Stockholm in the Morning

Hey family! So this week is going to be kind of a short email, but that's because I need to spend the majority of p-day packing... ha ha yep... so much for staying in Trollhättan another month, I got a call form president on Friday night and I am catching a train to Stockholm tomorrow morning! ha ha craziness.... ah I am so stressed out, but excited, but scared, but happy all at the same time! It will be really good to go to the office and get out of my greenie area after almost five months here, but I kinda have what we call "transfer stomach" I'm just nervous for the new and unknown you know? But it'll be good. My new comp is going to be Elder Asp. I'm a little nervous but we'll see how it goes.  Yeah so for the first three weeks me and Elder Asp will be in a tri-panionship with one of the current POE's, Elder Carpenter. He'll kinda show us the ropes and get us trained and then he'll leave in November to train a greenie and It'll just be me and Elder Asp.

So things are still good with Mario! He came to church yesterday and brought two of his friends! so that was super cool! The hard thing is none of them speak a lick of Swedish so we had to translate all of church for them into English and man, translation is hard! It's so weird, I can understand basically everything in Swedish but it's hard put it into English in a way that actually makes sense.

I'm sorry to hear that you haven't been feeling well Dad! I hope you are feeling better now! Let me know if the tigers pull off a miracle or just fizzle in the world series and keep me posted on the bowl status of BYU and Utah! I hope Gader can pull through this ear infection thing, poor dog. It's been just over a year since Meg died right? Poor old pups. I miss them! 

Tell Scotty congrats on the engagement! ha ha that is awesome that he did it at their Halloween extravaganza! Oh the Draper family... haha send them all my love! The Halloween party looked so fun and you all looked great in your costumes, especially Cody! ;)

Well family I'm sorry but I've gotta head! Too much to do today, but just know I love you all so very much! I'll talk to you next week from Stockholm! 

love-

Elder Keetch.

Big News

Just a bike ride me and Saldutti were on the other day.

Hej everyone how are you?! 

So this week has been a really good one! I'll go ahead and respond to your guy's emails and then let you know about my week. so that accident outside our house sounds crazy! hopefully everyone was alright and that our fence can get fixed. that's too bad about the blow out for pg and the heart breaker for BYU dad! hopefully they can both turn around and make something out of it. as far as baseball goes, I think I'm with you dad, I think I want the tigers to win. It's been a while for them hasn't it? Have they ever even taken it? So tell Brett Frampton congrats for me on getting called as a bishop! He will be awesome. So the contractors trip this year will be in the Bahama's huh? nice! That'll be super fun! Even if it is super close to Ty's wedding. So mom, thank you so much for the package! I picked it up a couple day's ago and oh man I was in heaven! I have missed Reeces sooo much! ha ha and thank you for taking care of my card and everything. Oh man that is so awesome about Sami Draper and Whitney Nyland! Tell them both they are so awesome! They will both make such good Sister missionaries. Maybe one of them will come to Sweden!  That would be crazy!  This is the best mission in the world though, so if they're lucky they'll get called here :)

So I guess I'll tell you all about my week now! A lot has happened this week! So everything kinda started Friday I guess with zone conference. Everything went really well with zone conf. it was all about how we as missionaries can work more in unison with the members in our wards and branches so that was really good! and then, came the interview..... ha ha so around seven o'clock at night I finally got in to have my interview and I had devised a few probing questions to see if I could get president to tell me where I was going to be transferred but turns out I didn't even need them, he just came right out at the first of my interview and told me! ha ha So it looks like I will be going to the office after all! the next big transfer is mid way through November. I will be transferring up to Stockholm then! I will be what's called a proselyting office elder, or a POE. and what that entails is more or less helping run the mission. ha ha Every day me and my comp will work in the mission office doing computer stuff and things like that until 2:00 and then we will go out and proselyte for the rest of the day like normal. I don't know too much about how it will work but I do know that most people like it. Because it's kind of like being an assistant to the president but without the extra stress and things the AP's have to deal with. So that's nice! President said he is bringing me into the office because of my computer skills and also because he said that from the day my group got to Sweden he sensed that he wanted me to be in leadership positions and the office is kinda to get me prepared for that I guess... so we'll see what happens! Now none of this is final. President is infamous for switching transfers the night before they happen so you never know, but as of now it looks like I'm going up to Stockholm! So I'm excited for that! I love Trollhättan but after almost five months here I'm ready for a change. So the other awesome thing that happened this week is that me and elder Saldutti got a baptismal date with an investigator! His name is Mario, he's Albainien, 25, and went to our church lots back when he lived in Greece. He loves the church and wants to get baptized asap. ha ha You haven't heard of him because we barely got him from a referral this week on Thursday! ha ha and we met with him last night for the first time and taughtt him in the church and he was like, so can I get baptized next week? ha ha we had to be like well... It will take a little longer than that ... ha ha so yeah Mario is awesome! Please pray for him! His dop(baptism) date is for the 17th of November which would be like three days before I got transferred. so I really hope it all goes through! That would be such a awesome way to end my transfer here in Trollhättan! with a baptism! 

