I preached yesterday, which brought new conversations. I’m not seeking admiration, I’m just encouraged when it sounds that something I said helps someone see God’s love and grace anew. That’s what really matters.
I took the rest of Sunday off for a Sabbath with emotional and physical rest after international travels and responsibilities. Later in the evening, I did start reviving my Swedish lessons. They often stop with international travel as it is hard to maintain any Duolingo streak without Internet access in Ethiopia (or timeline changes when going across 9 time zones), and that kills the little incentive to keep plugging away daily.
Today, I was back to work. There were 3.5 hours of tutoring 3 students who are writing essays. Their whole course grade comes down to 1 essay with defense of it. Students are writing in Swedish, so I projected their digital draft papers through the projector onto the screen. I surprised myself with being able to track with quite a bit of the papers, but there is a lot of new vocabulary. I will have them submit their papers in electronic format so I can cut and paste fairly quickly to define some new words.
After lunch, I spent 2 hours with the språk cafe’ at church. My new conversation partner, Ingrid, and I had a good conversation. I was a bit encouraged with being able to communicate on a basic level. However, there is SO much more to go! When I stop in the grocery store and see the newspaper and magazine headlines close to the check out counter, I am humbled. There are always more words!
I’m trying to shift my personal timezone to match Anya’s. She goes to bed at 8 pm and is up at 4 am! She finds her mornings to be very productive and likes it! However, we often seemed to pass like ships in the night. So last night, I headed to bed at 9 pm and was up at 5 am. I’m dragging now at 7 pm! But I hope to hang with Anya more.
There was on picture that I didn’t post from our time in London. We stopped into a few stores, and Anya wanted to pick up a few things without Sweden’s 25% sales tax. Here is a fragrance that we decided that we would not try.
One time years ago, a friend told me that I smell like fresh laundry. I guess that isn’t too bad!
With blessings,
Beth