Jönköping - my final resting place

Noted: In mission lingo we you leave the mission it's referred to as "dying" and your last companion/partner "kills" you off.

Gorgeous, beautiful Jönköping!  I can easily see myself living in this wonderful place.  I was only here a short four weeks, but they immensely changed my life.

Kjanela (Syster Fawcett) and I moved into the just vacated couples' apartment in Jönköping... which was pretty dang nice.  Even had a piano in it :-)

Yes I totally took this from the bus haha but you never know
when you need to go on a magic carpet ride!

That first night there we had dinner with Alex where I was properly introduced to him.  We also got to meet with Helen (who I met on exchanges before) and Rikki that first night.

My second day there we traveled to Gislaved which is a cute town that's a ways out from Jönköping by bus.  We had quite a few lessons that day which was very nice.   This lovely statute to the right was along the drive.

Kjanela and I had a blast together.  We spent a lot of time finding and trying to build the area.  We will never run out of things to talk about.

One very memorable dinner with a family was with the Rasmusson family.  All of us missionaries came this night.  They just recently had kittens so that was super cute.  We also played mafia.  During the second round I was chosen to be Mafia and I most definitely won.  I killed off everyone else, including my fellow Mafia partner.  So win through a thorough betrayal mwhahahahaha!  The excessive laughter was most definitely necessary.

We spent lots of time walking!  Which was good because we got to sharing each others novel ideas--a retelling for me and brand new for her.   During the second week there, we went up to Vista Kulle with Lasse and Nema.  I was able to get some really pretty pictures (most of the scenic pictures that you see throughout this blog entry come from that hike).

I did end up getting sick a week and a half into my time here.  Being sick as a missionary is always interesting--I had taking time away from missionary work (always feels a bit guilty to do so) especially since I had precious little time left.    We had a slightly embarrassing moment where we street contacted a member.  But she was super nice about it and invited us to teach her the lessons.  She said it was a "MTC" experience for her in preparation for the next life (she was 90 years old at the time).  After the lesson, Kjanela all but forced me to go take a nap to heal up a bit before heading out for some swingbys.  A little girl tried to hold Kjanela hostage after stealing Kjanela's water bottle.

I also had a really embarrassing moment.  We were swingby a former investigator, who was home, answered the door and invited us in.  I then asked if there was a woman home (because we can't go alone into a single's man apartment) to which I received the reply that essentially said "There is no man here. I am a woman and I am alone--is that okay?"  I instantly turned bright red when I realized my mistake.  She thankfully didn't mind too much and she invited us back again.


July 3rd was a busy day!  We traveled to Göteborg for a conference/meet-and-greet with President and Syster Beckstrand.  They seemed really nice and I was a little disappointed that I would only serving them for three weeks in the end--not able to actually get to know them that way.  I also gave my dying testimony--we have a tradition that the last zone conference of the mission, the missionary has to bear their testimony in Swedish and it was my time.  Saying goodbye is always hard, but in the end we couldn't linger since we had to sprint to the train in the pouring rain so we wouldn't miss our connecting train back to our area.  So it was kind of a shouted goodbye as I was running past haha.


4th of July! We did celebrate the holiday with the American and British families in the ward. It was a good thing that we won the American quiz (admittedly by just one point).

We went to a smaller town to drop off a wedding invitation at a member's house for someone.  She wasn't home so we were going to do some contacting and head back into Jönköping.  But we learned that the bus would take over an hour to come again, so we walked to the train station.  The train station was small enough that it had this sign, which essentially says that if you want the train to stop, turn the sign so that it signals the train.

I was thinking about the concept of love at the time.  One of my better friends in Örebro was going back to Africa even though he knew it was going to be incredibly dangerous for him to do so.  This meant that I was going to miss him when I visited Örebro at the end of the month.  I don't know why certain things happen--but I just need to do my best to learn from those experiences. My ultimate goal in life is to just be happy--I learned a lot about happiness and love while on my mission.  Love for friends, love for family.  The deep feeling of truly caring for the well-being of others and wanting to serve them.  I always have a torn desire/wish of being able to see into the future, but not wanting to know the unknown at the same time.  At this time, I had a hard time seeing past August 2014.  I just kept wondering where I would be ending up in the end: California? Utah? Elsewhere?  

