A New Beginning! (Monday, March 29)

Hallå allihopa!

This week has been awesome. I mentioned last week that I will be training a new missionary this transfer. And now I know who she is and that we are going to have a great transfer together.

My new companion is Sister Maxwell. (No relation to Elder Maxwell.) She is from Cary, North Carolina. It's just outside of Raleigh...and she is awesome. She comes from a family with 4 brothers....the only girl. She went to school at BYU and graduated with a degree in Anthropology. She's been to Guatemala a couple of summers so she knows some spanish...it's awesome she will be serving here in Jakobsberg with me! Half of the ward are spanish speakers. She lived in California for a while working and then decided to come on a mission. She is good at swedish and is already a great missionary. We get along well and will have a great transfer.

I'll let you know more about her as we get to know eachother during our time together. :)

Otherwise, the work here in Jakobsberg is going well. We are starting a Swedish Class here tomorrow...which we both pray people come to. We done a lot of advertising and hope that we will have people come and learn Swedish...and also the gospel. We will also have another music night during the transfer...at least one. They are successful here and the ward really enjoys them. We will put our focus on the ward inviting people to the next one.

We also will be having a baptism in Jakobsberg on April 10th. Lawal is going to be baptized. He has accepted the gospel and wants to be baptized in the Lord's church. He knows the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. He has a great foundation to build upon. We are working hard to help him continue to progress to baptism. The ward is really trying to take care of our investigators which we are really grateful for. I know that makes the difference!!!

All of the new missionaries that came into Sweden are awesome. One sad thing right now is that the number of missionaries in Sweden continues to be lower and lower. There are many missionaries going home every transfer and not as many coming in. We have had many areas close over the last several months and we that are here continue to work like there are still as many missionaries here as have been. We have new Standards of Excellence in the Mission...that are higher than they were last year, but with fewer missionaries. I know that as we apply ourselves we can continue to see success here.

I hope that all of you have a great week. I am really excited for General Conference this weekend. It is always a blessing to hear the words of the Prophet and Apostles. I hope you all get the opportunity to watch or listen as well. Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Suzanne Wood