So yeah, that is about all that happened this week. I love you all so much and hope you all have an awesome week! and I'll talk to you next Monday! 

love-

McKay Vance.

 So I totally forgot to say in the main email that it was also stake conference on Saturday and Sunday here in Göteborg stake! It was so good! Patrick Kearon from the 70 who was at our last zone conference (prayed in this last general conf and gave the scorpion talk back in April) Came and spoke and it was so good! That's him on the left and his translator on the right of the big screen. We had to all meet in a huge convention center in the middle of Göteborg called Svenska Mässan because none of the Swedish chapels are big enough to hold the whole stake. The chairs in this place were the comfiest thing ever!!!

This is the Swedish word for a speed bump. ha ha So these signs are everywhere around Sweden. and yes, it is pronounced the exact same as it looks. ha ha

Another Week in Sweden

Hey everyone how are you?! So another crazy Swedish week has rolled by and things are going great! Mom, you were asking about the Swedish people and why I think it's so hard for them to change and accept the gospel. Well there are two main reasons that come to mind. One is just like the Lamanites in the Book of Mormon, they are caught in the wicked traditions of their fathers. Once upon a time Sweden used to be a very christian country. You can tell just by looking around each city here, there are churches everywhere dating back to even the 1600's! But these past few generations have rebelled against that lifestyle by going the opposite way. The second reason and probably the bigger reason is because Swedes are content. They are happy. They make good money, the government pampers them, they are content in their ways and have convinced themselves that they are happy so it's hard to open their eyes and show them that there really is more to be had in this life. They are a pretty prideful people. The reason the church grows so quickly in Africa and South America is because the people there are humble. They don't have much and are willing to accept that there is more to be had. So yeah, those are my thoughts on it. It is definitely tough to have been out seven months and not have a single baptism, but it's okay, I know that as long as I can maybe improve a few people's opinions of the church then I'm doing my job. About investigators, Jill and Mellie are doing...well. We had a dinner at a members with Jill this week and watched the full restoration movie with her. She liked it, but it seems like all she really got out of it was that Joseph Smith gave all he had and all he got was a bullet in return. She is very angry with God and has a lot of "why" questions like "why would God let this or that happen?" So it's kinda hard to get through to her. Mellie is looking possibly more positive as of now, she is definitely more humble, but she is harder to meet with. As for the mormon.org referral, her name is Emillie Nilsson-dag. She is really nice and seems pretty interested but has a hard time meeting with us because she is a college student in a different city so it's hard to catch her at home. She lives in Uddevalla(about 30 min away from Trollhättan.) so that's the update on the work for this week. Things are going forward slowly so that's good.

This Friday we will have zone conference here in Göteborg, I'm super excited! We will have personal interviews with President so I'm hoping to find out what President's plans are for me. If he still plans on taking me to the office or if I'm staying here for a while. we'll see. I love Trollhättan but I am definitely ready for a change. Trollhättan is a really hard ward to be in. To put it bluntly, they don't really like the missionaries. So it's hard to trust them with our investigators we bring to church. It's just not a very strong ward so that makes it hard. That is why me and Elder Saldutti are trying so hard to strengthen the ward with the PMG lessons. Mom, that is so awesome about the PMG studies that you are doing now! I love that book and have such a strong testimony that it is scripture. 

Oh man I can't believe that the world series is already almost here! I don't quite know who to root for Dad, what about you? Let me know who the final two are and I'll pick from there, haha.  That way I'll  have a 50/50 percent chance of getting it right, haha.  Good luck to PG with Bingham! That's always a tough game. Man I miss sports! Sounds like those chickens turned out great Dad! Man I can't wait to come home to a smoke master for a dad! I'll never move out. I'm sorry Dad, but I can't say I'm sorry I'm not there to help you pull up the garden... haha but I hope it's not too big of a project! 

Well fam, I'm gonna head for the week but know that I love you and miss you all so very much! I am so grateful for my chance to be her in Sweden! I really do love this place and these people even if it isn't a very fruitful work. I just revel in the small victories :) 

Love you all!-

Elder McKay.

Man, I LOVE Conference!

