Argumentatively the greatest selfie ever. (7/13/15)

Just the view from my bedroom #nbd

The end is no longer something that I am seeing the future, the end is something that I am officially in. It is the now. It's funny, I feel like I am just as nervous to come home as I was to come out. I feel like it is the great unknown and what I am living now it the normal. I love my mission, I love everything I do and the hardships I face and have faced. I see everyday as a chance to start new through the Atonement, I see the hope and the pure joy that the Gospel can bring to anyone that is willing to except it. I love this so much, I really was hit with the fact that I am getting to the point that it will all end. I think for the most
part that people believe that is it just a happy and exciting time, don't get me wrong it is awesome, but it is a waterfall of emotions. I am just trying to take them all in and process them! I am choosing to go forward to with faith in God that he has a plan!

So many strawberries.

This week was amazing, I am starting to just love everything that I do! I swear, the Lord is saving the best for last! It really has been an amazing week! We started this week with a super awesome-packed P day, we went to this big strawberry farm. It was like huge, we went and basically picked a ton of strawberries! You would pay for what you wanted to take with you but while you were there picking you could eat as many as you wanted, so we really took that seriously, we ate the day away while we chatted and had a great time! We ended with a BBQ and Volleyball, so yeah, I am not sure that day could have been better. 

We are really trying to continue to take advantage of the nice summer heat and atmosphere that it brings to Sweden! There are a lot of people there that take all of there vacation days at once, and in Sweden, everyone gets a minimum of about 25 day off (working days) So a very common excuse we have gotten from a lot of people is simply: "Sorry, I won't be available the month of July. I will be taking my vacation then." Like there is not much to do when they say that, Swedes love to escape the country they live in and often go to Italy, France, or anywhere that is slightly warmer. It is pretty funny! It does have a big effect on the type of work we do and we are trying to just spread goodness in anyway we can! 

This lady is the best!

We have this lovely friend named Victoria, she is the coolest. We often have meals with her, I am sure I have sent home pictures with her before. If you can't remember I will send some more. Anyways, we have been working with her for a little while now and I just love it. She is so much fun to be with! On Wednesday, I feel like I got a little bit of a taste of what Zachary had the luxury of having on his mission: a "mamita."Victoria offered to come and make us lunch at the church, it is true that we get fed in Sweden by people quite a bit but it was just really funny having here talking about how we can make a lot so we can have extra to take home. She made this awesome food, and when I told that she was making me feel like I was a missionary in Chile enjoying the benefits of it. It was really fun. She thought that it was funny too. 

Argumentatively the greatest selfie ever.

I went on a wonderful exchange this week. We switched with the Boräs Elders, I took with me Elder Blackburn back to Jönköping. It was seriously so awesome. I had a great time, hopefully he felt the same. It was really cool to be with him, it was a little weird when we realized that he has been in Sweden the same amount of time that I have left... ahhh. We talked a lot about life and such and all that stuff that you talk about when you are meeting new people. Pretty quickly we found out that we have a lot of the same interests. It made it really fun, we spent the day with Saneeka, she followed us on our lessons and the whole day I was really impressed with Elder "Blackbjörn" (Blackbear), that is what I call him. He is like really going to do amazing things while he is here, he is already like so much more prepared then I was when I was in his shoes, so it was cool to see that. All-in-all we had a boss time, surely a highlight of the week.

The dream team

In the mission right now we are focusing on The book of Enos and 2 Nephi chapter 9. I have been studying them a lot lately, and they have so much amazing things in them. A daily 1- hour personally study just isn't enough. I feel like there is so much in the scriptures that we will never truly understand. I find myself re-reading verse 5 or 6 times before I truly start to grasp what the Lord is trying to tell us. How awesome is that? It makes me so excited to see and that we have such a great time and chance on this earth to learn and grow so much as people. We are simply here to learn and grow, that is pretty nice.

America... You have to compete with this. #goodluck

The Members here in Jönköping continually are getting better and better to us, the relationships I am forming here are quickly becoming those relationship that I know won't end when my time here ends. I love it here so much, I love the people, I love the language, I love this country. I am ready for life to continue on in the States but I am also so sad to see this part of my life coming to an end. It has been so good to me. We have a killer week, again, set up and I just can't wait to start! I love you all, I miss you all. I'll end my saying I know God lives, and I know that we Loves us. All, as his literal children, because that is what we are. 

Ha det bra allihopa!

Äldste Farnworth