer;
He loves the children.
Of such is the kingdom, the kingdom of heaven.

I love that song. I sing that song in my head probably once a day. We need to strive to have the faith of children. So pure and so true. Love you so much. Have a great week!

Äldste Farnworth 

Exploring the woods on P-day

We made a fort:)

Pray for the Missionaries... (3/3/15)

This week has been really a lot. It has been a good to really learn to rely on the hand of the Lord. I was thinking the other day when I got

the news about Lexi's accident I was really having a hard day and I just kept saying through my head, "There is nothing you can do, there is nothing you can do." Then I totally thought about how I can do the most important thing for her. I could pray. So I prayed and prayed ... and prayed some more. After I had prayed I had to turn it over to the Lord. I knew that I could focus on that and still do my work here like I should be. When I gave it to the Lord it wasn't like it is was gone. In the way that I didn't thinkit of it all happening but it was gone in the way that I knew if there was anything that I could do to change the situation the Lord would do that for me. I felt peace for the rest of the week. It wasn't like a feeling of 'she is going to be okay...' but more like I would accept what God's plan was for her. I am so thankful that she is getting better! I am truly grateful for what is happening now.

This week has been really good. In a weird way. Not a week that I loved the whole way through but a week that I am super glad I had. There was just lot of different aspects of the work here that can be very tiring as a missionary and as a person. I love it though. We have this lady I told a little about last week. Her name is Mahin, and she is so nice.

My knee is really hurting. That isn't right English but honesty I don't know how to speak much English anymore. Swedish is just completely taking over everything. I could compare it to a bully in the school yard.

Swedish just takes over everything and destroys all traces of anything in the way. Needless to say my English is going to need some help. I am at this stage where I just become social awkward ... I like know enough Swedish that it is starting to effect my English but not enough Swedish that I can give up on English. For example, sometimes I forget the word that I am trying to say in Sweden but I also forget the word that I am trying to say in English. So I just look dumb. This happens about once a day. 

Anyways, where was I? Oh so my knee has like fluid built up in the knee cap. I was going to go to the doctor but Mahin is a doctor so she just told me what to buy and what medicines I would need. It was nice. They are helping me to be able walk around everywhere all day but it still kills at night. It's getting better though so things are looking up!

On Saturday, I went the university with Elder Hills. We didn't know how far it was going to be so we just walked and walked and it turned out to be really, really, really, far. We made it fun though. I really enjoyed it. Most of the pictures on this post are from that day. Actually they all are. We were lost and we were looking at a map and this guy came up to us and asked if we needed help. We said yes. So he helped us on our way and we told him that we were missionaries and we explained what we do as missionaries. Then after he told us he believed that there is no God, he invited us to this HUGE college party that is going to happen that night. He was way like not understanding of who we were. He asked if we wanted to come and drink and stuff. We gave him a firm no ... it was pretty funny. Super cool that he contacted us. That usually doesn't happen in Sweden.

Yeah so overall I give this week about a 6 out of 10. Not the best but not the worst! There is room for improvement! I really love it here so much. I just can't believe that I am here. That blows my mind. I love Sweden. I love the Swedish language. And I can't wait to be able to come and show you all how cool it is.

I pray for you all. I love you all. Pray for the missionaries, we need those prayers everyday. Love you all so much! HhHave a great week! Be happya look for ways to make someone's else's day everyday.

Äldste Farnworth

The Tree of Life in The Dome Kyrkan

The Dome Kyrkan of Linköping,
 the second biggest 'Dome Kyrkan' in Sweden.

Loving This Week (3/24/15)

This week went by so fast. But I was able to slow it down long enough to take some pictures. Or at least one. We have made a lot of progress this week! I am proud of what we were able to do! The work is moving forward. It has been a hard few week though, not the work that I am used to, but that was Skövde and this is Linköping. They are different, really good but different. Our apartment is officially "home." As in I cleaned the entire thing, top to bottom, side to side. It was easily the worst thing in the entire world but now I can stop feeling like I am going to get a disease every time I walk into the bathroom. So I can shower in peace. I will have to take pictures of the apartment and send them soon.

So we have this member that we are like really close with. She is so awesome, and as we were leaving her house from having Fika her friend comes in and totally knows who we are. So we set a time to meet again the next week. So Elder Hills and I were on splits and we had a really good lesson. I guess that she has met with missionaries before and she has read the whole Book of Mormon. She told us that she also knows that it is true! When we asked her to be baptized she told us that she had no problem with it, but that she was very busy right now. She doesn't want to get stress out with the goal hanging over her head. So I want to challenge her to be baptized in a like a few days. No goals, just faith. I know she is ready. I am excited to see the miracles happen.

I was talking with this old friend of mine who is transferred and she said something that was really cool. She gave me some really good advice. She told me that "It is only when we sink the lowest can we raise the highest." I love that. I am not saying that I am at a low point but I just like that because that is why I love this Gospel. It is here for us ALL the time not only when we are "good" and "high" but when we mess up and have bad days. It is there for us always. I have really had to depend on my faith that I know that Christ is there and he is listening to me. This belief has gotten me through some of my darkest days here.

Another important thing that I have learned and everyone who learns a new language will know is something you have to suck up your pride and ask for help. I have applied this to all aspects of my mission. The Lord can't physically be with us now, but He has sent people to help us just as He would if He were here with us. We can't do everything by our self. We can't return back to our Heavenly Father without Christ and we can't make it through this world without the help of others around us. He loves us so much He gives us trials. But on the other side He loves us so much He allows us to have people to help us through them. We are so loved. We are so blessed. The gospel blesses lives. We are so blessed.

Have a great week. I am praying for you all so much. Thank you for all the prayers.

Äldste Farnworth

This is the picture of the week, We found this thing in the middle 

of the forest when we were walking. This is why I love Sweden.