Missionary Week 41

Missionary Week 41       June 24, 2019- June 30, 2019

Hello Family & Friends!  We have had another great week! 

Roses from the Archives - they make
their own Bouquet!

Monday – Nice warm weather – It still takes us a little longer to get to work but we have our new route down pretty good…. trial and error!  I still get a bit chilly in our room and have a sweater to wear.  We worked pretty fast with the boxes we had because it was mostly cards – not too many papers to unfold, or envelopes to open.  After work we went to the grocery store and post office to pick up a box…forgot my I.D. so we had to return.  It’s convenient because the “PostNord” is in the Grocery Store! 

Tuesday – Work was normal. We talked with the Senior Couple that will be coming in October – they are from Chandler and we were able to answer their questions about what to bring and what not to. 

Wednesday – Work was not normal today!  We have had the issue about the men’s military cards in the boxes not matching the dates on the outside of the box.  The cards all have birthdates and dates of enlistment. Most of the boxes have the years on the box that match the birthdates, others match the enlistment date and even some have their retirement dates.  The way our contract is written – they must be by birthdate and we can’t capture any cards that have a birthdate after 1940.  SO, we had a discussion with our Archivist – who does speak English but there is sometimes not an understanding of the issues.  ANYWAY, the military archive brought 3 more cages and all of the boxes don’t have the birthdates on them.  We had 11 boxes left – that we could capture, and we are getting at least 2 done a day between us and we have 4 cameras running.  We will run out of boxes in 2 days.  July marks the time that almost all of Sweden take their Summer Vacations – 5-6 weeks in a row.  We were trying to make sure that the Military Archive brought us the right boxes before they are gone, and we are left with nothing to do!  We don’t get that wonderful vacation!  They are scrambling, and our leaders are trying to get another contract written for those boxes that don’t fall under the old agreement – we still want all the records to be captured.  We shall see next week if that gets done. 

Tonight, we met with The Clouse’s and Pres. & Sis Youngberg for our Home Evening and went to Taby Centrum – a Mall to eat Mexican food!  La Neta – they have several locations, but this was a new one in the mall and closer to all of us and it had a PARKING GARAGE!  There are limited places for parking, and you are timed.  This was a Win, Win. We’ve only found tacos and quesadillas here but that’s better than nothing.  We had a good time and walked through a portion of the mall to the “American Store” Here you will find what you are looking for.  Cream of chicken soup, Doritos, Fritos, breath mints, pop tarts, canned pumpkin, chocolate and butterscotch chips, etc.  The Catch – no prices on anything.  If you want it, you pay for it.  (The butterscotch chips were $7 a bag) and NO I didn’t get them.  We sure miss our Baker Scotcheroos though.  At another store, John found a paper cutter for work $20 – and it’s small but that beat the $100 for a regular full size one! 

Thursday – We were able to still have work today but we took the last two boxes.  The Borg’s won’t be coming in tomorrow and we will only come in to get the shuttles shipped.

Friday – We came in and got the shuttles shipped and finished our last two boxes and left at 11am. We came home and picked up our things we needed to head to Västerås for the Sister’s Apartment check that we do each quarter.  It’s a beautiful ride – with the green fields and forests.  It takes about an hour to get there.  We found them in good health and clean apartment.  It’s fun to hear how their work is going and hear about their families.  We finished the apartment check and headed for home but took a detour to a Historic Site.  We tried to find one via GPS – and we ended up in a dead end because of carnival going on!  So we found another sign and followed it to Anundshög.  Wouldn’t you know it – it was a burial site! Pretty cool.  It dates to the first century A.D. They aren’t sure who is buried there – but they were important people.  There are rocks that are sticking up from the ground and are in the shape of a ship with a rock in the middle representing the mast.  Then there was another set of rocks that they called “The Thing” and this “was a meeting place where they settled disputes like land or other property and also sentenced criminals.”   Glad we happened upon this one. 

"Ships" Burial Grounds - from the top of the hill

Stairs to top of the hill

The Thing - explanation

The Meeting Place - The Thing

Saturday – After the laundry and housecleaning was done, we got ready to go to Örebro for another apartment check.  Same road to Vasterås only another hour further.  We couldn’t do them on the same day because of the Sisters schedules.  

56 Chevy Station Wagon

Buick

We sure see a lot of cool cars and funny things – we are amazed at how many small cars (cross-overs) are pulling boats and horse trailers.  

Rat Rod

We got to the apartment, the girls were not there yet – and we were about 15 minutes early.  The one Sister had called John yesterday to tell him that her tire went flat, so he worked on the bike while we were waiting – we do have to inspect their bikes anyway so that was good to get that out of the way.  I found some gorgeous flowers that I had to take a picture of.  (Anybody know what they are?) We had a fun time visiting and checking on them.  They only had to defrost their freezer. Everything else was great.  The freezer’s here are notorious for not closing well.  So if you don’t make sure it is closed all the way – you have ice everywhere!  There bins were frozen shut.  They were very surprised – they had just used it yesterday and it was fine.  We had a nice ride home enjoying the scenery.

From the road

One of the houses on the detour

This is a single lane road - two way traffic
on a little detour around construction that we
went on..glad we did - pretty country and homes

Sunday – Happy Birthday to our Grandson Bridger!  And Happy Anniversary to Jody & Jay!  We picked up the Borg’s for church.  It was a happy/sad kind of day.  Sister Haroldsen was giving her last testimony because she is leaving for home on Wednesday.  We will miss her she was a great missionary, great translator in English, Swedish and Spanish.  We also got to see Sister Hickman who returned to Sweden after her mission with her family.  It was great to see her too. 

What a great week.  We really did accomplish a lot! We hope you have another Great Week!   We think of you often and miss you!  Love hearing from you!  Love, John & Linda, Mom & Dad, Gramma & Grampa