JUL

Letter sent Saturday, December, 26, 2015:

Sweden is just straight up picturesque sometimes.  The flag, the houses.  CUTE.  

Nicki, her mom, us, A. Gentry, A. Halterman.  Christmas Eve.

Sign that's in every elevator.  So funny.  Like, you aren't going to die by getting crushed by a garbage can in an elevator.  Why is a sign needed?

New Christmas Eve Pyjamas.  Glamour shot before bed.

Asterid Nilsson and Elisabet.  Playing Rummikub.  Feat.  Julmust on the left.  (This is how I win:  I take pictures that have Syster Crawford's tiles in them)  These ladies are hilarious together.  I love them.

Okay okay. So like, no P Day on Monday in case you hadn't realized that yet. They wanted to change our p day to today because they thought we wouldn't get any work done today because people wouldn't want to meet with us or something. Jokes on them because we're meeting with people anyways and so p day/emailing time will be short anyways so sorry if this isn't a sufficient letter. I'll try to type at the speed of light.

Last Tuesday we had Christmas Zone Conference. We combined two zones at once. Ours(stockholm) and Norrland (the farthest north-hence the name norr land (north land)...yeah). It was so so so fun because I got to see some of my MTC posse. Äldste Bentson, Äldste Moulton, Syster Campbell, and the one and only Syster Davis. YAY. Old komratskap joy. President and Syster Beckstrand did a hilarious reading of the Night Before Christmas that was changed to be missionary style and we played white elephant. Which was kind of a nightmare becuase me and Syster Crawford forgot to buy anything for it on P Day so we just had to find random crap in our apartment. Which actually turned out better than you would expect. We had a gingerbread house kit and then all these goodies that members had given us and some weird christmas penguin stuffed animal (don't ask why...there are things in this apartment that date back to the 1900's...like since 1995 missionaries have lived in it). Then we just had to wrap them in grocery bags because apparently the people in the 1900's didn't feel the need to stock up on wrapping paper for some reason. 

This Tuesday we had a Distrikts Meeting where we christmas caroled outside of a tunnelbana (subway) station. And then like 2 companionships would contact as everyone was singing. It was a great time and we realized that we actually don't know very many christmas songs. We kept having to break into we wish you a merry christmas like 100 times when there were awkward pauses. The office elders gave us a bunch of Mormons Boks while we were there because we had ran out so our train and bus rides home were just such a struggle because we were trying to balance all these books.

This week we also had Mission Prep with the young women in our ward. They are SO SWEET. I love them so much. There are 3 of them that are planning on going on missions. Nicki is already 19 and she's submitting her papers any day. We're so excited to see where she goes! 

Okejj, now to Christmas! Jul! Everyone here in Sweden celebrates on Christmas Eve, Jul Afton. Nicki invited us to her house for Julafton, along with the elders in our ward. (Everything we did Christmas Eve and Christmas was with the Elders so when I say we, it includes them too (Äldste Halterman and Äldste Gentry)0. And her mom prepared all this classic swedish food for us. Like so much. All the traditional swedish food is served on holidays. BUT, before we ate we watched Kalle Anke! Every single Swede watches Kalle Anke on Christmas Ever. It's on at 3 on tv and basically sweden stops functioning for an hour while everyone watches it. Kalle Anke just means Donald Duck. It's basically just an hour of tiny disney clips with swedish narration over the top. So like one tiny clip was from Cinderella when the birds and mice are making her dress for her. You know the song that they sing? How it's all high pitched and you can hardly tell what they're saying?...Imagine it in Swedish. Impossible. SO high pitched. It was fun. Then we played some games with them; a game like scattegories. This one was so funny because we would pick the letter we were going to use and we would get an impossible letter like 'z' and after like 30 seconds Nicki would be like, "I'm done! Stop!" and we were like, WHAT, how'd you do it so fast?" And it would turn out that she thought we had said a different letter because they pronounce the alphabet differently here. Haha but it was fun. We played another game similar to Agricola. Which, you know I hate that game, mom and Ethan. Now imagine where I actually don't understand the rules and all the cards are in Swedish and the crop names are in Swedish and like I just have no idea what's happening. I thought I had such a good tactic to plant a ton of crops one turn but then I drew a card that apparently said that a flash flood came and destroyed my crops. I just had to take their word that that's what the card actually said. Basically that was the end of the game for me. No, but it was fun still. I guess. 

Also, Swedes open their presents on Christmas Eve night. So we opened presents with Nicki's family. She got us all the little Swedish horses. I forgot what they're called in Swedish, but you know what I'm talking about. Mine is darling and his name is Oscar. We had Nicki's mom name them so they could all have Swedish names. 

When we got home I opened the present you sent me in the MTC, mom. Syster Crawford loves my new one piece pyjamas...at least she probably does. I like them. The little butt flap is entertaining. And actually they're way comfy. 

