This Week Has Been Awesome! (4/21/14)

Hello Family!

I hope you all had a wonderful week this week! We have been blessed here in Sweden with AMAZING weather. The sun has been coming out more and more. We are currently having more sunshine than darkness. I think this week the sun has rises at 5 am at the earliest and sets at about 8:30 pm - so I am just loving it. Completely different from what I came into in the dark times of winter. We are officially entering into the "Amazing, Wonderful Sweden Summer Season." That isn't a really title for it but I just think it is rather fitting.

In other news before I just jump into this week, there is a transfer coming up on the 30th. I really hope that I will stay in Linköping. There is so many great things that are about to just burst and I am so excited! If I leave I will just be excited for the lucky missionary that gets to reap the reward of some hard work!

This week has been awesome. We have met with this family, the Ericsson's, that I absolutely love. It will be okay to put their name on my blog because like every other person in Sweden has that last name. So that is really cool. They are awesome! The mother is a member and she is really nice, and she hasn't come to church in a few years. But she is so nice to the missionaries. The whole family is really awesome. We have been visiting with them since I first got here. I love it. On the ride home from their house last week, I was talking with her daughter and she said that she would be excited to start learning more about our church! So that is way exciting! We will be meeting with them this Friday! I am very excited about that!

They do celebrate Easter in Sweden. The Swedish word is Påsk :) haha It's super sweet. But they don't celebrate the birth or resurrection of Christ, they just all get wasted. Like hardcore wasted. Like I was talking to a girl on the bus and she was 16 (keep that in mind, 16). When I asked her how she was going to spend her Easter evening, she told me that she was going to go get wasted. Straight up she said that. It was insane to hear.

With our other investigators we have not been able to meet with too many this week, seeing that it is Easter week and all. However, many of them are moving forward very quickly! This area is going to explode!

Sorry this is not super detailed but this week was kinda weird! I can't believe how fast it is all going. #8MONTHS! Like where the heck is the time going? I love you all but I don't want to see you all too soon. I love Sweden and this work way to much :) I love you all!!

Hej då!

Äldste Farnworth

Service time! We gardened for five hours! Awesome!

Spring is here! (4/14/14)

My Dear Family,

This week has been really good! It was kind of a hard week seeing that last week we were so busy we weren't able to have a good planning session so that tends to carry over and make the following week a bit harder. But nonetheless this week was fun. We found out that one of the Elders here, Elder Steen (who is not my companion :) is moving to Malmö!  That is gonna be so cool for him. We are getting a new missionary here in Linköping. I think it will be awesome, he is Finnish and hasn't really been in the mission to long. So that will be a nice change of pace.

This work in Linköping is hard. Not like Skövde in any sense of the word. I love it of course, I just am being pulled and tugged in many different ways and it is amazing how much it can take from you. I am now starting to understand how missionary talk about being tired from their own missions. I truly understand. The work continues on, we met with our investigator this week, Mahin, she is great, I have so much love for her. She loves us missionaries as her children, when we asked her in what order she loves us, she said that "We are all her special sons, and in our own way we have different things she loves about us. " We have been talking a lot about baptism with her and I know she is so close! I would love to be here when she decides to take that step. She is so amazing, I look to her as an example. 

I got the email about Zachary, holy cow how the freak is he? That is terrible about the earthquake, seriously so scary. I'm glad he is ok.  I was bearing my testimony about the strength of members yesterday it was really cool to be able to testify that as members we are all families.  I told the story of Zachary and how strong they all were when they pulled together that was a really cool thing to talk about. That is why I love these small branches, we are seriously a small family. Everyone is very aware of everyone else and we just love each other.

This week has gotten better and better the more I watch conference! I have seen almost all of it! I just have the Sunday afternoon session but I think that I am going to watch that today! I absolutely loves the morning session of Saturday and Sunday! Honestly it was so good. Right now I think that the priesthood  session has the trophy in my eyes. I really enjoyed that.

Spring is here. The trees are so close to blooming and the flowers are going crazy, they have wild flowers that just grow like crazy around here. I love it, I will have to send pictures soon. I have already commented on the clothing issue, so I will just add that it is progressively getting worse and worse every sunny day. I love the sun, they literally set up benches that all these Swedes will just sit on and just soak up the sun. They close their eyes and just face the sun, it is the funniest sight.

Today we went to the park and just laid in the sun by this cool church. The sun feels so good. I love that I can feel it again. All throughout winter you can't feel heat from the sun. It is amazing to feel the warmth again. Makes me feel so happy. They say the the most productive time to work as a missionary in Sweden is during the summer so I am so excited to see everyone here become to happy! I am including a picture of the park we were at, it's the one with the church in it.

I can't believe that my birthday is coming so soon! I want it all to just slow down! I felt like I haven't been out that long, the school year is almost up too! That is crazy, Jacob will be a senior next year and Megan will be starting high school! I think that it just needs to stop, yes that would be great :)

I love it here, I am hoping that work picks up a little more but that will only come with hard work and pushing myself further than ever before! I love the people and missionaries around me! I am thankful for you as a mother and my wonderful support system. I love you all! I hope you have a great week!  

SÄldste Farnworth

It's spring in Sweden!

