Missionary Week 45

Missionary Week 45   July 22 – July 28, 2019

Tile work on wall at the train stop - at T-Central 

We are pretty sure that Summer has hit Sweden!  We have been enjoying the 86*F/30*C all week.  We have heard that next week it will continue for a couple of days and then the clouds will come in and we will be back to the 60*F/15*C !!  Pretty crazy roller coaster ride.  In the shade it feels wonderful and with a little breeze it is great. 

Monday – Work went fast today, we were working on the last of our boxes of military cards when the man brought more boxes in this afternoon. He has been on vacation for 3 weeks, luckily he brought us 3 cages of boxes so he can enjoy the next 2 weeks of his vacation.

Tonight we went grocery shopping – this isn’t really news worthy other than John found out that with a membership from the grocery store you can pick up a little scanner and scan your items as you go through the store and bag it and then when you are all done you take it to the self-pay stations and check out- pay with your card and get a little bar code to scan so the gate will open and you can leave!  It’s like a new toy for John. He now likes grocery shopping!  I enjoy it because I don’t have to frantically bag all the groceries as they come down the conveyor belt.  No More STRESS!   You might ask, “How do they know people are being honest?”  They let you know that they do random checks – they can check the bags against the receipts.  Your scanner will vibrate and you know you will go through a check point. 

Tuesday – Work was pretty normal; the boxes have mostly cards and not too many medical papers so it goes really fast. 

We were able to talk to Janell & Joshua who live in Hawaii.  It was good to catch up with them. 

Wednesday – We were able to go to Zone Conference today.  It is such a nice day, to spend with the young missionaries.  We hear from the Mission President and wife as they go through some rules that need to be gone over again to make sure they understand the rules.   Then the District Leaders (the young missionaries) provide training on a topic that they’ve come up with in their meetings with the Mission President.  

These kids are amazing in their thoughts and actions.  They really look for ways to serve other people.  At zone conference they make sure that we have a translator to keep us included in the meetings when they aren’t speaking English.  Most of the meeting is in English, but when they bare their testimonies and sing it is in Swedish.  So many of them have musical talents and love to share.  So, to all of our grandchildren who play the piano or string instruments, and yes even the trombone, keep practicing, you will be able to use those talents all of your live!   

We were able to talk with Jody and her kids today and catch up on their neat vacation up to Washington.

Thursday – Happy Birthday to Jessie!  Today she turned 8 years old!

We went back to work – we both got 2 boxes finished before lunch and got to the lunchroom and the Archive was treating all the workers to free ice cream sandwiches or Popsicle!  The lady told us about their vacation schedules.  She took her leave earlier so that she would be on hand while the others went in July – most of them are out for at least 4 weeks if not longer.  She told us she just wanted an excuse to buy ice cream!  YUM!

We got back to work and worked until 3pm and my computer was full and wouldn’t let me capture any more.  That means I got to work on Family History for an hour!  Yippee.

We got a call from our son Jaylen, who is living in our house with his family, while we are gone and he said they had a wild thunderstorm last night and one of our skylights was leaking!  We got to see all the grandkids and talk to them.  They wanted to show us their garden, so they took us with them to see the corn and tomatoes and watermelon and  more!  Jaylen saw our neighbor Annette and took the phone over to her so we could see her and talk to her and she took the phone and ran to find her husband Dan and we had a great time talking and catching up with them!  Technology is amazing!!!

Friday – It’s HOT!  We have both fans and all the windows open.  We are used to 100-110 degrees, so it isn’t the hottest we ever been by any means, but it is not a “Dry Heat” that we are used to!  Where we work is inside the mountain and it can get pretty cool, so it’s wonderful in our room, but we feel the difference in humidity when we go to the lunchroom.  

Since my computer is still full and the people in Germany are out of town, I went up to the archive and had Ola help me again.  This time I concentrated on finding my grandmother’s mother.  We know her name to be Hanna Nelson – very common name in Sweden, unfortunately.  We have narrowed it down to 3!  There is a Johanna Maria Nilsson, a Johanna Matilda Nilsson and a Johanna Amanda Nilsson.  They were all in the Parish of Hedvig Eleonora in September of 1889 when my grandmother was born, and they all lived within blocks of each other!!!  AAHHHHGGGG. I worked with Ola from 10 to 1pm and then we said that what we had found was a good start for one day! 

John and I went to lunch and went back to our workstations, and I compared all the information I had just found. We were able to leave at 3pm today and when I got home, I put all this info into a spread sheet just to visualize all of this information.  This will be an ongoing search for more info on each one of these ladies.  Before we can be sure.  Stay tuned!