THEN CHRISTMAS!!! We spent the afternoon with an elderly couple in our ward. Lars and Astrid Nilsson. And another lady from the ward, Elisabet. Lars was an olympic bobsledder. I don't know what the right terminology for that sport is. But like holy cow a real live olympian! Fame. Haha I don't know all the logistics of his fame because, once again, language barrier lol. darn swedish.  They had prepared a full on Swedish Christmas feast for us. So sweet. So like raw salmon, and shrimp, and seal, and beet pudding, and caviar, and lamb, and ham(thank goodness), and lingonberries, and bread(praise), and of course potatoes. And we had Julmust. Julmust is a soda that we've had everywhere we go this past week. It's only here during Christmas time but then they have it agian at easter time. The exact same soda but they just change the label to say something eastery instead of 'Jul'must it's called 'Påsk'must. It's sick. Worse than Diet Coke. Hardly any missionaries like it. Anyway, we ate and then got to SKYPE. YAYAYAYAYAY. I loved seeing you guys and your cute one piece pyjamas too. And talking to you. and just looking at you. I love you, enough said.

Then when we hung up, I left the room and guess what the two cute old ladies were playing!! Rummikub! So we played that a couple times and it was just so so fun. and just like home. And I just thought of playing Rummikub with grandma because I was with two darling old ladies.

Then we went to another family in our ward-the Mitchell's. They are from America. So we got a little American Christmas! We had ham and cheesy potatoes and yum. I love their family. And we spoke in English so I was a more participatory member of the conversation.

The good thing is that Äldste Gentry is also a greenie. He was in the MTC group right before mine that all had to visa wait in the US and then they can to Sweden with us. So he doesn't know the language either. So I have an ally in being completely confused and smiling and nodding and taking cues on whether or not we should laugh, smile, be concered, etc. from our trainors. Haha that literally is my life now. I've really been utilizing my peripheral vision out here. I always have to keep an eye on Syster Crawford to know what my reaction to things should be. It's suprisingly effective. Normally once a person realizes that I don't know what they're saying they just won't look at me as much and will talk directly to Syster Crawford. But with my advanced abilities and skills of reacting based on her reactions, they thing I legitimately understand everything. They also probably think I am a mute. You can't win them all.  

So, here are some Swedish facts for you (all based on just my experience so like maybe they aren't facts, but they probably are):

1. these people LOVE cheese. Like, they have an 1/8th of a grocery isle dedicated to cereal, but a WHOLE isle dedicated to cheese. The smallest you can get it is the size of our biggest ones here in America. Ha..."here in America". Who am I. 

2. They all breath in to agree with you. So just as you're talking they will be breathing in to show you that they follow and agree or like what you're saying. It's audible but not noisy. If you want a demonstration, just wait for 16 more months and I can give you one.

3. You have to pay for shopping carts here. WHAT!?

4. They have the most hilarious signs here. The exit sign is a man running, then an arrow, then a door. And the signs in the elevators are sooo funny. I'll attach one. At least I think they're funny.

5. They don't have chocolate chips here. But they still make chocolate chip cookies. They just chop up chocolate bars every time. I feel like a lot of time could be saved if they would just invest in shipping some chocolate chips over here. Right? right.

6. I've heard, never actually seen, that when they ride their bikes here, to signal that they're coming up behind you, instead of ringing a bell or something, they just call out "yoohooo!" Like the store owner in Frozen who says "yoohoo big summer blowout!" funny.

I love you I love I love you all.

God Jul och Gott Nytt År!!

Kärlek,

Syster May

The Frozen Land

Letter from Syster May Monday, December 14, 2015:

Goodbye to Syster Davis!

WOW WOWOWOWOW. SWEDEN. Holy cow I'm actually here. And their keyboards are all different so if there's randomly some weird symbol in the middle of things, that's why. The different letters are where the apostraphes and things used to be so then the question mark is in a new location and basically this is just the icing on the cake to my life being turned upside down. 

SO, yeah. We came to Sweden. We got up at 2am on Monday to go to the airport. and HEY we got our visas. yayyy. So we flew to Chicago first and and they did the seats by alphabetical order so I was sitting by Äldste Moulton and basically we were trying to talk to each other but we just kept falling asleep. I was telling him such an engaging story and then realized he had fallen asleep again so we just gave up at that point. In Chicago we met up with the 11 elders who visa waited the past 6 weeks and they were on our plane to Germany with us. The flight was an actual eternity. There was a whole bunch of sleeping, drooling missionaries all over the place. I watched one of the best movies I've ever seen during the flight: the little video of the plane moving across the map of the world so you can see where you are. Way interesting and engaging. Then when we got to Germany we had like 45 minutes to get to our flight going to Sweden. So we all (now 26 of us) hurried to the customs place where we would have to show our passports and visas and stuff. And they let like 5 people through and then they just stopped us and wouldn't let us through anymore. They had us all go wait by the wall and we were trying to show them our visas and tell them we would only be there for 24/18 months but that just threw them for a loop that we weren't all staying for the same amount of time. It got to the point where there were 5 minutes until our plane was going to leave. LEAVE. not board. like actually just peace out and leave us stranded in the Frankfurt airport. Then all of a sudden they just started letting us through. They got all 20 of us that were left through the passport check and then for some reason they just had us bypass all the customs and bags being check and this security guy led us through all these back doors and secret passageways and they delayed the take off for us and we all got on the airplane and got to Sweden! It was crazy. And legit. 

