Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hey everyone how are ya'll?!

So, a couple funny random language thoughts before I get started on the email today. #1- I have noticed lately that I feel the need to use ya'll when talking to people... haha I feel like this is an effect of Swedish because in Swedish there are different words for whether you are talking to one person or multiple. It is "du" and "dig" if it is just one person and it is "ni" and "er" if you are talking to multiple people. Where in English on the other hand, we just say "you" all the time. haha So when I'm talking to multiple people I feel the need to say ya'll since it's plural. haha I thought that was kind of funny. #2 I can totally understand Norweigan and Danish! haha They are so simliar to Swedish that if I listen really hard I can understand most everything. I can read both of them almost as well as I can read swedish! So I thought that was pretty cool :) haha. Anyways...

So this week went by in a blur! Holy cow! haha I can't even really think of where to start. So we ended up having to push back our baptismal date with Nadia :( Mainly because she hasn't been able to make it to church and is still drinking coffee. So that was a bummer, but she is still looking pretty positive. She is trying to drink less coffee so that is good. We continue to teach her about twice a week. Björne, our other baptismal date is still looking super positive! He is so awesome! I need to try and get a picture of him to send you guys. Just in this past week he has gone down from 15 cups of coffee a day to 4-5. So that was pretty impressive! Oh and this weekend was Stockholm stake conference and he came to the whole thing on Sunday and really enjoyed it! So he is looking super positive to be baptized on the 15th of December! Keep him in your thoughts and prayers though along with Nadia. So stake conference was so great! It was at the Gubbängen chappel which is like the south end of Stockholm and it is a huge chapel! And by huge I mean that it is almost the size of a normal chapel back home. haha But that is big for Sweden!  It was really cool to see the whole place packed with members from throughout Stockholm. I got to see Elder Muirbrook there so that was awesome! It was the first time I had seen him since we got to Sweden. I really love that kid. I hope we end up as comps sometime on the mish.

So driving around Stockholm is definitely... stressful... to say the least. Up here in Täby it's not bad at all but once you get down into actual downtown Stockholm it is pretty nuts! Especially in the big mission van. That's why I'm super greatful to be proselyting comps with Elder Lamb because then we take the assistant's car and make the others take the van. haha. Elder Lamb is so awesome! I really am learning a lot from teaching with him so that is great. So there will be some changes going on this week... so we were supposed to be getting a new batch of greenies tomorrow but they are having visa problems just like my group did! I feel so bad for them! I know exactly what they are going through! So right now the mission is kind of on hold waiting for them to get here but in the mean time there will be a small transfer. Elder Kleis will be going home on Thursday, so we will be getting a new AP. It will be Elder Marchant who is one of my favorite missionaries in the mission! He was my ZL in Göteborg for five months so I am so excited for him to come up here! Also Elder Carpenter will be transfering to Hägersten with my dad, Elder Sanders. So it will be Elders Asp, Lamb, Marchant, and myself here in the office until Lamb and Marchant go home on December 18th. Those lucky dogs will be home for Christmas! haha.

So mom I'm excited for the package that is on the way! Thank you so much! I will for sure ask Sister Newell if she know's of anyone who could use a Christmas package in the mission when I see her at office meeting tomorrow and then I'll shoot you an email and let you know! So we are very lucky here in the Täby ward this week! There is an american family in the ward who is having us over for Thanksgiving dinner! All four of us! Their names are the Kendriks and they are so awesome! They moved here because Bro. Kendrik manages a company here or something and they are definitely full bred Americans. haha So we are all so excited to go over and have a real Thanksgiving with them! It will be so great! Tat is definitely a tender mercy of the Lrd that this family is so open and willing to have us in their home on Tanksgiving Iam so greatful for that!

Well I'm sorry the email is a little shorter this week but we are going to head out and do something fun for Elder Kleis' last p-day! Know that I love you all so very much and am so greatful for all of you in my life! Especially during this holiday season. Even though it's hard to be away durring this time of year, I would not trade a second of my time here in Sweden for anything! I love my mission so very much! Time goes way too fast! I know this church is God's kingdom on the earth today and that it is my responsibility and my privilege to help that kingdom grow here in the great land of Sweden. I am so greatful for my opportunity to serve and that I was raised by such amazing and shining examples of not just living the gospel, but loving it! (I'm talking about you mom and dad!!) I love you all so very much and and so thankful again for what a blessing it is to have you each in my life!

I love you all! Have a good week!

Love- Äldste McKay.

