Missionary Week 59

Missionary Week 59 – October 28, 2019 – November 3, 2019

Hello Everyone!  We have had a great week – we finished off our trip to Kalmar and headed home and back to work. 

Inside Dörby Church

Organ - upstairs

Taken from upstairs

Monday – We enjoyed a sunny morning breakfast – all by ourselves – then off to Dörby Church Office.  We stopped at what we thought was the office – only to find out it was the Parish Priests home!  So, he pointed us in the right direction a couple of blocks away.  There we met Tina and Lotta!  They were both willing to help but we didn’t get any new information from them – other than Lotta thinks there still may be living relatives of Carl Johan Karlsson’s brother Gustaf Fritz.  They don’t have the old record books there, like I thought they would. They gave me the address of the National Archives in Vadstena and suggested we go there. 

Lotta is still doing some searches for me and we will stay in touch.  Lotta called the workers at the cemetery, they were mowing and leaf blowing, and they opened up the door to the church so we could go inside.  We took a lot of pictures.  To stand where you know your ancestors stood is pretty amazing! 

We then headed off to see the Kalmar County Museum, we learned about the history of Kalmar.  There were exhibitions of the royal ship Kronan, a Swedish illustrator, Jenny Nyström who went to Paris to learn her art, and Sandby Borg – where archeological excavations found gold artifacts located on the site. 

Stairwell

Then we went shopping in Kalmar – and ended up having a late lunch at a Taco Bar.  Then we made it back to the hotel and we were able to watch the homecoming game between St. Johns and Benson.  We won but it was a close game. We sure miss watching our boys play football. 

Tuesday – We woke up to frost on the pumpkin!  We went to our last breakfast and said goodbye to the lady.  We packed up and headed for Vadstena, which was about 3 ½ hours North west of Smedby.  We went right to the archive which was inside the Vadstena Castle!  It was a beautiful castle. 

I got settled in at a computer to look through the records, and right to the left of where we were sitting was 2 girls at camera stations, capturing record books that they had!  I found a few things on-line that I had not found before on the parents of Jonas Gustaf Karlsson and Augusta Elizabeth Carlström.  John didn’t stay too long with me at the computer but went wandering.  He went all around the castle and sent Marco Polo’s!  We left Vadstena about 3 and headed on home.

Vadstena Castle

 Our friends The Bakers – who are on their mission in San Francisco/Oakland were in their 3^rd day of blackouts.  Their Marco Polo's to us are black but we hear them!  We’re so glad we can stay in touch.

Yummy Vegan BBQ Chicken

We stopped at a MAX hamburger – Sweden’s answer to McDonald's.  John ordered his BBQ sandwich, then we noticed on the receipt it said ***Vegan*** - we were a little worried but he said it was great and couldn’t believe it wasn’t meat!  We got back home about 6:30 and unpacked and got all emails and things refreshed when we hit our wi-fi. 

Wednesday – We have frost here also!  One of the days we were gone, the clocks changed – for Daylight savings!  We had to reset all of our clocks.  It is now lighter when we go to work and we are seeing some cool sunrises.  It was a cold walk this morning – we were in our heavier coats and scarfs. 

Work was fine, and we left at 4pm.  We went to City Gross (grocery store) and came home and made Scotcheroos – minus the Scotch..Butterscotch chips that is.  The American store has them, but they are $7 or so a bag. We are in charge of Lesson and treat for our Senior Couples Family Home Evening tomorrow night. 

Thursday – Happy Halloween!  We saw several people in costume but nothing like the states.  Work was ok – got a couple of boxes done – the new boxes we’re working on have a military card, a medical card and usually an envelope of more medical papers for each soldier – so the work is slowing down a bit. 

We got home, had a quick dinner and headed to the Mission Office to set up our treats and we had a record number of Senior Couples there tonight, 6 couples to be exact.  We had a great time and even remembered to schedule next months date.    John gave a lesson on All Saints Day and All Souls day since this Friday is All Saints Day.

