December 21st, 2014 | SUURRR STRÖMMING

Well this week I finally tried surströmming which is fermented herring... (very old very raw fish that has a reputation of making missionaries throw up)
hilariously though I liked it... We went to a less actives house with the two other elders that are here in Örnsköldsvik (Urrn-shulds-vik). My companion Elder Pearson and Elder Simmons and I all tried it. It was pretty salty but pretty good, Elder Pearson and Simmons hated it though. It might have also been that I was pretty hungry but I don't know.
Afterwards Ulf who was the host had made a Christmas dinner, so we ate it... it was good!
Other than that this week was good... it is really dark pretty much all the time, and when the sun does come out it never gets really high in the sky and it's usually overcast. The snow did brighten it up a bit though, so that's good.
Oh yeah and we also had our Christmas zone conference thing... it was good, I realized that pretty much everyone in the mission that I know is home now... so I felt pretty old :( but there is a bright side to that I guess.
Anyway I am super pumped to skype for Christmas, I will be skyping at about 17:00 my time so 9:00 in Utah I believe... I will have Mom call Tess and Kyle to schedule that.
anyway Love you all!
Äldste Peterson

Here we are eating rotten fish together

here's a close up mmmmmmm

digging in

Snow outside our window

When we were in Stockholm we went to gamla stan into this super cool si fi store... I felt like we walked into comicon! (I've never been so I guess I don't really know how that is but......) here's a shot of the street.

December 14th, 2014

Well this week was great! I am emailing now because we are going to Stockholm tomorrow for a Christmas mission conference, and we probably won't be able to access computers.
highlights on Tuesday we went to Runo's and brought Root Beer for him to try it (he's never had it before). He liked it! which was super cool because most Swedes say it tastes like toothpaste haha. Then we got to bastu with him which was super cool. Bastu is the Swedish word for sauna, it was fun.
This week I decided to start a comic strip because last Saturday for institute the lesson was on drawing and I realized that making comics is actually really fun! so I will include a picture of one of the comics I drew below.
Other than that I don't know what else to write, I am excited to Skype home on the 25th! Christmas is coming fast and there's a little bit of snow on the ground although I think it's colder in Utah and Wyoming right now.
I am loving life right now and enjoying the opportunity to build relationships with the people here.
 I hope that everything is going well with everyone
Love you guys!
Äldste Peterson

Here's the comic it's especially for you Dad! haha

me and Elder Pearson at Runo's

me and Runo, with his first american root beer!

Oh I totally forgot to mention that we went to see Santa Lucia yesterday... it's a Swedish Christmas thing celebrating an Italian saint... it was pretty fun. They did it in the mall this year (usually it's in a church)

This is the Christmas tree for our branch! We set it up last night.

December 7th, 2014 | well hej there Allihopa!!!!

Hey!

Well this week was great! We got to meet some super cool investigators, one of which is a nice old Swedish man named Runo, he lives in a house on the edge of the city, and he had a bunch of art in his house so I talked about art with him for like 30 minutes, then we had a super spiritual discussion and ended up teaching him how to pray... he was a little hesitant at first but once he said it I could feel the spirit fill the room even more (I hope that makes sense).

We also met with Tim a 20 year old Swede who is super cool, loves video games, Crash Bandicoot was a major topic of discussion, and likes just talking with missionaries. He has been taught a lot but I think that we will have to go over everything again. Some of the concepts are hard to grasp, especially authority. But he's a super nice guy.

The last guy I will mention is named Henrik he is in his late twenties early thirties and Swedish, we spoke English with him which is always an interesting change. Personally I like teaching in Swedish much better, because I have done it so much, I feel like it's easier.
We talked about how we gained our testimonies of the gospel with him, he is willing to change and he definitely has an open heart. At the moment he is atheist, and I hope that at the very least we can help him believe in God.

Super nice people though, other than that things are going great, Elder Pearson is a great companion!

Oh also yesterday was fast and testimony meeting and it was good, all four of us missionaries bore our testimonies and a new family moved into the branch which seemed to double the people there, I think that counting us four missionaries there were 21 people there.