When we got home, we checked our mailbox and today there was a card in it for my birthday in August!  Janell sent it early enough so it would make it in time!  She mailed it on July 10 from Hawaii, and it got here on July 26^th!  Not too bad heh? We got to talk to Jennifer and Jaylen today also.

Saturday – John got all the laundry done and the housecleaning is done, we had breakfast and were going to go out and visit a Chinese Garden at the Palace….but we got started on Family History and yes, even John did Family History.  We worked on the computer until 5pm!  Time flies when you are having fun!  We ran out to get the car gassed up and ate dinner and hit the grocery store, so John could play with the scanner! I mean to get more ice cream!  I took a picture of the gas prices – so they are listed in Swedish krona – exchange rate is for 1 US dollar  = 9.11 krona. (This fluctuates from day to day) the price of the first grade is 12.78 – and that is not for a gallon it is for 1 litre and 1 gallon equals 3.79 litres. We bought 2.1 gallons of gas that translates to $5.31 per gallon.

Sunday – We picked up the Borg’s for church and it was a nice Sunday.  There was a lady that gave a talk – speaking Spanish- who had Sister Espinoza translate it into Swedish and then one of our Sister Missionaries translated from Swedish into English! 

We hope that you will have a wonderful new week ahead of you!  Enjoy your summer and know that we think of you often and miss you all.  We haven’t updated you lately on the sunrise and sunsets …. So here we go:

Sunrise - Sunset     

Community Garden we walk past
every day on our way to and from
work. The elevator to go down to the
train is right at the end of this pic
"Rädhuset"

June 6:  3:38   - 9:58

June 10: 3:35 – 10:02

June 11: 3:34 – 10:03

June 12: 3:34 – 10:04

June 14: 3:33 – 10:06

June 16: 3:27 – 10:07

June 19: 3:32 – 10:09

June 21: 3:32 – 10:09 -Midsommer

June 23: 3:33 – 10:10

June 26: 3:39 – 10:07

July 2: 3:39 – 10:07

July 15: 3:58 – 9:51

July 25: 4:18 – 9:33

July 28: 4:25 – 9:26

Now, around 10 o’clock it is getting darker again! 

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

Missionary Week 44

Missionary Week 44 July 15 – July 21, 2019

Hello everyone!  We hope you have had another great week like we have! 

Headed home one afternoon -
Beautiful Clouds and sun behind

Monday – It was cloudy in the morning going to work.  We went to lunch, John had to walk over to a shop at T-Central Station and of course it was pouring rain by lunch!  He said he almost lost the umbrella a couple of times as he crossed over the bridge above the highway and river it was very windy!  We heard from two of our girls who were on the road this last week, and one was home and the other close to home.  We were glad to see some of their pictures of their vacations and travel.  It was still raining when we came home this afternoon. 

Tuesday –  This morning when we got to the train station we noticed that the trains coming in were only going to Hötorget (pronounced Hair -tore-E-Yet)  one stop BEFORE our stop at T-Central.  So we had to wait 9 minutes for the train going further!  We had a good day once we got there – we were only late by about 5-7 minutes of our regular time. 

Poster on outside - sorry it's light

We left early at 3pm to meet our other Senior Couples that meet for a monthly “Family Home Evening”.  We met at the Natural History Museum which was holding a special exhibit of Wildlife Photography.  It was amazing.  I thought the exhibit was from one photographer – but it was from many.  Of course, we weren’t allowed to take pictures – but I did take a picture of a poster hanging outside.  They each had their story of how long the photographer had to wait to take the precise moment for the pic, and some had no time at all to prepare and still got amazing shots.  After we got through with that exhibit, we meandered around the museum and looked at several floors of exhibits.  It was all free and it was very crowded, the lady at the front desk said – “We are always busy when it rains!” 

Natural History Museum near
University of Stockholm

The exhibits were fantastic   Then we all climbed into the Clouse’s Van and headed to Taby Centrum for a nice hamburger place that they had enjoyed.  The menu was in English!  We had a good time with The Ashby’s and Clouse’s and then they took us to Morby Centrum to catch our train home.  It was a fun evening. I think I’ve told you before they are both from Arizona too!

Wednesday – Happy Birthday to our 14yr old Granddaughter Avery!  Every time we see pictures of the grandkids they look like they have grown so tall.  In May and July we have at least one birthday every week in the month and at least one anniversary.  Love our calls to and from the family. 

Work was a normal day and they seem to pass so quickly. 

