Week of October 18th

On October 19th it had been one year since we entered the MTC in Provo. It has really been a wonderful year full of many awesome experiences and blessings.
This week’s group at the temple has been from Shövde and Borås and it has been great to work with these marvelous people again. They were included in our shift so it was a great blessing to work with them. We now have four couples and two single sisters from Sweden and Norway serving at the temple daily and living here in the guesthouse. This week we also got a brother from Washington (around Seattle) come to serve at the temple for 18 months.
This week we had the opportunity to register a couple of sisters and get them started doing indexing. Syster Jørgensen from Norway asked us to help her as she had talked with the Merritt’s before they went home. While Chuck was helping her another sister, Syster Vennerholm, from Sweden said “I want to do that”. They are both very excited about getting involved in this important work. Chuck has reached 1000 names and I just finished 3000 names.
Chuck is reading a book about the history of Sweden. I am still working on volume 9 of the Work and the Glory.
Friday morning we woke up to our first snow fall and it continued most of the day. It was beautiful but it has all melted now. We did get out winter coats out of storage and we always take our umbrellas with us.
The gardeners are now planting winter flowers around the temple. The snow really made the old flowers look bad!
Saturday after the temple closed Syster Cordova, one of the workers in the temple, had a surprise birthday lunch for her husband. We were invited along with all of the temple presidency and a couple of other sisters. She was so excited to surprise him and it was fun to watch. She had prepared a very nice lunch followed by the traditional birthday torte (cake) which is always delicious. The Cordovas are a wonderful couple who came to Sweden from Chile. They are so dedicated to serving in the temple.
We had Stake Conference this past weekend and we now have a new Stake Presidency. It is amazing that we have only been in this little part of Sweden for a year and we personally know both of the counselors and know the parents of the young Stake President. Stake conference was very spiritual and uplifting. We were encouraged to live the gospel of Jesus Christ to the best of our ability, and to teach our families to live the gospel to fortify them against the temptations and evils that exist in the world. We were told that Satan’s work is relentless and that it will increase in intensity and sophistication. Our only protection, and that of our family, will come through living the gospel and making our homes a refuge from the world. It made us thankful for the wonderful family we have and for their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We got a fun Halloween package from the Owen family and we now have a bat and a spider on the mirror as you come into our apartment! Thanks for the pictures too.
We have enjoyed our skype and ooVoo time this week and especially when we were able to have prayer together at the FHE at the Packer house. How blessed we are to have such blessings in our lives.
We are doing great and we are both in good health, and happy to be serving the Lord here in Sweden. Thanks for your faith and prayers in our behalf.

With Pres. Oscarson (look above door)

Week of October 11th

Happy Birthday to Kenley and Kaipo!
The spirit in the temple has been incredible this week as the saints from the Norway mission (this is all of Norway that is not within a stake boundary) have been here. Again it was good to see old friends again and we are in hopes of seeing them one more time before we head for home in April. They are such good examples of love of the temple ordinances and they bring so many family cards to do the temple work for. We could all learn a lot from their dedication.
Our good friends Kent and Kay Söderquist left on Wednesday to return home to Logan, Utah.

We have developed such an awesome friendship and made so many memories together here in Sweden. We will truly miss them.
After a short lesson on ‘ett’ or ‘en’ nouns in our Swedish class, we had another farewell party for another set of missionaries. LeGrande and Carla Merritt returned home to Far West from their mission here in Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway.

They were Family History missionaries and we became very close to them also. She is the one who taught us to index and we went with them to Örebro to help at the genealogy convention. We will miss them too.
We have watched the TV a lot and prayed a lot that they would be successful in rescuing the 33 miners in Chile. What a blessing to have them all safe. The one miner who quickly kneeled and said a prayer really touched my heart.
The Evensen’s took me to the hospital in Handen to have an ultrasound on my ugly finger. The doctor there said it had all the criteria of a gangling cyst except it had some blood in it and that is not common. All he could say is that he would send the report to my doctor and maybe a biopsy would have to be taken.
I am now on volume 9 of The Work and the Glory and I really cried at the end of 8!!
We have had two wonderful flower missionaries here from Salt Lake. A Sister Taylor and Sister Kimball came and replaced all the flowers in the temple. Wow, what a lift they gave the temple and what spiritual missionaries they are. They are so talented and really have a spirit about them as they perform their service. The Evensen’s and we invited them for dinner the night before they flew home and it was a delightful evening. We had great food and it was fun to get to know them.
We went to see the Vasa Museum. This is a museum housing a restored war ship built in 1626-28.

This ship was to be the best of the best. But, it did not even get out of the Harbor in Stockholm before it sunk. (10 Aug 1628) It lay at the bottom of the harbor for 333 years until it was brought out of the water. Because of the conditions of the water in this part of the Baltic Sea, it was remarkably well preserved. They have now treated all of the wood and restored this magnificent ship. Ninety-five percent of the ship is the original wood. The building they built to display the ship is temperature and humidity controlled. It was absolutely amazing and huge.

