tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74562348421779506032024-03-13T07:50:45.836-06:00Delaney's Mission BlogI'm going to Sweden!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07384140945996726197noreply@blogger.comBlogger88125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-393274330135292132014-12-26T11:29:00.000-07:002014-12-26T11:30:33.685-07:00December 26, 2014Käre familj,<br />
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Skyping was fun. Christmas was fun. I'm glad you put more money on my card because I just went and bought a book called "Swedish Traditions" that was kind of expensive but it's really amazing and you're going to really like it. It should be enough money because I'm not even checking an extra bag. I also still have some American cash. I've got a few kilos of chocolate all ready to go, and also some other Swedish candy.</div>
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I love my mission. I love Sweden, and Swedish people, and all the other people I've met here. I love my companions, my wards, my areas, my investigators, the members I've worked with. I love my Savior. This is the best thing I've ever done. I feel like my entire perspective on life is different. Not too drastically different, at least in most ways. I've learned that I love serving and I need to find more ways to serve when I get home. I've learned that communication is probably one of the most important skills in every field if you're ever going to be successful. I've learned to love the scriptures even more, and to understand them. I've learned to see the hand of the Lord in my life, and to recognize the promptings of the Holy Ghost. I've learned that I love languages not just for the language itself but also for the people who speak, and the stories they have to tell. I know that this is exactly where I've needed to be for the last year and a half, that I've met people I needed to meet and also a few who needed me too. I know that God loves each of us. I know that Christ is our Savior, and that He lives. I know that this is His church with His authority on the Earth.<br />
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Have a wonderful weekend, and I'll see you on Tuesday! Jag älskar er!</div>
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Love, Delaney</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-30727292812106045062014-12-22T22:13:00.003-07:002014-12-22T22:13:43.407-07:00December 22, 2014<div dir="ltr">
Käre Familj,<div>
<br />Sorry I don't have a lot of time today. We only have a short P-Day since we won't be proselyting on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. The plans for the week will be really fun. Christmas Eve we'll spend all day with the Stegeby family, including most of the kids and grandkids. There will be 16 kids there including 2 newborn babies. (I put that in to make dad jealous.) Then on Christmas all the missionaries are going to make breakfast at the church. I'm planning to skype (from the church) at 15:00 Swedish time, which is 7:00 AM in Riverton. Hope that's not too early for you. :) I'm sure there won't be any problems with adding you on skype so it shouldn't be too bad. Then we'll go to the Blåhammars' house for Christmas dinner. Friday is P-Day which will include a funeral for me and Elder Stafford. We'll get transfer info tonight or tomorrow to find out who Syster Jacob's new companion will be. I suspect they might stick her in a temporary companionship just for a week until the new missionaries come in January.</div>
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<br />Yesterday did seem short, especially because we left home before the sun was up and didn't come back until after it was long gone. Although at one point I said "Wow, I'm surprised how light it still is." Then Syster Jacobs pointed out it was 3:30 PM. It was a short day but they've all been short for a while now. The exciting news is that we got a lot of snow last night, and it's still snowing. So it will probably be a white Christmas!</div>
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<br />The Christmas program went really well. I didn't realize how many things I was a part of until I was running up and down the whole time. They had me leading the music too, so it seemed like even more. I also played a violin duet of Away in a Manger. Peyton's and Erika's was probably better because they probably practiced more than one time before performing it. It went really well though. We had one less active there, Eva, who came for the Christmas program. She's really sweet.</div>
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<br />I've already said my goodbyes to Noe Noe, Matilda, Lisa, and Ingegerd. It feels weird. I still can't comprehend that I'm going home.</div>
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<br />If there's anything you want me to bring back from Sweden I guess you can let me know on skype! Elder Stafford isn't even going to skype home. He tried to convince me not to either, but I didn't have the heart. I'm really excited for skyping.</div>
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<br />Well, that's all folks. I'll see you bright and early on Christmas morning! Merry Christmas! Remember that Christ is the greatest gift we've received, and that it's His birth we're celebrating! (In Sweden it's impossible to find any reference to Christ during Christmas, which is really sad. I don't think I've seen a single nativity scene all month. Don't be like the Swedes!!)</div>
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<br />Jag älskar er! God Jul!</div>
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Love, Delaney</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-12418010780475728022014-12-16T14:01:00.001-07:002014-12-16T14:01:17.088-07:00December 15, 2014<div dir="ltr">
Käre Familj,<div>
<br />I can't believe that Christmas is coming so fast! It's crazy! Christmas in Sweden is beautiful, but it would be more beautiful if we had snow instead of rain. Yesterday some of the old ladies in the branch were saying that this isn't normal and usually winter is much colder and snowy. I told her "That's what everyone said last year! I don't know if I believe you..." They thought that was funny. I guess I've escaped the worst of Swedish winters. I've still got a couple weeks left so maybe it will snow more.</div>
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<br />We've done a lot of Christmasy stuff this week! We started it off on Monday night at FHE with the Gilberts. We went caroling to members in the ward. It was really good because we went to lots of less active members (like Lisa G. and Margit N.) and found out that they actually know some members so we don't have to start from scratch. Tuesday afternoon we went caroling again, this time with Celine and Cassy, who are youth in the ward. We went to more less active members and some of the elders' investigators. We also taught Mahshid on Tuesday night. She's doing really well. She told us how her life has been getting better and better since her baptism in February. Last week she got her residency permit here, which the ward has been fasting and praying for. She has such a strong testimony and it was really awesome to be there and learn from her.</div>
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<br />Wednesday we went by Angela's work to teach her. She hasn't been at church for a while so we haven't seen her, but she's doing pretty good. On Thursday we taught Noe Noe. She pulled out the pedigree chart she'd started working on. She said it was hard but she finally asked her parents about her ancestors, and this time they told her and helped her figure more out. Next week we're going to make a Family Search account with her so she can put it into the computer. She still hasn't talked to her parents about the church, but we recommitted her to show them the Christmas Video, so she should do that this week. After that we went by some less active ladies in Sundsbruk, which is between Sundsvall and Timrå. They weren't home. But Ikea is in Sundsbruk, so we figured since we were there we might as well get dinner. It was Syster Jacobs' first time at Ikea and she was pretty excited.</div>
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<br />On Friday we got a ride with Mahshid out to Ånge, which is halfway between Sundsvall and Östersund. Her friend Nima lives out there, who was baptized in June. We'd never met Nima before because he can't come to church because of his job. He makes pizza. Really good pizza!! He was so excited to meet us and he told us all about the first sisters who taught him and about his baptism. And he made us each a pizza. So this week I finally took the kebab challenge and ate a whole kebab pizza all on my own. Syster Jacobs enjoyed kebab much more this time than her first time having kebab, which was her third day in Sweden. I think she was just jetlagged then. We almost missed the train back to Sundsvall, but we ran and caught it with a minute to spare. </div>
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<br />Saturday was Luciadagen, and we celebrated in style! First we taught Salaam (the one we contacted last week. Not Sassan, who is a less active member). He's from Iraq but has lived in Sweden for a long time. He converted to Christianity here but he's looking for a way to deepen his faith. We told him we could help. We had a really good Restoration lesson and he seemed to understand it really well and said he'll start reading the Book of Mormon, and he might come to church next sunday. He also said the closing prayer. After that we went with the Gilberts to Sundsvalls Bro (Sundsvalls Bridge), the new 1.8 km bridge they just finished making over the harbor. About 10,000 people gathered to walk across the bridge in order to set a new guiness world record for the most people in a parade or something like that. It was pretty cool. We also went to a Lucia Concert in the church here in town. It was a lot like the one you went to, only it was a more classic Lucia Tåg, so instead of tinsel they had green wreaths for crowns. They sang lots of classic Swedish Christmas songs that were really pretty.</div>
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<br />Yesterday we spent all day in church. First we had church. I spoke, as well as Elder Stafford, who goes home at the same time as me. It kind of felt like our farewell to Sweden. I talked about how my mission has helped me understand the meaning on Christmas. I talked a lot about the He is the Gift video-which you need to watch! After church we had choir practice and then we had traditional Jul grött-rice porridge. I liked it better this year than I did last year. Then we watched the First Presidency Christmas devotional. I enjoyed it a lot.</div>
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<br />I'm assuming you got my travel itinerary for when I go home. I'll go through Newark, then Chicago, then land at SLC at 7:58 PM tuesday night. I'm excited that I get to travel with Syster Eborn and Syster LaFontaine. I'll leave Sundsvall on Sunday after church to go to Stockholm, then we'll have a temple session on Monday morning. I'm not sure what we'll do all day Monday-interviews, testimony meeting, stuff like that I guess. Then Tuesday morning I'm on my way. Weird. Don't worry, it's still two weeks away. Christmas is throwing me off though. Our schedule for the next couple weeks is weird. We'll have a shortened P-Day on Monday to do laundry and grocery shopping, and I'll also get on to confirm plans for skyping on Christmas. Just email me before next Monday with the info and I'll let you know what time I'll skype. We'll probably just be at the church hanging out all day so I can basically skype whenever the elders aren't skyping. So if there's a time you'd like me to call, just let me know and we can probably arrange it! Then we proselyte on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday is Christmas eve, which is the day that Swedes actually celebrate. We'll be with the Stegebys for their Christmas party. I think on Christmas day we'll just hang out at the church and play games with the elders. We'll probably also have a funeral for me and Elder Stafford. And a birthday party for Syster Jacobs. (Her birthday is December 30th.) Then Friday will be P-Day. But that's not until next week-this week is normal! It will be a great week!</div>
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<br />I'm getting really pumped to come back to Sweden in June. The current thinking sounds great because then we can go north-south and end in Borås for midsummer. :) Remember when you went to Hawaii and kept thinking "the kids would love this!"? That's what I think every time we do anything here- you guys are all going to love this!!</div>
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<br />Have a wonderful week getting ready for Christmas! Jag älskar er!</div>
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Love, Delaney</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-25107015269173826232014-12-08T13:27:00.000-07:002014-12-08T13:29:18.194-07:00December 8, 2014<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Käre Familj,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm so excited that you got to go to a Lucia festival! It sounds just like a real Swedish Lucia. Lucia Day is on the 13th of December, so we'll probably go to a Lucia concert on Saturday morning. THERE'S JULMUST IN AMERICA!?!?! Christmas is saved! I love Julmust. And I'm very excited to see how you guys like it. Most people don't like it the first time, but I love the stuff! The best way I've heard it described is that it tastes like liquid smarties. Don't let that turn you off-it's good.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This week has been a really great week. It was the first week of the Advent so everyone is officially celebrating Christmas time. We've been showing everybody and their dog (not exaggerating) the "He Is The Gift" movie that the church made. It's working really well. The dog liked it a lot. Have you seen it? We heard it was supposed to be the only advertisement on Youtube yesterday.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It feels like this week went by really fast. How is it already P-Day again? Last week after P-Day ended we visited Sassan, a less-active member from Iran. It was his birthday. He's really awesome and he showed us a video about the church's welfare program that he'd seen and asked us to explain it to him. He's active at heart, it's just hard for him to come to church...but he should still come! He's waiting for his family to get permission to come to Sweden from Iran, so he's pretty stressed out about it. Hopefully they'll be here by new year though! After that we went to Family Home Evening with the Gilberts. I'm working with their daughter Celine on a violin duet for the Christmas Program. I'm not sure exactly how it will turn out but it's good that I can help Celine want to keep playing the violin. It was a pretty chaotic FHE with five kids running around, violins, cellos, baking, singing, and putting up Christmas decorations. It was fun though.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On Tuesday we met with the RS President, Ulla-Lena, and got a list of the women in the branch who she thinks could use a visit. Those lists are one of my favorite things as a missionary, because they're so helpful in figuring out what to do! We're excited to go out and find all those women! It's especially useful during Christmas time because people are more open and we can use the excuse of bringing a Christmas gift. (And you know me, it will be cookies.) Then we went out to Torpshammar, a place about 60 km from Sundsvall, for a member dinner with the Karttunens. It was originally for Ali, since he lives in Torpshammar and the Karttunens drove him to church. It was still good. We had Sweden's second most popular dish: tacos. (The most popular is meatballs of course.) After we got back to Sundsvall we went tracting and found an entire apartment building full of Jehovah's Witnesses. They had all come back from a meeting too. It was weird. Then when we were walking home from there, we stopped a girl on the street and she was just like "Yeah, you can tell me about your message." So we showed her He Is The Gift and talked about the Restoration, but she didn't want to meet again. :/</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Wednesday we made our weekly trip out to Timrå. We visited Lisa who shared her favorite verses from Alma 32 with us. She gave us candy this time instead of bananas. (We have a lot of uneaten bananas in our freezer that she's given us, so next time we go there we're going to bring her banana bread.) We've enjoyed the candy. Then we met with Noe Noe again. She had asked her parents about her ancestors! And it didn't go very well. I guess some people don't like talking about their families... We showed Noe Noe HE Is The Gift, which is our next strategy in getting her parents on board. I'm really hopeful about this one. She watched it and then she said "THIS is something I can show my parents!" We're praying hard for this one!! That night it was more tracting after the rest of our lessons cancelled on us. We taught a guy named Bo while his wife glared at us from behind the door. The Spirit really touched him but he said he's too busy during Christmas but that we can try coming back afterward. I'm going to be hearing that for the rest of my mission. On our way home we talked to a guy named Salaam. He's met with the elders before but then lost contact, and he already had a Book of Mormon in Arabic but wanted one in Swedish. So we gave him one and taught him a basic restoration lesson. He said "Can we meet sometime so you can explain that in a little more detail? Here, take my number and give me a call." We're going to meet him this coming Saturday. This is the third time the elders' investigators want to meet with us.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thursday we taught Ingegerd. We're going to help her decorate for Christmas, which will be fun. We also went to the RS activity where we made little Christmas gifts to give to people. Little candles, candy, cards and stuff. It was fun. Lisa came and seemed to enjoy it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Friday was the big day when we took the 2 hour train ride to Östersund for the day. We got there about 10:15 Friday morning armed with 2 liters of cookies, gift bags, ribbon, and of course the scriptures. We took a bus to the south edge of town and made our way back up to centrum, dropping by all the members along our way. We ended up walking over 13 kilometers and it took us around 3 hours with all the detours and stopping to put cookies in the bags and everything. Not a single one of them was home. There were three people in Östersund who we really wanted to see: Matilda, our investigator who we've only met over skype; Oscar, who was taught and baptized by Syster Dawson when she was a greenie in Örnsköldsvik, but since moved to Östersund where he can't come to church ; and the Johansson family, who would be active if they weren't stranded in Östersund. Of course all of them could meet at four o'clock. So we convinced Matilda to meet us at the library at 3:30, then told the Johanssons we'd stop by at four, then told Oscar we'd meet him at the bus station at 4:30. Matilda was late and that plan went out the window. Matilda is awesome. She was an exchange student in Idaho Falls, which is where she came in contact with the church. It was cool to finally meet her in person. After we taught her, we figured we'd pay for the bus to get to the Johanssons since we were already so late. While we were at the bus stop, Oscar called and said he couldn't meet us any later. So he found us at the bus stop and paid for our bus, then took the bus with us to the Johanssons. When we'd called the Johanssons they said they didn't really have time, but I pressed so that they would at least let us drop by and say hello. They said we probably wouldn't even have time to come in though. This being the case, we assured Oscar that we would be super quick there and he decided to wait for us outside. We knocked on their door at 4:35 and they answered and said "Come in! We have dinner for you!" Their thing had cancelled so they had plenty of time. It was by far the fastest member dinner of my mission. We wolfed down dinner, wolfed down dessert, and shared a super quick message. They were really nice and understood that we didn't have a lot of time. I'm glad we got to meet them and strengthen them, they're amazing people. When we came back outside Oscar was still standing there waiting for us and we felt like TERRIBLE PEOPLE. We should have just told the family that he was with us and invited him in to dinner but we had no idea what was going on and were flustered. It's okay, Oscar was very forgiving and when we told him that they'd wanted us to come in for a sit (we didn't mention dinner...) he just said "Yeah, that's what Swedes do." So it was no harm done. Oscar really wanted us to come to his house and meet his mom, so we checked on Google Maps and with the bus times we had time to make it to his house and stay for 15 minutes before we'd have to take a bus back to the train station to catch our train. He was okay with that, so we were off. Unfortunately, when we got to his house his mom wasn't home. But we had a nice chat on his front porch and he shared his favorite scripture with us from the Book of Mormon. We didn't get to meet his family, but it was worth it to meet him in person instead of just over the phone. He's really nice and loves missionaries and the gospel. We asked him what he wants for Christmas and he said "I don't need anything. I already have the gift of the Holy Ghost, and that's the greatest gift I could have!" So it was a good day in Östersund. We caught our train with plenty of time and made it home around 9:55.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Saturday morning I woke up feeling super guilty for neglecting Family History for the last few weeks. So for one of the hours that we'd planned to go tracting, we did family history instead. I worked more on Launa's Swedish line and accidentally stumbled into the family I was looking for and found two more of their kids. That family REALLY wants to be sealed together!!!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yesterday was a good fast Sunday. We had two VIPs. First, Mahshid, who the members just LOVE! She has so much support from the branch! And she also found out this week that she got her residency permit so she can stay in Sweden! The members have been fasting and praying for her so they were all really excited about that! Our other VIP was an investigator named Abdoul. We see him on the bus all the time and talk to him, but have never been able to meet with him. We saw him on the bus on Thursday and he asked us when church is, so we told him 11 every Sunday. He said "Okay. I'll come on Sunday." I've had enough people tell me that that I didn't really get my hopes up, but then Sunday morning while we were on the bus to church he called us and said he was about to get on the bus. He took the bus with us and came to Sacrament Meeting. He liked it and said he'll come every week. That was pretty exciting. The members were all really nice and welcoming too.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This week we have a lot of Christmas Caroling planned in. It should be fun. Thanks for your prayers and for keeping me updated on how everything is at home! Jag älskar er!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Love, Delaney</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-76775101952076987082014-12-01T13:20:00.002-07:002014-12-01T13:20:37.598-07:00December 1, 2014<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">Käre Familj,</span><br />
