Transfer to Karlskrona!!

Dear Family,

This week we got a call from our mission president on Friday to tell us that Elder Allsop is being transferred and that I am also being moved!  I move to a place called Västerås on Wednesday.  It sounds like a nice place and is just a little northwest of Stockholm and in the Stockholm North zone. Actually Elder Allsop will be the new zone leader there.  Cool!  It was really nice yesterday at our last day at church because of all the nice things that people said to us.  It made us feel like we did a good job in the area which was a great feeling.  

Also my Swedish is getting a lot better and I am getting a lot more confident with it.  On Wednesday there was a missionary leadership conference in Stockholm and Elder Allsop had to go up as our district leader.  I went on splits with the neighboring district's DL's companion.  His companion was named Elder Williams and he has only been out in Sweden six weeks less than I have so it was really good practice for my Swedish because I had to do a lot of the talking.  It is still hard to understand the native speakers sometimes but usually I can understand and say what I want to say.  

Some stories from this week were first on Thursday we went and had dinner with (one of) the Malm families (all are actually children of the general authority from Sweden, Per Malm in the 2nd quorum of the 70).   The husband is a heart doctor,  we had a lot of fun with them and had a fun dinner after.  They are a really nice family.

Also on Friday we went with our investigator, Arthur, the nearly blind, old, American, nice guy who worked with drug rehabilitation people, to a place he said was a cheap lunch and would buy for us.  It turns out it was an old church where the lunch was really cheap because it was to help homeless and like those who are trying to overcome addictions and stuff.  Well it was all pretty good except for there was this crazy guy in there who freaked out and was yelling and threw his coffee cup across his table and then stormed out and grabbed a little metal book shelf thing for papers and threw it on the ground.  I was thinking why he wanted us to go there.  But anyway it was fine and the lunch was fine and we went to a different part of the church and had a lesson with Arthur and his friend.  It was a really cool lesson.  Arthur asked us about the scripture in the Bible that talks about not adding to God's word and we turned to 2 Nephi 29 where it says that God gives more nations his word so that when they are put together they are God's word and prove that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  He also asked about the scripture in the Bible that says watch out for false prophets (like in the church movie Legacy) and we told him the same answer that is given in the Legacy movie which is that you will also know them by their works and then he talks about the Book of Mormon and we did the same.  It was a cool lesson.

Other highlights from the week include getting a Göteborg specialty- called the halv special.  It is a hot dog with mashed potatoes on it and it was actually pretty good.  

It was great to hear from all of you.  I do not know what pigs say in Sweden haha but that is funny that they make a different noise.  I also heard that bees make a different sound as well because they don't really have a z noise so they don't go bzzzz.  

A kebab pizza is typically a thin crust pizza (they only have thin crust here) with a bunch of kebab meat (I'm not really sure what it is, I think it is lamb) and then kebab sauce on it.  I have come to realize that putting fries on it is more of a missionary thing, unfortunately because the fries on it are really good.  

We haven't checked out Volvo yet and we probably won't because this is our last day :/.  But a member in the ward works for them and actually we were talking about Volvo cars and stuff a little bit.  But I don't know much about them other than that they have a factory here and that there are a ton of Volvo cars here so I am guessing that most Swedes really like Volvo as their car company!

That is too bad to hear that the week has been stressful.  Know that you all are always in my prayers and I will make sure to pray these upcoming weeks especially.  But Dad that is really cool to hear about that cool case you got with the guy who got hit with the arrow, even though that is so ridiculous that that happened.  So will he be able to use his face again with the nerve all sewed up?  Also Dad congrats, or in Swedish, Grattis!, that you got to go and do that faculty course that was held in Salt Lake!  I am sorry to hear it was a little stressful though.  I think your job is so cool and amazing and how hard you work is such an example to me and I am so lucky to have you as my Dad!

And no getting the sports news isn't depressing at all.  It is just good to know how well our teams are doing!  And I when I have some free time when I come home will be able to watch highlights from a few games or something :) Too bad to hear about Michigan and Utah and the Jazz though...

My companion is doing great and my roommates are doing great too.  They both go home next month so are excited to be going home.  The sisters are also doing great and are great missionaries!

So far I haven't seen any Swedish lines on Mom's side yet.  I have been able to find Norwegian and Danish lines so far though which is pretty cool.  Swedes can understand Norwegian and can usually get the main idea of Danish, or so I am told. 