This week we enjoyed our Skype time with the Pratt family and they are so excited to have family coming for Thanksgiving and to be there for the blessing of Mia. We pray the weather will be good for all modes of travel.
That is it for another week and we are so close to our one year mark. It is going so fast and we already hate to leave our friends here in Sweden.
Thanks for the emails, letters, skype time, faith and prayers for this week. God bless you all.

Week of October 4th

Happy Birthday Mark!
My big outing this week was to the doctor to see what this big bump is on the inside of my index finger on my right hand. Two different doctors looked at it and think it is a cyst but they are sending me to the hospital to have an ultrasound done. I will let you know!
Our Wednesday night Swedish class this week was a farewell party for Kent and Kaye Soderquist. They have been here a year and they are from Logan. We played some fun games, had some good food and it was a fun evening. We will really miss them.
The visiting group this week has been from the Norway Mission and the saints that came are so wonderful and dedicated. The Petterson’s were here and they have a daughter that lives close to us at home. It was good to see them again. They went to Salt Lake this summer and visited with several people that we know. There were 65 youth who rode a bus all night, came to the temple for two days and did baptisms and then rode the bus back home.
Thursday night there was a concert at the church. The wonderful professional piano player from Norway was here so she played for a half an hour. Wow, she is really good. There was a man that sang several numbers one he wrote himself. He was good also. Then Brother Petterson played the organ and he is good too. There was a young mother that played the violin, she is from Sweden, and she really plays with feeling and you feel it. The concert was very enjoyable.
On Saturday seven couples all went out for pizza at ‘The Pub’ with the Soderquists. We laughed and ate and ate and laughed! Everyone had a good time.
Both of us have been able to spend time this week doing indexing. You feel like you are getting to know people that are on these records. It really is enjoyable to do.
We had ward conference and the meeting was very uplifting and spiritual. Our Bishop, Bishop Krylborn, said he did not know what would happen in the coming year but that he places his hand in the hand of the Savior and put his total trust in Him. I really like that message.

Today (11th) we went to Stockholm for the last time with Soderquist’s and Evensen’s. We had a very enjoyable and relaxing day as we just walked places we had not been before. We walked down cobblestone streets, around palaces, over bridges, rode an elevator up a tower and looked over Stockholm and went inside the Stor Kyrka where the crown Princess Victoria and Daniel were married. We ended the day with a good dinner at the ‘Formosa’

down close to the water front. It was a fun day and we will miss Kent and Kaye.
We have really enjoyed our many emails, skype times and just chatting with our family and friends. Thank you so much for your love and support. We send our love and appreciation to each of you for thinking of us here in Sweden.

Week of September 27th

Wow time is flying and my mind is slow. Thanks to Kris’ reminder I have forgotten to write the weekly update. Put your minds at ease, we are OK. I guess watching conference at 6:00p.m. and 10:00 p.m. threw my mind off!!!
The visiting group this week is from Jönköping and their group was small but they still wanted to do their own four sessions every day. SO, some of our day group was assigned to be with the other group for the week. It is a good experience for them to be responsible for their own sessions. They really have some dedicated saints from this ward and it is a pleasure to know and work with them.
Our Swedish class this week was on the sounds of the letters A, Ä, Å, Ö and O. I am proud to say I finally can hear the difference and reading has become a little easier. I am glad that I am in the beginning class as the advanced class is a challenge for Chuck.
We are both still doing indexing of old census and marriage records. It really is very enjoyable to do. Anyone interested in learning how?
Chuck has finished all nine volumes of The Work and the Glory and I am slowly getting through vol 8. We both have enjoyed re-reading these books and I love the way the author puts what is fact at the end of each chapter. Wow what the saints went through when the church first began in this dispensation.
I cannot make pull apart rolls for conference so I made cinnamon rolls instead. Not too bad either! We really enjoyed general conference and it was not even hard to stay awake late at night. We are so thankful to be able to get all the sessions on our TV here in our apartment. I also really enjoyed the Relief Society General Meeting also. My spirit was lifted by these marvelous speakers and their messages.
On our ‘P-day’ we went with the Soderquists and Evensens into Stockholm and went to see an exhibit of Terracotta soldiers that were excavated from a tomb in China.

Some of the exhibit was taken from the tomb on the First Emperor Qiu (200BC to 9AD). Others were from other emperors and their tombs that had been excavated. It was very interesting. These soldiers and animals made out of terracotta were buried with the Emperor to help him in the next life.

We spent almost 3 hours at this exhibit.
We then walked around and saw the littlest statue in Sweden; we would never have found it except for our guide Kent Soderquist!

We ate a late lunch at Café Sten Sture, the old prison dungeon, where we have eaten before. This little café has a great atmosphere.
Again sorry for this update being so late and thanks again Kris for the reminder. We love you and pray for you.
Love ya, mom and dad (and other titles!)

The Littlest Statue