Käre familj,
Tack för brevet! Det går mycket bra med jag och Syster Dawson. Vi är så taggade för att gå till Sverige på Mondag!
I was wondering when the Francis Harper Smith reunion would be, and whether you would go. Did they do the colored shirt thing again this year? In Swedish to say grandma or grandpa you just say mom-mom or dad-dad, etc. So if Francis Harper Smith is dad´s mom´s mom´s dad, (his grandmother´s father) then he would be my farmors morfar. My father´s mother´s mother´s father. That also makes Grandma Smith my farmor, not my mormor. My mormor is Grandma Wilson. It´s kind of confusing.
Our investigators are still doing great! Yes, Jonatan was baptized on Saturday. The only thing that happened was when Broder Rowley (Jonatan) walked into class we asked him if Jonatan had gotten baptized, and he said yeah. So it happened! Kind of anticlimatic. His baptismal interview was funny, because we just kind of told our district leader on the spot that he was going to do an interview, so he just read the questions out of Predika Mitt Evangelium. He didn´t know what they all meant so he ended up asking ``Have you ever been arrested or convicted for a serious crime?´´ No. ``If so, are you now on probation or parole?´´ And Jonatan was kind of like ``Uh...no...´´ We bumped up Adam´s baptismal date to Friday, since Saturday is our last day of class. Broder Jorgensen, who plays Adam, actually does a little something for when he´s baptized as an investigator so I´ll be excited to see that happen. We had the best lesson with him this week! We were trying to figure out how to keep him more engaged since he gets bored really easily, and we were teaching him about the commandments. So we made a cootie-catcher with questions about the commandments on the outside and scriptures to look up on the inside. It made for a great lesson because we had already prepared good questions and the scriptures to use to answer (not that we don´t usually prepare, it was just easier when it was in that form.) Later we found out that Broder Jorgensen went to the other teacher of the other Swedish district afterward and told him it was the perfect idea to teach him as that investigator. You can really tell when you have the Spirit in your planning, because you know what to do for you lessons. Also, I´m really glad I´ve retained my cootie-catcher folding skills from fifth grade!
I probably could not understand an average Swede on the streets of Malmö, because they do not speak real Swedish there, or so I´ve heard. They´re so close to Denmark, they practically speak Danish. Last week when we skyped with members in Sweden, the guy from Malmö was really hard to understand. I do think I could understand an average Swede in Stockholm or Göteborg a little bit better. They would be able to understand me too, but I would only be able to talk about the gospel because I don´t know any other vocabulary. We skyped with members in Sweden again yesterday. I´ve figured out that if I just listen to what they say as a whole, I usually understand the gist of it even if I don´t get most of the words. Like yesterday we asked the member about an experience at church, and he told us about when a new convert was confirmed in sacrament meeting and how strong the Spirit was there, and that he wouldn´t be able to forget that feeling. While he was talking, I was like ``I don´t know any of these words...´´ but by the time he finished I realized I had an idea of what he was talking about.
Tell Taryn Hi for me! I got her Dear Elder yesterday afternoon. I haven´t had as much time to write letters this week as I usually do, so I haven´t been able to write back to the letters I´ve received this week, but I really love how much mail I get! I think I sent that picture of my journal and how full it is with the letters I´ve gotten. I got a few postcards from Diane and them this week, which was really fun.
You´ll notice my email is a few hours early this week. It´s because the Provo temple is finally open again, and we get to go today! I´m so excited! BUT, guess which temple is closing on Monday just in time for me to get to Sweden? Yup, the Stockholm temple will be closed when I get there. I don´t know if that makes a difference because maybe I wouldn´t have even been able to go anyway. Oh well. There are rumors that we´re going to have a general authority at the devotional tonight, because it´s being broadcast to the other MTCs and the choir director was being really antsy about it. That would be cool to have an apostle come. In Relief Society on Sunday our speaker was Rosemary M. Wixom, the General Primary President. That was pretty cool.
President Hill said that we can call whenever and wherever and however long we want from the airports, so if I had time I could call you on all of my layovers. I think I´ll definitely call from Detroit because we have a longer layover, but if I have time I can call from Salt Lake also. You wouldn´t mind if I called you at 6 in the morning would you? I don´t know how many missionaries are leaving outside of my branch. The other group of Swedes leaves an hour earlier than us (They leave the MTC at 2 AM), then there´s us. The Norwegians leave later in the morning, like 11. And some of the Danes who had to stay an extra week because of visa problems will be leaving who knows when. But I don´t know about the rest of the missionaries in the MTC. I´m sure there are a ton leaving on Monday, but probably not so many are leaving quite so early. We actually haven´t heard anything about our Visas yet either, so on Friday it´s possible that I could be called down and told that I don´t have a visa yet and have to stay an extra week and wait for either a visa or a reassignment. Let´s pray that doesn´t happen.
I am planning on sending a package home, but I have to start packing first so I know what to send.
I hope everything goes well for you this week! Can´t wait to talk to you Monday morning!! Jag älskar er!
Love, Delaney