Thursday -  John looked up the schedule for the train we needed and now we go in just a little later, catch the 6:38 train to T- Central! 

At home they are celebrating Pioneer Days.  In St. Johns, it is a week full of activities and we sure missed it.  The kids all sent Marco Polos’ of the things going on.  Our daughter-in-law Rachel and her sister sang and played their guitars and a harmonica during the Ice Cream Social.  Thursday night it’s free ice cream and socializing! 

Pioneer Days Celebrates when the Mormon Pioneers made it into the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847.  So, the celebration is always around the 24^th.  Early in the week they have Volleyball tournaments – so families or friends get a group together and go play.  They have a BBQ dinner and free swimming one night, the Friday Campfire Circle is well attended – There is a big open area up by the airport and everyone “Circles the Wagons” – nowadays it’s “Circle The Trucks/Cars” but it’s a huge circle and everybody brings tables, chairs and canopy’s and pot luck and have your dinner together with family and friends and then walk around the circle to see who came to town! 

Saturday morning is the big Parade.  There is several rodeos’ during the week – Jr. and Sr. Rodeo’s etc.  It looks like they had good weather – I’m sure it was hot out in the sun. 

Friday – We went to work and got the shuttles off this morning and worked until 3:30, we had 40.2 hours for this week.  We are hoping the man that brings us boxes from the Military Archive will be back from vacation next week – we have 5 boxes left!

Saturday – After John got the laundry done, we had breakfast and got ready to go downtown to a movie for the evening.  We wanted to see the Apollo 11 movie and it was to start at 6pm.  It was easy to find – one block from the train station.  

Pond at Rådmansgaten

We walked around to see that area of town first, found a nice little park to sit at for a few minutes – too bad there wasn’t any water in the pool for the poor birds.  But it was a nice shady spot. 

We found an Asian restaurant that had a nice buffet and ate an early dinner.  Then got to the theater about an hour early.  It was a fantastic movie.  Of course, I remember watching it when it was LIVE!  There was a lot more than what we were shown on TV, they really did a good job documenting the whole event. 

Sunday – Went to church with the Borg’s and had a good Sabbath Day.  Elder Borg is our English Sunday School Teacher – and we were the only ones in class!  Everyone else is on vacation! 

The Lion King Poster - they have several
different pictures -I'll try to catch
one with a LION! = Translataion -
World Premier at the Cinema
Wednesday 17 July

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

Missionary Week 43

Missionary Week 43    July 8-14, 2019

We completed another week here in Sweden.  The week goes by so fast.  The Archive is pretty quiet with almost everyone gone on vacation.  There is a “skeleton crew” so they still keep their hours open, but in the office area – only the lights are on over the person’s desk who is actually there – so it seems so quiet and dark.  Most of the employees will be back at the end of July or first week of August! 

Monday –  We got to work, had a normal day and back home.  We had to print out a lot of papers to renew our Visa for the last 6 months of our Mission.  The Mission Office Secretary has to get us an appointment first and that has been taking a long time.  Our Visa’s don’t expire until the end of September but she was able to get an appointment for this coming Friday.  Tonight, we filled in all of the papers.  We were able to catch a couple of our kids on Marco Polo and catch up with them.  We were sad to hear of the passing of Matt’s Grandmother in Iowa – they were on their way back to Iowa and made it home, but Gramma Bev had passed away before they got there.  They will stay until the services that are planned for Friday.   

Tuesday – Today was a little chilly, with some sprinkles of rain and a little windy. Nothing new at work.  Tonight, I was able to find my Dad’s Ham radio call sign. W7UCP!  He was in 3 books that I found for 1948, 1949 and 1950.  I know he kept his license, because I remember him using it and I was born “several years” later! 😊  What was funny/coincidence was that a few names down the page from my dad was a Harvey G. Wilhelm from St. Johns, AZ.  I’m pretty sure that is Spence [& Christine] Wilhelm’s Father. 

Wednesday – HAPPY BIRTHDAY to JAYNE our granddaughter!  She’s on vacation with her family so we hope she got to see it!

Thursday – Work – We had a lot of work this week so we got those files transferred to our shuttles and ready to go in the morning.  We talked with Jon & Jaylen both who were headed out to camp, one to Colorado and one to the Beaver Ponds!  We are waiting to hear how fun their vacations were.

Friday – We went to work and stayed until 11.  Then we took the train to Sundyberg for the Migration Appointment to renew our Visa’s.  We will know in a month if we pass!  If we are declined, he informed us that we will be given 4 weeks to leave!  We had lunch at the Sushi restaurant next door to the Migration office.  We picked a salad with marinated chicken in it and it was wonderful. 