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Hello from icy cold Sweden! The temperature was -9 (about 16 F) when we left the apartment to come email this morning. Don't worry, we bundled up!</div>
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Your Thanksgiving feast sounds delightful! We had pumpkin pie on the train to Umeå which Äldste Gray made for us. It was very good. Actually it was the first time I've tried pumpkin pie, but I liked it. Not as much as apple though. The train ride was really fun andthere was a beautiful sunrise going on outside. The landscape on the way up to Umeå was also very beautiful. We celebrated Thanksgiving with a couple of members. We were at Mona's house, a really nice lady in the ward. She invited us sisters as well as a recent convert, Mahshid. They didn't even know what Thanksgiving was, but we told them all about it. So for Thanksgiving dinner this year I had älg (moose). It was real wild älg that Mona's brother hunted, so it felt like home in that way. There was also potatoes and brown sauce and salad. We had apple pie for dessert. It was a great Thanksgiving dinner! Meanwhile the elders and half the branch were at President Stegeby's for a real American Thanksgiving with turkey and the works. We were invited to that about five minutes after I told Mona we could come to dinner at her house on Thursday night. We were sad to miss out, but it's not every Thanksgiving that you eat moose with a Swede and an Iranian!! It turned out for the best because the elders brought us leftovers, which have always been one of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving dinner anyway. So for lunch on Friday we still got turkey, potatoes and gravy, stuffing, yams with marshmallow topping (which I ate. I like those now.) and cornbread. Happy Thanksgiving! It's weird to think about last Thanksgiving and realize that I was in Sweden. I've been here a while.</div>
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This week has been really awesome! Monday was a full proselyting day and we had some lessons scheduled but they fell through. It's okay because an investigator called us and asked us to meet him at the library. So we got to teach someone anyway. He's only interested in learning English and coming to activities and said he's never going to come to church, which is why we didn't set a return appointment with him in the first place. But it was a little miracle anyway that we were able to meet him and teach him.</div>
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On Tuesday we went over to the ward choir director's house (Ingrid) and looked through violin music for the Christmas program. I played on her daughter Celine's violin. We found some good stuff and the program should be really good. Hopefully Celine and I will be able to play a violin duet as well. Another member is letting me borrow her violin for this whole month, so I can practice and everything. I AM SO BAD AT THE VIOLIN. It's crazy how fast you lose stuff. But we're going to practice and it will turn out great. Tuesday night we taught a less active member named Lisa G. (Not to be confused with Lisa S. who shares scriptures with us. They both smoke though.) She seems really sincere about wanting to change her life and come back to church, but we'll see if she's sincere enough to do something about it. She was SO EXCITED about getting American cookies though! Then Tuesday night we finally taught a woman named Joy, who we've been trying to meet with for weeks. She wasn't there when we got there, like usual, but we called and she was on her way home. She's from Nigeria and has met the missionaries for a while I think. We don't know exactly how long, or how long ago, because the missionaries before us did not keep very good records. She's read quite a bit of the Book of Mormon though.</div>
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Wednesday was a fantastic day, because we had exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders, Syster Eborn and Syster Bass. This time I got to be with Syster Eborn and it was awesome. It made me remember how much I enjoyed that companionship and how hard we worked. And we worked really hard! We were out the door by 10:00 to go contacting, and while we were out we taught a guy on the street about the Book of Mormon, and then someone behind us started yelling to get our attention, and we turned around and it was Joy! We went into her work and showed her a video on <a href="http://mormonchannel.org/" style="color: #0068cf; cursor: pointer; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" target="_blank">mormonchannel.org</a> about the Book of Mormon, which she loved. So we taught two lessons in that first ten minutes. After some lunch we went to drop by less active members in a place called Skönsmon. They weren't home so we left cookies and then started tracting around that area. One of the first doors we knocked an old lady answered and before I could say anything she just said "Come in!" They were a very nice old Jehovah's Witness couple. We were going to teach the Restoration but the husband kept trying to bash, so we just showed them a video about the Restoration. The whole time the man was in the other room trying to find pamphlets to give us in English (I guess our Swedish must have been really bad because no matter how many times we told him IN SWEDISH that we speak Swedish, he would just say "I don't know english!") but the wife was completely enthralled in the movie. She was really excited to have a Book of Mormon and tried to pay us for it. (We didn't take the money, of course.) We were going to meet Noe Noe after that but she cancelled on us. We had to go to Timrå anyway, and on the bus down to Timrå each of us taught someone on the bus. I taught a nice Swedish girl named Felicia about the Book of Mormon, while Syster Eborn had a really intense Atonement lesson with a Muslim guy from Ethiopia. We had to go to Timrå to pick up the violin that I'm borrowing from Frida Samuelson. It was actually really cool that we could go there while on exchanges because Frida's husband Johan is originally from Norrköping, so Syster Eborn and I know all of his sisters. That got us into the house to share a scripture. They have a 9-year-old who hasn't been baptized, so we're working on operation Teach the Family. The elders have been trying and haven't even been able to get in yet, so we're on to something. Their kids were all really cute. We tried dropping by Lisa S. while we were there but she wasn't home, but then we ran into her on the street which was cool. We dropped by some other people too including an old investigator named Daniella. She let us in and we watched the Restoration video with her as well. When we came out from Daniella's we had just missed our bus back to Sundsvall and it was 7:00 PM, so we went to the grocery store to find something to eat. We bought some soup and rolls, and then asked at the cash register if there was any way to warm up the soup. We got a tour of the backroom of the grocery store, through a literal maze of hallways and up some stairs to their break room where they let us use their microwaves. It was quite the adventure. So my day with Syster Eborn was a lot like my companionship with Syster Eborn. We worked hard and had a ton of fun. In the meantime, Syster Jacobs was with Syster Bass, who served here in Sundsvall a few months ago and had a lot of good ideas and advice about the area. They visited Angela, Mahshid, and Sassan and got to know all three of them a lot better.</div>
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Thursday morning our train left at 5:49 AM, so that was fun. We had good pumpkin pie and I had a really good personal study as I wrote down things I was thankful for. Zone training was really great. It was all about the "He is the Gift" initiative. I AM SO EXCITED FOR IT! I hope by now you've all seen the video, but if not, you can go to <a href="http://christmas.mormon.org/" style="color: #0068cf; cursor: pointer; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" target="_blank">christmas.mormon.org</a> for all the details about it. The church is going all out this Christmas! We show the video to everyone we meet. One of the things I'm most thankful for is that they translated the video into Swedish. I'm also really excited about the Youtube ads next Sunday, and the Time's Square advertising. This is the best time to be a missionary! After getting back to Sundsvall we went to Mona's for dinner. She had a really cool conversion story that she shared with us. And Mahshid did too. We had a lot of fun.</div>
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On Friday we found out that Margit, that really awesome old lady that we visited a few weeks ago, passed away. Everyone in the ward loved her, but we're all happy that she's in a much better place now. She was kind of frustrated to still be here alone and in so much pain. We'll sure miss her. I was hoping to be able to visit her and play the violin for her, because we'd talked about how much she loves music. But I'm sure there's even better music where she is now. Other than that sad news, Friday was pretty good. We met with Angela at the church and taught her there. Then we went to the neighborhood near the church and continued tracting there. We're almost done with that neighborhood. We talked to one lady who wasn't very interested, but all of a sudden her little (rat) dog came running out to meet us and it broke the ice so she let us come in and show her the Christmas video. She said we can come back next week and explain more about where the church came from. It was pretty exciting to get a new investigator from tracting! That doesn't happen every day.</div>
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On Saturday we got to meet another cool old lady in the ward, Inga-Britt. She's 88 and a little sick, but she's in church almost every week. She always smiles up at me while I lead the music. We came and helped her get her walker into the house and then visited with her. She has a cool story and a big family. Her 29th great-grandchild was born a couple weeks ago. It was kind of funny though because I knew the baby's name and she didn't. She said "When I saw her she was so perfect, I didn't even think to ask! What's her name?" (The baby's name is Flora and we haven't seen her yet, but I expect to meet her before I leave!) </div>
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Yesterday was a pretty good Sunday. Our only VIP was Lisa S. We were excited to see her there. It was "Förste Advent," the first day of the advent. It's officially Christmas time now! The choir sang a traditional Swedish advent song. We stuck around for choir practice and it went really well until we tried to practice For Unto Us a Child is Born from the Messiah. That is not an easy song. We don't practice nearly as much as Peyton practiced for the Messiah performance! Luckily it's just the one song. I think the elders will be able to figure out the tenor part so it should turn out alright. After church and choir we had dinner with May. She gave us dinner our first Sunday in Sundsvall. We had meatballs and french fries and lots of vegetables. Then for dessert we had all the traditional Christmas things! Risgrynsgrött (rice porridge) with raspberry jam, pepparkakor, Lussekatter (saffron buns), Julmust (Christmas soda), and glögg. Glögg is like spicy cider stuff. It's usually alcoholic but of course we had alcohol free. It's really yummy.</div>
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Unfortunately Ali texted us this week saying he doesn't want to meet or have any contact with us anymore. That was really disappointing. We didn't get to meet Noe Noe either but she texted us to say she got the conference issue of the Liahona and is super excited about it, so I think she's doing fine. No progress with her parents though. Keep praying for them!</div>
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I find it ironic that the Hunger Hames movie was "good, but not to die for." Isn't that the point of the Hunger Games?</div>
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I'll try and figure out when they'll celebrate Midsummer next year with it being over the weekend and let you know. Good luck with Cody and Peyton's passports!</div>
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Have a wonderful week everyone! Jag älskar er!</div>
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Love, Delaney</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-69858980118418812932014-11-24T13:15:00.004-07:002014-11-24T13:25:11.027-07:00November 22, 2014Käre Familj,<br />
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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. </div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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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!!!!!!!!</div>
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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!</div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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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!</div>
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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.</div>
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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!</div>
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Jag älskar er!</div>
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Love, Delaney</div>
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On splits with Syster Byrd. They were companions in Boras</div>
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and found Boras street in Sundsvall</div>
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Family picture - Syster Austin, Delaney, Syster Jacobs</div>
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These are the 2 sister missionaries Delaney has trained</div>
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Delaney and Syster Byrd with easter eggs for old times.</div>
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We'll have to ask about this one when she gets home.</div>
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Syster's Conference</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-37516873980193672312014-11-17T15:40:00.000-07:002014-11-17T15:43:11.738-07:00November 17, 2014<div dir="ltr">
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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!</div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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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.)</div>
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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!</div>
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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!</div>
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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.</div>
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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!</div>
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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.</div>
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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. :)</div>
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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!</div>
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If it ever snows again I'll write you a note in the snow and take a picture. :)</div>
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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.</div>
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I hope you all have a wonderful week! Stay warm! (It's weird that I'm saying that to you.) Jag älskar er!</div>
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Love, Delaney</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-40343298284120888882014-11-10T11:45:00.001-07:002014-11-10T11:45:42.110-07:00November 10, 2014Käre Familj,<br />
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<br />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.</div>
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<br />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!</div>
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<br />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.</div>
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<br />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.</div>
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<br />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!</div>
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<br />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!</div>
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<br />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.</div>
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<br />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.</div>
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<br />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.</div>
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<br />Thanks for letters and a great email again! I hope you all have a great week! Jag älskar er!</div>
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Love, Delaney</div>
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Selfie in the snow</div>
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French hot dogs - buns are baguettes</div>
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Writing Mormon.org in the frost at the bus stop</div>
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Ice cream from the ice cream truck</div>
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NoeNoe and CiCi with Delaney & Syster Jacobs</div>
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Mirta, Delaney & Syster Jacobs</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-50509640644266160772014-11-03T13:04:00.002-07:002014-11-03T13:04:50.549-07:00November 3, 2014Käre Familj,<br />
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<br />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.</div>
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<br />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.</div>
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<br />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.</div>
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<br />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.)</div>
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<br />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!</div>
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<br />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!</div>
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<br />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.</div>
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<br />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.</div>
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<br />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!</div>
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<br />We have a full week planned so it will be really exciting to meet all these new people from our phone!</div>
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<br />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!</div>
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<br />Jag älskar er!</div>
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Love, Delaney</div>
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Halloween - Dressed as former companion Syster Austin</div>
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Blowing up balloons for a surprise birthday party for Elder Smith</div>
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Delaney and Syster Jacobs</div>
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White chocolate hot chocolate</div>
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Zone Conference with the mittens knitted by women</div>
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in the Beckstrand's hometown of Meadow, UT</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-46059829142423519212014-10-27T15:52:00.000-06:002014-10-27T15:52:02.696-06:00October 27, 2014<br />
Käre Familj,<div>
<br />I have also had a great week. Especially because of benefiting from Daylight Savings this weekend. That was a very good extra hour of sleep yesterday morning! Except I'm not sure whether we really benefited from it because today the sunset is at 3:56 PM. When you're a missionary, the extra hour of sunlight in the morning is during study time, and we have an extra hour in the dark of proselyting. But it's okay, because missionary work in the dark works just as well as in the light! I actually think it's better in the dark because people realize that this is something so important we're willing to stop and talk about it in the cold and dark. The trick is getting them to stop and talk about it too!</div>
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<br />Good work in your mountain biking race Peyton! I've loved hearing about all the races and adventures with mountain biking. I'm proud of you!</div>
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<br />How was the Meet the Mormons movie? Did they do a good job on it? I heard there was a preview for the upcoming Reign of the Judges movie about the Book of Mormon. Did you see that too? Did it look good?</div>
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<br />So I realized this week that the things that stand out to me, like falling in holes and running around after spårvagns probably aren't the same things that would stand out to you about my areas. So I hope all the things I include in my emails home are things you want to know. And I hope I remember to answer all/any of your questions too. :)</div>
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<br />Last week after we finished emailing we went secondhand shopping and got lots of steals! Syster Jacobs is all set for winter with a coat, boots, and the works. Unfortunately Matilda didn't show up for her Skype lesson, and we still haven't met her. She's in Austria right now but we talked to her yesterday on the phone and she still really wants to meet us! Which is good, we were worried she'd been avoiding us.</div>
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<br />On Tuesday the Tolleys (the senior couple in charge of apartments) came by and tried to fix the heaters in our apartment. They're still not heating very well. Don't worry, we're not freezing yet. Then they gave us a ride to Timrå, a little town about 15 minutes north of Sundsvall. There we visited Lisa Svedin, a really nice less active member. She has more National Geographic magazines than anyone I've ever met, including my previous science teachers. She's really cool and has the temple in mind, so we're excited to work with her on coming back to activity. Then after that we taught Noe Noe at the library. It was a really great lesson. We just missed the bus back into Sundsvall (I've gotten lazy with the iPhone so when it couldn't connect to the internet, I was helpless!) so we were a little late coming back to the church, but we caught the tail end of a really great correlation meeting and then we had branch council, which was also really great.This is a wonderful branch and the people have a lot of energy!</div>