We got here and President and Sister Beckstrand took us sightseeing and then we all went back to a church for a little orientation and driving video that we had to watch. We were all SO tired. You don't even understand. It was rough. We were all just falling asleep as they were talking to us. Then when it was time for the little video they were like, Okay, you HAVE to watch this so if you start to fall asleep go stand up in the back. Immediately half of us went to the back to stand up. But then it was just a mess because I fell asleep standing up and had to sit down. 

Sister Bateman was there, Dad. And she was like, My dad is obsessed with you!! He keeps obsessing over us meeting! Haha it was way funny.

Then the next day we all got assigned! All the trainers came to the church with us and we would go up one at a time and open our envelopes and then our trainer would come up to the front. It was fun. My trainer is Syster Crawford and I'm serving in Jakobsberg! It's pretty close to Stockholm. 

This week has consisted of a lot of firsts: first time in Europe, first time in Sweden, first time eating an unidentifiable food, first time contacting, first time sitting through relief society and actually not understanding a single word, first time fasting for a full 24 hours, first time being the coldest I've ever been in my life (i say it's the first time because i'm sure i'll be the "coldest i've ever been in my life" again), first time teaching and real life investigator. It's been fun and scary and embarrassing and humbling and scary and scary and cold. 

My trainer is the absolute best though. She's so nice and is always serving me and helping me do hard things and covering me when i literally have no clue what's happening because turns out I don't know this language at all even though I thought I was dece. 

We went at taught a less active, Kristin the other day and she was probably the sweetest person I've ever met in my life. She got out a notebook to take notes on the things that we were saying and she took notes on how we said that we had Distrikts meeting that morning and had set goals. She was like, "I just want to know everything that you do!" And she had little gifts for us and she was just so nice. 

Everyone has been so nice. The ward members kept saying my Swedish was good and they gave us little christmas gifts and oh I love them. Some people in this ward speak spanish as their native language so i've got to remember some spanish! 

But yeah, Sweden is a great time. 

I'm super lucky because the man we teach the most, Theo, can't speak Swedish so like I actually participate in lessons. 

But it's actually hard to learn Swedish here because everyone speaks english so they will just switch over to that so you understand. But then I'm like nooo speak Swedish so I can practice and then just don't even know what's being said anymore. But i'm getting better!

I see Syster Campbell once a week too because she's in my distrikt as well. So that's nice, a familiar face. 

Love you all!

Puss och kram,

Syster May

First Assignment!

We received a letter and pictures from the mission office December 11.  We are so happy to know where she is!!

Syster May with her companion, Syster Crawford, pointing to their area, Jakobsberg.

Part of the letter from President Beckstrand said:

We met your daughter Sister May, this past week as she arrived in Stockholm, Sweden.  It has been a delight to become acquainted with her.  

Upon arrival, the large group was taken by bus into the city of Stockholm for immigration paperwork.  We then went on a bus tour and had a glimpse of Stockholm and visited some interesting places near the city of Stockholm.  The Taby Chapel was the next stop with an orientation to the Sweden Stockholm Mission policies and procedures.  After orientation, we served dinner at the Church to a very tired group of excited missionaries.  I had the wonderful opportunity to spend some time in an interview with your missionary.  We concluded the day's activities with the Elder Missionaries spending the night in a hotel and the Sister Missionaries were taken to the Mission Home for the night.

The next morning we began the day promptly at 6:30 a.m. with breakfast at the Hotel and the Mission Home.  We departed on the bus for the Vasterhaninge Chapel, which is near the Sweden Temple.  there the Assistants, Sister Beckstrand and I provided training.  In the second meeting of the morning, she met her new companion and trainer, Sister Crawford.  They will serve together in the Jakobsberg I Area of the Sweden Stockholm Mission.  I would like you to know I have experienced some of my most tangible moments of revelation in the assigning of companionships.  I know your daughter and Sister Crawford will learn much from each other, and together they will be edified as they labour valiantly with full purpose of heart and obedience, in the service of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

You've been reassigned to labor in the....

Bronwen's email sent December 2, 2015:


Okay wow. Crazy that I have to talk about Thanksgiving in this email. That seems like an actual eternity ago. Thanksgiving morning we went and did additional study in our classroom until like 7:45 and then went and ate breakfast real fast so we could go wait in line for good seats for the devotional. It was SO COLD. Worth it though. The speaker was Dallin H. Oaks. His family was there with him and they did 4 musical numbers. Jenny Oaks Baker played for us in 3 of them. She's so good and it was so pretty. When Elder Oaks went up to the pulpit for the first time after the MTC president introduced him, his wife came up with him. He was like, "The MTC president isn't giving us enough credit. We actually have 41 grandchildren!" And then his wife leaned over to the mic and was like, "And two pregnancies with us today!"It was probably a "you had to be there" moment but the way it came out was so funny and Elder Oaks just started cracking up and his whole body was shaking.

At the beginning of his talk he was talking about how Thanksgiving started and he read a quote from George Washington and then he said, "I wish we could hear such marvelous declarations from our current national leaders." lol. wrecked by an apostle. The final musical number was him and his family singing a Thanksgiving hymn and (dare I say this about an apostles family) it was actually bad. It made him seem so much more real. He's just a normal guy with a family who laughs and can't sing. 

