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.
No comments:
Post a Comment