Mission Stories - Sweden

The Sweden Stockholm Mission is quite simply the best mission on the planet. Everybody says that the mission they served in is the best one, but the truth is: Sweden owns. Because it's such a cool country: the seasons change a lot over the course of a year, so you get a huge variety of weather and temperature (I saw -28 C one winter and then +32 C the next summer - a 60 degree change in six months!) The mission covers the entire country (not all missions do), so you get a huge variety of landscape and culture, from the North of Sweden (Norrland) with a funky coastline and fells, to the Central (Svealand) with a rich medieval history, to the South (Götaland and Skåne) where you almost fall out of Sweden to Danmark. They speak different dialects all over, so your language skills are always developing.

The Swedish people, and the people in Sweden, are really awesome as well. Swedes are really intelligent and highly educated, and again, there is a huge variety, especially religiously speaking. And when including the people who have under the recent years moved to Sweden from other countries, you get the whole religious spectrum, from atheists and agnostics to all different kinds of Christians, to muslims, jews, hindus... the lot.

Immigration-wise Sweden feels relatively new, with some ofthe people not knowing how to express themselves about it all and coming off sounding sort of racist. But not in a mean way (though you have those too of course, when you have all sorts). The main beef for everybody (both the natives and the newcomers) seems to be the language - it just is so very necessary to know Swedish in Sweden.

But mostly I would like to tell you all about the culture how I experienced it, the delightful, quirky, purely Swedish aspects of the culture that I had the pleasure of participating in. This is in no particular order :)

Fika
This'll take a little bit of explanation if you've never experienced it... So fika basically means coffee or tea with some sweet things, or light sandwiches or something like that. A little bigger and more formal than a snack, but not exactly a meal. It's basically the expression "would you like to have coffee with me" without specifying what we would be eating or drinking (because for fika you can drink juice, or water, or whatever, and it doesn't have to be cookies or cakes, it can be anything really). So it cancels out the disagreements of "no, I don't drink coffee" or "no thanks I just ate" because you can drink what you want, and it's not really food as such. Well anyway, fika is the centre of the Swedish social life. You can do it in a cafe, or at someone's house, or as a picknick. So missionaries often find themselves invited to fika with people who they visit. It's pretty cool. If there is one thing of Swedish culture you want to implement in your life, take this one (or the taking off shoes upon entering -one).

Passive Aggressive
The Swedish national disposition is passive aggressive. What do you mean, iippo, I hear you ask. Well for example: two mormon missionaries talk to a Swede on the street, a conversation touching rather lightly but directly upon spiritual/religious matters ensues and the mormons wish to continue it another time. The Swede wouldn't like that. But instead of saying so, she will proceed to give the mormons a phone number that she makes up on the spot. Or if this happens at her door, she will agree upon a later time for the visit, a time when she knows she won't be at home. The mormon missionaries waste time and effort in trying to get hold of this person who doesn't want to be got hold of. Honestly: just say "not interested." Save our time and save your own time and effort instead of lying.
             One comes across these passive aggressive traits in other places as well but that's my main beef with it. :P

Midsommar
Summer in Sweden is mostly ruled by what is known as semester. Which interestingly is the opposite of its English counterpart: instead of meaning time in school, it's the time off school: holiday. It seems (to an outsider who is intent on working all year through in Sweden) that the entire country takes a three-month holiday for summer. Everyone is going somewhere: abroad (why would you leave Sweden for the only season the country is absolutely beautiful itself?), to the West coast, to the archipelago, to the island of Gotland, up north, or just to any randomly placed sommarstuga, aka the summer cottage. Blue skies, greenery and flowery, warm bodies of natural water, parks full of naked people (who maybe don't have backyards? o.O) sunbathing, cultural events and everything galore. I was blest to spend my summer in Sweden in two of the summeriest cities, Norrköping and Gothenburg (I seem to associate summer with the tram-system).
             And midsommar is a whole chapter of Swedish culture of its own. Talk about traditions. So this is as the name suggest, the middle point of summer (placed as its name would suggest at the relative beginning of summer, towards the end of june...) Traditionally, it rains on midsommar. But if it doesn't, it's much more fun to participate in the traditional midsommar activities, such as dancing around the maypole to the beat of silly songs, grilling sausage or other meat-products, playing games and sports, and maybe some other stuff too. The maypole really is the main thing. So basically you take a really big stick, and then another and make a cross out of them, then hang two circles off of the arms of the cross (creating a slightly phallic heathen symbol), then covering it with leaves and flowers, and then you raise it to an upright position. Then you make a circle (or many if there's a lot of folk willing to dance) and you hop around singing about things like little frogs and piglets, or a fox that ran over the ice and therefore we want to sing about a baker... :3 And if you want to look extra-cute, you can make a wreath of flowers to wear on your head. :)
             Not gonna lie - I had a wonderful time at midsommars. :) All the missionaries from the Stockhom area went to one place, there were a ton of people in a beautiful national park, games and sports (and sitting on the grass if you were not sporty), the maypole thing, tug-o-war, food, the sun was shining (so much so that I still have tanlines in my arms from it, and it's like 8 months later :P)