Saturday – JR got the laundry done, we got ready for the rest of the day and headed out to Norrtalje about an hour north of here.  

They were holding an “American Car Show”.  It started at 10am – but we got there about 2:30-3:00 we had to find a parking lot several blocks away and walk up the street.  We decided to not pay the 150 Kronas to get in (a little over $15 a piece) because we had seen more cars on the road leaving the show than were left at the show!  We have noticed a lot of classics around here and they are pretty cool. 

We also took a little side trip to a church, the sign said: Frötuna K:a.  We walked around the church and took some pictures it was very pretty with a view of a big lake and the church cemetery was pretty amazing.  We started to go inside the church but notice a wedding taking place!  So we went back out and walked around some more until they were through and headed off to a party.  I found this on Wikipedia: The oldest parts of the church are dated to the end of the 12th century  The weather vane had a year on it of 1871. 

It was a beautiful sunny day today – until our drive back into Stockholm it rained, but it was really fresh smelling.

Sunday –  Off to church this morning, we picked up the Borgs and it was a small group today – with a lot of people on vacation.  It is such a friendly bunch of people. 

We hope you are enjoying your Summer and time with family. Have another Great Week!

Love, Elder & Sister Richardson, Mom & Dad, Gramma & Grampa

Missionary Week 42 - July 1 -7, 2019

Missionary Week 42       July 1, 2019 – July 7, 2019

Happy July!  We hope you all had a wonderful Fourth of July, wherever you are!  We had a great week and we saw fireworks in Sweden!  It wasn’t on the fourth but the Sixth!  We have no idea what they were for, but we figured better late than never!!!  This week was way out of the ordinary and that is a good thing…. keeps you on your toes and awake! 

Fireworks down the street - by Alvik
on July 6, 2019!

Monday- Happy Birthday to our daughter Jennifer!  And Happy 2^nd Anniversary to our daughter Janell & son-in-law Joshua!!  We didn’t set an alarm for this morning because we had not received an email from our supervisor here in Sweden – Sven – they are trying to get us a new contract so that we can capture the boxes that are now here at the archive from the Military archive.  So, we had no work to do…. John had ½ box left.  We had breakfast and headed into work around 10am.  We started to get to work, John on the box that was left, and I had Apartment check reports to turn in…to my dismay, I had forgotten the report pages that I needed to scan and send!  I created a draft email so that when I scan the reports I will only need to attach and send.  Then I was done!  I took the opportunity to go work on my own Family History.

I headed up to the main lobby and asked assistance to find the court record for my Great-Grandfather.  The librarian was very helpful and knew which book to order first so that I could trace the court records.  It is so interesting and amazing that they kept such good records. 

They give you a desk number in the reading room for you to sit at as you await the retrieval of the book.  The first book was an index and you find the name of your person and find what book and page his information is in. I went to get the librarian and with his help I found that Carl Johan Carlsson was in another book and the item number was 372.  

Index page

The case listing

First page of court minutes

This is the Report from the victim

The librarian ordered that book and I waited and when that book came, I knew to go directly to item #372. 

Long story short, Carl Johan Carlsson, a Korporal [Corporal] was arrested along with a buddy – Erik Wilhelm Engstrom a guard and accused by “an office worker” Johan Emil Sandstrom of stealing money from him.  I won’t give you the full 8-page transcription here, but I will shorten the story and I will send the full story to my brother, cousin and children – when I get it all done!  The record begins with the “victim’s” side of the story, and the individual interviews from both accused.  So, they do get to tell their side of the story. 

The next librarian to help me would read a paragraph and then interpret for me as I wrote it down and I could ask questions as we went along.  The date of this event was the week of 17 October 1887 – my great-grandfather was 24 years old.  The two military buddies were out drinking and met this man about 7pm.  They drank until midnight and had talked the man into going back to the barracks with them to drink some more.  The man was drunk but agreed and they all went back to the barracks – the man fell asleep. The man had a coat and in the coat was his wallet.  Carl went through the coat, found the wallet and gave some money to Erik to go buy more Brandy and food.  When the man woke up his wallet was on the floor by the bed and the money was gone.  The two men had similar stories but said that the man had told them to take his money and go get more brandy.  In the verdict, the judge decided that Carl was the instigator and was sentenced to 2 months in jail to hard labor which was crushing rocks and he lost his rights as a citizen – he couldn’t vote, and he couldn’t work for one year.  He was sent to the military prison.  Erik, the other guard was fined and sent back to work.  When arrested both Carl & Erik admitted they were guilty.  The librarian told me that this was Carl’s first offence – so that was a good thing.  If they were caught a third time for theft, they lost a hand!!! Carl must have learned his lesson well, because he stayed in Sweden for another 3 years until he arrived in America on the 8^th day of September 1890 in New York.  One mystery solved.

