Monday, December 9, 2013

November 25, 2013

Dear Family!
 
To start off, today in Karlskrona it is a beautiful day!  The sun is out and there is not one cloud in the sky!  The water of the sea and the streams and rivers is just so blue and makes it a great p-day.  I am probably thinking it is really nice because basically everyday here is cloudy, it actually reminds me a lot of Michigan...I wonder if Sweden or Michigan has more cloudy days.  As far as I can tell, Michigan and Sweden have the same weather patterns.  Always cloudy and a long, cold winter with snow that might come by Christmas if you're lucky. 
 
I was ecstatic to hear that Brighton went to the state championship game!  That is so awesome even though they lost.  That is neat that Abby was able to go and that they played at Rice-Eccles! 
 
I am glad to hear Jake had a great birthday and got to do all that fun stuff.  I really like that he got a "honey badger don't care" shirt.  There was a football player from LSU who dyed the middle of his hair blond (kinda like a mohawk) and so people would always call him Honey Badger because honey badgers have a blondish stripe too and then he would always take the ball from the other team because "honey badger [didn't] care" hahaha.  Hopefully that makes sense.  Also Jake what are you going to do with the go-pro?! You need to send me all the videos that you make.  Maybe we can set up a dropbox or something and then I could send all of my videos too :) That is really cool to hear about the sea scrolls too.  So do they have all of the old and new testament mostly on them? Or less or more?  But that is really cool. 
 
Geez our poor sports teams...Good to hear that Utah State won but dang Utah needs to fix some things.  And dang Iowa...they always play a tough game against us.  Has Hoke lost at home yet?  The only reason I am sad that BYU lost is because that makes Utah look worse too :(  And so far on my mission I haven't starting leaning to BYU at all.  Still a hardcore Ute :) in case you guys were wondering. 
 
I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving especially with Grandpa!  That will be a blast!  We aren't doing anything special for Thanksgiving.  We are actually teaching a guy from Guatemala that day that we haven't met and then a member from the branch from El Salvador is coming along too.    On Sunday we are going over to a members house for a Thanksgiving dinner which should be awesome.  So I am sure that will be a good Thanksgiving here :)
Anyway a little about how my week has gone.  It was a pretty good week.  There never really is anything to complain about.  Karlskrona is a cool place to be and I am always trying to get better at Swedish.  So far it has been mostly cloudy but once every while we get a nice day, like today :).   And even though the weather is cooling down quite a bit there is still no sign of snow yet :(.  My new companion is good too.  We really get along well and are able to get a lot of work done.  He really wants to work hard which is great and I think now that we kinda know the place a little better we are going to have a great week this week.  And he does miss playing video games, but he is the opposite of a sports gamer so has never played NCAA football!  He actually this morning told me all that you need to do to beat Minecraft :).    
 
I want to tell you guys two cool stories from this week.  The first is pretty funny.  So on Thursday we had our normal district meeting and all the members of the district are me and Elder Ogaard and then the two sisters in Karlskrona, Sister Bass and Randall.  After the meeting we decided to go and grab some lunch.  We went to go to a Swedish hamburger place called Max.  However, the only problem was that only Sister Randall knew where it was and wasn't sure where the bus stop was that is closest to it.  We got off and then had to walk all over the place crossing streets and walking on the side of the road because there weren't any sidewalks for some reason.  Well we are walking and then in the far distance we see the sign for Max (one of those signs that went really high for people driving on the freeway).  Instead of walking around on the streets to get there we see that to reach Max and our lunch we only need to cross this field for probably around half a mile.  We all decide it wouldn't be hard to cross the field and get to Max quicker.  Let me just describe the weather really fast: it was cloudy, not raining, but yesterday it had rained for pretty much the whole day.  So the only problem with this field is that it has been cleared or whatever and is just dirt.  We start going and realize it is a little wet and muddy and all do are best to avoid getting mud on our nice church shoes.  We were all doing pretty good and then Sister Bass ran into a particularly wet spot.  It was like thick quick sand and the mud swallowed her shoes and she was up to her shins in the mud, in her nice church clothes.  After grabbing the shoes we all hurried out of this muddy field.  It felt like one of those World War 1 or 2 movies where the soldiers are all muddy and they have to cross a battle field that has been all torn up from gun fire and is just mud.  We all probably looked like crazy people when we got to Max.  Lucky for me only a little bit of my shoes got muddy and I just cleaned them and shined them later and now they are good as new.  :)
 
The other story is a guy I met at the ward activity we went to on Saturday.  I had met him once at the Göteborg Stake Conference, but found out he lives here in Karlskrona and goes up to nothern Göteborg every so often because he studies at a university there.  He was baptized about a year and 3 months ago.  There isn't actually much of a story but I just think he is such a cool person.  He is a previous Muslim and just described to me a comparison between the Koran and Bible.  He said that in the Koran there is a woman who has committed adultery and the prophet Mohammed says that she must be stoned.  However, she is pregnant so he decides that they must delay her stoning until after the baby is born, and this is what happens.  However in the Bible when they ask Jesus what they should do with the woman who has committed adultery and if they should stone her, he says any of you that have not sinned throw a stone.  He said that Islam teaches to strike fear in the hearts of your enemies but Christianity and Mormonism teaches to love your neighbors.  He doesn't understand how brain washed people can be to reject the message of love that is taught, and either do I!  Anyway I thought that was very interesting and hopefully that is all correct.  I think the interesting thing is that I have heard that Islam is the most similar religion to Mormonism but when it comes down to the basics they are completely opposite.  Strange...
 
Hopefully that all makes sense I don't really want to go through and make sure it does.  Have a great Thanksgiving and week!  I love you all so much and miss you and love to hear from you!  You are always in my prayers and make sure to tell Grandpa and Mollie and Mackensie that I love them and pray for them and miss them so much!  Know that I am doing well and the Lord is blessing me so much and I am just so grateful for what a wonderful family I have!  I can't think how it could possibly be any better!!  I love you all!
 
Love,
 
Äldste Ward
 
PS How are all my grandparents doing?  And Mollie and Lindsay and Moe and Brad and the Ali's and everyone else? 

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