Week of may 24th

Happy Anniversary Dan and Shannon!
This week the visiting group has been from Norway. They had enough people to do their own sessions and ordinances on Tuesday and Wednesday but for the rest of the week they were combined with us. It was good because we got to know some of them better. It has been a busy week as we have had six people come for the first time. We had a couple from Columbia come and then had two children sealed; a lady that used to be Muslim; a girl from our ward who was then married on Saturday; then one more young lady and a man. The girl from our ward came on Tuesday night when it was our ward doing the sessions. It was wonderful to be with people that we love in such a sacred place.
We have found a new place to eat and they make American style hamburgers (not McDonald’s). The place is called Daisy’s and the hamburgers and fries were very good. I think we will go again and try something else on their menu. All the eating places here have now set up tables outside to sit at.
Swedish Mother’s Day was May 30th and it was a nice day. Every woman received a red rose. It was sunny when we woke up, cloudy when we went to church at 9:00, rained hard in the early afternoon and then in the evening the sky was blue and the sun out. We took a long walk and it was beautiful and fresh. It is now dark by 10:30 (22:30) and the birds begin to sing about 2:30. But our black blind really helps us to stay asleep. The temperature has been in the 70’s during the day on occasions.
Our church schedule will change on July 4th. We will go to church at 11:30 instead of 9:00. We will have a nice easy Sunday morning! Our ward had Spring Cleaning at the church this past week. Our ward was responsible for the lower level and we washed down chairs, cupboards, whiteboards, windows, baseboards and vacuumed and cleaned the floors. We did not let them know it but we were a little stiff the next day!
Stacie and Bryan just found out the baby they are having the first part of September is a GIRL. Claire will be such a helpful big sister.
A lady in our ward has the Work and the Glory series of books so Dad has started to read them. He has only had them since Sunday and he is half way through the first book. He does love to read! I think I will read them too but at a much slower pace!
Sweden is so beautiful and we are so blessed to be here serving a mission in His holy house. Thanks for your support and prayers.

Week of May 17th

Happy Birthday Peggy! (on the 23rd)
Since the temple Presidency was going to Latvia to a conference we all bought baby clothes for the Blindaruka couple. This is the couple that we helped buy temple clothes for last December when they came to be sealed. Their country is so poor and baby clothes are so hard to find. Stacie made a baby afghan which I sent to them a couple of months ago. It is nice to help those in need.
On May 17th we celebrated Norway’s Constitution Day with the Evensen’s. We had hot dogs from Norway, open faced sandwiches, chips, drinks, cake (two kinds) and mixed fruit. We were all very full when we left.
Dad has had the early morning recommend desk every other day as we are down to three missionary men and one is the shift leader so he cannot help. The first of the week was a little slow in the temple but we had enough patrons to function in all areas. We had a wedding on Saturday and it was nice. The bride, her mother, her father, and her grandmother came for a couple of sessions on Friday. What an awesome thing to be able to participate with three generations in the temple together. Saturday we were so busy that we had a double session at 10:00. For three days we had Brother Rosendahl from the temple committee here to evaluate and train this new temple presidency. When he saw dad he came right over and said “President Rose how good to see you”. It made us feel good that he would remember. One day we had three young sisters come to the temple and they had all served together on Temple Square. One Syster is from Sweden and the other two were here visiting her.
Syster Ofausua (from Ghana) taught me this week. “I refuse to be sad because of my trials. I will be happy because of my many blessings, health, job, family and the gospel. The Lord has promised me, in the temple, that I will have my children after this life. So someday I will be overjoyed! So I will prepare now, by living the gospel, for that day when I will receive the fulfillment of that promise.”
They have really worked hard on getting Spring flowers planted around the temple. It looks so pretty and many people stop on the walking path and look at the temple or sit on the benches and enjoy the peacefulness. During this week I (Mom, Grandma) received a peaceful tender mercy, of which I am very grateful. We have now been here almost 7 months and I have only had a couple of rough days!!
Thursday dad stayed a little later at the temple and I walked home. On one of the benches on the walking path,
by the temple gate, there was a man and his son. As I walked by the man asked me, pointing to Angel Moroni, “who is that?” He said, “is that a Jehovah God?” I explained who he was and that he lived upon the earth and returned as an angel with an important message. He wanted to know if it was before Christ or with Christ and where did we find this information. When I started to talk about the B of M he said; “oh he is a Mormon Angel not a Jehovah God.” He said he liked to sit here because of the peace he feels. He was raised in a Christian home and is from Barbados. Then he noticed his little boy was close to the street and he thanked me for talking to him and ran after his little boy.
Saturday we went to dinner at Anita and Eric Lindquist’s. They are the couple from Lapland that we previously told you about when we visited them around Christmas time. On the way we stopped and saw several Rune Stones, a couple of old Viking homes, a boat from the iron age, an old church with an old bell tower; and a beautiful golf course. Sister Lindquist fixed an awesome salad, sandwiches and a Lapland soup. She also fixed an old Lapland desert. Some of the food was delicious and others would not be our first choice!! Their yard was so beautiful and quite a contrast from the winter. After our visit we rode the train home.
Sunday it rained all day. We were unable to take our Sunday walk and it really was hard on me to be indoors all day! Thanks for the letters, emails and Skype time. You will never know how much they help with us being so far away. We love the gospel and are thankful for this opportunity to serve the Lord on a mission in Sweden. We are grateful for all you prayers too.

