Gubbängen and New Year´s: 1/1/15

This has been a very crazy week, but it was very good. On Friday we had a funeral (as they are leaving the mission) for Elder Stafford and Sister Smith. We had a few eulogies and poems, and I made a slideshow using pictures from both of their missions. I thought it went pretty well. It was also a mini birthday party for Sister Jacobs, because everybody was transferring right before her birthday. On Sunday, I took a train to Stockholm after church. Both of my suitcases were pretty heavy, and I couldn´t find any space on the luggage racks on the train so that was a little stressful. I found a spot for them, but it was in a different cart on the train. By the time I found a spot I had just enough time to say goodbye to everyone before the train left. 

     I am in Gubbängen now! It is an area that is just outside of the actual city part of Stockholm. It is very, very different from Sundsvall. We ride the tunnelbana (subway) everywhere, or we walk. It is a little warmer and less snowy in Stockholm, which I am really glad about. My new companion is Elder Walker. His mom is Swedish and his dad served his mission in Sweden, so he basically already knew Swedish before his mission. We have been getting along pretty well so far.

     The last couple days we have been doing a lot of swing-bys. We have a big list of less-active members and other people that we just try to go by and visit. It´s a little harder in Stockholm, because a lot of buildings have a coded door that we can´t get in. But we have met a lot of interesting people while walking around. 

     Lately there have been a lot of random fireworks going off while we are walking around. We usually don´t see anything, but we´ve heard a lot of explosions this week. We did see one go off though, and it didn´t even go higher than the buildings. I´m pretty sure that the fireworks here aren´t as safe as America´s.

     For New Year´s Eve we got to go to a member´s apartment along with the zone leaders, who are in our district. It was pretty fun. We played a game kind of like Scattegories, where somebody picks a random letter and everyone writes down a word that starts with that letter in a couple of different categories. We also played charades. Then we watched a bunch of fireworks from the member´s apartment, because it was on the 9th floor in a building on a hill. It was pretty foggy though, so we heard a ton of explosions, but didn´t see as many fireworks. There were still a ton of fireworks that we could see though. Some of them went off at the same level in the air as where we were, so that was exciting, haha. 

     Last night the zone leaders shared a spiritual thought that I want to write about. They showed us a video that the Church made where people in a cafe are interviewed about what they know about the story of Lot´s wife. The lesson of the story of Lot´s wife is that we shouldn´t look back. What´s in the past is in the past, we can´t change it. But we do have the power to change the future, to make it the best one possible. Especially around New Year´s we all think of goals for the new year. But this is not the only time that we can choose to change or improve. There was a line in the video that I like a lot. It was, "Today is literally the first day of the rest of your life." Everyday we can make decisions that can lead us to becoming greater people and bring us closer to Jesus Christ. It is through His atonement that we have the power to change and become better.

I hope everyone has a wonderful new year!!

Elder Smith

Pictures!!!

1) Me and Elder Walker

2) Fireworks

3) The sky looked really cool a few days ago. I didn´t get any pictures of it, but a little later the sky was super  blue and red and orange during the sunset.