Annual Sweden Public Affairs Meeting

Sweden's Annual Public Affairs meeting

Vicky by snowman at Mission Office

This week has been GREAT, as they all are! We were privileged to do some service for Ryan Koch of the US Embassy Monday afternoon. He is going to be helping us set up a reception and performance for the US Ambassador to Sweden when BYU Young Ambassadors come to Stockholm.
Our day at the temple was great on Tuesday and then we had our Swedish class that night. I never realized how difficult it is to learn all the verb conjugations in a new language. I will be lucky to learn a few words, but we are supporting the elders in their classes Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
Zone Conference was Wednesday and packed full of instruction. A major focus was “unity”, especially in the companionships. The mission is having a great deal of success right now. President Anderson said that if the baptism dates that are set for March materialize, it will be the biggest number of baptisms in March for the past 20 years. I believe there are 19 baptisms set right now. They also spoke about “ATTITUDE”, one of my favorite subjects. If you add up the numbers of the word attitude with A being 1, T being 20 (as in the letter of the alphabet), it totals 100 so they determined that with the right attitude you can have 100% success. This is quite interesting.
The sisters came to supper tonight and brought the dessert, which is called a semla. It is something that Swedes eat on “Fat Tuesday”, or Mardi Gras. It reminds me of a crème puff except the crust that holds the pudding filling is much more like a bread and not as sweet.
Our Friday lunch was great, as usual. Elder Loomis made more semlor, but he made chocolate ones, which is not the traditional Swedish flavor. The lady who gave him the recipe said it is more American.
We met Gabi, and Leif & Eva Mattsson at the Radisson Hotel tonight for a wonderful supper. The only little glitch was that in our appetizer, Gabi had the band aid off of someone’s finger in her food and she actually chewed on it before realizing what it was. She discretely pointed it out to the waiter and he apologized. When it came time for Gabi to pay the bill, the waiter returned and told her that the meal for everyone was comped because of the band aid in her food. It was about a $250 meal and everything else was excellent!
Our Sweden PA meeting was excellent! I have never seen anyone keep a group on task like Elder Per Malm. I gave him a few items that we wanted him to cover with the Stake Presidents that would be of benefit to the success of the tour. He was able to discuss the items, keep the group focused and accomplish what needed to be done in a positive, efficient manner. He is truly an amazing man and we can understand why he is an Area Seventy here in Sweden. Public Affairs is becoming a very important essential program in the church in every country.