Hejsan Familj och Vanner (Friends),
I am alive and doing well here in the MTC. I don't even know where to begin for this email! So much has happened in the past week, it's hard to remember it all.
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| 2. My companion Aldste Butler on the first day! |
My companion is Aldste Butler, a young 18 year-old boy from Kaysville, Utah. When I first asked him where he was from, he only said 'Kaysville', and it sounded like Gainsville, so I was like sweet, another Elder from Texas, but then I found out that night, that it's a city in Utah. We really don't have similar interests. He is into AC/DC, hard rock kind of stuff, likes to run, and then there's me who eats, sleeps, breathes volleyball, and likes easy going mellow music. But, things are going ok and we are working through out differences to be effective teachers!
So the third day we were here we had to teach a lesson ONLY in Swedish. Since the third day, we now have taught four more lessons to our investigator (a non-member of the church who is being taught by the missionaries. At first it was so difficult, and it still is, but we have changed from an entire scripted lesson, to writing down a few vocab words, studying a necessary grammar section, and then just teaching with our hearts rather than our paper. It makes a tremendous difference for when we teach. Currently, we are teaching a woman named Gabriella, and her story is that she is dating a guy named Evan who goes to BYU and is Mormon, but she has always thought church was kind of weird. It has been so great to teach her that God loves her, as does Jesus Christ, and there is so much happiness to this Gospel! (Side note, we as a district found out that Gabriella is actually just a sister return missionary from the Sweden mission, but we ALWAYS take the lesson seriously, even if we know that we won't actually be baptizing Gabriella or anything)
The Swedish is coming along bit by bit, but class can sometimes be frustrating because our teacher (Sister Adamson), only speaks Swedish to us. Swedish is such a beautiful language, but not when we speak it haha!! After a week of Swedish class, I can understand, as well as read quite a bit, but pronunciations are still difficult to learn. I just wish that I was fluent already, but as the famous quote says pressure makes diamonds! (Aldste Bird has a bracelet with that quote on it)
Some interesting things about Swedish I learned this week (on this computer they do not have a Swedish keyboard so an o with a line through it is written in Swedish as an o with two dots above it)
1) Døpas means to be baptized, but then dopas means to get high, so I really hope I do not mess that one up in Sverige!
2) Undersøkare is the word for investigator and it literally translates to wonder seeker.
I can check my email every day here in the MTC, but I can only reply on Thursdays! I would love to hear from all of you throughout the week, on how your lives are going, because not much really goes on here in the MTC other than eating, sleeping, learning, or teaching!
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| 1. My nametag with Mormons Bok! Jag ar missionar! |
Jag alskar er!
Aldste Steele
Pictures!
1. My nametag with Mormons Bok! Jag ar missionar!
2. My companion Aldste Butler on the first day!
3. My Swedish district! Aldste Wayment, Bird, Cummings, Butler, Francis, and Syster Huxtable, Bingham, and Cole along with our teacher Syster Adamson!
4.The tie knot known as the waterfall. (jag vet inte lol)
5. A view from the new MTC building where I do a lot of my studies.
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| 3. My Swedish district! Aldste Wayment, Bird, Cummings, Butler, Francis, and Syster Huxtable, Bingham, and Cole along with our teacher Syster Adamson! |
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| 4.The tie knot known as the waterfall. (jag vet inte lol) |
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| 5. A view from the new MTC building where I do a lot of my studies. |
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