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| Blossoms from the train station in Kållered, where we lived We had to take a train to Kungsbacka everyday |
I was called to serve as a Sister Training Leader in the Kungsbacka area. In our mission, a STL was over a group of roughly 10 sisters. We attended Missionary Leadership Council (MLC), conducted exchanges with the sisters we were over for training and learning purposes, performed trainings at Sister Training Meetings (and Zone conferences upon request) and reported the progress of the sisters to President and Sister Newell. We were supposed to lead by example in contacting and lessons each week. President Newell had initiated a similar sort of program before it became official as a more church wide policy, so my entire experience as a missionary had sister training leaders. You'll see this come into effect as I mention various stories.
My welcome into the area: My first night in Kungsbacka we had dinner with Andreas and Cindia Mattsson and the elders. First it started a little awkwardly, because the elders had told us that the time had been changed to a half hour earlier than originally planned (which was a miscommunication/misunderstanding because the dinner time was not moved up in the end). We had to get there earlier anyway since we road the bus, and so we were standing awkwardly outside when Andreas and Cindia drove up and the elders were still awhile aways.
The absolutely first question I was asked was if I played the piano and shortly thereafter it became official that I would be playing a musical number with Cindia and Elder Morley singing with Elder Knecht (on cello) and I accompanying them the following Sunday. We ended up performing I Believe in Christ in Swedish.
Also plenty of exchanges while I was here, during this first month I went on exchanges with Syster Randall in Göteborg and Syster Miller in Kungsbacka, Syster Hauglid (hi Camille!) and Syster Fawcett in Jönköping with more to come!
You can hear the most random things.
I overheard this conversation on the bus between two older women:
"Is she dead yet? She should have died years ago--are we sure she's not dead yet?"
At one point we were inadvertently part of a marathon. We were just walking back to the train station when all of a sudden all of these runners started to run by and we were just surrounded. It was a little bit weird feeling haha.
We hiked Utby mountain with most of the zone which was super fun! Even though it was my second time I've been in a Göteborg area, I never went to Utby the first time around (but then I was only there for 5 weeks and we weren't necessarily able to get into Göteborg every p-day)
Celebrated my second Valborg in Sweden! (The first was back in Västerhaninge my first area) I felt it was a little more anticlimactic this time around but it was still fun to see all of the missionaries!
Also was able to go to Bohus Fortress again. We weren't able to walk around inside like last year since it was apparently open only on weekends during the time we visited but we were still able to walk around the edge of the fortress and take some pictures. Super green this time of year! I always love seeing older architecture (this ended up being a busy p-day with lots of shopping).
Had my first experience with Zumba led by Cindia. It was super fun but exhausting haha! We also were planning a music night for Kungsbacka (I ended playing three pieces - two accompanying singers and a solo in the end, but more about that later). But on of the best days as a missionary: May 11th aka Mother's Day! I got to Skype home to my family for what would be the last time as a missionary before seeing them in person in July. Those few times that you can speak with your family are so precious, definitely enjoyed it while it lasted. Haha one of the first things they reminded me was that I only had 2 and a half months left.
The week of the 11th of May ended up being a big traveling week. We had exchanges with the Jönköping trio (I actually went to Jönköping), then we traveled back to Kungsbacka on Tuesday, before traveling to Stockholm for MLC and then back so we could have Zone Training led by Syster Newell the next day in Göteborg.
Exchanges with Jönköping with Camille and Kjanela was fantastic! Little did I know then that I would be transferring there is just over a month and a half to be companions with Kjanela (more on that in a future entry). Ended up telling my book stories again haha. Camille had been talking me up! Met Helen for the first time, heard Rikki's voice for the first time, met Alex (and made I think a somewhat poor impression on him since we were in a hurry and I wasn't particularly chatty...oops). I thought the city was absolutely gorgeous!
I also started to write more for fun during the few free minutes we have a day.
We also had Sister Training Meeting on 22 May 2014! Gave me a look into what it would be like to be an assistant to the president. We were in charge of a decent portion of it and helped run tech support. I actually like running trainings like this and teaching, so even though it was a lot of work, it still was a lot of fun! This was my very last sister training meeting as a missionary. With only two months left to my mission, time was running out fast. We focused on goals and what numbers really meant. We gave them a drawing and letter we wrote as a thank you and sign of our love.
Afterwards we learned that all of the trains back to Kungsbacka were canceled so we had to take a bus that got us there 2 hours later than planned, but we did make it!
The 24th of May (a Saturday) was an interesting day, since I was a little out of it. I kept entering addresses incorrectly into the phone so that the GPS was taking us into drastically different places than where we were supposed to go. And it wasn't until the middle of the day that we realized while we were contacting someone that I had put on one of Syster Larson's extra name tags! So... we were Syster Larson and Syster Larson for the day!
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