Kjanela and I tried to continue to do service here and there.  We tried to "doorbell" ditch Rikki and totally failed... we were way too loud!  But it's the thought that counts?  

On the 9th--two weeks before I was headed home, Kjanela and I were making lunch before heading out for the day.    I was slicing zucchini when the knife slipped and sliced my finger.  So being the nice and clever person I am, I just quietly go to the bedroom to take care of it since I knew Kjanela wasn't particularly found of blood.  I was getting a bandaid and some medicine from the closet when I noticed that the edges of my vision were changing and I have the thought "Oh no, I'm going into shock.  I cannot go into shock." 

The next thing I knew a weird rushing feeling was going through my mind.  I was worrying about Rikki and Helen and how we needed to do something for them and it was then I realized that the rushing feeling wasn't normal and that I was lying on the floor.  It took me a few seconds longer to realize I wasn't supposed to be on the floor, that my head was really pounding, and that my finger was still bleeding.  Once I had enough control of myself, I bandaged my finer and walked back into the kitchen and sat down at the table - shaking a ridiculous amount, before I tell Kjanela, "We have a problem.  I just fainted."  

I ended up giving myself a slight concussion. The cut itself wasn't actually all that bad, like it didn't need stitches or anything.  There's just something about the sight of significant amounts of my own blood. So the next few days were interesting since I needed to recuperate... riding buses and trains were not a good idea.  We did keep our lesson with Rikki that day... which was interesting.  I just remember it was in the park and I don't remember much of it.  

It rained a lot my month there.  But lots of rain means plenty of vivid rainbows!

Actually I don't remember the weeks after my concussion particularly well---a little more on the hazy side haha.  I do remember that Swedish was particularly difficult for me at the time.  I also remember that I had absolutely no filter, so anything I thought came out of my mind, for better or for worse.  We starting preparing for a music night that would take place my last Sunday as a missionary--learning new pieces was a bit interesting for me at the time.  I started feeling significantly better a week after the incident.

My last week had a lot of piano playing/practicing.  Even had a music lesson with Rikki wear we focused on how music can influence you in your life, where I played quite a few songs.  We found out that Rikki really likes Jolly Ranchers (almost to the point where he had too many of them, so now he doesn't really like them as much anymore).

Service at the Strömbergs helping Melanie in her garden.   We helped removed some stubborn plants including a rhubarb with gigantic roots that was extremely difficult to dig up, but with all of us working on it, (both sets of sisters and elders were there) we were able to get it out.  I was just excited because I got to play with her grandson quite a bit--though we did end up losing half of my nametag in the process).

We were able to celebrate Helen's birthday.  I baked her a cake which she really enjoyed.  Rikki made sure to scare her.  We had invited Alex and the other missionaries to attend and it was a lot of fun.  It was nice to spoil Helen for a bit.

My last sunday (July 20th) I played a musical number at church with Elder Farley (again haha, him on cello with my accompanying him on the piano).  We had the musical night/recital that night and everything went incredibly well!  All of the sisters in our district (the other Jönköping sisters as well as the Borås sisters) ended up staying the night at our apartment.  We made pumpkin cookies and just talked which was nice.

The other missionaries in Jönköping gave me a funeral on Monday (July 21st)--the view from the park we were at was gorgeous!  I loved it :)

We completed all of the last minute errands we needed to do before Tuesday (since Syster Fawcett was heading up to Stockholm a day early so she could be trained on how to train new missionaries--she was going to train a new missionary as soon as I left).  We had one last lesson with Rikki which went well and ended up with me deciding officially to come back the next Saturday to Jönköping with my family.  On Tuesday, it was hard saying goodbye to Kjanela, but it helped that I knew I could see her again in a few days.

On Wednesday, I traveled up to Stockholm by myself, meeting up with the other missionaries going home.  I even got to see Camille at Stockholm central station and we made plans that my family and I would take her and her new companion out to dinner the next day.  We drove to the temple from the central station and it was a surreal experience.  So many memories of the past year and a half.  That evening we spent in the mission home with President and Syster Beckstrand.

I will forever love Jönköping and how my time there altered my life forever.