I don't think I need any of those sad lights, but I am going a little more north now so I will keep you updated.  How exactly do they work? Thanks for watching out for me :)

So as I was writing the very end of this email I received another call from President Newell that said that some things have changed and that I am now going to a beautiful place in South eastern Sweden called Karlskrona.  He said some very nice things about me which were great to hear, like they needed someone who could come into a place and hit the ground running and immediately be effective and someone that could leave in December (the transfer in December is just a few days before Christmas) and not have any drama.  I told him I was their man haha.  He also said I was the most pliable that they could think of or something like that.  I am excited to go there!  So remember that I am not going to Västerås anymore, I am going to Karlskrona :)

 I love you all and miss you and pray for each of you and hope that you all have a great week!  

Love,

Äldste Ward

November 4, 2013.....later in the day

Luckily he had a chance to go back and check his email!  I was praying he would!  Makes me feel better knowing he feels loved.  :)

Dear Family,

I thought I would come and check my email again really quick to see if there were any new emails and there were!  Thanks so much for always emailing me and just in the future I would completely understand if things are too busy to write me all the time.  But great to hear from you all.  

I don't think the weather is too cold yet; so far I haven't needed to wear my big winter coat I got yet.  It rains pretty often but not an overwhelming amount.  I will make sure to buy any winter clothes that I need!

Right now I am just finishing the Book of Alma actually.  I plan to just read and study through all the standard works.  I hope to finish reading the Book of Mormon by the new year and have already finished The Pearl of Great Price.   I also love 2 Nephi 4.  Especially the verse where he has just finished saying how imperfect he/all of us are and then says but I know in whom I have trusted or something like that.  All we need to do is trust God.  But I agree with everything you said dad!  I sometimes feel so selfish because there is no way I can thank the Lord for all my wonderful blessings He has given me.  I am so grateful for my wonderful family too.  I feel like I have been put in virtually the best circumstances that anyone could have be born into.  I love you all so much! 

The other Swedish line married into the Benson line I think.  It was really cool to read about them (there was a story on the lds family history site) and how they had a huge estate right by a lake and then sold it all and helped other saints come to Utah.  And they aren't from Göteborg but they are from an area close to it.  If you want to look it up it is called Alingsås.  

I don't know too much of what the English influence is in Gothenburg.  All I know is that virtually everyone in Sweden knows English and there are some immigrants in Gothenburg that don't know any Swedish so we teach to them in English (obviously).  

Anyway good to hear about the sports news. Kinda.  Good to hear about Utah State but that is awful about Michigan.  Dang sparty...   

I am so jealous it has snowed there!  It just slowly gets colder and colder here and rains every little bit.  Its a lot like Michigan because it is always cloudy!  I am also jealous that you guys are going to be skiing soon!  I am really excited to all be skiing together as a family!  That will be so fun!!  Dad I hope you like your new skis!  I am happy that the weather is starting the "fun" part of winter there.  

Oh and yes I do get your letters in the mail.  I just forget to write home and tell you how much I love to hear from you all!  I am sorry I haven't been able to hand write you any letters yet.  Usually at the end of the day I am a little tired and it is hard to just write in my journal so I hope you understand :)  I haven't yet gotten the one that you sent a week ago, but I will be looking for it. 

That is a great idea that you divided up my investigators to remember everyone while praying for them.  I really thank you all for your prayers, for them and for me.  That is fun that you got to go to the Russel's little baby's blessing.  That will be crazy to come home and remember when she was blessed and see that she is almost 2!  And I also found out that Sister Christensen was in Elder Lambson's MTC group so they came to Sweden at the same time!  It is such a small world!

And that is so exciting that Taylor came to shadow Dad.  For a few years once and a while I would wonder how he was doing and where he was.  I will have to talk to him when I get home.  Anyway I love you all so much and miss you all!  Thanks for all the motivating things you guys write and all the letters and the emails!  Love you and have a great week!