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<br />Wednesday we had a full day set up, but a couple of our appointments never showed up. So we got to work on calling everybody in our phone to keep figuring out what we have to work with. While we were in the library calling people, two different people came up and started talking to us. Turns out both of them were already the elders' investigators. But we learned that there's a weird trend of people just coming up to the missionaries in the library and asking them to teach them. So we'll be hanging around the library a lot. One of our appointments who DID show up on Wednesday was an investigator named Charles. He started by asking our names, age, and marital status... so we'll see how long we keep teaching him. A couple of his friends came and sat down with us and they were super positive though! One of them is from Uganda and he used to go the the LDS church in Uganda. He left his Book of Mormon there. So we gave him a new one. Have I ever mentioned how much I love people from Uganda? After that we visited another less active woman named Ingegerd. She loves to read and she wasn't wearing pants. It was definitely the most spiritual lesson I've had with someone not wearing pants. (No, I haven't had many of those lessons.) She said we were the first missionaries to visit her in over a year, which is weird because we just called and she said we could come. I'm really excited to get to know her better because she seems like a really sweet lady.</div>
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<br />Thursday we had District Meeting and we went to get Syster Jacobs her Personnummer. Nobody we tried to meet with was home, but we did talk to lots of people! It was the same on Friday. The Friday night activity was good. Angela came again, and this time we played a game called the Spy Game. I'll teach it to you when I come home, because it was really fun!</div>
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<br />Saturday we got a new investigator! A really nice guy named Mohammed. He was in the phone so I called him and we met at the library. He's from Syria and he's Muslim, but he wants to know more about Christianity. He seems pretty sincere. We also got to talk to a new convert named Oscar over the phone. He was actually found and taught by Syster Dawson and her trainer almost a year ago, and now he lives in Östersund. So we talked to him and he was really excited to hear that I knew Syster Dawson.</div>
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<br />Yesterday was a great Sunday! Angela was in church again. Our other VIPs were Mashid and Sassan, who are both recent converts. (Sassan was one of those people who came up to the missionaries in the library and asked them to teach him.) They're both really cool but really busy so we've only ever really met them at church. After church we had choir practice. You know you have a good branch when it's got a choir. They sound pretty good too. In a couple weeks they're going to sing the EFY medley (As Sisters in Zion/Army of Helaman) and I'll play the piano for it. It's really funny to hear the Swedes singing in English. They say "sisters" like "seestERS". That's probably what they think when we try to sing in Swedish. After choir practice we had dinner at the church with a member family. They live a long way away, which is why they just brought the food to the church. We're two for two on dinners with vegetarians. But the food was still really good!</div>
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<br />Today we're going to a dinner with the Ekekes. The dad is from Africa but I'm not sure where, and he's married to a Swede. We're going to plan our act for the talent show coming up. Then tomorrow we have zone conference in Stockholm, which means we'll be taking a train from Sundsvall at 5 AM. We'll get back to Sundsvall at 10 PM. The sister training leaders (Sisters Byrd and Eborn!) will be coming back with us for exchanges. They'll do what we call workovers, which means we'll be on exchanges but we'll all be in Sundsvall. So we're trying to double book Wednesday with teaching appointments so we can get a lot done!</div>
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<br />Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that it snowed already! It snowed on Tuesday night, Wednesday morning, and again on Thursday night. It was great! Nothing sticking yet, and it's a lot warmer today, but winter is coming!</div>
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<br />Please keep Noe Noe, Matilda, and Angela in your prayers! They're all really wonderful!</div>
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<br />I hope you have a great week this week that isn't even arguable bad! Jag älskar er!</div>
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Love, Delaney</div>
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Dragon in Sundsvall</div>
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Delaney with the Familjen Dolmaya</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-66480843527326205732014-10-20T12:20:00.000-06:002014-10-20T12:20:00.288-06:00October 20, 2014Käre Familj,<br />
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<br />Hello from cold, beautiful Norrland! The weather outside is currently 3 degrees Celcius (37 F) and there's a chance of snow on Thursday. It was actually snowing a little bit mixed with the rain when we woke up this morning. It was still early autumn warm in Norrköping, so I feel like I skipped the rest of Autumn on the train ride up here. Bring on the real Swedish winter! We've got plans today to get more winter gear. Luckily I have most of what I need left over from last winter, thank goodness.</div>
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<br />My new companion is Syster Jacobs. She's really awesome! She's from Clearfield, Utah, and just finished her first year of school at BYU studying accounting. She loves Studio C so we've been quoting that all the time. And she's updating me on the new season. :) She also has a really good singing voice. She said she'd prayed to come to Norrland, so I guess we both got our wish! I hope she's not regretting it when it gets really cold and dark!</div>
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<br />This week, like most transfer weeks, has been crazy. I'm really glad I only have to pack everything up and move one more time, because it is EXHAUSTING. I feel like I have jet lag right along with Syster Jacobs.</div>
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<br />Monday was a really fun last P-Day in Norrköping. We ate at the classic Taco Bar with all the elders, then we had ping-pong tournaments at the church and took district pictures. More than half the district transferred this week, so it will be completely different now. Monday night everything canceled on us (I feel like Norrköping wanted us to have one last night like to remember it by...) so we finished up all the transition report and area book stuff that had to be ready for us to double out.</div>
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<br />Tuesday was a CRAZY day, the kind where you do more than should be possible in that amount of time. Thank goodness for Divine help! We taught and said goodbye to Cecilia and Kirsi first. I'm going to miss them a lot, especially Kirsi. She's like my new Swedish grandma. Then we went to Olivia's house to say goodbye to her. We bought her a frame and gave her a picture of her on her baptism day. (Thanks for sending me that photo album mom, but I gave away a lot of the pictures from it...) It was really sad saying goodbye to Olivia as well. She's a rockstar. After that we came back to the church for the Swedish class and to say goodbye to Kerstin (who teaches the Swedish class) and Bishop and the rest of the ward council members who were there. Then this is where it started to get crazy. Pontus was supposed to come to the church sometime before seven to say goodbye. At least, that's what we both are pretty sure he said. When seven came and went without any sign of Pontus, we started to get worried. We still had to see Prossy and the Dolmayas before we went home. We tried calling Pontus, but to no avail. Finally we figured we'd best go say goodbye to Prossy before it got too late. So we went there and said goodbye to her, which was also sad. Then we still didn't know where Pontus was so we tried our last resort: dropping by his friend Mari's house, where they have a homegroup every Tuesday night. As we got to her door a lady was coming out, and we asked if Pontus was in there. "No, he left about a half hour ago. He said he was going to a church." Shoot. So we set off at a sprint for the church, while Syster Austin calls the elders (who were at the church still.) If there is one thing I've come to hate on my mission it is miscommunication. Or lack of communication in general. The elders answer the phone and say "Oh yeah, Pontus was here. He left about five minutes ago. But he left something for you guys." At that moment a spårvagn goes by from the church towards town. It was like a movie. I was a little hysterical so I'm not sure exactly what happened but I'm pretty sure I yelled "Noooooooooooooo!" as it went past. Just like in a movie. We tried to run and catch it at the next stop in case we could get on it and find Pontus, but we didn't catch it. Between ranting about the elders ("WHY DID THEY NOT CALL US WHEN PONTUS WAS THERE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?") I think by that point I was praying quietly out loud. Our last hope was that he hadn't caught the spårvagn and was walking toward the stop from the church, so we started running back toward the church. (It's a good thing our area was tiny or else all that running around would be too much!) Soon we saw Pontus coming our way. I was so glad to see him. (Knowing Pontus, it probably wouldn't be good for us to leave without saying goodbye.) We talked to him a little there on the sidewalk and then walked him to the stop to catch the next spårvagn into town. I hope everything turns out okay with him. By this point we were late to the Dolmayas so we went straight there. (Again, good thing for the tiny area so we could get to all these places.) They were heartbroken to hear that Syster Austin was leaving as well, but they did pretty good at cheering her up. They are amazing people and I already miss them a lot. The best part was when I secretly gave Judy a picture from her baptism (also out of the album that mom sent). I've never seen Judy so excited before! She didn't know there were any pictures left since we lost the phone right after her baptism, and most of the pictures were on that. We finally got home on Tuesday night and had to finish packing. Luckily I was mostly done and Syster Austin hadn't even unpacked half her stuff.</div>
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<br />We woke up at 4:45 Wednesday morning in order to catch our trains. Mine left to Stockholm at 6:27, then Syster Austin had a direct train to Malmö at 6:33. The elders came and helped us both get onto our trains. The train ride was uneventful and a nice lady even helped me get my stuff off at Stockholm Central Station. She was impressed that it was everything I had and that I was moving to Sundsvall. I navigated through the station and met up with the rest of the trainers as we made our way to Täby. There we waited for a while before we met the greenies. I took the opportunity to give Syster Maxwell a run-down of everything that's happening in Norrköping. It was a weird Deja vu to be there again. Syster Dawson is training now so she was there and we had fun talking about how our missions have been going. Finally we got to go in and the new missionaries read their letters saying where they would be going. Syster Jacobs was the first one to read hers, so I didn't have to wait in the suspense too long! We took pictures at the map, had lunch, and then we all took a chartered bus to T-Central. There we waited for another hour or so for our train up to Sundsvall. It was about a 3½ hour train ride. Good thing I brought some potato chips to snack on and Jesus the Christ to read on the way up there! We were also sitting by Äldste Gray (he's my district leader again!) and his new greenie Äldste Bliss. (According to mission geneology, that makes Syster Jacobs and Äldste Bliss twins.) We got to Sundsvall around 6 PM so it was already dark, and the other elders in Sundsvall met us to help us with our stuff. Äldste Stafford and his greenie Äldste Smith. I have now met elders A. Smith, B. Smith, and C. Smith. This one is C. Smith. They helped us take our luggage to our apartment (which is HUGE) and then took us to get bus cards and groceries. Nobody has been living in our apartment for the last week so we had nothing but rice and eggs. We got groceries and brought them back to our apartment, and had about an hour left to eat dinner. It was a hectic first day.</div>
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<br />The next day,Thursday, we had zone training up in Umeå. So we got up at 4:45 (again...) in order to catch a train to Umeå at 5:50. This was another 3+ hour train ride. Umeå was really pretty and there was a little snow falling when we got there. It was funny because we saw the church in Umeå before we ever saw Sundsvall's chapel. And by that point we'd still never seen Sundsvall in the light. By the time we got home from zone training it was 6PM again so we STILL hadn't seen Sundsvall in the light. (You travel a lot in Norrland because everything is so much further apart.) But don't worry, while we were in Umeå we kebaptized Syster Jacobs and Äldste Bliss. Too bad Norrland has the worst kebab. </div>
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<br />Friday we explored the city a little bit, called a bunch of people and contacted people on the street. We also had an activity in the church on Friday night. We played that game where you put flour in a bowl and make a hill out of it, and you put a coin in the top and cut away chunks until it falls down. Then you have to get the coin out of the flour with your mouth. I managed to cut chunks without making it fall, thank goodness.</div>
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<br />On Saturday we met with some of our investigators that we've heard about but hadn't met yet. Their names are Noe Noe and Ci Ci. (Good thing this isn't a Spanish speaking mission...) Noe Noe is 15 and Ci Ci is 11, and they are from Thailand but have lived here about 6 years, and they are THE COOLEST TEENAGE GIRLS EVER. Noe Noe has a solid testimony of the church and Ci Ci is searching for one through scripture study and prayer. It was awesome to meet them and see how much they love Jesus Christ and the gospel. It's just a hard situation with their parents because they're not really for the church, but they have an uncle who's a member who's working on them. They were also super excited to meet us. (There were sisters here up until three weeks ago when all those sisters went home, so Sundsvall has missed its sisters in the meantime.)</div>
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<br />Yesterday at church we got to meet the members, and they are all so nice! They talked to us, and they talked to each other, and they talked to the people in the ward who weren't Swedish. And they all know English and don't pretend not to know it as an excuse not to talk to people. We had one investigator there, a girl named Angela whose step-father is a recently reactivated member. We also had two less active members there, a woman named Lisa and one named Eva. Eva was there with her daughter, who is actually a member in Handen who I know pretty well because we had Thanksgiving dinner there a year ago. It was funny to be all the way up here in Sundsvall and see her again! There was another member from Västerhaninge here, and a member from Norrköping, Soloman. I guess he's actually from here, but he's in Norrköping's ward. So we were just missing Borås and I would have had someone from all my areas! After church we had choir practice. This is the first ward I've been in with a ward choir. It's awesome! Sundsvall is actually a branch, but it's big enough to be a ward. It's just because it's not in a stake. We're in the Umeå District. There's about 50-60 people in Sacrament Meeting every week, according to the elders. And we've got members from Canada, Hawaii, Iran, and Finnland to name a few.</div>
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<br />After church we had dinner with the ward organist, Maj. She's vegetarian, but the soy chicken was pretty okay. It was all six of us missionaries there, and it was a really fun time. Maj is hilarious. And we were all speaking in Swenglish. I don't know which language we used more. There was delicious raspberry pie with blueberry ice cream for dessert. For a vegetarian, it was a pretty good first member dinner here! I think Syster Jacobs enjoyed it too.</div>
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<br />We're still trying to get our bearings and figure out what we already have going on here. There wasn't much information left for us to go off of, but the elders are helping us out. Tonight we're going to teach a girl named Matilda who was an exchange student in Idaho. We've heard she's really awesome. She lives out in Östersund (halfway to Norway) so we're going to teach her by Skype.</div>
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<br />Sundsvall is beautiful and there are dragon statues all over. We're going to take lots of pictures of the dragons. They're supposed to guard the city from burning down again. The elders left us a note when we got here that said "Dear Sister Smith and Greenie, Welcome to the wonderful land of Sundsvall. Highly known for the fact that it burnt down twice. Hence the dragons. Your area is approximately the size of Rhode Island."</div>
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<br />Good luck racing in St. George and ACTing in not St.George! Thanks for the updates on how everything is going! Hope you all have a wonderful week!</div>
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<br />Jag älskar er!</div>
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Love, Delaney</div>
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Syster Jacobs and Delaney pointing to Sundsvall</div>
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Norrkoping District-Oct. 2014</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-61552761019999022932014-10-13T14:42:00.001-06:002014-10-13T14:43:16.890-06:00October 13, 2014<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Käre Familj,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dad guessed it right: I'm going to Norrland! Not quite as far north as Luleå¨, though. I will be training a new sister in Sundsvall! (That one is actually pronounced just like it's spelled.) We'll be doubling in, which most of the trainers this round are going to have to do because everyone's been in their area so long already. Nearly every sister companionship is affected by the transfer this week. I think there are only two companionships who escaped. I'm so excited to go to Norrland and experience a real cold Swedish winter and Christmas! In the meantime, Syster Austin is also transferring! She's going as south as you can, all the way down to Malmö. So odds are I'll probably never see her again for the rest of my mission. :( She's really sad to leave Norrköping so soon, and especially with such short notice. But she's going to love Malmö! She'll be in a tripanionship with Syster Carlson and Syster Fawcett. They are also whitewashing the area. (Because of all the sisters who went home a few weeks ago, there are many sister areas that were just sitting there for the last three weeks that are all being whitewashed now.) That also means we're doubling out for Norrköping to be whitewashed by Syster Maxwell (same one who took my place in Borås, funny enough) and a greenie. So we've got a lot of work to do to get the area book and apartment and everything else in good shape for two new sisters! We're both sad to be leaving, especially because we won't get to see some people before we go. We've been able to see most of the members, but our investigators who we love are a little trickier. We won't be able to say goodbye to Kobra and Soran, or Mayda because she's in Norway right now. :( And Mona hasn't answered her phone either.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's been a good week. Monday was a good P-Day. I learned to play ping-pong and I'm now better at ping-pong than I am at bowling. Do we have a ping-pong table? We should get one. Not a lot really happened on Monday or Tuesday, so I'm going to skip to Wednesday when the week started to get really interesting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let it be noted that on Wednesday morning I prayed for help to see God's hand in my life. I wasn't expecting the answer to come in quite this way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It all started with a jar of jam. During lunch time on Wednesday we were preparing PB&J sandwiches for dinner (I eat those now. But only with jam, not with jelly.) because we were going out to Motala to teach Kobra and Soran. We had a brand new jar of raspberry jam. And we could not open it for the life of us. We tried every trick in the book. We almost even called in the Priesthood to open the jar, but they weren't close. Finally we settled for PB&PB. Not as good, but it's edible and that's all a missionary requires. Anyway, we got our sandwiches made and were on our way, barely catching our train out to Motala. The train ride passed without incident and we made sure we had a Persian translator all ready to go for the lesson. </span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As we were walking up to their house, literally right outside their apartment,</span> I was being careful to watch my step so I wouldn't step on the terrible-smelling berries all over the ground. I remember thinking "This drain hole cover looks like a good place to step on." Or something to that effect. I was wrong. The cover was loose, and it slipped completely off the drain hole (I'm actually not sure what kind of hole it is) so I stepped/fell right into the hole. As Syster Austin describes it, one moment I was there and the next I was gone. </span></div>
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The "offending" hole</div>
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The wound</div>
