Saturday, December 28, 2013

December 27, 2013

Kära familj,
 
Hello! Merry Christmas!
 
Skyping was great, of course! I loved it! I couldn't see your expressions very well because it was a little fuzzy sometimes, but I'm glad you enjoyed mine I guess. I'm still laughing at your pronunciations of Västerhaninge and Nynäshamn. And Ösmo.

I loved the pictures you sent! Gingerbread houses are really big here, but you buy a whole gingerbread house kit and they kind of all just look the same. I liked yours much better. I can't believe that all three of my siblings got smart phones! Will there still be one for me when I get home? I miss my smart phone a lot here, because I can't just google translate something or just look up an address. It would have saved us quite a few long walks if we'd known how far away some of these places were. I'm really excited about the pedometer you sent me. I put it on my coat so it starts counting the moment I leave the apartment until I come back home. I found out that my apartment is less than half a mile from the train station. I'm going to write it all down in my planner at the end of every day. I'm not trunky, but I am REALLY looking forward to crunching numbers when I get home and doing a few statistical analyses of things like how many steps I walk and what I spend my money on. It will be exciting!

Sorry I didn't email yesterday. Syster Sjöblom stayed in the apartment all day because she's still pretty sick. Luckily Syster Christison is awesome and volunteered to stay home yesterday so that Syster Larson and I could go to Stockholm for Sweden's Black Friday. Did you know there's an intersection in Stockholm with an H&M on every corner? There are lots of H&Ms in Stockholm. And they had some really good deals! I saved a lot of money by spending a lot of money...but you probably know more about that than I do... I also had my first milkshake since my mission and it was a huge disappointment. It must have been cheap soft serve stuff, because real Swedish ice cream would never let me down like that.

I forgot to tell you about a funny story on Christmas Eve. So we were eating dinner with the Krus family and I was trying all the different things, and I got to some potatoes that were basically like Dog Rotten {this is what we call au graten potatoes} potatoes only they were cooked with anchovies in them. I admit, I was really nervous about trying them. But I took a few bites and they were delicious and not fishy at all! I asked if it really had anchovies and they said yes, and I said I couldn't taste anything the least bit fishy. They have an American son in law and when I said that he blurted out "are you on crack?!?" Apparently they're really fishy to other people but I couldn't tell after eating the herring and salmon. We played charades with them, which is really hard in Swedish. Lots of times I would know what it was, but I didn't know how to say it in Swedish. Like earwig. But I had to charade "En skägglig bankrånare", a bearded bank robber. So I learned how to say bearded, in case I ever need it. Yippee.

While we were skyping I told you that Cie-Cie had been invited to Christmas dinner. When I logged off and came back out into the living room, she was there! She came to dinner and she was really comfortable with everyone and had a good time. It was awesome. After skyping we played a trivia game (they translated to English for us) and a card game that was like speed Skipbo. (They have Skipbo in Sweden!) Then we had more rice porridge stuff, this time with oranges in it and black currant syrup. It was really yummy.

We didn't leave the apartment at all today until we came to email since we couldn't do it yesterday. After this we're going to a member's for dinner. We couldn't cancel on her because she's a single lady so the elders can't go alone, and she only speaks Danish so we don't think the elders will really be able to communicate with her very well. (It was really hard to confirm the appointment with her this morning. The gift of tongues works with Swedish, Spanish, and now apparently Danish. I'm still waiting for it to work on old person Swedish though-that one's a tough language to figure out.)

I was so excited to be able to tell you all about teaching Yahaira yesterday, but unfortunately we had to cancel on her due to Syster Sjöblom's sickness. I puzzled out every way I could think of to coordinate with the other sisters to be able to go on exchanges so I could still teach her with one of them, but their schedule for the evening was already too full. She still wants to meet though, so keep praying for her!

Don't worry, you're not the only ones praying for my investigators even if we're not really meeting them at the moment. We still pray for everyone we even have the possibility of meeting again. And it turns out! It worked with Erik, Sebastian, and Petra even after we thought maybe we would never see them again. And it never hurts to pray for someone. Right now our progressing investigators are still Bash and Yahaira, and we're hoping that a lot more people will be able to meet now that Christmas is over. I've heard that missionary work doesn't really pick back up until we get into the new year, but we'll make the best out of it!

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year! (God Jul och gott nytt år!) Jag älskar er!

Love, Delaney

PS-Mom, I'd still like a jump rope if you can send me one. I'm not sure where to find one here and it's my favorite thing to do for exercise in the mornings.

PPS-There's a transfer on Monday and transfer calls are tomorrow! So by the time I email again I could be in a whole new area! Our prediction is that Syster Sjöblom is more likely to leave though. We're pretty sure one of us will leave because we've both been here more than four months.

PPPS-Did you know that Kpkpka (Kelsi from orchestra) is going on a mission in a couple weeks!?!
 
Delaney and Syster Sjoblom with the Krus's bear