It's been a fantastic week up here in Luleå! The work has been moving forward: We've been finding investigators, teaching, and doing well with helping people come to Christ. Overall, it's been a good week. Several of our investigators have been able to progress, and one of them, "F" is well on track to be baptized on the 13th of June. Everything seems to be going well with the work here.
The most exciting event this week would most likely be Midsommar (which is Swedish for midsummer, in case you couldn't tell). Overall, it was a fantastic experience. The Elders in Skellefteå came up the night before (Thursday) because they were invited by the family that hosted us for the day and they didn't have anywhere else to go for the holiday. We stayed up a little chatting and playing a few card games, and then got to bed for an early start up to Haparanda. On the way up the next morning, we stopped in Kalix and had the chance to see a pretty cool old church there, owned by Svenskakyrka (the Swedish church). It was cool, the first cathedral here I've had a chance to go inside of. We then headed off for our destination again.
Once we were at Haparanda, we spent some time driving around looking at the city. We tried to go to IKEA, but it was closed for the holiday (despite the fact that it says in big letters "open every day" on the side of the building), but there were also a few cool building and whatnot around town. We also may have driven over to Tornio, Finland, Haparanda's twin city, where we largely looked at bookstores full of books in Finnish. It was pretty interesting. We also went and looked at another old church in Finland, which looked very cool. There was a tour guide there that showed us around the giant organ and even took us up to the bell tower. And, as an added plus, we were able to sit and talk to her for a while about our church and what we believe. She actually seemed pretty interested; it was quite neat.
After Haparanda (and Tornio), we headed back to the D's (one of the member family's) cabin, where we had a few festivities, including diner and desert, as well as some Badminton, a game called Kubb, and a few other games. Overall, it was very fun. We had a good time, and were soon tired from the games and full from the food. We soon headed back to Luleå, where we promptly went to sleep and then prepared for the next day. Although we didn't have the chance to dance around a maypole or do any of the other more traditional festivities, it was a very good midsummer, and I think I day I'll remember for a long while.
Eli
PS-Single letters denote personal names..such as "F" or "D" in this case.
At the "D's" place
