Käre familj,
Hello! I love
getting your email too. I was almost afraid I wasn't going to get to email
today, because the internet has been down at the church, but it's working
again. Thank goodness! When I was writing last week I was hoping you would look
up a map so you could see how much of a hassle it is for us to actually get
down to our area. We spend quite a bit of time in Ösmo also, which is a little
closer. I believe the temple is supposed to open tomorrow, so we'll probably
get to go sometime this month. Hoppas. We did get to go help clean a couple
times last week. We wiped out all the lockers in the mens locker room, and
vacuumed the chairs and altar in one of the sealing rooms. I can't wait to
actually get to do a session there though!
Tell Peyton,
Zorro, the cat, and Coonie that I love them too. And make sure Matty's being
nice to Coonie. They don't get along too well.
Syster Sjöblom is
from North Ogden . I believe we're doing a
musical number at some Relief Society thing sometime. I don't really know because
the other sisters set it up. I don't know where I'll get a violin from so we'll
probably all just sing. There is a member who's learning how to make violins,
but he hasn't finished any yet. (They make good soup though! Actually, that was
one of my favorite dinner appointments because it was soup, which I ate with a
spoon. I'm terrible at using forks here because you have to use it with you
left hand and like...upside down... it's hard. So the soup was a welcome relief
from trying to figure out how to get rice on the back of my fork in my left
hand.)
We still don't
know who exactly we're going to baptize, but we're getting more and more
options. If they ever answer their phones... we talked to a guy from Nigeria Denmark
that we talked to a couple of weeks ago, because he'll finally be in Sweden Venezuela
We also met with
and taught Cie-Cie, one of the investigators from the area. She has a strong
testimony of Joseph Smith, but she's really interested in this New Age religion
that's popular around here. She's quite a character, but she's really sweet and
she's just looking for peace in life. Hopefully she can realize that the gospel
of Christ is how to find it.
We've also been
working with a bunch of less active members. On
Tuesday we took a 2½ hour bus trip out to one of the little cities in our area
(it had about three roads total) to find a less active family that the bishop
asked us to visit. We got off one bus stop too late (the Stora Vika stop isn't
actually IN Stora Vika apparently) and we had to walk around the city like
three times before we decided that the road didn't exist, but we found the
building that was most likely to be the right one. And there were no listings
for who lived in which apartment. We had to catch the bus again in 45 minutes
and we were about to give up, but we thought (AKA were inspired) to ask the
people in the laundry room if they knew the family. Of course the laundry room
was locked BUT you know me and my stalkerish instincts. The back door was
unlocked, so we went in and asked the girl in there if she knew the Jana
family. She said she did and we should follow her, and on the way up the stairs
she's like "that's my family." She just let us in and we taught a
great lesson about the Book of Mormon. They hadn't had contact with the church
for 4 years, so I'm so glad we found them! Then on the bus ride home (which was
only one hour because we learned there was a direct route instead of the
convoluted connections we'd taken to get there) we met a girl who was really
interested and basically taught her all about the restoration and she posted
about us on facebook and everything. But she wouldn't give us her number. :(
She said she'd probably come to church sometime though so maybe next week.
It's too bad hunting
didn't go so well this year. We had dinner with a member of the bishopric last
night and I learned that the whole bishopric is in the same hunting
"team". They hunt wild boars and bears. He was very impressed to
learn that I'm a hunter, and I got to see lots of pictures of boars and bears.
It was pretty cool. I told Syster Sjöblom that once I told you about that (dad)
that you'd be in Sweden
I haven't used my
debit card here yet but I think I'll be buying boots soon. We've heard we can
get some warm ones right around where we live, and they're only like 500
crowns, so that would be great. I'll probably use it on that or
something.
Did you do anything
today for Labor Day? Some of the missionaries in this area are having a
barbeque. I don't know if we'll go because it already started. Our plans got
thrown off because of internet problems. It's been a rainy day here too.
Yesterday you could tell that summer was over and it was time for Fall. It was
rainy and blustery and there are leaves on the ground and everything.
We've been trying to
visit lots of members and less active members. Actually we've been trying to
visit everyone on the ward list in our area. It's hard because most people here
live in apartments, and most apartments have a portcode. So even if we know the
address, we can't find out which floor they live on, and even if we do, we
can't knock on their door or even leave a note. Kind of frustrating. But the
times that it's really important, like the Jana family in Stora Vika, God makes
sure we still get in contact. The same kind of thing happened on Thursday night
too. We went to a different area in the zone that needed a lot of help with
contacting less active families. They gave each companionship a few addresses
with less active families to contact. We went to the first two, and they were
both portcoded. We found the apartments that the last one belonged to, but we
couldn't find the building right away. They were all portcoded, so we thought
for sure the one we were looking for would be no different, but we felt like we
had to find it anyway. When we finally found the building, it was portcoded. We
lingered there for a minute, despairing over the cruelty of portcodes, when a
woman in front of the building came over and asked if we were from the church.
She was the one we were looking for! I'm so glad we didn't give up! I've
learned that a few times in the last two weeks, with her and the Jana family
and some of the contacts we've made on the streets. The ones that pay off are
the ones where you give 100% effort and don't give up. A lot of times it really
is just a trial of our faith, to see if we have the faith to push forward and
find that one last person.
Yesterday in fast and
testimony meeting I bore my testimony. It was scary because it was Swedish, but
I could still do it and I was so glad. I felt a lot of support from the ward
members after that too, which is good because we need their help if we're going
to have success in this area. The Second Harvest prophecy talks about that
too-"When the membership of the Church unites with the missionary force,
then all things become possible to them, and the growth of the Kingdom of God
Things are going
great! I'm excited for this week, it's looking really promising. Oh, and I'm doing
a 10K on Saturday. At a brisk walk. All the sister missionaries around are
doing it, so it should be fun. I'll try and send some pictures.
Jag älskar er!!
Love, Delaney
PS-Yes, I have
received two letters from mom now. One she wrote while I was in the MTC, and
one more.
PPS-I will ask the
elders if they know about that knot. I agree that it is pretty cool. (Yes, I
have heard of it.) There are lots of cool tie knots on Pinterest.
PPPS-This might be
kind of early, but when you send my Christmas package (or any package) send
some deer jerky! (Please!)
PPPPS-I'm making
Kladkaka for ya'll when I come home. And Flying Jacob. You'll love it.
PPPPPS-I can say ya'll
now because I speak Swedish and they have a special word for that (er). Also
because Syster Larson, who lives in the same apartment with me, grew up in Florida
