Hej Hej

  Hallå everyone! This past week was pretty awesome. I still have no news of when I'm going to Sweden, but I assume it'll be at the end of this transfer. So three more weeks! (Probably.)  One of many miracles: Last Tuesday, me and Sister Hendrix were going to go bother a less active family that lives in an apartment complex nearby. We knocked, but they weren't home/didn't answer the door.  A couple doors down the hall though, there was a little boy standing outside and staring at us. So I walked over to him, and asked if his parents were home. He stared at me in fear for a couple of seconds, but then disappeared into the room--sending his mom to the door.  She invited us inside, and expressed how she felt like her faith has been lacking lately, and she doesn't know what she's doing in her life.  We shared a little bit about the plan of Salvation with her, and she told us that the past couple days she had been praying for God to send her a sign that he knows her...

  Hej alla!  Big news: MY VISA CAME LAST WEEK!  I'm still waiting to get my travel plans, so I have no idea when I'm leaving. It could be next week, or it could be in 4 weeks. But hey, I'm going to Sweden!! This past week, I feel I faced quite a bit of rejection. A LOT of the work we do as missionaries is just...finding people. And goodness me, it's almost as if people don't want to be found. But I'm optimistic.  We're teaching a couple of 8-10 year olds who LOVE church, but their parents make it incredibly difficult to schedule appointments, and almost never get them to church. It's frustrating.  It's also frustrating to meet broken people, have the solution to their concerns, and watch them reject what could improve their lives. But that's just part of the job.  Some fun things: - This past week, Sister Hendrix was kind enough to sit outside so that I can run up and down the street in the mornings. #exercise - We had zone conference last Wednes...

  Hejsan! Just finished my first week in the field. It was long. But it was good.  My trainer's name is Sister Hendrix. She's from Pennsylvania, and she's pretty cool! We were originally in a trio with another wonderful sister named Sister Brough, but she was having some breathing problems--which didn't suit our biking area very well. She got transferred out of West Jordan (#WEEJO) (our area) last Friday. It's sad for us, but she needs to be in a car area.  Some things I should probably note: - I don't know the first vision in English very well (I know it in Swedish) and when we went on exchanges last week, the Sister Training Leader (Sister Hernaez) threw me under the bus during a member appointment and had me recite it in front of them. I totally butchered it. HAHA.  - We live RIGHT NEXT to a mink farm that smells TERRIBLE. When we're biking back from appointments, and I begin to inhale that minky scent, I know we're almost home.  - It's hard to ge...

  Hej Hej! P-day is Monday this week because I leave for the mission field tomorrow...to serve in the Salt Lake City South mission!! (until my visa arrives, haha). I really thought my visa would make a surprise appearance last-minute, and it didn't... and that's okay!! I'm just excited to get out to the field, and begin to do the real work. There is missionary work to be done in all corners of the world, even in the corner that's only 40 minutes north of the MTC.  This past Saturday, I got permission to leave the MTC and attend my friend Maddie's baptism!!! The spirit was SO strong, and it was incredibly powerful to see one of my favorite people in the world become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ. I even had the opportunity to be a witness, and speak about the Holy Ghost. If she's reading this, and I know she is, I want her to know how incredibly proud of her I am, and that I truly have a testimony that this is Jesus Christ's restored church on the ea...

Tjena everybody! This is my last week at the Missionary Training Center!! And today, I got an email with my travel information to get to Sweden! Still no visa though. We'll see if I get a reassignment tomorrow. AHH.  This past week has been SO much fun. Our district has grown very close, and our Swedish is slowly, but surely improving.  Some noteworthy events: yesterday, I completely DEMOLISHED my previous record of catching four Swedish fish in my mouth in a row...I caught a whopping  25  m&m's!!! And I didn't even miss on the 26th--we just had to stop so that we could resume class.  I decided on a whim to try and break the MTC mile record, AND SUCCEEDED! You have to run it on a tiny indoor track that's in the shape of a square, so that definitely poses an extra challenge--but I ended up running a 5:49, and broke the previous record by 12 seconds! There were people standing in every corner of the track cheering me on, and it was a BLAST....

 Hello friends! Time is starting to fly.  This past week has been VERY Swedish-focused, which I guess makes sense since we're going to be speaking it 24/7 in just two weeks now.  A couple funny things: - last week Sister Cook received an ENORMOUS bag of Swedish fish (svenska fisk) in the mail, so one of our favorite pastimes during our study breaks has been throwing Swedish fish into each other's mouths. Not to brag, but I did, in fact, catch four (4) Swedish fish in a row, all thrown from a considerable distance away. Probably one of my proudest moments.  - at district council, we all decided it would be a good idea to go around and make pros and cons lists about everyone in our district. We were all laughing really hard.  - one of our district's ~less spiritual goals~ is to learn the dance and lyrics to a popular Swedish song from the 80s called Diggi-loo Diggi-lay.  - One morning I put my bagel in the toaster, and when I came back to retrieve i...

  Hej everybody! Sorry I didn't get the chance to email last week, but on the bright side, SO MUCH has happened since you last heard from me that this email is about to be loaded.  First things first, MY SWEDISH DISTRICT CAME LAST WEDNESDAY! I had been doing classes with them online: --And it was super fun, but being with them in person is FAR better... (Shout out to  Äldste Vander Linden, who brought us all sun tanning glasses so that our mission photos, going forward, can be that much more epic).  We started learning Swedish, too, which has definitely been a challenge. BUT, we are very determined to get it down, and we have already done not one, but TWO english fasts (we went without speaking english for 8 hours). We did our first one on Saturday, which went horribly--but then did another one yesterday, and we could already see SO MUCH improvement in our Swedish. It's hard to believe that one day, maybe, hopefully, possibly, I will be completely fluent.  ...

Hey everyone!  I can't believe I've been in the missionary training center for over a week now. The days go by slow, but the weeks go by fast!  This past week was pretty eventful, I must say. I didn't know this, but in Utah there's this big thing called Stadium of Fire and it's like this gigantic concert they put on every year right before the fourth of July with fireworks, etc. This year, Tim McGraw was playing, and the MTC let all of the missionaries stay up and watch the fireworks on Saturday night. (That means we got to stay out until 10:30!). Pretty reckless, I know. Our district combined with a couple other districts in a classroom with snacks and glow sticks, and we loudly sang MANY American-pride songs. It was especially hilarious because there was a sister in another district who's from Canada, and she was totally freaked out the whole time. "HOW MANY NATIONAL ANTHEMS DO YOU GUYS HAVE ?!?!" It was hilarious.  On the actual fourth of July, we w...