Stoeltzing Surfing Stockholm

Week 46; September 22, 2014 – Locked-out!

Well, this has been a strange week, but it’s been a good week too. Our P-day got off to a fun start. Everyone got together and played floor hockey in the Gubbangen Chapel. I hadn't played since I was in Kungsbacka, so it was super fun to play again, especially because I could be competitive against the other missionaries. But the Swedes are all pros at floor hockey. We're hoping to start an inter-mural floor hockey league back at BYU. Anyway, it was a good start to the week. Until we went home...

So, there's a construction project going on at our apartment complex and the managers only issue two keys at a time. However, they have these little tubes attached to the door to put your spare key into and the construction workers can get in if needed. What's really annoying is that the doors are self-locking. You never have to worry about whether or not your door is locked, which is nice, but you just have to make sure you don't lock your keys in the apartment.

We returned home from our P-day hockey game and I realized I had locked our keys in the apartment. We thought it would be easy to get in because a member of our ward works for the apartment complex. Unfortunately, the only key to the spare key tube was in the office and they had just closed, so we stayed the night at the other Elder’s apartment that night. The next day we went to the office to sort-out the issue. The man in the office was a really bitter person and he would not let us explain our situation in English. He looked-up our info and thought we were illegally renting the apartment because he couldn't find the correct paper work. We explained that the church would never rent an apartment for missionaries without filling-out the proper paperwork, but he still wasn't convinced. He said he would talk to Stephanie that night and if she could vouch for us, then maybe he could arrange something. So, we spent a second night at the other Elder’s apartment without our toothbrushes. 

Finally, they called us the next morning and gave us our key. After two days we finally got back into our apartment. Stephanie told us that the secretary that we spoke with is very serious about his job and he had to ask her if we were trustworthy before he was convinced to give us back our key, so she really ended up saving us. Well, the lesson I learned from this experience is that I will never forget my keys again... Hopefully!

Dala Horse folk art is symbolic and found throughout Sweden

In between the craziness of the apartment situation we had a great lesson with a less-active member named Andreas. He is a science teacher at the local high school and he told us about NASA's upcoming Mars mission. After a while, he really opened up to us about church and explained a little bit about some of the obstacles he is dealing with in the church. Despite his trials, he still feels that the church is special in his heart. We bore our testimonies to him and he invited us back next week. I feel like he has a lot of potential to move forward and I can't wait to keep teaching him.  

I also got sick this week, so we took it easy for about half of Thursday and I rested a little. My cold hit me pretty bad in the middle of all the apartment lock-out craziness. So, it was a good day to rest. I also finished reading the book of Mark in the New Testament that day, so now it's onto my favorite book in the New Testament, John!    

This is what you do when you're sick and locked-out of your apartment for 2 days

On Saturday morning we helped a family move and then we had dinner with a Danish lady in the ward. The Danish language is kind of like Swedish if you don't enunciate anything. We can understand a bit of it, but it's incredibly difficult. Elder Peterson had no chance of picking it up because it's only his third week in Sweden. Elder Pearson did okay, and Elder Sahlin could understand almost everything because he's actually Swedish, so they carried-on the conversation through most of the evening. I understood most of the topics, but she talked so fast and changed topics so much, that every time I wanted to jump-in, she was onto something new. I finally understood something about turkeys and ducks and I finally took the opportunity to make a comment about ducks. Ironically, she couldn't understand my Swedish at all, so she just kept on talking and moved on to another topic. Needless to say, I'm very happy to be serving a mission in Sweden rather than Denmark.

On a brighter note, she served green Jell-O as part of our meal and it was the first time I'd had Jell-O my whole mission. I don't particularly like Jell-O, but it's good when you haven't had it in a long time. As I said earlier, it's been an interesting week, but a memorable one. Thanks for reading everyone!

I Love you guys! 

-Äldste Stoeltzing