Week of December 20th

Happy Birthday Rowdey Charles Ke’Koa Rose!!!
We started the week with Pres and Syster Evensen asking us to go for a ride. We drove up to Sigtuna. It is this old little town where they have shops in these little old buildings. It was a darling street and all the little shops were decorated with two Christmas trees on each side of the front door.

It was very cold so we just looked in the windows. We also went to an old glass blowing factory that has a large store selling Christmas crafts and items plus blown glass from the glass factories we went to visit last year. I found several things I would like but getting things home is a big concern. We had a fun day together.

We stopped at Willies and got a few groceries and then came home to make and enjoy hamburgers together.
Yea! We have had the shortest day of the year and now we will begin to get lighter earlier. We will gain about 3 mins in the morning and 3 mins in the evening of more daylight. We are still involved in indexing and I still love making baby booties on the round loom.
There have been a lot of people in the temple sneezing, coughing and blowing their noses so we have been washing our hands a lot. We have been nursing ourselves with extra vitamin C so we won’t get sick. Dad does have a little cough and we both have had a slight cold.
We were invited to dinner at Elder and Sister Parker’s apartment along with the young Elders in our area. Elder Bloomfield is from Snowflake, Arizona and Chuck really enjoyed talking to him about people and places they have in common. Elder Todesco is from Washington State, north of Seattle.
Pres Oscarson tried to teach me some pointers on doing Swedish Genealogy and I took a lot of notes. I hope I can verify some of the information on my family line.
December 24th is the “big” day here in Sweden. So we got together for an assigned potluck dinner at Pres Oscarson’s home with all the people from America; there were 9 of us.

We had a lot of the traditional foods and we tasted all except the raw herring!! We had a Family Home Evening where we read the Christmas Story from Luke, sang Christmas songs, and shared Christmas memories. It was a fun evening and we got home about 10:30. Tomten (Santa Clause) comes this night to see if the children have been good and to leave presents if they have. He stands outside the windows swinging a lantern and yelling are there any good children here!

We stayed with the Swedish tradition and opened our few gifts too on Christmas Eve also. We they watched ‘Ghost’ on TV and ended up getting in bed about 2:00!! On Dec 25th, our Christmas Day, we enjoyed dinner with the Lundgren’s and Bro Pederson.
Sunday our church service was combined with the other ward in this area and we started at 11:00. We only had sacrament meeting and it lasted for almost 2 hours but it was wonderful. There was not much talking but a lot of musical numbers and singing Christmas hymns together. After Church we went on the train to Syster Ofasuah’s for an African dinner. Syster Ofasuah is from Ghana.

We had to make two train transfers and she sent her daughter Ruth to meet us at the train station in Skärholmen and show us the way to her apartment. The dinner was very good and her children are wonderful. Her two daughters have both served missions in England; she has a married son with two grandchildren and then a younger son that still lives with her. We really had an enjoyable evening and we got home around 20:00.
The temple was only open for two days this week and most of the people that serve here are home with their families. The sessions were small and our ward had the Tuesday night shift so we stayed for the 17:00 session. The temple was closed 23,24,25,26, and 27th.
We say thanks for the many gifts that we received, for all the Christmas cards, emails and for the ability to skype our kids on such special occasions. It has been fun to get family Christmas cards with family pictures. We hope the true spirit of Christmas has been in all your homes and that the spirit of Christ will bring love and peace to your families in 2011. We love you. Thanks for your love and support.