Love,

Äldste Ward

November 4, 2013

**This week something happened with our email and it didn't get sent to Andy!  We didn't realize it didn't go through until we got his letter with this picture in it!  It made me so sad to think that he thought we didn't write to him!  We ended up sending it as soon as we realized, but I felt bad all morning. :(

Dear Family,

I hope you are all doing well.  The work is coming along great and the language is still improving, not perfect but I know so much more now than I used to.  Here are some highlights of the week:

First, last Monday we apparently had a level 3 hurricane warning, whatever that exactly means.  It was raining pretty heavily all day and then stopped at around 3.  The storm was supposed to come at 5 and that is when the whole city shut down (buses and trams).  Instead it didn't rain or anything at all until 8:30 when a windy rainstorm came in.  We were making fun of the level 3 hurricane for a while because it was so ridiculous how many people told us to watch out for the big storm that was coming.  Also the next day the headline of the main newspapers was "The Chaos!" (but in Swedish) and had some pictures of firemen running around in the rain.  The whole thing was funny haha.

We also got to watch some NFL this week!  Which of course I loved.  One of the members usually invites a bunch of his friends to come over and watch some football with him so we all thought it would be a great idea to go and see if people are interested in a non intruding way, I guess.  Unfortunately, the night was planned sort of quickly and so a bunch of people canceled last minute and it ended up just being us and the member watching football.  It was still fun but we decided to leave after watching about a half.  It was still really fun to watch some football!

This week we taught a guy who works with helping people who have drug problems and he is from Seattle actually and really old now but he told us that once in Seattle he found out that someone had these drugs or something and one of the gang leaders had a 25,000 dollar price for his death!  Luckily it all worked out but I thought that was pretty crazy.

Our assistant ward mission leader, a really nice guy who just got his mission call to come and serve in Sweden actually, took us to the grave sight of the first 2 missionaries to die in Sweden (in 1890 and 1898).  It was really cool to see the old grave and we put candles on the grave, which is something all the Swedes do for their ancestors or something at a time around halloween or some holiday they have I think.  

I hope you are all doing great at home and had great weeks!  Dad that is so cool that you got to see Taylor!  I'd like to talk to him again! I just remember us always playing in the hall in between our apartments on the 13th floor.  I love you and miss you guys!

Love,

Äldste Ward

PS Here is a picture that my companion decided to send home and I thought I would also send it home :) 

Julmust

A cute group of Swedish missionaries, including Elder Ward.  Can you find him?

It is called Julmust.  It's like the Swedish christmas drink and is basically like some sort of Dr. Pepper or Coke or some other dark carbonated drink.  Anyway it is pretty dang good stuff!

October 28, 2013

Hej min familj!

It sounds like you guys all had fun and pretty busy weeks!  My week was pretty good too.  I keep practicing my Swedish and sometimes it is pretty decent and sometimes I have a hard time understanding but I guess that is just how you learn a language!  I think that I think about it too much...just like I would do with sports and stuff.  But yes, the Swedish is coming and it is always encouraging to see missionaries who can speak it so eventually I will be able to get to that point!  

Week rundown:

Monday- Was a pretty laid back pday.  We got to email and stuff and I got to practice a little basketball.  We did also get to have some kebab pizza from Mossen's and we went to the YSA's FHE activity.

Tuesday- The mission has started telling us that they want the chapels to be unlocked and open in case anybody comes by and wants to learn more about the church 2 days a week from 10-6.  So usually what we have been doing is we take a morning 4 hour shift and then an afternoon 4 hour shift on a different day and when we aren't there the sisters are.  The mission told us that for 1 hour a week they want us to be doing family history work.  So I was doing a little bit and found another line of Swedish ancestry!  It was pretty cool to find and I found out that they lived in an area not too far from where I am now.  Hopefully I will be able to go there at some point in my mission.  We were also able to swing by a less active lady and it was good to talk to her.  I hope she can start coming to church again.  In the evening we also had a volleyball sports night.  We have started doing a sports night with the YSA's and it is really good because less actives and investigators come.  And because it is fun to be playing some sports!

