Real Quick Today

Hey family!


Thank you so much for the emails! Sounds like this week has been a fun one! I'm sorry up front because this week we don't have a lot of time, we need to catch a bus and be to Göteborg by 11:00. Brother Harris, one of my teachers in the MTC, is back in Sweden with a couple other rm's so he is coming into Göteborg today to hang out with all of us. Apparently we might be going to one of the islands off of Göteborg to see an old castle. So that should be fun! I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty jealous that you all are enjoying the Olympics right now. I do love the Olympics, but I'm just glad I'm not missing the winter Olympics, they're my favorite. This week has been a good one here, super busy. We had spilts on Thursday/Friday with the assistants/zone-leaders, so for two days we had four missionaries in Trollhättan. It was super good and we got so much work done, but I'm glad they left, it was a little cramped in the apartment, and me and Sanders are out of money for this month so we didn't have food to feed them for any longer. Don't worry mom, they give us plenty of money every month, more than enough. But.... at the beginning of the month Ä. Sanders somehow managed to lose 500 crowns(about 80 bucks) haha so we are running short this month. The end is near so we should be good, just lots of hot dogs and top ramin, haha. So "H" is engaged huh?! Wow that's exciting! Tell him congrats for me and tell his lady friend...um... moi bien. haha no idea if that's how you spell it. I hope all goes well with the immigration and stuff! Well family sorry but I've gotta run! I love you all so much! Oh and we got a baptismal date this week! Her name is Irene and she has a problem with coffee so definitely pray for her!

I love you all so much!

Love- Äldste keetch!

p.s. I got the packages on friday mom! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I loved them! You are so so so good to me! And.... all the candy may or may not already be gone. Haha thank you again! You have no idea how much they made my day:)

Here comes the rain. Again.

Hello again everyone! How's it going! Thank you so much for the emails every week! I know I say that every week, but that's because I mean it. They are the best! So this week was a blur to say the least! ha ha, but it was an eventful blur. As the title eludes, this week was another wet one, or, at least Tuesday was! We went into Vänersborg (one of the three cities we are over) and after about an hour, it just started to poor! That rainstorm in Uddevalla that I told you about a couple weeks ago, yeah, that was nothing compared to this. It seriously is the hardest I have ever seen it rain. and of course, we only had one umbrella that day, so here me and Elder Sanders are, in the middle of town, both scrunched under my little umbrella and the rain is just pouring off the umbrella and down our backs and sides. Ha ha, that is seriously the most wet I have ever been! We had a member dinner that night too so we didn't get home until about 730 pm and we were still soaked to the bone, even after a good six hours. The crazy thing about that storm is it did not let up! It rained like that for seriously and hour and a half straight. We hid under balconies a couple times but eventually we were just like, forget it, we are soaked to the bone anyway, so we just kept going. It was pretty hilarious. I'm sure we were a sight to see, the only two people out on the street, both in white shirts and ties, soaked to the bone and huddled under a single umbrella. Ha ha gotta love it! Dad asked about the areas we cover. Well, we cover the cities of Trollhättan (where we live and where the church building is), Vänersborg, and Uddevalla and a few tiny towns in between, but we really only work in those three. Vänersborg is right next to Trollhättan, just like a 15 minute bus ride and is right on the coast of one of the big lakes. Uddevalla is a little farther away, about a 35 minute bus ride, or maybe longer, and is just a tiny little town but is super pretty. I like Uddevalla a lot. We usually go there on Wednesdays. They all feed into the same ward, which meets in our building in Trollhättan. The church is just like a 5 minute bike ride from our apartment so that's nice. We live on Furulundsvägan in Trollhättan if you want to google map it. The work is going well though, we have a couple super solid investigators, ones name is Gunborg, she is in her 50's and just moved to Uddevalla, she has met the missionaries before and is super interested, so that's great! We meet her weekly when we go to Uddevalla. We are also teaching a family of four Hjalmar and Anna and their kids Tobias and Dennis. They are what we call eternal investigators. They have been having the missionaries over for years and years and years and years, but they are awesome! Hjalmar probably has a better testimony of the Book of Mormon and a better understanding of the church than most members, but they have problems with snus (chewing tobacco) and a couple other things. So yeah, if you will pray for them and for all of the people we teach that would be great. I'm sure you already do. This next month or so is going to be rough. In July and August Swedes take what they call their "semester" which means their summer vacations. Part of the Swedish government makes it mandatory for every one to get a three to four week semester, no matter whether you're a corporate exec. or a McDonald's worker. So lots of people are leaving to go out of town which makes it hard on us. Well everyone I've gotta run for this week. everything is going great here. Me and Sanders haven't killed each other... yet... ha ha just kidding, I really like him a lot. I lucked out having him as my dad. We have fun together and work hard so that's good. I love you all so much and I will talk to you next week!


Love- Äldste McKay Vance.

PS. I was a dummy and forgot my camera cord at the apartment so no pictures for now but I'll try to hop on later and send some.

And the award for the nastiest thing on earth goes too....

