Week 65 - New Years

Week 65 - New Years

Wow just like, 2018 is gone. 2018 is a special year for me. I was a missionary in Sweden for all of 2018. I spent about half of 2017 home and I'll spend about half of 2019 home too, but 2018 was all spent out here serving. And now it's over! Literally in less than 12 hours for me. That's a weird feeling. 

Christmas was fun. I loved talking to my family. Lots of changes. They're all getting married, having babies, and getting drivers licenses. I'll hardly recognize them when I get back. 

We've been spending lots of time with members this week. It's been an aweseome opportunity to strengthen our relationships with them. I feel like they're my second family now. We had nine visitors in church from wards in Stockholm yesterday. It filled up our little makeshift chapel. My companion also miraculously lengthened his talk to 35 minutes when one of the speakers couldn't make it. He just kept talking and talking. He said he has no idea where the last 10 minutes came from. He's a legend. Then he helped me give the Sunday school lesson too. 

That's the news here! 

Enjoy the pictures :) 

Ãldste Denton

(Just click on the picture if you want to see it larger.)

                                         Our good looking district

                                         A building in Norrköping

                                               Me on a Monday morning  (New Years Eve)

                                       Me watching the sun at noon. 

Week 64 - Christmas is here

Week 64 - Christmas is here

We are 8 hours ahead of you, yes that is right. We will be with an Iranian family and they said I could use their wifi :) I might be on my phone or on their computer if they have one. Google is going to be easier for me if we can use that one 👍

Love you and talk to you tomorrow! 

Äldste Denton

Finally we get to talk to him. He looks good and seems happy. It was really good to visit with him.

He bore his testimony in Swedish so we could hear him speak Swedish. 

Week 63 - Merry Christmas

Week 63 - Merry Christmas


My companion is from California and it has started snowing here in Sweden. It's super fun to watch him. He's never seen like a real snow storm before this winter. This morning he just went around frolicking in the snow and last night he couldn't restrain himself and just made a snow angel still in his church pants and everything. Pretty funny.

We've been getting to know each other and it's been super fun so far. Elder Lance is a lad.

We got a new person we're teaching on Saturday, plus now we have a branch president! So it's been a great week. Plus, Christmas!! Christmas is the best. We've got a packed week coming up complete with ham, pickled herring, meatballs, the Christmas elf (Swedish version of Santa), teaching the gospel, a forecasted snow storm, and a special Swedish soda called julmust. Not to mention THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF CHRISTMAS. Jesus :) People have such great attitudes this time of year. Our stake did a flash mob in the main train station in Stockholm singing two Christmas songs including Silent Night. We weren't there, but our visiting Stake President described it for us yesterday. It sounded like even the million miles an hour pace of Stockholm stood still for a moment to appreciate the special feeling as they sang the line "Jesus the Savior is born" in the "Silent Night". 

I hope you all have a merry Christmas and remember what it's all about :)

Love, 

Äldste Denton 

Week 62 - Elder Lancelot

Week 62 - Elder Lancelot


Well it was a wild one.

We had our Christmas party, got let in tracting, we have three lessons set up for next week and we had a guy come to church plus we got a referral. It seems to me like success always comes all at once after things have been slow for a bit. Like once my faith has been tested God just stats raining the blessings down. It feels pretty nice.

Elder Lance is my new comp. He's  a pal. He knows how to fence with a long sword. He's a neat guy. Like literally too. He cleans the dishes and stuff. Pretty nice. He's from California and he's been out for about 7 months. We get along fine. It's going to be a fun time together. 

Well not tons of time this week but hope you all have a great week!

Äldste Denton

                                    Ready for Christmas :) Nice little Charlie Brown tree.

Week 61 - Transfers

Week 61 - Transfers

Transfers happened. Elder Bjornn is leaving for Stockholm and I am getting Elder Lance from Stockholm. I don't know him too well yet, buy we've met once. Should be good! He seems like a nice guy and apparently he can make really good hot chocolate :)

Our district is getting a lot younger too. Half our elders are moving and the half coming in are all youngins. It'll be fun. 

Christmas time is officially here now. They lit all the lights in town and we had first advent, the first Swedish Christmas holiday. (There's a lot of them 🙂)

I'm going to miss Elder Bjornn. He's a stud and he's put his heart and soul into this little branch. We're sad to see him leave.

Well that's the news this week!

Have a good one!

Äldste Denton

Week 60 - Thanksgiving

Week 60 - Thankgiving

We got permission to take two or three hours to make ourselves a Thanksgiving dinner if we didn't get invited somewhere. We didn't, so we did! We bought a turkey breast, did it up nice, made mashed potatoes, had green beans, fresh rolls, and heck we even found Dr. Pepper! It had just about everything besides yams and stuffing. We even talked about what we were grateful for.

We were asked to print some lists out for the Elder's quorum president, and since they were color coded, it needed to printed at the library where they have color ink. That meant I got a library card. We met a nice man there who told us how much he loves America and how friendly everyone is there. He had also lived in or visited Salt Lake and liked our church. We met another guy that was drunk who took it upon himself to explain all the political problems in Sweden for us. Funny how people always turn into political experts when they're drunk 😂 I also picked up a Tchaikovsky CD while I was there in the library with the Nutcracker and some other classics on it. 

Yesterday was eventful. It was our branch president and his wife's last Sunday in Linköping. They're moving. We've had four of our members move away since I got here. I'm starting to think it was something I said... 🤔

Then we had a sweet lesson right after church. One of our super solid missionary members came on the lesson and ended up clicking perfect with the guy we taught. They are both single dads and bonded so much that the member is staying the night at his place after the Christmas party since he lives a two and a half train ride away. Also this guy we're teaching said he noticed one of our less active members feels excluded, so he's inviting him to game night this week and coming himself. So we've got an investigator doing ministering now. Lit. 

We also went bowling last P-day. Somehow I thought bowling alleys might look a little different in Sweden. Nope. Not one bit. There's the same tv's from 2002 mounted from the ceiling, the same red, white, and blue bowling shoes, and the same technical difficulties no matter what lane you pick. In the other room, there was a table of old, white haired, suspender wearing Swedes, a few with cigarettes lit all playing poker or pinnacle or something sizing us up through the glass wall. That plus the retired couple in the lane next to us scoring almost 200 a game made the fact that we barely broke 100 even more embarrassing 😭😂 We had a good time though. You just had to keep fighting through the gutter balls. 

Well that's our week!

Hope yours is better than our bowling :) 

Keep believing and keep hoping. It's so much better that way :)  (Mark 5:36)

Äldste Denton

 Thanksgiving we made for ourselves.

This jacket was way too expensive, so I took the picture and left the jacket. It's what all the cool kids are wearing here. 

                                     Bowling