Tjena Familj!

Hows it going everyone?! Well it's been another week, and I am another week closer to getting out of here! ha ha I love the MTC, and I don't feel ready at all to go to Sweden, but at the same time, I am so ready to get to Sweden! ha ha I can't wait! It will be a new adventure. Because this MTC adventure is getting kinda old. ha ha But don't worry, I'm not complaining! Life is still good here. ha ha
So dad, sounds like you are having a blast with the power washer! ha ha It will definitely be the summer of the power washer! Just don't power wash Gader. ha ha Giddy is okay though. The Martina McBride concert sounds like it'll be a blast! Give Megs a big hug for me when you seen her and tell her I love her! Be safe driving. So mom, I sent my pants along with a SD card with pictures on it home. Thanks for sewing those for me! I was so ticked when that happened! I promise it's not because I'm getting fat. ha ha Or at least I hope I'm not. You tell me after seeing my pictures ha ha. So, this Tuesday we had an awesome devotional! Elder Russell M. Nelson came and talked to us! That is the 4th quorum of the 12 member to talk to us since I've been here! we have heard Oaks, Packer, Ballard, and now Nelson. He spoke on the doctrine and the 9 points of it we need to focus on as missionaries. It was so good! It is amazing the spirit those men of god carry with them! When he walked into the room on Tuesday, everyone stood up, and the Elders in front of me were really tall so I couldn't see who it was but I immediately knew it was an apostle. You could just feel his presence. Anyways, how goes things at home? Anything new or exciting going on? I hope so. Any Disney trips being planned? I hope not. Not without me there! ha ha Just kidding.
So we should get our travel plans a week from today! How crazy is that?! I am so excited I can't hardly stand it. I just can't wait to go to the airport, and to ride in a car. ha ha To see the outside world again will be very refreshing. I feel a little trapped at times here. So apparently I am sleep talking in Swedish! ha ha It's not quite dreaming but it's a start! I woke up Tuesday morning and Elder Maness said I had been jabbering in Swedish in the middle of the night. He said he couldn't understand much but he did catch me saying "varför inte" a few times. Which means "why not" ha ha So I thought that was pretty funny. Oh and another cool language thing, last week I totally blanked on the English word for revelation. For the life of me I could not think of it! All I could think of was uppenbarelse. I was rather proud of myself. ha ha. Well what else?... Thank you for my package mom! Those chips are the envy of my entire district! (Salt and Pepper chips from Costco) ha ha Good thing I'm nice and share, and I think you're super creative mom! I have absolutely loved everything you've sent me so far. So thank you so much! I love you all so much! Sorry so short today, but time is just about out so I better head. P-day is seriously not long enough! I'll get off now so I can maybe hop on later tonight for a minute or two to see if momma got a chance to write me. But no worries if you don't! I love you so very much and miss you all so much! Give the girlies a kiss and a hug for me. There are some tow mater pictures on the SD card I sent home so you'll have to share those with Aubs and the girls. I love you all again! Until next week... hej då!

