Missionary Week #30

Missionary Week #30  -  April 8, 2019 ~ April 14, 2019

Hello everyone!  We had a great week!  Spring is popping up all around us.  Plants are popping up from the ground – flowers, plants, and trees are starting to get new buds and some shrubs are starting to get their leaves.  We watched General Conference from Salt Lake City and the trees were in full bloom and were beautiful. 

Monday – When we left for work it was 34* F (1*C) and it was cold!  It had rained but things were not too wet.  The city is starting to sweep up all the rocks that they lay down to keep from slipping.  It’s on all the sidewalks and at the train stations platforms.  So things are starting to look “Clean”.  We worked until lunch time and enjoy watching traffic, people, and people parking from the cafeteria!  Sometimes it’s comical and sometimes it’s down right impressive!  Most streets have parking – but you have to find the parking box for that street and buy a ticket to put on your dash.  We watch as some get their ticket and some who walk away in hopes that they make it back before they are caught!  We have learned that there is an app that you can put on your phone and purchase more time on your ticket – but you do have to have a ticket!  There is very rarely a place to park – and as we watched it was amazing how one car would leave there was a car that would pull right up and back in and take the spot immediately. 

Today we didn’t go home after work we headed out for a bit of shopping, quick dinner (fish & fry’s) and on to the YSA Center (Young Single Adult Center for ages 18-30).  After having a Family Home Evening on Friday, General Conference on Sunday and then another Family Home Evening on this night – there was only 4 kids and US!  We had fun – we all talked about our favorite quote or story from the Conference and then one of the boys taught us how to do “Origami”!  He had us start out with a square of paper and we made a frog, cranes and then the boys got carried away and had an airplane competition!  One of the girls brought Snickerdoodles for our treat….Yummy – but I missed Elynn Badgers Snickerdoodles!  After we cleaned up we walked to the train station and it was still COLD. 

Tuesday – It was still cold and when we got off the elevator for our street to the archive it was snowing!  We worked a normal day – and left a little after 4 and it was COLD_COLD and a light Snow.  We were so thrilled we didn’t have to go anywhere!  We’ve been spoiled!  We got Marco Polo’s from Jenn and her kids were just getting up after a night of kids being sick!  So they were in slow motion this morning.  We got another Marco Polo from Jaylen and he had his kids and Jon and his kids out in our front yard – picking up worms – it was night time, kids were suppose to be in bed – but Jaylen said the earth started moving and they got all the kids together and got a Thirst Buster Cup FULL of worms!  Most of the kids were giggling and squealing 😊, but I heard one who was not happy – he was scared of worms!  ☹

John and I have been watching the Safety Videos the Church has put out for us to watch.  They are really good but it’s so sad to see some of the accidents or sicknesses that have happened to missionaries and usually it’s because they have not been paying attention to their surroundings or not keeping the kitchen clean.  We have a few more to watch but they make you think about what you do and to be safer. 

Wednesday – We went to work in a light sprinkle of rain – but at work it was snowing – it didn’t hit the ground it was just flies around!  Work was normal but I had to fix a few problems in my metadata, and It took me 2 hours to upload my 12 files to the shuttle that we send to Germany.  It was cold going home but nice we didn’t have to go again.

Thursday – When we went to work it was chilly and windy – a few snowflakes but they weren’t sticking.  We were able to talk to Jody, Jon and some friends.  We are sure grateful for technology like – phones and video calls and marco polos! 

City Hall

Friday – we got a Marco Polo from our daughter Janell -she was driving and made us guess where she was!  She turned her phone around and she was in Payson, Arizona!  She had been missing her nieces and nephews so much she couldn’t stand it and headed out!  It’s a 6 hour flight from Hawaii – and then she rented a car – to drive 4 hours home.  So she knew we would be up so we talked back a forth for a while and she called when she made it home by 2:22 in the morning!  We are sure glad she was able to travel safe and get to see the kids.  Sounds like they all had a blast! 

The top of the tower has 3 Crowns, pretty soon
we will be able to go up in the tower and take pictures

Saturday – We went in to Stockholm and walked around and went to the City Hall which is a beautiful building and is really an icon for the city.  We walked around and tried to find a tour – and found out they were all done with tours because they closed down for an event.  There are a lot of weddings that take place there – We heard if you live here you can get married there for free – but if you aren’t from here you pay about $60.  So, we took pictures and plan to go back later.  We walked around some more, we feel a bit more familiar with the downtown area.   We are noticing that the sun is up before we head out in the mornings at 6:30 – 6:40 setting around 7:45pm!  It feels so wonderful to feel the warmth.

Sunday – We were woke up when we heard more machines outside – it was actually chain saws.  We first thought it was road work and John got up to see what they were working on and found firetrucks and police outside – because the house across the street from us was on fire!  So, again we had front row seats to this event.  So sad, we assume they got all the people out – the house is split down the middle, so it is 2 apartments – the one on the right side still had lights on but the one on fire was dark. John said he saw firemen going in and out of the other apartment.  That was 4am – and when we left for church at 10:30 the trucks were finally pulling away and then these white vans pulled up and they started pulling furniture out and we guessed they were the clean up crew.  We don’t know if they always follow the fire trucks or if they were called in by the owner of the building.  Very interesting to find out – they don’t have fire hydrants here – they have holes in the ground – with man hole covers and the fire truck puts in their own “hydrant”.  Since John was a volunteer fireman for many years in Show Low, he was very interested to see how they did things!   When we got back from church – all the commotion was over and there is only police tape around the house.

We hope you all have a great week and have a wonderful Easter weekend.  We are grateful for our Savior Jesus Christ and hope that we can become more like him day by day as we study and learn from his examples.  We love and miss you and think of you all week!  Stay Safe and Happy Easter!

John & Linda