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The ghetto bandage of gauze and princess bandaids</div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Now, there are many miracles surrounding this experience. For example, it was only big enough for one leg so I didn't fall all the way in. And while my leg got very scratched, bruised, and burned, I was able to make it through the Persian Plan of Salvation lesson just fine and the Spirit was still strong. (Kobra and Soran are truly amazing people. I'm sad that I won't be here to see Kobra progress and realize how much she needs Christ in her life.) Luckily I was wearing boots so I didn't lose a shoe, and a red patterned skirt so nobody noticed the blood on it. There was surprisingly only a tiny bit of blood on my skirt, considering the amount of blood that was on my leg, and despite that I fell in the mud, there wasn't a speck of dirt on my skirt. I also have no idea how the cover came completely off by me stepping on it, instead of wedging halfway in the hole and breaking my ankle or something. It was a miracle. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">The biggest miracle of all was later that night. We got back to the train and made it back to Norrköping to meet up with Pontus. He told Syster Austin he wanted to meet at Söder Tull (in town) at 7:45 that night. She repeated it back to him (her Swedish being amazing but not necessarily fluent yet), 7:45 at Söder Tull. He said yes. We got to Söder Tull right at 7:45 and he was nowhere to be seen. We waited around for a while until we finally decided to see if he was at the church. (Of course we tried calling but we knew it was futile because he never brings his phone with him.) He was waiting at the church with a friend. Great, we thought. He asked where we'd been. We told him we were waiting at Söder Tull like he said. He asserts that he'd told Syster Austin to meet him at the church. I wasn't there for the phone conversation but I believe what Syster Austin said. So she was really mad. We go into the church where Pontus explains why his other church "Hageby Kyrkan" (Hageby is the area where we live. Kyrkan is church.) is so much better than ours. It's more fun. It's easier to get there because they have "services" on Thursdays so he doesn't have to deal with Sunday bus schedules (they don't run very often on Sundays). The rules here are too hard. He wants to drink coffee. I listened with all the patience and understanding I have (which has increased 100 fold since I started working with Pontus) and asked him some questions as directed by the Spirit. The whole time, his friend was backing him up and encouraging him about why Hageby Kyrkan is so much better. Finally all that was left to do was bear sincere testimony and invite him to do what he knows is the right thing. I was surprised to find myself saying in the middle of my testimony "Pontus, we don't keep the commandments and come to church because it's easy. I fell into a DRAIN HOLE today, doing the service of God. That wasn't EASY. But it doesn't make the church not true, and I know it's true and so do you." The Spirit was so strong. And his friend's face was priceless. If that helped Pontus realize that he needs to be strong in the church whether it's easy or not, then I'm glad I fell in that hole. It's our experiences that add validity and depth to our testimonies, so I'm thankful for that experience and the opportunity I had to share it with Pontus to strengthen him. No matter what happens with Pontus, I know that I have given it my best shot and done everything I could for him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">It was as we were walking-well, limping-into the apartment that night that President called to let me know I'll be training a new sister. He was really nice and said it's because I did such a good job with Syster Austin. I'm excited I can end my mission passing all my knowledge and wisdom on to another new sister. I can't wait to meet her on Wednesday! When he called on Wednesday I asked the same thing I asked him when I got the call the first time I'd be training: "Will I be training in Norrköping?" This time he said no, that I'd be doubling in somewhere, but didn't give me any more information at the time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Thursday, in honor of Mom's birthday, all of our lessons cancelled by 11:00 AM. So after district meeting in Linköping, we came back to Norrköping and tried to find all the less active members on the list that we could. Nobody was home and a few had moved. We finally got so desperate we tried going by this lady named Pim, who is usually home but never answers the door. Before we knocked we said a prayer, and Syster Austin prayed that Heavenly Father would help her open the door. As soon as we rang the doorbell, the door came flying open, and there was Pim. She thought we were the people who were coming to pick her up. So we actually met her, and she gave us her (correct) phone number and said we could come back next week! Which we won't, because we're both leaving, but the new sisters will. So that was a pretty cool miracle and answered prayer!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Friday we started going by members so I could say goodbye to people, and on Saturday too. It was hard to say goodbye to Lisabeth on Saturday. She said she'd been praying for me to go to Norrland. That was before we got the call. We also went to the Dolmayas to say goodbye, but they convinced us that we can go back one more time on Tuesday night. We got home a little confused because President still hadn't called, but the zone leaders had and asked us to call them back. We called them and they gave us our transfer call. I was very excited to go to Sundsvall, but it was hard on Syster Austin to hear that she was leaving as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">So yesterday we went back to Lisabeth's for Syster Austin to say goodbye. We also had dinner with the Ståhlbergs (and as we were leaving, the dad, Leif, said "I'll never forget the story of your dad and his guns. I'd told them about when dad got all the guns out for Rich to take me to Prom.), and visited Ann-Sofi. Our VIPs in church were Olivia and Nabil. Everyone seems sad that we're leaving and Bishop said "What did we do wrong?" So it's good to know that the ward will miss us!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Mom's birthday celebrations sounded fun! Happy birthday again mom! I'm especially glad my present got there right in time!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Have a wonderful week everyone! Thanks for your updates and your prayers! Jag älskar er!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Love, Delaney</span></div>
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Delaney and Lisabeth</div>
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Delaney, Ann-Sofi, Syster Austin</div>
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The Jonsson Family</div>
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Olivia, Delaney, Tiziana (member from Italy) and Syster Austin</div>
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Stahlberg Family (She is the "Old Vuorinen's" daughter)</div>
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The Young Vuorinen Family (He is the "Old Vuorinen's son")</div>
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The "Old Vuorinens"</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-21053408293566424912014-10-06T09:29:00.003-06:002014-10-06T12:35:49.530-06:00October 6, 2014<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Käre familj,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wasn't General Conference great? I'm sad it's already over! But I still have the Sunday Afternoon session to watch. I can't wait to see Elder Bednar's talk! It did seem like they focused more on the "perfecting the saints" and "service" parts of the church than on preaching the gospel this time around. But it makes sense-we have to get our own oxygen masks on before we can help others. I really liked the talks in Cantonese<em> </em>and Spanish as well. I don't think the people in the US realize what a big deal that is. I think a lot more people will be willing to listen to General Conference now that it's not ALL exclusively in English with translation. It seems a little more inclusive this way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's been a good week here in Norrköping. Last Monday for P-Day we all played football (soccer) in Norrköping. I got pretty sore, but it was fun. Today the plan is to go to Linköping and play ping-pong. I'm even worse at ping-pong than I am at football... so it will be interesting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tuesday we had dinner at the Dolmayas' house. More Syrian food! I didn't take a picture this time because of how many people said it looked disgusting last time we had Syrian food. It looked about the same, but it tasted so good! And we had a great lesson with Judy and Nabil about meaningful prayer and receiving answers to prayers. Then after dinner we went to the church for Institute. Judy didn't come. :/</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wednesday after District Meeting we contacted a really nice girl named Amelia <span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">and started talking to her. Like most young Swedes do she switched it to English because it's pretty obvious that we're not native Swedish speakers. When I told her I was from the USA she said "Then why don't you have an American accent?" Even if I don't speak Swedish like a Swede, at least I speak English like one I guess. We ended up teaching Amelia all about the Restoration and we're going to meet her again tonight! Wednesday evening we were asked to help with the Young Women activity and teach them how to do family history work. It was really cool to see how much I've learned about family history since coming to Norrköping, and I had a lot of tips and advice for them. That wasn't one of the skills I thought I would learn while I was here, but I'm excited to keep doing Family History work when I get home too!</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On Thursday we had exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders. Syster Austin got to go to Stockholm this time and I stayed in Norrköping with Syster La Fontaine, from my MTC group. It was really fun to be on exchanges with her, and it was really helpful because Syster La Fontaine was trained in Norrköping, so she knows the area and the people. She had a lot of helpful background knowledge on less active members and old investigators. And it got us in to a lot of places! We taught Cecilia, Kirsi, and the Dolmayas, who all wanted to see her. We also got to meet up with Pontus and teach him. He's having a rough time right now. We asked what the ward could do better to help him and he said...everything. I was so thankful for Syster La Fontaine for saying "could you be a little more specific?" It seems he's having a hard time standing up for his new faith and beliefs among his old friends, and he feels like he needs to make exceptions and compromise his standards for them. Good thing he likes meeting with us so we can still help him understand. I think we'll be using a lot from President Uchtdorf's talk in the women conference when we meet him again. But please pray for him that he can overcome his doubts!</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Syster Austin came back on Friday, and we went and visited Seija. Her devil of a rat dog has doubled in size and still has really sharp teeth. Seija said she would come to conference. She didn't. We had an appointment with Prossy that night but she wasn't home. Alex was there, though, so we did get to teach him instead. Haven't seen Prossy in a couple weeks now, because she's caring for a friend who just had surgery, according to Alex.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On Saturday the elders had a baptism! A man named Vahab. He only speaks Persian, so it's pretty hard to get to know him, but he seems to have a lot of faith. His sister came to the baptism and translated the service for him. It's really cool that she supports him because she's Muslim and not willing to learn more. There were six members and eight missionaries in attendance, plus Vahab and his sister. It was a great service though. It was the start of a great weekend! Baptism and then General Conference! The womens' meeting was great, and the Saturday Morning session was great! The Katrineholm missionaries came to Norrköping to watch conference here, so the sisters stayed the night at our apartment. It was Syster Christison and her greenie Syster Powell. It was fun to be watching Conference with Syster Christison and reminisce about one year ago when we watched conference together as greenies in Västerhaninge. I can't believe how fast time passes! It's been two years since they lowered the age for missionary service! The sisters who went out right away after that are already home now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sunday morning we went and taught Lena. I pointed out that it was the same time we would normally have church, so she didn't seem to have any time conflicts. She knows she needs to come but she just needs to take the actual step. We read 3 Nephi 11 with her which turned out to be perfect because after we finished reading she said "This is the chapter that I read when I gained my testimony of the Book of Mormon." Needless to say, the Spirit was strong.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nabil came and watched the Saturday morning session of conference and I think he might have come to Priesthood session on Sunday morning. And Maria Kojo came to the Sunday Morning session on Sunday evening. That was all we had for VIPs in church. Olivia had forgotten about conference and already had something planned Sunday afternoon. We'll have a lot of conference catch-up to do with all our friends now!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thanks for updating me on your week! Good job Peyton in your race! I'm glad you got the tube and tire sorted out in time. Good job getting all those ducks too. Did you convince the Calverts to take them all home?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are 11 new sisters coming to the mission next week, so there are some changes in store! We'll find out on Saturday what's going to happen. Until then, we're still going strong here in Norrköping! We're going out to Motala again on Wednesday to teach Kobra and Soran. Mayda's been out of town but hopefully we can meet her again this week too. And Mona is supposed to be out of the hospital, but she hasn't answered her phone yet. We're hoping she's doing alright!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Have a wonderful week everybody! Jag älskar er!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Love, Delaney</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-66256313164219997702014-09-29T09:28:00.002-06:002014-09-29T09:28:28.385-06:00September 29, 2014Käre Familj,<br />
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<br />Hello from Norrköping! I couldn't decide what to call it because this week's been cold and rainy, but also a little warm sunny. The only thing that's been consistent is windy.</div>
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<br />It's been a good week! We've had a lot to do and been able to meet with a lot of people. Last week for P-Day we went to Ikea in Linköping and got meatballs for lunch. Do they have meatballs at Ikea in America? Then we went back to the Linköping chapel and played Uno with all the elders. I got third place. We came back to Norrköping for dinner with Ann-Sofi.</div>
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<br />Pontus came to Institute on Tuesday and liked it. We have a really good institute teacher in our ward, so it's always really good. We're trying to get the rest of the YSA new converts to come on Tuesday nights too. They were doing well during the summer, but now that school started again they're all pretty busy. After institute we were going to visit Rosalia, a Spanish speaking woman we contacted a while ago, but she wasn't home. So after teaching the Restoration to a random guy named Sammi on the street, we stopped by Judy to say hi and encourage her to come to church. (That's kind of been the theme this week...get people to church.)</div>
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<br />On Wednesday morning we taught our favorite Norrköping grandmas, Lena and Kirsi. Then that night we met Pontus at the library. He was able to borrow an iPad from the library so he could look up the scriptures with us online and take notes. I think that really helped him.</div>
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<br />Thursday we spent the whole day in Linköping. First we had district meeting there, which was really good. We talked about how God gives us everything we have that's exciting, and everything that we love. So instead of thinking God is boring, we need to remember that He gave us all the fun things we do, too! We stuck around Linköping and dropped by some less active women in their branch, because we didn't have enough time to go back to Norrköping before we would have had to turn around and come back, because that evening we had a lesson with Soran and his wife Kobra, who live in a little town quite a ways outside of Linköping. (Thus, we didn't bother coming back only to turn around again.) Soran was baptized here in Norrköping about a year ago, and his wife Kobra came to Sweden a few months later. They were lost for a while but a couple weeks ago we got a call from the member who baptized Soran (he lives in Germany) saying he wants contact with the church again. The bishop and Linköping elders went out there to meet him, and he said he wants sisters to teach his wife since he had such a good experience with sisters the first time. So we got to go out there and meet them on Thursday and they are awesome people! Kobra said that since her husband was baptized, and her two sons became Christian in Iran, she's the only one still searching. I love it when people recognize they're searching, because it makes them willing to actually search! The lesson went really well with them, and we had some awesome Persian translators. The Spirit was very powerful there.</div>
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<br />I know I always skip Friday but not a lot happens on Fridays... We did teach Cecilia who actually said yes, she would come to church, instead of her usual maybe. So that was exciting. We talked to a lot of people and got a lot of harsh (and slightly amusing) rejections all in a row. We got back to the apartment for weekly planning before the drunkards came out.</div>
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<br />Saturday we spent another good chunk of time tracting. One man wished us good luck and a very nice day. That was probably the most positive door. Nobody was really rude, so it was a successful tracting stund. President Hinckley knew what he was talking about when he said there are better ways to do missionary work, but it's all we have left to do, so we have to do something to try and find people. Saturday afternoon we had an appointment scheduled with a guy named Mishel. I had little faith that he would show up considering how many people we've scheduled here who never showed up, but sure enough, he came to the church right on time. He's from Syria and actually knows Nabil and Judy. We found out quickly that he didn't speak a whole lot of English, but luckily we had the Restoration movie and a Book of Mormon in Arabic. So we watched the movie and before we could ask he told us he'll read the book. On the way out he asked the usual "are you Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant?" question. When we said none of the above he smiled and said "oh, you're better!" In other words, we're not going to have to tackle the whole "What's wrong with the Orthodox church" problem. We're really excited for him.</div>
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<br />Yesterday was a really awesome day for church. Our VIPs were: Olivia, Alex (he's back in Norrköping!), Judy, Nabil, Kirsi, and Cecilia! Prossy was in Stockholm and Pontus had to go to an open house for a friend's birthday. I wish I could say it's because we worked so hard to get all those people there, but a big part of why so many came is because Syster Anderson, who I replaced when I came to Norrköping, was back with her parents. It was awesome to see the chapel so full! I gave a talk about how we can strengthen our faith. I talked about the "Primary answers": pray, read the scriptures, and come to church. (I thought it was interesting that's what the bishopric talked about in your ward. Could it be that these things are EXTREMELY IMPORTANT?!?!) I also played the hymns in Sacrament meeting. I got to choose them, but I don't remember which numbers they were so I don't know what they added to.</div>
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<br />I can't believe Colton is home from his mission! It's weird that there are starting to be more homecomings than farewells. Sounds like you had a busy Sunday. Those are the best kind!</div>
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<br />We will watch General Conference at the church next weekend. I think they'll show it in Swedish and English. We'll probably watch it in English since hopefully we'll have our new converts with us. They show the womens' meeting first, and then we'll watch the Saturday Morning session live at 6:00 PM. On Sunday they show Priesthood from 10-12, Saturday Afternoon from 2-4, and then we watch Sunday Morning live again at 6. We'll have to watch the Sunday Afternoon session on our own time sometime. I never actually got to watch the Sunday Afternoon session last conference. I had to read the talks in the Liahona instead. But now that we live so close to the church, we'll probably be able to watch the last session at the church sometime during the week. I'm really excited for conference! We've been trying to decide if President Uchtdorf will speak in German. And there's always the semi-annual question: how many of the talks will be about MEMBER MISSIONARY WORK? The number gets higher and higher every time!</div>
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<br />The Sweden trip is going to be fun! As long as we get to visit all my areas in Sweden, it will be great. I think it would be fun to cruise around the Baltic too. Keep in mind that June 6th is Sweden National Day, so that would be a fun day to be in Sweden, and there's also Midsummer on June 21st. That would also be a really awesome day to be in Sweden. Either of those days we could go to a ward party. </div>
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<br />President called earlier today to ask how Syster Austin's training is going. I bragged like a proud mother. :) Her Swedish is improving really well. Yesterday I was playing prelude in Sacrament and I looked down and she was just chatting away in Swedish with a member. I told President she would be a competent trainer. She kind of got mad at me for that, but it's the truth!</div>
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<br />Mayda is basically progressing, because she's been reading and is really trying to find out if it's true. We just can't count her as progressing just yet because she hasn't come to church yet. I think Kobra and Mishel will be progressing soon too. Also Mona is supposed to be out of the hospital this week, so hopefully we can meet her and start teaching her!</div>
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<br />Have a great week everyone! Jag älskar er!</div>
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Love, Delaney</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-10364060283129833942014-09-22T09:08:00.000-06:002014-09-22T09:08:24.464-06:00September 22, 2014Käre Familj,<br />
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<br />Hello from cold, rainy Sweden! Sweden took "first day of autumn" seriously yesterday with lots of rain and wind. Also I started noticing that a lot of leaves have already fallen. Are the leaves changing in Utah yet?</div>
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<br />The temple dedication sounds cool. When Elder Bednar was here last week he told us he was going back to Salt Lake in time for that. He toured Germany and all of Scandinavia and I think a few other countries while he was in Europe. It sounded pretty hectic.</div>
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<br />Thanks for keeping me updated on mountain biking and scouting and everything else going on at home. It sounds like a fun time! Especially homecoming. I liked the picture mom sent. It sounds like it was a really fun day!</div>
