Our FINAL Week! Missionary Week #78

Missionary Week 78          March 9, 2020 ~ March 15, 2020

It’s about time I finished telling you about our last week in Sweden!  It was a crazy mixed up week and even at the time it felt like it went just as fast as the other weeks, until we were waiting to hear something – anything about when we would be leaving!

Monday – Left for work at our normal time, I had a lot of Dcam errors today but did finish a box and almost got another one done. We went to lunch at 1pm and ate with Salls and Quists.  We left at 4pm.  I saw that Ole was working at the desk, so I stopped and asked him to show me tax records that I need to look at every page to see if my Grandmother was in anyone’s household.  I did not find her.

The Salls came home with us to see our apartment, they are interested in moving into our apartment when we leave, it has a shorter train ride into work.  We had tacos for dinner

Tuesday – We went to work in a mist.  Worked on box and finished it.  I fixed some re-work – we had Volume numbers for several boxes and found out that instead of D11: it was suppose to be roman numerals – so we had to bring up every box and re-do the meta data to reflect the Roman Numerals!  Not hard, but you have to go through the evaluation on each one.  That is now done. 

My Dcam errors they think is because Win7 has not been updated – they want me to finish this last week then they will send in my computer to be updated to Win10.  I finished my work at 2pm and went upstairs to do a little genealogy work. I searched several books, and databases but can’t find my grandmother from birth to about the age of 7.  She did go to Germany, but I couldn’t find the passenger list for that either.

We went home and had dinner and started packing our Big suitcase with all of our souvenirs, it was jammed packed and weighed in at 40lbs.  John wasn’t feeling very good today he had a sore throat.

Wednesday – Went to work we were a little late for train but caught the 6:33 and snuck into one of the first cars before they closed the door.  I finished my box today.  John texted our Mission President wife to tell her that he had a little cold (they’d asked us to inform them if we had any health issues so they could go through protocol).  He felt fine, but she sent back the decision that because we are trying to be good community people with the Coronavirus going on that if you are sick you need to be home.  So, we finished our boxes and transferred files and we counted it our last day there.  It felt like it came to a screaming halt.   We cleaned out our stations and made sure we had taken all of our belongings.  We were going to take the Quists and Salls to lunch but told them we had to go home and gave them some money to go to lunch since we couldn’t take them.  John doesn’t have a temperature.  We are hoping that we can still fly home on the 17^th.  We picked up food at the train station.

Thursday – Happy Birthday to our Granddaughter Rylee!  We slept in a bit, had breakfast – we have 1 egg left.  Got a call from Sis Youngberg and informed us that the church is sending ALL Senior Couples Home, from ALL of Europe Missions!  USA has banned all flights by Friday night at Midnight.  We haven’t heard back but we are all packed and apartment is cleaned and we did all laundry.  We Marco Polo’d all the kids to tell them we’re coming home we just don’t know when!  Our supervisor Sven, called to say goodbye to us.  We are ready to go when we get a call.  Friday or maybe Saturday.  We also may be quarantined for 2 weeks at home. 

Friday – Friday the 13^th!  My grandmother – Elvira Karlson Ashburn was born on a Friday the 13^th – and she told me that it was a lucky day for her because she was born!  We had cereal for breakfast, finished cleaning the kitchen. We still have freezer items.  We got an email from Sister Youngberg that she had sent our itineraries – then she said except for yours!  “We are asking if you are to keep your scheduled flight on Tuesday!”  We just got word it’s 11:30am that the Quists are flying out Saturday at 11, going to Amsterdam, Detroit and Phoenix.  Wish we knew something!

Had dinner – leftovers!   We talked with Jaylen, sent Marco’s to all kids tonight – we got a call from Sister Youngberg she sent our itinerary – We leave Sunday morning – supposedly same flight we had scheduled – Stockholm to London and then Phoenix. 

Our Apartment - The one with our
Christmas Tree on the Balcony

Saturday – We were up around 5am – John went to laundry and we started the last loads of laundry – sheets and blankets.  We got a call from Sister Youngberg and we don’t know who is taking us to the airport yet, but we may have to stay at the Club house and go with some of the Junior Missionaries that are going home also.  We cleaned out the fridge, freezer and cupboards of any opened packages.  We went and got the car washed and gassed up.  Came home and packed up the car and took our last pictures of our apartment. 

Then we headed to the Mission Office.  We gave the Elders there all our food.  The Elders that are taking over for the Mission Office couple took us to the airport hotel, in our car since all the suitcases were packed in it. 

