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