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<br />Our week has been good in little old Norrköping. Monday turned out to be a pretty good P-Day. The elders made pretzel bites for Syster Austin. She was really surprised. We played table hockey. It's like foosball only hockey. I scored some goals. But my team still lost. We had fun though.</div>
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<br />We taught Mayda again on Tuesday. It's always fun to teach her because she's really open. She read the first four chapters of the Book of Mormon. I think she liked it but she had a lot of questions. Where did the brass plates come from? When did Laban come into the picture? How is he related to Lehi? Why weren't there more copies of the brass plates? We tried to point out the doctrines, like "look at the faith of Nephi as he goes to do this really hard task but puts his trust in the Lord!" We're getting there. Hopefully as she keeps reading she'll feel the Spirit and be able to accept that it's the word of God. It was kind of frustrating because she was like "Well why couldn't God just give the Bible to the people on the American continent?" HE DID, IT'S CALLED THE BOOK OF MORMON. We can't figure out any clearer way to explain it.</div>
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<br />Wednesday we had zone training in Södertälje. Our zone is giant now that we went down to only 5 zones. The zone leaders did a good job. We took a "train ride," stopping at obedience and faith until we got to a mountain. Then we talked about the mountains in our lives and how we overcome them. All really spiritual and stuff. Then we hiked up to the top of a mountain (well, the closest thing you can get to a mountain in Sweden) and ate lunch up there. It was a nice view.</div>
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<br />Thursday we did an interview with some students who are doing a project on Mormons. They were especially interested in Family Search. And they thought we don't celebrate birthdays. I don't understand why everybody thinks that. It was pretty cool to be able to just sit down and explain our faith and our values. I hope they get a good grade on their project. We invited them to come to church but they didn't. Then on Thursday night we met with Pontus. He's been having a hard time recently so he was glad to meet with us. We had a really spiritual lesson with him addressing his concerns. It was one of those lessons where I can't tell you what I said or why, because it was all the Spirit saying what he needed. There was one point where I was sharing a story about an investigator who ran into anti material and dropped off the face of the planet. In my head I was thinking "why on earth am I sharing this with Pontus right now?" but it felt right, so I continued. After I finished he said "You're right, it is very good that I got baptized. Thank you for sharing that story." I'm still not quite sure how it connects, but he gets it, and that's good enough for me.</div>
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<br />The weekend was a little rough and we didn't get many opportunities to teach, try as we might. We spent a solid three hours on Thursday tracting. Nothing. Friday we talked to everyone we could find. Nothing. Saturday we called everyone to get them to church. Nothing. We did visit the Dolmayas on Saturday night and they're doing well. We also visited Lisabeth and she was very worried that I would transfer. (Transfer calls were on Saturday. We didn't get a call.) It's good to know that they want me to stay!</div>
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<br />Our VIPs yesterday were Olivia, Nabil, and Pontus. No investigators or less actives came. Neither did Judy or Prossy. That was a bummer. We're going to go Abinadi on them this week and get them to come.</div>
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<br />Transfer rumors are that I'll most likely leave Norrköping in the middle of October and go to my dying area. Weird! Syster Byrd is leaving Borås this week and going to Uppsala to be a sister training leader. Syster Miller goes home October 16th. I don't think you'll be able to go to her homecoming because she's from Georgia.</div>
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<br />I hope you all have a wonderful week! Jag älskar er!</div>
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Love, Delaney</div>
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The view from "the mountain"</div>
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The Smith's and The Miller's</div>
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all in the same district</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-68028481691228169152014-09-16T16:21:00.001-06:002014-09-16T16:21:32.267-06:00September 15, 2014Käre Familj,<br />
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There's a hundred and six days left of my mission</div>
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And school comes along just to end it!</div>
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So the obvious problem when you're in this position</div>
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Is finding a good way to spend it...</div>
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Like maybe:</div>
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Building up Zion</div>
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By strengthening members</div>
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And helping testimonies formin'.</div>
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Discovering families that want to be sealed,</div>
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And giving away Books of Mormon!</div>
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Planning baptisms,</div>
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Using the gift of tongues,</div>
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And knocking on doors in the rain!</div>
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Setting up goals and plans,</div>
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Contacting Syrians,</div>
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And driving the Elders insane!</div>
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As you can see there's a whole lot of work to do,</div>
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But miracles haven't ceased!</div>
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All this and more is gonna be in store</div>
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Before I get released!</div>
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All this and more is already in store</div>
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Before I get released!</div>
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I've been waiting months to be at this point in my mission so I could write this song. It's just too bad P-Day isn't on Wednesday when there are 104 days left. While I was coming up with the song Syster Austin said "Whoa...you only have a summer vacation left." That is not long enough!</div>
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Things are going well here in little old Norrköping! It's funny because Norrköping is the biggest city I've served in, but it's the smallest area (the area split is totally unequal) and the smallest ward. And it's not even that big of a city, or that small of a ward. I'm just a little city, big ward kind of missionary I guess.</div>
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One of the exciting things that happened on Tuesday was, I found a family! Of Swedes! Granted, they lived in the 1800s. Remember how Launa is letting me help her with her Swedish family history work? Well, on Tuesday I found her ancestor's whole family in a church book, so I found his three siblings and his parents. Is that cool or what?! It came with about the same amount of excitement as finding a family to teach. Family History in Sweden is really awesome because they took very detailed records. It's just sometimes hard to read.</div>
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Also on Tuesday we taught Mayda again. She's really funny, and I think she's more open than she lets on. She has a bunch of questions, especially how the Bible and Book of Mormon go together, but she seems to accept our answers. At least she accepts that it's something worth thinking about. She might be a tough one, but she's really close to the Spirit, so I have high hopes for her!</div>
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Tuesday night we got to attend a broadcast for all the women in Europe. Elder and Sister Bednar talked, as well as Elder and Sister Teixeira and Elder and Sister Kearon from Europe's Area Presidency. They showed it in the Norrköping chapel for us. It was really inspiring, especially to see what they said specifically to women in Europe.</div>
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The real highlight of the week was on Thursday when we went up to Stockholm for the conference with Elder Bednar. The Kearons were there too. They were all very inspiring to listen to, and I learned so much. I learned a lot from the way Elder Bednar taught us. He didn't just stand up there and lecture for hours. He led a discussion with all of us missionaries. First we discussed the talks that he asked us to read in advance. Then we discussed what we were noticing about the pattern of discussion he was using. So he taught us how to teach by the way he taught us how to teach. Then he opened it up for questions. It was just awesome. So much inspiration. So many ways I can be a better missionary and teacher.</div>
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That night when we were back in Norrköping with contacted a girl and her mom. They were from Serbia and the girl knew Swedish and translated for her mom. We told them who we were and that our church was just down the street and they asked if they could come see it. So we gave them a tour of the church and also happened to have the Restoration film with us in Serbian, so we watched that with them. They seemed pretty interested in it and said they'd come back on Saturday for a Serbian Book of Mormon, but they didn't. It was a cool experience though.</div>
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Saturday was Syster Austin's 21st birthday. She's officially old enough to be a real sister missionary! We made pizza on Friday night to celebrate. Then on Saturday we had lunch at Taco Bar (the best tacos I've had in Sweden for sure), and everyone cancelled on us or just didn't show up. So...that was a bummer of a birthday. But we were tracting that night and these two little girls were following us around watching us, so we got them to sing Happy Birthday in Swedish. (Ja må hon leva.) Then we came home and had Princess Tårta that we bought from the grocery store. And I wrapped the packages that her family sent. Later today we're going to have a mini birthday party for her and Äldste Miller, whose birthday was also on Saturday. We made yummy bars for Äldste Miller (they turned out really well, I think!) and the elders are going to bring a surprise treat for Syster Austin too.</div>
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Yesterday our VIPs were Olivia and Lisabeth (even though she's active now.) Olivia's doing great. We hadn't seen her since church last week but she said school's going well. We're only going to meet her on Sundays now because her mom wants her to focus on school during the week and help at home on Saturdays. If it was any new convert other than Olivia, I might worry, but Olivia is rock solid.</div>
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Pontus is back from Poland and he had a great time there. He went to church there on Sunday and he went to a single adults activity as well. He's also reading Preach My Gospel and he loves it. He wasn't at church yesterday though. Not sure why.</div>
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If you extend the kitchen to the east, what are you going to do with the crabapple tree? Can you replant it somewhere else?</div>
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I haven't met or heard of the Östheds. You only really meet the senior couples if you serve with them.</div>
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Francois didn't come to church yesterday. He said he would but didn't show up. Kind of like all the other lessons we tried to plan with him. I think he might be less busy now that elections are over. Mona called us to let us know she would be in the hospital until the beginning of October. :( But she still wants to meet after that! We passed Lyudmylo off to the elders since she's out in Nyköping which is in their area, and we don't want to go out there. She's willing to meet at the train station so they don't even need to worry about finding someone to come to her house with them.</div>
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Ultimate Mountain Biking sounds fun but hard and dangerous. I think we'll skip that idea for a sport this P-Day. I think we're going to play Kubb if we can find the set.</div>
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Thanks for the updates, even if you think you had a boring week! Have a wonderful week this week too! Jag älskar er!</div>
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Love, Delaney</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-56598107950301209642014-09-08T09:41:00.001-06:002014-09-08T09:41:12.384-06:00September 8, 2014Käre Familj,<br />
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<br /></div>
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Hi! Thanks for the hunting recap. That's cool that Cody got a shot at a deer! How did the deer end up there, did it just walk out in front of him? We got a new missionary in Norrköping this week, Äldste Trotter, and he hunts too. Don't worry, we already talked hunting. He's from Salem (UT) and likes to hunt mule deer behind his house but hasn't hit any. He did get a big elk (320-330) up Spanish Fork canyon.</div>
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<br />Good job mountain biking, Peyton! The pictures look really cool. I hope it was fun and not just a lot of hard work. We haven't used the bikes much lately because the spårvagns started going much more often after summer ended, so now we can get places faster.</div>
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<br />I'm going to cut to the best part of the week, which was Olivia's baptism on Saturday! The veckoskörden said it would be on Sunday because when we called and told the zone leaders about getting the date, we told them in Swedish what the date was. And I guess their Swedish isn't quite as good? It's said the seventh the whole time, but it was really always meant to be the sixth. The baptism was great. We spent all week planning and preparing for it. First we called every priesthood holder and their dog to find someone to baptize her. It seemed that everyone who knew they could come had some physical limitation that prevented them from performing a baptism (even the elders!) and everyone else couldn't commit to coming. When we did finally find someone, he got sick. She originally asked for Bishop to baptize her, but there was a conference in Denmark this weekend for all the bishops and stake presidents in Scandinavia. So the only Priesthood holder she even knew was out of town. She knows all the young women, but that didn't really help this situation. But we finally found someone who could do it. We had everything ready on Saturday and lots of members were starting to show up, we were just missing Olivia. She had texted us earlier that day to ask when she should come and we told her 5:30. 5:30 came, then 5:45, and around 5:50 we were starting to get really worried. Finally at 5:55 she came hurrying into the church. I should point out that usually Olivia's there sitting in the chapel about 20 minutes before church even starts. So this was uncommon for her. But she did come, and that's the important thing. She was so excited! The service went really well. Prossy gave a talk about baptism, then I gave a talk about the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Then the young women sang a musical number. The baptism itself went great. I was really glad we ended up with Brother Vuorinen to perform the baptism. For some reason this ward always forgets witnesses, but the ward mission leader, Björn, and Äldste Miller remembered just in time to get up to the font and witness it. Then we came back to the chapel, she was welcomed into the ward, and we had a lot of yummy refreshments. The young women made kladdkaka, coocies, and apple cake, and we made oatmeal cookies. The elders brought carrots. Two of Prossy's friends came to the baptism as well, and they really liked it. The elders in Linköping have started working with one of them and she's really positive. The Norrköping elders also had an investigator there. Kirsi came and she was so sweet and nice to Olivia and even brought her a gift. And Maria Kojo was there with her (less active) daughter Amanda. And a lot of other ward members-she had so much support! It was a wonderful baptism. And about time.</div>
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<br />Yesterday was her confirmation. It was also a bit of a nail-biter because Olivia didn't come until the second verse of the Sacrament Hymn. But she was there, and Äldste Lindquist confirmed her and she was feeling great! The young women are going to have their New Beginnings thing in a few weeks to welcome Olivia as their one and only Laurel. We're going to try to get her mom to come, but she'll probably be either working or tired as usual. But we're trying!</div>
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<br />Our other VIP in church yesterday was this investigator named Francois. We've been trying to meet with him for a while now but he always cancels on us. But on Saturday when he canceled on us we invited him to come to church, and he showed up! We taught him the Restoration in Sunday School and when we were talking about prophets he asked "So who's the prophet now?" He seems pretty open and ready to act, it's just a question of meeting with him... But it was nice to have an investigator in church still. We were worried that now that Olivia's baptized, we'll never have investigators in sacrament meeting again!</div>
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<br />We also taught a woman named Lyudmylo this week. She's from Ukraine and she lives out in Nyköping, which is quite a ways outside of Norrköping. She was actually a member referral from a member who lives out on Gotland. They've never actually met in person, but they play those online word games together and started talking about families and then about the church. There are missionary opportunities in the most random places! They're everywhere!</div>
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<br />We haven't met with Mona again yet. She's supposed to be in the hospital until tomorrow. But she told us to make sure and give her a call tomorrow because she still wants to keep meeting! So we're excited and hoping she feels better soon. </div>
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<br />Pontus is supposed to be back from Poland but we haven't heard anything from him yet. He wasn't in church yesterday but I can imagine he wanted to take a little rest after his trip. He's not from Poland, he's Swedish, but he likes Poland. He's been there once before and said it was a really good experience, so he wanted to go back. He's a daredevil in his own way because he wanted to travel by himself to Poland for a week basically just to see how well he could handle everything. We're really hoping everything went okay, and we're glad he's got the gift of the Holy Ghost now to help him on his way. I'm sure we'll see him again soon.</div>
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<br />We haven't seen Mayda again since we last taught her a week ago Sunday. We were supposed to meet her tonight but she texted us this morning and rescheduled to tomorrow. I think it will go well, though. I studied really hard this morning to be able to address her question about how Joseph Smith could see God. Good thing the Bible has so many other examples of people seeing God. I finally understand now why Acts 7:55-56 is scripture mastery. I'm starting to understand about all the Scripture Mastery scriptures now. They are SO helpful in missionary work!</div>
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<br />The sun will go down at 7:35 tonight. It's weird that it gets dark now. We came out of a lesson last night around 8:45 and I was like "Oh no, we must be so late!" But we got in the door right at 9:00. The dark just makes it seem later than it is. I've also forgotten how different it is contacting people in the dark. You feel much more creepy...but also I think people listen more often after dark. Don't ask me why-maybe they don't see our name tags. Or they can tell this really is something important and worth stopping for. We had quite a few positive contacts last night on our way home. It does get a little chilly when the sun goes down though, but everyone's telling us it's uncharacteristically warm for September. Also it's apple season, so those delicious Swedish apples are everywhere again! (I'm actually eating one right now!)</div>
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<br />On Thursday we have a special zone conference where Elder Bednar will be speaking. We're all a little scared he's going to cry repentance...but I'm sure it will be really good!</div>
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<br />Syster Austin and I are wiped out after the baptism, so we're taking it easy this P-Day. I have to get a new pencil, and we need to get reflectors since it gets dark now, but that's about the only thing on our agenda for the day.</div>
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<br />Thanks for all the updates. Have a wonderful week everyone! Jag älskar er!</div>
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Love, Delaney</div>
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Delaney, Olivia, Syster Austin</div>
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Olivia's baptism</div>
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Delaney golfed only 8 over par which was 2nd place.</div>
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She says she's apparently a better golfer than bowler :)</div>
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Fun mini golfing on p-day with the district.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-82803049211105010192014-09-02T09:05:00.001-06:002014-09-02T09:05:31.473-06:00September 1, 2014Käre familj,<br />
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<br />Hello! Happy Labor Day! Sounds like you're having a fun Labor Day weekend at the cabin! Is it really that cold? I'm glad you love me enough to sit in the cold four wheeler on top of the mountain just to send me an email. :) And I can't believe you took down the tree in the porch! Is anything going to be the same when I get back?</div>
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<br />So, the good news is, WE GOT THE SIGNATURE! In other words, the baptism is a GO! Olivia is so excited for it, and the ward is pretty excited as well. Especially the Young Women. They've been great at fellowshipping Olivia and being her friends. They're going to sing a musical number at the baptism.</div>