Week of May 10th

Monday and Tuesday our Swedish teacher took the four American couples on a trip to the ‘glass blowing country’ in Southern Sweden.
Wow what a trip it was. The weather was nice and the countryside was beautiful. We went to see the Kosta Boda Glasbruk (been operating since 1742) and saw them blowing the stems for goblets. It is amazing to watch. The Oreefors factory was just getting off but we did visit the store!! Then we went to Bergdala Glasbruk and stayed at a ‘hostel’ for the night. We went to watch their glass blowers in the morning doing custom glass work.
They made a couple of vases that we watched them blow from about 3” of melted glass to about 18-20”finished product. What a talent! They also made crystal dishes with a blue ring around them that is suppose to keep the flies away!
Next we visited an old wooden village in Eksjö. It was very interesting with an old church and cute shops. We really enjoyed walking around and we ate lunch there.
We saw the biggest ‘Rune Stone’ in Sweden by an old church and there were even some of my windmills close by!
Next we stopped in Gränna to see a famous candy factory called Polkagrisfabrik. They made barber pole candy sticks and we all bought some! Then we returned home. But we really had a great time laughing, becoming better acquainted and getting to see the beauties of Sweden.
We had a group from Norway here this week. They had enough patrons come that they completely had their own sessions. They are so faithful to come for a week of their vacations and come every day to the temple and do four sessions each day.
We had a young lady come to the temple for the first time. She was a very spiritual girl and we also got to spend some more time with her at the Young Adult Center.
School has been out for some holiday (Thursday and Friday) so a large group of kids (about 52) came from Norway to do baptisms. They did about 4000 this week. What a neat group of kids to travel all night on the bus to do baptisms for two days and then ride the bus back.
It was our Friday night to go into Stockholm to the Young Adult Center. The attendance was not big as a lot of the kids had gone to Norway to a big Youth activity with the Constitution Day Holiday. But we enjoyed those who were there. We just talked and got acquainted, shared experiences and answered questions. We had a very enjoyable evening.
We are encouraged about summer coming! We have had a couple of days in the high 60’s and blue sky! It now gets light about 3:30 and dark about 10:15. Another month and it will begin to get dark again!! Wow time goes so fast!
Hope this finds you all well and happy; we are! We love serving the Lord and it is not a sacrifice because we are receiving so many blessings. We know the gospel is true and that temple work is so important in the plan of salvation. Thanks for your support and prayers.

