Letter dated 23Mar2015

Dear Family and Friends: It was a good week in the South Tälje with Elder Rasmus'sson. Around the apartment buildings we often go to, there is often a nice play ground surrounded by a 50-cm-high fence. I think it is to thwart kidnappers. Well, every time we hop over one, we joke about tripping on it. Well, those jokes became a reality on Wednesday as I rushed to, graced over, and encountered the bottom of the fence with my big toe. Like a lever, I fell right down. It was quite hilarious and extraordinarily lucky, as no potential hearers of the message witnessed the fail. Elder Rasmussen actually got more dirty from it than I, as he fell on his back in jubilant laughter. On Tuesday night, on the way to the apartment from Järna, we saw the Northern Lights! They were so beautiful! We stopped in a place called Mörkö to watch them. It was really peaceful and serene. Then, on Friday morning, we joined with the many who had come to Scandinavia to see the solar eclipse by looking out the window and disappointedly seeing that it was overcast. Nonetheless, we still did see some solar eclipse! This paragraph will be some nice, mind-blowing trivia. The word "waffle" stems etymologically from "Mary." So, the old-Germanic phrase for "Mary" was "Voar fru," or "Our virgin\wife." When the Waffle was invented, the person must have really liked it, so she\he named it after Mary. Then, Voar fru became different versions of waffle! For example, in Swedish, it is Voafla. We went to the Stockholm temple on Tuesday with some other missionaries. It was so great. I was in a town called Norrköping on Thursday with Äldste Rhoades (see picture), where I met my first friend from Djibouti, Mike (see picture)! This coming week will be great. The plan is for Camsin and Akil to be baptized. Please pray for them both! Teaching them has been so edifying. Each has a lot of trials in his life, and these are increasing as baptism is approaching. But even though Satan is working harder and harder, they are terrific at exercising faith, and they are not getting down on their trials. This shows the truth of the scriptural promise that when we have faith, fear vanishes, fear being on of Satan's most prodigious tool. If you're reading this, I love you so much. I hope that you have a wonderful week. Remember to look up! Love, -- Äldste Daniel Schindler