We watched 17 Miracles on thanksgiving also. Good thing I was wearing a rain jacket to repel all the tears that kept dumping out of my eyeballs. 

We did a service project with Feeding Children Everywhere. We made a ton of little meals for families. We made an MTC record of 357,000 meals. Holla. I am a professional salt measurer.

Then that night we had another devotional with mostly just musical numbers and little mormon messages. We watched David Archuleta's "glorious" music video so like HAPPY thanksgiving indeed. 

Good thing Thanksgiving was so good because the next day me and Syster Davis actually taught the worst lesson of our lives. If I was an investigator I would probably have said goodbye missionerer. sionara. At the begining we were asking Hunter what she had done that day and she said nothing and we were like oh those are the best days. And then Syster Davis was like, "yeahhh Netflix and chill is my fav." I'm pretty sure the Holy Ghost peaced out at that point. So basically Netflix is wrecking me even when I can't watch it every 2 seconds. 

The next day, Saturday, the actual coolest thing of my MTC life happened though. So, I get to be an investigator for Syster Hall and Syster Campbell. We all had to make up investigator profiles based on someone that we know and then they teach us just like a normal investigator. So Saturday was the second time that they were teaching me. During the first lesson they had taught me about the Holy Ghost and prayer and had challenged me to pray to God and ask him to feel the spirit. So, right before the lesson on Saturday, I knelt down in the classroom and prayed. Like I really was the investigator. I just asked to feel the spirit. And i waited for a while but I didn't feel anything. So then when the systrar came they asked me if I had done it and I told them I had but that I hadn't felt any different afterwards. Then later in the lesson as they were teaching about Joseph Smith's first vision I was completely overcome by the spirit. Like, I was faking being an investigator. I've heard the Joseph Smith story a thousand times. I lost my mind and was just sobbing. (Unfortunately I didn't have my rain jacket on this time) Sorry this is so missionaryish but like HOLY COW. It was so incredible. God really will answer our prayers. He answered mine to feel the spirit. Even though it was sort of fake. He's going to answer the people in Sweden's prayers. And I know that he'll answer your prayers. 

Sunday I accompanied the Icelandic elders in sacrament meeting while they sang Joy to the World in Icelandic. Apparently over in Iceland they sing Joy to the World at the actual speed of light and if you sing it any slower then...well I don't know what happens. But it's unacceptable to sing it slow/at a normal tempo there. My days of mom saying, "you have to play your songs 3 times each before you can be done practicing"and then racing through every song came in handy because boy, can I play Joy to the World fast.

It snowed on Sunday! We were all so cold on our temple walk. I could not even handle it. So like, 90% sure I'll be an ice statue in a week.

Which reminds me...we got our travel plans! And we haven't been reassigned!(yet) We still could. I guess the elders that were here before us also got their travel plans to Sweden but then a few days before they left they all got new travel plans to places int he U.S. So hoping our visas are here. We leave December 7th (AKA MONDAY) at 3:30am. All that us sisters talk about is what things we're going to have to abandon at the MTC or send home because of the weight restrictions. We are going to be walking around the airports as giant marshmallows so we can wear all our heavy winter stuff.

The Icelandic Elders and Søster Ogaard left Monday morning. We all got up at 3:20am to go to the travel office with Søster Ogaard and say goodbye. I can't believe that will be us in a few days! Also it's going to be such a struggle because the elevators weren't working when we went to with Søster Ogaard and we live on the 4th floor so getting luggage out is going to be a nightmare.

Yesterday I had an experience that I've never had before in my life. I walked upstairs to the classrooms and Eldste Messer was like, "Syster May, how are you so tan?" Pretty sure he confused wind chill and frostbite with tan-ness but like hey I'll take it.

Oh, so in case you were wondering about my choir days...they continued this week. Yeah I don't know why either. So yesterday we went to choir early so that we could sit by Äldste Nielsen and Wilson and have good seats at the front. Brilliant. Then like 20 minutes into practice these choir ladies were like, "Can you 2 move back here actually?" LITERALLY TO THE BACK ROW. We would have been teeny little pin heads on the screen when we sang. Plus we couldn't even sit with our friends. Not even worth it. So we gave our music to the sister sitting next to us and then booked it up the bleacher stairs. We didn't have to book it up that many stairs though because, remember, we got moved to the very back. The mean choir ladies were like are you coming back? But let me tell you, we were on a mission to get out of the asap so we had no time to respond. That, my friends, is how you successfully escape choir. 

Also this past week one night part of my dream was in Swedish so I would say I'm fluent at this point.

Wow we started packing this morning and it looks like an actual tornado has blasted our room apart. Everything is everywhere. Tay, I need you to sneak in here to be my packer again. I tried to fold everything so nice but I'm just mediocre. 

Only 4 more days at the MTC! Where has the time gone. 

Kärlek,

Syster May

Soster Ogaard left for Iceland

Stocking from Syster Davis' parents

My first Christmas present!

Team Sweden

TRAVEL TRAVEL PLAAAANS!

