I'm going to write a bit about every day as taken from my journal. The one thing that I didn't really mention in my writing is that every night we were trying to clean out our apartment bit by bit (which steadily increased as time went on) since you could tell missionaries had been staying there for years with lots of accumulation of random things. I also was telling the story of my book trilogy to Candace throughout our companionship.
June 12th (Thursday) - Candace and I started off our companionship with Elder Morley's birthday so we made sure to make him a cake. We were able to meet with Saeed again and had dinner with Cindia Mattsson before finishing off the day with swingbys.
June 13th (Friday) - District meeting -> weekly planning -> swingbys. One of those days where we actually had a girl contact us. She had lived in the States for awhile to be on a gymnastics team was interested in meeting, but she was off to be an au pair for the next couple of months, so we just exchanged contact information.
June 14th (Saturday) - Lesson with Tomas, and a few new investigators. One man we contacted him on the street and taught him the entire restoration... little did we know until towards the the lesson, he had recently met the elders, who had tracted into him. He was super positive though! We had some more positive contacting experiences, which was good, because the investigator pool was rather low.
June 15th (Sunday) - had a meeting with the elders to discuss the area with the elders after church. Had a really nice dinner with a family from the ward. Lots of swingbys--I had a bit of a rough day honestly, but it all worked out in the end!
June 16th (Monday) - Normally this would be p-day, but because President and Syster Newell were shortly leaving for home and we had our last Zone Conference with them. I didn't have to give my last testimony as a missionary - that would be July 3rd with a combined Zone Conference welcoming in President and Syster Beckstrand. I couldn't help but think about everything that's happened in the last 17 months. It was a sad but good moment - utterly bittersweet. It felt like every goodbye I have in the mission--it is not a "goodbye forever" but rather we'll see each other again. The Newells did a lot for me during my time in Sweden, and I am forever grateful that I was able to serve under them. They were definitely what I needed!
June 17th (Tuesday) - Today was our p-day! Sports was a major theme of the day. After emailing we headed up to Göteborg and we met up with almost our entire zone to play games. We decided on beach volleyball which was totally fun but exhausting! During our proselyting time we ended up playing football (soccer) with the ward because a cousin of one of the missionaries was curious about the church. She seemed to have fun-we just need to get more young women to come and play! I felt utterly spent by the end of the day.
June 18th (Wednesday) - A lot happened today! After waking up and attempting to effectively exercise at 6:30 (hard because of how sore we both were from the the day before) and completing our normal studies we headed out the door shortly after 10. We were headed to an investigator who lived a three minute walk away, but along the way we contacted a woman and even through she couldn't speak Swedish or English (she was from Romania) she was still interested. Se we ran back to our apartment to grab a Romanian Book of Mormon - took so digging, but we found one! We were able to give it to her, because she patiently waited outside for us.
The investigator we were going to visit wasn't feeling well so we set up an appointment for the following week. We swung by a former investigator, who said we could come back because we didn't look dangerous.... Then we headed off into the mysterious beyond (the part of Kållered I've never been to in the entire 9 weeks I've been in Kungsbacka). We found some cute neighborhoods to work in later. This one little kid opened the door and we quickly realized that his parents weren't home and that we should come back alter--so this kid just walks back into the house, leaving the door wide open. We awkwardly stepped inside enough so we could secure the premises for him. We contacted others and handed out a Book or Mormon before we headed back to have tacos for lunch.
We headed into Kungsbacka. Just as our train pulls in we received a frantic call from the elders asking if we could give them our key to the church--they had left their key with the car keys, and their car was being serviced. We headed to the church to let them in for their lesson.
We then ended up walking the longer way through town so that Syster Richins could see some more of the Northern part of the area and a girl contacted us because she thought we were lost. We ended up walking and talking with her the 15 minute walk to the mall. Super cute! Only religious one in her family and she had just recently graduated.
We ended up tracting a couple of doors - the one that we though was a former investigator invited us to come back, even though it wasn't the same person since we were looking for a man, and she was clearly a woman. Figured we would find out when we came back. We found another man who had met with the missionaries before (he didn't realize that there were sister missionaries). We found this door, which being the Zelda fan I am, I had to take a picture:
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| It says no advertisements - so basically asking for no junk mail. I wish that was an option here haha |
We then headed across town to meet with the Bomgrens and their friend/neighbor that the elders had contacted and referred to us. The friend had three cute little kids all under the age of five. We planned on going back Monday night for some service and a lesson.
We hurried to the train to Lindome so we could teach a man we had contacted the previous Monday as well as his wife. They asked us to come back Saturdary. We had another lesson before we went home to eat dinner. At the end of the day we had 38 unplanned contacts, 1 member present lesson, 3 other lessons, 1 referral received, 2 referrals contacted, and 3 new investigators.