Att Hålla ut Intill Slutet

So... that subject means to hold out until the end (endure to the end.) ha ha I'm not really sure why I put that as the subject but that's the first Swedish phrase that came to my mind. So how is everyone?! This week has been a great! But, not super eventful. Monday we Swedes lost our best friends the Danes (Danish speaking missionaries) They kind took us under their wing when we first got here and we had become really good friends with them. They left on Monday so that was kinda depressing. But now new Danes and new Dutchies get here today so we will have to do the same thing to them that the old Danes did for us. So, Dad you had some questions on Sundays I believe? We have around 30 Elders and Sisters in our branch. About 4 districts and we are the only non English district. ha ha So we have to give all of our talks in English even though we write them in Swedish. haha So that throws us off some times. Everyone in the branch has to write a talk each week and then the branch presidency picks 2-3 Elders/Sisters that will speak on the spot. I got chosen this last Sunday. Our topic was enduring to the end actually. So maybe that's why I had that phrase in my head. haha Oh, I can't remember if I ever clarified this but there are only 5 elders in my district and we are the only Swedish district in the MTC. They only have Swedish missionaries come in every 9 weeks. So we are it. I was actually released as DL on Sunday. Just for the fact that we are half way through the MTC so they usually switch leadership at the half way point. So Elder Ouimette is the new DL. This will be a good opportunity for him I think. I loved it. Oh and Elders Muirbrook and Sagers are the new ZL's. I don't know if i told you that?  Mom, to answer Shelly's question. They never made a special announcement about Elder Archuleta but they maybe should have... ha ha The first couple days he was getting mobbed by sister missionaries. I felt bad for him. But then it got better. He actually sang in our fireside on Sunday night! It was super good, and guess who the speaker was?! M. Russell Ballard! It was an awesome fireside! He spoke on the power of the spirit and teaching with it. It was great. No I haven't seen Zach yet! We always either have gym in the mornings or late at night. But we switch schedules on Monday so maybe I'll see him then. I'm not really sure why we are switching schedules but when we do our p-days will be on Thursdays so just so you know I won't email until Thursdays starting next week. Just FYI! So Mom, Don't worry, I'm taking lots of pictures! I'll try and send an SD card home soon! Oh mom, a pair of my suit pants got caught on a chair and ripped a few weeks back, if I send them home could you sew them and send them back? It's not bad, it's on the inside of the waist band. it's hard to explain. Your packages are great and I want you to know how very much I appreciate them! oh man, that cookie dough and those cookies were awesome mom thank you so much! My district and I had a great time with the giant Reese's! So thanks for throwing them in! Well my time is up for this week so I need to head! I love you all so very much! In the words of Cody, the church is definitely true. ha ha Tell Mark happy belated birthday! I'm sure he loved his surprise, that was awesome of them to do!
Well, until next week. I love you all so much!

och det hände sig....

Hey family! First off I love you all so much! Seeing that I only get to communicate with you guys once a week I feel like I don't stress that enough! You guys are seriously the best family I could every ask for! I miss you so much but it's a good thing not a sad thing! So the title of this email means "and it came to pass" that was mom's title to her email to me last week so I figured I'd give you a little Swedish. ha ha So, och det hände sig, jag såg en jluspelare alldeles över mitt huvud... ha ha That's the start of the first vision.
Anyways. So Mom, thank you so much for my Easter package! Holy cow that thing was heavy! ha ha All the treats have been so good and the bubbles have been a nice stress reliever :) No worries though, I've shared all of it with my district! They have loved it! So my branch presidency is President Waits, Brother Baker and Brother Mangum. Brother Mangum says he's worked with Chad down at work, Dad! He does custom houses I believe? Or maybe heated driveways. I cant remember. I'm pretty sure he deals with the radiant heat though. Yes the Elder from Cedar Hills is in my district, his name is Elder Sagers. He actually went to elementary school with Megan! Even more of a small world! ha ha My new comps are elders Maness and Ouimette. they are both good. Elder Maness is a great missionary and I get along with him great. So Easter sounds like it was fun! I bet the girlies had a blast finding all the eggs! That's too bad that the tradition is ending at Grandma Keetch's but it kinda makes sense. It was probably time. I definitely missed the Easter picnic! But, to be completely honest, it didn't even register to me that I missed it until like Monday. ha ha They don't give us any time here to think about anything else other than the next lesson we are going to teach! The MTC is definitely starting to be a little ground hog's dayish, but in a good way! ha ha If that makes sense? I am progressing so much in both the language and in my knowledge of the gospel. it's great! A really cool experience I had this week was that we were teaching our "investigator" Lars... wait, have I told you guys about our investigators yet?? So on our third day in the MTC we were given an "investigator" who we were expected to teach in entirely Swedish... yeah scary! ha ha Anyways, long story short, our investigators are our teachers portraying real investigators that they had on their missions. So we now have three that we teach multiple times a week, in all Swedish. So Lars, aka Brother Winegar, is a young father who's wife just killed herself via drug overdose and is not very religious in any way. Yeah, not the easiest situation to deal with in English, let alone Swedish! So out of our first three lessons we only had one that had actually connected to him. The rest had been complete disasters. So on Monday we go in to teach him for the fourth time and it went great! We taught him on Mormons Bok and why it can help him. It was so simple but so great and the spirit was very strong there! And the coolest thing! I didn't use a single note! It was a 30 minute lesson in all Swedish. NO NOTES! I was really humbled. That was a huge testament to me of the gift of tongues and of the spirit. Well my time is just about up, have fun in St. George next weekend! That concert should be awesome! Definitely go take Megs to lunch. She loves you all so much and she's a poor college student, she needs a free meal. ha ha Oh and tell Tyson to email me! The mutt has slacked off the past two weeks! ha ha I'm just teasing. Well fam, I'm really sorry I don't think I answer hardly any of your questions but I try! Half an hour is not even close to enough time! Well, until next week, jag älskar ni så mycket! (I love you all so much!) Oh! I almost forgot! The native swedes that are in the mtc right now came and visited us on Saturday! It was awesome! Edler Kääriä, Elder Nilsson and Elder Bertilson. The first two are going to Finland and the last one is going to Michigan. They are so cool and came and taught us slang and all about Sweden it was sweet! ha ha Anyways, just wanted to include that! I love you guys!

