Swedish Fish and Suckers for the Swedes

 

We have some neighbors that served as Missionaries twice in Sweden. They had a Swedish teen boy come and stay with them last year for the summer months. At the same point, we had an exchange student from Spain. 
 
Since we were taking our exchange student to see some fun places, we thought we would take their Student from Sweden with us on those fun outings. 

For the past week or so, that boys family has come to stay with our neighbors. We got to hear some wonderful talks by them at church today.

Even the young boy here gave a WONDERFUL talk about paying tithes to the Lord and how he sold some things and got a gift card as payment and he was worried about how to pay the tithes on that as he couldn't break up a gift card. 

He said he was really worried about it until he started taking the items people purchased and delivering them. The people started to give him tips and he made enough to pay the tithing on the amount he earned. 


I really enjoyed the parents talks as well. The father had to to translate but he did a wonderful job. The only word he didn't know was "Endangered" talking about earning money to help the endangered animals. 


We thought perhaps the boys would like to come over and make some homemade suckers as our exchange student thought that was great fun. We called and offered to have the family over but the parents were tired so we had just the boys over. 


They were great workers and made four different batches using all different types of molds. They never got bored which was great. They kept at it and finally, I sent them down to play the Wii as I finished up the last batch.

Over the years, we have learned that foreigners don't like the taste of "root beer" as it tastes like a medicine they have. The favorite flavors are usually fruits like, strawberry, watermelon, cherry and candy flavors like bubble gum. 

They chose, raspberry, strawberry, pineapple and watermelon. They each helped pour in the ingredients, stir the mix, learned how to listen for the "crack" when the mixture is ready and I didn't let them pour the mix as I usually burn myself which I did again today. 
 
They greased all the molds, chose the shapes and molds to use and then bagged them all and when they were finished, they laid them out by shape on the dining room table to see how many of each they made. 

When the were finished playing the wii and ready to go home, they each chose 8 suckers to take home and share. 

You can see by the smiles on their faces (along with the cute dimples) they really enjoyed themselves. 

I thought it was funny how they really opened up while playing the Wii and look how they sat exactly the same way and held the controllers exactly the same in about 10 different pictures over time. It was cute. 

I blogged about their older brother when he was here and here are the blogs he is in: 
Here is the link to him fishing with us.

Here is the link to him at the bat caves etc.

Here is a link to him in a Tee Pee.


Here is a link to him playing hide and seek at Goblin Valley.

Doesn't the blonde brother look just like him? 

I offered them some Swedish fish I had in the cupboard and they liked eating them. Our fish however are about 1/2 to 1/4 of the size they have overseas. They didn't complain about that or anything and were the perfect gentlemen. They are welcome to our home anytime!