Adventures of The Richardson's in Sweden!: Missionary Week #34

Missionary Week # 34 Date: May 6, 2019 -May 12, 2019

Hello Everybody! We had another great week here in Sweden! Happy Mother’s Day to everyone in the States! We are so thankful for all of our daughters and daughters-in-law we hope you have a wonderful Mother’s Day and get spoiled by your family! Next week is Mother’s Day in Sweden – so you can celebrate next week too!

Monday - We were up early and ready to go by 6:30 this morning. So we headed to the train station and as we got to our main street John said “Oh no! Look at that!” So, I looked and the whole platform was jam packed with people – waiting for a train! We could see the train coming in, it stopped, and it was there for a long time, and when it left, the platform was clear! So all those people got on! We went on up to the platform and walked to where we usually get on and sat down. Then over the loudspeaker came a message – in Swedish - and a girl was walking back past us and John asked her what they had said. She said, “There is a problem with the line and we all need to walk to Alvik and get busses there!” Alvik is the next stop east of us and the one we walked to the last time the trains weren’t running. So we started walking. We got to Alvik and found the bus stop – and we were trying to see which bus number we needed to be looking for, looking at the map and routes etc. and a bus pulls up – the driver opens the door and asks us where did we need to go – his bus was empty – we told him we needed to get downtown to the City archives – and he motions for us to get on and off we go! He took us up the street where a bunch of people were waiting for busses and said – you can wait here for the bus that will take you downtown. So, we thanked him and got out and waited. After a few minutes a bus came on the opposite side of the street and everyone started running to cross the street and get on – well it filled up fast and off it went. So, we waited some more and another bus came up and let people on, we were able to squeeze on and off we went. He took us downtown to Fridhemsplan train station and we were able to ride the train for one stop to our stop “Rådhuset” and we got to work by 7:30! We are now looking into other routes, so we have a backup plan for the next time this happens! Like they say “When it works – it works really well”

We had a good day of work and when we went home – the train was running. YAY! This evening we had fun Marco Polo’s from Jon - we got to see the 2 littles – Avonlea and Titus, and Jenn called she had her boys up at the airport watching a DC3 or C47 It was fueling up in St. Johns on it’s way to participate in a D-Day 75^th reenactment in France so they sent us the Marco Polo’s of it getting ready to leave and it’s take off! So cool! This was the same type of plane that the Candy Bomber flew when he dropped candy to the kids. If you’d like to YouTube, “Candy Bomber” you can see the whole story! The Candy Bomber actually flew into St. Johns several years ago and our airport manager got a picture with him that is hanging in the airport office.

Tuesday – We had breakfast and got ready to go to Zone Conference in Gubbängen. The Borgs’ picked us up, there was a ton of traffic here, but we finally got on our way and got to the conference. It was a great day. The Mission President talks to them and then several sets of companionship's take turns with topics they had picked to focus on for the training at this conference. Our Sister’s from our ward did one set and they did great and had a lot of participation. Then we have lunch which is so good. Then in the afternoon we go into the chapel for more “spiritual” teachings. There was a beautiful musical number by 2 Elder’s Clark & Bjorn, it was “A Child’s Prayer” and another Elder accompanied them on the piano. We were home by 4! It was a great day.

Wednesday – We were up and ready to go early again – and the trains were working so we were at work by 7. We started work and got a Marco Polo from Jaylen who was on his night shift again and we got to catch up. We went back to work and we finally printed off a Swedish word list off of FamilySearch.org so we could translate better! Then tonight we had a Skype interview with a Missionary lady from Salt Lake who checks up with us on a quarterly basis to see how we are doing, what ideas we have for better training and if there are any issues that can be looked into. The call lasted about 45 minutes. Late tonight we got a Marco Polo from Jaylen and family they were so excited to show us the eggs that they had in the incubator were hatching! Little chicks were falling out one after another! So fun to hear the giggles.

Thursday - Happy Birthday to Jody! We finally caught up with her later tonight. No train problems, worked all day left at 4pm. We got Marco Polo’s of Lily’s music & dance program from Jennifer. Then we saw Alyvia’s music & dance program from Jon, Titus and Avonlea and later Jon caught Avery and Evanna practicing the piano and we got to hear and see them!

Friday – We were at work by 7 we didn’t get to sit by each other on the train this morning but train was working we were grateful for a seat! At 11:30 we had a visitor! We met this young man in Salt Lake City at our training there at FamilySearch. He is the one who takes our meta data and puts it into the Card Catalog. He came to Sweden with his brother on vacation but wanted to stop in and see us and how we were set up. It was a quick visit, but we were glad he came to see us and the Borgs. We had Marco Polo’s from Jennifer and Jody and talked with Jaylen.

Swings at Grona Lund Amusement Park

Saturday – Today, the laundry got done, we had breakfast and got ready to head out sightseeing! We went into Stockholm and caught the ferry boats – except they only ferry people – no room for cars – it’s cool because it’s all included in our passes for train/bus/boat! So we got on in Stockholm and went all around to their different stops and then back. It was a 2-hour trip and we saw a lot! Of course, you don’t get a guided tour but we saw some beautiful sights. We recommend it – there are sightseeing boats too – we may have to try one of those too. It started to rain on the way back into Stockholm and we did get wet walking back to the train – but not bad. We stopped for ASAP Wok again – and we thought we were ordering Pork, but we got Shrimp! So now we know that Räkor means shrimp – duly noted. It was still good. It was raining harder as we walked home but we didn’t melt.

Our Good Seats at the back but under cover!

The Vasa Museum

Inside Ferry

A crane painted like a Giraffe!

Apartments with Glass enclosed balconies
built on their own pier!

Sunday – We went to church and had a great meeting – we have translators that they hand out – and they’ve even gotten some new ones that work even better – it is so nice to have our Missionary Sister translate into English the prayers, sacrament prayers and talks. It sure helps us rejuvenate for the next week! One of the young mom’s from USA – but living here now for her husbands job – brought some yummy brownies to us for Mother’s Day! It was so thoughtful.