Week 79/80....Swedish traditions, stars and yummy food.

Week 79

This week was a bit crazy with it being the first week of the transfer (a 6 week cycle). We had some meetings, and had to help the other 2 elders (Ähonen and Hughes) in Gubbängen move out of their place and clean up in preparation for 2 sister missionaries to take their place. It's safe to say the standard for apartment cleanliness is a bit lower for elders than it is for sisters. We thought we cleaned it pretty good, but then the day after we heard the sisters went through and cleaned the place again ha ha, oh well. 

Each Thursday here in Gubbängen we have sportskväll (sports night). The chapel has a sports court (one of the few in Sweden with one) so we play basketball, innebandy (floorball), or chair soccer with the youth, less actives, or people we invite. It's usually half members and half random people we meet. Great opportunity for others to get to be in the church and meet some of the teens that are members. So before sportsnight this week we visited our friend Louis (just turned 18 -- we called and sang him the swedish bday song complete w guitar and irish flute) and his little brother. Shared a nice Christmas message, grabbed some Burger King on the way to Gubbängen and then had a fun time ballin out at the church together. 

Earlier in the week we had a cool experience with a guy name Phil. We got a random call from the senior missionary couple saying someone called asking for our number because he wants to meet us. We gave him a call right away and bee-lined it for the chapel Tuesday night at like 8.30 and met this guy. Turns out he met the missionaries on the street in a town about an hour away and felt like they had a good spirit to them. He's felt lonely lately, and that it had been long overdue to meet with us. He said he wants to become a member. Lessons like that are the best, not just because they're so rare and not because he wanted to become a member, but because we had no time to prepare anything and frankly didn't know anything about him to be able to prepare anything so we just had to teach what we felt like God needed him to hear. He came to sports night and then to dinner with a member last night too, real solid, kind-hearted dude. 

Last but not least, we got invited to the elder’s quorum Christmas glögg fest Friday night (elders quorum is basically the men 20 and older in the church, glögg is a Swedish Christmas drink kind of like a spiced cider/wine but without alcohol). They ended up having the whole julbord (a large assortment of Swedish Christmas food) so we men all sat around a candle-lit table, shared stories, cheered to julmust (special Christmas cola, like a variation of coke, that only comes out around Christmas time), reminisced, and basked in the Christmas jolliness before making our way to the living room to sip glögg, and sing Christmas carols. Whatta night with the guys. 

As many of you have probably heard, yes it gets quite dark here in Sweden during the winter. It can get kinda gloomy, but one thing Swedes have us Americans beat at is lighting. Swedish lighting is so crisp, so sleek. They have good mood lighting in homes, nice candles, and especially good window lighting during the winter season. By window lighting I mean big paper mâché stars that hang in the window. As you ride the tunnelbana (subway) you can see apartment buildings lit up with these bright, beautiful stars that hang in everyone's windows. 

This can be symbolic in our lives. Luckily here, they know when the dark comes and they are prepared with lights for the worst. But in our lives, for no reason at all things can feel dark. Just as the Swedish people have these lights ready, there are lights we can have ready before hand because these dark stunds will unavoidably come. Find your light -- whether it's family, prayer, nature, service, music. Identify what that light is. Dark periods come at different times for everyone, but we can always have our lights ready when we notice someone walking in the dark. I'm grateful for the lights in my life: my family, praying to God, calm music, making others laugh. Those have brought me out of darkness. 

Week 80

Stockholm is now covered in a few inches of snow and it feels like Christmas here. Bara mysigt!

This week we stocked up on some classic swedish christmas food faves:

Pepparkakor - thin gingerbread cookies you can dunk in milk

Christmas cheese -  a huge ball of cheese covered in that red wax that's got a strong nutty flavor that goes well on toast and butter

Glögg - a spicey cider/wine-tasting drink (without alcohol)

Brynt Smör (brown butter) - fancy butter with a burnt taste to it

Vörtbröd - basically a dark brown bread that is seasoned to taste like gingerbread/christmasy-spiced... not exactly sure how to describe it, but you throw some butter, cheese, and jam on there and you can fly through half a loaf in one sitting. 

Julskum - strawberry marshmallow candies shaped like Santas

Pepparkaksbullar - flakey swirled cinnamon rolls but the cinnamon is replaced by gingerbread flavoring

'Tis the season!

Thursday night we went to a little Santa Lucia concert at a swedish church. The Santa Lucia concert is a swedish traditional ceremony where a choir sings songs, and a woman/girl stands in front for 30-60 mins singing as well with a crown on her head that's got 5 lit candles on top. 

Other than that I got to head into Stockholm on splits with Elder Olson who's fresh in the mission. He's from Provo and is about 2 months into being trained. It's always fun bein' out with new missionaries and watching them plow through a conversation in swedish. We sat across from this guy who comes from southern sweden, where they speak a hard-to-understand dialiect of swedish. I had a hard time understanding the dude but was just chuckling seeing Elder Olson try to make out what language this guy was speaking. 

It's felt good this last week talking to people about Christ and the hope and light He offers us all. It's sad to see people deny that, but it's difficult for them to really see how much good it can do in their lives just from a 10 second conversation at the door. While we keep going out and knocking doors and talking to people, I've concluded the best way to show others Christ's light is through our everyday interactions with those we are close with. We taught a lesson to the youth this last sunday in church about just being able to answer friend's questions about what our church is and why they go. Start with the simple questions and know how to answer those in an honest, heartfelt way and be willing to not shy away when those opportunities come. Trust me, it works much better than two 20 year old boys in dripping jackets knocking on your door in the middle of dinner :)

Merry Christmas! 

Mycket kärlek,

Äldste Gordon