He's standing in front of Globen, the largest spherical building in the world.  It is a sports area in Stockholm

HEYYYY!!!!! I think time might be going a little faster for me... Not incredibly fast but quicker. So this last week was great! Sometimes it's hard for me to remember what happened.

So I got my first haircut in sweden last monday... Its supposed to "Swedish" and it is, but Its not crazy different. Just a little shorter on the sides and long on top. Louisiana's friends name is Emma and yes we are still teaching her. She's been going to institute with Lousiana and coming to church and sports night. We have spent a lot of time with the Bazurtos. (The family with the 2 boys they baptised) Its gonna be hard to leave this area because of them. They are all just so nice and Louis and Edward are just the cutest little guys ever. A great family. We were over there last night for middag and it was fun. I met Sister Heather Jacobs (his 2nd cousin) at a piano concert a couple weeks ago. She was transferred from Kristianstad to Alingsås and her comp was performing in the concert. It was exciting stuffs.

Its funny that you brought up the suit. Thats been one of the hardest things to resist. I want a euro suit soooo bad but I know that as soon as I buy one I will never want to wear my other suits again. I think ill wear the ones I have now through the winter and then buy one later. Some are superrrrrrrr cheap. Like we spent more on the suits I have now then a good swedish suit. Yeah....I havent really bought anything here..... I think im gonna buy soccer jerseys for every area im in. Even if the team is horrible. Its just that my bags are sooo full and I dont know how much extra stuff I can get.

I miss Trev and ash sooo much. Thats the thing I miss most, Family. Its hard missing all of the kids growing up. But, soon enough Ill be home.

Talking about that I had a dream the other night, rather, a nightmare. I dreamed that I went home off my mission early and it was the worst feeling in the world. I woke up and I was soo happy I was still on a mission. As hard as it is, I do not want to go home! Hey just another little thing. Its like 3 oclock here now and I took your advice. We just walked around Södermalm for like 3 hours and I bought some tshirts and underwear of the soccer team that is in our area. Hammarby. So now ive officially used my home debit card. also Södermalm is way cool. Its REAL Sweden I think. I LOVE YOU!!!!

 

PS. This is Kris talking now. His comps mom said that they were asked to speak in church Sunday right before church and didn't have much time to prepare and they were the only speakers so had to take all the time. Jess didn't tell us about this, but a woman investigator came in off the street to their meeting and now they're teaching her.

Hej.

How is it? Its allll good here! Im still on a mission. Which is the craziest thing ever!  We had a middag with the Seguras on tuesday which was so nice. On wednesday we went on splits with the Jakobsberg Elders. I went with Elder Brown and we stayed in Gubbängen and Elder Carr went to JB with Elder Mikkola, He is from Finland and is super cool and Elder Brown is from San Diego and he is way cool and chill as well. That night we went to teach Harold Cardenas! He is 19 and less Active but he wants us to teach him cus he wants to go a mission soon. His family is from bolivia? So he is fluent in Spanish and speaks pretty good english and swedish. Our lessons usually end up being half swedish half english. Its always way fun when we go over there. We enjoy teaching him. Then on Friday we had our 6 week review.  The Training program is 12 weeks and it was a half way point check up. It was cool cus I got to see my whole district from the MTC again! They probably spent a ton of money trying to get everyone there. Luleå and Malmö are the 2 furthest areas in Sweden and the Elders came from there. Its a 13 hour train ride from luleå for a 1 hour meeting. They would ask us questions and we would say yes or no. im not complaining cus I only had to travel 15 mins to Stockholm and see everyone again! Then on Saturday there was a piano concert performed by 2 sisters in the mission who are actually concert pianists and were really good! Not too many people showed up. They do the same concert in Västerhanige and I guess it is packed. Sweden is just a really pretty laid back place.  The people we teach can be completely interested in the church but coming to church is just wayy too much work. There are over 300 hundred less actives in the ward and I wouldnt be surprised if most of them are active at heart but havent been to church in 10 years.  But last week at church, Louiciana, louis' older sister, brought a friend to church and we taught her afterwards. we werent sure how receptive she was, but I knew that we would teach her again. So she came to church again yesterday and she had already read in the Book of Mormon. So we taught her again and she said she would get baptized if she knew it was true. So I hope that she keeps coming to church and we can keep teaching her cus its really cool to have someone that I can see progressing.  

Things are good here and im enjoying it. I enjoy the work. President likes numbers so that is the only stressful thing. Trying to get all the numbers he wants. we shouldnt worry about it and when we dont its always super fun. We teach about 20 lessons a week, but that includes a lot of differnt ways. Like teaching people on the street, to investigators, to members, less actives. I read the BOM everyday.   there was a coat left in our apartment by another missionary and it is super thick and nice and warm. So ill use that one when it gets cold. Which it kind of is today. Its been raining a ton lately.  Now I think im done. I LOVE YOU!!!!! SEE YOU TOMORROW:

Äldste Tietjen

Welllllll Here we go again? This past week has been really nice. We had set up a ton of appointments so we didnt even have much extra time to do other stuff... Which is sooo nice. We actually had 3 middags (dinners) this week. A record. One with a member, one with a guy who is trying to come back to the church, and one again with Pablo. We're really thankful for the people who feed us. Being with people is easily the best part of being a missionary. So when we teach someone we dont just get up and leave... We stay a little longer and talk and joke around and get to know each other. Thats the most fun. That's the part I really enjoy. The worst part is the language. Its really one of the only stressful parts. It is always on my mind that I cant really speak or understand very well. that is easily the worst part. A lot of times I just start speaking english cus everyone here speaks english and I can actually say what I want to say.

On thursday we had a Zone Tour conference. It is an all day meeting and a member of the European Mission presdency was there. Elder Kearon. It was really good! All the missionaries from the Norrland, Stockholm, and Stockholm south zones were there. The other two zones (Göteborg and Malmö) had the same conference the day before. It was really nice and it was kinda like an open discussion between us and the speakers. Most times, I've been told, that who ever is speaking, shows up and is pretty intense. They try to scare you so you feel like you are a bad missionary and you will do better. Thats what people told me about the past ones. But Elder Kearon was really relaxed and a gave us really good advice and I totally enjoyed it. But other than that I have nothing more to report on. Hows life back home?