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<br />Even though P-Day last week was on Tuesday so it's been a kind of shorter week, it's still felt long. Syster Austin and I are exhausted. She sure is a hard worker! I'm glad, because it makes life more fun when you're working hard. And we've been busy with stuff to do all week! So busy that sometimes we look at our planners and there's so many lessons scheduled we hardly even have time to eat. (Don't worry, we still eat.) It would be nice if some of these people we had all these appointments with were investigators, but the members need strength too.</div>
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<br />Tuesday evening we had our YSA activity where we made and ate a Syrian dish called "idge". I'm sure that's not how it's spelled but that's what it sounds like. It's the Arabic letter "j". It was really yummy food but I'm not sure how to describe it because we don't have Couscous in America...at least that I was aware of. It's like a cross between rice and pasta. The closest I can think of to compare it to is those little frog-eye noodles. It was that with tomato sauce and onion, cilantro, and lemon. Judy taught us how to make it. Jasmine and Pontus also came. While we were at the church we also helped Pontus check in to his flight online. He went to Poland for the week. One of the most important items on his agenda was to go to church on Sunday! I hope it worked out and he made it!</div>
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<br />I had written in my planner on Wednesday "Today we will get permission from Olivia's mom for her to be baptized or so help me..." Good thing I didn't finish it because we actually didn't on Wednesday. Her mom called us and said she'd had to work and she was tired. I was starting to panic because we couldn't keep postponing it, but she said we could come on Thursday instead. We were on our way to the train station to see Pontus off for his trip. The longer I'm on a mission, the more I'm thankful to have a family so that when I go on a trip it's not just the missionaries from the ward there to see me off. He got safely onto his train and was on his way. Then we had some extra time since we weren't going to Olivia's anymore, and we decided it was time to find Mona. Remember Mona? She was a really positive investigator that Syster Austin and I taught her first week here. She was excited to come to church and everything, but she suddenly just disappeared and stopped answering the phone. So we took matters into our own hands. We knew she lived somewhere in Ljura close to Olivia, so we started tracting until we found her! She was happy to see us, if not a little surprised, but it turns out she's still interested in meeting! She'd just gotten really sick and she'd been in the hospital. We set up a meeting with her for tonight but she called yesterday and said she was going to the hospital again and she'll be there for the next week. But she also said "I'll call as soon as I'm out of the hospital because I really want to continue studying with you!" Before we even asked her about it. I still feel really good about her. On Wednesday night we had dinner with the Erikssons. Sister Eriksson is the Relief Society president. They have five boys and she's pregnant with twins. We had a fun lesson where we divided into two teams and each team got an object that they had to relate to the gospel. The boys had fun, even though they first wanted to relate the apple to the shape of some of the people in church... Boys will be boys.</div>
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<br />Thursday was one of those busy pack-a-lunch kind of days, and we got a lot done. The most important part was meeting with Olivia's mom. Finally. She wanted to go over all the commandments that Olivia was committing to follow, so we explained everything to her. At first we were afraid she'd have a problem with the word of wisdom, but she thought it was fine as long as Olivia was ready to follow it. Olivia, Syster Austin and I were all ready to shout when her mom finally signed the form and it was a done deal.</div>
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<br />Friday we met with Lisabeth, and she invited her non-member daughter and grandson along. It was really fun to meet them. Her daughter lives in Spain so they were excited to hear that I knew a little Spanish. Lisabeth was an awesome member missionary. We'd been just talking and getting to know them when she just goes "Look what I learned from the Book of Mormon this week!" and pulls out her Book of Mormon to show them. Eva, her daughter, knows all about the church. The grandson, Kristoffer, had only read one chapter of the Book of Mormon before. He said he read a chapter about llamas. We were all really confused until we figured out he'd read the story about Ammon defending the kings flocks. I guess he thought they were llamas. We started telling the story from the beginning, with Lehi and Nephi in Jerusalem, and he seemed pretty interested, especially when I said "And that's all just in the first four chapters!" They all came to church yesterday and Kristoffer got a Libro De Mormon there.</div>
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<br />Our other VIPs in church were Olivia and Maria Kojo. She hasn't been in church recently because she's been really sick, but she's feeling a little better now. After church we had dinner with the Ståhlbergs, who just got back from a 3 week vacation in the states. They loved the whole thing but they said Zions was too hot so they didn't do any hiking there. We'd had dinner there the week before their vacation as well and I told them they had to go to Cabellas. They loved it. It was so fun to hear about everywhere they went and what they thought was weird about America. They said they went cereal shopping and everyone got to pick their own cereal, and they went to Ross in every city they came to. They even saw all three members of the First Presidency during their stay in Salt Lake!</div>
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<br />After dinner, we went to visit a woman named Mayda. She was a <a href="http://mormon.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0072c6;">mormon.org</span></a> referral, and she's learned a little about the church online and asked for a missionary visit to learn more. She's a really sweet girl from Syria. It was a little hard to teach her because she really knows her Bible, but she seems really sincere and said she'll start reading the Book of Mormon. So we FINALLY got a new investigator!</div>
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<br />We also got a referral this week from a member on Gotland (the big island off the East coast of Sweden) for a lady who lives in Nyköping. It's quite a ways out there so we couldn't make it there this week, but we have an appointment to meet her tomorrow. She sounds pretty positive as well.</div>
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<br />Cody's schedule sounds hard. But stats is always fun. I'm glad Peyton has Miss Caughey for health! She is really nice. (She's the one in parent teacher conference who said that I "radiate goodness" or something. I'm sure she'll say the same about Peyton!) And San Francisco for orchestra tour sounds awesome as well!</div>
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<br />Keep saving up for Sweden! Just to put in perspective how expensive things are here: a dollar menu McDouble costs about three dollars here, and instead of a five dollar footlong at Subway you can get a five dollar six-inch. So, yeah...save save save!</div>
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<br />Thanks for all the updates! Have a wonderful week! Jag älskar er!</div>
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Love, Delaney</div>
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YSA activity - eating idge</div>
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A door we saw while we were finding Mona. It says "Best Doorbell. If your errand includes God, fire extinguishers, coconut balls, or TVs, I propose that we save everybody's time by you skipping this door."</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-52848349542552094032014-08-27T10:38:00.004-06:002014-08-27T10:38:49.086-06:00August 26, 2014<div dir="ltr">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Käre Familj,</span><div>
<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hi! Sorry for the late email. We found out on Saturday that P-Day would have to be postponed because we were going to have interviews in Södertälje yesterday. So we had to switch P-Day to today. I hope it didn't cause too much disappointment or worrying! And I'm glad it meant that I could see first day of school pictures! How did the first day of school go? Do Cody and Peyton like their classes and their teachers so far? Any friends in your classes? Teachers I know? Is Peyton doing Orchestra?</span></div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This week has been pretty good I guess. I don't remember it seems like it was a month ago. Having P-Day a day late has really thrown me off. Last Monday we had a pretty laid-back P-Day. We got tacos. They were some good tacos. Then we visited a second hand store and I found a jacket for autumn. You get tired of your jacket really fast here, so you always need a new one. I haven't had to wear it yet, partly because I'm being stubborn and waiting until it's officially Septembrrrrr to put a jacket on. But summer is definitely over here. It's been rainy and a little chilly. Then on Monday night we visited the Dolmayas. They're doing well but it's sad to hear their stories about fleeing Syria. I'm really glad we get to spend time with them though because they have such strong testimonies and so much wisdom about the world!</span></div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tuesday not much happened so I'm going to skip to Wednesday. Wednesday was a crazy but awesome day because we went up to Västerhaninge for Mission Tour! We had four different connecting trains to get there (Norrköping to Katrineholm, to Flemingsberg, to Alvsjö, to Västerhaninge) and the first one was delayed, which caused us to miss our second one and have to wait. Eventually we got to Västerhaninge at 9:55, five minutes before it started. We felt a little sheepish walking into the chapel where everyone was sitting and waiting reverently, but it wasn't our fault! The conference was good. President and Syster Beckstrand spoke, and then Elder and Sister Teixeira did some training. They had a lot of good ideas and things to try. We all came out feeling like we need to repent a lot. I thought I was a pretty obedient missionary...nah, just kidding, I still feel like I'm a pretty obedient missionary. Just one who can be even better.</span></div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After the mission tour I left Syster Austin with Syster Klingler and I took off with Syster Hauglid for exchanges in Stockholm Innerstan. (Inner city). I forgot how fast everyone walks in Stockholm! First we met with this guy named Jeffrey from Ghana that the sisters contacted a few months ago. We started talking to him and it turned out he met missionaries before in Jönköping. He said "Yeah, I used to go to the church there all the time. In fact I was even baptized there. But then I lost contact and haven't been able to contact them for a long time." Turns out he's already a member! He thought he wasn't because he hadn't been to church for a long time, but he was happy to find out that he still is! It's always cool when that works out and we find lost sheep. After Jeffrey we taught a couple of guys from...Africa. I forgot where they were from. They were really cool too. They were asking about baptism and what they have to do to be baptized, but then the library closed and we got kicked out! They'll meet again so hopefully that all goes well. Then we went to institute night at the YSA center, and I got to talk to a few of the YSAs from Västerhaninge. That was a cool little surprise. On Thursday we all met up in Södertälje to swap companions again and it was back to good ol' Norrköping. After we finally got back and had some food, we went and taught Prossy. She's doing really well, she's just pretty busy with school and everything.</span></div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Friday was a really good day. We taught Cecilia and had somewhat of a breakthrough lesson where she finally opened up. Then we got ice cream to celebrate my one-year-in-Sweden and Syster Austin's one-month-in-Sweden. It was really yummy ice cream of course, because this is Sweden! Then we went and visited Seija whose tiny little dog tried to eat our toes again. After that we went up to Åby (which I realized translates to Riverton! Å is a river and a by is a town!) where we met Pontus and he taught us. He borrowed a PMG from the church last week and he's devouring it! After the lesson we all went up to the Jonsson family for dinner. They're a really awesome family.</span></div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Saturday turned out pretty good too. We hadn't seen Lisabeth for a while so we stopped by and she let us in and as we were taking off our shoes she just said "I've missed you guys!" and gave us a big hug. Then she made us hot chocolate because we were all wet from the rain. The first time Syster Austin met Lisabeth she gave us ice cream because it was so hot outside. We've progressed to hot chocolate now which means it's really official-summer is over. Then we got to teach Olivia. I cannot tell you enough times how AMAZING Olivia is. We didn't even see her mom this time, but WE WILL MEET HER TOMORROW. We're starting to get a little nervous because the baptism is now less than two weeks away, but it WILL happen!</span></div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On Sunday Syster Austin gave a really great talk in Sacrament Meeting about the Atonement. I still haven't actually spoken in church my whole mission...knock on wood! We also used the ward's new translation system for the first time, so I translated into English in the microphone and Olivia and Prossy listened to the headphones. It worked great! And it was so much less annoying than trying to whisper it into their ears! Our VIPs were Olivia, Prossy (who Olivia actually picked up to come to church with her), and Pontus. I was really sad that the Dolmayas didn't come to enjoy the English translation. I feel like I did a pretty good job of translating. Way better than when I would try to translate into Spanish in Borås! After church we went by Awet, because she said she would come and didn't. We ended up crashing her party and getting fed some really good Eritrean food</span>.</div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yesterday we went to Södertälje (third time in three weeks) for our interviews with President. <span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">We found out on Saturday that we were going to have interviews in Södertälje yesterday and thus we'd have to reschedule P-Day. It was pretty annoying because it ended up taking us out of proselyting for longer than P-Day would have only we weren't able to do anything that we need to get done on P-Day. We left at 9:00 to get to Södertälje for our 11:30 interviews, which ended up happening at 12:15 because they were running late because the zone leaders in Södertälje forgot to leave the key to the chapel so the assistants had to go through Västerhaninge where the zone leaders were cleaning the temple to get the key to the chapel. This caused us to miss our 13:16 train home. The next train wasn't until 14:39 but that was a more expensive train and wouldn't accept our tickets for the earlier train, so we had to wait until the 15:10 train back to Norrköping. We waited at the Södertälje train station until 16:25 when the train actually came, and got home right at 18:00. We still had time to go by Oxana and set up an appointment for Wednesday, and then we went to the Dolmayas again.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm really excited to see Cody's wisdom teeth video. I'd also like to see some of those selfies.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What songs is Peyton choreographing to for clogging? How many classes is she doing?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, I hope you guys have a great week! Have fun with school and everything! Jag älskar er!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Love, Delaney</span></div>
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Big surprise, but it's a picture of us with our ice cream! Happy one year/one month in Sweden to us! Syster Austin got a Dumle shake and I got saffron, coconut, and marzipan with whipped cream on mine. Mums!<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-13745150574290488852014-08-18T12:23:00.000-06:002014-08-18T12:23:10.555-06:00August 18, 2014Käre Familj,<br />
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<br />Wow, it sounds like you've had a super fun week. So much fun it hurts, maybe? :( I know how you feel about being old. Just last night I was laying there in bed when I suddenly realized my back hurt all over. I pondered for a while trying to figure out if that was normal and I just hadn't noticed, or what. Just a long day of carrying around a backpack and knocking doors. :) At least it was a backpack and not a sidebag! I hate to ask the obvious question, but if the water was so nice, how did mom have such a fantastic crash? Good job honking the train from the wakeboard too. I bet that was entertaining. It also sounds like you had fun at the sommarstuga. (That's what Swedes call their summer hideaways. It sounds more ritzy than a cabin. But I think they just all have cabins in the country.) </div>
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<br />You definitely need to take a video of Cody after his wisdom teeth come out so I can watch it later. I think people have the most wisdom then because it's still flowing out of the holes where the teeth were keeping it in. Maybe he'll think he's a crab. Or maybe he'll speak in tongues! I vote Swedish. Make sure you have a lot of potato pearls ready! </div>
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<br />Thanks for telling me all about your week. I guess it was good enough that I can tell you a little about my week too. After emailing last week we took a train out to Linköping where we got Subway and went to Gamla Linköping. It was kind of like Pioneer Village. They'd brought in old original buildings from around Linköping and turned them into museums, and there were actors who talked about the stuff and everything. It was pretty cool. We also got really good ice cream there. (Our P-Day plans seem to revolve around where we can find the best ice cream. We're trying to convince the elders to go to Söderköping for the ice cream there. It's pretty good.) Then we came back and visited Awet, who, it turns out, had tried to come to church the week before that. But she was late and we were all in class and somebody told her we weren't there. I think there must have been some misunderstanding or something, but I felt really bad. She said she'd come to church this week but she texted yesterday and said her kids were sick. Then after that we went and visited Cecilia.</div>
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<br />Tuesday we started tracting a place called Smedby. It's all these little houses right by each other, and it's got actual Swedes living there. I like tracting there better because they know Swedish and I'm not good enough at Arabic yet to tract in other places. Also, since it's houses, it's not nearly as hot and sweaty as tracting apartment buildings. But since they're so close together, it's still really effective! After our little tracting stund we had church time. Family History was fun. Then we visited Oxana, a less active member from Moldova. We've been trying to meet her since I came to Norrköping but she's been busy, but we finally made an appointment with her and got to know her. She's really awesome and sweet. We made pasta salad for dinner, which we do at least once a week, usually on Tuesday because that's when we have the most vegetables to put in it. Then we had our YSA night where we planned the activities for the rest of the year, basically. Everyone had some good ideas. Kubb (that game with the wooden cubes that you try to knock over), culture nights (Syria for Judy, Uganda for Prossy and Alex, and America for the missionaries!), and other fun stuff that I can't remember off the top of my head.</div>
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<br />On Wednesday morning we went up to Södertälje for zone training. When we have things like that kind of far away, we have to order train tickets over the phone. I was designated to order the tickets for the whole district this time (Norrköping and Linköping) since the Linköping elders have a tendency of missing zone training on account of forgetting to get train tickets. So I ordered our tickets there and back on Monday and they were ready to go on Wednesday. Our train there was delayed so we were a little late, but the zone training was really good. We got a pep talk from Michael Jordan in Space Jam. Since we were late starting, we were a little late ending. Which meant that we were cutting it close to catch our train home. We booked it out of there as soon as the training was over to catch a bus back to the big train station in Södertälje where we'd take our train from. We would have caught the bus except the bus stop was not well marked, so we were waiting at the wrong place and watched the bus drive by. I checked the phone again which confirmed my fear, that there was no way we were catching our train. But I remembered at some point seeing a possible bus that might come through a different bus stop that we might be able to catch instead. So we herded the elders to the bus stop over there, only to find out we'd missed the bus by four minutes. I was starting to get really anxious when I looked up and noticed we were at a train station. Not the one we needed to be at, but there were trains going to the main station that would get us there faster than the bus. We went over to check it out and found that none of the trains going that direction would get us there in time. Södertälje is close enough to Stockholm that it was the same train system I used to use all the time in Västerhaninge, so I kind of knew what I was dealing with here. I noticed that there was a train going to Marsta (North) that would take us through Flemingsberg where our original train from Södertälje would have taken us and we'd switch trains to another one going back to Norrköping. That probably makes no sense. But anyway, it turned out we could take the train from there and get to Flemingsberg just in time to catch our train home, so we did. When we were on the train platform in Flemingsberg and found out that it really was going to work, I was just in shock that after all that, we were going to make it. Of course it was the Holy Ghost helping us find our way the whole time, because that's what the Holy Ghost does, isn't it? Helps us make it home. I used that story a lot during the rest of the week whenever we talked about the Holy Ghost. Then that night we decided to stop by Prossy and she'd just gotten home, then we decided to drop by the Dolmayas (Judy, Chris, and Nabil) and it turned out they'd just gotten home as well. Good thing we did the right order! They were all happy to see us of course.</div>
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Thursday the spårvagns were all powerless so we WALKED a LOT, because we had an appointment with Kirsi on the very south end of our area, and then with Jasmine on the north end. I'm thankful for spårvagns! Thursday night we were going to meet Pontus at the church, but as we were catching the spårvagn (they got up and running by the evening) to go to the church, Pontus was getting off of it, so we found out that he was running behind and still needed to go grocery shopping. We helped him find his things and carried his bags and still got to teach him. He said while he was on the spårvagn he was hoping we'd be at the stop so he could tell us he didn't have time to meet us at the church.</div>
