Letter dated 21Oct2013

Dear Family and Friends: The past few days have been really sweet! On Friday, we had a conference with President and Sister Newell and about 50 missionaries. The theme was to begin talking and teaching more about families and family history! The following day, the Jakobsberg Ward hosted a family history event. I was the picture and technical support guy for that, so I got to go around, get in unnecessarily awkward positions, and take pictures of everything and I got to fix computers by reading Swedish instructions and looking at Swedish pictures. That was like Everest for me, but I did it :D I also got to go on the family search website and work on family history, which made me so happy to see my family tree and learn some things (for example, my great-great-grandpa named Daniel played the baritone in a marching band!). There's a new mission policy to stay at the church buildings two days a week and mostly help people work on their family histories. And as missionaries, we also are doing an hour a week of personal family history work. I am really psyched for it all! In the book of Mosiah, King Benjamin and King Zeniff's people were very family-oriented societies, and they were super blessed with a knowledge of the Savior and in prevailing in war against their enemies, respectively. I am really excited for the blessings that helping people's families will bring! Other happenings: it's become quite cool here. It doesn't sound quite as cold as Idaho right now, but it's definitely a step below Michigan. And I got my first Swedish suit! It was only 45 dollars and is of top-notch quality. So I'm pretty much Swedish by now :) On Sunday I fasted and had some really good ideas about how I can become a better missionary. Also neat was that 4 people we've been meeting came to church, and someone else just sort of fell from the sky! She is a German woman named Katja whom we hadn't met before came and is really interested in the church. She said that she had a really good feeling in church! This is something that our investigators who come always say! It is so neat that they so reliably feel the Holy Ghost when they come to church. I have been taking lots of really neat pictures lately! Sorry about last week's picture ... I accidentally and randomly selected a picture, so that's why it was so random. But today's are pretty good, and there are many more good ones! They are of yesterday in Spånga, the city south of Jakobsberg; the sky here is always really pretty! The list of attendees at the ward's family history event next to some stylish pen art. And Äldste Sargent and I some time two weeks ago! I hope that everything is going super well with all of you! Love you! Love,