I hope everyone is well, I love hearing from you all!
Elder Peterson

December 1st, 2014 | Up to The North

Well I'm here in Örnskoldsvik... It is AWESOME! Funny thing happened on the train ride up as well... so I first traveled to Skövde which was a 1 hour ride... went great. Then I took a train from Skövde to Stockholm, which was a 2 hour ride, also went great. Last of all I took a train from Stockholm to Örnskoldsvik which was a 6 hour ride, and right when I sat down the man who was next to me offered me the window seat which was super nice, and then we started talking. When I told him I was a missionary he guessed that I was a Jehovas Witness, and when I told him I was Mormon he was shocked mistaking Mormons for Amish.
He was also shocked to find out how big the church was and we had quite the conversation. I taught him the restoration and the plan of salvation and answered a lot of questions he had about Mormonism... he looked us up on Wikipedia on his phone as we were talking. We also talked about cars (he is a sucker for oldies so we got along just great) he even showed me a picture of an old 67 Jaguar that he had sold a few years earlier. He was also an avid traveler and had done a trip to america with his buddy last summer visiting Floirda, Las Vegas, and LA, among other places. He's in his fifties.
Anyway it ended up that he added me on Facebook gave me his card and invited me to dinner. (wish I could use facebook) his name is Kjell, pronounced Shell. Super cool guy and he lives about 9 Swedish miles from Örnskoldsvik so we will see what happens, it's about a 30 minute train ride to get there.
  The week continued after that, our apartment is super nice, it's HUGE, so that's great. My new companion is Elder Pearson, he's really cool.
One of the first Investigators that I met here is named Adel, he is originally from Afghanistan but when he was 13 his whole family was murdered by Al Qaida, they wanted him to suicide bomb somewhere, and luckily he smuggled himself to Iraq where he worked at a factory sewing clothes, until things got to bad there and he moved to Sweden seeking asylum, he met missionaries a few months ago read the whole book of Mormon in Persian (he speaks good Swedish because he has lived here for two years living with a Swedish family, he lives alone now though) and he has a testimony of it and want's to be baptized but if he does and his friends from Afghanistan who live here find out that he has changed religions then they will kill him. He's only 20.
I have been surprised at all of the middle eastern people I have met on my mission... Sweden has a lot of immigrants. There are so many kind people, it's sad to see how the bad decisions of a few can have a huge impact on so many others.
In Sacrament meeting I gave a 20 minute talk on how we can be better missionaries as members, and in it I shared a lot from the talk:
Make the Exercise of Faith Your First Priority

It has a lot of really good things that we can do to strengthen our testimonies.
I really liked giving the talk and it wasn't nerve racking at all because there were only 20 or so people there and we meet in an apartment.
Anyway this week was good.
Love you all sooooooooooooo much,
Äldste Peterson

Ice on the side of the road yesterday... pretty cool.

Örnskoldsvik town square (we live about 5 blocks down that street.

November 17th, 2014 | Hej allihopa!

Well this week was good! Just did normal missionary stuff... which gets boring just saying the same thing over and over again.

This week though I started reading Genesis and I am loving it... it is super cool seeing how the twelve tribes of Israel started out... and how Jacob's name was changed to Israel....

I was wondering if anyone knows why Jacob isn't reffered to as Israel untill after the second time his name is changed?

The first time is in Genesis 32:28... and the second time is in 35:10 but his name dosn't change untill 35:21 right after Rachel dies. Just curious.

but anyways I also read Ecclesiastes on Tuesday morning (it's pretty short) and it was super good, it talked all about how we shouldn't be vain and how knowledge is of the most value. Kind of like what it says in a lot of Proverbs.

Anyway if you have an hour or so I would recomend reading/studying Ecclesiastes.

Other than that life this week was good, we got to meet with Holland and his wife Zaklina and their three kids (they are from kosovo) and we talked a lot about baptism. In their culture the person who baptizes them becomes their Godfather and they explained to us that it basically means that you grafted into their family... they are not sure yet if they want to but we told them that they just needed to read the Book of Mormon and ask for an answer. They are super nice.

This week was also super fun because Noah Bernhardsson a 13 year old member came running with us on Wednesday and Friday. he lives on the other side of the lake so we ran around it. Super cool that he would get up at 6 to come run with us in the cold and the dark.

On Saturday we got to go to his families house for American breakfast. Magnus Bernhardsson
Noahs Dad was trained on his mission by a McArther who is from St George. He served in England, I am pretty sure were related but not 100 percent.