Stockholm Arlanda Airport

We finally found the Radisson Blue Hotel and got all our luggage to our room and walked around to find where we need to go in the morning.  Nice to have the hotel at the airport – it was a long walk, but we will have a luggage cart.  We went down to MacDonald’s for dinner and walked as far as we could the other way – so we’ve seen the airport.  We saw where we came in our first day and Clouse’s picked us up.  It was dusk and we looked out the huge windows and saw a million birds flying off one of the roofs of the buildings and from the light poles.  It was amazing.  We came back to room and talked to Jon, Jenn and Matt – we got an email telling us that there was to be no big groups gathering at the airports so that put a kink in all the kids plans – So now they are deciding who is going to come down and get us! 

On our way!

Sunday – We were up at 5am and got ready, and made our way to our gate, we were told that we couldn’t fly into Phoenix because Phoenix wasn’t accepting planes that needed screening for the virus.  So, they took us to another counter to re-book us going somewhere else.  Then the lady said – we just need to get you on the first flight to London and then figure out where you will be going from there – but if we don’t go now, you’ll miss that flight.  We made it on that flight and that lady came and found us on the plane with a scrap paper with some numbers on it and said “I think we have you booked going into LAX”  We thanked her for getting that much info to us. 

One of the treats we got!

We made it to London and had to pick up our luggage and go through all of the security again – we lost a tube of toothpaste!  We had a little time and got to eat a sandwich.  We were able to call and talk to some of the kids – Then we were off to our new gate going to LAX.

London Airport

Leaving London

  

The flight to LA was I think a 10 hr. flight – we napped a little – maybe 1-2 hrs.  We had to stand in a long line to get a kiosk and answer the same questions that we had filled out on a paper on the flight over.  Then we had to wait in line for our temperatures to be taken and then we had to wait in a line for customs.   We had to go pick up all of our luggage and the baggage carts were not free!  All of the Europe terminals they are free and plentiful – not in LAX.  We let the kids know we were in the US and waiting for our flight to Phoenix. 

Our Welcome Home Sign - We are
glad to be home!!

We got into Phoenix about 11:30 pm and we have been up for 27-28 hours!  We picked up our luggage and rolled 4 big bags and 2 carry-ons and got them outside and Jon and Jaylen had driven down and picked us up at Terminal 4 – Door 3 North!  They had to drive 2x around the complex until they could get in line to pick us up.  John got to them first and started to load the car and it was so good to see our boys!  We hugged and got in the car – and off we went for our 4-hour drive back home!  We talked all the way – catching up on as much as we could!  We stayed awake the whole time too.  We arrived in St. Johns at 3am – Arizona time, dropped Jon off at his house and came home to our Motor home!  

We slept for about 4 hours and it was time to get up!

Monday – March 16^th – We are so glad to be home.  We have seen all the kids here in St. Johns – Titus was scared of us – he hid behind his dad’s legs while we visited with the rest of the family.  We’ve been able to call Brothers and Sisters and friends to tell them we are home.  We are in self-quarantine for 14 days.  We have not been released from our mission – our Stake President will have to do that sometime after the 14 days.  Our kids stocked our refrigerator and cupboard, they have all had us over for dinner.  We are being treated like a King & Queen!

We are out of our quarantine and now we have to stay at home anyway!  So, we hope that everyone is staying healthy and safe.  Our best to you.  Thank you for going on our adventure to Sweden with us!  We loved the Country and the people.  We are grateful for our time there – the places we saw and the people we met.  We will miss them, but we are so happy to be around our little family once again.  That was the hardest thing, to be so far away from loved ones. 

Love, John & Linda, Mom & Dad, Gramma & Grampa

Missionary Week 77           March 2, 2020 ~ March 8, 2020

Another Fast Week!  We are on the count down now!  9 Days!  This next week will go by just as fast because we will be busy!!!

Monday – Off to work, John is feeling better today, and he decided that he would be o.k. going to work.  I had more Dcam errors, so my work is slow going since I have to restart the program all the time.  At least it is still capturing images. 

We got to go on a virtual tour of Jaylen’s house today, it’s looking good!  We can’t wait to get back and see what we can help with! 

Tuesday – I want to wish my brother and sister-in-law a Happy Anniversary!  Work was a normal day – and lunch was fun, John went and got us a pizza from the shop next door.  We went home at 4pm.  We are trying to use up our food supply and we haven’t been to the store yet this week.  Some of our meals are interesting. 

Wednesday – It was raining so hard this morning and we used the umbrella.  Our supervisor Sven came today, he lives in Örebro, he takes the train into Stockholm.  We had a meeting with him, the 3 couples doing record capture and the archivist from the Riksarkivet (The Military Archive) “Bo”.  We were able to go over the records that we are keeping and the records that we are marking for redaction.  He was amazed at the records were in the boxes! At one point he said, “That shouldn’t even be in that box!”  It was a good meeting; we got a lot of our question answered – too bad we didn’t get this meeting 18 months ago!  Then he came to each of our stations and saw how we captured his records.  We are only halfway done on this project.  We have about another 1500 boxes to do.  Well, John and I won’t see the end.  We are glad we got to do some other books and certificates as a variety, but we know it all has to be done and that is why we came here. 