Email sent the afternoon of November 25, 2015 (a few hours after her regular weekly letter)

Back on becauseeeeeeee......TRAVEL PLANS CAME!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, we got our travel plans. We leave Salt Lake Airport at 8:50 on Dec 7. We fly to Chicago, then to Germany, then to Sweden!! 

We're trying not to get our hopes up because technically we still don't have visas. So we have a scheduled return flight that goes from Sweden to the Netherlands to New York. That way if they know our visas our coming we can still go because when we get to Sweden and they're like, "what the heck you don't have visas you can't be here." then we can be like, "look we're not staying we have a return flight." Pretty ingenious. 

Even though we're trying not to get our hopes up, THEY ARE SO HIGH RIGHT NOW. As high as the Swedes we're going to teach might be. 

You've never seen me do so much par core off benches.

Travel plans! Syster May and Syster Davis

with Elder Bentson

Par core!

One Month, People!

Letter from Syster May on November 25, 2015:

Another day, another destiny. This never ending road to Sweden (calvary). So missing Les Mis right now. And phantom. and Wicked. Sometimes while sisters are taking showers they'll start singing and then all these other girls taking showers are so talented and start singing with them and I swear they should record an album because they are so good. They sometimes sing musical songs and I love it.

Okayyy, what happened this week. Last Wednesday a little over 600 missionaries entered the MTC. It was insane. There were so many people with little orange dots on their nametags. I've seen Brindi Peterson a few times. It's so nice to see a familiar face! And then a couple days ago at dinner this sister was like, "Hey! Sister May right?" and I was like what. who are you. Turns out it was Katie Ditton and she says hi, E. 

Can you believe that I've already been here a month. Me neither. It's actually crazy. Last week the Icelandic elders and Sister Ogaard (Denmark) got their travel plans and you have never seen so many people so excited. All of us Swedish missionaries were like, can we hold them?? We were all ooohing and ahhhing over their departure dates and times. This week we should get ours though! Probably on Friday or Saturday! We're all just praying that the ending destination is actually Sweden and not North Dakota or something. 

We started teaching the other Swedish class this past week. So we have a third investigator. Syster Davis and I teach the other sisters. Syster Hall just observes and Syster Campbell is the investigator. Well, pretending to be someone else. And then they teach me. We alternate days of teaching and investigating. It's so fun to be on the other end of the teaching and also to do it with other missionaries. Also it's occasionally a mess. Haha when Syster Hall and Campbell taught me a couple days ago they were teaching me how to pray. They showed me, in a little pamphlet thing, the steps to prayer and had me read them out loud. The last step is, "when you are finished, close "in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." so I read it and then Syster Hall was like, "Amen." Just out of instinct. It was all we could do not to burst out laughing. 

Also, turns out I am in the midst of real life fame here. can I handle it? Not really. Äldste Nielsen is in the Restoration movie. We watched it on Sunday and wow he is an actual movie star. He said he got paid like $200 and just went and bought a DS right after. (He was a child). So we had a good convo about Animal Crossing (the best DS game in case you were wondering). I always remember playing that with Ethan but I was so bad at catching good fish. 

We had TRC again on Thursday, the 2 old ladies were there again and we talked to them afterwards. They said that they're so excited for us to get to Sweden for Christmas because it's the best time of the year and they celebrate all month long and everyone is so nice. They made it sound like actual paradise. 

Yesterday, I once again subjected myself to choir. Do not ask me why. We didn't go on Sunday so everyone had practiced and we just had absolutely no clue what was happening. We sat with the sopranos again. MISTAKE. I've only heard notes sung so high by Christine in Phantom of the Opera. We sang a version of Precious Savior, Dear Redeemer. Super super pretty but like, holy cow, I mouthed 80% of it. Good thing I thought of the mouthing technique because afterwards some other elders going to Sweden told me that me and Syster Davis were on the TV screen like 4 times. If I hadn't thought of just mouthing I would have just looked like a mute in front of the whole MTC. Count your blessings amirite. 

Today at the temple I saw Bishop Sybrowsky!! My freshman ward bishop at BYU. I've never been so happy. He said that he was going to tell Gabi and get your number from her, mom, because he wanted to call you. 

Thanksgiving is tomorrow and a lot of you have told me that you hope I get a great Thanksgiving meal. I hate to break it to you, but we have this whole different schedule for tomorrow and after a quick lunch we actually have time set apart to, "make sack dinners." That's a first...a sack dinner for Thanksgiving. Praise the pilgrims. Praise the Indians. Praise the MTC. We're hoping for a real Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. 

We're making sack dinners though because we have a service project in the cafeteria all day. cool. Also, tomorrow morning is the apostle speaker for our devotional. Our district is already planning our speedy breakfast so we can go wait in line for good seats. It's practically a sporting event. The ROC line MTC style. 

Sundays are actually so odd here. Because we go to our classrooms in the morning and study, then have lunch until like 12:20, then immediately go to church, which is just in our classrooms. Our sacrament meeting is our last meeting and absolutely nobody stays and lingers around like in normal wards because we have our temple walk right after. You've never seen people exit a chapel so fast. 

