JUL VECKA

Okay so there is like a whole week of Christmas here not just one day so I'm going to morph all the days together. ;) I alla fall, this week has been crazy and awesome. The Swedes really do know how to celebrate Christmas. :) We went to so many homes this week and had so much amazing food. I also finally had PERSIAN food! Jätta bra! Best day ever. We also had amazing Swedish food, like glögg and julmust, and salmon, and meatballs, and pepparkaka. :) For our christmas present we got to watch Tangled in Swedish and Polar Express. Such a treat. Me and this sweet member named Celine were fancying over Flynn Rider lol. We also took a family district photo with all our ugly christmas sweaters and went sledding with the little kids. It was the steepest hill I have ever seen and they kept crashing into trees! They would just laugh and go again haha. This little girl named Sorra thought it was so funny that I could not understand what she was saying (she spoke fluent Swedish lol). I kept saying, Jag kan inte förstår dig! (I can't understand you) And she was like Jag kan inte engelska! (I can't speak english!) and would laugh so hard. My swedish needs some work lol. Anyways, the people here are the sweetest and they made us feel right at home. We played a ton of games too and had so many laughs. I got to skype my family too which was a highlight as well! :) It felt like I was at home again. It was probably the best present of the whole day to see them. :) Being here for the holidays is such a blessing and an adventure. Even though I am far from home I am loving it here!! This place starts to feel like home each and everyday. I hope you all had a great Jul (Christmas) and a Happy New Year! Kärlek Syster Davis :)

Northern Lights! Christmas Conference!

Merry Christmas alla! Hope you're having a great winter break. This week was very busy and fun. We got to go down to Stockholm for Christmas Conference. :) It was our P-Day when we got there so we explored all around the city and toured the area. There were lights and people everywhere! It reminded me kinda like what New York City would be like. Being here during Christmas is such a dream and it is absolutely beautiful. Maybe I'll get to serve there someday. :) I also ran into some of my MTC Friends too!! Äldste Moultron, Äldste Bentson, Syster May, Syster Campbell, and Syster Svensson. It was so great seeing them. I miss my whole MTC posse so much! We also sang Christmas carols on the streets of Stockholm and passed out Pepparkaka. :) It was so great. We stayed with the Täby systers for the night and then had Jul Conference the next day. The Beckstrands and the assistants put on this amazing meeting for us. It was about different Christ-like attributes. Äldste Sahlin talked about the fishermen who dropped their nets and came unto Christ. He talked about how sometimes we are like those fishermen, and sometimes we need to drop those nets, and just drop those things that are holding us back from coming closer to Christ. I loved that. After the meeting we had a delicious lunch and had a white elephant exchange! I got reindeer head magnet and Sys Brink got these two Star Wars Masks and Vitamin D lol. After that we had a long train ride back to Sundsvall and told stories on the way. It looked like the movie Brother Bear outside for some reason to me too haha. Anyways It's been pretty same-old same-old since being back. We taught the 2 great Iranian guys the Plan of Salvation and they loved it! They said that for some reason that it sounded familiar to them, like they've heard it somewhere before. :) They are GOLDEN! They came to church again too and have baptism dates for January. They are the best! We went Christmas caroling this week too with the young men and young women too. The Swedes are so sweet. :) It was so fun! Also me and Syster Brink have been obsessed with these 90s seminary gospel library videos we found. We watch them during dinner sometimes and laugh so hard. I'm pretty sure Brother Stowe (my seminary teacher) showed us a few of these during class once. The background music in them is prime too lol. This week too while we were contacting this drunk guy told us this whole story about a monster living in his basement and he even acted it out for us haha. At the end he was like, 'Grup Kram!!' (group hug!) and grabbed us in a hug. It was interesting haha. Highlight of the entire week though...We saw the Northern lights!! :) Something I can check off my bucket list. ;) We opened our huge back window, popped some popcorn, and just watched. It seriously was unreal. My pictures don't do it much justice. I was talking to Sys Brink about how much the stars and the night sky strengthen my testimony. :) And after seeing the Norrsken it just escalated even more! I love Sweden. I love being a missionary. I love my family (whom I miss dearly), I love helping others gain their own testimony (even if its just a small seed planted), and I LOVE this gospel! Thanks for everything everyone, and until next time. :) God Jul!

