Week 55- Midsommar Celebration

June 29, 2018

Week 55- Midsommar Celebration

This week flew by because of the Swedish holiday called Midsommar! (Midsummer)

Here in Sweden, they typically celebrate holidays on the Afton (eve) meaning Christmas was mainly celebrated on Christmas eve, Easter eve, including the Eve of Midsummer day which was this Friday!

We traveled to this place called Tyresta, about 2hrs away to go to a celebration there. A midsummer celebration consists of the following:

There is this thing called the May Pole (see pics). Everyone before the celebration weaves flowers and grass all over it and then they raise the May Pole to begin the ceremony.

After the May Pole is raised, a lady dressed in traditional Swedish clothing gets up and leads everyone along with the band in singing some classic Swedish rhymes/songs (see videos). While she leads everyone and everyone's singing these, we held hands and danced around the May Pole. The funny part is that these are like kiddie songs and dancing, but the Swedes LOVE it. They all get into it ha ha So you see full grown men dancing with their kids while acting along with the song, fake laughing and crying as the lady directed ha ha it was pretty funny.

That's the main part to be honest. We danced and sang there for probably a half hour then it was over. They had their annual tug-of-war competition and the missionaries lost haha I guess we need to work out harder during our 6:30am-7 block each morning-

Besides that, Elder Francis and I have set some real worthy goals for the coming 6 weeks. We had a cool lesson yesterday with a man from Hawaii. It felt good to teach someone in English and to hear American English. While on the way to the lesson, a man ran up to us and said that he had met the missionaries last year and was about to get baptized but he lost contact with them when he switched numbers. So, after the lesson with the American, we went back to his little snack shop he owns and taught him. He showed us his Book of Mormon in the Urdu language he had been reading, as well as a baptismal calendar that we used to use to help prepare people. Pretty sweet experience. We are meeting him this week to begin reviewing everything with him so he can be ready for baptism in the next month or two.

Sorry I don't have much time today, we are heading to a member’s house for dinner. Lately all the members have asked to have us over, so for about a week straight we have meals set up each night... pretty good sign :) Feels like my idea of a state-side mission. The ward here is supportive!

Love,

Elder Gordon