Midsommar: 6/22/15

This week there were a few fun things that happened. Last Monday, we were walking home, and heard something in the bushes. It was a hedgehog! We had been looking all over for one for around a week. The hedgehog was in some pretty thick bushes and wouldn´t come out. Elder Williams tried poking it with a stick and I shook some of the bushes to try to scare it out. But it wouldn´t budge. So eventually I just reached in, scooped my hand under it, and pulled him out. They are spiky on top but the fur underneath them is pretty soft. So we took turns holding it and took lots of pictures. It was pretty awesome, haha.

     On Friday we had Midsommar! We took a bus out to the area where the bishop´s family lives, because they invited the whole ward over for a party. We helped to decorate the Midsommar pole. We used flowers that came from the woods nearby. In Sweden there are tons of flowers that grow in the wild. We had extra flowers afterwards, so the sisters and I tried making flower crowns out of them because that is something people wear at Midsommar usually I think. Only Sister Bourelle and I were successful in getting the flowers to stick in a circle shape. I will attach a picture of mine. The midsommar pole we had was only like 4 feet tall, but it was still good. We got to dance around the midsommar pole to the special music they play for it. It was like fifteen minutes of running and dancing around the pole. It was pretty funny. 

     Everyone says there is a tradition at Midsommar that it is always rainy, and I guess it´s true because it started raining right as we finished dancing. So we went inside and played a few party games. We tried playing telephone, the game where you whisper down a line and see if the message comes out the same, but it didn´t work. The first time the message switched from English to Swedish and was nowhere near the original words haha. 

     On Saturday we helped a member family work on their roof. They set up a slide so they could just slide down the old roof tiles, and we stacked them up. We will be going back tomorrow to help put up the new roof tiles. 

     Yesterday our investigator Alexander came to church! It was his first week of a normal church schedule. It was kind of funny, because all the young men were out of town this week so we just taught him a lesson with the young men´s president during that hour. After church we were walking around the big castle in the middle of town, and talked to a couple from Texas. They are here as part of a TV show called Alltför Sverige, where Americans with Swedish ancestry learn about their heritage and compete to get to see their living Swedish relatives. So that was pretty cool. We may be in the background of some of the shots, haha. 

     This week I just want to share my testimony of the Liahona and other church magazines. Before my mission I hardly ever read in them, because they seemed sort of boring and I thought it would take a lot of time to read through them. But there are so many great stories and counsel that can help us. I read the new Liahona for July right after we got it in the mail, and I honestly felt like a lot of articles applied to things I am working on right now. These magazines can be a way for us to get the words of the living prophets in a way besides just reading scriptures or listening to general conference. I have definitely come to appreciate them a lot more during my time on the mission.

I hope everyone has a great week! 

Elder Smith

Pictures!

1) hedgehog selfie

2) Hedgehog selfie #2

3) My flower crown

4) Dancing around the midsommar pole