November 22, 2014

Käre Familj,

Happy Saturday! It's weird having P-Day on Saturday and I keep thinking it's Monday. Next week will be weird not having P-Day, but I'm sure we'll make it through. 

So far this week has been a little slow, but we've still been working hard. On Monday after emailing we went down to the harbor to get a better look at the ocean. It was really beautiful and we got some good pictures of the ocean. It got dark and cold fast though. We also found a new second hand store with a lot of good stuff. I got some more souvenirs there for cheap. After P-Day ended we visited Ingegerd. Every time we ask how she's doing she says "Så där", which means literally "so there," or alright. It's become our goal to get her to say "good" one of these days. We did make her laugh, so that's a start. She wants to come to church but she's afraid she'll feel lonely because she doesn't have any friends in church. Have I ever told you I have a STRONG testimony of Home and Visiting teaching? I think that is the only thing keeping us from being lifted up into heaven, because it would solve every problem.

Monday night we were planning for our day on Tuesday and we had a case of the blank planner. We were trying to figure out what to do because we've already dropped by everyone in our area so the only thing we have left is tracting. But at two in the afternoon, tracting is even less effective than usual because everybody's at work. We found some old investigators in the area book to go by and planned as much as we could for Tuesday. Then Tuesday morning during companion study, we got a phone call from Marja-Leesa. We tracted into her a few weeks ago and she gave us her number, but we hadn't been able to meet with her yet. She said she wanted to meet and asked if we could come over that day-at two in the afternoon. We went over and taught her and she wasn't really very positive toward our message, but the point was that there was someone who wanted us to come and was willing to listen to us. At two in the afternoon. It was a cool experience.

On Wednesday we taught Noe Noe again. She was really sad she couldn't come to culture night. We're trying to figure out how we can get her parents on board with learning about the church. Noe Noe is solid and has a strong testimony and wants to be baptized, but she needs her parents' support. So this week we taught her about Family History. We're all hoping that she can get her parents involved in that and then lead it into the church. Please pray for Noe Noe! And that her parents' hearts will be softened! She's the sweetest person ever and she wants to come to church in Sundsvall so badly. After that we had dinner with President Stegeby Sr. and his wife. (President Stegeby Sr. is the District President for the Umeå district. His son, President Stegeby Jr., is the branch president of the Sundsvall branch.) We had delicious homemade meatballs. And kladkaka. While there, they told us about our Christmas plans. We're going to be with the whole Stegeby family, which is so big that none of their houses is big enough so we'll be at the chapel. There will be so many kids and they all LOVE missionaries. It will just be a challenge to escape with all our nametags intact, because they like to steal missionaries' nametags. I'm so excited for it though!!!!!!!!

Thursday after district meeting we visited a less active woman named Ingrid. She's one of those less actives who refers to "your church" and doesn't seem to know that she's a member. When I pulled out my Bible to share a scripture she was surprised and said she didn't know we read the Bible. She also taught us how to make tacos out of hard boiled eggs and mackerell. I don't think I'll try it out though. Thursday night we were tracting and one guy stayed at his door long enough for us to teach him the Restoration. He lost interest very suddenly, but I was able to slip him a Restoration pamphlet as he closed the door, so maybe he'll read it and call us. We also found a cool playground with a spinny...thing that looked like it belonged in an amusement park. We had lots of fun on it. But I lost my gloves there, I think, because I haven't seen them since. It's okay, I still have my alpaca gloves from last winter!

Yesterday we got cancelled on and nobody we tracted wanted to listen. But we did our best to find people! We also got transfer calls yesterday. My heart skipped a beat when the zone leaders called and said they had transfer info, but they were just calling to say we were both staying. So I'm officially staying here with Syster Jacobs for the rest of my mission! Yay! The whole district is staying the same.

We haven't seen or heard from Ali since Sunday, so hopefully he's doing well. We're going to call him later today and see if he answers this time, and make sure he's coming to church. That's about all we can do, besides pray really hard for him! I think he's probably doing alright, just busy with migration stuff.

