Midsommer!!

Hejsan hejsan! This week was so fun tack vare Midsommer. :) First though, on P-Day we meet up with our favorite Täby Systers (McClatchie and Young) and and went on the most beautiful little Stockholm boat ride ever. Our bus cards got us on them totally free! The weather was perfect, and there were tourists and cruiseships eveywhere. There were all these little houses and islands all through the port. We all kept saying how we can't believe we are actually here right now. It felt surreal. After we got ice cream and checked out the kings palace. :)

We met with Maria this week too. She is hilarious and she just loves telling us all her great life stories. She speaks very fast Swedish so it's hard to understand her sometimes but we manage. We talked about family history with her and she got so excited. Syster Holley was telling her about her family from Sweden and Maria said she had family in the same city! We joked how maybe they were related and how maybe they are long lost cousins. ;) Could be true though! She told us a funny dream she had about a Monk (m-oo-nk in swedish lol) and a black dog (svart hund) and said she was related to the Monk. Haha intressant. We love her.

We had some great lessons this week too. All I'm going to say it's really hard to be a Syster Missionary at times. We don't really know if people are really interested in the gospel or they just want to meet with us because we are 'nice girls from America' haha...it's a struggle sometimes.

The highlight of this week though was the Midsommar weekend!! Midsommar is a huge summer holiday in Sweden comparable to Christmas! The stake/community in Stockholm put on this huge party for it down at this beautiful national park! It is a tradition that it pours rain every single year during the holiday but it didn't this year! :) So happy. Everyone decorates this huge May pole with flowers and such and then they raise it and we all sing and dance around it. Me, Sys Holley, Hall, and Gil went to the flowercrown-making hut and made crowns! We even gathered our own flowers and plants for them. :) It was so fun. There were so many missionaries down there and a huge tug-of-war tournament as well! Best day Ever.

On the bus ride back this Swedish lady asked us about our name tags. :) We were like oh yeah Mormon is our nickname! Have you heard of it before? and she was like, 'Wait what you're mormon? You guys look like normal people though!' We explained to her that we were indeed normal people haha. We told her we don't drink alcohol or smoke or stuff like that and she was happy.

They celebrate two days of Midsommar here so me and Holley decided to take a little trip to the little Swedish town of Sigtuna! Wow it was gorgeous. Definitely taking my family here next year. It actually was the first spot in Sweden I went to when I first got here back in December! So many memories. Sys Holley loves vikings and there were so many runes here so she was in heaven. There we're a lot of tourists there also and some of them were secretly taking pictures of Syster Holley's beautiful red hair. ;) Så roligt. We then visited this castle and hiked through a forest to get there. Me and Holley both agreed we felt like we were in 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'A Room with a View.' People were celebrating everywhere we went. :) Afterwards our favorite American family the Mitchells invited us over for dinner with the Elders and Don, Camillo, and Felicia. It was such a great holiday weekend.

When all the Holidays were over it was so depressing haha. We woke up the next day just so sad because we knew it was all over. It even was pouring rain. So tråkigt lol. Our great sunday meeting though made it better and so many sweet people invited us over this week. I can't even describe how much I love it here. I'm so grateful for this culture, these amazing people and this opportunity to be a missionary in this beautiful country. I know the Lord is watching out for us and is guiding us everyday. I feel blessed everyday to be serving for Him. I know He's changing me so much out here. I love Him and I'm grateful for all the happiness we've had this week.

Hope you all had a great week as well, thanks for all your prayers and support. Jag älskar er. Vi ses nästa vecka!

Många kramar
Syster Davis



Stockholm Port!

Stockholm båt ride.

​Premidsommar faces! :)

​Flower crown hut.

May Pole

Syster Gil, Hall, and Holley

Happy. :)

​Missionary Midsommar fun!

​Sigtuna.

​Sigtuna Houses.

Mission Tour!

Good morning alla. This week was quite eventful! First things first me and Holley had a great P-Day! We decided to do some sight-seeing and check out the Hässelby Slott. :) It was super cute and had a fun little backyard garden. Our best friends (senior missoinary couple) the Robinsons invited us to the cool underground Swedish Record Archives as well! They showed us all around the different floors and chambers of records. :) It was so incredible! They even let us hold this huge book from the 1600s! Jättecool. They had us all over for dinner this week too. :) De är toppen!

We had mission tour this week also!! Äldste and Syster Dyches from the 70 came and talked to us. It was a great meeting and training. They gave us some tips about missionary work and we had a question and answer session with them. Four zones in the mission all gathered together for it! We even did a fun little origami activity with Äldste Dyches. ;) It was so great to see almost my entire MTC group as well. We got many pictures and caught up on life. They seriously are my family here. :) Love them.

This week me and Syster Holley decided we really wanted to find a new person to teach since we haven't had so many in a while. We said a very faithful prayer and 'ironed our skirts' ;) and went out determined to find someone the Lord would put in our path. It was the usual hand-in-the-face by everyone we talked to but this last lady we contacted, stopped and listened. :) She then went on to tell us that she was a Medium! Just like Theresa Caputo. ;) I asked her if she knew the show Long-island Medium and she said yeah. I told her me and my mom loved that show haha. We then brought out a Book of Mormon and she flipped out! She grabbed it and her eyes grew super wide. Me and Holley looked at eachother confused haha. She then asked us, 'Is this a Book of Mormon?... Can I please buy this from you?!' We were shocked and happily told her it was free. :) She was shocked as well and told us she was going to read it and meet with us again with many questions! We told her it talked a little about the spirit world and what happens after this life and she was so excited. She then gave us two huge hugs and left. Afterwards we both jumped for joy and knew the Lord guided us to her. :) We said a thank you prayer.

