Breaking news! I’m leaving 3rd Branch

Hey Mom!

Alrighty, well breaking news! I’m leaving 3rd Branch. Transfer calls were last night and I’m going to 4th Branch with Elder Hagen to be a Zone Leader. President said he’s kind of changing the way he does Zone Leaders though. In the past it has been a six month assignment, but he’s moving away from that so it might not be six months for me. It should be interesting. I don’t feel ready for an assignment like that at all, but I’m willing to try and I know the Lord will help. So pray for me, please!

Our investigators are doing really well. We brought Ylli (our old guy investigator) to a baptism on Saturday and he really liked it. He’s a really cool guy. I know this is a super missionary comparison, but he’s exactly like Joseph Smith’s dad on the Restoration film. Well at least he acts like him.

We finished teaching Nelson the Plan of Salvation this week and we also taught him the Word of Wisdom. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done, but he is going to start the Church’s Stop Smoking Program this week. I really see a lot of potential in Nelson just because he’s so humble and he realizes that all that stuff is hurting him. He was telling us how he always has headaches and stuff after he drinks coffee and he doesn’t feel good when he smokes and so he wants to feel stronger and healthier. We obviously promised him that he would feel a lot better if he lived according to the Word of Wisdom. I’m sad I’m going to be leaving and not be able to see his progress.

Also we’ve still been meeting with Adrian this week and brought him to church yesterday. He is very hard to teach, but I’m sure there has to be some way that the Gospel can come into his life. If he can get over his little obstacles and mindsets than I’m sure he will be in a state where the spirit can teach him gospel truths.

We also met two new people this week, Pjetri and Margarit. Margarit is a college student and we haven’t met him since Thursday, but we’re meeting with him tomorrow. He seems to be really cool. It seems like he actually learns from us and doesn’t just come to hear us talk which is refreshing.

Pjetri is an interesting guy. He’s a big-time reader. He reads EVERYTHING. So he has a lot of weird ideas and superstitions. I’ll give you an example. We met him yesterday and he had read a little bit of Joseph Smith’s testimony. There’s a part where it talks about him going to a mount of considerable height and moving the stone that was covering the plates. He read that to us and kinda paused as if to ask, “Can you not see what this is?!” He then said, “Elders, we’re dealing with a code!” Apparently there’s a legend of something that sounds just like Joseph Smith’s description and he thought maybe the Book of Mormon could help him find it. That was pretty entertaining. I actually really like this guy. He has a lot of really cool stories from when he was a pilot and I can actually listen to him and it doesn’t bore me super bad. But anyway, he’s not quite ready to accept this yet. He says he will go discuss it with these priests up in Shkodër and then, if they say that he should ask God, he’ll get back to us. So I’m not really counting on seeing him for a while, but maybe we helped him a little bit and sometime in the future he’ll really be searching for the truth. Ha ha he brought me a birthday cake and made me and Elder Anderson eat the entire thing before we could start the lesson. It was a good cake, but man!

Anyway, wow I’ve really just been rambling a lot. Holy cow.

Your Stake Conference sounded really cool. The story about that semi-active guy made me laugh. I bet that was a refreshing talk. It’s interesting to note that even the people that have fallen away or just don’t really come anymore still know that those things are true.

Yeah you definitely need to send me a picture of the house when you’re done! I can already tell that tons of stuff has changed from the pictures you’ve already sent me. It’s gonna be weird coming back to that. But I’m sure it looks awesome.

So is it getting warmer yet? Cause it is here. I’ve been hot (ha ha in every sense of the word) in my suit these past couple of days. That rocks. I’m definitely ready for summer. I think I’d rather be burning than be freezing cold.

Anyway, I better go! I wanted to thank you again for my birthday package! It rocks. I’ve seriously looked through that photo album at least once every day. I love you guys. Also thanks for the workouts! That should help with the weight I’ve been putting back on. =)

I love you!!
-Elder Swenson