After our meeting, Sven took the record capture team to lunch, at Jensen’s Beef House.  We have eaten there before, and it is wonderful.  It was our “Goodbye lunch”.  We worked until 4pm and went to Relief Society night at 6:30. We stopped for groceries on our way home.

Thursday – It was misty on our way to work today.  Still having Dcam error’s, all day – we’re trying to troubleshoot – changing cords etc.  It’s not the cords. 

We went to lunch at 11, and we left early today because we had to change our laundry day this week to Thursday.  On the way home, we walked to the Fire Station that was the closest to us. It was a long walk, but we made it!  We finally got somebody to come to the door and he invited us in, but they don’t have patches - their T-shirts are imprinted and so are their hats.  He talked to a lot of the guys and no one had an extra shirt or anything with the patch on it.  So, we came up short – but we tried! 

Friday – It was spitting a few drops of rain on our way to the train.  We had to wait 7 minutes for our train this morning – but we walked right on to the next train instead of waiting for it – so we made it to work at the same time.  There were a few snow flurries – but it was too warm to stick.  We left at 3:30 today when we hit our 40 hrs. 

Richardson's and President & Sister Youngberg

Our Team!  Quists, Richardson's and Salls

Richardson's and The Nielsens

Our Farewell dinner was tonight at the Presidents house.  The Ashby’s, who are from AZ are leaving this Tuesday.   It was a yummy meal, and the Quists, Salls, Nielsen’s, Torries were there also.  We took pictures with everyone there and were able to thank our President and his wife for all that they do for the Missionaries.  It was a fun night. 

Richardson's, Youngberg and Ashby's

The Richardson's and The Torries

Saturday – We were up at our normal time today – no sleeping in!  We are starting to plan out our cleaning and packing agenda.  The suitcases are out, and we will be hitting this hard this week.  What will we be taking back and what will be left or thrown out! 

This afternoon we went back to Gamla Stan – “Old Town”- there was a lot of people but we were able to find most of the things we needed to take home. 

We have been working on our talks for Sunday all week.  So, we were still studying and writing tonight.  I really miss having a printer!  We’ve worked around it but it’s so much easier to push the print button! 

Jerk Chicken, Rice & Beans and
Coleslaw - carrots and cabbage

We went out to eat at the Jamaica restaurant tonight and ordered the Jerk Chicken.  It was wonderful – wish they had been here the whole time instead of the pizza/pasta shop.  It was a good restaurant, but they were never open regularly.  When we came out of the restaurant it was foggy.  I hope the pictures are good!

Looking down the street
from The Jamaica Restaurant

From the restaurant looking
at our apartment 

Sunday – We finished off our talks and went to church.  The talks went well, we have to have translators – so they stand by us and you say a sentence or two and then give them time to translate into Swedish.  Sister Carlile translated for me and Bishop Mitchell translated for John. 

Then after Priesthood and Relief Society we got to take some pictures especially with our Sister Missionaries – transfers are this week and they don’t know if they’ll still be in Jakobsberg next week.  We’ve heard that all the Missionaries ready to come here this week from the MTC, have not received Visa’s yet. That will throw a kink in the Mission’s wheels. We will have one more Sunday here.  We love our “Swedish Family” that we have met here in Jakobsberg.  We will miss them. 

Richardson's and Sister's Carlile and Moss

 

We think of you often and miss you!  We'll be Home Soon!   Love hearing from you!  Love, John & Linda, Mom & Dad, Gramma & Grampa

Remember to check out our blog  https://adventureswiththerichardsonsinsweden.blogspot.com/

Miissionary Week 76

Missionary Week 76           February 24, 2020 ~ March 1, 2020

We finished up our trip to Gotland and got back to work!

Large Viking Burial Ground

The Salls at the Sea Stacks

Monday – We are still in Visby.  Met Salls for breakfast at 8am.  Then got ready for our day.  We are heading south today.  

The Salls were our guides and we used our GPS – but sometimes we came up empty!  We had visitor maps – road atlas – and still couldn’t find a few things. 

Inside

In Visby

We saw some really cool churches and Viking Burial Grounds – in the ship formation. Found the Sea Stacks – Rocks that have been formed by erosion. 