The amazing Don and Camillo got baptized this week as well! They are these two young guys who have been investigating the church. They are some of the greatest people I have ever met and are so knowledgeable in the scriptures. They've had so many miracles happen to them with the scriptures. Me and Holley chatted with them after church for a long time and shared some amazing spiritual experiences we've had. It was so fun. :) Vi älskar dem!

I alla fall, this week has been great. So many great things happening in Jakobsberg and I am so blessed to be a part of it. We are so excited to see what the Lord has in store for the future. :) We are also so stoked for Midsommar this week! It's going to be a fun one. Love you all and until next week.

Kram,
Syster Davis

​Me and Holley in another skog. :)

​Cute houses.

​Pretty field we found on the way to a members house!

​Skön

Swedish Archive Chamber!

​MTC family.

​Mission Tour! Ä.Scott and Moultron :)

​Some Artsy daisies vi hittade.

Summer Lovin' VASA

Hej hej this week was a blast. It started with us having such a fun national Sweden Day on P-Day! Some of us missionaries went down to the VASA museet. It is this huge Swedish Boat that sunk just out of the harbor in 1628 because the Swedish king put too many canons on it lol. It was such a sight to see! We then walked around Stockholm and watched a little parade celebrating the Swedish Holiday. There were Swedish flags everywhere. :) This member from Peru who only knew spanish stopped us on the train too and was so excited to see missionaries! So cute. :)

We had splits this week too. Syster Holley got to go up to Uppsala with Syster Harkness and Syster Mecham came down here to Jakobsberg. It was super fun. We did some usually contakting and this dude we talked to went off for about 30 minutes about how he was some kind of spy so that was interesting. We found this cool compass stature too. Later we met with this sweet member named Renee. We had a great conversations with her. She made us some authentic swedish chocolate pudding. Det var toppen. :)

The next day we switched back and headed to Täby for distrikt möte. It was fun. We got pizza and salad after. Såååå bra. We have the best distrikt ever.

This week we had dinner with the amazing Mitchell Family as well! They seriously are my favorite. They are from American but have lived in Sweden for a while. They have the most beautiful house I have ever seen. They had a trampoline too that I jumped on and a mini tennis court in their backyard! So many friends came over and they made us some classic american cheese burgers. :) It felt like I was at home again. Love them so much! Nice talking to Americans too. ;)

Me and Holley went to Skatteverket to get her her personnumber this week too! It felt like yesterday Me and my mama Brink went to get mine and now I got to take Holley to get hers. ;) So many feels lol.

We had a lesson this week with our really good fried Jai. She is from Thailand and she made us this amazing cake! We talked about temples and how grateful we are for them and how strong the spirit is in them. We all shared cool experiences we've had in them and cool miracles that have happened. It was so great. I love having deep talks. :) We planned to meet again and go together to see the Stockholm temple soon! Love Jai so much.

Me and Holley just got incredibility lost this week too. We weren't complaining though because we got to go through the most gorgeous forest ever. We both agreed we felt like we were in Lord of the Rings. ;)

Sunday was super super busy. We had so many visitors come so that was great! These two sweet girls from Gävle came down to visit Jakobsberg ward. :) Our friends Reza and Mohammad came too so that was cool. They said they loved how happy they felt at church! And they said we were angels haha. Nicki gave her farewell talk too. She is leaving on her mission to the Salt Lake City Temple Square mission soon. She is going to be so great and I want to find her there next year. :)

Any who, this week was good and the next few weeks are going to be even greater! We have Midsommer and Mission Tour coming up. :) So happy for summer and to be able to spend it in this beautiful country! I love Sverige and I love sharing gospel!! Life is good. Tack för att ni lyssnar till mig. Jag saknar er och hoppas ni har en underbar vecka. :) Hejdå!

Mvh
Syster Davis

​Distrikt Lunch

National Swedish Day

​Swedish Parade. :)

VASA

​Photo creds to Kristopher

Stockholm Overload

Hejsan härliga manniskor! Sorry this letter is going to be a little short but all and all this week was great. We got a lot of great pictures from our Stockholm sight-seeing extravaganza! I'll be sending a lot of those to you all.

This week was a little hard since almost all our lessons got canceled so we had a lot of finding activities. ;) We decided to use släktforskning (geneology) while kontankting people on the streets and it worked so well! (My mama would be so proud) ;)

We had a fun little nature walk with our friend Peter this week too. The weather was phenomenal this week. I hope it stays this nice for midsommar in 3 weeks. ;)

This week was graduation for a lot of the Swedish seniors here too so to celebrate they gather in these huge trucks and scream and dance all through the streets of stockholm and pour soda/possibly alcohol all over everthing and everyone. haha It was a sight to see! So weird because I feel like I just graduated but that was almost 2 years ago.

We had zone conference this week too! It was a great meeting about temples and cool stories about different ones all around the world! We picked up some Thai food for lunch. Det var toppen.

We got to teach Na this week too so that was great! She told us she was pregnant and we were so happy! Teng is going to be in China for a little bit so he will be missed. They kept telling us that this child was a huge blessing from God. So cute. :) Hope to meet their little baby someday!

Luis got baptized this week too! It was an amazing day filled with the spirit. At church this creepy oldguywmet on the bus showed up to church with all these flowers for us! It was nice but I think he wants us to marry him so that's interesting. lol Fast sunday was great though. Cute Holley introduced herself to the ward. We talked to some people n the way home and then just did some scripture study together.

It was a nice week and the summer vibes here are so cheerful! I love how lugt everyone is. Have a great summer everyone and har det så gott och njutar solen!

Kärlek,
Syster Davis

​Promenad med Peter

Stockholm Conference