Elder Jackson Kent Calder

  This week was actually super fun! First and foremost, I met my new mission presidents! The Lakes are the sweetest! I actually am so excited to get to know them better and serve with them. President Lake talks so passionately about Sweden and I can tell him and I will get along great.  The second thing that happened this week that was so cool was Midsommar. Midsommar is a holiday celebrated in Europe but I think primarily the scandinavian countries, which includes Sweden! It is on the summer solstice and includes lots of traditional food and fun! Our teachers taught us some of the fun traditions they picked up in Sweden. These include flower crowns, dancing around the maypole and fun songs they sing. It was a blast! I can’t wait to celebrate it in Sweden! Next thing that was super cool was that because this week was training for the new mission presidents, there were lots of general authorities on MTC campus! I got to see a few of them but my favorite one was I got to see my ...

Hello everyone! This week was pretty much just like last week, the only difference is that we started Swedish immersion. This has been fun but very challenging. I've been trying my best to keep up with my district but they are all so smart! To be honest I was struggling with comparing myself to those in my class until some of the sister suggested that we listen to a BYU devotional by J.B Haws called “ wrestling with comparisons " . I recommend you all listen to it, it has helped me an awful lot this week. In other news, everything is great! I’m learning more and more everyday and its been a blast. I finally got the chance to play some basketball this week and it was truly therapeutic. I’ve found that my one hour of exercise time everyday is one thing I always look forward to.  One really cool experience that I get to be involved in is that this week is the training for the new mission presidents! There should be a lot of general authorities around campus starting today through...

  Hi everybody! sorry for not writing an email last week, my P-Day (preperation day for those of you who don’t speak missionary lingo haha) was a day full of traveling so I didn’t get a chance to send out an email. This has been probably one of the most overwhelming two weeks of my life to be honest. It’s been great don’t get me wrong, but it has been tough. So just a fair warning, this email is kinda long just because so much happened and I don’t know what to leave out, I won’t judge you if you just scroll down to the bottom to see pictures because I do that too sometimes :) To start out, I finished out home MTC. It was fun but i was sick of sitting in front of a computer all day and it was a lot harder for me to stick to missionary standards (like not watching TV and swimming, stuff like that) when I was at home. One thing I loved about Home MTC was my family. I was able to go on nightly walks with my parents and try to soak up as much time with them as I could. I was able to tal...

Hello everyone! On Sunday I was set apart as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and started my two year journey. I feel so lucky and blessed to be able to serve a mission. For those of you who don't know, I have been called to the Sweden Stockholm mission but before I fly to Sweden, I need to learn how to teach the gospel. So I'm going to spend the next six weeks learning at the Provo MTC (missionary training center) and this first week is at home. My takeaway from these first few days in home MTC is that this is going to be harder than I thought it was going to be. I'm realizing that I struggle with the attention span to be in virtual classes all day and to wake up early and go to sleep on time. On the bright side, I'm really excited for my mission to help me get rid of my addiction to my phone and to help me learn how to really study and focus on things.  I'm really grateful for my district. Although I don't know them very well ye...