On Sunday, before the devotional, me, Syster Davis, Syster Hall, and Syster Campbell went back to our residence for like 20 minutes. We all changed into like tights and basketball shorts. But Syster Campbell just had on spandex over her basketball shorts. Sys Hall came into our room and then a few minutes later Sys campbell came in and was like, "Do you have a key? We're locked out of our room." haha they had to borrow my clothes and shoes so they could go get a key from Sister Ogaard in choir practice. 

Also, Sister Johnson (Karlie) left yesterday and the night before she left was so sad. One of my hardest goodbyes. She's going to be so wonderful in Florida! 

Har en bra vecka! Jag gillar och sacknar ni. Lycklig Tacksägelsedagen! Eat some mashed potatoes for me. 

Kärlek,

Syster May

With Elder Nielson.  Tic Tac Toe?

Eating some of the MTC food that she loves (not)

Systers Hall and Campbell in Syster May's clothes.  (Mom, Syster Hall absolutely loves those shoes and had her mom buy her some and send them to Sweden.  They are actually pillows for your feet.)

Me and Karl on her last night.

You can call me Queen "B"

Syster May's letter from November 18, 2015:

Okay, I created a new technique for emailing this week so that I wouldn't have complete anxiety and panic when I got on the computer. Each day throughout the week I wrote down something that happened each day so I would remember things to say. Wow, good thinking Bron. I mean Syster May.

Before I start talking about the week let me just tell you about by new theory I developed on MTC food. They serve you nasty nasty stuff most days so that then on Sunday, or some random day of the week, when they serve not quite as nasty food, you think it is actually divine and perhaps even manna from heaven. You think the MTC is so great and nice for serving you good food when in reality if you were to eat it outside of the MTC you would be appalled. I guess I shouldn't bash on all the MTC food...they have some bomb milk and cereal here. Also the rolls are good. Also one time they had dirt cups with gummy worms in it and you've never seen me and Syster Davis so happy. 

Anyways, so Thursday. We did TRC for the first time! TRC is when you teach real life people. They're members, so it isn't the lessons. More like a long spiritual thought. We meet with 2 people, each for 20 minutes. But in Swedish! And sometimes we'll get to skype people in Sweden when we do it! But Thursday we had real people. In one room there were 2 old ladies and they were just darling. One spoke Norwegian (Swedes and Norwegians can understand each other for the most part) and the other lady was born in Sweden. Her Swedish was SO GOOD and SO BEAUTIFUL. It was all sing-songy and actually sounded nothing like whatever language we've been attempting to peak these past 3 weeks. #goalz

Friday, fun. We taught Molli. Ah, I love her. She's so nice and she's doing so good at trying to follow visdomsordet and not drink kaffe or smoke anymore. Then at night our other teacher had us teach a little in English...nej nej nej. That was the most difficult thing I've done here. We had like 5 minutes to teach the plan of salvation to him, as a class, in english. HARD. I've never been so grateful for the language barrier. Even though it's frustrating, it forces us to only say the most important parts of each topic/lesson because that's literally ALL we can say. 

Saturday. Class. Class. more class. typical. But hey we got a little change because Saturday night our teacher, sister bass, couldn't come so we had a sub! It was one of the Danish teachers. He just taught us in Danish which was legit because we could understand a lot of what he was saying!

I heart Sundays at the MTC. We had such good lessons. Me and Syster Davis went to choir (don't laugh Tay). Yes, I went to choir. Lol they forced me to be a soprano because I don't understand how singing music works. I guess forced is the wrong word. more like I just didn't know what was happening and sat on the soprano side. But like, can I sing high? no. Can I sing even kind of high? no. Should I be a soprano? no. Can I even sing medium or low? no. moral of the story: should I ever sing in choir? absolutely not. 

The devotional Sunday night was so good! The missionary media director of the church spoke to us and told us about the 2015 Christmas initiative! You know how last Christmas was #heisthegift and Easter was #becausehelives. Well, hey, sneak peek...this years Christmas is #ASaviorisBorn. He showed us the video and it's SO GOOD! It's all these kids in Jerusalem, LA and New York telling the Christmas story/about Christ. They call it "the hero video." He told us about all the chruch's Christmas campaign stuff. He showed us all the ad space they bought this year in Times Square and then he was like, "we planned this really good because we know exactly where Ryan Seacrest will stand during (some broadcast Christmas thing I forget the name of) and every time the camera is on Ryan Seacrest, all our ads will be on TV too." Legit. And he said on Instagram they're doing the "25 gifs of Christmas." I thought it was clever cuz like gifs...gifts. Who knew the older generation could be so technological. Anyways, the Christmas video comes out November 29th so when it does, go watch it!

Monday we set a baptismal date with Molli! Way chill. Also we did the actually most adorable, cutest thing. Our teacher was meeting with an elder so we were all in the classroom and saw his scriptures open to D&C 4:4 and he had marked it like a Swedish flag. So of course we all thought that was just the neatest thing so we all started marking ours that way and then the other Swedish teacher walked by and told us that all missionaries in Sweden have that scripture marked that way. And that him and Broder Cheney had seen their MTC teachers scriptures at the MTC marked that way so their districts had copied them (they were in the same MTC group). And I just think that is a darling tradition. That all the missionaries see their teachers have it marked and then do it. Plus the Swedish flag is just cute. We all ooo'd and awww'd for a solid 20 minutes as we marked. Even the elders. 

