From tailgating at LSU to getting travel advice in Target, Elin and Kenofi Terfa have discovered that the heart of Baton Rouge is truly in the people who call the city home.

Since moving to Baton Rouge from Sweden in June, the couple has documented every step of their new life in Louisiana, creating a digital space for locals to connect with one another while showcasing what makes Louisiana so special.

Elin and her husband Kenofi recently moved to Baton Rouge for his job at Bethany Church as a youth pastor, where he works full-time offering support to children in fifth to 12th grade. Outside of posting content, Elin acts as a volunteer at Bethany.

“[Kids] come, they find community, they find faith, they find hope and purpose,” Kenofi said. “You know how it is when you’re a teenager — you go through a whole lot of stuff. To just come for a moment and lift up your eyes to the Lord and feel like someone else is in control and not you — I think that is so beautiful.”

During college, Elin lived in Los Angeles for four years as a student. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, she moved back to Sweden to be with her friends and family. One of her friends who has also lived in California threw a Super Bowl watch party with Elin, decking the place out with American food, like hot wings, and decor.

“She has a heart for the States,” Kenofi said.

This party is where Kenofi and Elin first became acquainted, despite having gone to the same schools growing up.

When the pair got married in August 2024, they knew they wanted to be open-minded to opportunities that may lead them to America.

“We always dreamed of someday, sometime in a season of our life, we probably will be [in the U.S.], but we didn’t really know,” Kenofi said. “We prayed about it and we asked God. We said, ‘Hey, whatever you have in plan for us, we will submit to that. But right now, since we were in Sweden, we’re just gonna go all in here.’”

Once the opportunity in Baton Rouge came up, they had a hard time sifting through information about the city.

“We Googled a lot, like on YouTube before we got here, and it was a lot about crime,” Elin said. “We were like, ‘It must be more than just this, right?’”

Elin set out to change the narrative of the city she now lives in.

“We were surprised; it’s a lot of good things out there,” Kenofi said. “I think that’s what is driving [Elin] to make this content as well, just to show a different side of Baton Rouge.”

On nearly any post Elin has made about Louisiana, threads of comments about restaurant recommendations or personal stories are present. Already, Elin’s social media has created a space for locals to connect with each other about their city. This was Elin’s vision when she began making content.

“I hope it … spreads positivity,” Elin said. “I wanted to be a channel where people are going to come in and just find community as well.”

As helpful as some comment sections are, others are judgemental toward the couple’s decision to move from Sweden, especially from those that have lived in Louisiana. Still, Elin chooses to focus on the good. Only creating content from her iPhone, everything she posts is exactly what she is encountering in real life.

“[The comments] are like, ‘this is cool’ and ‘this is AI,’ or ‘this is edited,’” Elin said. “It’s perspective, right?”

A few weeks ago when the couple was walking around Perkins Rowe, a car pulled over by them. The driver, a Baton Rouge native, wanted to tell the Terfas how much she appreciated someone showing the beautiful parts of her city that she hadn’t known about.

“I think that is the dopest part: to really help people appreciate what they have,” Kenofi said. “I think when you get familiar, you don’t see stuff like that.”

Elin knows that her view of Louisiana as a European is intriguing to Americans, especially to followers who want to see the couple’s reactions to places they are personally familiar with.

In fact, the couple ran into a follower in Target who helped them plan their New Year’s trip to Dallas, Texas. A Texas local, the fan knew a handful of great spots in the area for the expats to visit.

“Here, you can truly feel the hospitality,” Elin said.

Elin noted that this difference in friendliness is regional within the U.S., having lived in the fast-paced environment of California. When the couple still lived in Sweden, they stayed open to the possibility of eventually moving back to the States, having L.A. specifically in mind.

Soon enough, Baton Rouge came a-calling. When a job at Bethany Church lined up for Kenofi, it felt like the perfect chance to relocate.

