Missionary Week #16

Missionary Week #16   - December 31^, 2018 – January 6, 2019

Happy New Year Everyone!  On New Years Eve we went in to Stockholm and tried to see a couple of more museums, most were closed!  We did find where we were last week when we found the Ice-Skating Rink – it’s at Kungsträdgården.  So, it is paying off going back to places we’ve been because we are recognizing places – It’s a learning process for us!  We walked around more and headed home to Celebrate New Year’s.  We got in touch with our kids through Marco Polo and were able to show them what Sweden does for New Years!  It was a little wet outside, but we stood on our balcony and watched fireworks all around us!  “It sounded like a War Zone” – John said, and he should know! It was crazy – the clouds made it even prettier – they had red flares that would just take off and go for a long time.  There was a group of people on the street counting down to midnight.  The fireworks started early – like 10 – 15 minutes early and then at midnight it went like crazy! 

New Years Day we tried to see the Medieval Museum – but it was closed – so we took off for Skansen – a little Island that has a Zoo – with Nordic animals (Reindeer, Moose, Wolverine, Wild Boar, Sea Otters, Lynx, hopefully my pictures turn out so you can see some of them!  

Farm

Swedish Yellow Ducks

Wolverine

Neat building with brick fence

Wild Boars

Shetland Ponies

Reindeer

Moose

Sheep

Grey Guinena Pigs

Black Guinea Pig

more Sheep

Reindeer - he was camera shy

They have a great indoor children’s zoo and buildings have been moved there to show you how a summer farm looked in Sweden – There was the post office – which was also the postmaster’s home with his family.  I loved the thatched roofs of the farms.  They had a demonstration in one house of “Flat Bread” The girl was dressed in 1800’s clothes and there was dough that she would roll out and showed us how the ladies made the Flat Bread – Kind of reminded me of tortillas!  Course there was plain, or they could add spices to make it taste different.  She rolled and rolled and the rolling pins were wood and had grooves so the flour wouldn’t stick to the dough, Very interesting and it was warm inside – because she of course put the dough finally into the hearth and turned it with wooden spatulas – it didn’t take very long and they were browned and ready to cut up to sample.   There is a Christmas Market they hold every year – it closed down on the 16 of December so we missed it this year – but will catch it next year for sure!  There is also a kids amusement park but we didn’t walk into it – I don’t really do it justice!  I’m pretty sure because it is winter not all of the homes etc were open – so we’ll have to go here in the summer too! It was a good look at Swedish history.  

We got home to Marco Polos from the kids in St. Johns’ they got the 7-10” of snow in one day!  That hasn’t happened in a long time and they are still sending us the weather warnings of more snow! 

We went back to work Wednesday – and it actually felt good to get back!  And then I came down with a sore throat and John has had to take care of me!  He finally caught a little bit of the cough and sore throat too.  So we did not go into work Monday the 7^th but hope to be able to get in tomorrow!  He did go to church and our new 2 hour schedule and he said it was great!  

We appreciate all of your prayers and kind words.  Until next week!  Stay Warm, Dry and Healthy!