Flying By the Seat of My Pants

Hey everyone, I'll try and recount everything but this past week seriously felt like a blur!

Tuesday might have been the highlight of the week, we started off with some contacting in the morning and had a few positive street lessons. We went out in the afternoon and did some swing by's in our neighborhood which is where it started to get crazy. A guy named Shaheed biked up to us and started talking and asking us questions. We taught him a little bit about the Church and as we were talking about 5 of his friends come up and start talking to us too. Shaheed tried to show us a youtube video about an old Bible they discovered that actually disproved Christianity but in the video they said the book has been proven to be a forgery...he wasn't too happy about that, I'm glad we don't have to believe just by sight. Like President Packer said, if all you know is what you see with your natural eyes and hear with your natural ears, you don't know very much. We kept walking and some more younger guys called us over and wanted to talk with us, then we talked with some more people who stopped us on the sidewalk a little ways down, it was ridiculous! But that led to lots of teaching in the afternoon and lots of opportunities to share our unique message. We had to run to the train station in Växjö to meet up with and help a missionary passing through but he'd already left by the time we got there so we went into the train station to plan. This guy on the bench kept staring at us and our nametags so we started talking to him. Elder Erikson talked the most since he was next to him and we told him all about the Book of Mormon and gave him a copy and got his number. After that we did some quick swing by's then went home and called it a day. Wow, what a day it was! 

On wednesday we taught an awesome guy named Sulub we met a week ago contacting. He is the most accepting guy I've ever met, he believes in the Bible, Koran, Book of Mormon and any other religious holy book! We taught him the first discussion and it went well, hopefully more to come with Sulub. Something random but interesting about Sweden is the lack of Starbucks. With Seattle as my hometown, I'm used to seeing them across the street from eachother. Here in Sweden they're only in train stations and airports, Swedes love coffee but the popular coffee shops are local, fair-trade, organic type shops. I think I heard somewhere that they drink 6 cups a day on average. In the afternoon we had open church then biked to a member's and had a nice little fika and shared a little message that turned into a long, open discussion. After that we biked home 8 km in the rain! 

Thursday was district meeting in Karlskrona and my companions first district meeting as leader of our district. He did a great job leading the discussion on old goalds and upcoming goals and how we can better set goals. All in Swedish too despite having a greenie in our district! After that we took the train home and met Mia and did a little temple prep lesson since she'll be going to the temple in a few short months! Then an awesome member named Sherlina took us out to Thai food! I love thai food and the options were 1, 2, or 3 chili's next to the dishes for spiciness so I took a nice medium 2 spiciness. I get my red curry soup and try a spoonful and it just burns the back of my throat, this little spoonful! I didn't know what I was getting myself into but it actually wasn't that bad once I started eating it and I managed to finish it no problem! We talked a lot about the branch with Sherlina.

Friday we did lots of swing by's and taught a guy named Ismael who asked to take our picture afterwards with his new camera, how could we refuse! We met with the first counselor at night and talked about the branch and how to help individual members. We had some classic Swedish sandwiches with him, dark bread with cucumber, cheese, ham and butter then went home and weekly planned. 

Saturday we left at 11 am to drive down to Malmö with the branch president and his wife. We listened to a super solid session at night about counsels, temple, family, ward, etc. We slept over at the Malmö zone leaders apartment, Elder Kapp and Alhstrom.

In the morning was the big session in Lund at a big hotel, it was pretty cool to have the whole stake of southern Sweden physically gathered together instead of just broadcasting it like back home. The conference was on keeping the Sabbath Day holy. One thing that really touched me is "Heaven will not be Heaven if we don't love the things our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love". Wow, that really prompted a self-evaluation thinking about the things Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love and how I truly feel about them myself. 

Funny language experience (yes, they still happen): With an old investigator this week I asked him how he felt about "dopas" (doing drugs) instead of "döpas" (being baptized).

Love you all and I pray for you daily! 

Äldste Hainsworth

 Stake conference in comfy seats! 

Our current phone wallpaper

 Yummy thai food

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a riktig kebab pizza

Super cool mall in Malmö

Each one of their escalators was a different color theme

 Me teaching some cool dudes, all you can see is my legs behind the guy in red

We don't mess around with our rice, this is 10 kg of the good stuff

After biking home in the rain  (8 km!) (that's 5 miles!) 

Look I'm the new organist for the Swedish church! 

Open Church Success!

Transfer news! Elder Erikson and I will be sticking around in Växjö, making this my 3rd transfer here in Växjö! Expect great things! Oh and Elder Erikson is the new district leader! 

