Week of February 14th

Happy Birthday Shannon!

For Valentine’s Day we took the train and went into Stockholm and met at Jensen Böfhus. There were 17 of us and we had a great time and good food. President and Sister Anderson (Sweden’s Mission President), their office couple, Bylund’s from the Young Adult Center, President and Sister Oscarson (Temple President), President and Sister Evensen, and the American Temple workers were there. We went in early and had lunch because the prices are about a third of what they are after 4:00pm. I forgot our camera and Sister Oscarson has not sent me copies of her pictures, so we have no pictures to send.
The guesthouse purchased a treadmill for the training room and we have been trying to work out from 5:30-6:30am a couple days a week. It is hard to get up but you do feel like you have accomplished a lot before you go to the temple. We still are working on our indexing goal of doing one batch a day plus we do our normal missionary mornings of prayers, scripture reading and breakfast before we go to the temple. We have been called to be the shift leaders for the month of March and that will keep us busy. We did pass our 16th month of mission service on February 19th so our mission is fast coming to a close.
This week has been a hard emotional week with the news of one of my best friends passing away. I will truly miss Carol Fisher and her happy positive attitude. She taught me a lot about trials of life and a positive way to look at them. Such an example I hope to never forget. Thanks for the extra emails and love sent to us from family and friends. And for your support of writing notes to the Fisher family, going to see Larry and attending the funeral. All the kindnesses have touched my heart and helped because I am so far away and could not do them myself.
We got some new snow this week and it has been really cold (-19C). But one night we saw the full moon and the snow looks like it had a million diamonds in it. I wish a camera could have captured this beautiful scene.

 We did get to the bigger grocery store, Maxi’s to resupply or food, and then went to dinner on Saturday with the Evensen’s. We went to eat at a new place and it was pretty good. I also got some more yarn to continue to make baby booties. I have been able to teach Sister Evensen and Sister Bylund how to make them and I have now finished 28 pair myself.
Our Swedish class this week was a travel show of the places we went during the temple shut down. Oscarson’s went to Paris, Lundgren’s went to Rome, Parker’s went to Dubai, Brother Pedersen went to visit relatives in Norway and we were also in Norway with Evensen’s.
It was so interesting to see the pictures and listen to the experiences they had at each of these places. BUT, we still had the most fun!
It is wonderful to be back serving the Lord in His House. I feel so much peace and receive so much strength to live the gospel of Jesus Christ when I am in the temple. They put some new carpeting down while it was closed and it looks very nice.
The temple has been busy this week and will even be busier this coming week. This past week the group came from Göteborg Stake and they joined with us so we had a large group of both workers and patrons.
Friday night was our wards night and it was nice to be in the temple with the ward members. Saturday we had double sessions at 10:00am and the baptistry was busy from 9:30 until 14:00. It is so wonderful to have the young people come to the temple. I worked in the laundry most of the time to help keep the baptismal clothes clean and folded.
There were three young adults from Kiev in the temple this week. They spoke English and were so excited to come to the Temple in Stockholm. Their airplane tickets were only $40 for a round trip so they came. They said the temple in Kiev is beautiful. It is in the same city that they live in but it takes about two hours for them to get there. The two sisters were both return missionaries. I got to serve them and it was a choice experience to do the temple work in English. It was a tender mercy to have them come.
I know we all have challenges in our lives but we know that we have a Father in Heaven that loves us very much and is always there to listen to our prayers and to help us. We thank you for your prayers in our behalf and have felt His, and your, love and support on our mission. We thank you for another week of your emails and letters and a package. We have really been grateful for the great invention of Skype to help during an emotional week. May we all strive a little harder to show Christ—like love in all we do and in all we say. Let us help the world be a better place. We love you so much and we are grateful to be your parents, grandparents, relatives and friends. God bless you this week and always.

Week of February 7th

Happy Birthday Bryan!
Chuck and President Evensen watched the entire Super Bowl game plus the pre-game from 12:30am to 4:00am and President Evensen does not even understand American Football that well. It was the first time that the Super Bowl has been televised in Norway. I watched until halftime and then went to bed. Because of the late night we had a late breakfast and then set out for another first adventure. We went to IKEA and shopped and looked for 2 ½ hrs and even ate lunch there.

Tues we went into Oslo under a beautiful blue sky and the bright sun. We went to this ski jump place, Holmenkollen which they have just rebuilt. They were making final preparations on the track for the first event that evening, the Norwegian Masters Championship. Then we watched it on TV that evening. It is really high and makes Park City look a little small. While we were there Chuck bought me a beautiful Norwegian sweater for Valentine’s Day.
Next we visited the Vigeland Statues in Fronger Park. They all looked very cold as all the statues are nude.
On the way home we stopped by the Frogner Church in Lier where Marit’s parents, grandparents and great-grandparents are buried.

