One Year ago.. and 7 months on a mission!

Howdy! And Congrats to Nate and Kia!!

One year ago, on Sept. 22nd, I received my mission call. I thought that was insane. I am amazed at how fast time goes by! I have also been here in Göteborg for a little over a month now. Wow. I am still loving it here and getting to know the ward better and better every week at church.

Yesterday we had an amazing relief society lesson and I actually understood what was going on. The lady who gave it was an American who married a Swede. I have found that I can understand Swedish a lot more when it is a persons second language. Go figure. Anyway, it was on Quentin L. Cook's talk from the last general conference titled " LDS women are incredible!" I thought you would enjoy this quote she shared:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Last night we had dinner at The Anstensens and you all would love them! They are amazing and the dad really reminds me of my dad. He is a curator for art and has his own modern art gallery. I really felt at home there. Their oldest daughter is my age and is studying social work and they have a son on a mission and then their youngest daughter is 16 and reminds me a lot of Serina. So crazy. We shared a spiritual message with them about prayer and they loved it and we talked about some names of people who we can pray for together and showed them that missionary work starts with a prayer and that's all.

Well, the picture of us in the stripes is from today! My companions keep saying "I want to be more swedish" and it turns out that they just dress up like me. Haha. Guess I am more Swedish than I thought. So, they both are wearing my shirts and shoes. Well, except for the red converse- those are a girl's from the ward. Seriously everyone here dresses like me and its fun. I have never seen so many converse in my whole life.

Love, Talisa!

We are going to a castle here that closes soon so I will be back later and I will send more then.