On monday we found this sweet (kinda sketchy) spot in town that does anything with clothes for 100 kr so I got a couple pairs of pants fixed and hemmed and dry cleaned and I'm taking my American suit pants there to get skinnied, we'll see how they look! At night we went by a less active and chatted with her then tracted some buildings to finish off the night. 

On tuesday it was just bound to be a good day cause we were out and about on the move from noon until 8 at night when we had dinner! We started off with some swing by's in our neighborhood. We met this awesome old investigator named Berhane who has an oooold translation of the Book of Mormon to Swedish which is pretty much Icelandic and impossible to read so we gave him a newer one! He said he might be kicked out of Växjö but will try to come to church! After that we met up with Pontus our investigator at the church and had a dang good lesson. We read 3 Nephi 11 when Jesus comes to the Nephites then taught him the 5 parts of Christ's gospel. He said something I really like about believing in God, "when you believe in something, something believes in you". Think about that...Pontus is really searching, mostly on youtube and about ancient Egyptian Gods and how the pyramids were built by levitation but he's making progress! After Pontus we met an older man who lectured us on how Islam and Christianity need to agree, then went and did some tracting till it was time to go home. Really good, active day, the Spirit works when we're on the move! 

Wednesday we went waaay out from Växjö to some awesome member's house, the Stokes. They're the ones who've been in Växö as long as I have, they moved from London. They're the best, we talked about books and had some amazing indian food (I looove indian food). We talked about temples since the branch temple trip is coming up in a couple weeks. Later in the day we swung by some potential investigator's with no luck so we knocked some doors. That was the day! 

Thursday was district meeting here in Växjö which went really well. After district meeting I went on splits with Elder Albertsen. He's from Farmington, UT, is a state finalist for wrestling and is a stud. Oh and he's the district leader. We had a good time, we taught Ann-Marie the word of wisdom with Jonny present and it went great!! We had ward council at night, then ended the night by talking with a guy on the street about the nature of God. 

Friday we met up with Jonny, the best member ever, for lunch at a place called 4 kronor. It was sooo good and fancy and we just had a good time. After that we hopped on the train and went back to Kristianstand to switch back comps annnnnd I lost my bus pass on the train! I've called some places and hopefully will get it back soon, good thing we have bikes until then! We finished the night with weekly planning.

Saturday we had open church and PEOPLE ACTUALLY CAME IN! Wow this might be a first in Växjö history, 4 people came and checked it out, so exciting! We taught Pontus about the Plan of Salvation then met with a less active then cleaned the church, we were at the church a lot on saturday. We had dinner at the mission leader's house, met with a less active who actually gave us a referal even though she never comes to church! Sweet! 

On sunday Elder Erikson gave a great talk about the Book of Mormon in church. After church we were able to give a blessing and the sacrament to a member who's been having a hard time lately and will be travelling out of the country soon. We had dinner at a muslim family, they're soo nice and friendly and such a great example to me of loving your neighbor and putting family first. The food was from the middle east and it was a solid way to close out the week. The dad told us all about how 9/11 was an inside job by the government and how the first American moon landing was faked by Hollywood. Who would've known? 

Swedish fun fact: Swedes love wearing black New York Yankees hats, I see several every day!  

This week has flown by as I tried to leave this area in the best shape possible in case I was leaving, glad to be staying and able to build off the momentum Elder Erikson and I have going!

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Äldste Hainsworth

  Tracting has its perks

AMAZING red velvet cupcakes from a member

With Elder Albertsen and Jonny

Middle eastern dinner  (mom comments:  I love how they used the broiler pan from the oven as a serving piece, too.  And the limes in their own little dishes.  I also love that Tenny is exposed to so many immigrants, especially in his current town that he gets to stay in for at least 6 more weeks until the next transfer date.  It's like he's able to go to different countries via the people, their food, their language, their homes, etc. )

Charity Never Faileth

This week just flew by, feels like I was sitting at this computer yesterday, crazy how there's almost just a week left in this transfer here in Växjö! 

To recap the week, on tuesday as in a lot of days when the work is slower, we go out contacting for an hour at 10 am after studies, it's a great way to get some fresh air and talk to more people! Then we had lunch and did some area book work in the afternoon. We swung by a potential investigator who couldn't meet at that time so we tracted some buildings after that. We taught our investigator Ann-Marie at night with Thomas, the first counselor of the branch. She starts making tea for all of us and is chatting with her friend on her bed at one point but we finally got the lesson going and it went alright. She's been sick so hadn't read the Book of Mormon chapter we gave her so we went ahead and read it with her and talked about it. We talked a lot about baptism again and why she needs to be baptized again. We hadn't had dinner after the lesson so we went to Pizzeria Excelle and talked about the day.