Anyway I wish I could show you pictures this week but we forgot the cable for the phone so... Tyvärr :( Men kanske nästa vecka!  
Jag Älskar ni soooooooooooooo myket!
Äldste Peterson

November 22nd, 2014 | I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...

Well... I will definitly have a white Christmas this year! I am getting transfered to Örnskoldsvik up in Norrland! Super excited! Oh and today is P-day because of the transfer (they want the people going home to get there in time for Thanksgiving I think).
Sad as well because the sisters in my group are going home. :( I guess that's bittersweet though, they made it!
anyway this week has been good, I got to say goodbye to some people and we ran with Noah on Wednesday and Friday and he even came trackting with us on Wednesday night which was cool.
When we picked him up I handed him a Mormons Bok and said "alright Noah our goal for you is that you give this book to someone"... and he did! The very last person we talked to at about 21:00 was a guy from Iraq who spoke good Swedish and English. and he even said that he would come to church on Sunday as well! which was cool.
We also got to visit Christer with Noah. We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ, great lesson.
anyway other than that the week was super good! I'm excited to leave but glad to have had the chance to spend time in this ward... so I guess my exodus is bittersweet as well.
Oh and by the way I LOVE CHRISTMAS, ie. Christmas music.
Love you all!
Äldste Peterson

Me and Downing trying on Sunglasses in Kungsbacka... this is from like two weeks ago.

running with Noah

This was pretty funny... a guy we had taught the restoration, then he said that we could come back, sounded super nice and then left this on his door. haha

Me and Downing

Gerdads Bageri... pretty nice place.

this is Catharina... she's a super nice new member from Congo.

This is Christer... cool guy

Haven't seen one of these in a while... super weird, found this while trackting on Thursday.

cool picture Downing took while we were on the train this morning.

November 10th, 2014

Well this week was good,
We got to teach a lot this week! Which was great and a lot of people let us in when we have been trackting, we meet a lot of interesting people like yesterday we taught about the book of Mormon with a family from Pakistan that has lived here for about ten months they could barely speak Swedish and I only know a few words in Arabic but we had a Book of Mormon in Arabic ( I learned how to read the numbers and all the books in the Book of Mormon) so we taught them by using scripture. They had a daughter who is seven just like Ariana, and she was nice, her name was Marriolo or somthing like that.
Right after that we knocked on one door and then the second one we knocked on answered and it turned out to be a satanist, he let us in and we taught him the plan of salvation. It's amazing because most of the time people don't let us in or even answer but lately there have been quite a few.
It is interesting all the different kinds of people that you meet in the world.
Anyways
Life is Good.

Yes the about picture is Captain America... haha and yes I wore that under my shirt while teaching both the above mentioned lessons (I had a sweater over my white shirt so you couldn’t see through)

This picture is a house that we trackted (they didn't answer)

This is a HUGE pooofy coat that I got for free at the last zone conference... I love all the pockets. :) (oh and it's warm)

We helped David and Andreas (who lived in Trollhättan last year when I was there) move here to Alingsås... pretty cool beans

This is Noah Holleson and the Holleson's beagle.... pretty awesome dog. (we helped them fill in some holes with gravel on their dirt driveway on Saturday and on Wednesday they fed us lunch)

November 3rd, 2014 | Halloween

Well this week was cool, there was just too much that happened and I am way too lazy to write it all down so I will just give the highlights... after emailing last week we got to go to this cool music store in Gothenburg and I played this super sick synth which was fun, as well as guitar, bass and drums.
later in the week we got to help a member who is building his own house, mostly we shovelled gravel and carried insulation.
We also got to help Lennart move from the top floor of his apartment to the bottom floor, Lennart is a guy in our ward who is totally awesome he does cremation by trade for the Swedish church, and has been a member for a long time.
anyway Things are great... hope that everything is good back home!
Love,
Äldste Peterson

October 27th, 2014

Well happy Halloween! almost, This week was super good I will make this quick, but some highlights were:

I think it was Wednesday and anyway we ate dinner and then we were heading out the door to go so some trakting and so we said a prayer as usual, and right after we closed I felt like I should grab a Book of Mormon, in Arabic... so I did, anyway we ended up trackting into a family from Iraq and we taught them the restoration and gave them the Book of Mormon (they speak Swedish but reading is better in Arabic).