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<br />On Friday I ate an empanada from a guy from Chile. We walked through the market they were having for our lunch hour. We also got delicious gourmet chocolate balls to try. Then we taught Lena, a less active member who's never home and won't make appointments. She was actually home. That was a miracle.</div>
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<br />The best part of Saturday was having a pizza night with Olivia. She starts school today so we wanted to do something fun with her to end the summer. We were supposed to talk to her mom but she was tired and sick and didn't want to then. So we'll talk to her about the baptism next week. After her mom left the room Olivia said "I WILL be baptized in September." So keep praying for her mom to have an open heart, please!</div>
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<br />Yesterday we had ward conference, so there were a bunch of stake people there. I got to see a few people from Västerhaninge, since I'm back in the Stockholm South stake again! It was a really good conference. Olivia came, and Lisabeth who is now considered active. All of our new converts were out of town. :( Then after church we had ward dinner, and it was pasta salad, so Syster Austin and I were in heaven! They gave us leftovers so we don't have to make it tomorrow.</div>
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<br />This week we have mission tour in Västerhaninge so Elder Texeira will be there. It should be really good. Then I'm going on exchanges with Syster Haugglid in Stockholm, while Syster Klingler comes to Norrköping! That will be fun too!</div>
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<br />Have a wonderful last week of summer! Jag älskar er!</div>
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Love, Delaney</div>
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Delaney's District eating ice cream.</div>
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Delaney's ice cream was lemon sorbet and pina colada and salt almond</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-14483272265118721882014-08-13T15:31:00.000-06:002014-08-13T15:31:08.738-06:00August 11, 2014<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Subject line of email: I'll be home for Christmas</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If only over Skype.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Käre familj,</span></div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you're wondering about the kind of depressing subject line this week, it's actually not depressing at all. I got my release date this week. I basically will be home for Christmas because it will still be the Christmas season. Maybe you already found out from the mission office or Facebook or something, but my release date is December 30th! I think school starts the next week, so you might not see me much. I guess it's getting to that time where we have to start figuring all that out. It's been so weird all week knowing when I'm going home, but don't worry, I'm focusing on the work.</span></div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The week has been really good. We've had a lot of people cancel or not even show up, but that's missionary work. At least the good parts have been really good. Our Family History hour on Tuesday was super great because I was finding Launa's family and there were actually things to find! It was super cool. It was one of the best Family History hours of my mission and I can't wait to do more tomorrow!</span></div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pontus wanted to get more involved so we asked him to help us teach the YSA institute night on Tuesday night. He shared a personal experience about conversion and then we read Paul's conversion story in Acts 9. It's just been Pontus and Judy for the last month or so, but I think the other YSAs will start coming again after summer. They're just all on vacation right now.</span></div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On Wednesday we went down to scenic Söderköping where Syster Austin had her first run-in with less-friendly evangelists from...well, they never actually told us which group they were representing. They saw us at the Söderköping bus station, <span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">came over to us, and said "Do you know who Jesus is?" and as soon as they saw our Mormons Bok they said "Oh, Mormons!" and immediately started rattling off Bible verses to bash. We weren't bashing back of course, partly because we couldn't get a word in edgewise. They kept asserting that they just wanted to hear our opinions about it, but then they wouldn't let us speak. FINALLY our bus came so as we were running to catch our bus they shouted after us "I strongly encourage you to read the Bible!" That was quite the flustering experience and we got some laughs on the bus ride back to Norrköping about how ridiculous they were and how we couldn't even figure out what point they were trying to prove.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next day, Thursday, we ducked into the mall next to our house on our way home to get a candy bar for Cecilia who we were going to "Heart attack" later that evening. (We've had a hard time getting in contact with her and chocolate always softens people up!) All of a sudden we see the same two guys, and they come straight for us and ask, again, if we know who Jesus is. We didn't want to stop and talk but they said "Don't worry, we're not here to argue today." So they realize that the day before that's exactly what they were trying to do. I think we must not have been very good at hiding our distress at seeing them again, and the one guy said "We're not trying to hunt you down or anything." Then his friend piped in, "But we could." There was an awkward silence as we tried to figure out how on earth you respond to that, so the first guy broke it by asking us "Do you have any pain in your body?" I don't know about you but I thought it was a bit of a non sequitur. Turns out they were in the mall praying for people who had pain. Any thought we had of "Maybe they're just nice guys who are prepared for the truth as soon as we share it with them" fled and we just wanted to get out of there. Later we decided we should have said "Only a pain in the neck!" But we're too polite for that of course. Anyway, so then their third friend showed up and introduced himself to us. He's friends with the Stake President of the Stockholm Stake and asked if we knew him. They were all appalled that we hadn't met the PRESIDENT. We explained that we're in the Stockholm South Stake. Anyway, then the newcomer asked what parish we were with so we said the Church of Jesus Christ but he said "No, I mean...what mission?" I think he was trying to ask what ward. Before we could respond the other one said "No, they're not missionaries, they're just...Wait, why are you in Sweden?" (We'd said the day before that we were from America.) So we told him we were missionaries and he was shocked. "Wait, you don't have to have the priesthood to be a missionary?" Instead of going all Dallin H. Oaks on him and explaining Priesthood keys and authority, we just said no. He was speechless. I was satisfied to have thwarted him. And we took the opportunity to take our leave. Later that evening on our way to drop by the less active, we saw them AGAIN waiting for the spårvagn. Luckily they didn't see us this time and there was no incident. All in all it was pretty hilarious and a huge testimony builder for me because of how quickly the Spirit left as soon as they opened their mouths. We haven't seen them since, thank goodness.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On Wednesday night Olivia came over to Prossy's house and we taught her there, along with Prossy and Prossy's friend Justine. Justine has met a lot of missionaries at Prossy's house, but this time we gave her a Book of Mormon and invited her to start reading it. She was really excited about it. She lives in Motalla, which is a ways away from Linköping (Linköping's area) but the elders go there sometimes and she said she would like to meet with them and learn more. So that was cool. We watched President Monson's conference talk (Love, the Essence of the Gospel) with them and they all loved it. Olivia literally jumps for joy whenever you so much as say the word baptism and she studies about it like every day. She could probably quote that chapter in the Gospel Principles book from memory. We taught her again on Saturday and we were supposed to talk to her mom about getting permission for Olivia to be baptized in September, but her mom was sleeping. We're going to talk to her on Wednesday instead. On Saturday when we taught Olivia we had her write for herself a list of the reasons why she wants to be baptized. I think it will help her if her mom asks her about it. It's just weird because her mom doesn't have any problem with the baptism itself, in fact she wants Olivia to be baptized. She just wants her to wait. Whatever happens, I know it will be God's will and God's timing. But we'll do our best to help her understand on Wednesday.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Olivia was our only VIP in church yesterday. Pontus couldn't come, which is too bad because the whole meeting was all about the Priesthood. I think both times he's missed church, they've talked about the Priesthood in Sacrament Meeting. Maria and Lisabeth were both feeling sick. Johnson is MIA. After church we had yummy dinner with the Klungseths (Lisabeth's son and his family). </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sounds like it's been another great week for you guys as well. I'm especially jealous that you all got to go to Wicked. Not fair. The garden sounds really yummy all around. I think I'd like summer squash now. Also, tell Harrison congratulations on getting his mission call! That's super exciting! Do you know if Savannah or Cassidy or anyone else is thinking of going on a mission?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I hope you are currently having fun at the cabin! Send pictures and let me know how it was! Is this Taryn's first time at the cabin? I hope she doesn't get locked in the outhouse...that's not a fun experience.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, have another wonderful week! I really appreciate your emails and letters too, probably even more than you appreciate mine, if you can believe it. End this summer with a bang!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jag älskar er!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Love, Delaney</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">PS-My other ideas for subject lines this week were "America in 2014?!?!" and "The hunter becomes the hunted."</span></span></div>
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Eating ice cream in Soderkoping</div>
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Line to get into the ice cream restaurant. Luckily you can get </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-49569603844743220032014-08-04T14:38:00.001-06:002014-08-04T14:38:34.474-06:00August 4, 2014Käre Familj,<br />
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<br />I always get so excited getting your emails! Especially with a subject line like that. I say 100% yes to Sweden in 2015. But you probably knew that. June would be the perfect time to be here because it will be warm and light. Even if that means we might have to give up a lake powell trip... And you can count all the money saved by not buying me a meal when you eat out and put that toward the trip too. We do have to eat out a few times before then because I need to go to Cafe Rio and La Casita. And Five Guys.</div>
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<br />Syster Austin is from the Ammon 18 ward in IF. She said she doesn't think she knows Kurt. I just almost typed Syster Awesome because she is awesome! We're having a blast together!</div>
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<br />Dad, I knew you would be excited for my new salmon tastes. Doesn't Matt like salmon as well? We can definitely put one on the grill next time we BBQ.</div>
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<br />I would definitely LOVE to help Nicole (and anyone else) find Swedish lines in family history! It's easier to find Swedish people in Sweden because we have access to the church books, which has basically everybody recorded. So yeah, just let me know who to look for and where and I'm on it! It's all the same redemptive work, regardless of which side of the veil it's on!</div>
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<br />The work's been a bit slower here this week, but it's going. We've had a lot of people cancel on us, or worse just not show up without saying anything, but that's to be expected. Monday for P-Day we went to Linköping where we visited domkyrkan, the second largest church in Sweden. There were a lot of cool murals and stuff. We also had some kebab pizza so Syster Austin could try her first kebab. She liked it. And it's not even that good of kebab this far north. Kebab gets better the further south you go. So it's best in Malmö. Then we played frisbee. Team America was beating Team Europe when Syster Austin and I had to leave to catch our train back. We went by Prossy so she could meet Syster Austin before going to a week-long camp. Prossy is the best! She told us that Olivia had been there helping her with her laundry. Olivia is also the best. Then after that we had dinner with the Åström family, who are super awesome. We're working with their daughter, Jasmine, who's recently started coming back into activity.</div>
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<br />Tuesday was pretty good. We spent a good deal of our church time calling people and trying to get things set up. We got a lot set up, but not a lot of it actually happened. We met with Pontus at the church before the YSA activity. He was pretty upset about things and worried about whether he was ready to receive the Priesthood. The elders were there and they gave him a blessing. Then we had our activity where Judy shared a story about repentance. It went pretty well.</div>
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<br />On Wednesday we met with a previous investigator named Svevim. She's from Turkey and she already has a testimony of the Book of Mormon, even though she prefers the Bible. The sisters decided she needed a break shortly before I got here, so I'd never heard of her. But since our phone was lost and replaced, some things weren't updated so she was listed in there as an investigator. So we'll see if some new faces will be what she needs to start progressing. Then that afternoon we taught Judy and Chris at the church. We went through the Plan of Salvation-literally. We started in the nursery where we talked about pre-mortal life, then we walked through other rooms for all the other parts of the plan, ending in the chapel for the Celestial Kingdom. Judy is super solid and she was explaining to Chris all about the need for Joseph Smith and the restoration of the Priesthood. When Chris asked about infant baptism, Judy said "We can read about it in Moroni 8, right?" She's the bomb. Then we got to teach Olivia that evening, making it a great day! Olivia is so ready for baptism, we just have to get her mom on board. Her mom wants her to be baptized, but she wants Olivia to wait until the rest of her siblings can come here from Uganda. Please pray for Olivia and for her mom! Because Olivia really wants to be baptized, and because of immigration we really have no idea when her siblings can come here.</div>
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<br />Speaking of immigration, I got the information for renewing my visa this week. I can't believe I've been in Sweden almost a year now! That's crazy.</div>
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<br />Thursday we went by Anne-Sofi since she hadn't been in church. She was so cute and happy to see us. I asked if she could help me find Edmund Samuel Anderson and she's super excited to be able to help me! Yesterday she let me know she'd been through all the church books in A and B (whatever that means) but hadn't found him yet. Twenty-seven letters to go! Thursday night we taught Pontus and he was feeling much better. (That's how the week usually seems to go I've noticed.) He'd found the parable in 1 Corinthians 12 where it talks about us all being part of the same body and that we need all the parts. It was exactly what he needed. Thank goodness.</div>
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<br />Friday we taught Awet again where she said that she will not leave the Orthodox church. At least I think that's what she meant. She doesn't have the best Swedish. She didn't show up at church yesterday so we're thinking we'll give her a break for a bit. Then we taught Kirsi, who you would never know was less active because she has the best insights and thinks about the gospel all the time. She took us to lunch right after. She's a super sweet lady.</div>
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<br />Saturday was pretty hard because we had four different lessons scheduled during our three hour church block and not a single one of them showed up. Judy came to help translate with an Arabic speaker so at least we got to teach Judy. So that was a hard point. Especially because it's so hot in the church (Sweden doesn't believe in air conditioning because they usually don't need it.) and since it was so hot, the alarm was going off. So we were there for three hours just listening to it beep and there was nothing to be done about it. At least we got to teach Olivia on Saturday night. It was all worth it for that. I just can't tell you enough how amazing Olivia is.</div>
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<br />She's so amazing that she was in church yesterday, even though her parents wanted to go to the lake. She told them she had to go to church, so they didn't leave until after church. I was so proud of her. And she was fasting about her baptism. She told us "I've been fasting and I don't feel anything." At first this was worrisome until we realized that she meant she didn't feel hunger. We asked and double checked that she was feeling the Spirit and she was. Sunday school was held in Swenglish because it was the missionaries, Olivia, Pontus, and Kirsi. It was a little annoying but manageable. Pontus and Kirsi were perfect to be sitting next to each other because Kirsi could look up the scriptures for Pontus, and therefore feel like she was needed there. Kirsi also had a lot of awesome insights to share in Relief Society.</div>
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<br />One of the best parts of the week was right after church when Pontus received the Priesthood and was ordained to a Priest! He was beaming and he's so excited to contribute even more to the growth of the ward.</div>
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<br />We also had Anne-Sofi (recently reactivated) and Maria Kojo (still a little less-active) there yesterday. Johnson is in Stockholm and we haven't heard from him. He doesn't really have a permanent address I think. The missionaries in Stockholm haven't been able to get ahold of him either. So we'll see how his baptismal plans come along. More than likely it will be postponed, but you never know.</div>
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<br />We had dinner with the Vuorinen family after church, and it was the best. They are the cutest little family with four little kids, all with a ton of energy. And they love to play with the missionaries. The younger girl, Nelly, (I think she's like...four or five) was being a monster and trying to eat me. There was nothing I could to do dissuade her. "I taste like dirt!" "I like dirt!" "Don't eat me, I taste bad! Eat Äldste Stoeltzing, he tastes like candy!" "I like bad!" Then she told me I was eaten so I was dead for a while until she came back to eat me again. You know how fast Sunday is.</div>
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<br />Yeah, so it's been a good week. We contacted A LOT of people. Broke my previous contacting record with 145 contacts, an average of over 20 per day. We were determined to meet at least one of our goals! We talked to many unfriendly, rude, and generally unpleasant people, but also a few nice ones and gave away some Book of Mormons and got some new potential investigators. So that was good.</div>
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Also, if you get a chance will you say thank-you to Diane & family, Lori, Grandma Wilson, and Butch & Karen for their recent letters! I wish I had time to write back to all of them!</div>
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Thanks for the updates on how your week has been! I love hearing about biking, book-cliffsing, dancing, gardening, serving, and especially missionary-ing! (To missionary is actually a verb in Swedish. It's one of my favorites.) Keep up the great work! Jag älskar er!</div>
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Love, Delaney</div>
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I forgot to say, you might have noticed my watch tan-line in that picture, and thus my lack of a watch. I woke up on Sunday morning and it was 6:15 so I was happy to get another 15 minutes of sleep. Then I woke up again and it was still 6:15 so I figured I'd read it wrong the first time and went back to sleep. When it was still 6:15 the next time I woke up I figured something was up and finally checked the phone. So...we might have slept in on Sunday. But I always count it as a tender mercy from the Lord when it wasn't our fault. My watch battery died. But since I've worn that watch every day for the last year, it's really dirty so I decided to just get a new watch. So don't worry, I got a new one today. It was killing me all day yesterday to not know what time it was!</div>
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At the Interactive Science Park - dressed as scientists</div>
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Judy wrote their names in Arabic</div>
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Sis. Austin's first kabob pizza</div>
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Finding out her greenie will be Sis. Austin </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-82332122047534507182014-07-28T12:31:00.001-06:002014-07-28T12:31:10.584-06:00July 28, 2014Käre Familj,<br />
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<br />HALLÅ!</div>
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<br />(Mom, when Dad calls you to read my email to him in the morning, I want you to yell that in all caps! Well you don't have to yell it, but say it in an all-caps kind of way!)</div>
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<br />Hi everyone! I was so excited to hear about all of your adventures. It sounds like this has been the best summer ever-without me! Not fair. But I'm glad you're still managing to have some fun even without me there. I'm so happy you got to meet the one and only Syster Sjöblom! I know she was really excited to meet you because she's heard all about you. I was hoping she'd email me because I realized that I don't have her post-mission email address. :/ </div>
