Phillipians 1:3

(Aldste Cummings)
Halloj!

Boom. What a week. I don't feel like writing this will actually do it justice, but here we go. Gonna give her the ol' college försök.

We got some churros this morning with the elders from Kungsbacka and we were in the middle of Gothenburg and this seagull just swoops in gives me a little love-tap on the back of the head and takes a bite out of Elder Gilson's churro. Birds that grow up in the city are really brazen buggers. They grow up on the streets and do whatever they need to survive. Way different than birds that live in more forgiving, natural environments. Interesting social commentary. Kendrick Lamar could probably rap about that.

This week we went on a couple trips through the city swinging by people we have in the phone. It was cool to explore other parts of the city that I had never been to before and meet and talk to them there. There is something about this city that just steals my heart. I'm gonna miss it.

A couple weeks ago we were witnesses to this really quite incredible miracle. We were knocking doors and we met this woman who said that she had lived with a member family in the United States in from 1980-81. We asked her where and she said Colorado to which I responded, "My mom lived in Littleton, Colorado" which, as it turns out, is where she lived! Turns out, she lived with Sergeant Packer, one of the members of our branch presidency in the MTC and a good friend to my mom's parents. Super crazy. The jury is still out on whether or not she met my mom or mom's family but the connection is still pretty insane anyway. The odds of me going on a mission to Sweden, being assigned to serve in Västra Frölunda and then knocking on her door in Åkered when she happened to be home to answer, are uncanny. What a coincidence. Just kidding, I definitely believe it was God.

Anyway, last night we had dinner with her and her family! It was sooo fun. It was so fun to just talk to them and answer all of their questions about the church--they had a lot--and get to know them better. It felt so good and warm and inviting. We even got our transfer calls from the zone leaders at their house. They thought it was so cool to get an inside scoop into how the mission works. I'm so thankful I was able to meet them and spend some time with them. Thank you, Eva-Liz for giving me a little taste of home out here.

Anyway, as I've mentioned, we received transfer calls yesterday. I will be leaving Gothenburg and will be transferring to Boden. The northernmost area in the mission. Literally like an hour south of the Arctic Circle. It'll be cold. It'll be dark. It'll be snowy. It will not be as far north as Tromsø, yes Dad I know. But it'll be a real, genuine, Swedish winter. I'm really excited to go and experience it.

I am absolutely heartbroken though that I will be leaving Gothenburg. It's such an incredible city and I've fallen in love with it. But more than that, the people that I've learned to love here will always be in my heart forever. The members and others I've met have changed my life and really are some of the best, most welcoming, most faithful, and most loving people I've ever met. I love them from the very bottom of my heart. Gothenburg will always be a very special place in my memory. My scripture of the week is directed to those of you who have made my stay here so rewarding and uplifting. Thank you so much for everything you have done for me while I have been here the past four months. You are wonderful disciples of Christ. Continue to share your love and light with the world. "I thank my God upon every remembrance of you" (Phillipians 1:3).

Have a great week!
Love,
Äldste Cummings


1. Gothenburg is so humid that when it gets cold e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g frosts over. This picture is just frost. No snow.
2. Just to give a little more perspective of just how far north Boden is.
3.Just to give a little more perspective of just how far north I will be traveling.
4.Just to give a little more perspective of just how much further north I will be than the rest of you.
5.Good Kid Maad City (ft. Streetgull).
6.A little kid in the ward wrote this to us. It's adorableness made nearly made me cry. Don't try typing it into google translate because half of the words are spelled wrong anyway.

7. This was a little sketchy.

Joseph Smith History 1:25

(Aldste Cummings)

Tjena tjena

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I've lived in Sweden for over a year now and have yet to patronize an Ikea establishment. Huh.

This week was some good fun. On Tuesday was Zone Conference which is always fun. We always have a handful of other elders staying at our apartment the night before and it's a blast. The conference itself was really quite incredible. We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon as well as how we can improve how we talk to people. President is such an inspired man. He's leading this mission to Zion.

