Week 35--- Going South and then back to Norrland

Tjena tjena!

This week was pretty average besides us flying down to Stockholm for a meeting called Mission Tour. 

We had a man, who is high up in the church, named President Johnson, come and speak to us in Stockholm. So they flew down all the missionaries from Norrland and about half of the missionaries in Sweden were there so it was a blast seeing the buds from all over and catching up. 

Wednesday, we drove 2 hours south to Umeå then flew to Arlanda, about an hour from Stockholm, then after some complications with travel, a subway and a bus we finally made it to a city called Vendelsö where we stayed in a small flat with 6 other elders. 8 hours of travel in one day.  The flight from Umeå to Stockholm consisted of a dude from southern Sweden with a THICK skonish (southern swedish dialect) grilling me with controversial questions about the church. I was drained by the time we landed, but gave him a Book of Mormon so maybe he'll get something from it. Thursday night we flew back to Umeå but the weather was bad...snow, so we bunkered down with the Zone Leaders in Umeå for the night before driving back up Friday. The drive through the swedish countryside in Norrland is beautiful. There's snow fields, forests, and some reindeer too. 

Last Monday after emailing, we got picked up by this guy named S and he drove us up to this sweet lookout over Skellefteå. We walked out onto the slopes of the ski resort Vitberget (the white mountain) and that made me miss shreddin it up back home at snoqualmie. oh well så är det. It was cloudy so Callor and I are going back today to the lookout to check it out since it's clear (and -24*C or about -11*F today), pics to come. But it was cool hanging with S and his little 1 year old son. We were almost surprised when he asked us if we wanted to go because no one asks missionaries to hangout. He's a nice guy and wanted to give us a taste of the city.

My spiritual thought today comes from an experience I had this week. While going through the area records about a month ago (with info on people have been taught before) we found a lady named M who seemed still interested based from her record. We called her and she said call back in a month, so we did and got to meet her on Saturday. She's about 45, married, and her and her husband had some fika prepped for us when we got there (gotta love that😎). They both asked us a ton of questions about the church, life, what we believe, and we sat there for about an hour and were able to answer all of them using the Book of Mormon. 

1 Nephi 10:19 says "For he that diligently seeketh shall find, and the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto them by the power of the Holy Ghost". Any question, concern, or problem, can be answered or fixed through the Book of Mormon. It's cool to see how I have been able to use it to answer peoples' questions on a life after death, our purpose on earth, can we put our mistakes behind us, is there a God, you name it. I'm grateful for the Book of Mormon. If you ever have a question, take it to God and "seeketh diligently" and you'll find an answer. 

Life is good up here in Skellefteå. The sun is shining, the snow is deep, and your boys are workin hard. I love you all!

Äldste Gordon 

A Swedish road....tired of seeing snow yet?

Where's the jetway...cold walk to the airplane
headed to Stockholm.

The view from the Skelleftea Lookout,

(side note: i bought a beanie today which folds down into a regular beanie that covers my ears. One funny swedish style here which i kinda like is that they all wear their beanies like this, above their ears haha you see teens, dads, and old guys all with beanies like this) Not the best look for me. ;-)