Christmas
Alike midsommars, Christmas (jul) is a big annual festival in Sweden - as in most other countries. But alike most countries, Sweden has some unique traditions. Being so close to Finland (or the North pole, depends on what world view you live by and where you think Santa lives) Sweden is one of those blessed countries where the Christmas time is rather extended. Of course snowfall helps make one feel the Christmas spirit at any point of the winter, and the winters I was in Sweden the snow came early. There is also no Thanksgiving or such holiday that would be the stopper for people to put up their decorations as soon as possible. In fact Sweden has a wonderful habit of putting up advent lights (no later than beginning of December). There are different kinds, but usually it is a triangular candlestick with seven candles. Nowadays they are electric, and people have those in the windows. It looks wonderful to see all the windows in the houses or the apartment buildings donning those lights. Another variation is a star that you can hang (instead of setting the lights on the sill). And there are thousands of different kinds of variations of both themes. Another completely different thing the 'advent light' can be is a set of four candles. You light the first on the Sunday of the first advent, the second on the second Sunday etc...
              Before actual Christmas, on December 13th, you have Lucia day, where you get the saffron-flavoured (everything in Swedish Christmas is saffron flavoured - buying the stuff is like selling your soul: serious business, and you need to know the right person to talk to. It's not even kept on the shelves in shops, you have to ask for it, and pay through the nose. And potent stuff it is) Lucia buns, served by singing girls dressed in white and wearing a crown of candles on their heads. Another reason why Christmas is longer in Sweden is that you get more days off: first the biggest Christmas celebration happens on the 24th, Christmas Eve. You celebrate 24th, 25th is a public holiday of course, as is the 26th.
              So on the 24th, julafton, you eat a lot (a traditional julbord is a humongous smorgasbord - ham is the meat of the day), then if you have snälla (kind) children living in your house, Tomte (Santa) will come to visit and bring you presents in person! :O And one thing not to miss is Kalle Anka, that means Donald Duck. What does Disney have to do with Christmas, you may ask. The Swede will answer: everything. In the afternoon the traditional Disney Christmas TV-programme will be shown. In it Jiminy Cricket wishes you a happy Christmas and shows (mostly non-Christmas related) Disney clippets: Mickey, Goofy and Donald in a caravan, the mice making a dress from Cinderella, Baloo the bear singing "Bear Necessities" and Donald Duck trying to photograph a bird, among other things. As an added Christmas surprise there is always a clip from the newest movie too. Rest of the evening is probably spent opening presents, eating some more and such. 
              Then afterwards in January you will have another party for undressing the Christmas tree (you get more presents, and there's dancing!)

Easter
The most notable thing in Swedish Easter (påsk) that not all countries have is witches. On Palm Sunday children dressed like witches will come to you, and you will give them chocolate eggs. It's kind of like trick-or-treating. You'll also see witch Easter decorations, among the more usual things of eggs and chicks and bunnies. And eating eggs, chocolate and other kind, is also common. I was told it comes from back in the olden days when at the start of spring chickens would stat laying eggs again, and that's why the egg is such a central part of Easter. They also have these really cool-looking cardboard eggs that you buy empty and fill with loose candy (which is also a big thing in Sweden year round: in every self-respecting shop you will find specific candy shelves with little boxes with lids, and in these boxes is hundreds of different varieties of sweets, with a kiloprice. You will then get a paperbag and shovel in it as much sweets as you want, as many different kinds as you want).

Must (that is, julmust and påskmust)
Must (pronounced sort of like 'moost' except with a shorter vowel-sound, instead of with an ah-sound like in English) is a drink. It is the drink that causes the sales of Coca-Cola to plummet in Sweden. It is somewhat akin to both Coke and Rootbeer, yet infinitely superior to either. And you can only buy it at Christmas and Easter (julmust and påskmust respectively). I heard someone describe the drinking of must in it that you drink the first liter thinking "what is the big fuss?" but then somewhere around your second bottle you kind of get over all the negative initial reactions and before you know it, you have to have must (the amounts are estimates: it is possible that it is proportional, that a bigger guy needs more must to get over it). This was the case with me too. I had julmust for the first time in Christmas Zone Conference, and didn't really care for the stuff. By the end of that Christmas season (must was served everywhere) I loved the stuff and couldn't wait for Easter. Usually what happens is that by the time Easter is over, you have had quite a bit of must. So you don't mind it so much when it disappears before the summer. But then when it starts to come out again after the summer, when winter is coming near, you've realised how much you've missed it, and you just revert back to your natural julmust-bibber habits. I think this seasonality of the drink is genius. And I also must (no pun intended) admit here that my Christmas will not be Christmas ever again without must, so I will be doing a trip to Sweden at least once a year, a bit before Christmas, to go stock up. :P

