I am so sad I missed you by 10 minutes this morning! Or last night for you... Thank you for the awesome emails this week. You guys sound like you have been working CRAZY HARD. Holy cow! I was going to write "I hope you had an amazing first week of summer!" But it sounds like you have just been moving all week and that doesn't sound too fun to me. But I do hope that Father's Day was especially special. I am not suprised one bit that dad was out working and cleaning all night ON HIS SPECIAL DAY! You guys are both incredible. Please give Nana, Jeni, Camille, Laura, and Jake a birthday hug from me! I miss all of them so much.
My week has been great and has consisted of lots of lessons, tired legs, and watching the Highschool Graduations here in Kristianstad. They do their graduation COMPLETELY different than in the US. They all wear sailors hats and the boys wear a tux and the girls wear a white dress. They all run out of the school when their group gets called, dance to the music that they choose and then go find their friends and family in a huge crowd were the parents are holding up a sign with their name and baby picture. Then the all run to tractors and ride around town in it; dancing, drinking, smoking, and yelling ALL day! It is so funny. It is like a parade but normal traffic is still going on. They ride around in circles for H O U R S. We got to go because two kids in our ward, Simon and Merideth, were both graduating. Then we went to their party celebration which was pretty much just our whole ward and we ate a ton of food- it was a blast.
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| Sister Swensen, Simon, Adelide and Meredith |
After the party was probably my favorite part of the whole week. Isam (or Iso or Essam... however you want to spell it haha), Jian and Sister Swenson and I decided to walk all the way home from where we were. We talked and laughed and took a ton of pictures... probably the ones that Isam sent you and Jian put on FB. Afterwards when Sister Swenson and I had split up to go to our apartment, I said to Sister Swenson "If I only met those two my whole mission, I would be happy."
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| I get to live here? |
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| Britta aka who I want to be |
They are literally the best and I want to cry everytime I think of Jian leaving on the 19th back to China. The next night we went over to Jians and looked at her pictures from Iceland (I have to go there) and taught her one more time about enduring to the end because she is really going to have to stand up for what she believes when she gets to China and no one has the same beliefs as her. Afterwards she said the sweetest prayer and Swenson and I were both in tears. I love how the mission has introduced me to so many awesome people but it is also so hard that we, at some point, have to say good bye to everyone.
The work is going great. We currently have six progressing investigators which is a lot for us and all of them are doing so well. We get our 20 lessons or more every week- which we thought was so much for a mission until Swenson's friend told us that the lowest amount of lessons they get in Mexico is 40.... BYEEEE. But 20 for Sweden is the standard of excellence so we are fiiiiiine. Plus we have the best people to work with so we are pretty lucky!
Here is my shout out to my wonderful Father on Fars Dag! I wrote you a hand written letter a while ago but I am not sure if it has gotten to you yet... But I just wanted to say that I am so grateful for you and for your friendship- you know that it means the world to me. Thank you for teaching me how to work hard. I know I wasn't the hardest worker at home, but I promise it is paying off on my mission! Thank you for biking with me. For waking up at 5:30 am on cold winter mornings to go to spin classes with me so that we could sing and talk and exercise together. Thank you for the camping trips and for hiking with me. For all of the adventures you have provided me with. For teaching me how to love life and how to be grateful. Thank you for teaching me how to mow the lawn and work in the garden. Thank you for coming in my room and talking to me. For staying up until one in the morning to correct my English papers. Thank you for teaching me how to write. Thank you for being best friends with my mommy and for supporting your children in whatever they decide to do with their lives. Thank you for taking me to Michael Franti concerts and for occasionally going to yoga classes with me. Thank you for coming up with new diets for us to try together. Thank you for always giving me the most perfect advice- for telling me exactly what I need to hear and when I need to hear it. In a letter you wrote to me before my mission you said: "Don't be afraid to venture off course into the dictionary to look up new words or phrases. To spend a whole hour interpreting one verse of scripture. Let your curiousity overwhelm your shyness and a whole new world will open up to you. Suck the marrow out of life!" This is what I have been trying to live by. There are some days when I do spend a whole hour of my language study trying to interpret the Book of Mormon. My curiosity to learn the language, the culture, and the people has helped me to enjoy every minute of my mission. Thank you for always being my best friend and for being my daddy. For teaching me and reminding me to "suck the marrow out of life!" I love you.
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| "sorry to wear the same rain jacket in all of my pictures! haha it has been a rainyyyyyy week" |
"On this father’s day, I am grateful to be your father. You make it so pleasant and easy to be a dad. I look forward to a long life learning from you, seeing the world with you and conquering big challenges with you. Can’t wait to hear how you are doing tomorrow. If you have internet later in the day, you can try to chat with me because I will be in meetings all day – watching my email. Hopefully you will be on another P-day adventure."
This just made me bawl. I love you daddy- I can't wait to see the world with you too. We are going to Y-stad today for pday which means 6 hours of our pday will be on a train and we won't have time to get on the computers again today... but we are going to go see the famous stones there with a group of missionaries so it should be fun. I wrote a long letter this past week so I will send it in the mail today. I hope you got my fathers day letter in the mail- if not it should come today or tomorrow. The language is coming- it is amazing how blessed I have been in learning the language. I think a big part of it comes from my trainer- she is awesome and we both are forced to learn the language a lot quicker. Jag hoppas att du har det så bra också. jag älska dig!
Mom- I hope you know that I love you just as much as dad :) I am just trying to make him feel special on fathers day since I didn't get to skype home like I did on mothers day hahaha just kidding but I am so grateful for you and for all of your hard work with the house and with making sure that I feel loved out here. You are incredible and I love you. Isam said "I don't know how your mom did it but she posted the picture I sent of you on facebook within a half and hour!" Hahaha He is so funny He might be going to the US a year from now and I told him that he can stay at our house ahaha we will see but you guys would seriously love him. OK I have to go now. I hope you can get some rest this week :))))))) - that is my chin right now.
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| Essam teaching me Courdish |
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| P-Day in Ystad |
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