Like, I don't think you realize how much fun I am having. (4/13/15)

Best Boat Ride.

Pearson and I

This week has been a crazy week. I feel like so much good things have happened and then church on Sunday was just the seal that made everything just awesome. We can start with Monday, we went to this island that is in the middle of the lake that I live by, it was really amazing. There is a family that lives there that we went to visit for the evening it was really night! The boat ride home was seriously so pretty and when the sun started setting... Oh man it was perfect. There are some pictures of that boat ride for sure. The family was really nice and we loved being there with them! We met so many wonderful people this week. I feel super duper thankful. 

We got a random call from this guy who had just moved here, his name was Williams and he is so cool. He is African and got baptized a while back, kinda didn't know where the church was here so hadn't been in a while. We quickly fixed that and he was so set on coming to church. The best part? He came! It was really cool to see the ward welcome him so warmly and to have it be such a positive experience for him. He is teaching us a little 'broken English'. Like an African version of English, pretty cool. 

Sports Day!

Youth BBQ

 The Youth of Jönköping are taking the prize for the fellowshipping. Like, I don't think you realize how much fun I am having. They are the best, we got invited to a BBQ and we went and there was a ton of people there! I was impressed, and we had a great time, good music, good games, priceless evening.                            There was even some Kubb that was being played so it was honestly the best. We even played a while bunch of sports again on Saturday and that was good too. Again, a ton of people and a great time. We played soccer and I totally scored nbd. The sun was out! Ah, such a good day! I keep saying that but like all the days are just awesome!

My new Addiction.

We had an another really great lesson with our investigator, Annika. She is so wonderful and someone I love meeting with. If you can't remember she was the one who we have a blessing to and the sprint was really strong. Well she asked if we could come back and give her another blessing! We were super curious as to why, seeing that she said she didn't believe in anything. It was unbelievably cool to hear that she really felt something last time and she even told us she wanted to receive those same feelings again. We talked for a while and had a really great time, we gave her another blessing after explaining those feelings and it was overall a really great lesson. Looking forward to more! 

International Dinner.

Yesterday, I sang in church again! The song was "I Know My Redeemer Lives" which was really fun, I found out on

Saturday morning I would be singing and we threw something together it went well! It was a good Sunday! there were so many new faces in church and the members seemed to be stoked about that. All the members here just seriously rock. Like I don't even know what to do. There are so many kids here too! It makes the ward have so much energy!

Summer time means Summer clothes!

Jönköping is turning it's leaf and becoming summer. Or at least Spring. It is freaking awesome and I just want it to continue more and more. The members are awesome, the work is awesome, the city is awesome. Not to much to complain about! 

Love you all and miss you! 

Äldste Farnworth 

Påsklov is the best and Conference was really good. (4/6/15)

Me in Jöbköping

This week has been a really great one! We have had conference which was really good. I feel like it is a bit bias seeing that I am a missionary and I am just supposed to love it, but regardless, it was a great time. I tried something new this time, instead of just "having questions" and hoping that they would be answered. I wrote exactly what I was looking for down and then I focused on finding those answers in every talk. It required a bit of effort but towards the end, I went through the notes I had type of the iPhone and it was well worth it. 

Well I guess I am cured. If you would have asked me 20 months ago what my opinion was about change was, I would have laughed at you and told you I hated it more than anything. But I guess in the last 11 companions, and 6 areas I have been changed. This last Wednesday there was more change and I didn't freak out! I stayed here in Jönköping but I sent Elder Jones off to Göteborg and I welcomed Elder Pearson! This has been the most smooth transition, not at all because of the people involved. Elder Jones was an amazing companion and one of my best friends that I have received here in Sweden. I just feel like I have changed the way I have placed my faith in the Lord. This transfer switch I just tried to be open to anything, it has been really great so far so I have no complaints! Elder Pearson is from St. George and is really cool, he is a band kid and owns that pretty good.

Samuel and Emilie

Elder Pearson and Me!