Friday – It was -1*Celsius this morning – 30.2*F.  Work was good, we got our shuttles sent off and we got to leave a 2pm when the Archive closed for ½ day holiday because of All Saints Day.  We came home for laundry and got Marco Polo’s from Rachel, Blaire, Jennifer and Jody of the Halloween costumes and parties they were going to!  So fun.  Later tonight we heard from Janell.  I cleaned the apartment for Halloween.

 Saturday – We had breakfast, and I worked on ArkivDigital – Swedish records on-line.  I re-read a death record of Augusta Elizabeth Carlström Karlsson – and I was able to pick out a word that I had seen before but because I didn’t read Swedish, I didn’t know what the column was for, but today I saw the city name of Örebro.  That was where she had died, in the notes it says that a certificate from the Pastor states she was buried in Longbro.  I always thought that was a city – I went to Google Maps to find all cemeteries near Örebro – and the first thing I saw was “Longbro Cemetery!”  All this time and I figure it out on ALL Saints Day! I’m imagining it wasn’t just me.   Next weekend we are headed to Örebro, we’ve been there a couple of times to do apartment checks and had no idea what we were so close to!

 This afternoon we headed out for a Music Concert at St. Jacobs church in downtown Stockholm, it was a quartet of singers.  It was a beautiful church, they had candles lit on each end of the pews, the sound resonated through the high ceilings and it was very pretty.  They sang songs from Mendelssohn, Bach, Grieg, Brahms, Schubert and Mozart and a few others – including Engelbert Humperdinck = who lived from 1854-1921…. not the Humperdinck I remember but maybe a relative!?  His song was from Hansel and Gretel.

After the concert we walked around the building to the center of Kungstragarden where the ice rink was last year, and people were skating on it. There is a big stage and there was a music concert going on “Shockholm” for Halloween/All Saints day!  A singer named “Miss Sister” came out with her singers and dancers and sang one song and left and they were introducing someone else when we left. 

We headed to Gubbängen for our Stake Conference – it’s the Stake Center – where we hold most of our Zone Conferences.  It was a good meeting and saw lots of our Ward members and some of our Senior Couples were there also.  They had “Fika” afterwards which was a roll with cheese and ham, it was wonderful – we hadn’t eaten since breakfast and this was after 7pm.

That gave us enough energy to go through the Skogskyrkogården that we went to last year.  It’s a huge “woodland cemetery & UNESCO Heritage site” It did not disappoint.  Mass of people, tons of candles and flowers or pine wreaths, pumpkins, rocks, etc. It is a huge place and everywhere you turn there was light.  Last year we were there in the afternoon and left 3:30-4pm ad it was dusk, but this time we were there by 7:30 and it was pitch dark, so we saw the lights through the forest a lot more.  We were more prepared this year, with coats, scarfs and gloves!  Much more comfortable.  We took pictures and sent Marco Polos and came home and watched “COCO”. 

Sunday – We had breakfast and headed out to Stake Conference.  Found a parking spot on the street right by the church.  It was a great meeting.  Wonderful choir and they brought up on the podium about 8-10 children from Primary to sing “I am A Child of God”.  They did so well, there is always one little body that everyone watches – today it was the little boy that was rushed up there at the last moment and they threw him on the end – and he looked out and saw all the people and covered his eyes, first with one hand and that wasn’t good enough so he used both hands!  He eventually got brave and the hands came down!  So cute.  The Choir came in behind the children and it was just beautiful. 

Our Mission President and his wife both spoke, it’s so good to hear from them.  They asked for the members to help the missionaries out – by asking them to come into their homes and teach the lessons to their families.  He said it will only take 15-20 minutes and you will be blessed.  What a great idea. 

That is the end of another week for us.  Tomorrow is Monday, again!  Time truly flies.  We are grateful to be able to stay in touch with all of you and hope that you will enjoy this time of year.  We pray for you and hope you are happy and healthy!  

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