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