Marit’s birthday was the same day as Bryan’s and it was another beautiful day so we again drove into Oslo. It took us a while to find a parking place and we ended up parking in a lot that cost 60k ($10) an hour. We walked up and saw the park around the palace, the statues and the changing of the guards. It was pretty impressive. Evensen’s son, Martin, used to be one of these guards. We then walked down the street from the palace and walked past the building (Blindern) at the university where President Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize. We saw the Parliament Building, the city hall (Rødset) they call the two goat cheeses. Norway is known for its brown goat cheese and the building is brown brick with two tall towers. There are a lot of beautiful wood pictures on the porch of this building. We then walked to the new Opera House down at the harbor and the building where Marit and her family waited for the ship to take them to America when she was a small girl. Her family lived in Salt Lake for several years. After visiting Oslo we celebrated Marit’s birthday with some of her family. Marit made herself a wonderful birthday cake.
Thursday it was very cold and very snowy so we just stayed inside and Chuck worked on the computer and Marit and I worked on making booties and watched TV. At night Janett, their
daughter, and the Bishop’s wife, came and picked us up and we went to Relief Society. They were making preparations for the Relief Society Social so we helped make terra-cotta lamps and oil containers for the 10 Virgins they are presenting. I even helped clean the Drammen church after the activity was over.

Friday we finished up a few things the Evensens needed to get done before we left. We drove back to Sweden on Saturday because the forecast was for good weather and Monday was reported to be snowy. It was a beautiful day, no clouds and beautiful blue sky and lots of sun. I took a few point and shoot pictures and they turned out pretty good! Everything was clean and white and sparkly.

For Valentine’s Day we took the train into Stockholm and went to Jensen’s Buffhus. There were 8 couples including President and Sister Oscarson from the temple and President and Sister Anderson from the Sweden Mission. We had a great time and the lunch was wonderful.
We send all of you our love on this Valentine’s Day and pray for love and harmony in your homes. We enjoyed our skype time with the Tobler’s this week and Brent it is your turn next week. Thanks for your weekly updates we enjoy knowing what the family is doing. May we all strive to live as Christ lived and forgive others to be forgiven ourselves. The gospel is true; Heavenly Father does love us and wants all of us to return to live with him.

Week of January 31st

Monday morning and the temple is closed for two weeks for cleaning and updating. At 8:00am we put our luggage in the car and headed to Norway with President and Sister Evensen. The roads were good and the sky partly cloudy so the ride was very nice. We stopped at the last town before the border to get some groceries because Sweden is less expensive than Norway. In the same mall as the Maxi grocery store were two candy stores. They sold nothing but candy. I have never seen anything like this and they laughed at me when I took pictures. Judge for yourself!

Norway land is different than Sweden’s. The forests are not as thick and there is more open farmland. The mountains are rock and we traveled through many tunnels and passed by a few of the beautiful fjords. It took us almost 10 hours to arrive in Drammen, including our stop at the mall.
Tuesday Marit fixed a typical Norwegian breakfast of sliced meat, sliced cucumbers, sliced red peppers, hard boiled eggs, different kinds of yummy breads and hot cocoa. Then they had several errands to run so we saw the city of Drammen. It is a nice city with several shopping areas. It has a river running through it and sits at the end of the Drammen Fjord. After dinner Marit’s daughter Janett picked us up and we went to the church for a Zumba dance/exercise class. I learned a lot of moves but definitely learned how old I am!
One day we drove up this spiral tunnel to the top of the mountain and saw a wonderful view of the Drammen Fjord and city. I tried to walk over the top of the snow to stand on this bench to take a picture and went through the snow up to my knees. We all laughed. The Fjord is frozen so it is hard to see the edges but your imagination lets you know how beautiful it really is.

One day we drove into Oslo and went to two war time museums located at the Akershus Fortress that was built in 1300. It was built for defense and also to protect the royalty of Norway. It was very cold and icy but an enjoyable day. It now serves as a military base and they have banquets and big events in some of these beautiful old buildings.

One day we drove to Jevnaker to see the Hadeland Glassverk. This is a glass blowing factory and it was so interesting to watch them blow and make goblets and beautiful vases. We walked through the little shops and really enjoyed ourselves. Marit bought a vase made for tulips that is so nice and the tulips she bought today look beautiful in it.
We went to watch Evensen’s family ski (cross country) and it brought back so many memories of our family skiing together. Except for one thing, all their kids loved being bundled up and skiing. This same day we went to dinner at the Pedersen’s home. We met them at the
temple and they have a daughter that lives in the 5th ward. He has just been called to be a counselor in the Mission Presidency and she is working in the office and as the mission Relief Society President. They are wonderful people and the food and evening were delightful.
Sunday after our church meetings 18 members of the Evensen’s family came to dinner. It was a fun evening with the grandkids playing hide and go seek and the adults just sitting around and talking. It was fun to be around a family again but also made us homesick for ours.
Pres Evensen, Chuck and I stayed up to watch the Super Bowl which started at 12:30am. This is the first year for them to receive the Super Bowl live in Norway. This subject will be talked about next week!
We had a great Skype time with the Packer family and it was nice to see and talk to everyone. We have received many emails and a few IM’s this week and that is wonderful. I got to talk to Carol Fisher on her birthday and that was nice. We appreciate your support and prayers in our behalf. We love you and pray for your peace and happiness in your homes and lives. Love ya,