March 31, 2014

Hey everyone,

This last week went well. We had zone conference in Geneva. It was really great. There were ton of missionaries there because we had 5 zones there. Elder Lund and his wife shared great messages with us. Afterwards we made sure to load up on swiss chocolate before we headed back to france. Also some of the members there gave us some good stuff because elder Kiser lived in geneva for a year while his dad worked there so he still knows some of the people there. 

So this week we set up a rdv with one of our potential amis. When he showed up to the rdv he told us that one of his friends called him to see what he was doing. He explained that he had a rdv with us at the church and his friend asked if he could come as well. So we ended up teaching both of them and it wet really well. It is always nice when you have a surprise new ami.

Yesterday I was on exchange with elder Ferguson and we had a really awesome lesson with this family that the bishop knows. The dad is a professional guitaurist with a mullet in a zz top cover band. They have a really cool house in a smaller outer ville. They are really nice and are slowly learning more about our message. It is awesome when we can meet nice people through members like that. How else are we going to meet a professional guitarist with a mullet who wants to know more about the church?

We've been doing a lot of service lately and we actually are helping with 2 moves today so this is probably going to be cut a little short. In any case I'm sorry for lack of pictures but i have'nt really been taking too many. I will try to get some exciting ones for next week. I love you all. Enjoy Gen Con 2014!

Elder Swenson

March 24, 2014

Bonjour,

So this past week was a good'n. Work is continuing to go well. We had a super awesome lesson this week with one of our amis. Because he is Chinese and without any sort of christian background we have to teach super simply. Any way we were talking about obediece and agecy and the reason why God gives us commadments wich led to a really nice discussion about the character of God. He was very touched and is progressing nicely. Another cool thing is that we decieded to teach this lesson with a less active member. Afterwards he thanked us and said that he really felt the spirit and learned from the lesson and said how it reminded him of when he was taught by the missionaries. It was a great experience for all of us.

So we had an exchange this past week where i was up in Lyon with Elder Taylor. We had gotten off of the train and were heading up to the appartment to drop some stuff off when we realised that Elder Kunzler never gave Elder Taylor the keys. Luckily the exchange was in Lyon because the office has spare keys to all the appartments so we were able to swing by and grab those. The excange was great and we saw some cool people.

 

Elder Kiser and Elder Kunzler were in our sector and we had fixed a rdv to go see that couple that we met porting last week. It turned out that they weren't there so they continued to port in the area. After about 2 doors they were let in by another couple and were able to teach them about the restoration and leave them with a book of mormon. This neighborhood is golden! 

Any way things are going well here and we have some good things planed for this week. We have a conference in Geneva on wednesday and I am loking forward to finnaly seeing switzerland. It should be a really good conference as well because there willl be a member of the seventy there. Good things to come!

I love you all!

Elder Swenson

March 17, 2014

Hey everyone

Another great week here in good old Greoble. Recently President Roney has been having us use little questionaires to cotact people. There is one about family history and one about God speaking to us today. It is a little different than what we are used to but it seems to be going well. The idea is just to buy us a little time in order to start up a conversation with someone. This past week we decided to test out the survey while porting. We rang one doorbell and we heard a lady fumble with the door knob then say i don't have my key. She the came out some side door and walked around to talk with us. After explaining that we just had a little survey she said just a minute and went back in. We stood there for a minute and then the front door flew open and she invited us in. After the quick survey we ended up talking a little about how we can recieve answers to our prayers. She seemed to open up and invited us to come back this week. 

We have a couple of amis here that we have been trying to see at least weekly. One of our amis introduced us to his friend and invited us over to play monopoly with them. Another invited us to go to his church to listen to some preacher guy who had come from mexico. It was the first time that i had been to another church. It was interesting but it definatly doesn't have the same spirit as ours. Any way we've been doing our best to see all of our amis as well as finding new ones and I feel like we've been doing a good job.