Wednesday-  Highlights were having a member dinner with this really nice family (the mom is from Brazil and the dad is from Sweden) and then having a lesson with our investigator Jessica and her family.  Her husband is a member but very inactive but wants to start coming back to church.  Jessica wants to be baptized which is great, the only problem is they have four kids and are always really busy (I am sure you guys understand) and they just moved to a new house.  One of their sons is a really good badminton player and usually plays every Sunday because here in Sweden every sport event I have heard is on Sunday!  So his Dad usually goes with him.  He is eleven and a neat kid, actually reminds me a little bit of Jake even though Jake is almost 13 now!  Anyway we taught her about the Word of Wisdom and watched the Restoration movie with her because last time we tried to teach the Restoration it turned into the Plan of Salvation.  It went really good and the dad, Bob, drove us home in their Mercedes :)  Also one time we were over there and just talking and we literally started talking about the price of tea in China.  I was trying not to laugh when I remembered the saying "what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?"  Hahaha, anyway she also came to church on Sunday with her two little kids and it was great to see them there.

Thursday-  Was district meeting, and then we had lunch with a a member and an investigator from Kungsbacka who we have met a few times.  It was a good lunch of Thai food.  So far in Sweden I have had some good Thai food!  We also had a dinner with a nice family and then went by a less active guy that lived quite far away from where we live.

Friday- A member took us out to eat with the sisters to a delicious kebab pizza restaurant.  It was very good and I got pizza with pineapple and kebab on it :)  We also met some people from Minnesota, and they were really nice talking to us but weren't very interested.  We also had a dinner appointment with another nice member family whose son is going to turn 8 soon so they thought that we could teach him the lessons before he was baptized.  So that was pretty neat to teach him the Restoration.  He actually had quite a few questions.  

Saturday-  We helped with the YSA's Halloween weekend thing which had people from all over Sweden, Norway, Denmark and even a few from England that all came.  We also went by a really nice family who have a little 5 month old baby.  We also went into town to look for our investigator, John, who plays the nickelharp but he wasn't there so we ran into a store to buy something and while we were in line we met a guy who was interested in meeting some more!

Sunday- We had a weird church schedule for the YSA's Halloween weekend so we had Priesthood from 10-11 and then regular sacrament meeting from 11-12.  We and the sisters had quite a few people come which was great!  In sacrament there were 3 investigators and 2 less actives that hadn't been to church in a long time!  Also at the end of sacrament a little girl starting throwing up and her Dad tried to carry her out and she just got puke all over the gym floor.  We ran out to grab some stuff to clean it up and us and a member cleaned it all up.  After that we set some things up and welcomed people from 12-1 and then from 1-3 was the YSA's sacrament meeting that was focused on Christ and the sisters had an investigator there that was a Muslim so he didn't really believe much about the divinity of Christ so the subject was perfect and then it was a testimony meeting so people were going up and the spirit was really strong and apparently this guy was crying during the meeting because the spirit was so strong and now he wants to be baptized before he leaves for Malmö on Thursday!  Very exciting!

Dad thanks again for the sports news.  I couldn't keep up with the records but I didn't think I had heard Michigan lose to anyone else but Penn State other than being in a ton of close games.  I hope they just dominate Sparty this week.  Hopefully the Utes can beat ASU, last year they got destroyed by them.  I think that Utah State should have an easy win against Hawaii.  And that is cool that the Tigers got so close to going to 2 straight world series, hopefully in 2 years they'll be back :)

Sounds like it will be a fun Halloween this year!  Not many people celebrate it here but our ward is having a trunk or treat and a Halloween party (both organized by Americans).  Dad good luck on your case with moving the nerve from that lady's leg!  That sounds like a really cool surgery.   And good luck Mom with arranging Estee's class's halloween party! That will be fun for those little munchkins. :)

Have a great week everyone, it is always so great to hear how the family is doing.  Know that I pray for you all and am so grateful for your prayers.  I love and miss you all and know that I am doing well and our Heavenly Father is taking care of me.  Talk to you in a week!

Love,

Äldste Ward

PS My companion decided to get another winter coat so I was able to buy his nice old one for cheap and I think it will be a really great coat for the winter.

PPS Also I bought a portable hard drive so I can save pictures and videos I take on there.  I think with the hard drive I won't be have to be anxious about taking pictures so I am now planning on taking a ton of pictures.  But that is the thing we bought when we met that interested guy in line, and that is why around 50 dollars were taken from my card in case you guys were wondering.

I bought a hard drive

I bought a winter coat

Beautiful fall in Sweden

This looks like it could be in the mountains by our house, but it's in Sweden.

Sun hitting the beautiful fall leaves.