On wednesday we headed into town to get this dang bike lock figured out. We borrowed these 2 foot long wire cutters to try and cut the lock but we barely scratched the metal on the lock haha so looks like plan C it feels like at this point is the only option. We'll get a tire from the senior couple at zone conference and take it back with us and just take off the front tire and leave it locked to the bike rack and put the new one on. After the bike stuff we contacted a bit in the park and taught the Plan of Salvation to a nice lady. We met Jan-Erik at the church to help clean it, he's back from his honeymoon! Jan-Erik had to wait for Thomas for a meeting after we cleaned and we had open church so we just ended up chatting for an hour about anything and everything, so fun. After open church we headed to a member we home teach who has two MASSIVE husky dogs who are super friendly but I'm pretty sure my companion and I could ride them around Växjö if we wanted. After Tina we bumped into this guy in his mid-20's who was curious about us and asked us lots of questions so we taught him about our church, he wasn't interested in meeting again but we left him with a good taste in his mouth! 

On thursday during our morning contacting we had some great lessons. A slightly crazy really old African man carrying a stick and waving it around invited us to coffee at this library cafe we didn't even know existed in our neighborhood, he said we're always out walking around and we need to sit and rest sometimes. We sat down and had some water and had a good chat about the Book of Mormon and how the gospel can solve many of the problems in the world today, his friend even joined in at one point. After that we went by a Bosnian lady named Amira and her son just happened to be coming over for lunch. So we sat down and taught the Restoration, she didn't speak Swedish well so he translated what we said from Swedish to Bosnian, soo cool! And a member we were supposed to meet who we were running super late to totaled his car and couldn't even meet that day so it worked out great! And the member's ok by the way. After that we got falafel then hopped on our train to Göteborg for zone conference. 

It was great to be back in Göteborg and see some old missionary friends and meet some new ones! Sister Nielson from my group is serving there so I got to catch up with her, and Elder Perkins as well. Zone conference was all about becoming a Preach my Gospel missionary and I received some great personal revelation and have set some goals to improve that I'm excited about. After the conference we grabbed pizza from my favorite spot, I love Pizza, then took a train back to our area with the Karlskrona elders, Hart and Nielson. 

On saturday we went into town and replaced the wheel on the dang bike so we have bikes back after a month! We held open church and did Fika with Americans again, still no one came in, it was raining though. After open church we headed to Teleborg and went by Allu's apartment then met the husband of a potential investigator that we swung by and he said we could come back! He also said he recognized us cause he's a bus driver, it's crazy how many bus drivers know the missionaries but we don't know many of them. After that we went by Marvin's and just had the best time as always, Marvin's been a member for 5 years and is so solid. He played us this windpipe flute instrument that sounded awesome and the piano. 

This was the highlight of the week, sunday. We started off the day by meeting a Somalian lady named Susan who ended up walking to Church with us and we taught her for about an hour and a half at church. We had 17 people in sacrament meeting this week and that's including 3 visitors and an older man named Rolf who we met on the street who came. After church we went by Adam, a bigger muslim man but he was running late so while waiting for him we tracted some buildings. The last building we tracted, right before we were going to head back cause Adam texted us, we meet Lindah! She has an adorable baby and was just so nice and invited us right in, super excited for her and the future! Meeting with Adam was interesting, he's muslim and we basically answered lots of questions he had about christianity and things he didn't understand. We taught a lot and learned a lot about his own beliefs in the process. His wife was a Jehovah's Witness that converted to Islam, that was a new one for me! They invited us back for dinner though and they're super nice people. After Adam we tracted and met Ingajärd, a super old lady that said we could come back and teach God's plan for us. Wow it just felt like such a productive, busy day and a great way to finish the week. 

 I've been studying the Christ-like attribute of charity this week and have come to realize something maybe not profound but something new to me. To have charity for others, we must have charity for ourselves. We need to feel Christ's love for ourselves and our own infinite worth and divine purpose in order to feel that pure, perfect love for others. Once we feel that within ourselves it becomes easy, even natural to share that with everyone you meet, even in your very countenance. So don't forget to give yourself some lovin', you're more awesome than you think you are! 

Love you all so very much! 

 Always felt at home on those 4 square courts

Elder Erikson in action

Love this picture

Apple pie to get in the autumn spirit

(from Sherri:  Love the "A" with 2 dots above it for the Swedish alphabet:) (and I love that these boys bake!)