First week in Sverige! :) St. Lucia!

Hey alla! It has been a little while since I last got to write! This past week and a half has been so eventful. We all got our visas and made it safely to Sweden. The plane rides were so fun and full of many laughs. We met up in Chicago with the other Äldstrar from last transfer who got reassigned for 6 weeks. It was so fun to meet more Swedish missionaries! I got to call my family too which was great. :) We finally got to Sweden and the Beckstrands and the assistants were there to greet us. We were all so wiped out and kept falling asleep throughout the day. They took us all around Stockholm and showed us a bunch of cool landmarks. We had such an amazing dinner too. Best chicken I've ever had. ;) We had a few more meetings and then we retired at the mission home for the night. We got a much needed rest. The next day was so exciting. We got to see the Stockholm temple and found out our areas we were going to be serving at, and who our trainers would be. :) It felt like opening another mission call lol. They gave us all letters and when they called our name we would go to the front and read where we were going and everyone cheered! They told us one of us Systers were going to Norland and I had a feeling for some reason that it was me haha. I opened my call and I was right. ;) 'You are called to labor in the Sundsvall area and you will be trained by Syster Brink!' It was so exciting! :) It was so sad saying goodbye to all my MTC friends but hopefully I'll get to see them again. We took a 4 hour train and finally arrived in Sundsvall. I can tell you it is so beautiful here, but COLD. lol. And it's not even the coldest month yet. Please pray for me. ;) And I absolutely LOVE Syster Brink! She is the best and she helps me so much with my struggle in everything. She decorated the apartment so adorably and it was nice and homie and I settled in so quickly. :) They told me that they see the Northern lights here sometimes so I'm keeping an eye out for those! The next day we went right to work. We went out and I did my first contacting! I was so scared before but it actually isn't too bad haha. All I can say is, 'Excuse me,' 'How are you,' and 'We are missionaries with the Church of Jesus Christ.' In Swedish, 'Ursäkta mig,' 'Hur är det med dig?' and 'Vi är missionärer med Jesu Kristi Kyrka.' And then Syster Brink takes over and talks to them in her amazing fluent Swedish lol. This one dude told us he believes Christianity is Communist and Capitalism and that God is an alien. lol Some people here say they funniest things. After that we went to an appointment with a member. Even though I didn't really know what was going on (happens a lot haha) I could still feel the spirit so strongly! All I heard was 'Vi är Gods döttrar.' and I lost it. The members here are so sweet. Another really cool lesson we had were with these 2 guys from Iran. :) They only know Persian and a little English so this new member who knew both fluently translated our whole lesson to them! :) We taught them the first half of the plan of Salvation and they loved it. We also had a cool deep talk about Adam and Eve so that was cool. They are the sweetest guys ever. I helped them find persian Bibles at the iphone app store too since they were looking everywhere for them. They came to church this last Sunday too and taught us a little bit of Persian during Sunday School. They have a baptism date for January so hopefully it works out. :) All the missionaries in our district went to St. Lucia after church too! It was so pretty. :) I'll be sure to send pictures! We had this yummy lunchin after church too and they had the best food. Where has this food been all my life?! lol They have this yummy Jul (Christmas) Soda called Julmust and its pretty good. And these ginger breads that I had like 10 of! haha Were going to Stockholm today too for Christmas Conference so were pretty excited for that. So far it's been a great first week here. Even though I get so tired by the end of the day it is so worth it and I love every second of being here! I miss you all and hope you're all doing great! Love you all and God Jul! :) Vi ses nästa vecka.

Thanksgiving!! Last week at the MTC!

