Käre Familj,
Hallå! I finally figured out how to switch the computers here to Swedish! Thanks for your email, it´s great to know everything´s still going okay!
Too bad about the röd hunting vehicle. Aren´t the välsignelser of having a missionary out great though? At least it´s not the furnace this time...yet... Thanks for not selling hästerna yet. When I got the Dear Elder from mom last week with all the bad news I was almost sure that Zorro was dead or something. Is he still limping?
Speaking of Dear Elders, here´s a funny story that happened to me on Saturday. Some of the Dear Elders were misprinted, so they were put in the wrong mailboxes addressed to the wrong people. I got one that was addressed to me on the outside, but inside was a letter to an Elder Caine. There was a sign there in the mailroom saying they had no way of resorting the misprinted mail, so just throw it away. As I was starting to put the letter in the trash can, I said ``Sorry Elder Caine...´´ and this random elder walking by stops and says ``What?´´ I looked back down at the letter and asked him his first name, which matched the letter, and his hometown, which also matched, and wordlessly handed him the letter. We were all in awe. I only wish I´d read the letter so I could know what was so important for him to know! It was really cool though!
Anyway, our investigators are doing mycket bra still! Jonatan has followed his commitment with the word of wisdom, but he´s not getting baptized on the 23rd anymore. In one of our lessons he asked if we could bump it up, so now he´s scheduled to be baptized this Saturday! We didn´t even have to try and push him! He´s so ready for baptism. I think we might only teach him one more time. Adam is a little more difficult, but we´ve made good progress this week. We finally got his ``mom´´ to come to the lessons (we had to get another sister from our district to be his mom) and that helped a lot. They´re both still set to be baptized on August 17th. In our lesson yesterday we had a really funny experience though. We were teaching about the ten commandments in Mosiah 13, and he said he didn´t understand (insert Swedish phrase here). I was looking at my English scriptures, so I didn´t know what he´d said, so I asked him which verse he was talking about. He said 22, but I heard 24. So I start trying to explain ``thou shall not covet´´ when he was really asking about ``thou shall not commit adultery.´´ When he told me after the lesson, I was so embarrassed! But it was really funny.
Yesterday we got to Skype with people who are actually in Sweden! It got me so excited to go! It was hard to understand them because Skype is always difficult, but then I could blame it on that instead of my lack of Swedish ability. They were very willing to explain things when we didn´t understand though, which was nice. I think it was one of the first times I realized there are actually REAL people in Sweden, which is a real place! Kind of weird. Then in the lunchroom right after that, we met an Elder who is from Sweden. He said my Swedish was really good, and that usually Americans sound bored when they speak Swedish because they speak all monotone. Swedish actually has two tones, but none of our teachers have bothered to say much about it because they´ll still be able to understand us. My goal is to actually sound Swedish, and not like an American. So plan on me coming home with a Swedish accent!
Our testimony meeting on Sunday was really great. I´m sure you can imagine what happens when you put 90 missionaries in a room together and have them share their testimonies. There was a senior sister there (she´s going to Denmark) and she shared how the missionaries saved her life by listening to the Spirit. It was so powerful. Then Sunday night for our devotional, it was Jenny Oaks Baker! She talked about spiritual gifts, and she played three or four pieces on her violin. It was probably one of my favorite devotionals here so far. Her closing song was I Know That My Redeemer Lives. It was the exact same arrangement we played at my farewell, except she played both parts of the duet at once. I was just in awe the whole time.
Tomorrow I get to be a host and help new missionaries! I´m so excited for that! My hosts when I got here were so helpful. They talked to me and asked me a bunch of questions so I couldn´t think about the fact that I´d just left my family. So now I´m excited to be able to do the same thing for more missionaries who are coming in! Also, I saw Sister DeLeon a few days ago and gave her a big hug. She looked really excited and slightly overwhelmed. I think she had just taught her first lesson. I haven´t seen Brianna (my roommate from BYU) yet, but she was supposed to get here last Wednesday.
We´ll get our travel plans on Friday night this week, so I probably won´t be able to tell you about it until the next time I email. The two Danish districts are leaving a week before us, so they got their travel plans last Friday. They have layovers in Chicago and in the Heathrow Airport. I think it would be really cool to have a layover in London... Mostly I´m excited to get to call you from the airport! Are you going to send me a phone, or should I buy a calling card? They have them at the bookstore here but I don´t know any details about how they work or anything. They don´t really tell you anything about your Visa until the week before you leave. The Danes know that half of them have Visas, but they don´t know which ones they are. I think they don´t want people to get discouraged. But they were here when the Swedes before me left, and they said none of them had any problems with their Visas, so that´s good.
How was the Ephraim´s Rescue movie? As good as you imagined? We´re hoping we might get to see that while we´re here, or 17 Miracles or something. Sunday night we watched the Joseph Smith movie.
Nice Swedish again. I don´t know if you translated fast offering right, because I haven´t taught anyone the law of the fast yet. But when you said that Peyton was headed to girls´ camp, you used the noun for head. Like the thing on your shoulders. I thought that was funny. Could be worse though. We´ve learned some funny Swedish words. Last week our teacher (Broder Rowley, who is also Jonatan sometimes) got this really serious look on his face and said, solemnly: "It's time you learn this word: facket. It means 'the cubby.'" We also learned "slut station." It's the last station that a train goes to. (slut means stop or end.) I guess missionaries like to take pictures by the "slutstation" sign. Also, the word for day is dag (pronounced like dawg) so every P-day reminds me of Peyton: P-Dawg!!
So yeah, everything´s still going great! I even got letters from some of my friends this week! The MTC is a great place, but I´m really itching to get to Sweden. Is there any news about Matty and Taryn? When does school start for Cody and Peyton? Make sure she plays my violin every now and then so it doesn´t get muffled! That reminds me, I got to play a violin last week after I emailed you on P-day. It was really fun to be able to play it! (We just borrowed it from the MTC. They have two and you can use them for 50 minutes at a time.)
Jag älkar er!
Love, Delaney
