Christmas visitor!

Swedish chefs!

Christmas games!

First Swedish snow!

Letter dated 26Dec2013

Dear Family and Friends: What a great Christmas we just had! We went to the Karlsson family in the morning for the traditional breakfast of rice pudding (LOTS of rice pudding) and smörgåsar (sandwiches). That was really fun, and I got a few extra stickers on the back of my name tag from their energetic daughters. Then we went to the Lundkvist family and enjoyed board games, Kalle Anka (Donald Duck shows, which is a huge Christmas tradition here!!), a huge 'Christmas table' of food with them. And guess who came to us at the Lundkvists!! It was Jul Tomten!!! He's the version of Santa here, and everyone got to meet him except, remarkably, President Lundkvist, who unfortunately was taking a nap. That was all on Christmas Eve. Then it was great to talk to the family on Christmas Day! It felt like I hadn't been gone from you and it was fantastic to see and hear everyone :) It made me happy to realize that I can now bring the happiness of the gospel to the families in Sweden. The work is going forward here in Eskilstuna. A great tender mercy this week was that our branch mission leader, Sa'ad, just became the missionaries' home teaching companion. In talking about how he wanted to do things, he said "President Lundkvist just said to visit all of our homes once a month, but I was thinking it would be really good to just go every week instead." He is such a great guy and it's exciting to see his excitement for going out and visiting the members of the church. Oh, and we got Turkish Delight from the Karlssons, so it's not just something that you see Edmund eat in "The Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe" nor just something that dad always says he's making, but it's a real thing! It's quite good. It's a thick jelly with a nut flavor and is surrounded by powdered sugar. The pictures are of us four elders and our investigator Marie doing some good work in the Karlssons' kitchen, us playing "Sindbad" with the Lundkvists, and the magical coming of Jul Tomten!! I love you all so much! Hope you're having a wonderful Christmas-and-New-Year season. Next week, my preparation day is on Thursday, so talk to you then! Love, -- Äldste Daniel Schindler

Letter dated 16Dec2013

Dear Family and Friends: The church had its Christmas Party on Saturday. We had a Swedish "Jul Bord," or Christmas Table. The Christmas Tables are full of awesome traditional Swedish Christmas foods, like ham, meatballs, rice pudding (by the cauldron), Jul Must (a type of soda) and gingerbread cookies. We also had some Apple Pie (from us missionaries) and lots of great Arabic food (from a really awesome family from Iraq!). We sang lots of songs and had a great time! A great highlight of this week was that our investigator, Marie, said that she wants to be baptized! She really loves coming to church and has a wonderful desire to follow the Savior. She is from Nigeria and speaks French, English, and Pigeon English (very different from normal English). She is neighbors with the Iraqi family whom I mentioned earlier. It is quite funny: the family only speaks Swedish and Arabic, so they can only communicate with Marie very simply. But they are best of friends! She goes over there every day and just spends time with them. It is sorta funny but super cool that they are such good friends with each other! One pretty funny thing that happened was Elder Cahill and I filled our bike tires up with air one night. Even though we are both science majors, we forgot that air expands when it's warmed. So after bringing our bikes into the apartment for the night, the tire warmed up and exploded! It was super crazy! So we've been off our bikes for a bit. This week we're having a multi-zone Christmas zone conference which we're super excited for. It will be a really great week, and then it's Christmas!! All super, duper exciting!!! I won't get a chance to e-mail until the day after Christmas, but I hope each of you has a very merry Christmas :) I can't wait to talk to the family on Christmas day!! I know that Christ was born in order to redeem the world, and I am so thankful for the scriptures which testify and teach of Christ. Here's a picture of Sweden's first snow, about a week and a half ago. Pretty exciting :D Love, -- Äldste Daniel Schindler

Daniel with cool knocker!

A Swedish Literary Yule!

First Swedish Snow - 2013

Letter dated 9Dec2013

[Dear family and friends, here is the letter we received from Daniel this morning! I will post the pictures he sent on his blog. If you have a Christmas message you would like to pass along to Daniel, simply hit reply and I will forward it to him! Thank you for your love and support! Daniel's editor - BWS] Dear Family and Friends! This week was sweet! We had the first snowfall, and it's actually feels really good to finally have snow because it had been just a lot of water on the ground that would make your feet wet. And it's starting to feel like Christmas as well, which is always a huge plus. I also got loads of letters -- thanks family, Andrews, Sister Huggard, Sister Richards, and Elliotts! A lot of the work we've been doing here has been with less-active church members. One family, the Pavones, are really great. The dad is from South America and the mom is Swedish, and they have 3 kids; they're the funnest people! We played soccer as a branch on Friday night and they came with us to that. Their 5-year-old son was really quite good, and it was a blast! Then they, as well as several other people we've been meeting, came to church on Sunday, which was super! And our most positive investigator, Marie, came to church also. It was especially cool when everyone came into the chapel in the last 10 minutes before church started, making it a little bit dramatic. Everything is going great. It has been difficult finding people who want to learn and progress in the gospel, but it is always rewarding to invite people to come unto Christ. Pictures: 1st snowfall, Christmas-tree art in the local library, and a really incredible door-knocking invention! I really love John 14:15, where Jesus says 'If ye love Me, keep My commandments.' It is both easy to remember and profound. I've been thinking of this now that it's Christmas time and am so grateful for the gift of Christ and His Atonement which we can use through keeping Christ's commandments. I love you all so much and hope and pray that everything is going in the best way for you. Have a fantastic week! Love, -- Äldste Daniel Schindler

Beautiful catherdral

Home sweet home!

Statue of forgers!

