November 10, 2014

Käre Familj,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love, Delaney

 

Selfie in the snow

French hot dogs - buns are baguettes

Writing Mormon.org in the frost at the bus stop

Ice cream from the ice cream truck

NoeNoe and CiCi with Delaney & Syster Jacobs

 

Mirta, Delaney & Syster Jacobs

 

 

November 3, 2014

Käre Familj,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jag älskar er!

Love, Delaney

 

 

Halloween - Dressed as former companion Syster Austin

 

 

Blowing up balloons for a surprise birthday party for Elder Smith

 

 

 

Delaney and Syster Jacobs

White chocolate hot chocolate

Zone Conference with the mittens knitted by women

in the Beckstrand's hometown of Meadow, UT

 

October 27, 2014

Käre Familj,

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!

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!

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?

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. :)

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

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!

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!

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!

Please keep Noe Noe, Matilda, and Angela in your prayers! They're all really wonderful!

I hope you have a great week this week that isn't even arguable bad! Jag älskar er!

Love, Delaney

 

Dragon in Sundsvall

Delaney with the Familjen Dolmaya

 

October 20, 2014

Käre Familj,

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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."

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!

Jag älskar er!

Love, Delaney

 

Syster Jacobs and Delaney pointing to Sundsvall

Norrkoping District-Oct. 2014

 

October 13, 2014

Käre Familj,

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.

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.

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.

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. As we were walking up to their house, literally right outside their apartment, 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. 

 

The "offending" hole

The wound

The ghetto bandage of gauze and princess bandaids

 

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. 

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

Mom's birthday celebrations sounded fun! Happy birthday again mom! I'm especially glad my present got there right in time!

Have a wonderful week everyone! Thanks for your updates and your prayers! Jag älskar er!

Love, Delaney

 

Delaney and Lisabeth

Delaney, Ann-Sofi, Syster Austin

The Jonsson Family

Olivia, Delaney, Tiziana (member from Italy) and Syster Austin

Stahlberg Family (She is the "Old Vuorinen's" daughter)

The Young Vuorinen Family (He is the "Old Vuorinen's son")

The "Old Vuorinens"

 

 

 

October 6, 2014

Käre familj,

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 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.

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.

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. :/

Wednesday after District Meeting we contacted a really nice girl named Amelia 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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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?

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!

Have a wonderful week everybody! Jag älskar er!

Love, Delaney

September 29, 2014

Käre Familj,

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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. 

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!

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!

Have a great week everyone! Jag älskar er!

Love, Delaney