Our only Thanksgiving plans are zone training in Umeå. It's a 3 hour train ride both ways, so we'll have some Thanksgiving party on the train or something probably. I think Elder Gray might make pumpkin pie.... he was hinting about it at district meeting.

There's still no news on the car. Syster Jacobs' driving record has made no progress. Hopefully we'll get to drive soon, because our most positive people live outside of Sundsvall. Why is it always that way? We heard that the Hight Priest Group leader is going to go out to Östersund in a couple weeks and conduct a Sacrament Meeting there, so hopefully Matilda will be able to go to that!

I'm so excited that Taryn is getting her endowment! What a great Christmas gift! Thanks for keeping me updated on everything that's going on at home. If I were in Peyton's class I would probably try to steal her homework too. That was one smart kid. Almost.

Syster Jacob's computer just kicked her out so I'm going to give her the rest of my computer time. Have a great week everyone! Happy Thanksgiving! I'm thankful that I can be on a mission serving the Lord, and that I get to meet so many amazing people while I'm here! And I'm thankful for my family and friends and everyone that supports me while I'm here! I'm thankful for all of you!

Jag älskar er!

Love, Delaney

 

On splits with Syster Byrd.  They were companions in Boras

and found Boras street in Sundsvall

Family picture - Syster Austin, Delaney, Syster Jacobs

These are the 2 sister missionaries Delaney has trained

Delaney and Syster Byrd with easter eggs for old times.

We'll have to ask about this one when she gets home.

 

Syster's Conference

 

November 17, 2014

Käre Familj,

Hello! Sundsvall is doing great! Every morning we check Riverton and Clearfield (where Syster Jacobs is from) on the weather app and count our blessings for being in nice warm Norrland. Did you know that Norrland is actually the warmest place at this lattitude? It's because the Gulf Stream current brings nice Carribbean (can't spell that word) up to our coast. I'm also very excited to see Sundsvall in June to see what it looks like in the light. There's not much of that around here! Sunset today will be at 15:00 exactly. Hurray!

Bummer that Riverton got beat in football. Did Cody and Peyton go to the game in the same car? That would be funny to see them getting in and out of the car together with their rival team colors. I'm sure everyone was a good sport about it and there was no contention at home.

This week has been a good one. We've had lots of little miracles and successes that made it great. Of course, we're most excited about Ali. He's read halfway through 2 Nephi now, and he loves it. He said 2 Nephi is a little harder to understand...we can thank Isaiah for that. We assured him it will get a little easier as he keeps reading. He wants to read the whole book before he's baptized. At this rate he'll finish in no time. (On a slightly related note, I decided last week that I want to finish the Book of Mormon in Swedish before I go home. Since I was only in 2 Nephi, I have to read at least 10 pages a day. I might end up reading a lot on the airplane...) We started teaching him the Plan of Salvation. And he committed to pray every day. His prayers are really sincere. He was going to come to the Culture Night activity on Saturday night but he ended up having to resolve some problem with Migrations so he couldn't come. Then on Sunday his ride to church showed up without him and we started to get really worried. He'd called but Ali never answered. I was leading the music, so I was sitting up on the stand, watching the member explain that Ali hadn't come. We were so disappointed! But then a few minutes later I looked up and to my surprise, I saw Ali sitting there in the last row. I didn't notice him come in, but there he was. Turns out he was already in Sundsvall so he'd taken the bus, but he got off at the wrong stop and had to walk a ways. He stayed for all three hours again and loved it. The members are so great and they all talk to him, so he loves church. It was an awesome feeling to realize that Ali had come completely on his own. He didn't need a ride, he didn't even need us to pick him up at the bus station. That's how you know they're sincere and they'll keep coming even without you there.

