4 days of CHRISTMAS!!!

HALLÅ!!!

God Jul!!!

I feel like its going to be hard to write when we already talked yesterday, but you know me.. ha ha I can talk forever. So lets see.. This week has been a huge party it feels like. We have had so many Christmas dinners. Insanity! Every day this week we had a dinner to be at and most lunches too. Tons of members gave us presents and candy. If I wasn't already fat just give it another week. Its a good thing we gave the Elders our scale a little bit ago. I really don't want to see the number. I would have to say that is the one down fall of serving a mission. You really don't have control when it comes to what you eat. So for now I count my blessings for all the love the member give us and someday it will be a blessing to cook my own food. I hope for anyone reading this doesn't get scared about having the missionaries over now. If you haven't lately.. you should invite them! I know they bring the spirit and can lift your spirits higher than they are now. 

Monday was spent getting a white elephant gift for zone conference. That was fun. I got a box that has a Swedish Santa (Tomton) on it and I filled it with candy. The center is going to be closed for like 3 weeks so Monday night was the last FHE for a while. They watched 17 miracles. I really want to see it, but we would have got home late and we got to teach Tony. We watched a conference talk from the Prophet in Portuguese. I seriously love technology! Without it we wouldn't have got this far with Tony. He is so sensitive to the spirit he was literally glowing afterwards and just kept talking about his heart and touching his heart. He can recognize that Thomas S. Monson is a man called of God and that the words he has to share are what God would say to us. 

Tuesday and  Wednesday S.Jukers birthday was the 20th. We had a little celebration for her. Two of the YSA, Marian and Mette, made her a cake and surprised her with it. I did a cart wheel that day and hit my foot on a chair ha ha yeah my foot has had a pretty cool bruise on it. I took pictures too so maybe I'll get one sent. I was surprised how big the bruise was. All my shoes hurt to put on too. That was no good. Guess I need to follow the white handbook a little closer. Not doing hand stands and cart wheels is super hard for me though. If you have ever been in my basement and watched TV you have probably seen me do at least one hand stand. Its such a habit. Its good I'm in a skirt almost 27/7 or it would probably be a worse temptation.

Thursday: That morning we did a service project for a member. We painted her house and put up a wall thingy. I love pants!!! That night we met up with a man named Li (golden). He is from China. He is super sweet. At first he told us all about how his mom just recently got cancer. He also told us how he is pretty sure he believes in God and wants to know how to pray. After we taught him he asked if he could try it. Ha ha man we were like uh... YES! The prayer started in English so we could understand and ended in Chinese. By the end we were all in tears. The spirit pretty much punched him in the face and now he has a baptismal date now for January 14th. AMAZING! You won't believe this either.. We got his address and he is also in Utby's area. Ha ha so there goes another investigator for them. We are happy to find and teach though. Technically the Elders have to do the baptism anyway so its no problem.

Friday was awesome! 1st day of Christmas. We had a Christmas Zone Conference! The President and his wife gave amazing messages as always. We got to hear from all the missionaries that are going home in January. They ask all the missionaries going home to share their testimony. S. Kiser was there and so I got to hear from her. It was really cool actually she talked about all the things she has learned on her mission. During the middle of the conference we went outside to carol for the good people of Sweden. That night we got to go visit Erik in the hospital and decorate his room. We also sang some Christmas song to him. He loved it. It was so sweet. He took pictures of it.

Saturday was Christmas Eve in the states but here in Sweden it is Christmas. So day 2. So the Sahlin Family invited us over and we got to have a real Swedish Christmas. We played a lot of Swedish games and got to watch a movie!! The Elders were freaking out because it has been a year for them. I had already seen Despicable Me so I was ready to fall asleep. They gave us all the presents from the ward and all the things they got for us and watched us open them. It was so cute. They've never had the missionaries over before and so they had 4 cameras going at the same time. It felt like the paparazzi! They had so so so much food too. We all felt so bad because we had just had a lunch with someone else and she fed us a bunch of Persian food. Way too much food too. She just kept coming out and we were already full. So Christmas was great!

Sunday is day 3 because it was the legit Christmas day. Everyone that saw us would say God Jul because they know that in America it is our Christmas. We had a Christmas program in church and had a few investigators there which was good. Then for dinner the Petersson's had us over. They had us stay there to even call home because they wanted us to play with their kids. Their little girl was adorable she asked me to read a book to her because it is in English and she wanted me to translate. It was really cool actually. She taught me Swedish and I taught her English. She is only 7. Ha ha I didn't know how cool it was to talk to kids. I should have known since I already have a passion for kids and absolutely love them.

Today is day 4 because here they call it andra dag, which just means another day. They just like to have a reason to celebrate so they just call it another day ha ha so funny. We are going to the bakers today and celebrating with them. CRAZY!

Well it has been a wonderful Christmas. I hope that all of you were able to feel the spirit of Christmas which is actually the spirit of Christ. I love all of you and all of the support I receive from all of you. I can really feel it and I know that it helps the people I teach too.

Love Syster Sprague

PS the story about the picture of the glass door was explained on the phone.  The short of the story is that all the public doors in Sweden are automatic.  They open as you approach.  This one was out of order and it said it in English, Danish, & Swedish.  AND it had a picture of what to do.  The missionaries were sitting next to the door on a train.  They said everyone that approached the door just got confused and left or the missionaries opened it for them.  They thought it was pretty funny that no one thought to follow the directions to open it!