Week of April 19th

Monday is usually a down and relax day. We usually eat a late breakfast and plan not too much. This week Pres and Syster Evensen asked us if we would like to go to Maxi grocery shopping. That is like going to Costco! While we were there we actually bought Chuck two short sleeve shirts.
All the American couples went to the Krus’ for dinner.
He is in our bishopric and she is the one who tended Bryan when he was little. It was really a good dinner and we laughed and had a good time. The table was very crowded with 8 Americans but no one cared. We have made some great friends here.
It is great to be back to the temple and feel the love, strength and peace within those sacred walls. We helped the new shift leaders, Bror and Syster Kämäräinen, to know their responsibilities and now it is our opportunity to do the ordinances again. What a blessing these ordinances are. This week in the temple we had a wedding (the bride was beautiful) and two young people come for the first time. One of the girls who came for the first time is the finance of Martin Carlberg a missionary that served in Greece with Chuck’s cousin Sybil and her husband Steve Cory. This darling couple will return on 12 June for their wedding.
It is a good thing we have a black blind on the bedroom window because it is now light about 5:00 and almost dark about 20.30 (8:30). It is much warmer outside and the little flowers are beginning to bloom in the grass, the woods and along the side of the roads.
We have several flower pots around the temple grounds and they are going to plants the flowerbeds this week.
Chuck has a security class to teach to the temple security personal so he has spent time preparing for it. It is hard when they say tell us some experiences!
On Saturday we went to the ‘Pub’ with the Evensen’s for pizza and then to the Adult Session of Stake Conference. It was held in our building and it was full. Their theme was Prayer, Scripture, and Temple and the Blessings of Temple Attendance and encouragement to those less active to return. One thought I liked was “Nothing wrong comes from the Lord. If it is negative it comes from another source”.
Sunday’s session of Stake Conference was held at the Aula Magna on the Stockholm University campus. We traveled by cars as it is too far to walk if we went by train. Again the meeting was focused on the family and our responsibilities of prayer, scriptures, temple attendance, teaching our children the gospel and preparing to live with our Heavenly Father
and Christ again. “Just as earthly parents leave the light on and watch out the window for their children to return home so is our Heavenly Father watching out His window for signs that we will return.” We enjoyed the meetings and seeing so many people who serve in the temple or come as patrons. These are wonderful people here in Sweden.
A couple of other thoughts – Don’t judge until you know everything, we will never know everything SO don’t judge – We receive blessings for being obedient – Attending the temple regularly gives us spiritual strength to meet our earthly trials.
We are so blessed with a wonderful family that supports and loves us; with great friends and neighbors who support and love us; for health, strength and protection; and for the blessing of serving the Lord here is Sweden and in His Holy House. Oh how blessed we are. Thanks for your part in making this a great experience for us through your letters, emails, faith and prayers. Have a good week and know of our love for you.

Week of April 12th

Happy Birthday Tyson! The big 8
It was a nice train ride home to Sweden but not as exciting as when we traveled to Denmark. Before we left for Denmark we had to cover all our furniture and put everything away because they were going to paint our apartments. Our place looked like the summer home in ‘On Golden Pond’, all closed up for the winter! So, when we got home we had a lot of unpacking to do. Not only our suitcases but where we had stuffed things to get them out of the way! We ate at the ‘Pub’ because we had no milk, juice, fresh fruit and such! We stopped by the store on the way home and got necessities!
Tuesday we were very lazy compared to last week. We did the wash, vacuumed, dusted, and just did a lot of catching up.
Our cute friend, Syster Olsson, at the temple had us over for a birthday lunch. She said she was going to have herring and we were not too excited to go and not eat. She fixed way too much food and she did have two kinds of herring and many other kinds of food. We both took a LITTLE piece of the herring in mustard sauce and ate it with potato so we did not make her feel bad. She is the lady that has a very bad back and this social system of medicine here just told her she is too old to do anything about the pain except get stronger pain pills. She walks to the temple and stays for a couple of hours and then has to go home. Her only daughter lives in the states and they do not communicate very much. How sad! I told her I would be her daughter but since she is only six year older than I am she just laughed and said nej!!! We have found a few times to practice our guitars. We are getting better but still we only play in our apartment for ourselves!
I did get the back of my hair trimmed this week. I thought I was going to a solon but it was just in a home of a lady in our ward. Syster Olsson arranged for it and even went with me to show me where to go. Then sweet Syster Sihlén would not let me pay her. She said that is her mission to cut the missionaries hair.
We have been on several long walks this week but the flowers are not out yet. They say that they have tiny flowers blooming all over in the Viking Cemetery and I keep taking the camera when we walk but have not used it yet!
We had a RS Educational Day for the Stake. It was really good and we had a Syster translate for us. In between each speaker they had a young woman make us stand up and do some kind of exercise or stretching or breathing, it was very effective.
We were to have our new missionary couple arrive this week. BUT they are stuck in Provo because their visa has not come yet. And with all the airports being closed because of the volcano in Iceland they would not been able to come anyway. It is hard to understand why the Stockholm airport is closed because we have blue skies, but then the news tells us that it is the ash clouds that cause the problems. We had planned a Sunday dinner all together with the Sheen’s (the missionary couple waiting for their visas) but we ate together anyway. It was my birthday dinner. I did get a beautiful plant and a delicious tårta (princess cake) from Chuck.
Thanks for all the emails, cards, gifts and thoughts. I am truly blessed to have such awesome friends and family.
Stockholm Street