On Wednesday, the sister missionaries in our area said they had someone they were teaching that wanted us to come over with them to try on facemasks. Elder Nelson and I thought that a good, moisturizing and soothing facial while also discussing the Gospel of Jesus Christ would be quite a pleasant experience. Good for both body and soul. So we came. We show up to find that there was to be no facemask but rather we were going to try on Mary Kay's line of men's facial care products. One thing led to another and we left the apartment with foundation on our faces. We had no idea what it was, she just told us to put it on. Despite how marvelous our skin looked, neither Elder Nelson nor I felt personally comfortable with walking around with makeup on so we quickly boogied over to the church and wiped it off in the bathroom.

As you all are well aware, Thursday was Thanksgiving! Just about all Swedes were unfortunately rather unaware. It was a regular proselyting day for us except the fact that we were able to take an hour or two to do something Thanksgiving-y. Elder Nelson and I decided to bake Pumpkin Pie from scratch. We even had to make the evaporated milk. It was really fun and really tasty.

All the kids in the congregation went up and sang songs and gave talks during church yesterday. It was so awesome. The children in this ward are the most spirituay mature children I have ever met. l was simply blown away. That evening we were also able to hold a fireside with the youth in the ward which went so well. Those kids are so awesome.The parents in this ward do an amazing job of raising their children on a foundation of faith. For all the parents of whose children I speak: ni gör ett gott arbete.

I just want to end with saying that it's important for all of us to remember our spiritual experiences as we go through life. God blesses us with the witness of the Spirit to strengthen our faith and resolve to endure to the end. He expects us to stay true to the truths He has revealed to us. May we be able to say of our own communion with the Spirit of the Lord as Joseph Smith so boldy testified of his own experience, "I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it."

Have a great week!

Love,

Äldste Cummings

1. Your ring fingers are the weakest so apparently that makes them ideal for applying anti-aging eye cream. Huh. The more you know.

2. Pumpkin pie. We didn't have a pie tin, alright?

3. "Fin hund förresten."

4. Orkar inte förklara.

5. Swedish Christmas beverage (kinda like root beer) matured in oak barrels for six months with gingerbread. God Jul!

I cant think of a clever subject line...

(Sister Slade)

Hi everyone! I had a great week. First of all, I hit my 3 month mark on Thursday. How crazy is that?! I'm 1/6 of the way done!

On Monday we had a cool experience for our dinner message with the family who was feeding us. We had a lesson planned but as soon as I walked in and saw their piano, I knew that we needed to do something different. After I started a completely different dinner message than we had planned. I felt inspired to play my family's song Kites on the piano and to ask the family to think of how they can bear their testimony without words. It was a really good lesson, and we had a good discussion afterwards. As we were walking out, sister Mueller told me that she had the same impression to change the message, but that she wasn't going to follow through with it because she didn't want to put me on the spot. It was a good lesson for both of us on how the Spirit works.

For Thanksgiving, we helped yo serve Thanksgiving dinner at a nearby Methodist church to people in the community who didn't have the means or family to have Thanksgiving. It was a really cool experience and we had a lot of fun. That night, we had our Thanksgiving dinner with a family from our ward. Thay night, we decorated for Christmas.

Transfers are in a week and a half, so I won't be emailing again until next Wednesday just before transfers.

Love you!

    ~Sister Slade

Pictures!

1. Sister Mueller drew us and so we had to do a selfie.

2. Our baby Christmas tree

Alma 34:38

(Aldste Cummings)

Hällå everybody!

Grab your popcorn ladies and gentlemen, it's been quite the week.

