Kära Familj,
Gott nytt år!! I can't believe 2014 is already upon us! New Year's Eve was fun. I didn't expect I'd do more party hopping on my mission than I ever did at home. But between Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Years Eve, I've been to lots of parties. Tame ones of course. But first, the moment you've all been waiting for, my area is...still Nynäshamn! And my companion is...Syster Sjöblom! Yes, we're still together. I'm the only sister in my group who's still with her trainer. I'm just special like that. Actually we think there might have been plans to transfer her, but since she was sick, it would have been really hard on everyone if she was transferred. So we're still here. She's still a little sick but she's feeling much better. In fact she's feeling well enough that we probably could have gotten a lot done except for the fact that nobody wants to meet this week. We respect that I guess and let them have their holiday before we interrupt their lives to bring them the life-changing news that Christ is the Savior of the World. No big deal. In other words, we haven't done much teaching lately.
We were going to drop by Siv and Louise on Monday, but we had district meeting at a moment's notice. Then we came home because Syster Sjöblom is still sick and had to rest. So I cleaned the apartment in order to prepare for Syster Clouse to come. We also said hej då to Syster Larson, who was transferred to Kungsbacka. I miss her already, but Syster Clouse is pretty cool. Tuesday was New Year's Eve, so the Tolleys got permission to have a Sister Study Day. We came over and studied pizza and chips, then we watched Ephraim's Rescue (approved by President, of course!). Great movie! After that we left for Jordbro where all the missionaries in the area (six elders and four sisters) were invited to Mary's. Mary is in Handen's ward and she's from the Philippines. We've heard all about her parties from the other missionaries, so we weren't about to miss our chance to attend. Her son Alex has Down Syndrome and loves missionaries, so we're all pals. Mary herself is a recent convert and she gives so many referrals. Handen is lucky to have her. She cooks for an army-good thing, because missionaries eat like an army. It was great! We took the 11:30 train back to Handen (it's like a two minute train ride) then we listened to fireworks from our balcony to bring in the new year. It sounded like we were being bombed. The fireworks did not end or even take a pause. Sweden is excited for 2014. We couldn't see most of them because our balcony faces the inside of the apartment complex, but the sound itself was pretty exciting. Yesterday, New Years Day, was a red day. Basically there's too much chance of running into drunks or crashing someone's party, so they don't want us to proselyte. The other missionaries probably thought it was great to have a restful day of sorts. (I called it Yearly Planning. You need a whole day for those sorts of things.) However, I've been in that situation for a couple of weeks now and I am done with being in the apartment not teaching. Luckily, Syster Sjöblom's feeling better and we already have two member present lessons scheduled for later today, and two lessons scheduled tomorrow. Today it's Williant, an immigrant from somewhere who lives in our area. The other sisters contacted him and gave us his number, so I really don't know anything about him except that he has pretty good Swedish. Then we're going to dinner at Linda's where her less active daughter Amanda (Swedish, just turned 17) will be there with two non-member friends. We're excited for that. Tomorrow we're teaching Bash whose name still doesn't rhyme with ash, and Aberash from Ethiopia who we contacted a couple weeks ago when we helped her find the right train. So the rest of the week will be much better.
I forgot that you haven't heard about the weekend yet. Saturday I went on exchanges in the morning with Syster Christison so that we could teach their investigator and then ours. Theirs was Jamal, who's been coming to church for quite some time but has some concerns about baptism. Then we taught Eskinder and it went great! His question was what makes this church different from the other Christian churches, so we taught the Restoration and it went really well. He doesn't live in our area so we referred him to the missionaries in Gubbängen. I love giving great referrals like that! Sunday we had basically another Christmas program with music and talks and such, but I wasn't a part of it this time. It was good though. We didn't have any investigators there but we had some less actives and they enjoyed it I think.
Yahaira won't be home this weekend but she wants to meet next week. At least I'm pretty sure that's what the text said. The Spanish dictionary is really helping! We gave Miriam, the other Peruvian, to the elders because Äldste Ahlström speaks better Spanish than me, and they're working a lot with Alba, who is Miriam's fellowshipper. Hopefully we'll meet Dennis in the next few days-he's the investigator with a baptismal date that the zone leaders told us about, who lives in Ösmo. They're going to set up an appointment with him that we can all come to so they can hand him off to us. I'm really excited to meet him! We're also hopefully meeting Sebastian on Saturday, and Allie next week. So...it should be interesting.
We'll have P-Day again on Monday so I'll be expecting another email about the weekend! I'm excited to see pictures of Taryn's dress especially. Have a great weekend! Jag älskar er!