We've also been trying to work with less actives alot as well and the good news is that we got 3 of them to come to church yesterday. One of the brothers that we got to show up, Elder Kiser has never seen at church before so we were pretty happy. Hopefully we can keep it up.

Things are going well though and i am slowly learning the new ville and the names of all of the members. I really enjoy being here and i have high expectations for the work. I love you all!

Elder Swenson

 

March 10, 2014

Bonjour ma famille,

Grenoble is great. The weather has been really nice these past couple of days and we haven't even needed to wear suit coats. The ville really reminds me of utah because of all of the mountains all around. I love it! This is definately one of the villes that will be more exciting for P days.

The members here are great! It is a fairly big ward with about 130 people each week. The bishops son just got home from the Paris mission this week so yesterday was his homecomming. The stake president was also there and so it was a really good sacrament meeting with really good talks. There are quite a few enlish speakers here and some who only speak english as well. The guy who plays the young joseph smith in the restoration movie is in the ward here so now i can say that i translated for joseph smith.

This past week went well. I really enjoy serving with Elder Kiser. It has been fun adjusting to a new ville. After serving in montpellier for the past six months and knowing all of the members by name and being able to get us anywhere we needed to go in the ville, it is quite a change. We got lost on more than one occasion this week. Thats just the fun of missionary life.

We don't have a ton of real solid amis but we'll fix that here pretty soon. It is vacation right now so there are alot of people out of town but in a week it should be back to normal. Last night while we were out contacting we talked with this cool guy from africa who recently moved here and is wanting to find a church. He knows a little about our church from back in africa and he said he wanted to come with us next sunday. Hopefully we can start seeing him and he will be led to know that the church is true.

Anyway I am really lucky to be serving here and am looking forward to this transfer. I love you all! Until next time,

Elder Swenson

March 3, 2014

Hey everyone,

So as expected I did get transfered out of Montpellier after 6 months. I am now in Grenoble with Elder Kiser. Both the ville and the comp seem great. In grenoble there are a bunch of snowy mountains and it is litterally the first time that i have seen snow while here in France appart from my first day when the snow storm cancelled our plane. I don't think that I'll have to deal with working in the snow too much though because at this time of year it is mostly just up in the mountains. 

Elder Kiser is an awesome comp. He is fairly new in the mission (one younger than Elder Pedersen) and I am the second comp that he has had. He is from Oregon. I'll have to send pictures next week as I don't have my camera with me at the moment. But he kindof looks like me I guess if you want a discription. In grenoble there are two elder equipes and two sister equipes. We are in a four man appartment and all of the Elders are american, within an inch of my height, and have light hair and eyes. We wont look quite as diverse as when i was serving with a dark skinned danish comp:) Also President Roney seems to enjoy putting people with the same or similar names in the same area (for example he put two elder adams together in montpellier before i was there) so there is also a sister Swenson here as well. We'll see if we can convince people that we are related.

Things went well in Montpellier this past week. We taught a new ami from Cambodia and it was Elder Pedersens first time teaching someone who has absolutely zero christian background so we had to teach very basically. He seemed to be really receptive though and the elders should be teachig him this week again. I love being able to teach people like that though because it really makes you have to think about what you say. Luckily it was in english so that helped.

It has been a while since I have had to say goodbye to so many members. When I was in agouleme I had only been there for 3 weeks so we weren't super attatched and when i left toulouse i didn't get to say goodbye because it was a suprise middle of the week transfer. Anyway it was a fun sunday filled with saying goodbye to a ton of members and taking plenty of pictures. You get more attatched when you serve in a ward for 6 months. I enjoyed serving in Montpellier but I am very excited to be serving in Grenoble now. It can get a little tiring walking down the same streets and talking to the same people day after day. Plus with the mountains it makes me feel more at home. Anyway I am super excited for this transfer. We have a family homeevening tonight at the church so it will be a good opportunity to meet and get to know all of the new members here. Well I love you. Until next week,

Elder Swenson