Halmstad

Taylor is being transferred from the mission office this week to a new area where he will serve as district leader. He'll be in Halmstad.

I've never heard of Halmstad. Have you?

It's on the western side of Sweden, close to Denmark. On the map you can see Helsingborg and Malmö, which are also in his district. You can also see where Halmstad is in relation to the town of Gävle where he started out.

I run into people once in a while who go to Malmö on business. Sometimes it feels like a very small world.

Missionaries can call home on Mother's Day and Christmas Day. I had a long talk with Taylor on Mother's Day and it was so cool. At one point, he wanted me to hold on so they could say the prayer for dinner (they are 8 hours ahead of us) and I could hear one of the missionaries praying in Swedish.

All I can say is that it doesn't sound like a real language. Taylor was telling me that the Book of Mormon was translated into "Old Swedish" and so it's very hard for some of the people to understand it. (I'm imagining that it's like reading the Bible in Ye Olde English.) But not to worry because the Church is busy working on a translation in "New Swedish". He mentioned this a few times, before I finally asked him how long ago the Swedish people switched from Old to New Swedish. He said "It happened in 2008".

That is some kind of hard language that native people forget it in two years!