I also had a funny experience... we were teaching a first lesson to two guys from Kurdistan and somehow it came up that I showed them a street view of Wyoming on our Iphone and he said "hmmm it looks like Iraq" haha so I guess Wyoming looks like Iraq, anyway I thought that was funny. 

other than that things are going well... it rains all the time and when it doesn’t there is so much fog you get wet anyway... very different from the dry climate of Wyoming and Utah. Humidity... it's probably like that for Tess and Kyle in Illinois, but I don't know.  

Anyway love you all I hope that things are going well back home. 

October 20th, 2014

Well things are going well here... this week was pretty cool, on Tuesday we were able to meet with Traute, a sweet old German lady that is investigating the church. She is afraid of what her children will think if she gets baptised into our church, but we were able to make real progress with her faith in God.
On Wednesday I got to go on splits with Elder Johnson who I was comps with in Vendelsö. It was fun to catch up. Then on Thursday we had a Zone training, it was fun to get to see everyone in our zone and I realise how old in the mission I am getting, it's weird.
Friday we made Dad's cookies and took them out to a member, it was cool because we just surprised them with them, it reminded me of when we used to take people bread during Christmas.
Saturday was cool too, we got to play soccer with Holland one of our Investigators, he is from Kosovo and it was interesting because me and Elder Downing were the only white guys there. haha
Anyway that's the run down of the week, other than that things are going well.
Love you all!
Äldste Peterson

Here are the cookies! Thanks for the recipe Dad!

This was kind of funny, someone ruined their tire and just hung it on this tree... haha it made us laugh.

Soccer (or Football as everyone says in Europe)

I realize the picture looks like we were playing basketball, but someone had just kicked it high, and it was indoor.

October 13th, 2014

Well hey there allihopa, This week was super good... We tracted into a man named Holland from Kosovo on Tuesday it was cool because he speaks German and so I got to realize how rusty my German is.
Later in the week we also met a man named Achmed from Iraq who I practised the four words of Arabic I know... he was nice and tried to convert us to Islam.  
The week was super fun though, we contacted 142 people on the street this week and we have one new Investigator! Holland.
Also in Alingsås they have a big thing in the month of October every year called Lights in Alingsås where there are basically just light exhibits around the city, it's super cool and people come from all over to see it, we saw part of it on the way home on Saturday.
anyway things are good here... I loved all of your emails they were awesome!

Äldste Peterson

The picture below is of the inside of a church that we visited on Monday with some other missionaries.

on our way to visit Verner, this 93 year old guy from our ward he lives in a rest home, and we walked the long way around the lake to get there... pretty sweet!

Alingsås at night

The church that we visited... it's in Gothenburg.

Me and Elder Downing

October 6th, 2014

Well this week was good! Of course the highlight was General Conference, It's a little different in Sweden because of the time difference of 8 hours and so on Saturday we watch the morning session at 18:00 till 20:00 and then we watch Preisthood on Sunday morning at like 10:00 and then Saturday afternoon at like 14:00 till 16:00 and then Sunday Morning at 18:00 till 20:00, so I haven't seen Sunday afternoon yet, but I think that of all the ones that I did see I liked President Uchtdorfs talk about telescopes and the light of the gospel the most in the Saturday morning session.

Before conference we were able to go out to a members ridskolan which is a horseback ridding school and move all the jumps and obstacles to their indoor stadium for the winter... It was super fun and it reminded me of taking riding lessons in Wyoming. It was also great to be able to help them out in some way.

We also got to go bowling this week with the young single adults and while we were there we ran in to a man named Kim who we had contacted on the street, he doesn't believe in God, but he is open minded and so talked to us. I thought it was pretty cool though that we ran into him just a short time afterwards especially in some random bowling ally with the young single adults. People really are placed in our way.

It is slowly getting colder but fall is making a brave attempt to hold on, all the trees here are turning color and it really is a great time of year.

This week I was reading in Alma chapter 30 about Korihor who is trying to destroy the church and it was awesome that a few talks referenced that same chapter. I think it's sad that so many people will not believe our message because of various reasons when it is such a beautiful plan but deep down like Korihor many people know that there is a God but they just lie to themselves and because of this they wander through life trying to find happiness.

