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