“[Bethany Church] was still out of the blue for me because I didn’t see it coming whatsoever,” Kenofi said. “We know that it’s a divine thing when you don’t see it coming – you cannot control it, but it just comes on your way. So when that came, we prayed about it; we started to consider it. And obviously it’s scary, leaving everything familiar and whatnot, but it kind of made sense in the bigger picture.”

The couple has enjoyed seeing their faith reflected in day-to-day life in Baton Rouge. In Sweden, religion is typically a private matter meant to be kept within the confines of one’s home. The spouses explained that because Sweden is more secular than the U.S., even bringing up faith in casual conversation can be awkward.

“You hear worship [music] blasting in Hobby Lobby and Altar’d State,” Elin said. “Like Walmart, you know, they sell Bibles. You open up the radio and all of a sudden it’s a full-on Christian channel. Stuff like that that you think is normal here just because you’re in the Bible Belt, right? All of that is not common in the rest of the world.”

Kenofi doesn’t view the importance of his job any differently across the Atlantic Ocean.

“Baton Rouge needs Jesus just the same way as Sweden needs Jesus,” Kenofi said. “We were like, ‘If we’re placed in this season of our life here, let’s just try to make as big an impact as we can.’ We’re just embracing it to the fullest.”

The couple, outside of the larger Baton Rouge area, has really enjoyed exploring LSU’s campus. Last fall, they came to their first Tiger football game and were blown away by the tailgating culture, game day fits and stadium energy.

“Americans really know how to put on a show,” Elin said. “Not fake in that sense; more, just that they know how to make people excited and happy.”

Though neither of them know much about football, the spectacle of Tiger Stadium made it a special experience for them.

“People embrace it like crazy,” Kenofi said. “Once the game starts with the band, the fireworks, cheerleaders — even like the culture of the sport in itself. Whenever you score a touchdown, they celebrate as if they won World War II. The whole crowd just goes so crazy.”

Something the spouses notice as being different from European sports culture is a smaller gender divide.

“Whenever you go to a soccer game, definitely a bigger portion of it is just guys,” Kenofi said. “It’s because it’s all about the game — the scoring and all that stuff. But here, you guys make it so much more fun with all these different elements. It’s exciting to be in that atmosphere.”

Elin and Kenofi are also exploring Baton Rouge food culture, from going to the original Raising Cane’s near campus to eating gumbo. In fact, they have started to see parallels between Southern cuisine and their native eateries.

When Elin and Kenofi attended a king cake baking class, they were immediately reminded of a Swedish cinnamon dessert called fika.

Aside from this, Kenofi has found comfort in being around Creole culture. Though he spent much of his adolescence and young adulthood in Sweden, he lived in Ethiopia until he was 12 years old.

“The culture shock I had from Ethiopia to Sweden was bigger than my culture shock from Sweden to here,” Kenofi said. “Ethiopian culture and American culture are much closer to each other than Swedish and American, especially Louisiana for sure. Africans, we are just very used to being outgoing, you know? Inclusive. You share what you have, cook a lot together, all that stuff.”

As a child, joining a church played a huge part in being able to call Sweden home — something that he believes has been applicable in Baton Rouge.

“We had a hard time finding community when we moved from Sweden — from Ethiopia to Sweden — until we found the church,” Kenofi said. “Us just directly being plugged into a church when we got here, it made a whole big difference.”

While the two have been enjoying their time in Baton Rouge, Kenofi is on a temporary work visa, which also allows Elin to temporarily reside in America as his spouse. Because of this impermanence, they are trying to soak up as much of Louisiana as possible.

“One of the reasons why we’re here is because we dared to take that step of faith,” Kenofi said. “We obviously post about all the fun stuff of being here, but there’s definitely sides to it where it’s gonna be costly. But you will always reap the benefits of what it means to go outside of the stuff that is normal to you.”

To follow along with the Terfas remaining time in Baton Rouge, visit Elin’s Instagram and TikTok.