Meet Nils

Nils Schwerdfeger is with a group of 18 foreign exchange students from Germany, who arrived at the Salt Lake Airport on Friday, March 27th. When we signed on to participate as a host family last January, he was assigned to us (poor guy), and we were able to get to know him a little through emails over the last 2 months.
You could tell we were new at this because when we were advised to make a sign with his name so he could find us, I did just that--wrote his name on a piece of paper. I was quite horrified to arrive at the airport only to find all the other "experienced" host families prepared with artistic welcome posters, banners, balloons, flowers, candy, gifts, you name it.

Our first excursion was to the Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve. It sounded really neat and is within a mile or two of home, and it consists of a mile long boardwalk over swampy looking grass.

It was a little cold and not all that exciting, so we decided to go for the ultimate experience and head on out to Antelope Island to see the wild herds of roaming buffalo.

Morris the Moose (at Erin's house), meet Boris the Buffalo. Yes, that dot really is a real breathing buffalo, and it appeared to be the only one on the entire island. We wondered if perhaps they had him tied to that spot near the beach just to satisfy the tourists because he never moved. We aren't quite dumb enough to get up close and personal and I didn't have my fancy camera with the zoom lens, so this is as good as it gets.

We did a little climbing around on the rocks and hiked up a few hills.

Sunday morning we had to work at Music and the Spoken Word and of course it had to be Fast Sunday, so we dropped Nils off at Damon's house and he was nice enough to fix a wonderful french toast breakfast--a first for Nils. He's never had syrup and thinks it is too sweet and sticky, but he still enjoyed the breakfast. Damon then brought Nils and Tim to the recording.

We took a mini-tour of the Conference Center, then jumped in the car and headed home for church, arriving about 10 minutes late. After Sacrament meeting, Dan found a pretty girl, Tara, that he home teaches to take Nils to Sunday School and the joint meeting that followed.

When the meetings were over we found Nils glowing in the hall surrounded by giggly, love-struck Laurels. We knew then then he would be just fine over the next 3 weeks of his stay. Tara provides his transportation to and from school each day. Tonight Nils went to the young men/womens barbeque, and tomorrow the boys are taking him rock climbing. I have to say, his schedule is filling up fast.

When we first arrived home from the airport, with the vocal canine welcoming committee ready, we could see the look of terror that made it clear Nils hasn't been around dogs much. I'm happy to report they have now made their peace and have become the best of friends.

I talked Nils into creating his very own blog so that his parents can keep up with his adventures here. He isn't supposed to contact them more than once a week, so I do hope that isn't cheating.