Elder Kyle Steele: Coast to Coast

Email written: 4/1/19

Hey everyone!!

All of the zone conferences have now come to close and we've come to the final week of the transfer and my final week here in Täby. All of the members came up to me at church yesterday and they tried to say their final goodbyes because they thought I was going back to the United States this week. Like nope, I've still got 3 months left, just going to move to my final area.

Zone Conferences were a blast! We first flew all the way down to Skåne for the Malmö zone conference and then after that conference, we drove up to Göteborg before we flew home again. All that traveling, plus spirtually packed meetings not mention sleeping on the floor really takes it out of you, but it's been such a fun week. I got to see my son Elder Thompson...the boys getting so old now, been a missionary for an entire year now!! I also got to eat Domino's pizza because yes, even Domino's has made it way to Sweden.

The biggest focus from zone conference was the reminder that we are here in Sweden to TEACH!! After getting the results for the biannual survey from the missionary department, President Youngberg knew that the number of lessons being taught per week was nowhere near what it could be. So, it will be fun to see how we as a mission can begin teaching more lesson, and thus baptizing more converts. President Youngberg also got us super hyped up about the apostalic promises when it comes to the church in Sweden.

Saturday was probably one of my favorite days of this week. So, we felt strongly that we needed to visit an area called Vaxholm. Vaxholm is a huge tourist spot in the summer and is the location of a large fort built a couple hundred years ago. That fort was the biggest defense against Russia if they were to attack by sea because they have to enter Stockholm through Vaxholm, but anyways, after we made it out to Vaxholm and got pretty lost, we found the closest bus stop. Right before we get there, the bus comes and leaves and so there we are just left waiting for a bus that didn't come for another 20-30 minutes. Well, not even 5 minuters later, one of our good friends from the ward, Gustaf, pulls up in his old beat up Alfa Romeo and asks us if we want a ride. This man straight up lives like 45-50 mins away and so we're like, what in the world are you doing in Vaxholm, to which he replied 'I wanted to eat some ice cream'. The sad news was the ice cream place, glass på hörnet, was closed.

But, anyways, we got to tract his old neighborhood out there, and he gave us a clutch ride home! Well, just a few hours later, we went to visit the ambassador with Gustaf's little brother, Jacob. The lesson went so well and the ambassador was hilarious. He kept applying everything we were doing to some kind of bible story. His wife was in the kitchen making a fruit plate for us and so as we were having our converstaion, he said they were like mary and martha when one was listening to Jesus and the other one was busy doing doing service. What a guy!

Well, that's about it! Ha det gott!

Pictures:

1) some of the grabbar from the MTC group

2) Äldste Thompson!!

3/4) dominos