GOD JUL!!!

Dear Family,

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Or as the Swedes say, GOD JUL!!! I'm so excited for Christmas! first because I GET TO TALK TO YOU ALL!!!!!! Second, it's my first and only Swedish Christmas. We're going over to our bishop's houseand they've got an amazing day planned for us! Christmas here is 2 days. They have the big celebration on Christmas Eve (weird...) so that's when we'll be at the bishop's and open presents and stuff. We're going to another family on Christmas day. This year'll waaaayyy different but I'm excited.

We had a great week, starting with Zone Conference on Tuesday. We got up suuuuper early to catch a suuuuuper early train to Stockholm. It was so cold and we were soooo tired, but excited for Zone Conference! Zone onference was really awesome. There were some very nice Christmas messages (p.s. mom, don't watch a music video or movie called Christmas Shoes. Just don't watch it.), a super fun gift exchange (pictures included...) and a Christmas program. Every district had a little musical number throughout the day and it was really nice. President and Sister Anderson gave us each a paperback Book of Mormon so that we could really study it and gain a testimony of it. They gave us "permission" to do whatever we wanted in the book...write in it, draw pictures...just markit up like crazy. I'm already doing this with another Book of Mormon...so I gotta figure out something to do with this one. When we left the chapel that evening, there was about a foot of snow on the ground! We had a fun little snowball fight that involved some missionaries slipping and falling down (no, not me.). We got home from Stockholm pretty late cause our train got suuuuuper delayed, but it was still a suuuuuper awesome day. Saturday we went to a baptism in Västerås with James. It was thes adorable African girl (Sister Lundén wants them to get together) so it was perfect for James. He loved the service and afterward kept asking questions about after he gets baptized. I hope it's soon. He's really positive and progressing, but doesn't want to set a date yet. Kind of frustrating but we keep praying. Yesterday was the ward Christmas program and it was really good. Sister Lundén gave an awesome talk about the meaning of Christmas. I also sang. I got to sing in the ward choir too and it was fun! I loooooovve our ward! After church we took one of the YSAs with us to visit some of our investigators and sing to them. It went really well. we got to visit a less-active who just had a baby a week ago. I got to hold the baby and she's sooooooo cute! The less-active's name is Jupsy and she's African. She has the CUTEST littl 1 year old boy named Richie. After that we met the Zone Leaders and another YSA to go caroling to a few of our other investigators. It was a fun night...but COOOOOOLLLLLDDDD!!!! So after caroling we went home and curled up in our chairs and warm blankets to eat dinner.

That's really all my exciting news. I'm so excited to talk to you all on FRIDAY!!!

I know that this Church is true and I'm grateful that I can be here in Sweden. I love you and miss you all! Sorry this is so chorst...but I gotta have something to tell you on FRIDAY!!!!! Love you!

Love,
Syster Coleman