Swedish is melting my brain

hej familj!

it sounds like things are great in the ol' mesa. it also sounds like things are heating up. i admit i'm a little jealous. it snowed a few days ago. seriously. anyway. things are going pretty well. we're all starting to feel a lot more confident with the language. and dad, i totally know what you mean about not wanting to talk at all when we have an english fast. there are days when i feel like if i speak another word of swedish, my brain might melt. so i just don't say anything. because i want to save my brain. joe, i'm glad your baseball season is goin well. it sounds like you have a good team this year. which is nice considering what happened last year. sarah, how's lifeguarding? are you still nice and brown? i was looking at some pictures from summer yesterday and realized how pale i am! i miss my tan! luckily everyone in sweden will be all past by the end of the winter so i'll fit right in. i'm glad you all enjoyed the pictures. sorry there were some (many) duplicates. i didn't quite know how the machine worked. now i do...mom, if your getting sick of writing me, i understand. i know how busy you are so if you only want to write every other day...that's ok. oh i forgot to tell you about relief society last week and this week. we always have speakers come in and they're always amazing. like my 1st week we had sister lefferth from the primary presidency. anyway, 2 sundays ago, sister dew spoke to us. yes, sherri dew. i met her and she's amazing. she gave a wonderful talk about being pure and worthy to be called a woman of God (i still don't know when i became a woman...). this past sunday sister cook from the young women (i still feel like i'm in young women...) spoke to us. she's super cute. she talked about virtue and it was wonderful. some things she said got me thinking and i decided that i'm going to do the virtue value experiences. we all received the little personal progress insert when we came so i'm going to do it. mom, i would love it if you could do it with me. they've encouraged all of us to do it with our mothers and i know there will be an ocean between us pretty soon, but i think it would be fun. if you need the experiences, i'm sending home another little packet cause i have an extra. also, i had completely forgotten about brian's wedding. i know aunt marianne is so happy! if you see him, please tell him congratulations from me. dad, thanks for your story about the train. i just know i'm gonna get to sweden and not know what anything says! i'm a little afraid that they're not even going to be speaking the language i'm learning here. it'll be like that missionary on the best 2 years. "this is not the language i learned in the mtc!" We had a really good teaching appointment in the trc on monday. the woman we taught is from sweden and she's so sweet! we taught her about the plan of salvation and the word of wisdom. also, the field opened up so we can play outside for gym! YAY! we played the funnest game of softball yesterday with some of the sisters in our hall. there were like 9 of us and it was amazing. it's much more fun to play games with other sisters who are just as bad at sports as you...as opposed to playing with elders who almost hit you in the face with a volleyball. anyway, that's all my big news for this week. except that WE GET TRAVEL PLANS TOMORROW!!!!!!!! boy ama i glad for that. the mtc has been a great experience, but i'm ready to get to work. oh i almost forgot--one of our teachers quit last week so we've had some substitutes. it's been kinda rough. we were really close to him. i'm gratefu; for all of your love and prayers. i miss you so, so much! sarah, i'm waiting for a play-by-play of how lifeguarding is going. joe and john, keep working hard in school and keep smiling. you better not grow up too much! i love you and miss you!

love,
sister elise