I am trying to get used to the Swedish keyboard, so I may have some typos. It is really awesome here. I am in a city called Sundsvall, which is in Norrland (the northern zone). It was a four hour train ride north of Stockholm. I like it a lot. My companion is Aldste Stafford, who has been here almost two years, and is from Idaho. This is the first time he has been north, and he says the people here are super nice compared to other places. Almost everyone we contact stops to talk to us.
For those who didn´t hear, we had an exciting time getting our visas. On Thursday they told us that our visas hadn´t come in yet, so we would most likely not leave when we were supposed to. But then on Friday they called us back in and said they just got our visas, with about 15 minutes left until they would have reassigned us. Then they read us where our reassignments would have been. So I could have been in Ogden, Utah for a transfer, which would have been nice actually. But I am super excited to be in Sweden! I know I am supposed to be here.
The travel went alright. We had a few close calls getting to the bus, to the airport, and getting to one plane, but it all ended up alright. We walked out of the baggage claim area and President and Sister Beckstrand and the AP's were there. Then we went to get our visas, then to the YSA (Young Single Adult) center in Stockholm. We had a short devotional, then paired up with experienced missionaries and went to contact for half an hour. It was kind of hard, but good. We talked to a couple guys, but it was super crowded so it was hard to talk to people. Then we went to the mission office to sign a few papers. Then we took pictures on the waterfront, then went back to the mission office then on to the mission home. The mission home is the same one they´ve had for a really long time, and it´s really nice. We had interviews with President Beckstrand then went to bed.
The next day we went to a church building and had a meeting, and found out our areas and trainers. Then we went to the train station, and on to our areas. It was weird saying goodbye to my MTC district who I´ve been with 24/7 the last 6 weeks, but they will all do great.
In Sundsvall there is me and my companion, another elder companionship that we share an apartment with, and a sister companionship. My first morning in the area we had district meeting at the church. Afterwards some of us tried this super super super hot hot sauce that Aldste Gray and Aldste Ogaard have. It is 1.5 million on the scale of spiciness. So me and Aldste Gray each took the dropper (it´s so hot it has a dropper because you never want more than a drop) and dropped it on our tongues. It tasted really bad, then got really really hot. It was funny, because it made me start to hiccup a lot. Then I started crying a lot, and I was not very smart and rubbed my eyes. So then one of my eyes started to sting a lot, then we all got kind of worried, haha. Aldste Gray, by the way, barely reacted to his hot sauce. He claims he is more used to spicy stuff. So we found some caramel sauce in the kitchen and they gave me spoonfuls of that since we didn´t have any milk. I was surprised that the hotness lasted so long. So that was a fun experience.
Aldste Stafford and I have done a lot of contacting. We usually try to stop by places where we have records of people who have met with missionaries in the past, and then talk to people in the area when they are not home. Something interesting here is that there will be a street, then there will be a big group of apartment buildings, with paths and grass fields in between. So it is pretty here, but there are very few actual houses. We take the bus everywhere. It is a pretty nice bus system here, and tons of people use it. It is nice that there are hardly any cars on the streets, and lots of people walk around so it is easier to contact.
We kind of started a new area, since there used to be a YSA couple here instead of another elder companionship, so we don´t have real investigators yet. But last night we taught a man who has been taking lessons for a long time, and used to be the sisters´ investigator but he lives in what is our area now.
Yesterday was also our first Sunday here. I understood a couple of words out of the three hours of talking, haha. But I didn´t fall asleep so it was good. I shared my testimony and introduced myself a bit. All the members here are super nice and said I have good Swedish. It is a branch, so there were 50ish people there. But there are a lot of kids and families. After church one of the member families had all 6 missionaries over for dinner. They had five kids who were all really fun, but pretty rambunctious, haha.
So overall it has been a super fun week! I can´t understand too much Swedish yet, but everyone says I´m pretty good for my first week. It is a lot of fun having an apartment with another set of elders.
Oh, another thing. On Saturday we took an hour bus ride to help rebuild an inactive member´s roof. They had scaffolding over the front of their house, and we got to help tear out the old roof boards and hammer in the new ones. Then the family fed us a really good dinner.
It was sunny the first few days here, but it has been overcast and a bit cooler the last three days. It reminds me of Oregon, haha. But Sweden is really awesome :)
I hope everyone has a great week!!
-Aldste Smith
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