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Här i Sverige

 Hej hej! 

Wow. What a week. New people, new places, new language, new foods. 

Some new people:
- New trainer! Her name is Syster Taylor, and she's awesome. She's from Idaho, she's been in Sweden for about 6 months, and this past week, we both lived off of her groceries...which pretty much consisted of yogurt, apples, tortillas, and stale chips. Nice! 
- New Friend! He came with us to institute last Thursday, and really liked it. We also gave him a tour of the church building!
-*Mason! He's super great, he's from Africa, and he came to church with us on Sunday! He's been working on quitting smoking, and is already down to 5 a day--which is WAY less than what he was doing a couple weeks ago. It's amazing what people have the strength to do when they rely on the Lord. 
- New ward! All of the ward members that I met yesterday at church were SO nice. They also talked REALLY fast. I did my best to understand. 
-New ward mission leader! His name is Nicho, and he got back from his mission to Canada about 3 years ago. He took us to a couple fun places today for p-day, and made me drink from the Ocean. I guess he makes all of the new missionaries do it, haha. 

New Places:
-Lund! This is the city where I've been assigned to serve. It's in the very southernmost part of Sweden, where they speak "Skonish"--which is almost a mix of Swedish and Danish. Apparently it's the type of Swedish that is hardest to understand for missionaries. Nice!

New Language:
-Swedish. 

New foods: 
- Knäckebröd: It's bread that's almost like a cracker ? They eat it with cheese slices on top, along with cucumber and peppers. 
- Saft: it's like juice concentrate that you buy, and then really water down so that it tastes like flavored water. 
- Fika: It's like the Swedish version of tea time. It's time set aside each day to eat some type of dessert/pastry, and drink tea or saft or whatever. It's pretty sweet. It's a great excuse to eat dessert, and say that you're just embracing the culture here in Sweden. A lot of our teaching appointments are to meet for fika! 
-Pickled fish. I ate some for breakfast on my first day here, and I'm ashamed to say that it tasted pretty good. No further questions. 

This week has been challenging, no doubt, but I've seen the Lord strengthen me as I do my best to become an instrument in his hands. 
Ether 12:27 tells us that:
"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."
Heavenly Father is acutely aware of our struggles, and promises to strengthen us if we turn to him for help. I've seen this continually as I strive to learn the language here.

Vi ses! 
Syster Naatjes 

PHOTOS: 
Godis! This week, for whatever reason, you can buy a golden bucket of candy for MUCH cheaper than normal. So we did. #stockedup #generalconferencefeast 


VASA Museum. President Davis took us there immediately after we arrived in Stockholm.

A cute little town Nicho took us to today. I don't remember what it's called. Tragic.

Nicho striking a snazzy pose.

Mother-daughter bonding photo.


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