Midsommar

Hi Everyone!

  This week has actually been really good! It's been Midsommar week, when Swedes come out, put a giant pole with flowers on it and sing and dance around it to celebrate the summer solstice. All in all the celebrations were a lot of fun; I'll cover it in more detail further down...

  On Monday we had a pretty ordinary p day. We actually ended up going down to Malmö and looking around there some, which was pretty cool. Malmö is much larger than a lot of the other cities here, so it was kind of cool to look around and see what's in the city. I ended up buying a card game called Bang! (which I still haven't had a chance to play with anyone, but we're trying to figure something out with the Helsingborg Elders). And then in the evening we went to a sort of FHE (but not really FHE) sort of social event, which was on a beach between here and Helsingborg. It was fun, we played football (soccer) and Kubb with some members and investigators and such. I enjoyed it.

  On Tuesday we traveled back down to Malmö for a zone Conference. It focused a lot on temple work and using the 5th lesson when we're teaching. Apparently we're now supposed to teach investigators all 5 lessons before baptism instead of the first 4, which is kind of different, but it should be good.

  On Wednesday I headed up to Halmstad for a baptismal intervew with one of the investigators in Halmstad. It was good, the guy I was interviewing seemed really well studied; I almost felt like I was talking with a member when I was asking him the questions and everything. He seemed pretty solid. And then we came back and had some sort of mini-exchanges with the Zone  Leaders, which was fine. We largely just tried to visit some people in Helsingborg and then had dinner. I was with Elder Svensson for the day (he actually went to Halmstad with me), which was cool. He's a nice guy.

  Skipping ahead to Friday we had Midsommar! Yay! It was a bit of a confusing day because I didn't really know what was going on for travel and where we were going and such. I thought we were originally going to the Svensson's and then to the Nilssons, but instead we ended up meeting the Svennsons in a town near here and then just stayed in that town and went to a big park by a castle on the coast where a lot of people (including a lot of the ward members) had gathered for the midsommar celebrations. It was a lot of fun, though, we decorated the Maypole with a bunch of flowers and then we were told to help carry it to where we were setting it up. Much to our suprise, when we picked up the maypole to set it up, they started playing music and the guy at the front of the pole sort of led us around the entire crowd before going to where the pole was to stand. It was kind of funny. And then we put the pole upright and spent a few hours dancing around it, singing songs, and having a good time. I have a few pictures / videos I can upload, perhaps tomorrow when we're at the church. Either way, after we were done there (at about 4 or so), we went to the W's house for dinner / games. We chatted for a while, played a board game called Formula D (which was a lot of fun, sort of a racing game with a lot of dice and stats and stuff), and ate a good dinner of potatoes, eggs, and pickled herring (which is honestly a lot better than it sounds. I may end up buying some herring today). Either way, it was a very fun day.

  I hope all is well with you guys!