 Jesus wants me for a sunbeam (a song that's sung in Primary which is like Sunday School for our 3-11 yr. old kids.  The 3 yr old class are called Sunbeams. 

Äldste Hainsworth

USA USA USA!

Hej jo! 

On monday we did the usual p-day stuff then at night we went to a free soccer game at the local stadium, there were probably 3000 people there and it was way fun! We got a lot of weird looks of course cause we were in missionary clothes and sat on the front row but you just gotta embrace it!

Elder Erikson have it as a goal every week to try and get one crazy contact a day, one contact where you're apprehensive cause it'd be so weird or awkward and you just go for it, so on tuesday there was a lady sitting out on her patio smoking and reading the newspaper minding her own business so we just went up and started talking to her and it went a lot better than expected! Being bold and putting myself out there is never something I regret, I just feel happier and excited to talk to more people. We met up with a less active at night who had SUCH a crazy life story, he's stuck here in Sweden cause his kids live here with his ex-wife and he was even homeless for a couple weeks last year, so humbling to listen to him and what he's been through. I had no idea what I could personally say or do to help him but I know the Savior does. After this less active we went and taught Ann-Marie, our old investigator, about the Plan of Salvation. She said she'd never even considered that there's something before this life, just something after. So cool that I get to introduce that concept to an 80 something year old Swedish women for the first time. 

Wednesday we mowed a lawn for a member and had open church and it was overall a good day! 

Thursday we had a good district meeting about improving companionship study to help us in the rest of our day. Thursday night was the branch activity and Pontus one of our investigators came by in the beginning for 10 minutes then had to leave. I'll take it! Sadly some of our other investigators couldn't make it but we had some good bonding with the members, I feel like I bonded with everyone there. We played kubb, bocce ball, had some korv and I shared an improptu spiritual thought as requested by the mission leader.

The last half of the week just felt like the longest couple days ever, no idea why! On friday we went and swung by lots of people in our neighborhood (by the way when I say swing by's it usually means going by a potential investigator who has said to us or missionaries before us that we can come back another time) and contacted lots of people on their way to and from the mosque, of course. We met a great family who said we could come back and teach them, they're Protestant but hey Joseph Smith's family was Protestant too! After that we did some weekly planning then met up with Jonny and walked to Ann-Maries to teach her. We finished going through the Plan of Salvation and drew it all out for her which seemed to help with her talking and getting off topic. We had to explain why she needed to be baptized again, it all comes back to the Restoration and knowing if the Book of Mormon is true, always! On the way home that night a group of teenagers chanted USA USA USA as we walked by. 

Saturday we had open church and were getting tired of no one coming in so we decided to mix it up. We had cinnamon buns and juice set out on the table and put a smaller sign on our big sign that said "Fika with Americans" (Fika is like Sweden's afternoon tea or coffee time but we did juice instead, it can be both a verb and a noun, to fika or to have a fika). We sat ourselves in chairs so people could see us as they walked by as well. We got much better responses from those that walked by, lots of people smiled and laughed when they read the sign but still no one came in!! What will it take to get these people to come check out our super humble but super cool church?! 

On sunday we had church then branch council meeting then set up a new printer in the church then got some stuff done at the church, calling people and planning stuff. Our old investigator Corina surprisingly showed up, she was talking in the back with two members after sacrament meeting and the members said "Elders Corina wants to be baptized! You guys should plan a date for satuday and she can be baptized!". They didn't understand the whole picture and how much we'd worked with her and tried to help her, this might be the only time on my mission when someone wants to be baptized and we as the missionaries aren't letting them. She has some concerns that need to be taken care of before we but especially the mission president will allow it. 

A member said something in church that really stuck out to me, "It's not about living by the letter of the law but by the spirit of the law". This is something we can apply to all aspects of our lives. Like Elder Nelson said, we need to think about what sign we want to give God by our actions, not just constantly referring to a list of do's and don'ts to decide our morals from day to day. As we live with this outlook, we'll find it easier to choose the right and will be blessed! 

Much love,

Äldste Hainsworth

 Elder Neihbur trying to cut off the lock to one of our bikes, no cops even showed up! 

Waiting for people to come in

 Open church!

Växjö main square with a quilting project going on

 "How do I work this thing?"

Clearly I don't know what I'm doing

Branch activity at the Caballero's, playing kubb

here's all the butter's at one of the grocery stores we shop at, haven't seen any lurpak but I can ask my branch president, he's danish! The butter we usually get is called lätta, it's cheap and has a great taste

(from Sherri (mom),  when we lived in Denmark, they had the best butter called LurPak.  They sell it in the states, too, but it doesn't taste quite the same.)