Påsklov is the best. It is the last day of Påsklov (Easter Break). Which basically meant all of the cool people came to Jönköping to visit their parents and stuff. So we had a ton of youth activities, in the last 5 days we played Badminton, Volleyball, Baseball, and Soccer. It was seriously so much fun, like I am super good at Baseball, just don't ask anyone I was playing with. They don't know. We had areally good time. The sun was out and we are finally starting to get WARM days, I almost like not sure how to react. But for now I am just choosing to love it. I have decided that I just love Baseball though, that is like the best sport. We had a good time playing that.

Smörgostårta and Joesph, two awesome things!

A Sweden dish that is a little big different from anything we have in America is called a Smörgostårta. Let me tell you, that is a real shame because they are so good. We got a random call from Christoffer and Carolina asking if we would like to partake in some and that call was a day maker. It is a sandwich cake I guess one could say, it is made with Bread, Mayo, Dill, Eggs, Raw Fish (Sill), Lettuce, Lemon, Tomatoes
, Cheese.. etc. It is like the best thing in the world. I'll put a picture to go with it. The little boy is there son and the cutest kid ever.

Påsk Candy from the Sjökvist, Love them.

In Sweden you buy candy by the weight, so you can just get as much as you want. There was a special Easter Sale on the candy so it was only like 5 dollars for a Kilo! SO we got about 5 kilos for conference and during one session I think between about 8 people we almost ate about 4 kilos, so we still have a lot left. Conference was just really good, I felt really good listening to that. One talk that I really liked was Elder Holland's talk about the Lord always being there for us. It was really cool and something that I really loved to hear. It just really helped me understand that the Lord is always there for us, right when we need him. His reaction time is perfect. I gain a lot from that talk.

Feeding the ducks with Joseph!

All-in-all we had a great week, I can't think of too many things that we did this week, I am still a bit crazy from the candy and conference yesterday but I loved this week! I am really excited for what the future holds for me here in Jönköping and in Sweden. I love this gospel and I love that we have revelation that is continuing today and will always be there for us. I love my family and miss you guys greatly! 

Hope everyone has a great week!

Love,

Äldste Farnworth

So we went on a little road trip... (3/30/15)

Me at a museum. 

Family Night Tortillas!

This week was a rockstar week! We really did a lot and had a great time doing it! We can start with P day! We had a great day spent a lot of time with Rasmus and Caroline and then had an awesome night at Family Night. Not that many people showed up but with the few that we had there we had a really good time. We were all really hungry and we had like nothing in the church kitchen expect for flour, oil and water. So we made do with that! We made some homemade tortillas and then dip them into some Cinnamon sugar! It was a ton of fun. Jönköping played Linköping again and we just sat around the radio listening to that and eating food. It was a really close game for most of it but we lost it at the last second. Final score was 4-2 and that was the deciding game for the playoffs for Jönköping but there is always next year! I was pretty upset about, however, even though I was just introduced to this sport about 2 weeks ago... Still, Hockey is really cool. We had a great night. There is a member named Emilie that is here and she was with us, she is the best. Plain and Simple.

This road trip was actually
really fun!

We had the Zone Leaders come for work overs this week. Which are like the most stressful things ever, they both come into our area and then we split for the day both working in Jönköping. So I was scared I was going to just be stressed all day but the day actually was stress free and a lot of fun. I was elder Orr for the day, he is from Middleton, Idaho and is a terribly awesome person! We had a great time! The coolest part of the day was this referral we contacted, it was like way out of the way and with bus would have taken like 4 hours but the Zone Leaders brought their car! So we really capitalized on that, so we went on a little road trip. 

So much fun!

Our cute District!