 Every sunday night at 8:30 we have what is called RE. haha It means revelatory experience. It's code for go have fika (like Swedish tea/snack time) with the Eriksons. haha It is the best! So each week at 8:30 we go over to the Erikson's apartment and Sis. Erikson has cookies or brownies or something awesome and we all just sit around the table and talk about what happened in the week and stuff. It is so fun! So last night for RE we had pizza and bread sticks as a going away treat for Elder Kleis and then we went into the Erikson's living room and took some "family pictures" haha This seriously is the best way to end the week. 

Ruins and a Photo Shoot

So on saturday we were on our way to some service and saw these cool looking ruins on the side of the road so we pulled over and to check it out. it ended up being ruins of a church dating back to the 1100's

Naturally what had to follow next was a photo shoot...

Ha Ha, Enjoy!

Hej pa er!

How's it going family?!


So another exciting week has shot by here in the office, and with it came even more big news! haha So I guess I'll go ahead and start with that.

So on Friday president was here in the office and pulled me and Elder Asp (Elder Carpenter was on splits with the Stockholm zone leaders) and the assistants into his office for a meeting and told us that we will be switching compainionships up a little bit. So how things will work now is until two o'clock every day (office hours), Elders Asp, Carpenter, and I will be companions, but then, after two o'clock we will have what are called "proselyting compainions" which means I will be companions with Elder Lamb, and Elder Carpenter will be companions with Elder Kleis. I guess they have done this before in the office in an attempt to get us out of here by two o'clock more consistantly. Also, it was Elder Lamb's 21st birthday on Saturday and his American license expired, and Elder Kleis doesn't have a drivers license because they are so expensive in Europe. So neither of them can drive! haha So that makes me and Elder Carpenter the only two that can drive out of the five of us! (Elder Asp never got his license before the mish). haha So we have to split up so that everyone can still get to their appointments. For now, Elder Asp will stay here in the office after we leave and be comps with Elder Erikson(the senior couple here in the office) then, once the Erikson's go home for the night he will be with Elder Carpenter and Kleis for the rest of the night. So kind of a crazy set up here for a little while but things will get alot simpler here on the 22nd when Elder Carpenter get's transferred and Elder Kleis goes home. Then we will hopefully be back down to just four in the office.

Did I confuse anybody with that long winded explanation?? haha Basically, all you need to know is from six thirty to two o'clock I will be with Carpenter and Asp in the office, and then from two until the end of the night I will be with Elder Lamb out proselyting. so yeah, that's the plan for now! haha

Oh and also in that same interview president told me and Elder Asp that he plans on keeping us here in the office for a long time. Like around 5-6 months.... haha so I guess I better get comfy! haha President changes his mind alot though so we'll see what actually happens. I feel like this means one of two things, president either really likes me and wants me here, or I did something wrong so he wants me here to keep a closer eye on me. haha Hopefully the first one!

So other than that this week has been just a normal week. We have another baptismal date! His name is Björne! He is a super awesome guy! I taught him on Sunday during priesthood with the assistants and he is so solid! He is the husband of a recently reactivated member who is now very strong in the church and is really adamant about helping Björne take this step. His date is for the 15th of December, which would be the Saturday right before Elder Lamb goes home so I really hope we can make that date! He has a problem with drinking coffee. Like a serious problem. Like 15 cups a day problem. haha But we are confident he can quit, he has already quit smoking and snus without too big of a problem so he can get past coffee I'm sure. and as for our other baptismal date, Nadia, she is doing well! I feel like quitting coffee will be a bit more of a challenge for her because she kind of self medicates with it to cope with headaches she gets from her epilepsy. But we met with her on Tuesday and taught the word of wisdom and she said that she believes she can quit, she's just scared. We will be doing family home evening tonight with her and her son so hopefully all goes well there. She is very determined to be baptized, but isn't quite as determined to quit drinking coffee right now. So we kind of need to help her realize more clearly how hand in hand those two things are.

So last night I was with Elders Kleis and Lamb at a members house for dinner and come to find out that this member goes to Pleasant Grove on buisness like 5-6 times a year! haha How crazy is that!? His name is Bengt Emanuelsson and I guess he his the manager over all of Europe for the company Synergy which is based out of Pleasant Grove right down by the University of Phoenix by the freeway! Världen är så liten! (the world is so small!) haha So yeah we got chatting about PG and he pulled up google maps and had me show him our house and all this stuff it was so cool! Then he started talking and aparently he is really good friends with the Normans and the Iorg's! as in Dane and Gay Iorg! haha I was just like no way!? My parents are friends with the Iorg's too! haha It was really really cool! So you'll gave to call up Gay mom and ask about Bengt. He is such an awesome guy! Their whole family was super cool. We had a really good time at dinner with them. Oh and he said that he is going to PG in about four weeks so I'm going to try and convince him to drop by the house or some thing. I think that would be so cool!