Noe Noe is also doing really well. We went out to Timrå again on Wednesday to teach her, and we realized we'd forgotten to bring examples of herbal tea, so we ran to the grocery store where we ran into her! So we could show her how to tell which tea was okay, it was perfect. Our lesson went really well too. She's still waiting for the November Liahona and she said she's DYING to read the General Conference talks. She invited her family to Culture Night but they weren't able to come. We have yet to meet her parents and convince them that we're not a cult. We also met Lisa (less active) while we were in Timrå. She showed us Book of Mormon scriptures she's read recently and how they apply to today. She couldn't come to church because she was sick.

The highlight of the week was Thursday, when all the sisters in the whole mission went to Stockholm for a Sisters Conference. I got to see Syster Austin and Syster Christison and all my other friends again! It was so much fun to see everyone there! I'm sure you'll see pictures on the Beckstrands' blog and probably the Facebook page too. It was weird to realize that I won't see a lot of those sisters again until they come home from their missions. On the train ride home we sat by two nice ladies who overheard us talking about Swedish, so they asked us where we're from. When we told them we're mormons they said "Cool-will you tell us more about Mormons?" We were happy to oblige. :) It was cool that we were able to teach a lesson even with the whole day taken up by the sisters conference. (We had to take a 5:30 train from Sundsvall to get to Stockholm on time, and we got back to Sundsvall at 20:56.)

I just had to switch computers at the library because my time ran out on the last one, and when I logged in everything was in Russian! It's okay, I got it figured out, thank goodness!

The rest of the week is hardly worth mentioning. We met some people who we called out of the phone only to find out they were investigators who had already been dropped for good reasons. I'm very thankful there were so many numbers in the phone already that we could call, but it's very annoying how none of them were labeled. So we've had a few instances of calling members and embarrassing ourselves thinking they were investigators. This is missionary life!

I almost forgot Culture Night! It was on Saturday night and it was a blast! This ward is super talented. The missionaries did a...well on the program it was called a mime play, so we can go with that. We mimed/lip-synched to first a song called "My Life is In Your Hands" and then to one called "Tomorrow." We wore all black and painted our faces white. I think people enjoyed it. We enjoyed doing it. I'm sorry I can't describe it any better, but there are some videos that I'll show you eventually. I think they're too big to send over email though. Afterwards the members all said we were great dancers. I guess you could have called it dancing. We had a lot of VIPs at culture night, including a less active woman named Ingrid who we haven't been able to meet before, and an investigator couple named Lena and Roland, who we've been trying to meet but also never got to until Culture Night. There were also quite a few other non-members there that came with their member friends. There were refreshments from all the different cultures represented in the branch. (Brownies from America, Rhubarb Pie from Sweden, Carrot-something from Finnland, a Canadian dessert, Iranian candy, and delicious rice and tomato sauce from Nigeria.) The other talents were mostly singing and instruments, and they were all really good.

Church yesterday was also great. Ali was our only VIP. The ward choir sang a musical number. (The EFY Medley, a medley of As Sisters in Zion and Army of Helaman.) I played the piano for it. Next week I'm going to accompany when Elder Stafford and Elder Smith sing Come Thou Fount. We're also practicing for the Christmas program. I've missed ward choir!

We tried to resolve the driving problem by calling the couple in charge. He said "Syster Smith, are you the one going home soon?" "Yes." "Then you CAN'T DRIVE." So I guess I don't get an option. Once you've been in Sweden for a year, your American license isn't valid anymore. So if any of us is driving it will be Syster Jacobs. They haven't gotten back to us yet on if she's legal or not. In the meantime, the elders have been having lots of fun in the car while we've been taking the bus. That's okay, there are people to contact on the bus. I don't know what kind of car it is, but it's blue and looks the same as all the mission cars.