I think that General Conference is a great reminder to us that we need to bear our testimonies more because that is how they grow and so I leave all of you my testimony that I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is God's authoritative church on the earth and that only through the authority of this church can we access the full power of heaven in this life. There are many pretenders and that is why it is so important that we ask for ourselves. Through prayer and scripture study we can receive this witness again and again. I remember one thing that Chris Hinckley liked to share in his Sunday school lessons back in Basin, he would quote a general authority and say "a testimony is as hard to have as it is to catch a moonbean in your hand you have to try over and over again every day"
I hope that you all enjoyed Conference as much as I did.
Med stor kärlek
Äldste Peterson

September 29th, 2014

Well this week has been GREAT! I got my new companion Elder Downing who is super ready to work Which is awesome! We decided to only speak Swedish with each other and it has been going great! So I finally have some pictures for you all.
LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is yours truly

Me and my dear companion Elder Downing

This is the lake that our apartment looks out over... pretty sweet

This is some graffiti in Alingsås... graffiti is VERY popular in Sweden

this was funny, we travelled all the way out into the woods to swing by this less active, it was pretty fun and this little guy was there to greet us. They were there but they didn't have time so we just told them that we are here if they need us.

While we were out doing a swing by we found this little toad in the road. pretty cool!

Me cutting my hair, it was getting kind of long

September 22nd, 2014

Well this week went well. I will give some highlights.
on Saturday we got to help out with a youth conference thing, there were about 70 youth there from ages 12 to 17, it was fun, and a good experience to help out. While we were there we got transfer calls, and Elder Simas will Be going to Lund (that is the south of Sweden) I will be staying here and getting Elder Downing as my new companion.
On Thursday we had a cool experience where after getting a prompting we went by train to a town called Herrljunga and swung by a less active lady's house. It turned out that she had been wanting a blessing and we came at just the right moment. We were able to give her a nice blessing and she is planning on trying to get to church more. (it's hard because she is married to a non-member who is not very friendly towards the church.)
The rest of the week was good, I dislike writing emails so If these are to short I'm sorry. I would much rather just tell you all about it. I am doing great though and really enjoying my mission, the work here is slow but that is kind of a "well duh it's one of the most atheist countries in the world" but it is great to be able to see the difference that the gospel makes in peoples lives that let it. If I have learned anything on my mission it is to not take for granted the HUGE blessing we have to have the gospel in out lives... without it life is HARD.
Read the scriptures!!! they really do help! proverbs is my favourite book right now, probably because I have been studying out of that the most. But if anyone is not happy with where they are in there faith or life or anything really, READ READ READ the scriptures.
I love you all soooooo much and I hope that things are going well back home for everyone.
Med stor kärlek!
Äldste Peterson

September 10th, 2014

Well this week was not as wet, there were a few cool things that happened this week I will start with Anna. Anna is Hjalmar's wife if any of you remember Hjalmar he is the man that was baptised while I was in Trollhättan so it has been almost 10 months since I saw them... they live in Trollhättan which is about an hour away. on Friday Anna was baptised by Hjalmar! I hope that their two sons will follow soon. The service was really nice put on by the two sisters that are there right now. The best part was that Elder Simas and I both taught their family and we were able to be there for it!

Another cool thing that happened this week was that Yesterday was Stake conference, which was great but in addition to the stake conference we were able to have a missionary meeting with the west and south parts of the Swedish mission where Elder Hallstrom who spoke at General Conference this April was spoke to us. I was super cool and the spirit was strong.

Other then that this week was good. Love you all!!!

Elder Peterson

September 1st, 2014 | AMERICA

Hey!
Well this week was good! Yesterday was the last Sunday that Alingsås ward is going to meet in their chapel for the next five months because they are adding on, This sunday is stake conference which should be good because it will be in Göteborg same place as last year... I am excited to see how it compares.
Yesterday was also cool because we got to eat dinner with an American Family! It was super cool, but a little weird to speak english to non missionaries who had real american accents.
Other then that this week was pretty normal teaching.

On Saturday there was a ward party, whch was pretty fun, Elder Simas and I helped man the stations, he got the hammer a nail station and I got the ring toss. The coolest part of the evening was the blowgun station though... They were so cool, I always wanted to shoot a blowgun.

sorry If i'm boring, I just seem to do the same kind of things every week in different ways, I love being a missionary in Sweden though, it's really great.
I also apologize for not taking pictures, I will try to improve.