On Tuesday, the man, the myth, the legend, Espen "Our Boy" Hyldetoft turned 8 years old. Coincidentally, his birthday happened to fall exactly on our biweekly innebandy game 🤔. As a result, the Hyldetoft family decided to have his birthday party at the church and just have one big bandy bonanza with all of Espen's friends--including the missionaries. It was so fun. So many little kiddies with sticks in their hands running around. It was actually a great opportunity as well to talk to the parents of the kids that came who had never been to our church before. Big shout out to Brother and Sister Hyldetoft for organizing the whole thing. All in all, one of the highlights of my life. Thanks, Espen. Hope you had a good one.

On Wednesday, I traveled to Kungsbacka to go on splits with Elder Bird. Oh man. We had so much energy and were just so ready to go out and pump people up about the Gospel. So that's what we did.

While we were waiting for a bus, some 10-11 year-old kids came to the bus stop on their scooters while singing Justin Bieber's "Baby." I joined in and they thought it was kinda funny and Elder Bird and I started speaking to them in English. I was pretty impressed that they understood just about everything we said, but weren't confident enough to attempt a response. So we switched into Swedish, blew their minds, and just talked and joked around with them for about 10 minutes before the bus came. It was so fun. They're always gonna remember the American missionaries. One of them had Yeezys. The 11 year-old Swedish kid had like $2,000 shoes on his 11 year-old Swedish kid sized feet.

Then Elder Bird and I went out to knock doors. We were trying out new tactics to start conversations at people's doorsteps to talk about things that are truly relevant in their lives. The problem is that people always see us as robots who knock on their door and they don't let us get a word out. So Elder Bird and I tried to break down the "robot" barrier with a little bit of creativity. Juggling or holding yoga positions as they opened the door seemed to make the situation a lot less tense and helped to make people open up. When we knocked on this one door, I sat on the porch with my back to the door and did one of those "Oh, didn't see you there" things when he opened like they do in cheesy middle school documentaries. The man thought it was pretty funny. As ridiculous as it may have seemed, it worked really well and made nearly every conversation more effective. We met this mom with two kids who was really touched by the message we shared about families being together forever and she very warmly accepted our invitation to learn more about the Gospel.

The following morning, we woke up at 5:00 and ran up and down this huge staircase on the side of a hill in Kungsbacka. It was intense. We must have run up it at least 8 or 9 times. Oof. Gotta love Elder Bird.

On Saturday, Savannah Stevenson, an actress from London--most famous for her role as Glinda in the London production of Wicked--came to our chapel to perform two concerts. I was pretty blown away. It was incredible. But the best part of the whole thing was that the members brought so many of their friends and we were able to meet and talk to a lot of them. Everyone loved it and it was so fun.

Sorry for the long letter, but there was a lot to share. I'll end with a quick message about the importance of gratitude. Take advantage of the holiday this week to be thankful for everything that your loving Heavenly Father has given you. I'm so thankful for the opportunity I have to be serving here as a missionary in Sweden right now. I'm so thankful for my parents and siblings back home. I'm eternally thankful for my Savior Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for me.

Have a great week!

Love,

Äldste Cummings

1. Grabbarna.

2. brotha had yeezys

3. Shout out to my little brother's 5 minutes of fame on the San Antonio News.

4. The Stairway to Heaven.

5. Espen's birthday party.

Follow the Gummy Bear Road

(Sister Slade)

This week was crazy. It was zone conference and Elder Kipishke from the 70 visited to talk to us. President strong also spoke to us about having an island on our missions. He said that if you're on a raft in the middle of the ocean, you're not likely to paddle if you can't see land. In other words, we need to figure out why we're out here and where we want to go. It was specific to missionaries, but it applies to life as well. So, here's my invitation. Find out what your island is. Where are you going in life? Once you figure that out, paddle.

We had a former investigator, Jason, reach out to us this week. He wants to meet with us again! We also picked up a new person to teach. Someone we previously taught wants to treat us to dinner.

On Friday, sister Mueller and I were tracting for a few hours. We were very amused by a trail of gummy bears along the side walk. It was probably 30 or 40 gummy bears but we never figured out where it led. Obviously, our week was very boring if this was the highlight. :)

What is your favorite part about Thanksgiving?

