Day 8

Until 9:30 this morning our snowboards, and everything else packed along with them, we're lost in transit. They stayed in Chicago, our first stop, and only just made it here today. It was just in time to set everything up and head up to the mountain!  When we first got to the shop where we bought our passes to ride Björn told us that someone (who wanted I stay anonymous) had arrange for us to all have coffee on them. It was delicious and amazing and a great start to the day. We spent almost all day riding Åre and came down with just enough time to clean up and cook dinner for the leadership team at Sweden lighthouse. It was an amazing day on the mountain. We have been expecting -30 Celsius, since that's what the forecast was, but it was not so intense. There was a decent storm up the hill but temperatures we close to +8 Celsius . Beautiful day. The sun came out half way through and I learned how to negotiate a T-bar. Not a easy as you might think.  Natalie and the team made 3 different kinds of spaghetti with veggie sauce, spicy sauce, or meat sauce. Salad and garlic bread to accompany and ice cream and coffee for dessert. I can't explain how wonderful it was to spend time with our Swedish family. I've been hearing stories for years about these guys and now I have stories of my own. It was similar to meeting the Redding family. Fun, comfortable, genuine, exiting, encouraging, welcoming and a million more positive feelings. It like having heard stories about your cousins who live in far off dreamland, and then one day they become more real. After we all ate we got to spend some time giving Åre our gifts, praying, sharing and encouraging them. Basically we got to tell them how much we love them and what God is saying about them. It was a really fun time to spend with them and it will have a lasting impression on me as well. We have two more days here and with how high the bar has been set, I know I'll be amazed even more at the end of each day.  p.s.I realize I haven't Sao anything about yesterday. Maybe I'll update you in that one in a later post.