Week of April 5th

We have spent this entire week in Copenhagen, Denmark. We were given permission to leave the temple district (our mission) to travel to Denmark to see Vera and Benny Jensen and Bettina, Benjamin and Isak Koford.
Chuck baptized Vera when he was a young missionary in Denmark. We traveled by train with the Söderquist’s who have a son, Brian, that lives there. The train ride was great and we got to see a lot of country, darling houses and farmland. We traveled through a tunnel that went under the ocean and over a bridge built over the ocean.
We did a lot of walking! We also did a lot of sightseeing, Palaces, churches, museums, and saw the Queen outside her Palace. Found several fun places to eat and many bakeries. It does not get any better!!
We stayed at the Admiral Hotel down on the harbor and not far from the Queen’s Palace. We were also only a block away from the famous Nyhavn Street. We did not get to see the Little Mermaid this time as she is at a World exhibit in Shanghai. BUT, we did find the ‘Kristina’ statue that was made by Dennis Smith (a missionary with Chuck).
The weather was beautiful and there were almost as many people on bikes as there were cars! They have big bike lanes to the side of every road and Chuck had to pull me on to the sidewalk a couple of times to keep me from being hit.
We did get to go to a session at the Temple in Copenhagen and it is beautiful.
We also attended church not too far from the temple. There were three people that knew Chuck from his mission either at the temple or at church. Plus, the sister at the Distribution Center knew Brent when he was on his mission.
We spent about 11 hours with Vera and Benny, and almost as long with Bettina (their daughter) and her family.
Vera is not in very good health and we are so grateful that we were allowed to come and visit them. It was very hard to say good bye to them.
We did enjoy some fun places to eat and they have every kind of eating place that we do in the USA. BUT, we did find a couple of places that fix traditional Danish meals and they were SO good! Can you guess what we had?
The pastries were so good that we bought some just before getting on the train to return to Sweden! It has been a week to remember.

Week of March 29th

There is a tradition here in Sweden that at Easter or spring time people tie colored feathers on tree branches and put them in water to watch them leaf out.
It is in celebration of new life. Our feathers were yellow.
This is our last week as Shift Leaders. The Kämäräinen’s, from Finland, will be the Shift Leaders when we come back after the temple break. We have been told our next turn will probably be the month of July. It has been a good experience and we have certainly become better acquainted with the people.
At our Swedish lesson this week the beginning group had three quizzes. The first quiz was on when to use den, det or de. I only missed one, but the next two quizzes were very hard. None of us knew the words that were used so we just did them as a group. I did find out that I have a lot more to learn. Chuck is in the advanced group and making great progress.
We finished reading Jesus the Christ. Wow what a powerful book. Our testimonies of Jesus Christ are a lot stronger because we read the book.
There was a young man that came to the temple this week for the first time. He was from Lithuania so the session was in Russian. There were 15-20 other people on the session using headphones and listening to Swedish or English. The next day he and his wife were sealed. We were invited to the sealing and it was very emotional because of the strong spirit felt by all. We hope to see them again before we leave in a year.
Syster Synnöve Nilsson finally got her visa and is now in Salt Lake serving at the Family History Center, in the International Department.
She has been serving with us in the temple for about five months waiting for her visa. She is an awesome lady and we will really miss her.
We have had some very nice days, and we have taken advantage of them by walking. We usually walk through the woods and the Viking burial grounds. One day we met Syster Oscarson (temple matron)
and her daughter and family out walking too. Her daughter Amy served in Denmark the same time that Brent did.
The next two weeks the temple will be closed for clearing and such. We had to empty our lockers and bring everything home. We got permission to go to Denmark to visit.
We did get to watch all of General Conference. It was awesome and left an impression that we are to live the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Saturday AM
session we watched at 18.00 – 20.00 and Sat PM session from 22.00 – 24.00. Priesthood meeting Chuck went to the church to watch and it was Sunday morning at 11:00. Sun AM session was Sunday at 18.00-20.00 and Sunday PM session was 22.00-24.00.
Sunday between sessions we went to our neighbors, the Evensen’s for goodies. They had a son and his wife visiting from Denmark.
We hope all is well with you and that the Lord is blessing you for your goodness. Thanks for your faith and prayers. We love you.