we love our missionaries.

when i was a teenager we lived in augsburg in germany, close to munich and we had 2 sets of missionaries in our ward. when missionaries arrived or left my mom used to always invite them over for dinner to our house. 

being a teenager i loved having the cute 19-21 year old boys in our house of course ;). now that the years have gone by i don't remember everybodys name, but i do remember that there was always a lot of laughter during the famous "taco evenings" with eating contests to find out how many hard shell tacos they could eat. i also remember the special spirit each 'Elder' and 'Sister' brought with them, their hard work, dedication and service. 

looking back i wish i could also have served a mission, but unfortunately i chose a different path during those years. mikael spent 2 years in russia and it changed his life for the better. he still loves the country and people so much.

now that i am all grown up with my own little family we really love to invite and spoil our set of missionaries. they fill our home with their spirit, laughter, appetite and service. i can't count how many times they have helped us to bring in wood into the basement or helped chop it. i always try to cook and bake something tasty and think about what they would like. they are hard workers and because we have a small ward they don't get many dinner invitations so when they are at our place i like to make dinners special and welcoming. often i also ask what their favorite dish is and search the internet for recipes. i like to think that this is my little contribution to helping the Lord in his work and making up for the years. 

we also love to keep in touch with our missionaries and meet the parents if they pick them up when their missions are over. i also joined a group on facebook with moms whos sons or daughters are serving in sweden and post pictures of their missionaries when they visit us. i think that i will appreciate that other connection with my kids when they serve a mission later on. {i dearly hope they will}. 

in our last general conference our prophet Thomas S. Monson declared that the age requirement from 19 for young men and 21 for young women was changed to 18 for ym and 19 for yw and i was so excited. since then applications for serving a mission jumped 471%! for sweden this means that we will have about double the amount of missionaries by the summer, in our little ward we will have 2 sets of missionaries and i can't wait! i am looking forward to more happy missionaries whom i can spoil and create a little bit of home away from home. 

last sunday we said goodbye to a missionary who was transferred to another city this week. in exchange for him we received a new one who just flew in to sweden this tuesday. if everything works out we will have them over on saturday. :) 

here are a few pictures from last sunday.

helping out to make apple pie

the disaster zone after dinner

**if you are not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and meet two young men in dark suits or two cute young women with a black name tag, please greet them with a nice smile, even if you aren't interested in their message. they are hard working and so sincere. they deserve all the respect and love they can get. :)