My American friend Beverly is here visiting from Washington state!! It feels so strange as we sit together and talk, like we always have. It feels like I am home but I know I am not. We just picked up where we left off. The wonderful part is I get to be a tourist as well and see things through her eyes.

She came Sunday and she is staying at a nearby hotel. She has an amazing view from the 12th floor. So far we have had a mixed bag of Spring weather from snow, rain, wind and sunshine. Her first full day here we walked around in the rain in downtown Malmö, renewed my passport and ordered a national ID card as well. Exciting right?

We ate soup at a little tiny soup place called Le Soup near the big square with my friend Jenny who runs the place. She is an ex-pat from Chicago, introduced to me by my other friend Petra. I had the same seafood soup as last time and Beverly had the lentil soup. Both were delicious. We chatted up some folks from Belguim who were not going to end up sightseeing because of the rain. It was such a drag we went back home and took a nap!

The next day was bright and sunny after we woke up to snow. We had a picnic planned with the missionaries. Our original plan was to sample surströmming, which is a fermented herring but we couldn’t find any so I got pickled herring instead.

We ended up in Malmö slottsparken and with 2 elders and 2 sisters. 1 is going home to Utah, two are getting transferred, leaving one who will get a new companion. We had a great time together. All of them tried the herring and no one really enjoyed it except me. We did get a video for them. I am going to miss them but hope they will have great success wherever they are., so glad we get to keep one elder.

After lunch we walked around Malmö slottsparken and saw a windmill, beautiful gardens, felt the ice cold chill of the wind and the old castle surrounded by a moat. The new portion houses the art museum of Malmö. There was a diagram showing Malmö as it looked in the 1500s. We also did a little souvenir shopping and walked all around town. I even walked the neighbors dog after and got almost 19,000 steps in.

The next day was expected to rain most of the day so we planned a shopping trip to the nearby mall. We walked all around and enjoyed the day together, had dinner together as well. Dinner was rather mismatched and not great but then shared conversation was lovely. She has done so great adjusting to the time difference of 9 hours. More adventures planned for the rest of the week and hopefully the weather improves.