Dalton, I have a new saying for you to start using. Äldste Bentson always says, "___ as crud" Fill in the blank with whatever word you want. One of his favorites is "that's chill as crud." make it a thing. 

Me and Syster Davis finally got our Sweden shirts. Or as we like to call them, our volleyball team jerseys. We look chill as crud when we all wear them to gym. Pic coming soon. 

Also I have come upon a new talent here at the MTC. Or maybe just rediscovered it. FOUR SQUARE. I am bomb. It's so fun. All the elders are like the queen has come back when I decide to play and grace them with my abilities. Their reaction is a bit extreme but hey, I'll take it. 

I love it here. I can't believe that we're half way done here! Less than 3 weeks until SWEDEN!!!! We're all losing our minds we're so excited. 

I love you all! Thanks for the letters from the College family this week. They made my day. I love you guys! 

Oh also I met a few elders going to Logan on their missions this week! I told them to hold down the fort while I'm gone. 

​Kärlek,

Syster May

Our humor now.  This is actually how you say island in Swedish.
It sounds like "uhr," like you punched yourself in the stomach.

First snow of our mission and certainly not our last!

The cutest

Me and Karl--Sister Johnson (our neighbor from two houses down at home, my next door neighbor in the MTC)

Visas and Bednar

Visas & Bednar

They say no gang signs but we're pretty rebellious

The Dutch Elders left on Monday and it was the saddest thing in the world.
Who knew a goodbye handshake could be so sad?
​

Bronwen's letter from Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Hallå!

Wow I'm pretty sure I'll say this in the next seventy something emails but HOLY COW I can't believe that it's already been a week! Seriously this past week flew by! 

This week has been so good. Our district has grown together so much and our whole zone has so much fun together. Okay so last Friday we found out our investigator, Molli, is our second teacher! (Actually we all already knew that but we had to pretend we didn't) So her real name is Sister Bass and she is so sweet. It's so nice to finally have two teachers! Before we just had one of our 3 hour blocks in the classroom with a teacher so it's nice to have two of them with a teacher so that we don't waste as much time away doing stupid stuff like playing hangman with Swedish words or throwing pens at a roll of tape and seeing who could hit it (expectations for fun are severely decreased here at the MTC). I learn more everyday both of the language and how to be more effective missionary. 

Sunday was so good! It's by far the best day at the MTC. Every week we all have to prepare a talk on the weekly topic in our language. Then at the beginning of sacrament meeting the conductor lays out the program and you find out if you have to give your talk. Slightly scary but also not because no one can really understand you no matter what you say. Then Sunday night was MOVIE TIME. We got to see Meet the Mormons and it was so good! All of us chose to go see that because there's actual real music in it. Everyone was getting so excited when "glorious" is played at the end.
This week Syster Davis and I got another investigator! His name is Ronnie. It was so fun to go teach him for the first time on Monday. Our lessons are slowly getting better and we're able to understand more. So now we teach Molli and Ronnie. It was so funny, yesterday one companionship of Elders went in to teach Molli and they came back and were talking to Sister Bass (they're actually the same person remember) and they were like we thought it went pretty good. And she was like yeah but did you hear what she said at the end? Apparently she told them that she had just lost her job...but they didn't understand what she said so they were just like "good good." Pretty much all of our teaching experiences in a nutshell. But we're gaining more understanding. It's exciting to go into a lesson and basically understand everything that's happening. But it's frustrating to know what you want to say in English but then not have the words for it in Swedish.

Yesterday we had the MTC Devotional and Elder Hugo Montoya came from the quorum of the 70. It was so good! His first language is clearly Spanish and his English isn't very good. At the end of his talk he had all of us who are going to teach in languages other than our first language and, of course, so many hands went up. Then he told us that he also isn't speaking in his native language and that it's really hard but he does it to be obedient to what the Lord wants. The spirit was so strong during the whole devotional and it affirmed to my mind again (plus we're taught this every day of our lives here) that we are not the teacher. The Holy Ghost is the real teacher. No matter how well we can speak the language, the Spirit can be there and teach things that we have no capability of conveying. 

We know that we'll most likely get an apostle for our devotional on Thanksgiving and we all really want it to be Elder Bednar. And we really want our visas to go through. Basically that's all a missionary needs, visas & Bendar. 

I love volleyball so you are going to have to deal with me talking about it every single time I write from the MTC. But GUYS it's such a struggle. We try to form a dream team but then it isn't very fun because the other team is just a mess and cant even pass a serve. We've also tried establishing a varsity and jv court but that has failed as well. You just have to deal. But overall it really is fun. Today we got to play for like an hour and a half with just our zone which was really really fun! 

In case any of you were wondering how a bunch of 18/19/20 year olds are coping without social media, never fear. There's a new kind of social media stalking that we like to participate in. Its....drum roll....I'm a Mormon profiles. Its simultaneously the worst and funniest thing. We were all supposed to make one before we came to the MTC. On the computers here we can only access things from LDS.org because the search bar is disabled. We figure out each others first names and then search each other. It's all fun and games until your profile gets looked up and then its just embarrassing because none of us knew what to write on those things so everyone just laughs. 