Thanks for sending a picture of the deer! Was Cody happy about his decision to pass up that 4-point? I would have taken any of them. :)

Thanksgiving is next week, right? Our transfers and P-Day are a little thrown off because of Thanksgiving, so we actually are having two P-Days this week and none next week. So I'll be back on Saturday to email again, that's when we're having P-Day. The missionaries go home will go on Monday I think, or maybe Tuesday, and I don't know when the actual transfer will be. Just make sure and write me an email Friday night!

If it ever snows again I'll write you a note in the snow and take a picture. :)

Oh yeah, and the other good news is, I talked to the sisters that are in Norrköping now and they said that Olivia went to the temple for baptisms a few weeks ago!  She's a rockstar and she's doing great. They didn't have any other news about Pontus or the Dolmayas, but they're working hard down there.

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Stay warm! (It's weird that I'm saying that to you.) Jag älskar er!

Love, Delaney

November 10, 2014

Käre Familj,

WOW, what a fun deer hunt! Thank you for your very detailed description! It's ALMOST as good as seeing pictures of the deer! I'm glad you had so much fun and got some deer! I especially liked how Cole's deer was tagged similarly to my most recent deer-shoot it til it drops. I'm very impressed by your Saturday hike too. Cody will be in good shape to go on a mission for sure! Tell Peyton I got her letter and good job on her concerto.

This week there's good news and bad news. The good news is, we got a car in Sundsvall! Which is good because our area goes all the way to Norway and there are lots of people out there where we can't really reach them by public transportation. The bad news is, since I've been in Sweden over a year now, my license doesn't work here until I get it renewed, which I haven't yet. And Syster Jacobs didn't turn in everything to be able to drive. But the good news is one or the other or both of those things should be easy to fix! So I'll be cruising around Sweden before you know it!

Even without being able to drive the car, we've had a great week here! On Tuesday we went to Timrå and taught Noe Noe and Ci Ci again. They're the best! We taught them about the Word of Wisdom and they already follow it. Like everyone else in Sweden, they were confused about why coffee and tea were in there, but they agreed (very enthusiastically) that coffee is addictive and committed to keep the word of wisdom. We invited them and their parents to the culture night activity we're having at the church this Saturday, so hopefully we can start teaching the whole family soon. It snowed all day on Tuesday and was very dark and cold.

On Wednesday we met one of our investigators named Erimas. He's from Ethiopia and was meeting with the sisters before we got here, but we hadn't been able to get in contact with him before then. We also taught another woman named Maria who met with sisters before we got here. They were both really interesting but I'm not sure if they're really interested... We're going to teach Maria again tonight though. She's a really nice Swedish woman who is Christian, but her husband is Muslim, so she's trying to figure out what to believe. We also taught Ingegerd again Wednesday night. Still no pants, but still really spiritual. She told us she has a goal to come to church before January. I love it when people have goals for themselves BEFORE the missionaries come and invite them to make goals and take steps.

Thursday we met three old ladies. They were all really sweet and really different, which made it very interesting to teach them all on the same day. First we met Lottis, an old investigator. She has been taught quite a bit and has read some of the Book of Mormon, but she doesn't want to let go of her old church. By the end of the lesson we found out she's had a really tough life and feels incredibly alone in life. We invited her to come be a part of the church family but she doesn't want to because she doesn't have the energy to be around other people. Sometimes people here just break your heart. The next woman we met was a polar opposite and probably the most inspiring woman in Sweden. Her name is Margit and she's 93. She's been a member for 40 years and is still active, even though she misses church occasionally when she's sick. The first thing she told us when we got there was "Att ha en tro är den dyrbaraste gåvan man kan få. Du kan älska en människa, men att ha en tro är den dyrbaraste gåvan man kan få!" ("To have a faith is the most priceless gift you can have. You can love a person, but to have faith is the most priceless gift you can have!") She told us all about her life and her family, how she met the missionaries (tracting! It works on some people!) and things she's learned during her life. She loves music and was really excited to hear that there will be musical numbers from now until Christmas. She was the coolest person ever! She even let us take a selfie with her! The third woman we visited was Eva. She's a member who has been through a lot recently doesn't always feel well enough to come to church. But she loved having us over and was really fun. She remembered seeing videos of me playing the violin last Christmas. (It was her grandson who sang the song from the Messiah.) In between Margit and Eva we were supposed to meet a guy named Kuba at the church for a church tour, but he didn't come. We've had a lot of people not show up to their church tours and Syster Jacobs said in frustration, "We're never going to give anyone a tour of the church!" I said "Of course we will! And they're going to be baptized in this font!" Then we went tracting and while we were there the ice cream truck came by. Since it's always been my dream to get ice cream from the ice cream truck, we bought some popsicles and ate them in the freezing cold. It was actually really nice because the popsicles weren't melting away while we ate them!