Week of May 3rd

Happy Birthday Janey (2)
We went to a mall in Färsta because Syster Evensen needed some new spring clothes to travel with the Temple Presidency. We looked at several stores and did not find anything she liked. THEN we hit a jackpot and she got three skirts, four tops and Chuck even bought me two tops! It was a very nice mall and we only went through 1/3 of it.
We went for a walk in the woods, again! And I just could not get over the beauty of the wild flowers. It seems to change each time we go.
There were so many flowers, and all white ones, that it really looked like snow. We just sat on a log and enjoyed the view.
We had an 81 Year Old couple come to the temple for the first time and then were sealed the next day. They were so cute and so excited to be here. We also had two newly called missionaries come.
On Saturday we were very busy at the temple and many young people in the baptistry. We were washing clothes and towels for many hours but did get home around 14.20. I love to see the young people come and enjoy the blessings of the temple.
Our ward had a temple night and it was very well attended. We are scheduled for two this month. The night rotates so once in a while we have two temple assignments in a month.
We had our quarterly interview with the Temple President. It is always a neat experience to meet with him and talk about our mission.
We are thinking about extending our mission for a month and a half. Zach and Ginet are coming to see us and do a little traveling and it is better for them if their kids are out of school. We will see what happens!
We had an Elder and Sister Hermann from Centerville, UT come to the temple. They are assigned as Church History Missionaries out of Germany. We had them come to dinner and discovered several people that we both knew.
We also had a cute couple from St. Petersburg, Russia here for the week. They are very humble and spiritual people. They were so appreciative of the opportunity to come to the Lord’s House.
Thanks for the many emails, cards and opportunity to Skype for Mother’s Day. I am grateful to be loved by my family and many wonderful friends. My family sent me an awesome video with pictures, sayings and a beautiful song. It was so cute I cried. Oh how blessed I am!

Sorry this update is late in coming. We have been on a neat two day trip which I will share with you next week! Have a good week and know you are loved and prayed for. Thanks for all your prayers and support. Hej då!

Week of April 27th

We started out this week with a fire drill in the Gästhem and also the temple. We were told that it would happen between 8-10 in the morning and when it rang we were to leave our apartments and go to the church. We were just eating breakfast when it went off. We left our waffles and headed to the church. Then we were told to go to the temple and we were assigned rooms to be in to see if the alarms were OK there. Well, the alarm went off and the noise was heard outside the temple but not inside! I guess we will have to have another one at the temple! Two hours later we returned to our soggy waffles!
The people who live on the top floor of the Gästhem are fun to be with and we had our first hamburger get together.
It was not warm enough to cook outside but we had a great time and as usual ate too much. But the hamburgers were really good!
The temple was busy this week and Chuck worked at the recommend desk three early mornings. We had a good sized group come to do baptisms and our good friends the Karlsson’s were here this week also. Saturday was very busy and with large sessions which is wonderful to have. We love the peace and love that you feel in the temple.
Friday we did not go to the temple but our Swedish teacher took us into Stockholm to see the celebration for the King’s birthday. They had two marching Military bands and one band that rode on horseback. There was a Military Drill team that performed, and the changing of the guards.
The new guards rode horses and dismounted all together, very impressive. The King walked out into the square and stood on a platform and the crowd (about 1000) waved and sang happy birthday. The Queen and one of the Princesses came out an open door on the 2nd floor of the palace and waved to the crowd. The people here really adore the Royal Family. After the festivities were over the King let the children come and give him flowers. There was quite a line and he had a big arm full of flowers. He then walked back into the palace and waved to the crowd with the Queen. It was very nice to see.
We stayed in Stockholm and ate lunch at the Café Sten Sture, did a lot of walking and seeing things. At 18.00 we went to the Out Reach Center (Young Adult Center) for our orientation and to meet the kids. There were about 15 young adults there and it was fun to talk to them. We will serve one Friday night a month at this center in Stockholm. It is a beautiful place for the young people to come for FHE, Institute class and to just ‘chill’ or hang out on Friday nights. It should be fun. There were two young men that we met at the center that came to the temple on Saturday.
Sunday was a beautiful day with blue sky and sun shining. We went for a long walk and saw a part of town that we have not seen before. We love to walk and see new things. We
always enjoy going to church with these great people and it was my Sunday to play the piano in Primary. Plus Sundays are good because we get to Skype one of our kids.
It is getting light about 3:30 or 4:00. The birds were singing this morning at 3:00. And it is dark about 21.30 and we still have a month and a half before it is the longest day of the year!
We are so blessed to serve our mission here and are blessed for all the love, support, faith and prayers given in our behalf. Thanks!