Happy Mother's Day to my wonderful mother! (5/11/15)

Dear Family!

A very Happy Mother's Day to my wonderful mother! She is the best and I owe so much to her! Without her, I know I would not be even close to the person I am today. I love her so much and hope she had a great day yesterday. I loved Skyping and seeing my crazy family, they are pretty awesome and make me really excited to come home, but not trunky so don't worry! 

This week has been one of the longest weeks ever! There were so many amazing moments but I feel like it was a bit never ending! I think we successfully had some sort of youth activity almost every single night! It is coming up on Summer time so I am really getting excited. Summer time in Sweden is so pretty and above everything else... Everyone is out of school! If only the weather would start to catch up as well! 

Taco Night! Left to Right: Sam, Viktoria, E. Pearson,
S. Sandelin, William, S. Gardner, Me, and Marina!

On Wednesday we wanted to eat Tacos for dinner, because Swedish Tacos are the greatest food in the world! I think I could eat only those for like ever. But what started as just a meal idea turned into a really awesome night! The Sisters wanted in and soon we had a good group that was coming. It was really cool. The coolest part? Viktoria brought a friend, his name is Sam and he is the coolest guy ever! We had a lot of awesome people there too! I will be sure to send a picture of everyone. We had a great night. 

We met with Sam the following few days and he is really awesome! I love that guy, he come from a different religious background so it is really interesting to be able to see how he thinks when it comes to our church. He has come to a lot of activities we have had. Including the Sunday School class we had on Thursday, Our ward mission leader taught the Plan of Salvation. It was really great! Sam loved it. We also had our investigator Tommy come as well to that class. It really feel so good to have these people come to the church! It kinda allows you to literally see the good and the difference you are making. It was an awesome night! 

The beautiful Lake in Nässjö

The missionary work is going forward and I am loving it. We had a really cool thing happen to us this week too! We were running hard core to catch this train, like sprinting through this train station! We realized that we we okay with time, having about 3 minutes until it left so we start walking, then we notice a man running toward us, he finally catches up to us and asked over and over: "Are you guys Elders?!" I answered and then he says: "What is your message about? What do you guys believe in?" I was like.. What? haha it was amazing, he totally like caught me of guard, So I explained very simply what we believe and then we notices we need to catch this train so he asks to exchange numbers. I end up calling him on the train and it was like really cool! I am excited to see where that takes us!

Adventure Golfing with Marina!

We went golfing on the clouds! It was awesome. I think someone said it was the highest point in Jönköping, but it was a sorta foggy day so when were at the top we were above the low clouds. It was so cool. You couldn't see anything. We played a few rounds of mini golf and it was like the funnest thing ever. We were split into two teams, My team was Alex, Marina, and Me. Elder Pearson's team was him, Viktoria and Jonas. It was a lot of fun. However, towards the end of the round of golf, we were pretty bored. The other team had already gone inside so we created a new game! Adventure Golf! Basically we would start at like Hole 3 on one corner of the course and the hole we would be aiming for would be Hole 12 in the opposite corner. It was insanely fun. Adventure Golfing on the Clouds, its hard to beat that in awesome P-day activities.

If you are wondering what a sick missionary looks like

The down side of the week is that I got sick. I went to sleep totally fine and then it just hit me like a ton of bricks. Not too much fun. There are some awesome members that took good care of me so it was pretty nice. But I do always miss home when I am sick, I just need a mother to take care of me. We had a good sports night on Friday, we played Volleyball and it got really intense. Towards the end everyone was kicking the volleyball at each other and then just moments later, everyone was together kicking the balls at me. #thestruggle it was really fun. The next day, Viktoria wanted to give us hair cuts! Which was a little sketchy seeing that she is educated to cut dogs hair, but I figured if she can make a poodle look good she could probably cut my hair as well! I was the first that dared and she is really impressed me! It looks really good! After I went, Elder Pearson wanted to cut his and even Sister Sandelin got hers done too! It was like the crazy thing. We had a lot of fun - I love it here. 

The best kids ever.

Sunday was a stressful day, I loved it and there were so many great things that happened! Sam came to church and there is a class that the ward mission leader teaches and he teaches in English, mainly because the whole class is full of people that prefer English instead of Swedish. But Sam is a Swedish speaker so I offered to translate from English to Swedish, it felt really cool. Basically the whole lesson it came really easy to do it! It like a little victory moment to have that. Don't get me wrong here, I am not saying I am perfect at Swedish but I am not also saying that I suck. Sunday was a good day! Christoffer and Carolina invited us over to eat and Skype at their house. I love them, they are the greatest! Like seriously, the best. Skyping with my family was great! I loved it, it was very big moment that the end is coming. It was a bit scary and overwhelming but something that I am looking forward too. In no way am I saying I am bored with my mission or the calling I have I am just looking positively forward to what the future has to bring! It should be great, but I still have a lot to do here and now!

That is kinda something I wanted to end with, looking forward not backwards. It has been one of the most recurring themes of my mission. It is really hard to do that, when something great happens I often find myself dreading the end of that moment fearing that I won't be that happy again. I find myself taking SO many pictures trying to stop time or ensure that I never forget. But I as I have served here and met and talked with so many amazing people I have realized, if we live our lives always looking backward wanting to constantly wanted to go back, we will never be able to grow and become the person that ultimately the Lord wants us to become. With this mindset, I am able to catch myself when I look back longing to be there and I can turn myself to see the amazing opportunities that lie ahead of us. It has been a life-changing principle to learn on my mission. Something that I use every day and that gets me through the hard days and makes me love the great days so much more! Be happy, Be optimistic and know that the future has so much for us! Elder Holland says it so great in his talk Remember Lot's Wife: 

"Faith is for the future. Faith builds on the past but never longs to stay there. Faith trusts that God has great things in store for each of us and that Christ truly is the 'high priest of good things to come.'"

Äldste Farnworth