October 21, 2013

Dear Family,

Great to hear from all of you as always!  Mom and Dad that is really cool that you guys are in New Orleans.  It sounds like a cool place, that has good and bad parts.  It's cool that they still have a lot of French stuff from back when the French ruled that area (I see some of the flags inside the picture of the old cathedral).  That is cool that Brad and Jess got married down there.  That would be a neat place to have a wedding.  I think I would like to try a beignet, they still sound pretty good even if a maple bar would be better.  Maple bars are hard to compete with :). All that seafood that you guys are having sounds really good!  I'm sure there are some decent seafood places here in Gothenburg, but so far I haven't really looked for them.  Talking about baked goods reminded me of something I really like here in Sweden.  They bake pretty good bread and donuts.  I guess its a European thing to have really good bakeries or maybe I just didn't try enough stuff from the bakery back home, but it's good here.  And just so you know I am not eating from the bakery a ton hahaha just the few times I have been able to eat some stuff freshly baked it has been good!  And that sounds like a lot of fun having the Pankratz come down to hang out with you guys!  Tell them hi for me haha.  

That is very exciting that Zach had his farewell yesterday!  And yes I have been able to talk to him a little, which was great.  I am sure he is going to be a great missionary down in the Philippines!  I have also been able to hear from Eric.  He told me he just past his year mark and few weeks ago and that they use a ton of facebook and his was the first mission for every missionary to have iPads!  Our president has told us at the beginning of next year we are going to get iPads so hopefully that is what happens! 

Dad, as always, thanks so much for all the sports news.  That is great that Utah State got back on track and beat New Mexico. It is too bad that Utah lost!  What's their record now? Actually what are all the teams records?  The good thing about BYU winning is that it just makes Utah look better :)  Good news about Michigan winning and keeping their home streak! Also that is really cool that Gallon broke the B1G record for receiving yards!  It is god to hear that the Tigers had a good season finishing just short of the world series. Hopefully they're still good when I get back.  I don't know if I have told you guys this, but a ton of people here wear Yankee hats and American flags on their shirts and stuff, because I think they think it is cool to look American.  Apparently when you ask them about the Yankees or whatever they have no idea what you're talking about hahaha.

A little news from Sweden.  It is getting kinda cold here, and winter is coming!  There are lots of fall leaves and now it is getting pretty cold but no sign of snow yet.  However, I think it is going to be raining quite a bit over the next little bit so maybe it will make some snow!  From what I have heard it sounds like Sweden will be like Michigan weather, where it is mostly cold with not too much snow, and it doesn't snow that much before Christmas.  It reminds me of one Christmas we had in Michigan where it rained. :) 

Week highlights-

We went to the gym twice this week!  We have an investigator that is super into lifting and working out so we scheduled to go with him and a less active guy, but the first day it only worked out with going with the less active guy and that was on Thursday.  Then on Saturday we got to go with the investigator and the less active guy.  I was kinda nervous because my companion played football for Dixie and did a lot of lifting and the guys we were going with were pretty big guys.  However I did a pretty decent job and it was fun to get to work out and get stronger.  Hopefully we can continue to do that!   

Also this week we had an investigator who has done a ton of research of the Book of Mormon and had all these questions for us and some of them were crazy things that we had never heard about so that was fun.  We need to work on him praying to find an answer instead of trying to trust his intellect.  He had a bunch of reasons why it must be true and reasons that mean it might not be true with all these crazy stories of Joseph Smith he had found.  

I'm not sure what other highlights I have...I feel like its kinda boring to talk about the week but I'm sure its a little interesting for someone who isn't a missionary...but I don't know what else I want to say.  We did go to a huge store like the size of 2 Costco's called Gekås I believe.  So that was pretty cool and Allsop found a good suit there but they only thing I got was some candy bars.  Just so you guys know I have a ton of candy here now.  It takes me forever to eat it just like when I was home and would "hoard" candy because I would never eat it.  The same thing is happening here!!  

The language is coming along pretty good.  I can for the most part talk with people, but that Swedish accent still gets me a lot.  I am pretty comfortable speaking, it is just a little rough trying to understand everyone.  But it is good for the most part now. :)

I don't think there is anything else I needed to tell you guys other than that I love and miss you all!  I am thankful for your prayers and for all you do to help me.  Thanks for all the nice things you write to me!  Have a great week and I will keep working hard here!

Love,

Äldste P. Andrew (Andy) Ward