Midsommars was a lot of fun!

I am super excited to start hearing from Christian in the MTC! It is a great place, really crazy and full of work, headaches, and cafeteria food (not terrible, but nothing compared to home!). To answer Dad's question, the MTC has changed the way they teach, and focus more on principles of teaching, and the language, and not the lessons for the weeks you are there. From the first day in the MTC teachers will teach in the mission language, though they can for the first little while translate some to help understanding. I believe by the first Monday or Tuesday the Missionaries are teaching a lesson in the mission language. It is crazy, but the missionaries that come out of the MTC with that training are really incredible!

The 5K run was really crazy! It was not as flat as I was expecting it to be.... there were a decent number of hills that came out of nowhere! I did do pretty well though in any case. I kept up with my companion for the first half, and then decided that I wanted to set my own pace...   I finished the race in 4th place, the first missionary to finish, and with a time of about 19 min, 30 sec (I did not time it, but 3rd got 19ish and I saw him finish ahead of me!) It was pretty good.    I was absolutely dead by the end of the race, my running is not what it used to be! But, about an hour or two after I was completely fine! It was definitely worth it, and I did better than expected!

The four man is great. It is really different, and we were not exactly sure how much food we would need, how to do the shopping and such, but everything worked well, and we are doing great! I am really enjoying it... though it might only last for about a month.... so we will enjoy it as much as we can now! It also allows me to still have a little quiet time. You know me. I like to just think sometimes! Most of my companions do not understand that and are always expecting me to keep them entertained... that can get annoying. But all is well, the four-man is great, and I love my companion! We do get to teach a lot. We have been doing a lot of teaching on the subways and in the stations and such, we are looking for new investigators, and in the meantime just teaching everyone that we can! It is really fun! Yes, Sweden is absolutely beautiful. I can agree with that! And, the people are incredible! It is a wonderful blessed land!

Midsommars was a lot of fun! The race was right before, a part of the celebrations, (There were 28 runners I believe...) and then we had the midsommars pole that we got to dance around. It was a lot more dancing than I thought it would be! It was really fun. That will be one thing we will have to do when we visit... if we can visit that time of year, though I heard that it is actually often raining. This time though it did not rain, there was not a single cloud, guess what that means! I got burnt, hardcore! It was bad... all of us got burnt, others worse, but no fun. Other than that though it was really fun and really cool to learn about! I did get a couple pictures... then the battery started to die, and I was running out of memory, so I will have to send it home soon!  ( You will like that, huh!? )

We have been focusing on teaching whenever we can.  When we are able to talk to someone, to try to teach a principle or two, bear powerful testimony, and let the spirit work! It is working really well, as well as just talking to everyone! I have seen a lot more success and felt my faith in the work growing as I have shown that I have faith, and open my mouth. And, I know that as I continue to do so there will be more success coming! I am glad that I am able to be here and to serve in Sweden. I am very excited for the next little while, there should be a lot happening! Right now, we are mostly open plan-wise, but that just means we will be teaching a lot more people out on the streets! I love this work! I love being a missionary. It is so much fun!

Love you all!

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