Deborah & 1 of  her projects

We traveled to Klintehamn, to find the Weaving shop owned by Deborah that we met at church.  It was a large corner store front and it was jam packed with looms.  She had a class in the afternoon, and some of the ladies were leaving – but we got to see 2 ladies still working.  It was very interesting.

Kläder or Clothes Shop windows

When we came back to town, John and I walked back to see if the Souvenir shops were open – and found that they were still closed.  We found out later that the children were out of school for some reason – so a lot of people were on a vacation.  They also said – they depend on tourism and that’s in the months of May-August.  Gotland is “THE” place to go for Swede’s summer get-ways.  We continued to another street and found a toy store and found a couple of things there.

   

We then met the Salls for dinner at Taco Tequila – we all had 2 tacos – they tasted wonderful – but they are not fried – it’s a small round soft tortilla with your choice of fish, chicken, carne asada etc.  We ate them so fast I didn’t even get a picture!  We also tried their guacamole and chips – and they were good – and were the best chips we’ve had here.

Tuesday – We had breakfast at 8am again.  The dining room was crowded today, there was some sort of a convention going on.  John packed up the car and we went up North again to see another Viking burial ground. 

We found them; you cannot imagine how large this was.  This place was 15 hectors large – or almost 40 acres! This has 1,000 burials.    It was in a forest – we could see farmland through a clearing as we walked through the forest, but it was massive – I hope the pictures will do it justice!  

If you see a pile of rocks - it's a grave

Inside one of the little houses

We also found a little historical site with house that were furnished, and we could look inside.  Then a lady happened to be on her morning walk and came in and talked with us. 

She works there when they are open in the summer.  She saw Johns name tag and she said “Oh – are you the same as the Mormons?”  He told her “Yes” and she thanked us for what we are doing.  She has been researching her family that went to Illinois and was so thankful that we were saving the records.

On our way back to Visby we saw an historical sign and turned in to go see a cave.  It was closed for winter, but the sign showed stalactites and stalagmites!  We went back to Visby and walked the streets again, took the Salls to the toy store and we had lunch one last time at the Bad Wolf and said our Goodbyes. 

Leaving Port of Visby

We went to the Information Center, and then found Gotlands Fire Station so John could get one more patch. Then we went to the Ferry and waited a little while and then loaded up – we were drove up a ramp this time and went and found our seats on the side of the boat.  It was snowing/raining.  It got dark pretty quick so we couldn’t see anything on the way back until we were coming into the Nynashamn port.

Our Seats

 We got in a little after 8 and dropped the Salls off and came home and unpacked.  Talked to some of our kids.  We had a fun trip.

Storra Mossen at 6:30 a.m.

Wednesday – Off to work, it’s getting a little lighter in the morning.  Today, it was cloudy and spitting snow off & on.  Didn’t look like any snow at lunch time. 

Thursday – We woke up to Snow!  Saw the plow clearing off the sidewalks early.  Tonight, we went to the Mission Office – Club House for our Senior Couples Family Home Evening.  It was our last Family Home Evening – kind of sad.  The Ashby’s will be leaving soon too. 

The Torries – our new Office Couple had a slide show of their Mission to Nairobi, Kenya.  They showed us food, people, animals, way of life and some pretty impressive stories.  If you’d like to see a YouTube video, they showed us – this is from the Office Couple that took the Torrie’s place – their daughters were visiting and as they are touring around a lion opens their car door!  The Torrie’s had pictures of driving around with the animals this close to them too…

Lion opens car door

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Did you know lions could open car doors? My sisters were visiting our parents, while serving a mission in South Africa, and had an experience of a lifetime.

We got home and Jon called, making sure we had a way to get home from Phoenix!  They have room!

Friday – Heading to work the temperature was -1*C, lightly snowing, fewer people – we think because it was Friday.  We had a good day at work, came home at 2:30 to do our laundry.

Saturday – Happy Leap Year!  Blaire sent us a Marco Polo that our package arrived intact!  Yay!  Got to hear from Janell via Marco Polo.  Always good to catch up.  We went to a Baptism at our Jakobsberg Ward for Unix.  Great service and there were a lot of people.  Great Fika afterwards.

Brother Bendixen asked if we could talk next week instead of the 15^th!  I guess its High Council time – 3^rd Sunday. 

 We heard that our replacements are a couple from Washington State, they won’t get here until June. 

Sunday – John was not feeling well, he was cold and achy.  So, we didn’t go to church today.  John talked with Elder Salls to teach his Sunday School Class – the Salls were called to teach the youth Sunday School – so they will be fine.  We have not heard of any Corona Virus happenings here so – he is taking it easy and we shall see how he feels tomorrow.  16 Days Left!  We hope! 

We think of you often and miss you!  Love hearing from you!  Love, John & Linda, Mom & Dad, Gramma & Grampa