It was quite the risk, we had no phone number and we only had an address so had we gotten there and she wasn't home it would have been a huge waste of time! BUT faith is real and she was home! She let us right in and we quickly found out that it wasn't her that referred herself but instead a mission that lived with her family about 50 years ago when she was little girl. After this lady found out she had cancer the old missionary offered to send the missionaries to give her a blessing. So there we were. We quickly found out she was an atheist and didn't think that she could ever believe, but nonetheless she accepted a blessing and we gave her one willingly. I was really scared as to what would happen actually, giving a blessing to someone who didn't believe in God seemed a bit crazy, but I was excited. The blessing was awesome, totally deep and really pure. What happened after was the greatest part, after the amen, there was totally silence. Not one word was said for about 5-7 minutes, we just stood there without moving and felt the spirit so strong. She was very touched and couldn't hold back tears. There was no giant conversion that happened there that she said but she was very willing to have us back and it was clear that she felt the spirit. I am so grateful for that. It was an unforgettable experience. Such a tender mercy.

Learning to dance...

The big lift!

We had a great activity this week for the Friday Night Fun Night - we had Ocsar's friend Jonas teach us how to LindyHop! It is a 50's kind of dancing and it was really cool. I guess also referred to as west coast swing! We had a great time and it really made the night awesome. I had to dance with elder Jones the whole time seeing that it probably wouldn't be so great if I danced with a girl, but it was still all good. Towards the end this was a member named Marcus who we created a little dance together it was pretty advance stuff including various lifts and flips! I will include just one picture from that. It was a good night! 

Waffle Day!

We got our transfers call this week, which was awesome! I am staying here in Jönköping and getting Elder Pearson. He is a pretty old missionary so that will be cool. I am pretty excited to stay here a little longer. This place is the bomb.com! To prove my point we had waffle day this last week. Which most missionaries didn't do anything special... Here in Jönköping we had a whole brunch party! Waffles for everyone!! It was a lot of fun, the Väster Frölunda missionaries that were coming for splits just happened to have a waiting time for their connecting train so like they joined in! It was so much fun! 

Different but cool!

Just my lucky number!

We had a killer week to be honest! So much fun and we got a LOT done. The time is just moving so fast I just don't know what to think! Spring is here and that just means so much awesomeness in Sweden! The Sun is out and the people are starting to be happy again! In Sweden they decorate the city with this twigs with feather glued to the top of them. It sounds really weird but is actually really cool! I will send some pictures!! 

Love you all so much! I miss you! 

Äldste Kaleb Farnworth

#TheLife (3/23/15)

Göteborg Zone Laser Tagging!

I don’t even know what to think with how fast the weeks are just flying by. I just feel like every other day I am sitting here writing these emails! This week was a great week though. It was so much fun last P day with going into Göteborg to have some Laser Tag wars with the Zone. We had almost the whole zone there, actually. We had really great time. We had a member named Oscar who is totally awesome drive us into Göteborg, we had a little picnic with just us Jönköping Missionaries and Oscar before we went to have the time of our lives. I did really well, not really. I think my final score at the end of it was like 24 of 26. So like I actually probably sucked, but I got the energy there. I was yelling at everyone like we were invading Vietnam it was so much fun. I think my team won the second match so we were doing something right. It was really cool to take a mini “road trip” I guess you could say to Göteborg. Like it reminded me of my family trip to California! We had a really great time.

The HOCKEY crew!

        This week I just met the coolest couple in the entire world, Rasmus and Caroline. They are the best. They are from Jönköping but studying/working in Linköping right now, anyways, they were in Jönköping for the last 2 week and it took about 10 minutes for me to just love them. They are just l
ike the best people ever. We went to the Hockey game with a bunch of people on Thursday! We had our investigator Tommy come with us and it was SO COOL. Like Hockey is the greatest sport ever. The game was awesome, it was Jönköping against Linköping so there was a lot of emotion attached seeing that I have served in both areas. But due to the fact that I am currently in Jönköping… that is my team. It was a playoff game so it was a ton of fun. We were screaming loud, encouraging all the fights and have a great time. It was overall a great time. Rasmus and I took some sick selfie’s with the players and such ;) We had a great time. Alex treated us to Tacos before the game so literally there was about nothing to complain about at all. #TheLife 

Selfie with Rasmus and the players!
(They are in the background) 

      In not so fun news, we did
get dropped by our most promising investigator this week. It was a rough break but he has decided to stay in his life as a Catholic. It was a really hard lesson but he couldn’t get over the fact that God can actually talk with us! It just made me SO glad to have a testimony of a Loving Heavenly Father. Like seriously though, it was crazy to have someone tell me that God doesn’t waste his time talking to us. It is a huge blessing to know he is there listening and loving us and TALKING to us! So I think it was a hard thing to see him decide this but I feel like I learned a new level of gratitude for the gospel that we have. Like this church is so good.  So there was my very positive spin of a hard missionary moment.