Hey fam, How is it going! Can you believe that it was conference again already!? This was my second conference in the field, so nuts! So we were blessed and were able to see all but the Sunday evening session and because of the time difference we actually got to watch the Saturday and Sunday morning sessions live. The same time that you guys were sitting in the living room watching those sessions at ten in the morning, I was sitting in the chapel watching them at six at night, haha crazy to think about huh? Since I live in Sweden where everyone speaks English, they had conference available in English and Swedish. like half the ward watches in English so that they can hear the general authorities actual voices instead of the translators. We watched in English. Theres just something about those men's voices that gives their talks even more power. Mom wanted to know how the preisthood session worked. Well Saturday night at six we watched the Saturday morning session, then on Sunday we watched the preisthood session, then the Saturday night session and then the Sunday morning session at six. It was a day full of conference :) I loved it! That is seriously crazy about elders and sisters being able to serve earlier! I feel like the biggest effect it will have is more girls serving missions, so that'll be good. If I could do it over again I'm not sure if I would leave at eighteen. that semseter at SUU was so fun and really helped me get ready to go on the mish. I think I would still wait to nineteen. but at the same time it would be nice to just leave right out of high school. A few of my favorite talks were definitely Elder Holland, Elder Echo Hawk (what an awesome name!) and I also really liked Elder Gay's about how there's too much self justification of sin. That really hit me because there really is too much, "It's just a few dollars, it's not a big deal" stuff like that. It made me realize I need to stop self justifying and own up to my short comings and trust in the atonement more. I feel like that's why people justify their sins is because they don't trust in the Saviors atonement like they should. I know I need to be better at that. I love talks that really make me step back and analyze myself. So it's really good to hear that my new card is here! If you guys could put a little money on it, I think I'm going to start to buy some more layers and things. It is starting to get cold and dark here, fast. The colors are slowly starting to change, but not as vibrantly as they do back in Utah. That is cool to hear that that sister from Idaho called you guys! She was so nice! but yeah, It was her and her Swedish friend who I was talking to in that experience I shared with you guys. I didn't tell you guys that she was planning on calling you because I wanted it to be a surprise :) haha so surprise! Mom, about the package, hmm... if you could fit in a stick or two of deoderant that would be great. I'm on my last stick. other than that.... hmm... I'm not sure other than that! Surprise me! Thank you for the package in advance! You have no idea how much mail means to a missionary. Wow sounds like there were some crazy close games for football this week! Man I love it when we beat Lone Peak! haha Keep me posted on baseball for sure too. I miss American sports... but innebandy is amazing here! Well that's about it for this week. Elder Saldutti is feeling better now so that's good. I am in good health recently. I've only been sick enough to stay in the apartment once since I've been here in Sweden. I've had a fever once Mom, but don't worry, the ceiling didn't fall in on me! haha. It was just a low one. The work is still moving slowly forward here in Trollhättan. Our investigators have been... difficult... to say the least. Haha we can just never meet with them the past couple weeks, but hopefully it'll get better. Know that I love you all so very much and am so greatful for the environment I was raised in as a member of this church! I know it's true and that this is a chosen work that I'm a part of. I love my mission and love this gospel!


love you!

-Äldste McKay.

Sorry...

So the subject of this email is sorry because i think this might be a short email again this week! I am so sorry but me and Elder Saldutti need to get back to Trollhättan a little early today since we have an appointment right at six tonight. But I'll try to type as much as I can in the short time I have! So this week was a good week but a slow one. About mid way through the week Elder Saldutti got pretty sick so there was more sitting in the appartment than usual. So on Tuesday we went to the Shropes house and had dinner with one of our new investigators! Her name is Jill, she is 40 years old and has three kids. A girl who is five, and two boys who are eight and fourteen. they are all christian and have really good standards which is crazy rare here in Sweden let me tell ya... just the fact that they are christian makes them a minority here. So we had dinner and had a really good discussion with Jill about her religious background and then we sat down with the kids and everyone and watched the restoration movie. She really liked it and said she was excited to read in the book of mormon and find out more! ah it was so perfect! it was definitely the highlight of the week! other than that we just did some more less active work this week and began this thing where we are going to visit the members in the ward and teach them how to use PMG in there daily lives and help them realize that its not just for missionaries. PMG really is so amazing! I wish I would have realized how amazing it is before my mission! haha but I think these PMG lessons will be really good, the biggest problem here in trollhättan and the biggest reason it's one of the most unsucessful areas in the mission is because the ward isn't very enthusiastic about helping the missionaries or about missionary work in general so this should be really good.


It's starting to get pretty cold here! haha It's scary, and it's getting dark! I guess by the end of October/first of November the sun will be setting at 3 o'clock or something crazy like that! So we'll see what that's like.

Sounds like Cedar City is a blast! I would love to go to the shakespeare festival one day, I think I'd like it. Anyway, I'm sorry this is so short but I've gotta head! I love you all so very much! Thank you again for all you do for me! I feel each and every one of your prayers. I'm so greatful for each and every one of you and for my chance to be here in sweden! It is definitely hard work, but I wouldn't trade it for the world! I love you all!

ps. I can't wait for conference!!!

pps. I love you all!

ppps. yeah elder saldutti plays guitar. he is super good! he was in a couple bands before his mish that we're pretty famous.