August 23rd letter

Elder Arko has had another eventful week. They are getting ready for James' baptism which is this coming Saturday. They've also been seeing their ward mission leader which is good. This Sunday was actually a little depressing for the Elders. They had two families that weren't at church because of some medical problems and a fair amount of people are still on vacation so there weren't many people there. That was kind of sad, but the summer is coming to a close and people will hopefully be getting back from their trips.

The church isn't as involved with scouting in Sweden as it is in the U.S. Elder Arko has heard that since the scouting program is more independent they have people with differnet standards than leaders in the U.S. so the church has tried to keep a little bit of distance between them. The Duty to God program has also changed there, but isn't in Swedish yet so Elder Arko doesn't think it's been implemented yet.

The Elders have been going through the change of trying to get more activities for the whole branch (hence the Ping Pong nights). At the last ping pong night, there were only 4 of them, but they had a fun time.

The Elders are also hoping to have some beach volleyball days the next few weeks which makes Elder Arko really excited! Hopefully they can get a good turn out from the branch.

So, Karlskrona was the center of ship building and a navel base back in the days of wooden ships and cannon balls. It still has a navel base and if the Elders have enough time, they might go visit the marine museum today. There are also a lot of sailing and motor boats there.

Elder Arko got a little bit sick to his stomach around Friday and Saturday. He just didn't feel like eating and couldn't keep stuff down. He got a blessing from the mission leader and almost immediately felt better.

They also had a zone conference this week. It was a 3 hour trip for Elder Arko and Elder Werner. They took the train instead of driving since it was so far away. They spent practically the whole day out of their area and therefore caused them to not get as much work done.

Elder Arko doesn't remember if we ever saw this picture so here it is. It was after they moved the piano.