Family Night with the Salo's

       I have just decided to start seeing the world in this new happy light. Like the fact of the matter is that hard stuff happens and there ain’t a thing we can do about it. Not one. But we can be positive! I firmly believe that living with a positive attitude and a happy outlook on life is the way to feel healthy inside! It really changes the way we function! It has totally changed my life. I am so grateful for the hard experiences I am giving the outlook I choose to have. Plus, it is easier when you are surrounded with amazing people who help you feel great too!

Best Lunch Ever. Mums.

      

On Saturday, we had a big lunch with a lot of members after Basketball and that was a ton of fun as well. We went to this Mongolian Wok Bar. So like you get all the stuff you want them to grill for you then they grill it in front of you, it was super good. We were in great company, and have a great time. That night we went to a member’s house for these Fika times. Which are like members that open their house to our investigators and less actives so we can help them feel more comfortable at church, we had quite a turn out! It was really cool actually. The members here are super great and really are missionary minded.

Sister Bolton working hard!

     
We just did so many fun things this week; I will end with a few more. We went to our ward missionary leader also to do some service. I have told you before that he is quite the character… He a super great ward mission leader so it was really nice to be able to come and help him. We cleaned windows for like 3 hours which actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, it went really fast and we were in good company so we had a blast!

'Groupie' at the bishop's dinner :)

       This is getting long so just one more story. Innebandy finally happened again this week! I think the last real game I had was in Gävle and that was too long ago! We had that for the Friday Night Activity and it was awesome. I was rusty though. So that sucked. It took me a while until I could back into it, but I really enjoyed myself. After the game we skipped dinner and just chilled with everyone that was there, we had some super good times with them! Ah, I just love the people that are here. It was great!!

Crazy Week with these guys!

       I know we did a lot this week but it feels like it was literally the fastest week ever. Time is obsolete. I have no idea what is happening, I feel like I will be home before any of us knows it.

       I love you all! I love Sweden SO much, this is home now. I don’t know how I am going to leave this place but we will see! Thank you to everyone who is making my mission the best, both those in Sweden and at home. You all are so great.


Your Swedish Missionary,


Äldste Farnworth

Skövde Part II. It was unbelievably cool! (3/16/15)

This week was the best week ever. It went so fast I can't ever believe it. But it was really fun! 

We started out pretty normal with Family Night and that was really cool I like the people in the youth group here a lot so like any chance to be with them is gladly taken. We have a younger investigator who likes to come so we are like always with him. It is really cool for everyone. We have been really big into making cakes lately, especially Kladdkaka like I said before. So instead of lunch last week we just made a double size cakes on Monday. It was so legit. The whole P day was an over all success! 

Kimberly and her wonderful family

This is Vince and Olof. They are
super cool.

This week I got the chance to go on splits with the Skövde missionaries! Skövde
Part II. It was unbelievably cool. That is the area that it's started my mission so it was really neat to be able to go back there and serve for a few days! We visited all of my good friends and people we worked a lot with! I tried to take pictures with everyone we will see what I have though. We met with the Sahlberg family, Vince, Robert, and then Kimberly and her family. I loved every minute of it, so like I was really thankful for that opportunity to be there. The elder there have been having a hard time getting the work going so I hope that helped! I had so much fun with all of the people I met, It felt really cool to be able to be gone almost a year and a half and then come back and be warmly welcomed as if I had never left. It was so great. I love the people of Skövde and I just wish I had more time to visit with everyone. Some day! 

