Week 47 - 1 Year

Week 47 - 1 Year

We got three referrals this week! They also live very far away, but the person that referred us to these lovely people drove around to visit them. We taught two friends of his the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and gave them a Book of Mormon. They were awesome and had super great questions! It was so refreshing to teach people that were listening that much! So great.

We also had another lesson with Cleo and Mattias. We had some members pray that it would go well and we had a member on the lesson too. It was really good! We read Ether 3 and we felt the spirit very strongly there as we read together. They're such awesome people.

Things in Borås are rainy. They've been telling me that Borås is the rainiest city in Sweden and I'm starting to believe it now. It was super dry and hot all summer which was really really unusually.

We had Thai food for lunch. It was pretty great. Not Thai paradise level, but pretty great. 

We helped a less active this week that told us about what vikings ate. Apparently, they ate porridge. With like berries and stuff in it. Also dairy products. Who knew? They only ate meat and hard bread and stuff on special occasions. Like when they sacrificed a reindeer to the gods on jul or something. Then they'd eat all of it. This particular less active has just bought an rv that he's going to live in until the winter when he's going to move to Thailand for the winter. He's the one that told us about the sweet Thai restaurant in town.

This Thursday is my year mark! Woo hoo! Also Zone Conference! Double party. Shout out to my MTC group. One year down, one to go(or six months for the sisters). 

So thankful for all the lessons learned out here and all the memories made. Looking forward to another year of good memories. 

❤️🇸🇪

Thanks everyone for your letters and support. Especially my awesome family. You guys are the best. 

Have a great week! 

Äldste Denton


  A Picture from Äldste Hambrick Mom's Facebook Post - Pizza with Fries and Goat meat too. Yum?

                              A 1 year Missionary Flash back

Week 46 - Bike ride adventure in Sweden

Week 46 - Bike ride adventure in Sweden

    We got two referrals from someone Elder Hambrick baptized in his last area. They lived pretty far away in a place called Vegby. About 20 miles away. The bus would have dropped us off there with five hours until the next bus came and we only had one house to swing by. It wasn't really a city. More like scattered farms and stuff and we wouldn't really have much to do. So we decided to bike instead of taking the bus. We figured we could be faster that way. 10/10 would recommend trying to bust out a 40 mile bike ride with a missionary body and dress clothes on. Puts hair on your chest. We made it there no problem and our referral was home. Then on the way back, I was pretty pooped. We were looking at our watch thinking that this might not turn out too good at the pace we were going, so we decided to lock our bikes up and take the bus back. (bikes aren't aloud on busses) It's a good thing we caught that bus too because the next one wouldn't have had us home until like 11:30 that night.

     We taught someone this week that grew up in Communist Hungary and so knew pretty much nothing about religion. That was pretty cool. She told us she secretly borrowed a Bible from a priest during those times and read some. We taught her about prayer and stuff. She thought it was all really interesting. 

     Also taught the music duo Swedish couple again. They are so nice. They got us little gifts to take home with us. They gave me a Bible on a key chain. It's tiny, but you can read the words with a magnifying glass.

    I said last week that I had the best burger I had had in Sweden. That is now false. I had it this week at a place called Tugg. It was pretty good. Everyone there was eating their hamburgers with a fork and knife. Haha only in Sweden. That was way too civilized for us so we just ate it like it ought to be done.

    We're just loving life out here meeting awesome people and helping everyone we can :)

Hope you all have a good one! 

Äldste Denton 

Week 45 - It Was a Double Rainbow Kind of Week

Week 45 - It Was a Double Rainbow Kind of Week


Oh boy it was a fun week.

We split wood for a widow out on a ranch with an American. The number of times I had split wood before my mission was a solid 0 maybe 1. I think I'm sitting at 4 or 5 now. I'm becoming a regular lumberjack.

We also had our one in-person district council for the transfer. Next one is in September some time. That was fun. We have an amazing couple in our district that took us all to a place called Brooklyn Burgers. Best burger I've had in Sweden for sure. 

I bought a blender off of my district leader. Then I froze some chocolate caramels and we've been making home made shakes with frozen chocolate caramel bits and such. 

