That was so fun to read your email telling me all about home! So thanks!
This week has been great and the Swedish is coming along. Goteborg is great. We ride the "sporvagn", which is just the tram, and buses everywhere and of course walk a lot too! I like it though and we are staying busy.
So far I haven't been able to do much exploring of the city, because we don't quite live downtown but we aren't far away and go there pretty often for various reasons, but hopefully I will be able to see all the cool sights before I leave. It really is a beautiful city. The architecture of the buildings is really cool, just a little bit older and that looks cool.
When I ran down that rock I was at first a little nervous because I didn't want to do anything stupid, but it was fine and really fun running through the woods with these big rocks everywhere. So far I haven't really been able to find out what a lot of the Americans are doing there. One guy I talked to yesterday said he had a meeting in Barcelona this week so he's probably some sort of businessman. Another guy just married a Swedish woman so he just moved here.
The run with President Newell was good. Running, like jogging isn't really my favorite but I wanted to do it for some exercise after sitting on a plane for a day. It was cool and not too long and it was a fun little run. We ran to a little bay, which was the ocean, but because there are so many islands around Stockholm it just looked like a beautiful lake! We run a little for exercise and we've been able to go to the church and play basketball twice, even though the hoop is terrible it's fun. The last like 4 days we've had Sunday and P-day and then the other two we just didn't feel like running so we've just been doing pushups and ab exercises at night, which is actually pretty good.
Yes, President Newell is a pretty cool guy. He really loves the missionaries and he's told us some random stories about different things in his life already which is cool. Yea, I'd like to get to know him well because he seems like such an amazing guy! One thing I've noticed is he just always does little nice things or a little bit of service and just seems like a very polite and soft-spoken person. Like I said I'd like to get to know him better!
I need to add in some stuff that we did this week! First of all here is the Mission home address where you can send mail and packages if you ever want to:
Enebybergsvägen 38
182 46 Enebyberg
Sweden
Also I need to tell you and awesome story that happened this week! So we call this less/inactive guy and ask him if we can come and visit him. He says "yea that would be great" and so we schedule a time. Later in the week we go and really lucky for us, the Elder's Quorum president loves missionary work. We told him a lot of information and told us he could give us a ride out there to meet this less active guy, whose named Ludvig, because it's on his delivery schedule (he's a head delivery guy for a store) and it's right when we need to go over there! So he's super nice and actually stopped at a gas station and bought us Dr. Peppers! Anyway, we get there and thank him and call Ludvig. Ludvig meets us there and says that it is a 40 minute walk to his house! So we walk there and talk to him and he's telling us all about himself, thankfully in English so I can understand :), and his life and how he grew up with 4 different families and all about this what sounded like slightly crazy life. I had a weird thought as we were walking as I just felt a strong compassion for the guy and wanted to help him and the specific thought was to have the Lord "pour out his blessings" upon this man and I don't know why I thought that but then I was thinking that maybe when we get to his house I could pray for that, and then I thought that actually that would be more of something to put in a blessing so I was just like, whatever and forgot about it while we walked there. The walk was so beautiful. Everything was super green and wonderful and we walked right next to a stunning Swedish lake! It was such a cool place and I'll send some pictures in a little bit hopefully! We walked by all these fields and by the lake and then we get to his house and it's a little red cabin. It was one room on the bottom that was small and then another room upstairs that is small as well. It was seriously just a tiny cabin!. Anyway, we get there and he says that he is really good at not drinking beer or coffee or anything but sometimes he smokes and he was wondering if we could give him a blessing to help him! My mind started to think of the thought I had on the way to his house but then I brushed it off again because certainly he would want it to be in Swedish because he doesn't speak great English and then I don't know Swedish yet! My companion asks him who he would like to give the blessing and he then he says me! I was shocked, but gave him a blessing in English and included the thought I had on the way there in it! We had a good lesson with him where we shared a message from the Liahona. After we left I was telling my companion the whole thing with having that thought on the way there and my companion said that he knew as soon as he asked Ludvig who he would like to give the blessing it was going to be me! It was really cool just that it was the first time so far on my mission that I was really helping, like I was really sent there with a purpose that I could see and sent to a place where the Lord needed me! I hope that guy really needs those blessings, and hopefully he can start coming to church! The only problem is that he doesn't have a car and so it is a very far trip.
Also we should have a baptism this Saturday for a man named Petter! He is ready but he might want to take some more time.
Thanks so much for writing me though! I love it and love everything that you say and thanks for all the nice things you say at the end of the letters. I'm just so lucky to have such great parents and such an awesome and amazing family! Love you all and pray for you and miss you!
Love,
Äldste Ward
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