Friday was a pretty awesome day. We gave our first church tour! It was to a guy named Ali. He's a 25 year old guy from Syria who's been in Sweden about 6 months. We contacted him on Wednesday and he said he could meet on Friday, so we met him at the bus station and took the bus with him to the church. We showed him around and when we showed him the font he said "Can I be baptized here?" We told him we can help. So we taught him the Restoration and he had a lot of really good questions. You can tell he's thought a lot about it. His parents are Muslim but he told us he knows that's not the right religion. So we invited him to be baptized on December 6th. When we gave him a Book of Mormon in Arabic he looked at it and said "Which chapters should I read in order to be prepared for baptism on December 6th?" Then he said the closing prayer. It was really awesome. After Ali left, we taught Matilda over skype. We've heard all about how awesome Matilda is but this is the first time we were able to actually meet her and teach her. She has a testimony that it's true and wants to be baptized, the only problem is that she lives in Östersund (halfway to Norway) so she can't come to church very easily. She said she does have a goal to come before Christmas though!

Saturday everybody cancelled on us, but we totally smashed the zone leaders in a contacting contest-we got 57. Fifty-five rejections, but two positive contacts. It's all worth it for those positive ones though.

Yesterday was really great! Ali came to church with a member family. He lives in Torpshammar, which is about 60 kilometers away, but luckily that's where the Karttunens live and they were more than willing to give him a ride. Elder Gray translated for him during sacrament because I was leading the music. All the members were super nice and talked to him. It's great, because everyone here speaks English! Every time we asked him how he enjoyed something, he always said "It was amazing." Sacrament meeting, Sunday school, and Priesthood were all amazing. He read the first 12 chapters of 1 Nephi and they were also amazing. He even got cake because yesterday was Father's Day, so they gave cake to all the men. That was amazing too. He's one amazing guy! Our other VIPs were Lisa and Mahshid. After choir practice things got a little crazy. President Stegeby, the branch president (not to be confused with his father, President Stegeby, the District President) asked us if we had a dinner appointment. We said no, but we had a lesson at 5. He looked at his watch. 3:30. "We can do that." They took their 7 kids home, then came back to pick us up. It was super fun trying to not let all the kids steal our nametags. In the end I was the only one who still had mine. I also tried to teach the 4 year old to count to 10 in Spanish. She was pretty good at it. We ate super good spagghetti and then took our cookies on the go as they drove Syster Jacobs and I to our 5:00 appointment. It was a girl named Joy, another number from the phone who we've never actually met. Even after confirming our appointment two hours earlier, she wasn't home. So we made our way to the Ekeke family's house (the same family where we ate African food last week) to practice our act for the talent show on Saturday. They had dinner prepared. Luckily I served in Västerhaninge, so I can handle back to back member dinners. My answer to "are you hungry" by now is "I am if I need to be." We ate, we practiced, and we left. The elders got to take the car home while we had to wait for the bus. We were supposed to teach a girl named Julia (our 57th contact from Saturday night) but she cancelled. So everything we had set up beforehand fell through, but we were busy anyway.