Aldste Farnworth and his comp Aldste Stoeltzing

I am so tired every night..I look forward to hitting my head against my pillow! (4/7/14)

Well this week has been a great week. Elder Stoeltzing and I are really taking off. I am so tired every night and am always looking forward to hitting my head against my pillow! My sickness is just slightly lingering but not enough to complain so that is great! We had so many great lesson this week. We have this one investigator who is from a small country in Africa who is 19, and studying here alone. That is quite common here. Anyways we met her about 4 weeks ago when we were in the town, Mjölby. We called her and she was very open to meet and teaching her has been going great! We have been introducing various parts of the gospel and she really has been responding very very well. So this last lesson we centered the entire lesson around Baptism. We read from 3rd Nephi 11 and that is the way that can see the word of Christ go to work. He highlights what is truly the most central points of HIS church. It was a amazing lesson. She committed that once she found this gospel to be true to be baptized. It was really awesome to have that strong of a lesson with her. I am really excited to meet with her more and help her come closer to Christ.

We also have been working with the sweetest lady in the world. Her name is Mahin. She is from Iraq, she is so smart and is working toward her PHD in mental illnesses or something like that. She has been meeting with missionaries for a long time and I feel that her time to come unto Christ is coming soon. We had a very strong lesson with her on last Sunday night and that was amazing as well. We asked her very firmly if she would follow the example of Christ and being baptized. She got very emotional and it was a tender moment. Although she did not set a time or date that she would be baptized she showed such a storing desire to receive an answer to the questions through prayer. We will be meeting with her again soon and I am excited to see how that will go.

This last week we have come in contact with a lot of new Less Actives and it is so great to see these people who have not met us before just inviting us to their homes and allowing us to share a message with them. I love working with these people here. I honestly feel like so unbelievable blessed to be here in Sweden.

It was weird I had the dream a few nights ago that I got transferred to another mission and I had only one more week in Sweden. I was so sad! I really wanted to stay in Sweden! Nonetheless I am very glad that I have 2 years left here in Sweden. The summer is coming! It is so amazing here I am like a Master Professional iPhone photographer. I have taken some sweet pictures. If only I had my Instagram. I'm joking of course!

Sweden is amazing. We watched conference yesterday and that was super cool. I love my branch here. It was so funny, we had the session being translated in Swedish in the main room and in the closet we had it in English. We ended having more people watching it in English than we did in Swedish! It was really funny. Then because we are so small. We stopped and had a pretty great lunch then continued one to watch the rest. We watched the Saturday sessions on Sunday and then I will just watch the Sunday sessions this week sometime. I am pretty excited. They were so good.

I. Found. The. Beach. I knew it was only a matter of time until I would be lead to the beach. Elder Hills and I were on splits and we were in the city, Motala. That city is right on the shore of one of the biggest lakes in Sweden. We found a legit beautiful beach. With sandy shores and all. It was unreal, so yes. I. Love. Sweden.

This week was a blessing. I made some new friends and I really felt that I gave it my all. The Lord is real and he is preparing and blessing the people here in Sweden. I am so grateful every day for the little and huge miracles that I see everyday. He has and is answering my prayers but only when I pray with the spirit and follow the commandments and will of The Lord. I love you all, thank you for everything you are doing for me so that I can be here doing this most important work I am so grateful. I hope you all have great week!

Äldste Farnworth

Me and Elder Hills by the lake

Beautiful street in Sweden

Me on a cold day

#that'sSwedenforya (3/31/14)

Thank you so much for getting that package going, that is awesome. It is now raining season here in Sweden so glasses are not the best things to have right now. Super annoying so I am looking forward to those contacts :) Thank you a ton. I am feeling much better. I really am, I have stuff that they gave me. I think it was like the flu but I never threw up, I just got a lot of fevers and stuff. Not fun but I am towards the end of it now so I am happy. Just coughing and crap like that, nothing to bad. I never went to a doctor but I had to buy some stuff to fix it. But that pain is compelety gone, so that is good! I have had a great week! It has been so warm here I am just very happy! They say that it will snow today but that is Sweden. Really though, one day we could have complete sunshine and it could be wonderful. Like amazing weather and then the next day.. BAM. Snow. I don't know what to think when that happens.

Another fun thing about warm weather is that what is happening to everyone clothes! They are disappearing! Like magic, dark evil magic that is. It really is crazy, I have seen more crap in this area than I have probably ever seen in my entire life. Maybe that is why God makes it randomly snow, so girls will put there clothes back on! Haha it isn't that bad, I am just being dramatic, but I do hear that it will get a lot worse as it get warmer and warmer. I need to get a pair of blinders or just learn to walk while starring at my feet, one of the two. The biggest problem is our neighbor who lives under us, she just loves to do all of her house work (cooking, cleaning. folding clothes...) Naked! It's so crazy, she even has blinds and just chooses to have them open! #that'sSwedenforya

This week has been a really good week with lessons and teaching. We have really put a ton of work into meeting and helping eveyone that would allows us to come! It really paid off though, I really felt super good about the work that we did. We have our investigator who is just progressing so much. Last night we had amazing lesson with her. We just plainly told her that baptism was something that would HELP her. She said that she would honestly think about it. I am pretty stong faith that she will enter into the waters of bapitsm soon! Then we have out other investigator, probably shouldn't throw out all of their names, there might be a rule against that. But she is also coming along very good, She said that she would try and come to family night tonight, so that is pretty exciting. I am really hoping that she comes! We met with her last night as well and that went really well. I think we will progress with her quickly, once she receives an answer about the Book of Mormon.

Thank you so much for all of your prayers, I feel the effects of them very strongly. I love you all so much. I love you mom. You are the greatest I could ever ask for! Never forget that God loves us all so much, competely and fully! I can't believe that Max is skinny now, you need to send me pictures. Also just send me picture of the house I feel that you have changed so much! Can you believe that we talk to each other in like 2 months? Where is the time going, honestly could someone tell me cause I have not a clue.

Jag alskar alla er så mycket. Ni är fint. Hoppas ni alla har en jätte bra vecka!

MVH, 

Äldste Farnworth