Week 13

Subject: Weddings and Bicyles

Hello everyone,

On Saturday Princess Victoria got married. She's up to be queen next, so it was a very big deal. There was a lot going on in Stockholm in celebration, but we didn't go. We saw lots of pictures of all the dresses and things, though. The tunnelbana was free over the weekend, which made us excited about getting investigators to church, but then we realized it was only the tunnelbana. Not the buses and not the pendeltåg, which is the train that runs by our house and the church. So, on to the exciting things.

On Monday we went to Sigtuna to celebrate Sis Wood's birthday. Sis Swenson made her a Princess Torta which is a layer cake with jam, pudding and whipped cream in the middles and covered with marzipan (fondant?). It was not as pretty as the ones in the stores, but still very impressive. When we went to eat it the next day, much to her chagrin, all of the pudding and whipped cream had leaked down the sides and been absorbed by the marzipan or the cake itself. Not quite the same experience, but it was still fun. We ate it at a picnic table by the ruins of St. Olaf's church and accompanying graveyard. Very picturesque. Then we went into St. Maria's I think it was and saw stained glass windows from the 14th century and a baptismal font from the 9th century. Everything else was old too. Very cool.

On Tuesday, the miracle of Vällingby Centrum continued. So I said last week that "we went to Vällingby to contact for about 40 minutes before an appointment and found a guy who was really excited about getting the Book of Mormon. He thanked us for it and we set up a return appointment with him." Turns out he wasn't interested. It was weird because he had actually called us a couple of times to schedule appts that fell through. Well, we didn't have his number at first so, we went one day to just see if he was there. He wasn't, but we talked to this Ghanaian woman who really liked Jesus and wanted us to come back to talk more on Tuesday. We came back on Tuesday and she wasn't there, but we contacted another guy who was there who was really interested in the Book of Mormon and said we could come back the next day. When we went back the next day, he said he was more interested in the World Cup than talking to us, so we just did some more contacting and talked to a guy who is from Portugal and speaks no English or Swedish. We gave him our number and continued on our way. About half an hour later he was still sitting there and motioned for us to come over. He wanted to know more, so I gave him an explanation of the restoration in Spanish. We met the next day to give him a Portuguese Book of Mormon. Basically, long story short, we've taught him a few times this week and yesterday he asked me how he could be a missionary and when he could get baptized. I was like, "Uhh....." I'd never been asked that before, and it was kind of surprising especially since I didn't think my Spanish was that impressive or that he was actually very serious about the whole thing. So, we'll see. We set a date for three weeks out. He doesn't smoke or drink because he's a runner. He's here training for the Olympics and is determined to be the fastest man alive (meaning, he runs the 100m and 200m). He says that people here only like him because he's fast and awesome and not because they like him, so that's why he likes hanging out with us. We didn't know he was going to be rich one day when we talked to him :)

Yesterday we took him to lunch with Niklas Salo (speaks Swedish, English and French) and Sandra (Swedish, English, Spanish), his fiancé. They served us this cool French thing where you melt cheese in little dishes in a little hot double tiered skillety-oven thing and cook meat on top. Then you eat it over potatoes. It was really fun, but I don't remember the name. So, our French and English speaking investigator was also there, so it made for an interesting experience. There were five languages flying around the room. We would teach in English, Sandra would translate into Spanish, IG would answer in Portugues, and Niklas would answer explain things in French because IG can also understand French. Quite the brain numbing experience.

Also exciting this week were our interactions with Waldemar, a Polish member in our ward. He served us some jello with fruit this week and it was one of the funniest things I'd seen in a long time. It was just like a foreign film. The jello kept falling off the spoon and he would mutter in Polish as he tried over and over to get the jello from the bowl to our plates. I couldn't help but laugh. He lives in a tiny little apartment next to a row of greenhouses just down the road from us. Sis Swenson has been having problems with her bike, so we decided to take it by on Friday for him to fix it up. On Thursday, we took the bikes 5 min away to a trail through the woods because we were short on time for running and Sis Swenson has shin splints. We hooked them to a tree and had a nice run. When we came back, I unlocked my bike, but Sis Swenson broke her key in the bike lock. Bad news! We couldn't get it unlocked with the nub we had and when we came back the next morning, the pliers just broke the key more. No good. We called Waldemar and he went with us to cut the lock off. He thought it was very strange that the bike was locked in the middle of the woods. But it was nice of him and then he even fixed her chain and gave us more jello!

I think that's it. We also met a really cool kid from Portugal on the train on Friday. Found him by a miracle too. Sis Swenson felt prompted to sit by him even though the train was empty. Very awkward, but it turned out to be really great. He was very open, so we'll see if anything ever comes of that.

Man, a lot of cool things happened this week, but I can't talk about them all because this is, as usual, very long. Well, have a good week each and every one of you. Don't forget to write. Don't forget I have a new address. :)

Love,
Amy

(see Week 9 post for her new address)