Oh How Swede It Is!: No Longer a Greenie!:)

Wearing coats. In August. It's fine.

Hi everyone!! This week I hit my 4 month mark! I cannot believe I have been gone for that long. It has felt like 2 seconds. And along with 4 months done, I AM DONE WITH TRAINING!!!!! Hej då greenie syster mod:):):) (Being a greenie is not exactly a great status in a mission, if you cannot tell...hahah.) I will miss it a little bit, but I feel like a real missionary now. It is exciting stuff:) It is transfers this week, and I am staying in Gävle! My cute trainer is leaving this week to move to Stockholm and I am going to miss Sister Hill so much!:( No one could have done a better job of teaching me how to work hard and have fun at the same time. Ah I could just cry. I love her! My new companion is going to be Sister Ludwig! She is coming up from Malmö, the very south part of Sweden. Everything I have ever heard about her is so good, and I am super excited to meet her! I get to "kill" her too:) This is her last transfer, and here missionaries say that when you go home, you "die", and your companion kills you! I don't get it but I think it is hilarious so we roll with it. Anyway, we are going to have a lot of fun in Gävle:)

So we got a lot of publicity this week! Sister Hill and I were in 2 different newspapers:) If you guys send me a piece of paper or something (I don't know... like a letter) I guess I can autograph it. If you insist. Haha!;) I felt kind of famous though. On our way to church, one of the bus drivers said he saw us in the paper that day. We also had a very anti-Mormon preacher come and talk to us to ask how we are getting all this publicity. (We wanted to say "CUZ WE ARE THE TRUE CHURCH HOLLA" but we didn't.) But it is going to be an awesome contacting tool! We were really excited about it:)

We met this super cool couple from Canada a few weeks ago, and we just got to meet with them this week! They just barely moved here and can't speak any Swedish. They are not very positive as investigators, but they love all of the church activities we do and want to come to everything. I think they miss hearing people with Canadian accents, and Americans are the next best thing they can find. Haha! They came to play innebandy with us on Saturday, and both of them were just naturally good. It has to be because the game is similar to hockey, and hockey is in their blood ;) We really love them though! We are hoping that they will want to keep learning more about the church as they meet our awesome members:)

Fierce.

Sister Hill's real birthday was on Thursday this week, and we had so much fun! She was turning 22, so we sang Taylor Swift's "22" song the entire day, and had SUCH good food. Gosh I love members. And Sister Hill! And birthdays :)

All of our investigators right now are progressing, but very slowly. Gävle is really just in finding mode right now! We have been praying and praying to find a family ready for the gospel, and we think that we are really going to be blessed this month:) I am just excited to get out there and work and see what Sister Ludwig can teach me! I love being a missionary. I am seriously having so much fun. Saying goodbye to Sister Hill will be hard, but I can just tell that this is just the very beginning of something great!

Also really cool spiritual thing for this week (sorry this email is so long but...necessary):

I read something this week that said we should be like Nephi and instead of praying for our trials to disappear, we should pray for the strength to overcome them. That blew my mind! Here I am, praying for God to take away the homesickness and the hardness and just make my life easy. But that is so not how God works. He wants us to grow, and we don't do that if life is easy! Ah. It just changed my whole perspective. I think one thing I have learned so much about on my mission is strength. I promise you are stronger than you think, because I found out that I am :) The gospel gives us strength!

Okay I just love you all! Thank you for everything you do for me and my family!! Have a wonderful week!

Love, Syster Mod :)