This week I have been reading through proverbs and this morning I was reading chapter 13... the first verse is SUPER good Dad.
Love you all!
Äldste Peterson

August 25th, 2014 | More rain this week.

Well this week was good! I don't think it stopped raining though.

On Thursday President Texeira one of the seventy and president of the European missions did a mission tour and put on a conference for all of us missionaries in Västra Frolunda in Göteborg. It was good.

Mostly it was great to meet up with some of my buddies in the mission.

He talked a lot about being optimistic even when you are in an area that historically has low numbers. I think that was great advice.

Life is kind of like that. If we think that we are having a hard time all the time and we always complain about our situation, then most likely we will have a hard time.

On the flip side if we are always optimistic about our situation (while still being realistic) and are grateful for the experiences that we have been given, we are bound to be happier.

I keep a pretty regular journal and I have started writing down quotes and making them up. One of the ones that I made up recently is "Happy is a Choice" I think this is true.

A great example of this is Catharine, a sweet old African lady that was baptized about a week before I arrived in this area. Because of this we visit her often. Catharine always has a great big smile on her face when she greets us at her door, she is always upbeat and happy and from what I know of her she has not had an easy life at all. In fact she told us a little bit about how when escaping her country she was nearly killed multiple times. I think it is so awesome that she still is just happy, it makes me feel more inclined to be happy.
I remember one of my favorite youtube videos that Sister Newell actually shared at a Zone training about a year ago. If you can watch it, it's called "Validation"

Anyways things are going well here, if anyone has any specific questions ask away.
sorry about being so bad about taking pictures lately.
Med Stor Kärlek,

Äldste Peterson

August 18th, 2014 | Rain

Well this last week went by pretty fast.
Monday was interviews with President Beckstrand, and then P-day on Tuesday.
Wednesday was just a normal day of missionary work, and then on Thursday we had Zone training, it was all about obedience which has been stressed lately in the mission. I really liked it.
After Zone training I went on splits with Elder Sweat from California. It was great! Elder Sweat is a great guy, he went to college for two years before his mission just like me. and he was going to BYU so we could have seen each other.
Splits lasted until Saturday night, due to difficulty with travel. It was really cool because I was on splits in the same area a little over a year ago, and we visited some of the same people. It's cool to see the same people, and also meet some new ones in the same place.
On Friday I got a bit of a cold, and on Sunday it was the worst so we just stayed home and i slept and got better.
The weather has been rain rain rain. which is ok, but I lost my umbrella in my last area. Elder Simas had an old one that members had given the last missionary in this area, and so I have been using that. It does smell better when it rains though which is nice.
This week we are having a member of the seventy come and do a mission tour. I am excited to hear what he has to say.
Other than that things have been good, kind of slow because of Semester but good.
Love,
Äldste Peterson

July 28th, 2014 | Alinsås!

Well I am now in my new area of Alingsås! It's pretty different here, both the landscape and the people. I had no idea, but the dialect here is different. It's cool to be able to hear the difference now.
I spoke in church on Sunday, the ward is pretty big, about 70 people in sacrament meeting. I talked about prayer. I shared Alma 37:36-37 and Mosiah 4:11 which are both great scriptures I would recommend.
It was really hot this last week which made traveling uncomfortable but totally fine. It was kind of interesting. It was planned that I would take a train to Katrinaholm and then switch to one going to Gothenburg, but the first train that I was on had something malfunction about an hour into the trip, so they slowly made it to a stop in the middle of nowhere and switched everyone on the train to a bus.
while we were waiting for the bus I almost laughed the situation was so funny. We were all gathered under a few trees for the shade. There was a small group of people from south america on their way to a dance competition in Malmö so they played some spanish dance music while we waited, I was alone. in a white shirt and tie, and there were Swedes as well of course.
The bus finally arrived and we made our way to Katrinaholm, passing through beautiful Swedish countryside on the way. I sat by a man from Iran, we didn't talk much.
We arrived after about an hour and a half, and waited at the train station for our trains. They were all delayed, so I stood there for around 2 hours until finally the train arrived to the cheering of all of us waiting, I thought it was funny that they cheered. I ended up arriving in Gothenburg at 30 minutes to midnight luckily Elder Simas and Elder Stafford, one of the zone leaders were waiting. We waited another 30 minutes for another missionary to arrive and then spent the night at their apartment in Gothenburg instead of making the trip to Alingsås.
It was a long trip. But i'm here!