Today we're going to hike up the "mountain." It should take about 15 minutes. Some mountain. But the elders said there's a playground on top so it should be fun. It's really warm today and all the ice finally melted. It's been super slippery all week.

Thanks for letters and a great email again! I hope you all have a great week! Jag älskar er!

Love, Delaney

 

Selfie in the snow

French hot dogs - buns are baguettes

Writing Mormon.org in the frost at the bus stop

Ice cream from the ice cream truck

NoeNoe and CiCi with Delaney & Syster Jacobs

 

Mirta, Delaney & Syster Jacobs

 

 

November 3, 2014

Käre Familj,

Happy Halloween! And Happy November! Can you believe it's already November? I can't. On the way here I was talking to a nice lady on the bus and she asked how long I'll be in Sweden and I realized I'm going home next month. I remember when Syster Haynes was close to going home and she was freaking out about it, and now I understand! On Saturday Syster Jacobs and I hit the point where she's been out on her mission for as many days as I have left. And she's only been in Sweden three weeks! This is scary, folks. It's okay, I've still got plenty of time.

Remember how I said we were going to have dinner with the Ekekes last Monday? It was super fun! He's from Nigeria, she's from Sweden, they met in Hong Kong-just a typical family here. They made a Nigerian dish called Fufu. It's this white doughy stuff that looks like mashed potatoes but it sticks together more. You roll it into a little ball and dip it in soup and then swallow it whole. It was really scary at first, but it actually tasted better if you swallowed it whole instead of chewing. It made the soup taste spicier. I liked it but it was a little fishy. We also practiced our act for the upcoming talent show. I don't know if I can really explain it. We will be doing a dance/mime to some spiritual songs, complete with white face paint and everything. It should be fun.

Tuesday we missed out on the warmest day in Sundsvall because we went down to Stockholm for zone conference. It was a long day, but a really good conference. Everyone else in Norrland got to fly down the night before and stay the night with other missionaries, so we were a little grumpy when we had to get up at 3:45 that morning and take a train at 5 AM. The conference was good. I learned a lot and it was really uplifting. The train ride home was extra fun because I got to talk to Syster Byrd and Syster Eborn the whole way back up to Sundsvall. I've missed them both so much! They're companions in Uppsala now. We got back to Sundsvall at 10PM. It was a LONG day.

Our exchange day was really great though! Syster Jacobs went with Syster Eborn and I got to go with Syster Byrd. The goal was to have the area (including area book and phone) completely sorted out so that we could feel like we were in control. Because really, it's felt like we've been fighting to stay above water and not being able to go anywhere. Doubling in has never been easy, but it's never been harder than coming in here because there was nothing to go off of. Syster Eborn and Syster Jacobs did an amazing job going through the entire area book and sorting out which old investigators we should go by and which ones aren't worth the time right now. They also called every number in our phone so we finally know which ones work and which ones are investigators versus members, etc. While they did this, Syster Byrd and I got our hands on a ward list from the elders and made a copy, and we made a map of all the members in our area so we know who we have to work with. So we finally have some direction and the tools to get there. We really needed their help. Syster Byrd and I also taught Charles. It was a very interesting lesson... Charles likes to joke around a lot. What I've always loved about teaching with Syster Byrd is that we both finally get fed up at the same time. She finally told him off for not taking it seriously and told him that he was wasting our time. Then I asked if he wanted us to stop inviting him to do things and he said yes, so we said that there was no point in us meeting anymore. He agreed. Some people just aren't ready yet. Syster Byrd and I also dropped by a less active woman named Margit. It was a miracle that we got in, but it was a really good lesson and hopefully we'll be able to go back. Syster Byrd and I also found a street called Boråsvägen! (I'll send the picture next week because Syster Byrd hasn't sent it to me yet.)