So holy cow do you all really have six inches on the ground!? That is crazy! It still hasn't really snowed here. Well at least not in Stockholm, it probably has clear up in Norrland. but it is definitely getting cold! And darker and darker each day. It's staring to get dark closer to three o'clock now. So that is depressing. haha By the time I actually get out of the office each day it's dark. haha but oh well. So good luck to BYU in their bowl! Do you know who they will play yet? That's just nice that they ended up being bowl eligible.
That is so amazing That you guys got to hear Elder Bednar! He is so good! Dad, I definitely feel you on the need to better your personal scripture study. I get an hour each day just for personal study and sometime I get to the end of that hour and am just like, wow, I really should have used my time better, I didn't learn anything! Oh and that is really neat about the Baklunds! I am so excited for them to get here! I'm going to talk to president about going to the airport to pick them up when they first get here. So hopefully I can!

Well fam I need to head for this week but know that I love you each so very much and love the work that I am permitted to do here for the people of Sweden!

I love you all!

love-

Äldste Keetch.

Hej från stockholm!

Hey family how's it going?!

so here I am in täby, Stockholm! and I love it so far! My companions elders Asp and Carpenter and so great! I love them both. it really is a testament to the the fact that your mission changes you for the better, because to be honest, Elder Asp and Elder Carpenter and probably the furthest personality wise from the kind of kids I hung out with before my mission but I love them to death! We have a lot of but and keep things light here in the office so that is good. So I guess I'll give you a little more info on the office and how that all works. So the mission office is located at Enebybergsvägen 38, the same address you send all of my letters and packages to. It is a big building with three floors, the ground floor is actually rented out to a pizza shop called viking pizza ha ha. The second level is split in half. Half of it is the mission office, which consists of two offices for the senior couple, the Ericksons, who work here in the office, a big office for us secretaries and the assistants when they are here, and then an office for President Newell. The other half is the Erikson's apartment. then the third floor is our apartment. it is us and the assistants that live there. So usually it is a four man apartment but for now we have five. There is enough beds to sleep six though since we have zone leaders and different missionaries passing through spending the night with us fairly often. Our apartment is seriously probably about three times bigger than any other apartment in the mission! haha it is super nice. Part of that is because we have the board room where all office meetings and meetings with new/departing missionaries take place as our living/studies room. So that is super nice. The assistants right now are Elder Kleis (Finnish) and Elder Lamb (from Washington state) and they are awesome! So it is always a fun time once we all get home for the night. ha ha. So a normal routine here in the office is hard to explain because according to what I've heard from others and what I've experienced so far, there is no normal routine. Ideally how it's supposed to work is we get up in the morning, do studies and all of that as normal, and then come down stairs at ten o'clock and start office work, which entails forwarding all letters and packages to missionaries in the field, sending our referrals we receive from salt late, filling media orders, and anything else President or Sister Newell or the Erickson's need us to do. then, at two o'clock we are supposed to stop office work and go out and proselyte for the rest of the day, hence the title proselyting office elders. Well, let's just say that I haven't gotten out of the office before five o'clock yet. and I guess that's pretty normal. ha ha Even though President really would like us to get out of the office by two every day, it just doesn't happen there is too much to do and a lot of it is very time sensitive so it can't necessarily be put off until the next day. Plus President always has lots of extra projects and errands for us to run. So we don't get too much proselyting time, which is a bummer but at the same time, makes it so we treasure and make most of the time we do get! I have not been so eager to go and knock doors my entire mission! ha ha You get a little stir crazy in the office towards the end of the day and it just feels good to get out, no matter what you're doing.  Do you all remember how mark and Jolynne would call me their gopher when I would help at the rodeo? Well, in a nut shell, we are the presidents gophers. For example, on Thursday we spend four hours playing taxi for some members between the air port and the temple and then on Friday we had to stay up until around midnight because we had to pick President and Sister Newell up from the airport because they had been in Spain for a mission president's training meeting oh and while they were gone we were in charge of fixing the broken internet in the mission home so that it would be back up by the time they got back. ha ha it's pretty random the stuff we get to do but it's okay, I actually really enjoy it! I have had the opportunity to edit one video already which will now be put on a DVD and sent to the whole mission to use while teaching high school English and religion classes. So that was pretty fun! Felt like home, except for the fact that I had to do it all on a PC instead of a Mac :( what is with the church and DELL computers?! ha ha Come on! I think I need to write President Monson a letter and tell him the church needs to get on the Mac wagon. ha ha just kidding.... but really... ha ha. nah it really wasn't that bad. It was just good to be working with video and computers again, and apparently there's more of that to come, I guess President has quite a few video projects planned for me. So that will be fun! So as for the are, we belong to the täby ward in the Stockholm stake. It is a great ward and is pretty big! Over 100 active members weekly. That's quite a step up from Trollhättan's 50-60 weekly attendees! ha ha It actually almost feels like an American ward, not quite but almost. Me and elder Asp were asked to bear our testimonies yesterday in fast and testimony meeting because we are the new guys and it went really well. I reflected back on my testimony that I gave on my first Sunday in Sweden in the Trollhättan ward and compared it with this one and it really is amazing how for my Swedish has come. Many members came up to me after and could/would not believe that I had only been in Sweden for only five month because of my Swedish. So that was definitely a confidence booster! We do have a car in this area. the assistants drive a small opel corsa just like the rest of the mission but we are lucky and get to drive the huge blue mission van! ha ha it's pretty awesome, it's a big, three row van that we use to take missionaries too and from the airport when they are arriving or departing and man it is a pain to drive! It reminds me a lot of driving the truck ha ha but I'm not complaining! It's just nice to have a car! So Täby is a very rich area of Stockholm which can sometimes be a little hard for mission work but it's also one of the most successful area's in the mission so that shouldn't be a problem:) we actually do have a baptismal date with a lady by the name of Nadia for the 17th of November! I haven't gotten to meet her yet but she seems very positive and we are confident she will make that date for baptism so pray for that and I will give you more info as I get it! ha ha. So unfortunately I haven't been able to find any winter clothes yet but I think we are planning on going into central Stockholm next week for p-day so hopefully I'll find some then! It is getting cold and really dark! As I am writing this letting it is two forty five in the afternoon and looking out the window it looks about like six at night. It is usually dark by four o'clock lately and pitch black by five thirty or six. It is really weird to get used to! Especially since we don't leave the office until around that time, we end up doing all our work in the dark. ha ha. kinda depressing but eh, not too bad. they do this stuff in Sweden called solar therapy that a lot of times the government actually covers and it is more or less just fake baking. ha ha. so maybe we'll have to go try that in January when it is dark 24/7. oh so speaking about the winter season, it is looking like i will almost for sure be here for Christmas. There's not foreseeable reason that I would be transferred before than. so that mean that Christmas packages can be as heavy as you want! The whole under four pounds thing is just a rule in the mission so that we can forward the packages to the missionaries at no cost but now that I live here at the address where all the mail gets sent, I will get my mail faster and there won't be any regulations on weight so cram those packages as heavy as you would like! *hint hint*.... ha ha. just so you know! 