Surströmming
Sur means sour. Strömming means herring. It comes in a can. The fish is put in can. The can is sealed. The fish rots. Man opens can and eats fish (with thin-bread, boiled potatoes and whatever else the heck). This is tradition. Which you are very welcome to ignore the existence of - unless you are foreign. In which case you have to try it at least once (I think they check at customs before you leave the country if you haven't eaten it during your stay in Sweden... They have sniffer dogs that can find out if you didn't).
             The surströmming is by its very nature a summer food because you have to eat it out-of-doors (I think it's illegal to open the can indoors, especially in apartment blocks). You recognise a good can of the stuff by seeing how the lid is slightly bulging. I had the questionable pleasure of engaging in this Swedish tradition towards the end of the summer during my stay in Gothenburg. One fine evening (it might have been a Sunday evening of all things - not the ideal way to keep the Sabbath day holy, I'll say) a mixed group of young people gathered in the forest behind the chapel, with potatoes, thin-bread, all the necessary preparations - and the fish. We were four missionaries (one Finn and three Americans, one of whom had had surströmming before), one Elsalvadorian man, one English woman, and one Swedish man. Fish was eaten, the smell (oh my goodness the smell! It is horrible! It smells like toilet if you poured surströmming down the toilet and left it there for months!) was... *shudder*, photos were taken, merry was made. Not all ate the fish, but it was liberally smelled by all.

Semlor
A semla (pl. semlor) is a bun, with almond... paste? mush? and whipped cream inside, and powdered sugar on top. Basically, the day of eating semlor is Fettisdag (Fat Tuesday, or Fatty Day, depends on how you break up the word - Shrove Tuesday I believe is the correct translation) which is basically the same concept as Pancake Day: you eat nice stuff right before fasting in lent. Except most people in Sweden don't observe lent - but everyone observes semlor! :D

SJ
-Välkommen till SJ affärs resor. Förväntad kötid är. Fyra. Minuter. Kön betjänas just nu av. Tjugo. Handläggare. ... Du är fortfarande plaserad i kö. Vi besvarar ditt samtal så snart vi kan.
(Welcome to SJ business travel. The awaited queue time is. Four. Minutes. The queue is served by. Twenty. Officers. ... You are still in queue. We will answer your call as soon as possible.)
This became a familiar beginning of a telephone conversation for me. When we took the train (more often in some places than others) we called SJ (Svenska järnvägar, the Swedish railroads) and booked our tickets through the office. So imagine in a houseold of two young women, who in their usual busy morning of showering, eating breakfast, studying, farding etc... an added task of having to call the train ticket place, and then hang around on the phone, waiting for your call to be answered any minute now... We would often put the phone on speaker, and whoever was nearest (or not eating or brushing their teeth at the exact minute the call was answered) would take the call. I have many a happy memory of calling SJ, including the worse and the best automated announcements ("queue time of fifteen minutes?! Forget this!", "6 officers?! What the deuce?!")

Ending phone calls
This will need a video... I'll see if I can make one.

Patriotism and the Princess's wedding
As a missionary one meets many different kinds of people. And the only truly patriotic Swedish person I met was this sweet but kind of crazy old man, who was a pure blood royalist. Admired the king and would have defended the kingdom by himself - and probably won. But as for the rest... there doesn't seem to be much in terms of patriotism going for Sweden. On the Swedish national day (which is a new development, since Sweden never did need to fight for independence or indeed for much anything else) which happened to be Sunday we sang the Swedish national anthem in church (and we didn't have the lyrics, so most people kind of mumbled along...) and that was it. I don't know how other people who don't go to church celebrated it. Probably not by much.
             The flag is often seen around though. In the Swedish calendar you have designated flag-days (such as Christmas, or UN-day, or the princess's nameday...) on which, if you have a flag pole, you should pull up the blue-and-yellow. :) It looks pretty good actually, I like seeing the flags flying.
             And speaking of the princess's nameday, Victoria got married while I was in Sweden! It was a huge deal, shops were selling wedding chocolate and wedding napkins and everything wedding. The actual wedding took place in Stockholm. We didn't go of course, but this Peruvian guy we were teaching went. And everyone was talking about how romantic the entire country is because the princess is marrying (and he's no prince either... So basically the same thing as happened in England with the prince). But it was a cool display of Swedenism. :)
             Something patriotic that I really took to in Sweden was certain patriotic Swedish songs. Ack Värmeland du sköna (Oh Värmland you beautiful) and Land du välsignade (Land you blessed) became part of my 'singing for language study' -repertoire (after I, err... nicked this old pamphlet of lyrics from the Sundsvall chapel library...)