Well this is it. My last letter here at the MTC. :) Last P-day Äldste Bentson and Äldste Hadley ran down to our resident to us telling us we got our flight plans!! We leave Dec 7 at 3:30 in the morning and we are all so pumped! We are praying everything goes smoothly. The next time I write home I'll be out in the field! :) We are counting down the days! Anyways this past week was soooo fun. Thanksgiving was a blast. Our district all got up super early and waited out in line in the freezing cold to get good seats for the apostle devotional. We all practiced our Swedish together while we waited and the Russian elders sang us some Russian Hymns. It reminded me of waiting in line for a concert lol. It was a party. ;) After an hour or so they finally let us in and the apostle was...(drum roll) Dallin H. Oaks!! Me and Äldste Nielson made a bet who it was going to be. I guessed Utchdorf or Bednar and he guessed Holland or Monson. Who ever lost was going to have to stand during the opening song. Luckily none of us had too. ;) Anyways the devotional was so perfect. Elder Oaks had his whole family come and play different musical numbers. His famous violinist daughter Jenny Oaks Baker came too! She was incredible. Elder Oaks' talk was great too. It was about the spirit of thanksgiving and cool quotes from the founding fathers. It set the mood for the rest of Thanksgiving so perfectly. :) After that we all chilled in our class for an hour or so and talked about what we liked in the meeting and watched a few Mormon Messages and stuff (Our source of entertainment here haha.) Then it was time for THANKSGIVING DINNER. Best meal at the MTC so far. They had everything. :) And the mashed potatoes were actually real! It was so fun celebrating this holiday with all my missionary friends. I was worried I was going to be homesick during the day but I weirdly wasn't at all! (Still miss you family haha). It was such a blessing to feel right at home during this day. After that we all recuperated from our meal by watching a movie!! :) We got to watch 17 Miracles. Dang that movie is a tear-jerker. I cried through the whole thing. It was about the pioneers moving west and all these trials they endured so the gospel and themselves, could survive. I am so grateful for their sacrifice and it set the mood for thanksgiving even higher! After watching it I felt like I should never complain about anything again. My life is so easy compared to theirs. Loved every minute of it and I recommend it to anyone. After that we got to do this service project! It was fun. We organized 357,000 meals for needy families. We had an assembly line and my job was the weight the baggies and add or take away rice so it was a perfect measure. :) It was fun we all laughed and joked while doing it and made friends with the French elders who were helping us. After that we got to go outside and enjoy all the Christmas lights they put outside. It was so beautiful and snowing at the same time! Me, Syster May, Äldste Johnson and Äldste Nielson were trying to take some cool jumping pictures with the lights. It was a fail. ;) We had one last devotional until we went to bed. I can honestly say that this was one of the best Thanksgivings ever. After our holiday we got back to the normal grind. ;) Even after just one day of not speaking Swedish, me and Syster May were a bit rusty in our lessons haha. We butchered a few but quickly made a comeback! Sunday was fun too. President Parkes gave a talk about the Polar Express and he related hearing the bell the feeling the spirit. I lost it during his talk. Such a great talk and it made me feel the Christmas spirit. :) We all did our usual temple walk on Sunday too and it was our last day with the Icelandic Elders and Syster Ogaard (Who left for Denmark last Monday). We took heaps of pictures. We also woke up the next day at 3:00am to help her take her stuff to the travel office! Miss her so much already! But yeah, the past few days have been so busy and awesome! Swedish is going so well, teaching is going so well, and packing is getting there lol. We're making our last days here count and working hard. :) I'm so grateful to be here and have loved it so much. The MTC is great! The gospel is great! and all of you are great! Thanks for the letters and packages. :) I won't be at the MTC anymore so you can send them to the new address if you so desire. ;) I wish you all the best holiday season!! and can't wait to update you all next week when i'm hopefully in Sweden!! Till nästa tid. :) Kärlek Syster Davis P.S. Äldste Scott from Australia wrote down a list of all the Australian lingo so I've been using it now and then. ;) My favorite is "Crikey" and "Heaps." Lol. Hej Då för ny! Vi ses senare. :)