Also, it rained! Hallelujah! Not sure what's up with the fires. Hopefully they're going out. The youth in our ward biked to the temple in Stockholm. There was apparently storms around them the whole time, but they had blue skies the whole way on their week long journey. 

We helped a nice couple destroy their old rotting shed. Turns out there was a beehive in the floor. Word to the wise, a crowbar is not a super good weapon against bees. 

Yesterday we had dinner with a super nice family. While we waited for the food to be ready, we played a little mini golf with the mom and youngest son Christopher. They had made their own holes with a little flower pot and a plastic cup. 

I've been studying the new testament. Jesus talks a lot about how the generation he taught was so stiff necked and that if he had been among any other people, they would have repented. Then He says that if they believed in the prophets they'd believe in him and if they believed in the Father, they'd believe in Him as well. Something I've realized recently is that it doesn't matter who it is that is preaching the truth as long as they're true servants. "... whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same." Hearing the word of God from your Sunday school teacher or from a prophet is the same if they both teach by the Spirit. It's all God in the end that is teaching. Sometimes I wonder about what wonderful things Jesus would teach me if I could spend a day with Him. I honestly think He would teach me mostly things I've heard before. I imagine He'd teach me His gospel. He'd teach me to love God and my neighbor. 

What if I could listen to every talk in Sacrament meeting as if the Savior Himself were speaking? How much more would I learn? Interesting to think about. 

I know that Jesus Christ lives and that He speaks to us through the voice of his servants, whether they be parents, bishops, ministers, or prophets. 

I hope you all have a great week! 

Äldste Denton

                                 Proper Missionary Breakfast - Or is that a lumberjack breakfast?

                               Blue Skies

                              Apartment and companion in Boras

                                  Woah!

                                  A rainy day in Boras

                                           

 We saw a full, double rainbow. If look closely right above the red house, you'll notice that the rainbow actually continues in front of the trees and ends in that guy's back yard. That pot of gold tho...

P-day Activities

I just got back from climbing a mountain, eating sushi, and walking around a park with some ice cream in hand.

Took a creepy picture of this guy meditating on the mountain. Hope he didn't notice haha.

Week 44 - Deadly Tacos

Week 44 - Deadly Tacos

I got a new companion! Elder Hambrick is a lad. He's about my height, likes to draw, studied animation back home, and likes working hard. Should be a good time.

Our first dinner together, I decided to make some tacos. I had bought some habenero peppers that week and wanted to try them out. So I knew they were pretty hot but I figured I was tough enough for one whole habenero pepper in my tacos. Well I chop it up and throw it in like it's nothing. Then pretty soon after I realize what I got myself into. We both start sneezing and coughing like crazy as the habeneros cook and their deadly vapors fill our kitchen. I'm like sneezing uncontrollably and my eyes start to water like crazy and that's where I make the biggest mistake of my life. I wipe my eyes with the same hands that just cut a habenero pepper. It felt like I was never going to see again. My eyes were burning sooo bad. So I get my contacts out as fast as I can and just rinse my eyes for like fifteen minutes. It hurt so bad. They burned for the next few hours and I had to use rubber gloves to put my contacts in for the next few days. We threw that batch of tacos out and made new ones. I learned my lesson. If you're going to cook habeneros, wear a space suit.

We met with a lovely couple yesterday evening in a park. They have met with missionaries before and are starting to meet with us now. They are actually both jazz musicians. He's a jazz pianist, she's a jazz singer. They showed us a recording of a song they did together and I was totally blown away. I love jazz a lot and I can be kind of a critic when it comes to jazz, but like they are absolutely incredible. If you want to know what I'm talking about, they're on Spotify as Regula de tri. Anyways, we talked about receiving personal revelation with them while having a picnic. We read from President Nelson's talk from last conference about receiving revelation and gave them some chapters in Ether to read. They're really open, nice people. Looking forward to continuing to meet them.

Love you all! Have a good one. 

Äldste Denton

                         Deadly Tacos - Habanero Peppers

                      A nice trip to Gothenburg to extend my visa

                                  Waiting for a bus

                         Skype District Meeting

                       An old boat , by the lake by our apartment