Valborg
Valborg, or Valborgsmässoafton is the evening of April 30th (so basically First-of-May-eve). I'm not exactly super-sure why it's celebrated. It cold be with the coming of spring. (In Finland it's a lot to do with 'workers of the world, unite!' socialist ideology...?) Doesn't really matter why it's celebrated, because it's celebrated by setting stuff on fire and eating sausages! So basically you build a fire, as big as you can, and you stand around it singing.

Dalahäst
If there is one thing you should buy from Sweden that will forever scream Sweden at you in your house (not literally: that would be pretty terrible), it's the Dalahäst, aka Dalahorse (valley horse?) It is a little (or big) red (or some other colour) wooden horse. A very simple figure, usually hand-carved and traditionally painted. Expensive if you shop at the wrong place, but very worth it because it's just so darn Swedish.

Roof skotta-ing
The verb 'skotta' means to move snow around, to plow. You can do this with a shovel or a machine or what you now happen to have accessible to you - but you gotta do it, otherwise life will cease to move around, basically. Now this is nothing new to any country that experiences any kind of snowfall ever, including my native land of Finland. I am well-acquainted with the snow-moving from being grown amongst it. But never before in Finland had I come across this idea to push snow off of one's roof. Ack, that is actually a lie. I had seen the idea once, in a Swedish cartoon magasine (Bamse, the world's strongest bear) where this one kid had to stay home and plow the roof of his house instead of going off to do something fun with his friends or something... I digress.
             So this idea of snow-plowing on the roof is pretty foreign to me. But they do it everywhere in Sweden. I don't know if it's a safety thing, that you take the snow off so your roof doesn't collapse, or that the snow doesn't fall on its own and on top of someone or something... As a cool cultural side result at winter time you see these signs and warning tape everywhere that tells you to look out for snow or ice falling off of the roofs (snöras och istappar). In Sundsvall the teenage boys skotta'ed the roof of the chapel as a service project and they had a blast, they shoveled the snow into huge heaps under the eaves, and then jumped off of the roof into these epic snow mountains! They went in all the way up to their waist. It looked fun.
             One winter morning our studies were interrupted by a call from our District Leader (note: missionaries very rarely call each other during studies - we know that we wouldn't want to be interrupted while studying and we don't want to interrupt anyone else) who says that the mission president has said that we are not allowed to give service in the form of roof-skottaing. (Random interjection here: it's impressive how the information flows in a mission: the president tells the assistants (so that's one companionship of missionaries) who tell the zone leaders (five comps) who tell the district leaders in their zone (also not that many people, depending on the zone 2-6 maybe?) who tell the members of their districts (usually one other companionship). So it travels fast, it's really cool. It was kind of a random message to send but it was cool to see it in action). So we joked a little how that totally throws all our plans for today, and the only question left was "who fell off the roof?" (I asked the president at a different time, by the way, and the answer was no one, he'd just been watching it one time and had this thought "err, I don't want my missionaries doing that...")

K-bob
All Swedish missionaries eat K-bob. That is, what is commonly known as kebab, either in a pizza or in a rolled up wrap-thingie or however. And I don't know why. It's just the thing to eat. Each area (a city of Sweden that has missionaries) has a K-bob place that the missionaries frequent, and they are always on the hunt for the best K-bob. As a rule, the K-bob is best in the south and gets gradually worse as you move northward. In Norrland it is hardly recognisable as meat, it is more alike wood. The best K-bob place in Sweden - as far as I know, and I am no K-bob expert, it is definitely more of an elder-thing - is Mossens in Gothenburg.
             The oral tradition of the mission says that K-bob comes from the K-bob-beast, aka the kebabosaurus, that roams free in the Land of Norr. Therein it is hunted with a spear. You impale the beast on the spear and stick the whole thing over a fire and rotate slowly, then shave thin shavings of meat off of it and slap that atop a pizza. The K-bob pizza is then accompanied with a K-bob sauce (medium or strong), and some lettuce. Why they throw fresh salad on pizza is a question no one may answer. The pizza also comes with a side of pizza salad, which is this unfresh pickled cabbage-y stuff.
             I was never able to finish an entire K-bob pizza (and I always finish my pizza, so that's telling you something).