Karlie Johnson enters today! I hope I see her often! Mom, to be a host you have to be scheduled to be one and they normally just pick missionaries who will be here for 9 weeks. But i'll get to see her sometime, I'm sure! 

Wow my bathroom cleaning abilities have exponentially increased these past two weeks. In the mornings on Saturdays at 8:30 and Mondays at 6:15 we have "service." AKA cleaning bathrooms. Well, I guess there are other possibilities but me and Syster Davis ALWAYS get assigned bathrooms. We have to wear those embarrassing plastic goggle things that you always had to wear in middle school and high school when you did science experiments because "one time an elder didn't wear them and he got cleaner in his eye and then his contact fused to his eyeball." So, out of fear of my contact fusing to my eyeball, I follow the rule. 

The best day of probably all of our lives was Monday night when we got Chick-Fil-A for dinner. Nothing else even needs to be said about that because chick-fil-a would make your day if you live outside of the MTC so it pretty much makes your whole week when you're in here.

Well, until next week!

Mycket kärlek,

Syster May

Svergilious‏

Girls in my Branch

Syster May's letter from November 4, 2015:

Hallå!

Wow I can't believe that it's already been a week! I absolutely love it here at the MTC. Everyday is so so fun. Learning Swedish is so fun. So, last Wednesday when I got dropped off my host (who barely spoke English so that was sort of a struggle) took me to my classroom. There were already a few missionaries in there so I just started sitting down in a desk and then realized someone was trying to speak Swedish at me. Are you kidding. I did not understand anything. Basically the first day consisted of all of us just nodding our heads and smiling because we had no idea what was happening since our teacher only speaks in Swedish to us. There are 4 sisters going to Sweden and 11 elders so we're split into 2 districts and have two separate teachers. I adore all of them. We have so much fun together. Wednesday night all of the new missionaries were at an orientation meeting and we sung "We are as the army of Helaman" and it was probably the coolest thing that's ever happened. 

It's actually really hard to think of how to organize this email. I feel like I'm just spouting information randomly. Thursday we had class all day and then met our Branch Presidency that night. They are the best. Their wives are so nice and are always giving us hugs. Oh! and Thursday we said our first prayer in Swedish! 

Then Friday we taught our investigator in Swedish for the first time. There were a lot of awkward pauses when me and Syster Davis (that's my companion) just actually had no idea what she had said and had no clue what to say. But hey, we actually taught a lesson in Swedish so it was great! Pretty much the only thing we really know how to say is "good." So whatever our investigator says we're always are like "ohh, bra. bra." And nod our heads. Effective right? No. 

We've taught her every day since then and we keep in improving! One time she told us she drinks coffee and we had nothing to say because our classic "good" response was clearly not going to be appropriate so we just stared at her. 

The second time Syster Davis and I taught Molli we were teaching her how to pray and when we told her to fold her arms she acted so confused. So we repeated the word arms and she was like What!? In Sweden that means *and then did a bunch of gun actions and noises. So yeah. We told her to fold her guns. We really know how to bring the spirit.

Saturday we probably did some fun stuff that I can't remember and sat in class all day. Sunday we had church. Our branch just has all of us Swedish missionaries, two elders going to Iceland, a sister and 2 elders going to Norway, a sister going to Denmark, and 2 elders going to Holland/Netherlands. One of those elders went to school with Lauren and Porter..Elder Dearden. During sacrament meeting we all bore our testimonies because hello there are only 21 of us. I actually like it being so small. It's just us 6 sisters in relief society so we just can talk about whatever the topic is. Sunday night we got to watch a "movie." Actually just a film of Elder Bednar speaking to the MTC a few years ago called The Character of Christ. SO GOOD. Afterwards we were all like "that's the best movie we've ever seen!" 

Every morning Syster Davis and I play volleyball for our gym time which to be honest is such a struggle. We don't keep score which is good because otherwise I would get mad when people just stand there and don't even try to do anything. Also it's just hilarious because Elders and sisters are just scared to touch each other so sometimes the ball drops because they don't want to collide.

So, Sweden, in Swedish, is Sverige. It sounds like Suh-vare-Ee-uh. BUT the first couple days nobody knew how to say it so we all would say s-vergie. That quickly morphed into Svergilicous (ya know, fergalicious). Then yesterday that turned into a one hit, one line wonder composed by Syster Hall and Syster May. "Svergilicious, systerlicious, make them Swedes go döpas."

Which of course, we think is the FUNNIEST thing. Döpas means baptism. So like, A) we don't know how to conjugate yet (who says make them Swedes go baptism) and B) we're hilarious.

I am loving it here. I miss you all. Mom, send more pictures. I loved that. Also yeah, I can read letters or dear elders any day of the week. I just can only read emails on Wednesdays. And Dad, yes, the dear elder actually works. 

I love you all! I've never been so happy in my life. Even though it's hard its so exciting to see myself and the elders change everyday. Love love love.

Kärlek,

Syster May

Swedish Sisters

My District