Week 26

Subject: Baptism Week

Hello everyone,

Still here. This was an interesting week. We took a lot of long bus rides through the grey countryside. We only got soaked once though. The highlight was the fact that the fields are really green from all the rain and we saw a few late blooming lupines and lavender. The weather has taken to being a little warmer this week when it's not raining. We're back to wearing tights though. It's just too cold now for footies. Yesterday was beautiful. The air was just slightly crisp and smells like apples. There are apples everywhere. It seems like everyone (who has a house) has an apple tree and rotting apples litter their yards. We've had quite a few dinners with the members this week and almost all of them gave us a bag up apples to take home. We are rolling in fruit! I also discovered last week that the brown paper bags under the sink are for compost. No more burying my own compost in the back yard! There is a little place to put it next to the garbage depository. It's so convenient. Oh, we finally bought some bulbs which we'll be planting in the back yard. We've decided it's symbolic for not seeing the fruits of all our labors here in Örebro since neither of us will still be here when they come up (I hope--that would be a long time here!)

The big news this week was that R got baptized. His was the second baptism I've attended since I've been here. He also was denied his asylum seeking status and was said that he had two months until he had to leave Sweden. He's going to appeal and we hope the best for him. It was really hard to hear. He's so humble and good we hope the Lord will guide him to the place where he can feel settled and build a new life. AW, his roommate and the one who introduced him to the church when he was baptized a couple months ago, got his approval to start language classes. It looks like he'll probably be able to stay then. The baptism itself was lovely. We had it right after church, so many from the ward stayed. Sis R and I sang, but it was only ok because I got nervous as usual. We only had a slight glitch in that R's pants were too big. They couldn't find any belts, so they held them up with a tie :) He's very shy, but he got up and said a few words afterwards. He just thanked everybody and said that he would never forget this day. It was very sweet. Sadly, they all had to run and catch the bus right after, but we snuck some cakes into a bag for them. D is getting baptized next month, and the baptism made him really excited about it. Hopefully having all three of them come into the church around the same time will help them keep coming. We made apple pie and apple cake for the baptism. The apple cake called for 4 cups of grated apple, so we got rid of all the nasty ones :) I also had orange fingers the rest of the day.

Now for the rest of the story... We went to Nora again and the ice cream place is closed for the season!!! We had no idea how much of a tender mercy our getting the ice cream that one time was.

Sis R is going home in like 10 days now and she's trying really hard just to stay with it. I think she's doing great, but the district leader and his companion think it's funny to try to get her trunky. I think it just makes us all feel bad. Well, gots to go. I love what I'm doing and you all are in my prayers!

Love,

Sys Maxwell