Well I think that is about it for now, I just wanted to share a neat experience to end it for this week. So on Saturday we had the opportunity to drive about and hour and a half to the northern most part of our area and do service for this family in the ward that lives out there. needless to say they don't get many visits so we made it a point to spend most of the day out there. we helped them cut down trees and build wood sheds and split wood so that they could get ready for the winter since they live in the middle of the forest and rely on a wood stove for their heating. so after a long day of service and a great dinner ended by giving blessings to both the mother and the father of the family we headed on our way, it was only about 5:00 but as I said earlier, that was late enough for it to be basically pitch black. Well we set on our way home and about fifteen minutes into the drive elder carpenter had the need to... relieve himself... haha and we were just driving on a very remote two lane highway so we decided to pull off the side of the road really quickly. well what we didn't see is that covered by brush and grass was a fairly deep ditch right off the shoulder of the road. well we had taken the assistants small Opel corsa for gas mileage sake and it became completely high centered in this ditch. we could not get it to budge. well what do three missionaries do immediately when they're in trouble? pray of course! and wouldn't ya know, as soon as a prayer had been said, a young Swedish kid with an eyebrow piercing came down the road, we flagged him down and he said he lived just up the street and could drive home and grab a truck they had and pull us out. the reason this was such a blessing is because half way through our day of service our phone had stopped working completely. we would have been stranded if the lord had not been watching out for his servants and send that kid to help us out. he came back quickly with a hatchback Subaru, apparently that's what's considered a truck here in Sweden, and pulled us out no problem. I am just so grateful for that tender mercy the lord gave us and for that fact that prayer really does work. i know that when we pray we speak directly through our heavenly father and that that is possible only through Christ and his atonement for us! 

things are great here in the office for now and i hope things are great back home too! i love you all so much and hope you have a great week! 

love-

Äldste McKay.