Hello Again Family

Oh it is so good to hear from you all again! i look forward to p-days so much. They are the best. Going to the temple and feeling the Savior's and our Heavenly Father's overwhelming love for me, and then coming back, reading letters and emails and feeling my family and friends overwhelming love for me! It definitely is a refueling day for the rest of the week! mom- thank you so much for my package! The socks are great and those cookies were amazing! They didn't last long between me and the district. So how are things going at home?? That's hilarious about dad picking you up in the work truck mom! ha ha I'm sure that was just the chariot you were expecting! ha ha So I want to apologize right now if my English grammar gets progressively worse. ha ha Swedish spelling and grammar are already getting to me. So if I'm spelling things with k's instead of c's and f's instead of ph's that's why. ha ha It's insane how quickly we pick things up! Even though I definitely don't feel like I'm good at Swedish yet, it really is amazing the amount I can speak already. The gift of tongues is definitely real. On the subject of the language, I have actually been wanting to fast for the language lately and that would be really cool of you and dad if you want to fast with me. I would never expect you to but if you are willing I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks for offering! Does Thursday(tomorrow) work? I will be doing a 24 hour fast starting after dinner tonight. If that doesn't work just send me a dearelder with a date in the next week that works for you guys because any day works for me. Thank you so much! That really means a lot to me. So, oh my goodness konferens was amazing! I loved every minute of it. How it worked for us is we attended each meeting in the big gym/devotional building. So we would go, watch the session, then eat lunch/dinner and have a temple walk then go back for the next session. Rinse and repeat for two full days! Doesn't sound great but oh man it was! I can honestly say i got more out of this general conference than all others I've watched combined! ha ha Really truly! I really loved President Uchtdorf's talk on Sunday morning too mom! The two word sermon. ha ha That was great. President Monson's talk on our call of duty was great too! One of my fav's. was Elder Kollieker or however you spell it was great too dad! oh and then Sunday night after conference we go a really cool devotional speaker! Vai Sikahema! That should ring a bell for at least dad and Tyson. He was awesome. It was more of a relaxed, fun devotional but it still had a great message. He is a sports caster for the Philadelphia news now and show'd some clips of how he subtly and not so subtly promotes the church through that position. It was great. ha ha. oh and dad that is super cool that Elder Soares was your comp! Man you got some famous comp's! your turn is coming, you just wait! Oh I can't believe I had forgotten to tell you guys until now about the other Elder Keetch! He left a week ago Monday but yeah he was in Elder Anderson's group, we talked like one of the first nights about how we are semi kind of related. ha ha There is no sign of an Elder Neilson yet but he probably comes in today, I saw some new Korean Elders so I'll have to check that out! Elder Linge left for Sweden yesterday. I'm not gonna lie, it sucks losing him. He was the perfect first comp for me. I'm sorry your ankle/Achilles heel is no good dad! Hopefully it gets feeling better! Well I believe I'm just about out of time so I probably should head for this week. The renovations at grandma and grandpa's sound pretty crazy! I can't wait to see! You'll have to send me some pictures of that and of Cod and Aub's when it starts to take shape too! Well mom here is a big virtual hug for you! Feel free to use my woof (not wolf, woof. ha ha) blanket whenever you would like! It's a good one! Dad you get a email hug too. ha ha Give mom a real one for me. She really likes to be hugged. just FYI. ha ha Give the girls a squeeze and a kiss for me! I miss you all so very much! But, I wouldn't choose to be anywhere else in the world right now. Give megs a big hug for me too next time you see her. She's amazing. I love her. Well I love you all so very much! And until next week, as Elder Maness says every night, the church is true and I love you