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| Umeå from the tower |
The past week or two has brought to my attention a rather interesting cultural difference I'm not sure I've ever mentioned. With moving to a new branch comes the opportunity to introduce myself to new people, and every time I meet someone new I have the same experience. As I shake their hand they say, "Welcome to Umeå, Elder.... Uh, how do you pronounce your name?" The funny part is that they know Sirrine isn't Swedish, so they don't even try to pronounce it with Swedish pronunciation, but then they don't know how else to try, so they just ask instead. I usually end up repeating my name two or three times until they get it down, and a member explained to me that he remembers how to pronounce it because it rhymes with "divine", so I've been using that explanation ever since. The best part is that after they figure out how to pronounce it, the follow up question is always, without fail, "Where does that name come from?" I have to explain that despite much family history work, we have no idea, and I'm usually told that I should do some more.
In America, people may think it's an unusual name, but it's a rare occasion that someone asks where it's from because everybody has such a mix of ancestry that it's hard to say where someone is "from" when referring to roots that far back. However, here in Sweden, you get names like Svensson or Eriksson that are 100% Swedish, or other names that come purely from France, Germany, Norway, the middle east, etc. People here are used to having names tied directly with a land, so almost every person I meet, member or not, asks the question, and my companions get to hear the same explanation every time...
Today we went to a tower that stands atop a hill near our apartment. The view from the tower is absolutely incredible, and amazingly, you can even see Finland on a clear day. I took some pictures, but unfortunately it was a little too cloudy see it on the pictures...
We also got to go to a cemetery on Saturday for Alla helgons dag (All Saints Day). It's the first
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| Kyrkogården (the cemetery) |
On Wednesday we got to teach Mikael, and as we entered the house we noticed his wife in the other room watching TV. We had just come from another appointment, so I had to use the bathroom, so I asked if I could do so and he directed me down the hallway. While in the bathroom, I thought of a line from Preach My Gospel so clearly and perfectly it was as if I was looking at the book in front of me. The line which came to my mind was "Before you begin, ask all who are present to join with you in the lesson." (pg 176) The thought almost came and went without any consideration, but then I realized that such a thought was directly from the spirit. I knew it was a prompting from the spirit, but the wife has never been interested in our message, so I have to admit that my next thought was "Oh no, if it's from the spirit, that means I have to do it..." The wife had already gone into the other room, and I thought it would be awkward to walk in there and invite her to join, but I knew I had to do so. I came into the kitchen and told Mikael that she was welcome to join us, but he replied, "Ah, I think she just wants to watch TV." I felt a little bad that I hadn't just gone directly and asked her myself, but then she came into the kitchen to grab their dog, so I seized the moment to invite her to join. A little to my surprise, she immediately sat down, forgetting the TV in the other room, and participated fully in the lesson as we taught the Plan of Salvation. Finding new people to teach isn't the easiest task in the world, but this was a manifestation that there are people being prepared to receive the gospel and the Lord will lead us to them.
Äldste Sirrine
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Our studded tires we have for winter. It's a law here
that you have to have them on by Dec 1. Our car
also has a block/cabin heater to keep it warm, and
parking lots here all have outlets to plug them into.
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