Letter dated 28Oct2013

Dear Family and Friends: This week was so good! I love being in Jakobsberg and am amazed by how dynamic one place can be day after day and week after week. On Saturday, for the second time, we met with Daniel. He's from Sir Leon, has a Master's Degree from Cambridge, and likes to chill. I like him a lot. We talked about the Book of Mormon, and while he does not know for sure if it is true yet, he thinks that being baptized would be super great! Äldste Sargent and I are really excited for him. On Sunday, we met with Kristian for the first time! He is also great! He has Finnish parents and was born in Australia. We had a really great lesson with him where we gave him a blessing and taught about the Restoration. He felt warm from the blessing and is excited to meet with us again! He read the Book of Mormon once 8 years ago, and as we were talking about it, he remembered a couple minute details that really impressed me relative to his memory! Before this, on Tuesday, we had two dinners with members. One was with Brother and Sister Miranda, and the other was with Brother Grez. They are all from Chile and are the nicest people! I felt like we were so loved as we were with them and they fed us amazing food. They also gave us lots of food to take home! The second picture is of the fridge shelf that has all the food and only the food we received that night! It was really heart touching for them to have been so kind to us. The story continues to the next morning where we had a huge breakfast from Brother Milano (also Chilean) who gave us food afterward as well! Today, we went to the Nilssons house, where they had one of the biggest dinners I've ever seen! We had fish and a really great chocolate pudding (I learned the word for pudding today; it is very similar to the word for moss, which I also learned today, and the word for hat). Brother Nilsson is in the bishopric here and he is really fun and funny. He often calls Sister Nilsson 'fru Nilsson' which means 'wife Nilsson' and I suppose is a pretty Swedish thing to do that I find really funny. I love Sweden! The people are so great and always friendly, and the nature is also really neat. The last picture I sent is of the sea between the cities Kungsägen and Bro, is at noon, and also captures some of the urban art that you see a lot in this area. There was a ward party here on Friday to which a lot of people came and that was really fun! At the end, I played a version of ping pong and racquetball with Nikolas (9 years old. Reminds me a lot of Nicholas my brother) and David (5 years old). It was in the same room that had been used as the dancing room, so we had loud Latin music in the background which made understanding Swedish impossible. So I hit the ball with Nikolas as best I could while trying to figure out the rules (an unsuccessful venture), as David was the referee\announcer\coach. It was so fun! The third picture is of a statue of a goose-riding boy which is a part of Swedish lore. It is right next to the 20 crown bill, which depicts the same story! I know that this church is true and that we can be together as families for eternity. This give me so much hope and joy! I love you all and hope you have a great week! I also love getting letters from you, so thank you so much when you send them! Love, -- Äldste Daniel Schindler