Elder Arko: June 15th letter

This past week was 'Stavs' (or Stake Conference) for Elder Arko and he got to listen to Marlin K Jensen, Todd Christofferson, President Monson, and President Monsen's daughter! The best part was they got to listen to it in English! He learned that President Monson and his wife both have Swedish heritage...represent Elder Arko! He really enjoyed President Monson's talk about the Battalion of Soliders in WWI who got stuck behind enemy lines.

Teaching isn't going perfectly for them yet. This past week was a huge week for Sweden and Alingsås. For Sweden, it was Swedish National Day, a huge soccer game between Sweden and Denmark (which Sweden lost by the way), and Semester (the end of school so everyone goes out of town and takes a break from work). Alingsås had the Potatis Festival so it wouldn't have done any good to go out tracting or contacting because everyone was at parties or 'full' (which means drunk) so they just tried to schedule things that wouldn't take them into the public so much. They did get to go look around at the Potatis Festival and there was some cool stuff there.

Elder Arko said Sweden is much like America because it doesn't really have a culture of it's own, but rather has adopted several from other places. He says he's having trouble finding something "Swedish" that he can send home.

He metioned how much more green and lush it is in Sweden than back home, but that's because rain falls so much, even now during the middle of summer. Speaking of summer, Midsummer is the 19th and 20th of June. Apparently this is the Swedish celebration to see! Swedes love it and Elder Arko says, "I'm a little confused because I'm not really sure what they are celebrating, but we shall see." He's very excited to see what it's all about.

And now for pictures. There are only a few and of course they are random, so here we go...

a jack rabbit they saw in Trollhatton and chased for a little while to get an amazing picture