Beautiful Skövde

This picture, although blurry
Explains him perfectly.

So there is a new program or initiative that we are doing here as a mission and that is to teach the main lessons to someone everyday, even if that someone is a member. We don't have a crazy ton of investigators here in Sweden so sometimes it can be a while before a missionary will teach all the lessons so we are starting to role play them with members and let me tell you... It is so cool. Like I honestly feel the same feeling from what I remember from when they were real. It is a great way to get teaching to feel more relaxed and getting comfortable in the doctrines and such. Plus it is super fun. 

OUR WHEATGRASS!

We are continuing to plant and grow anything and everything. I will send some action in the moment shots of how great they are growing. That is what we do in our spare time.

Found this on the Skövde phone. So cool.

This one is a bit shorter but all in all this week was great. I am loving this area and the members here. I live living on the lake and seeing that every morning! The sun is entering into the Summer Phase do we wake up to that... Let me tell you, that makes waking up like a billion times easier. 

Today we are taking a road trip to like Göteborg and we are going to play Laser Tag with some people and it will be so awesome! So I will have some sick picture for you all soon.

Love you all!

See you soon enough.

Äldste Kaleb Farnworth 

I am not sure life gets better... (3/9/15)

We had a pretty crazy fast week this week and there was a lot of good things that happened! I will start with Monday night, we had an awesome Family Night the young single adults in the ward are the bomb. We had a really great time. We had a picture contest and we ended up making some really funny pictures! I will try to send them and see if that works. It was awesome, we ended the night with a perfect Kladdkaka (a half bake version of Brownies) it is the best thing ever.

#victory

#TheStar

#TangledUp

This whole week we have really done awesome with teaching! We found a new investigator and I really like him. He has been taught before and he is like super cool. He really already has a strong testimony of the church, to bad cause he can't be baptized cause he comes from a Muslim background and it gets a little touchy to change religions. But he really likes meeting and we love teaching him. He is coming to a lot of activities and it is overall really an awesome situation. Pray for him though, he could really use it. 

Sister Powell and Spencer!
#models

We had this investigator class on Thursday and that was awesome. Our Ward Mission leader is pretty awesome, he is like a boss at teaching people. He is a motivational speaker so he better be pretty good, I guess. We had two of investigators there and they really liked it a lot. Heck, I even learned some new things. He is a good guy, from Sweden, went to England on his mission and even baptized a girl whom he later married. Pretty cool I thought. 

My MTC elders! These guys rock.

We also went to Göteborg again! It was a crazy cool day. Everything we learned from the leaders were totally awesome. We had a member of the Seventy come and teach us, Elder Donaldson was his name. Really nice guy, it was cool to get together as always and see my friends that are here. We took some awesome pictures! We had a crazy ride home when the conductor of our train was missing! As soon as the train was to leave, a voice comes and say that when he is found we will depart. We ended up on a bus pulling into Jönköping at about Midnight. Those are the nights to remember, right?

This is me, beating the crap out of Oscar.

This week I literally did more physically exercise than I have like... Ever before. It was pathetic. We had for the Friday Night activity a Boxing night taught from a member who I call 'Prince Charming". He is like good at everything and it's kinda just stupid, haha.  But he came and whipped my freaking butt. We did like a lot of hard things and I honestly felt like I was going to to die. Straight up, I just felt like I was at the end and my little light was going to go out. A little dramatic but those are the thoughts that went through my head as I laid there after it all was over. This was not all we did. The next day was Saturday, which means Basketball. I was so sore that I could barley shower. So basketball was a joke, really fun and I enjoyed it but a joke nonetheless. With the hope that my pain would soon be over as basketball drew towards an end... I remember that we had told the sister we would be there for when they wanted to play a little Volleyball with few members they were working with. On the bright side, they also promised a brief Waffle Break between the two activities. So I ate and then slowly and resentfully back onto the dreaded court. It went well, every time I went for the ball I await a painful shot of soreness to my arms.  It was a bittersweet experience but I felt great after it was over! I felt so accomplished! I realized that I am being completely overly dramatic but I just wanted to try to paint the picture of what I went through and felt. I am glad to report that only two days later, I am recovering quite quickly.