Dinner! 

We left work about 3:30, the trains were packed and didn’t get a seat for several stops.  We picked up dinner at the little shop by the train station – ASAP Wok and Grill

Tuesday- Our supervisor Sven came to the archive today, and we had a meeting with him and the Borgs about our projects and we awaited the new Project number, it came in somewhere around 3-4pm.  He took us all out to lunch at the Hong Kong restaurant and it was good food and he is a native Swede, so we were able to ask a lot of questions about Sweden’s history – and current events  We worked until 5:30 and then walked Sven to T-central where he caught his train back to Örebro – where he lives!  We were just there last week and didn’t know it.  

We got to catch up with some of our kids – so good to see and hear from them.

Wednesday – Today we got to work before 7am and I went and finished the apartment reports and sent them to Sister Clouse….funny story…I went to my contacts and searched for Clouses and 2 emails showed up and I knew that the wife would probably be the one that needed the report so I sent it to Margot instead of Elder Clouse.  Glad to have that done.  Then Thursday – John asked me if I was able to send the report off and I said yes, I sent it to Margot, that’s when it hit me that Margot is Elder Clouse’s Sister-in-law and not his wife!  OOPS!  She and her husband were in Sweden on their mission a couple of years ago and my friend Elynn had given me her email to write to her and find out about the mission.  I hurriedly sent a new email to Kari and told her what I had done.  I found out later at our dinner on the 4^th of July that Margot was so thrilled to get an email and be reminded of her mission! 

We finished up work at 4 and stopped in Kristenberg for groceries – we have been asked to bring a fruit plate to our Senior Couple dinner at the President’s home to wish the Kelly’s a fond farewell.  They have been here for 2 years with the Young Single Adults down south in Goteborg.

 Thursday- Last night there was construction going on from 10pm – 4am. That’s when the crews show up, they are putting in new asphalt around our intersection.  We went and worked until 2:30 and headed for home to change and pick up our food and the Borgs picked us up to go to the Mission Home.  We had hamburgers and hot dogs, beans, chips and fruit and salad.  A real American dinner!  With Strawberry Shortcake for dessert! 

 Friday – This morning we had a couple of cute Marco Polos from the 4^th of July Celebrations from home.  All the kids from St. Johns got together up at the hangar and had dinner and games and watched the fireworks there.  Spencer & Greta Baker were able to come up to St. Johns from Eagar too! 

Grandkids +1  

 Jenn said all of a sudden, there was this little boy hanging around and playing games with them.  They played Red Rover, and he finally said to them…” Um My name is Howard in case anyone wants to call on me!”  so funny and cute.  Before the sun went down, they got a picture for us of all the grand-kids there – in birth order – because that’s how Gramma does things!  And Howard even stepped in for the photo-op! We are glad he did!  The mom came over and said, “I guess your party is more fun than our party!”  They live up the street from our house! 

Saturday- John did the laundry, I cleaned and made breakfast and then we went to the movies in Kista – we found out today you pronounce it Shista!  K’s are sometimes Sh and sometimes k’s depends on where the vowels are apparently.  We went to see the Avengers: End game.  It was a great movie – wish we knew who more of the people were in it, but it was fun.  Then we rode back to Alvik – one train stop away from ours and walked to an Italian restaurant we had seen before.  It was wonderful!  John had a seafood pasta – with shrimp, mussels, calamari, scallops and oyster’s and I had Lasagna with artichokes, zucchini and red and green peppers – and cheese.  Then we walked home.  Nice and cool today – with a few scattered showers.

Sunday – We went to church and had more visitors today.  A girl who was on her mission here last year came back with her family today. The family of an Elder that was released on Thursday came over to pick him up and see Sweden and visit our Ward in Jacobsberg and visit Denmark where their other son served 2 years ago.  Great to visit with them and say goodbye.  He was the missionary in our ward right before we got here – but he was transferred before we got to meet him.  We have a new Sister Missionary now, we saw her but didn’t get to meet her we were in different meetings.  It has been a cool day again; the clouds can be beautiful – gray but then bright white with them.

We hope your week ahead is a marvelous one, of good health, safe travels and enjoying your family. 

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