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<br />The temple, garden, mountain biking, and Wicked all sound really great too. I'm slightly jealous that you get to do all of those things. Well, maybe I'm not too jealous of mountain biking. I'm alright missing that. But now that I eat vegetables and things like that, I'm really excited for the garden next year! Of course, you get pretty good produce here in Sweden too. Speaking of things I eat, would you believe that one of my new favorite meals is baked salmon and I've eaten it at least once a week for the last three weeks?</div>
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<br />Well I'd better cut to the chase and tell you about this week because it has been the BEST! It started off a little hard (there is still nothing more stressful than transfers) but it's picked up and we've had so much success this week!</div>
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<br />The beginning of the week was mostly Syster Miller packing and us getting stuff done and ready for transfers and training. We deep cleaned the apartment, packed, stuff like that. We did go down to Linköping and had Subway with the district. That was about it as far as P-Day activities go. Then we had a member dinner that night and dropped by some people but they weren't home. The member dinner was good though, it was with the Åströms and they are really awesome!</div>
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Tuesday was a lot of running around and the same kinds of things. We had an appointment with Francois and another one with Kirsi but they both cancelled. :( We did get to teach Pontus before the YSA activity, and it was cool because afterward he said it was exactly what he needed. We left Tuesday night with all of Syster Miller's stuff and stayed the night in Södertälje. That way Syster Miller didn't have to bring her stuff all the way up to Stockholm and then back. Don't ask me how we caught all the busses, trams, and trains we needed to get there, even managing to say goodbye to basically everyone. At 7:20 we were still at the church, and our train left from central station at 8:25. But we made it. Only missionaries can do that.</div>
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<br />Wednesday morning we left Södertälje bright and early and made our way to Täby (part of Stockholm where the mission home is and the mission office) to meet our greenies. We waited in the primary room for a while while they were receiving training from the Beckstrands in the chapel. That was a fun time to catch up with Syster Byrd and Syster Eborn, as well as a few of the elders from my group, Äldste Lundquist, Äldste Ward, and Äldste Cushing. Finally we got to go into the chapel. Each new missionary got a letter saying where they were going and who their senior companion would be, so they read them off one by one. The very first one to go read that she was going to Norrköping with Syster Smith!!! Her name is Syster Austin, and here's the cool thing-we already know each other! I think I mentioned this a few months ago, but back in March I got a letter from my next door neighbor down at BYU, Megan Austin. She'd been called to Sweden and wanted some advice. And she said at the end that she hoped I would be her trainer when she got here! I've been thinking that would be the coolest thing ever, so we've both been hoping to be companions in the field, and now we are! She's from Idaho Falls, Idaho, she's super awesome and way better at Swedish than anyone should be after 6 weeks. She works hard and wants to be obedient and she's a great missionary! I could go on forever! We got back to our apartment by about 3:30 Wednesday afternoon and went to work. We whipped out the contacts (Syster Austin is fearless) and we had a lesson with Olivia that night. Perfect first lesson for a new missionary, because Olivia is so sweet and so prepared!</div>
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<br />Thursday we had district meeting in Linköping so Syster Austin got to meet the whole district all at once. It's officially 50% non-American and I am the only Utahn in the whole district. Other than Syster Austin, we have one more new missionary in Norrköping, Äldste Lindquist. He's from Sweden (Handen) and he's got about 3 months left of his mission. So we have one Swede, one Finn, and two Brits, plus one Minnesotan, one Californian, one Idahoan, and me. It's a fun district. We caught our train back to Norrköping after district meeting (we had to run but luckily the train was late-miracles!) then because of the delayed train we missed our spårvagn to go and meet up with Lisabeth. This left us with 15 minutes until the next spårvagn so we walked through the park and talked to this girl on a bench named Linn, and ended up giving her a Book of Mormon and teaching her the whole Restoration. We missed the spårvagn and had to walk to Lisabeth (it was super hot) but it was worth it. Lisabeth was great and then we taught Cecilia who was also doing well, and then we met with Pontus in the church and taught him. Pontus is especially excited that Syster Austin is here because he's really good at English and wants to help her learn Swedish. Pontus will receive the Aaronic Priesthood on Sunday.</div>
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<br />Friday was also awesome. We taught Kirsi, who was super nice to Syster Austin. Then the rest of the day was one of those ones where we couldn't get anything set up so it was all swing by's. As we were walking to another one Syster Austin asked if it was usually more like that or like the day before when we had back to back lessons lined up. We're going to do our best to have the ones with lots of lessons. Even with only swing-by's we still managed to teach two different people on the street and give away a Book of Mormon. It was sure hot though!</div>
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<br />Saturday was a super amazing day. We had a tentative lesson planned with Mikael and Carola, who we taught last Saturday as well, and an even more tentative lesson scheduled with a less-active woman named Seija. (By tentative I mean I called her and she basically said "I'll probably be gone that day. But I guess you can come by and see. I might be home if it's raining." and it wasn't raining.) But I was trying to have faith and just assuming they'd be there and be expecting us. They both were. Mikael had even read the whole introduction to the Book of Mormon. He doesn't believe in God, which is a setback, but they're going to keep reading. Seija talked really fast and really quietly, and she had a tiny rat dog using me as a chew-toy the whole time. But it was cool that she was actually home and we got to meet her anyway. After that we had our church time where we taught Mona, a woman that Syster Miller and I contacted a few weeks ago. She is amazing! She explained to us that she grew up going to the Swedish Church, but when she was about 8 years old her parents left the church so she stopped going, and she's always wondered how her life would have turned out if she were still in the church because that was right when she was starting to understand what they were teaching her. She thought it was cool that we don't do baptism until the age of 8. She's really excited to read the Book of Mormon and basically she's just amazing. She had to work yesterday but she's off work for the first half of August and she committed to come to church then. We invited her to be baptized and she said she has to read the book first, but she's definitely going to consider it. She's so open and willing to act, I think she will get an answer about the Book of Mormon quickly. After Mona, then Johnson showed up right as we were leaving. He's from Tanzania and he's not the best with time, so he was a few hours late, but we still managed to catch him. We taught him about baptism and he accepted a baptismal date for August 23rd. He had a baptismal date before but he kind of disappeared, so hopefully we can hold on to him this time. Then on Saturday night we taught Olivia again. She had prayed about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and felt that they were true. She's the best.</div>
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<br />Yesterday we had Olivia and Johnson and Lisabeth for VIPs. Johnson only caught the closing hymn and prayer in Sacrament Meeting, but he enjoyed Sunday School. The YW lesson was all about baptism and afterward Olivia told me "I'm so excited for my baptism!!" She went to Prossy's house again after church. It was great.</div>
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<br />So yes, Syster Austin and I are doing great! We've consistently given away at least one Book of Mormon every day of our companionship, so hopefully we'll be able to keep that up! There are so many people here who are ready and willing to listen! I hope you all have a wonderful week as well! Jag älskar er!</div>
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Love, Delaney</div>
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Delaney and Syster Austin</div>
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They match!</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-38238762370732139962014-07-21T15:34:00.001-06:002014-07-21T15:34:25.294-06:00July 21, 2014<div>
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Käre familj,<br /><br />WHERE IS DREW CALVERT GOING ON HIS MISSION???<br /><br />I've gotten updates of when he was about to get his call, and when his farewell was coming up, and everything, but nobody has told me where he's going. Unless you did and I forgot. I think I remember Reed is going to England. But where is Drew going? I actually discovered on <a href="http://lds.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0072c6;">lds.org</span></a> that you can see all the missionaries serving from your stake so I updated myself on where the missionaries are. There were some people that I was surprised about because I didn't know they were on missions. Mostly sisters.<br /><br />It's funny that you thanked me for taking so much P-Day time to write to you because this week we actually aren't going to be able to take so much time. We already spent a few hours cleaning the apartment in preparation for my new companion who's coming on Wednesday. The new missionaries are coming on Wednesday, and Syster Miller and I will both be training! We got the training call on Tuesday morning. It was funny, first President asked to talk to me and he told me I'd be training a new sister. I asked if I'd be training in Norrköping and he said I'll find out later in the week. Then he hung up. The next thirty seconds were the most awkward ones of our companionship, because I'd just been told I was training and I didn't know what to say to Syster Miller who goes home in three months and has always wanted to train. The awkward silence was broken by President's ringtone again, and he informed Syster Miller that she would also be training. He said he's still working on the secretarial stuff. On Saturday we got another call to let us know that I will be staying in Norrköping to train, and Syster Miller will be training in Södertälje. So she's staying in the zone. Syster Christison (who lived with me back in Västerhaninge) is also training as well as Syster Byrd and Syster Eborn from my group. We're all pretty excited. I realized that my greenie will have almost definitely seen Frozen.<br /><br />The funeral potatoes turned out really good. We used a LOT of cheese, but it was good. It turned out perfectly because the elders threw a Baby Shower for Syster Miller and me, complete with presents and everything. (Junk they had lying around, but it all had something symbolic about it.) At the end of district meeting there was an object lesson to help us "light the fire" in our areas. No flames involved, but we were invited to try a drop of "Da Bomb" hot sauce. It's 400,000 times hotter than a jalapeno. Syster Miller and I both tried it. It was painful! But the funeral potatoes helped a lot to ease the fire in our mouths and throats. It was so hot it made your whole body tingle. This is what missionaries do.</div>
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Hot sauce??</div>
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<br />Olivia is amazing. She could get baptized this week if she wanted to. She's ready. But she wants to keep coming until September and make sure she's really ready. I'm really excited that my new missionary companion will get to teach her, because she listens, understands, and asks wonderful questions. She was in church yesterday, and after church she went home with Prossy (new convert) to hang out. She's fellowshipped! We also had a guy named Francois in church from Congo. That's all I know about him-he was just in the phone so we called him and he came to church. We're going to meet him again this week. Lisabeth is doing well. She was in church yesterday, as well as another less active who I finally got to meet this week named Maria. She's a single mom with two kids, and she's super awesome! After Sacrament Meeting she came up to me and asked if we could check the temple calendar so she can make sure and get work off for the next ward temple trip. (The next one is in August but she already has work scheduled, so she's going to come in November.)<br /><br />That's too bad about the addition to the house not turning out the way you thought. I'm sure whatever you decide to do will be great! As my district leader Elder Gray would say, "put some prayer into it!" Except he's transferring on Wednesday to Sundsvall. That's in Norrland which means it's way up north. He will be replaced by Äldste Lindquist, who is Swedish. Between him, the two British elders, and our Finnish friend Äldste Kiikko, our district will only be 50% American. And if my greenie isn't from Utah, then I'll be the only Utahn in the district!<br /><br />Sorry I don't have time to send pictures this week, but I'll send oodles next week! {<em>She had a little time later in the day to send some pictures. Yay!)</em><br /><br />I'm so jealous that Peyton and Mom are going to Wicked! Not fair! I hope you all have a wonderful week! And I can't wait for you to meet Syster Sjöblom!!! Say hi to her for me! I'll probably see her in Stockholm because I'll go pick up my greenie and she'll still be there. We'll see anyway. I can't believe she's going home already!<br /><br />Jag älskar er!<br /><br />Love, Delaney</div>
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The Elders in the district gave Delaney and Syster Miller</div>
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this week. (They will both be training new missionaries.)</div>
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Birthday party for Elder Gray at the Dolmayas' house</div>
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Delaney and Syster Miller.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7456234842177950603.post-51902033688015422612014-07-14T13:04:00.000-06:002014-07-14T13:04:12.884-06:00July 14, 2014Käre familj,<br />
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Hi! Sounds like you've all had an awesome week. I'm jealous that you got to go to the Newells' homecoming. I miss them already! But aren't they wonderful? It sounds like President Newell's talk was about the same as the one he gave in Göteborg's stake conference a couple months ago about temple work and everything. I heard that Syster Newell's talk was really good too. (Syster Miller's family included more details about it.)</div>
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When I read that you'd seen The Fault in Our Stars, I thought you meant Number The Stars, which is a book about the Holocaust, so I understood why Peyton cried buckets but I couldn't figure out how she remembered me reading it back in fourth grade. But then I figured it out. That was a really good book, so I hope the movie was good too! Who was in it? How's Keera doing?</div>
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Tell Peyton not to worry, I crashed my bike this week too. But not very badly. Here's what happened. I think I might have mentioned last week that we tried riding our bikes and they were a piece of... well, they needed some work. I rode all the way to our appointment and back with a completely flat tire. We figured this just would not do, and we called the couple in charge of the apartments and bikes, the Tolleys. They assessed the situation, decided they'd tried resurrecting the Norrköping bikes one too many times, and on Wednesday they came down with shiny new three-speed bikes for us! So Elder Tolley got my bike all set up and told me to hop on and test it out to see if the seat was high enough. May I just remind you that up until last week I haven't ridden a bike in a very long time. I don't even remember the last time I rode a bike at home! So I tried to ride the bike, and I was wearing a skirt, and the seat was a little high-long story short, before I could get to the point where I was controlling and RIDING the bike, we were headed straight for a bush. Elder Tolley came to my rescue before I could crash too hard, but it was pretty embarrassing. Then Elder Tolley followed around behind me like I'd just gotten my training wheels taken off. I've improved a lot because we LOVE our new bikes and we take them as much as we can. (It makes it so much faster to get places!) At least, we did, until a few days ago when my spiffy new combination lock (no more bike keys!) broke. So we had to retire them for a few days until the Tolleys were back in town on their way back to Stockholm to replace the bike lock. So it was embarrassing, but mostly funny. Syster Tolley also trimmed mine and Syster Miller's hair at the time.</div>
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Good job on your almost-hole-in-one Dad! The picture is pretty awesome. Of course, anyone could have just set the golf ball down right there, but I believe you anyway. Was Cody there to witness it? Good luck in the golf tournament!</div>
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You'll never believe what I found this week! We were doing family history in the church and I was looking on a census record for Anna-Christina Petersen when in her household record I saw it... SWEDEN. After a whole year of being a Swedish missionary, I FINALLY FOUND A SWEDE IN OUR FAMILY HISTORY! Of course, I'm not actually a descendant of him, but no matter. I found one. I'm determined to find his family. It's Anna-Christina's daughter Bertha's husband, Edmund Samuel Anderson. So that would be Grandma Wilson's aunt's husband. He was born in Sweden! I haven't been able to find anything about him because he emigrated when he was five years old, but I'm looking for a birth record. Can you ask Grandma Wilson and anyone else who might know if they have any information about him? I'm just so excited to finally have a Swede to work with!</div>
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Pontus is doing amazing! He's already an awesome member! And an awesome missionary! During the week he asked us if we could meet with one of his friends, Suzanne, to teach her more about the church and what we do. He set up an appointment for all of us to meet on Wednesday. It was kind of funny because he felt bad that he was taking our time to do this, but we tried to explain that this was exactly what our time is for. So we showed up at her apartment, which was literally right next door to our apartment building. Suzanne was home but she had forgotten and was on her way out. Pontus was so great, trying to get us in for just ten minutes, but she wouldn't let us. So we set up another appointment and Pontus said "Maybe this time you should write it down!" He was the perfect amount of bold! So then he suggested that we stop by his other friend, Mari. He doesn't even understand how much of a missionary he already is! We went by and Mari was home and let us in! It was a little hard to teach her, because she has some severe physical handicaps. She's in a wheelchair and the left side of her body is paralyzed. And she can't talk, so she communicates through facial expressions and through a talking machine that she types in. It was an interesting first lesson, but a good one. Especially with Pontus there. He has such a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and God's ability and willingness to answer prayers! He loved sharing his testimony with her and inviting her to read the Book of Mormon. She committed to reading it and she wanted the address to the church. She didn't come, but we'll see her again soon. After we taught her we were waiting for the spårvagn (tram) with Pontus and he was so excited about the lesson he said "I need to say a prayer!" and he looked up and started praying.</div>
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Church yesterday was really good. We had three VIPs: Olivia, Awet, and Lisabeth. Olivia is doing really good. She reads the Gospel Principles book all the time and has awesome questions. Like yesterday morning, I was sitting with her before sacrament meeting started and she said "I have a question. What's the difference between gifts of the Spirit and fruits of the Spirit?" What kind of investigator knows either of those terms? Olivia kind. She was making comments in Sunday School and then when we walked her home after church she recounted the entire story of Ammon from Young Women and how it tied in to keeping covenants. The rate she's going she'll be ready for baptism by this time next month, but I think she'll keep her date in September just to be sure of everything.</div>
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Awet is another investigator who had been to church a few times before I got here. She's from Eritrea and originally speaks Tagrinian. The church has absolutely nothing published in her language, but she can also understand Amharic (it's like Spanish and Portuguese) so she reads the Book of Mormon in Amharic. It's pretty hard to teach her because her Swedish isn't that great, but she's slowly coming along. She seems to understand about half of what we tell her so we have to take it slow.</div>
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Lisabeth is a less active member who's active at heart. She's just lonely so sometimes she doesn't have the umph to get herself to church. But she's a really sweet grandma who always gives us strawberries and ice cream when we go over.</div>
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Speaking of ice cream, can you believe it's already been a whole year!?! It's crazy! Time is flying by so fast! On Thursday for my year mark we were in Söderköping (just south of Norrköping) (by the way, Norr means North, Söder means South, and Köping means borough.) and there's this really amazing ice cream restaurant there so I got a big yummy ice cream to celebrate. Then we ran into the bishop (he lives in Söderköping) and they invited us over to share a message and eat...ice cream. But we're in Sweden, so it was naturally delicious!</div>
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Thanks for all the details and info you always include in your emails! I hope you have another wonderful week! Jag älskar er!!</div>
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Love, Delaney </div>
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Delaney and Chris (Judy's sister) who did</div>
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Delaney's hair and makeup</div>
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Celebrating her 1 year mark on July 10th</div>
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with ice cream of course</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890644489810902638noreply@blogger.com