26 April

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LOUISE BALDWIN! That is the cutest name ever. So the other names that I love and cherish with all my heart are Harriet, Marianne, Josephine, and a few others. Ha I'm kidding. I mean I love the name Louise and I was even the one to suggest that! She looks adorble. Thanks for the pictures too. I hope you are doing good, Kath. and I hope your family is getting better, Jeff. Thank you Libbi for the communication. Ususally, Both of us have nothing to tell. I because I conceal nothing and you because you communicate nothing.

Whoever can guess where I derived this from gets 1,000 Swedish Crowns!

"If you give a little more than you're asking for, your love will turn the key"

Hint: and then it goes on a little something like this (at least in my head) "ooO-Oo III (Ah-yyy) just want to be your EVerything..." in like a falcetto

I thought of that randomly and I was like, "How true that is!" Inspiration comes in various forms. But I really did like that message. I have been trying to let go a little more and love people better. I just have this thing with being on my own. I like it a lot. Any advice? Other than the line from the song? You married people or you people who have served missions with a 24 hour companion. And what does it mean to "compromise." I don't think I know how to do that at all. I think I have just learned to do things my way and not to step on anyone else's toes doing it. I am thinking that that won't really work. I want to do things WITH my companion, but I don't know how. So, about 90% of the time I just let her take it the way she is thinking even when I have different ideas, because she has specific things she wants to do.That kind of wares on me after a while. I just really want to be equal partners and feel like I get to contribute. So, any ideas? It's not so dramatic or anything, I just thought I'd ask.

This week was really good. We had a really miraculous teach with a woman, Nomi, and her thirteen year old daughter, Prisla. They live in Degerfors (an hour and a half busride out of Örebro). We met Nomi at the immigration office when my companion was renewing her visa. We had given her a pass-along card on the bus before we came into the office and then in the office she came up and asked how she could get the Book that was on the card. We were happy to help. She was able to hear a quick first lesson before she got on the bus to leave. When we taught them in their home, they were so receptive. We talked about the Holy Ghost and Prisla was telling us that she feels that when she prays. She said it is this strong feeling that she just can't deny that Someone is listening when she prays. She said it also makes her so happy and she doesn't feel like doing anything bad again. We had decided to teach the Restoration lesson just using the Book of Mormon and it was so powerful that way. They started loving the Book already. Nomi had hers in Urdu (she and her husband came from Pakistan when Prisla was 4). Prisla wanted her own book and she can't read Urdu so Syster Robinson let her borrow her Triple until we come back on Tuesday! Tomorrow! It will just be hard for them to get to church. There are members in a neighboring city (Karlskoga) who said they would be willing to give them a ride. Degerfors is only about 20 minutes from Karlskoga (so about an hour from Örebro). That was one of the biggest miracles of the week.

Before I forget: I am thinking that I will get to call at about 6ish in the evening my time. It will be in the evening for sure. Mother's Day evening. It will be just like my old Sunday evening calls. Maybe you will even be just sitting down to eat! I am going to "read it back to you" (remember? that awesome thing I made up in the Cannon Center?)-- the numbers that I might call, just so that you can confirm that they are right.

Dad's Cell: 011-7-916-202-7212

House: 011-7-495-956-7128

Magic Jack: 801-693-8616 (I will try not to use this one, because it might be more expensive. I don't really know)

Eddie is doing great. He came to church yesterday with his little daughter. The young women in the ward love her and take good care of her. I think that that really impresses Eddie. His baptism date is the 29 Maj so he's got a lot of time. He picked that day, but we think he would be ready earlier. I hope he is baptized earlier. Then I would for sure be able to see it. And he would get baptized sooner.

Nothing really funny happened this week. Sorry. Thank you so much for the e-mails! I was so happy to get them. I was just about to sit right down and write myself a letter and make believe it came from you! Okay, not really. Oh man that reminds me. Okay, something kind of funny happened. Well, I thought it was hilarious. We were on the bus and I do not know what it is with Swedish radio playing these kind of random songs that I happen to love. So the bus stops at the light and I start to make out (because it is quiet) what the song is. Oh dear. That was one of the toughest two minutes I have yet experienced. They were playing "Billy Jean". I had to seriously make myself not dance. No tapping the foot, no shoulders, no head movement. I was just cracking up (well grinning like a weirdo from ear to ear) at how much of a struggle it was. Anyway, that was funny to me.

We baked so many cookies to bring to a service thing we do at the Red Cross in stan but they canceled because they were sick so we had like 50 chocolate chip cookies, in small Swedish bite size. We brought them to the baptism we went to in Västerås the next day (Sat). It was actually really awesome because the young man who was baptized had been begging his Elders (our distrikt leader and companion) to have them there but they had not watned to ask us in case we were busy. Miracle. So he loved them. He calls them "Latter-day Cookies." I think that is so funny. They were so small so they were kind of hard. He said to the elders, "Your's were soft. These are like hard!" haha apparently that was a good quality. That was a really great baptism. He (Robar,20) and his girlfriend (Sofia, 19) were baptized togetehr. When Robar came up out of the water, he grabbed his chest and had this astonished look on his face. He couldn't speak but he just smiled and looked at Elder Hanes and just gave him a big wet hug. It was one of the best things I have ever seen. He was glowing the whole night and hugging everyone no matter how old or young they were except the sisters, he gave a good hand shake) and he's this big bear of a guy. Miracles are happening.

Thank you for your prayers. I love you all. I am excited to call you soon. I don't even know when that is exactly... two weeks? I'll know when it comes! It's in my awesome calendar. I write what I did in every day of that cool calendar. It's awesome. Awseome and cool (I just read over this paragraph ha).

I am excited to be in Sweden. I am excited to be a missionary. I don't know how to send pictures... I don't think I came with all my camera hook up things, like I said before. I'll look into that this week.