Thursday was weird. We had a bunch of lessons set up and none of them cancelled, but we only ended up teaching one of them. The first one was a guy named Zaki, but when it came time to meet him it turned out there had been some miscommunication about the time so he thought we were going to meet earlier, and couldn't come anymore. Then the next guy was a guy named Johannes. I had him on the phone and we were both in the library trying to find each other when finally he said "Are you in Örnsköldsvik?" That's the area north of us. We sent his number to the elders there. Don't worry, third time's the charm and our third lesson showed up on time at the right place. It was a guy named Lawrence, one of the people from the phone. He's from Gambia but he's lived in Europe for the last 15 years. He was really cool and said he wants to get the same relationship he had with God back when he was in Africa. We told him we could help. :) And we invited him to be baptized! He accepted a baptismal date for November 22nd. That was super exciting. But then he went to Stockholm so he wasn't in church. And he hasn't answered his phone since. And he didn't come to the lesson we were supposed to have earlier today. :/ But we're praying for him, so we'll see what happens!

Friday was a good Halloween. I dressed up as Syster Austin. A lot of people guessed I was a prison inmate because of my striped dress. Nobody up here knows Syster Austin anyway. We taught Zaki. We were supposed to teach him inside the library, but the library closed early for a Halloween party, so we sat outside the library and taught him. It was very cold. It wasn't a long lesson. Especially because the whole time he encouraged us to read the Koran... we didn't set up a return appointment. The rest of our lessons we had set up didn't show up. But we did have yummy white hot chocolate to warm up!

Saturday was Alla Helgons Dag- All Saints' Day. It's a really cool Swedish holiday where they put candles in the graveyards to honor the dead. Like memorial day only more pagan. We were supposed to visit a graveyard...but the phone led us astray to the middle of a forest with not a single grave or candle in sight. I was really disappointed. It didn't help that none of the five lessons we had set up that day went through. We were supposed to meet Mohammed again but he texted us in the middle of the night saying he got work in Gävle and basically would never be able to meet again. (Then we saw him in the store today and he came right up and started talking to us. He said he's been reading in the Book of Mormon every night and it makes him feel really good when he reads it. Unfortunately he has absolutely NO TIME between his job here during the week and his job in Gävle on weekends.) We were also supposed to meet Moses, Kuba, Javier, and Danish. None of them showed up, even though we confirmed with all four of them the day before. Quote of the day from Syster Jacobs: "This is an ice cream day, but we're fasting!" Thank goodness for the blessings of fasting because otherwise I don't know if I would have made it through.

Yesterday was good. I was so ready for Sunday. And Fast Sunday at that! Angela was in church again. We're still working on actually teaching here. So far she seems pretty content just to come on Sundays. There was also a family of five from Hungary. They were tracted by one set of elders, then the other elders contacted them on the street. So they came to church! All the testimonies were really good and talked a lot about families being together forever. I think they really liked it. They said they'll be back next week. :D I taught the lesson in Gospel Principles about families being together forever. I think that's probably my favorite thing to teach about, because it is not hard to come up with examples of how my family has helped me and what I've learned from my family. There was also a baptism after church on Sunday. It was for an 8-year old in an active family, but still, a baptism's a baptism! I wished the family would have stayed for it because the Spirit was really strong.

Today has been a good P-Day. We had a little surprise party for Elder Smith because today's his birthday. (People still keep asking if we're married...) Elder Gray made cake with delicious cream cheese frosting, and we blew up balloons and surprised him at the church. Syster Jacobs also got more winter gear because it's supposed to snow more this week. We're excited for it!

We have a full week planned so it will be really exciting to meet all these new people from our phone!

Sounds like you've all had a fun week too. Good luck at the deer hunt! I'm looking forward to seeing lots of pictures from it!

Jag älskar er!

Love, Delaney

 

 

Halloween - Dressed as former companion Syster Austin

 

 

Blowing up balloons for a surprise birthday party for Elder Smith

 

 

 

Delaney and Syster Jacobs

White chocolate hot chocolate

Zone Conference with the mittens knitted by women

in the Beckstrand's hometown of Meadow, UT