Letter dated 2Dec2013

[Dear family and friends, here is the latest letter we received from Daniel on Monday. I hope you enjoy it. I will be posting the pictures on Daniel's blog. I will forward any replies to Daniel. I hope you are staying warm and enjoying this Advent Season! Thank you for your love and your support. Love, Daniel's editor - BWS] Dear Family and Friends: On Saturday I finished my pre-advent-calendar advent calendar, which means it's just about Christmas! Sunday was First Advent, a moderately big event in Sweden. For it, Elder Cahill, Elder Gray, Elder Hewitt, and I (the Eskilstuna district) went to a concert in Fors Kyrka, which is a Swedish Church building, part of which is some 800 years old! The building's accoustics are fantastic, and the Swedish Church choir was fantastic too! It's great that Amanda's going to Finland for her mission! [Amanda is our friend from Bay City!] There are lots of Fins who live in Sweden. About 80% of the Fins I've met are retired women. I'm not really sure why it is proportioned that way... But each of them is extremely nice. And Finnish is such a cool language to listen to, very, very unique! The pictures here are: 1) Eskilstuna is a steel-industry town, and this statue of the two blacksmiths commemorates the 300th anniversary of Eskilstuna. In the background you can see the Kloster Kyrka, which is the biggest church of its type in Sweden. 2) Another picture of Kloster Kyrka. 3) It felt good to take this picture of our living room after a long day of biking! [I'll post these pictures in Daniel's blog.] I know that the church is true and the sky is blue. I know that Jesus is our Savior. It is so great to be a missionary! I love you all!

Letter dated 25Nov2013

[Dear family and friends, here is the letter that we received from Daniel earlier today. I hope you enjoy it! Send a reply and I will forward the reply to Daniel. Wishing you a very wonderful Thanksgiving week! Daniel's editor - BWS] Dear Family and Friends: In Sweden, Christmas lights have been up and advent calenders for sale for the last month and a half, so it was with quite a bit of surprise that I realized that it's Thanksgiving this Thursday! I hope that everyone has a great time with family, food, and being grateful - we are all so blessed! We are being so blessed in Eskilstuna! We had a pretty difficult time meeting with many people this last week. But in the coming week we are already busy with great appointments. We had a chance to help someone who is moving to the Netherlands (isn't that crazy?! You don't really hear of that often in America. On a side note, I'm remembering when I flew through Europe with a Dutch flight attendant. There was a baby in the seat in front of me and she started talking to the baby in a very Dutch, scary-to-baby way -- lots of throat growls. The baby was ok with it, but it was so funny to watch!), and the Branch President, President Lundvist, helped us. He is a really great man with a lot of tenacity to help others, and everyone who knows him loves him. It is so great that he is in the branch here! I got to speak in sacrament meeting yesterday and teach Sunday school with Elder Cahill. It was kinda funny realizing that because I was the last speaker before Sunday school, I would end up being up there for the same amount of time regardless of how long my talk was. It was really good to get ready for and give both of them. I spoke on the pattern of small and simple things accomplishing great things. I hadn't realized it before, but Alma (Alma 37) talks about an important application being to give the words of Christ diligence, faith, and heed -- which is pretty simple -- and the result is great receiving great spiritual blessings. I thought that was super neat. It is so great that we have the words of Christ in the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and from Thomas S. Monson today. Elder Cahill and I learned some pretty funny things about Swedish this week. First is that Mormon is really similar to 'mormor,' which means mom's mom. So Lahja, someone we're teaching who's Finnish and super funny, thought that the Book of Mormon was called 'Grandma's Book!' That was super funny :D The other thing we learned is that the plural of 'cactus' in Swedish is 'kaktusar,' which sounds more like a dinosaur than a plant. It sort of reminds me of the giant walking cactus from 'Digimon.' Lately the weather has been really nice. It hasn't snowed yet, and it's been around 32 degrees all week. Something pretty crazy is that a few times it's been warmer at night than it has in the day. I think it might be because the street lamps give off more heat than the sun :P Sweden really does have an astounding amount of street lights. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I love you all! Love

Mailing packages to Daniel

Dear Family and Friends of our Missionaries, We want to pass along some important information and tips that will assist you in getting mail and packages to your missionary. Letters and packages sent through the Postal Services that are four (4) pounds and under are forwarded immediately to your missionary. Things that cause delay to your packages: • Packages over four (4) pounds • Overnight packages • Certified or Registered mail • Using any carrier other than the Post Office We suggest the following for your packages to arrive in a timely manner: • Send your packages through the Post Office • Don’t put more than four (4) pounds in a package, send more packages if required • Plan ahead to meet your deadlines Packages heavier than 4 pounds may be sent directly to the missionaries’ apartment. However, if your missionary is transferred and your package arrives, it will be the responsibility of your missionary to pay to have the package sent to their new area. Please keep in mind transfers do not always happen at regularly scheduled times. If you send a package, be sure to write the address exactly as it is given to you by your missionary. In Sweden there are names on the doors that are required to be part of the address in order for the mail to be delivered, otherwise it will be returned. The tithing funds can not be used to forward packages to missionaries. If a package arrives in the office that is over four (4) pounds or if it is sent by a carrier other than the Post Office, we will inform the missionary and ask if he/she wants us to charge their personal account for the cost to forward it to them, or if they are willing to wait until someone will be visiting that area, which may take up to a month. . Please remember that ALL medication sent need to be listed as Missionary Supplies on the customs declaration (green) form. Be sure you tape all boxes well, especially corners. We have received several packages where the corners have been torn and contents have been lost. Be sure to use this address when sending mail and packages to your missionary through the mission office Äldste/Syster Missionary Name Enebybergsvägen 38 182 46 Enebyberg Sweden Please share this information with your family members and friends to ensure that your missionary receives packages and mail in a timely manner. Thank you for your understanding and support. Sweden Stockholm Mission