February 22nd letter

So, Elder Arko has been a little too busy to take pictures this week...okay, well He just didn't think about it. Anyway, Elder Arko has been having a fun time getting to know a lot of people.

It is STILL snowing there! Everyone is talking about how much they are ready for summer and Elder Arko is starting to agree with them. It just seems like once the snow starts melting another storm comes in right after it!

This coming week the Elders are going to be focusing on getting more activities with ward members, less actives, and investigators. They're going to be trying to get more people involved with little events like ping-pong and possibly a study group or something of the sort. Elder Arko hopes this will work because they have such a small branch to do these kind of events, but if they do it right, it could help a lot of people become active or have new interest in church.

The Elders had a teach with a Chinese person and a Muslim person at the same time so that was pretty interesting. They explained a lot of their beliefs and also about Christianity in general. It's very interesting for Elder Arko to see what different religions belive and often how close they are to the LDS core doctrines. They really had a good discussion about different religions.

The Elders were also able to go on splits again and had a few fun times with that; as well as tracting. They have been teaching a good amount and having good times with the members. The Elders will hopefully play billiards today with a bunch of members and investigators so they are excited about that.

The Elders got a nice less active family to go to church this past Sunday and it was very good to see them there. They were also aked to help out by teaching one of the older primary classes...yeah Elder Arko teaching primary. It was kind of scary, but it went well. The Elders had a little bit of candy to keep the kids interested and it worked out well :) that is until the kids wanted more candy and they didn't have anymore. After that the Elders were known as the candy men.

That's all for now from Elder Arko aka The Candy Man!

February 15th letter

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY from Elder Arko!

As expected Valentines Day wasn't anything too special for the Elders. This past week, as always, was an interesting one for them. They had Zone Conference in Lund so that was a little bit of travel. As a result of that, they had kind of a slow week, but Elder Arko was still was able to go on splits to the only other area in their district, Kristianstad.

Other than that Elder Arko and Elder Depew have been going to visit less active members and talking to investigators. They are working with a large family who are less active and one of the kids is grown up and has a family of his own. He ended up in the hospital because of stomach pain, so Elder Arko and Elder Depew went to visit he and his wife there. The doctors say he might have diabetes because he has high blood sugar but they don't know yet. At the same time his niece is thinking about becoming a member of the church, and the Elders have visited her a few times as well. She seems to be doing really well so it would be cool if they could get her to become a member.

And now for pictures! This one is Elder Depew

He comes from Georgia and has been on his mission for 3 months longer than Elder Arko. He's a pretty funny kid and Elder Arko is enjoying their time together.

This is an attempt to make Oreo cupcakes

Elder Arko accidentally bought cups that were a little too big for the pan they had, but they ended up with cupcakes which is the important thing. (Thanks go to Amanda for the cake mix, recipe and the oreos). They did this during one of our weekly planning sessions so it was really fun for them.

February 8th letter

This week has been fun, but kinda hard for Elder Arko. They had a lot of appointments with people that fell through or things of that sort.

Their little car is a Skoda Fabia. It's kind of a little dinky thing, but it's nice. All the cars in Sweden are usually pretty small compared to the ones in the United States. It's fun for the Elders to have a car so there isn't a lot of walking or taking trains and buses, but it's also a little bit more annoying because they have to get gas and wash it, but it's totally worth it. They do have a pretty big area and a lot of people, investigators and memebers, live far away.

And now for a little mission history. For all of you that remember Elder Arko's trainer (father as it's know in mission language) Elder Stocks was in Karlskrona his 2nd,3rd and 4th transfers. He also basically left his heart there. So now, Elder Arko came to the land of His ancestors (mission speaking of course) which is rather poetic. A lot of people there remember Elder Stocks so it's pretty fun for Elder Arko.

The Elders had about 25 people in church on Sunday, but that was a slow one because a lot of people were out of town. Elder Depew had to play the piano and accidentally
continued after the song was over for a few notes because he thought there was another verse, so it was funny. They don't have too many serious investigators right now, but they have been keeping busy.

February 1st letter

Elder Arko has been getting settled in to His new area and trying to get to know the people in His new branch. Elder Arko and Elder Depew have been visiting with a lot of less active members and trying to help them start coming back to church. There had also been an unusual amount of snow this past week. The members have been saying they haven't seen this much snow in 3 years down in that area so Elder Arko is convinced that the cold is just following Him everywhere He goes.

Elder Depew has been out on his mission for about a year and is a pretty laid back kid that is pretty sarcastic so Elder Arko has had fun being companions with Him so far. They've had a few good instances with tracting and teaching already. They tracted some student housing and got let in 4 times in 2 stairwells to teach and it went pretty well. They're looking forward to seeing if any of them become investigators soon. They were also sad to see one of the newest members in Karlskrona (which means Karls' crown...Elder Arko doesn't know what that translator was thinking) move back to Africa. The good news is that He should be able to keep contact with the church and has a very strong testimony.

This is Elder Arko's new bike :) It is a very nice luxury item for missionaries and Elder Arko feels very lucky to have it.

The Elder have a very big area now so they spend a fair amount of time traveling to other towns to visit people or do work. It has been really fun for Elder Arko to see how different missionary work is with a car. Being on the coast is also cool for Him except the wind is usually blowing so that is kinda rough, but no big deal.

The members in Elder Arko's new area are pretty dang cool and they are all real nice. I'll try to get you some pictures of around this area soon so that you can see what the landscape is like but I kind of wanted to wait until the snow melted and the spring in Sweden started coming out.

This is a picture of their chapel
That is all for this week! Elder Arko will talk to us all next week for another chapter in "Adventure Sweden"!