sea2swe: 3rd Week in Sverige!

Gud morgon from here in Kungsbacka! This week has been pretty solid. To start off, I don't think I mentioned this before but I lost my MSF (missionary saving funds) card when I was packing in the MTC, it's the debit card you use to buy groceries and all that good stuff with. Soo I've been piggybacking off of my Äldste Christensen's card the last 3 weeks, we're running out though so hopefully my new card comes soon!

The ward here in Kungsbacka is so awesome. They'res a lot of less actives but the active members are so great, they love the missionaries and we get a pretty good amount of member dinners. About 75 people come to church every week and so we've got quality here in Kungsbacka, just gotta work on quantity! Some things that need work in the ward though are first, home teaching. Literally one person does home teaching here in the whole ward, and they'res really no excuses cause everyone lives pretty close together and most of them are relatives!! Just go home teach your son and his family that live down the street! Also the social aspect is tough here in Sweden since everyone's so busy, so there's a lot of good activities for the youth but not so much as far as ward activities and all that. We need to get those going so that when we tell people to invite their friends, they have something to invite them to! Also, the chapel's here are a lot smaller, just like everything else in Europe haha but it's great for this ward and a lot of stuff is made of wood of course.

On wednesday we went to the Svenske Kyrkan for an event called "Israel's Role in World History". We were going to count it for our language study for the day but we walked in and the chapel was empty. But it was a really cool old European church so we walked around and checked it out. It was cool to see the inside of one and it gave us a new perspective for sure. Most of the people we talk to are baptized in the Svenske Kyrkan just cause haha it's crazy. Like one old guy we knocked on his door, asked him if he had any thoughts about God, he said he was Christian. We got excited and asked him if he read the bible or goes to a church, and he laughed and said no, he just watches tv. So a lot of people are baptized cause why not but not many people are actually religious.

We went and met up with Jonas, a black guy from Congo, at a pizza place. Jonas is a smart dude who's studying philosophy right now. I'm super excited for him cause he asks really hard but really good questions about religion and it seems like he's prepared to receive the gospel. He articulated his experience with religion as that most people look for an existence, like God, then meaning will come in their lives. For Jonas, he said he has meaning, he feels God's love in his heart, but he's still looking for the existence, the truth, proving that God is there. He's a great guy and I hope we can help him out.

We've been baking a ton of cookies in the morning's to give to member's and less active's that we visit. We're pretty proud of our...housewife skills I guess you could say, they just turned out really well haha people think the Sister's made them sometimes. So if there's young women out there that are thinking about going on missions but are worried about giving up baking for a year and a half, there's hope! I've baked a ton so far! Also I've been working on my cooking skills, we have a Swedish mission cook book and we get tired of making the same stuff so we're mixing it up and trying new stuff.

We went down to Varberg this week on Thursday. The way people told me about Varberg it sounded super positive and the people there are a lot nicer and all this stuff. They were either in a different place in Varberg or different town altogether cause everyone was kinda mean to us and just really prideful. That was a tough day, combined with the fact that we were getting off a sugar addiction I'm pretty sure. But we stopped by this less active's apartment on the way home and he's amazing. He's from Iran and says he could be killed for being a Mormon if he goes back to Iran. He's trying to get a job and residency right now and has a super strong testimony, just no reliable way to get to Church on sunday. He made my week though because he thanked us for being missionaries cause it was missionaries contacting in Varberg that ended up converting him and changing his life.

On saturday I hit my two month mark out on a mission! It feels like forever but it always feels like the time flew by haha time is pretty weird on a mission. I've been trying to improve my pronunciation this week, the Swedish members help me out a lot cause I sound super American right now and people will ask me where I'm from as soon as I talk. But it'll come with time, I know it!

We've been sharing a message of member missionary work and I just want to share it with y'all, it's pretty simple, three points. 1. Be a good example and people will notice 2. Bring up the gospel or even just gospel words in everyday conversation 3. When you invite, you succeed. We've been trying to get the member's involved in missionary work and I hope they'll apply it in their lives, even a little bit.

All vår börjän bliver svår, men det gå bättre år för år!

Äldste Hainsworth

you could call us the relief society of kungsbacka (The Relief Society is the name of the women's organization in the Mormon church) Tenny said they've been making these cookies, then handing them out to people they meet or are meeting with. He said the Swedes normally eat super healthy snacks, like cucumbers and tomatoes, but sometimes they eat these cookies when Tenny & his companion are meeting with them. He said they got the recipe out of the Swedish Mission Cookbook.) (I'm trying to see if these have chocolate chips in them. When we lived in Denmark 10 years ago, you couldn't find chocolate chips anywhere in the country. We had to bring them with us from the U.S. Maybe Sweden has chocolate chips or an equivalent).

(I love that you can see Tenny & his comp's reflection in the sign)

(3 of the pics Tenny sent this month had wide bands covering half the picture. I hope his camera is ok)

varberg, would love to go back and tour it more!

ford collage we made for a weekly challenge competition our district has (which Tenny & his companion won!)
(Sherri here: I told Tenny too bad he couldn't be seen clearly. And asked if they did this because Ford is an American brand,)

haha that's the point, it makes the middle thing stand out. And yeah cause they're not as common here. And yeah photo challenge