 A putrid little fish named Surströmming! Haha Hej familj how are you?! So as the title eludes to, I have had a pretty eventful week this week! I guess I won't leave you hanging and get right to the Surstromming story. Two weeks ago me and Ä. Sanders were grocery shopping and we came across a can of Surströmming and well one thing led to another and 70 crowns(10 bucks) later we had a big can of rotten fish sitting in our refrigerator. This week it came time to crack open the can and have some. Let me take a moment here to better explain what Surströmming is. Surströmming is an evil, evil thing that was made by accident hundreds of years ago when this ship got stuck at sea and they ran out of food other than a rotten bucket of herring, haha. Now a days what they do is take a bunch of headless herring and shove it in a can and let is rot and ferment in some nasty liquid for years and years. They usually don't even put the can in the grocery store to be purchased until it's either bulging or has rust on in. Haha no joke. I seriously cannot even begin to describe to you how this smelled or tasted, but let's just say it was easily the worst thing I've ever eaten by far. Probably the worst thing I have every smelled too. I have a video of me eating it, but it's too big to send home so I'll have to wait until I send this SD card home, which will probably be soon. But yeah, that was definitely an experience. You know somethings bad when even the Swedes who invented the stuff are telling you to stay away from it! Other than that exciting little venture this week, we had zone conference and a 4th of July party! We had our 4th celebration on the fifth actually, because of the 8 hour difference I guess. It was the 4th for at least a couple hours! We got together with the whole zone since they were all coming in for zone conference and BBQed lots of meat, and sang the national anthem to a flag scarf that one of the sisters had.It was great! I'll send a couple pictures. Zone conference was super good! It was focused on the gospel of Jesus Christ. President Newell is definitely a spiritual giant so it was great to get some training from him. The zone conference was combined with Göteborg zone and Malmö zone so I saw Ä. Maness again. He looks good, still just crazy Maness. In answer to your questions Dad, when we travel we use trains to get to Göteborg and buses everywhere else. Our area covers basically three cities, Trollhättan, Uddevalla and Vänersborg. Almost everyone here in Sweden lives in an apartment and by themselves. There's only a small handful that live in houses and they are members. The only fish I've eaten here so far is that Surströmming, haha. We eat a lot of chicken and a lot of beef and potatoes. It's actually super good. I've loved the foods, and the desserts here so far! Swedes love their desserts. That's super cool that it's Dustin's farewell already! I hope it went well! Tell him good luck for me! He will be such a good missionary! I'm so stoked for him! I think Marcus (from SUU) goes in to the MTC this week too! Well, Fam I need to head for this week. I love you all so much! I'm glad the 4th went well! I was definitely thinking of all of you! Have a good week and know that you are all always in my prayers! I love you all so much!

View from outside of our apartment at midnight. It's getting darker at night but still pretty light

American flag cupcake cake

At the 4th celebration

Our makeshift flag we sang to. 

Haha only in Sweden would you find a walker chained up. I can't even begin to express how many old, crazy people live here.

Another Week in Sweden...

Hello again everyone!


This week was a good week, not the most eventful, but it was good. I got my first successful contact on Thursday so that was pretty cool! One thing about Sweden is that contacting is not at all effective, like even less than other missions. By contacting I mean knocking doors or talking to people on the street. Swedes are just very private and super, super shy. So anyway I was actually with Äldste Geddes (from Kungsbaka) we were on over night splits and Ä. Sanders went to Kungsbaka for the day and Ä. Geddes came to Trollhättan with me. We were in the town center area and Ä. Geddes was just like, "Hey, contact that girl," so I did and she ended up being interested. Her and her boyfriend are recovering drug addicts and really want some hope in their lives. Hello, can you say they need the gospel?! ha ha. So yeah, we haven't gotten back in contact with them yet, but that was my first successful contact here in Sweden after two weeks. The language is going... okay. It's definitely pretty daunting at times. I feel kind of overwhelmed a lot, but I know I can do it. I bore my testimony in sacrament meeting the first week I was here and the ward kept saying how good my Swedish was but I still have a hard time believing it. I feel like I can understand a lot, but can't speak anything. Oh well, it will come I know. The food here is awesome! I honestly haven't had anything I haven't loved yet. I'm sure that will change but for now its all good.-lots of meat and potatoes so that's good, and the bread and cheese here is amazing! Thank goodness for P-90x, ha ha! We have zone conference this Friday in Göteborg so that should be good. Oh and as a zone we made a goal that we wanted to get 2000 contacts as a zone in the month of June and we made it! As our reward we are having a big 4th of July party on Thursday at the center (YSA center) in Göteborg! Today isn't actually my p-day, we just get two hours to email and do laundry and stuff and then we'll have a party on Thursday so that'll be fun! Lots of traveling though. It's funny, Friday night we got a call from the zone leaders and they were like hey we are 25 short and we have half an hour, hurry! So we dropped our dinner, and ran to the park by our apartment looking for people to talk to We found a couple so that was good and I guess we barely made the 2000. Ha ha, it was fun. That's what's been going on here. It sounds like you all had a super busy week this week! Sounds fun though! I'm glad all went well at the girls camps and things. I'm sure you did great Dad, you always do. I will definitely keep the fires and firefighters in my prayers as well! That's not good. I told Aub in her email that I'd gladly send you some of our rain here! It rains every day, it's crazy! Well I'm going to head for this week so I can attach some pictures. and hopefully a video. i love you all so much! talk to you next week.

Love- your Swedish missionary.

Udevalla Docks

A crazy flash rain storm in Udevalla as we went to help an investigator move.

Check out the 25 letter long word in the middle of the picture! Yep, that's Swedish for you.