June 19th (Thursday) - Bit of a catch up day for paperwork/area book and a great dinner with some members. Got an idea for a romantic book haha. Found out that Elder Morley was going to transfer on Saturday, which was a little quick for a transfer (typically we have about five days notice instead of two and at least one Sunday to let the ward know).
June 20th (Friday) - Midsommar! We went up to Utby to celebrate! We participated in the dances around the pole and this was my first time to really celebrate since we had missed it during Örebro the previous year. We met up with 18 other missionaries and ended up spending the entire day with the others ince it was a non-proselyting day and not one had wanted to set up an appointment with us. After celebrations and lunch at Max Burger we went to the YSA center - peaceful day!
June 21st (Saturday) - A lot happened this day, a bit of it rather unexpected. We started weekly planning before heading up to Lindome for a less, which cancelled when we knocked on their door because they weren't feeling well. We swungby a couple of people - well tried to. One guy goes by a different name, but refused to answer by the first name listed on the ward records to it was just awkward.
After dinner we went into Kungsbacka for a lesson and to practice for a musical number that was originally supposed to be a duet between Sister Richins and Elder Morley, but had to be changed to a solo since Elder Morley was transferred. We definitely needed time to choose a new song and get things arranged before the next day.
5 minutes until 6 pm, we got a call from President Newell. He told us that I would be transferring to Jönköping for my last 4 weeks to be with Sister Fawcett and that Sister Richins would be transferring to Västra Frölunda to be Sister Training Leaders with another sister there. They would consequently be combining the two Kungsbacka areas into one under the the watchful eyes the elders. The elders would be moving into our apartment. All of this would be going into effect the following Wednesday. It felt right to me, but it was definitely different than expected!
We had one last lesson with an investigator, practiced, explaining the new transfer to other missionaries and really got home, we really started prepping our apartment for the elders by thoroughly deep cleaning everything.
June 22nd (Sunday) - It was super hard telling the ward that they were losing their sister missionaries. I know they were able to get sisters again after a few months, but it was definitely hard! Sister Richins sang "Be Still My Soul" while I played. We had dinner with some members before turning for the night.
June 23rd (Monday) - We spent most of our p-day getting our apartment ready for the elders. Ate lunch at my favorite little place by the Kungsbacka train station, emailed and rested a bit before heading over for the service I mentioned earlier. We helped her clean her apartment a bit and get a little more organization back into her life (she had recently became a single parent of three children under 5 and she needed the help).
June 24th (Tuesday) - We got the apartment ready and finished packing. The funny thing was that there was enough clothes left over from other missionaries in the apartment to fit two large suitcases and a carryon - so we basically had a third missionary's worth of belongings with us.
We started the day with some service, helping a member organize and clean out her storage from 10 to 12:30. Headed off to the church for open hours and a meeting with the elders, where we were able to tell them about the different people we were working with in hopes our investigators would keep working with the elders even with the sudden change in missionaries. Last lesson with Tomas and then with Saeed.
June 25th (Wednesday) - I was able to finish telling my novels to Candace a half hour before I was picked up by the Tolleys. The Tolleys were so happy to see what we had done with the apartment and impressed that with it. It felt good to leave it in good shape with the Elders!
Otherwise, goodbye Kungsbacka! Hello Jönköping!
And some more pictures to round off our two weeks as companions (representing 4 different days of our 14 haha):
That week all of the missionaries in the Göteborg zone were invited (okay, asked) to put on a fireside (a devotional) about pioneers and the gospel for the youth activity. The youth were doing a trek sort of activity complete with handcarts and camping. We met up with all of the elders at the Utby building and then made it out to the designated area a little wait. The original plan was to have a social hour at 19 and then the fireside at 20, but once we got there, we learned that they were running over an hour late. We eventually went out and looked for them and we found them! We ended up starting a little before 21 instead (cutting the social time short, but making sure they were able to set up their tents). We spoke on enduring to the end part of the Gospel and I think it went rather well! 
June 7 - We left early 5,27 so we could be at the train station at 630 to be picked up and drive down with the others. We drove through Malmö and the bridge on the way down to Copenhagen. It was very nice seeing a glimpse of the city again! I certainly loved it! And I was grateful for the chance to be able to go to this temple again during the daytime. The temple was wonderful and you could just see how much everything met to him. While we waited for the others to finish their session, we had some Danish kebab. Definitely tasted different from Swedish kebab--don't know if it was just the place or not, but it almost had a sweet flavor in comparison. Not sure if I entirely liked it honestly haha.
We had a sister training meeting up in Göteborg, where we got to meet with half of the sisters in the mission. I love these sort of meetings because it is one of the few times that we can meet with most of the other missionaries and friends. You can see some familiar faces in the group picture to the right from the various areas I served.