I forgot my camera cable so no pictures this week.
Love,
Äldste Peterson

July 21nd, 2014 | Hejsan!!!

Hey! well this week was good. we were able to meet a lady named Marianna for the first time, we contacted her on the street a few weeks ago, and on Tuesday I was going through the phone calling everyone in the potential section and I was able to set up a meeting with her. She came to the church and we taught her the restoration. I felt like it went well and I am excited to meet with her again on Tuesday to teach her the Plan of Salvation!

We also got to play soccer again, this week which was a lot of fun, there were 11 people there all in all and 5 of them were not members of the church. It was fun,but us Americans looked like fools playing against Swedes and Africans, haha

We did not get to go to the temple with Daniel as planned because he had to be somewhere else but he does want to go soon, Unfourtunatly I will be transferring to the other side of Sweden to a city called Allingsås, so I probably won't be able to go with him. He was funny and he told me that even though I was going to be far away, he would pay for my train tickets so that I could go with him. I tried to explain to him why that wouldn't work but I don't know that he got it.

I am excited to transfer, sad to leave my companion and this area though. I have had such a great time here and I have made a lot of friends.
Anyway I hope everything is going great with all of you enjoy the summer!!!
Love,
Äldste Peterson

Soccer!

Västerås Domkyrkan

July 14th, 2014

Hey!
Well this week was really good! We went to a zone training on Thursday which was a lot of fun. We went on a hike just outside of Uppsala which is a neighboring city to Västerås. It was really hot out, but it was still a lot of fun, and kind of strange to be in normal clothes.
We were also able to teach a lesson to Gordon again, we are going through the Book of Mormon with him, and during the lesson I shared a scripture with him that is one of my favorites and he loved it. The scripture is in Mosiah 4:9.
I also renewed my visa because it has now been over a year since I have lived in Sweden! Pretty weird.
On Saturday we got to play Soccer again with Daniel, Bukuru, three of his friends and the Stake President... it was really fun but I rolled my ankle pretty bad, so I have been limping around the past couple of days.
Last week I forgot to send some of these pictures so some of these are a little late.
This is Weinerbröd it's danish and sooooooooo good. they cost about 7 crowns at local grocery stores.

This is all four of us missionaries after we did a step class with Ida. (she is the Instructer so she invited us for free) She and her husband David have us over every tuesday for dinner and we teach a lesson. it has been dubbed Awesome Tuesday and I think that they have only missed one week since I have been here. They really take care of us. We were all pretty tired after this step class and I was a little embarrassed because the lady in front of me must have been over 60, but she did way better at following the instructions then us. haha it was a lot of fun though.

Me and Elder Brown, taking a big elevator to renew my visa.

I saw my old car.... nostalgia haha

July 7th, 2014

Well this week I got to explain to Daniel what a strawberry was. I got a very Swedish haircut, probably too Swedish, and we got to see a bunch of Swedish people try to act like Americans for about three days. It was Power Meet, which apparently is the biggest American classic car show\gathering in the world.
Mostly it was just a bunch of very drunk people driving in a perpetual traffic jam around Västerås wearing as little as possible, and some less than that.
The work here is still going well, I love talking to people about the gospel, and I get frustrated when people are unable to comprehend the importance of the message that we are sharing, but that is the way that missionary work is supposed to be and growth only comes from doing hard things.
I continue to love it here though.
President Beckstrand is great, I am very excited to get to know him and his wife better. They stressed the importance of exact obedience, which I think is fantastic, because I have definitely seen the miracles that come from when we are exactly obedient. He said something that really stood out to me about keeping the rules, it went something like this:
"even if you think a rule is needless, or you don't understand the meaning of it, just follow it anyway, because the lord sometimes tests our faith by seeing if we will follow even those things that seem unimportant"
I like to think of myself as an obedient missionary, but there are always things that I can do to improve.
Other than that I got to spend the 5th of July with a less active family in a little town outside of Västerås called Enköping, it was fun, and really good they made steak, macaroni and cheese and an american flag cake, and afterwards Malta the Husband, showed us his paintball guns which was cool.
Thanks for all the emails!
Love you all!

Äldste Peterson

Swedish Haircut

My group! this was at the meet and greet for President and Sister Beckstrand. 

These are Malta's paintball guns, pretty cool.

a car from the meet