The view from my window... So nice.

This next week is really exciting! I am super stoked, on Thursday we have District Meeting. After that, I will be going on splits to SKÖVDE! Yes! They just doubled in and are having a hard time getting things started so they have asked me to come and set up a few things and help them get in the door with a few people! I made a few calls and I have made a few great appointments! So I am so excited. 

And..... Beautiful Sweden

I can't think much else to say, Elder Jones continues to be an awesome companion. We have a great time together, he is a hard worker and really becomes more and more of a friend to me ever day! Jönköping in itself is becoming amazing. The weather is officially changed, we are coming soon into Spring!! Which like makes everything amazing. I love seeing the sun with I wake up. It is awesome! You can see the weather change in the people, they open up and you see that they are all happy with spring too! 

Sweden is treating me well and I have nothing to complain about. We have had waffles for breakfast everyday this week, so I am not sure life gets better...? Probably not. 

Love you all! Miss you all! 

Your Swedish Missionary, 

Äldste Kaleb Farnworth

These crazy people I call friends. (3/2/15)

This week was really great actually. We had a lot to do and every person that met here is just awesome. So the more I meet, the more I love this area. 

When in a cool church... what do you do?
Take a Selfie.

We can start with the weather. It is finally getting warmer and warmer everyday. I love it, I am finally feeling like the sun is getting normal and that just makes you feel so much better with every phase of the work. I love waking up in the morning and not having it be dark the whole morning. It makes everything happier including the people we met with! We started the week off with Family Home Evening with the youth here, they are really cool and we had a great time with them. They are pretty cool and like all returned missionaries. So that is fun to have a room that we all get it, they also served in England almost every one so basically it is all English. This whole ward speaks more English that I am ever seen before. Like everyone speaks English, which is fun and cool but I am split cause I need to learn Swedish more. So it is like a half struggle. But all in all the ward is amazing. So many nice and young families.. We have a full primary which like changes the feel of church. You don't realize how much the crying babies and laughing babies makes a difference in sacrament. They add a lot of life. So next time you are annoyed with that crying baby in the back... Don't be!

These crazy people I call friends.

We had a few really good lessons this week. We have a lot to work with so that like makes everything a little more smooth. There is always someone to meet and we have a great timing meeting with everyone. The lessons that we taught went up and down we have one guy we meet with that is like really awesome. He is really progressing really fast. Due to a few things, Baptism is looking a little bit longer down the road but we love meeting with him and he loves it as well. We has been coming to church with members since I got here and the ward just really loves him. So that is really great to have to the chance to teach someone so awesome. 

I Love Göteborg!

We went to Göteborg this week and that was AWESOME. It was my first time having the chance to go back since I was just a greenie in Skövde. We had a zone training and that itself was really nice as well. It was all about becoming practicing missionaries. Not just know how to teach the lesson but really KNOWING the doctrine and why we teach what we teach. It felt to give me a new drive to really learn about the things we are doing it was really cool. We took 5 minute videos of us actually teaching some of the lessons by memory and I quickly realized that there can be much improvement in my teaching. So the video was a good way to see what others see. Really cool!

We had a really great sports night on Friday. Volleyball. Our ward mission leader was there, he is awesome. Like a really cool guy, but let him tell you... I hope he is reading this, he can 'smack talk' like no other. Oh man, at first we were on the same team so it was like no problem but when it was switched, it got pretty ugly. But I lost in the end. So I had to be humble and be nice afterwards! That is one of my favorite parts of this area; Like we have a ton of awesome activities that we can invite cool people to come and be awesome. Like it is the best and funnest way to do missionary work!

This beautiful church in Göteborg

Well I have some pictures to give proof of my awesome adventure.

I love you all a lot and hope you are loving life too!

have a great week!

Äldste Farnworth