I love you all!

      ~Sister Slade

Pictures!

1. Sister Mueller and I decided we didn't have enough pictures together.

2. Half the missionaries in our mission for zone conference

3. Lunch with Jerry and a few other missionaries

Update

(Sister Slade)

This week, we spent a lot of time tracting. President strong has created a new number to report every week. He wants us to have quality conversations with 22 people a day. Every week, the mission would talk to 10,000 all together if every companionship talked to 22 people a day. Apparently, sister Mueller and I are leading our stake/zone in that number, so yay for us. We've been doing a fun tracting approach where we write "I'm grateful for..." on a mini whiteboard and ask people to respond. It's been super effective and a lot of their answers can be brought back to the gospel. We've had answers from nyquil to Trump's term being almost over. I've had a lot of fun doing this. It's also interesting because President Strong gave us permission to try tracting in regular clothes with and without name tags. People are actually more receptive when we're in regular clothes.

I was trying to think about something else we did this week, but really that's all we did. Lots and lots of tracting. Oh yeah, we also taught one lady English and another math. We also helped one family from India sweep their leaves. Not take, sweep. It was quite fun.

And that's my week. Sorry it is such a boring read. :)

I love you!

     ~Sister Slade

Pictures!

1. A cat followed us around the block as we were tracting. She wouldn't leave us alone. Her name was Butters.

2. Some of the responses from tracting

Jacob 3:7

(Aldste Cummings)

Halloj!

This week has just flown by. We've been having a really fun time here in Gothenburg. I realized this week that I've fallen in love with the city itself. The ward members and the people we're working with are my favorite part of living here, but there's something about the city that's just so endearing.

One of the people we're teaching wrote a full-length musical in 1996 about an Nobel prize nominee oncologist who does tests on himself and spontaneously turns into a woman for a couple hours every once in a while. Apparently it's inspired by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Show business in America is too conservative to risk putting it on but evidently Poland isn't afraid to take a chance. So if you're ever in Warsaw next spring and you're craving an exciting exploration of the sexes full of love, tension, and 90's showtunes, book some tickets for "High Voltage!"

We just went to buy Elder Nelson a new pair of glasses. I felt like a Swede in a candy store. Glasses stores give me so much life. Walking around and picking out glasses for him to try on was *almost* as fun as buying some for myself.

Saturday we had brunch with Pål and LIsa Hyldetoft and then had dinner that evening with Pål's parents Per and Rigmor Hyldetoft. It was Hyldetoft day. Such a party. Love that family. We ate soo much food that day. I ate like fluffy 10 pancakes that morning and then six bowls of soup in the evening with two bowls of rice pudding for desert. Blev mycket mat asså.

Earlier in the week I went on splits with Elder Wayment who was in my district in the MTC and it was so fun to see him again. He's a hardworking, dedicated, and competent missionary. It was a pleasure to be with him. While we were knocking that night, we met two families that wanted us to come back to teach them more about the gospel. One of them specifically was very positive and the mom scheduled a specific time for us to come back. It was an incredibly faith-building miracle.

I don't really know what it is about the Swedish people, but they aren't really interested faith or religion as youths but as they grow up, get married, and have families, they really aren't interested in faith or religion. But that doesn't make them bad people. Rather, they love each other and care for each other and are always the first priority. The sad thing really is that

they reject us because they don't know what we have. They don't know that the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ can enrich their lives and strengthen their family relationships. If they understood that--if everyone understood that--they'd take the chance and see the joy that comes from it. Happiness and success in the family is found in Jesus Christ.

Have a good week!

Love,

Äldste Cummings

1. Onward, Christian soldiers.

2. "I'll take the picture," he said. "It won't be blurry," he said.

3. Well, uh, hello there.

4. If anyone can tell me what kind of flower this is, that'd be great.

5. Espen thought he was being funny. Love that kid.