Week of November 22nd

Happy Thanksgiving from the land of Sweden. Sweden does not celebrate this American holiday so the temple was open all day. We did however have a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with everything we eat at home. We ate at Pres and Sister Oscarson’s home and there were 32 guests and only 14 were Americans.

But the rest of the guests are all converted to this holiday and all the delicious food. My assignment was 6 doz homemade rolls with butter and jam. It was a very fun evening but we ate too much!!
It seems like it is snowing all over the globe, it has been here for about a week now. With all our girls and their families going to Washington for Thanksgiving we did worry about their driving conditions. Stacie kept us updated on their driving progress and conditions. We even got up in the middle of the night to check the computer to see if they had arrived. We are thankful that they all made it safely even with the added hours and hours of driving. Mia Rose Pratt was blessed on Sunday with 17 members of the Rose family able to be there to support them.
This week the visiting group has been from Latvia. They are such sweet and humble people and just sacrifice so much to come to Sweden to the temple. On Tuesday there were 2 Russians and 1 Latvian who came to the temple for the first time. Some of the people from our day shift went on their shift to they could have their own sessions. Most of the Latvian saints flew home on Saturday but we did have a mother and son come for the first time on Saturday. The son is going on a mission to Russia. Chuck and I were asked to go on the session with these new saints and the whole session was in Latiska. I listened in English and Chuck listened in Swedish. Oh what a wonderful and spiritual week with these dedicated saints in the temple.
Saturday evening, after a busy day at the temple, we took the train and went into Stockholm to attend the Katarina Kyrkan Concert. This concert is on the first Sunday of Advent starting the Christmas season.

The old church is beautiful and there were about 10 choirs involved in singing from all sections of the church. They sang mostly Swedish spiritual Christmas music and ended with the Halleluiah chorus (and they do not stand up when it is performed). It was a beautiful evening and enjoyed by all. We walked
about 20 minutes from the train to the church and it was cold. We stopped for pizza before we walked back to the train station and it was still cold and snowy!
Sunday we all met and had cake and ice cream for Sister Parker’s birthday.
We do have our candles in the windows, put up for advent, and our big stars in the big windows, and our little Christmas tree on the table. Christmas is coming!!!

With the month of December here we pray that the true meaning of Christmas will be in your homes and that you will all enjoy the love of the Savior in your lives. We love you and are grateful for your daily love and support. Family and friends are so important in our lives.