In response to popular demand, I've put up this page for people who have just gotten their calls to Sweden, and want to know a little more than what was enclosed with their calls. As I just put this page up June 25th, I need some help fleshing it out. If you just got your call, please let me know what questions you would like answered here. If you have already served a mission in Sweden, please let me know what you wish you would have known before you left.
The Country
- Safety and cleanliness
- Medical help
- Cost of living
- Weather
- Time zone, summer time
- Useful links
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The People
- Way of life
- Behavior toward strangers
- Unique cultural behaviors
- Attitudes toward religion and marriage
- Attitude toward Americans
Many Americans have an incorrect impression of Swedes as immoral or at least amoral, particularly with regard to sex and marriage. Swedes are actually very ethical and honest, but many do think marriage is an antiquated ritual that is no longer necessary. "Our love needs no piece of paper." One contributor suggested that such an attitude may be resentment toward the state church for how it treated them historically. The state church deprived them of education and told them to accept a lower social status, and as a result you may sometimes perceive an anti-Christian attitude.
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The Language
The name of the church in Swedish is Jesu Kristi Kyrka av Sista Dagars Heliga. Listen to Jan Ottosson say it:
More on the language
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Brief History
- History of Sweden
- History of the Church in Sweden
Read some good books on LDS Church History, especially ones that emphasize early emigration to Utah by Swedes, Danes and other groups. There is a relatively recent book from Deseret Book that mentions the sacrifices these groups made to come here to the US. There's also a great book by the University of Minnesota Press that addresses specifically Mormon-Scandanavian emmigration.
Try finding an older person in your stake who is of Scandanavian extraction. Maybe he or she has some relatively first-hand experiences of what it was like trying to grow up around newly emigrated Swedes and Danes.
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The Church in Sweden
- The state church
- Number of LDS members and units
- Number of baptisms last year
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The Mission
- About the mission president and his family
- Number of missionaries: how many elders/sisters, foreign/native, districts/zones
- Trainers and greenies, seniors and juniors, threesomes
- What the mission office does
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Missionary Life
- Daily schedule
- P-day
- How to wash clothes
- How to buy food
- Sunday
- Typical apartment
- Transfers
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Missionary Work
- Methods of finding
- Service projects
- Multimedia: flipcharts, videos, etc.
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The Temple
Can missionaries go to the temple? Just the ones in Västerhaninge, or others as well? When? Anything different about visiting as a missionary?
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Money
- Kronor
- Equalized system: how much, what's covered
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Transportation
- Bikes
- Local transit
- Cars: who, what, how
- Transfers
Learn the appropiate hand signal for turning right when riding a bike.
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Clothing
The standard trenchcoat that missionaries usually buy before leaving will be fine to keep the summer rains off, but expect to buy a good winter coat when you get there. It may be hard to find one both long enough and warm enough, but you may get lucky poking through the racks at a second-hand store. Stocking caps are not permitted, although they are much needed.
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Mental Preparation
Any missionary on his way to the promised land should wean himself from provincial thinking. No individual's experience is a closed book. With that in mind, be open to all experiences - this will be of use as you meet investigators. It will be of more use to you as you live with your companions.
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Spiritual Preparation
A returned missionary sent me the following:
I wished I would have known how to work.
I wished I would have known how to listen and heed the Spirit.
I wished I would have known how to lead.
I wished I would have known how to love others.
I wished I would have written more diligently in my journal.
And finally, I wished I would have kept in contact with all of those special people that I met.
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Going Home
What permissions/process if any are needed by parents want to pick up their missionary at the conclusion of the mission?
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Thanks to Ted Boren, James Davis, Scott Hansen, Ric Jensen, Kenneth Johnson, Jan Ottosson, Gary Oviatt and Chris Roskelley for their contributions to this page.
Last changed: Friday, September 17, 2004
