sea2swe: From Tiny Suburbs to Big City

Hey family and friends!

Transfers are in annnnnnnnd I'm excited to head to Norrköping, following in the tracks of Elder Baquedano my dear old French companion. My new companion will be Elder Barnes and he's a stud, he slept over at our apartment for a zone conference a few months ago. It was hard saying goodbye to so many wonderful amazing families and friends from the Vendelsö ward. I was told when I first came to the area 4.5 months ago that the new chapel would be open in about 2 weeks from then. The date rolled around then passed by, no chapel. This was a pattern that continued these last couple months and finally on sunday, yesterday, my last time at church, we had our first sacrament meeting in the brand new chapel. It felt right to get up and bear my testimony on my last sunday there. It was a sweet farewell.

Busy busy last week in Vendelsö! The investigators are doing well and I feel good leaving this area with the work that's been done. Vendelsö is a happening place right now! Our big new investigator, Kasim, is a refugee from Turkey that has been living in Sweden for 15 months. He's completely alone here and has managed to learn some Swedish, pick up a job and a modest apartment to live in. He met with the sister missionaries in Västerhaninge two weeks ago and they've passed him on to us since he lives in our area. He's read the Book of Mormon seven times in these last 2 weeks and been to church both weeks. He wants to be baptized because he has a strong testimony of Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon. He always talks about how once he's Mormon the 3 of us are going to travel back to his homeland of Turkey and do missionary work and baptize thousands! You never know what the future holds! We've been meeting with him daily and working to help prepare him, especially by quitting smoking, so please keep him in your prayers!

Mikael is on track to be baptized the 16th of July, it's too bad I can't stick around for that but he's in good hands with Elder Groberg. Kasim is also progressing quickly towards baptism and is going to make a fantastic member. Mayra and her daughters are doing well and are reading and praying right now, willing to act on the answer they receive. The member missionary work is improving as we work with our awesome ward mission leader Kent to get members involved in the missionary work.

Elder Groberg and I have been tossing the football around in the front yard a lot this week cause it's so nice. We work on verb conjugations by having to conjugate a verb every time we throw the ball. My spiral's getting better but I'm no Russ Wilson yet.

I have a testimony of hindsight and perspective. There's so much I miss in my day to day happenings because my head is down and I'm not paying attention, figuratively speaking. There's so much to be gained and so much satisfaction that can be obtained from taking some time to look back and reflect and see how far you've really come. That's a pattern that has done me a lot of good and taught me lessons that I otherwise would miss. As I look back in hindsight on a day as I write in my journal, a week as I write these letters, or an area as it's time to move on to the next one. I pray that like Paul of old, I can say "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith".

Catch ya next week from Norrköping!

Love,

Äldste Hainsworth