Love, Delaney
Gott nytt år!! I can't believe 2014 is already upon us! New Year's Eve was fun. I didn't expect I'd do more party hopping on my mission than I ever did at home. But between Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Years Eve, I've been to lots of parties. Tame ones of course. But first, the moment you've all been waiting for, my area is...still Nynäshamn! And my companion is...Syster Sjöblom! Yes, we're still together. I'm the only sister in my group who's still with her trainer. I'm just special like that. Actually we think there might have been plans to transfer her, but since she was sick, it would have been really hard on everyone if she was transferred. So we're still here. She's still a little sick but she's feeling much better. In fact she's feeling well enough that we probably could have gotten a lot done except for the fact that nobody wants to meet this week. We respect that I guess and let them have their holiday before we interrupt their lives to bring them the life-changing news that Christ is the Savior of the World. No big deal. In other words, we haven't done much teaching lately.
We were going to drop by Siv and Louise on Monday, but we had district meeting at a moment's notice. Then we came home because Syster Sjöblom is still sick and had to rest. So I cleaned the apartment in order to prepare for Syster Clouse to come. We also said hej då to Syster Larson, who was transferred to Kungsbacka. I miss her already, but Syster Clouse is pretty cool. Tuesday was New Year's Eve, so the Tolleys got permission to have a Sister Study Day. We came over and studied pizza and chips, then we watched Ephraim's Rescue (approved by President, of course!). Great movie! After that we left for Jordbro where all the missionaries in the area (six elders and four sisters) were invited to Mary's. Mary is in Handen's ward and she's from the Philippines. We've heard all about her parties from the other missionaries, so we weren't about to miss our chance to attend. Her son Alex has Down Syndrome and loves missionaries, so we're all pals. Mary herself is a recent convert and she gives so many referrals. Handen is lucky to have her. She cooks for an army-good thing, because missionaries eat like an army. It was great! We took the 11:30 train back to Handen (it's like a two minute train ride) then we listened to fireworks from our balcony to bring in the new year. It sounded like we were being bombed. The fireworks did not end or even take a pause. Sweden is excited for 2014. We couldn't see most of them because our balcony faces the inside of the apartment complex, but the sound itself was pretty exciting. Yesterday, New Years Day, was a red day. Basically there's too much chance of running into drunks or crashing someone's party, so they don't want us to proselyte. The other missionaries probably thought it was great to have a restful day of sorts. (I called it Yearly Planning. You need a whole day for those sorts of things.) However, I've been in that situation for a couple of weeks now and I am done with being in the apartment not teaching. Luckily, Syster Sjöblom's feeling better and we already have two member present lessons scheduled for later today, and two lessons scheduled tomorrow. Today it's Williant, an immigrant from somewhere who lives in our area. The other sisters contacted him and gave us his number, so I really don't know anything about him except that he has pretty good Swedish. Then we're going to dinner at Linda's where her less active daughter Amanda (Swedish, just turned 17) will be there with two non-member friends. We're excited for that. Tomorrow we're teaching Bash whose name still doesn't rhyme with ash, and Aberash from Ethiopia who we contacted a couple weeks ago when we helped her find the right train. So the rest of the week will be much better.
I forgot that you haven't heard about the weekend yet. Saturday I went on exchanges in the morning with Syster Christison so that we could teach their investigator and then ours. Theirs was Jamal, who's been coming to church for quite some time but has some concerns about baptism. Then we taught Eskinder and it went great! His question was what makes this church different from the other Christian churches, so we taught the Restoration and it went really well. He doesn't live in our area so we referred him to the missionaries in Gubbängen. I love giving great referrals like that! Sunday we had basically another Christmas program with music and talks and such, but I wasn't a part of it this time. It was good though. We didn't have any investigators there but we had some less actives and they enjoyed it I think.
Yahaira won't be home this weekend but she wants to meet next week. At least I'm pretty sure that's what the text said. The Spanish dictionary is really helping! We gave Miriam, the other Peruvian, to the elders because Äldste Ahlström speaks better Spanish than me, and they're working a lot with Alba, who is Miriam's fellowshipper. Hopefully we'll meet Dennis in the next few days-he's the investigator with a baptismal date that the zone leaders told us about, who lives in Ösmo. They're going to set up an appointment with him that we can all come to so they can hand him off to us. I'm really excited to meet him! We're also hopefully meeting Sebastian on Saturday, and Allie next week. So...it should be interesting.
We'll have P-Day again on Monday so I'll be expecting another email about the weekend! I'm excited to see pictures of Taryn's dress especially. Have a great weekend! Jag älskar er!
Love, Delaney
New Year's Eve 2013
