Missionary
Week 69 January 6, 2020 ~ January 12, 2020 |
| Windows decorated in Sigtuna at The American Food & Gift Store |
This
week has gone by just as fast as some of our other weeks – it just seems like
it was 2 or 3 different weeks rolled into one!
Monday
– Holiday - Epiphany (/ɪˈpɪfəni/ i-PIF-ə-nee) is a Christian feast day that celebrates the revelation (theophany[1]) of God incarnate as Jesus Christ.
In Western Christianity, the
feast commemorates principally (but not solely) the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child, and thus Jesus' physical manifestation to
the Gentiles. It is sometimes called Three
Kings' Day, and in some traditions celebrated as Little Christmas. (Thanks to Wikipedia)
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| Information Center & Gift Store |
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| New Hair Cut |
The archive is
closed today – so we set up hair appointments and another little trip to
Sigtuna! John wanted a haircut, and as
he says – he got ALL of them cut…. short! It looks great, but his ears are cold now on
our way to and from work!
Then we headed to
Sigtuna and some of the shops were open, so we were able to find a few things
that I had wanted to take home. We
walked around some more and saw that the church (St. Peters) that had scaffolding
around it when Janell was here – we noticed there was no scaffolding! So, we were able to walk in and take pictures
of the inside of the ruins of that church.
It is really an amazing rock structure.
You can see where the roofs and floors were.
****************
What
I found ABOUT, S:T PETER’S CHURCH RUIN
King and church – with common
goals
When Sigtuna was founded by
King Erik the Victorious around year 980, the intent was to seek control over
people and create an empire like the European kingdoms. He already had the
knowledge of building a town, but he needed the church to cooperate.
Erik was a modern Scandinavian king. The goal was a kingdom with
one king and one God. He would be the king and head of Church. The project was
exciting and curious for the powerful men in the area of Sigtuna- a Christian
city!
Sigtuna was founded to be the first Christian town in Sweden –
the centre of the new religion.
During the Middle Ages, as many as seven large stone churches
were erected by merchant guilds and wealthy townspeople.
Today, the ruins of three
remain: St. Peter’s, St. Lawrence’s, and St. Olaf’s (St. Per, St. Lars, and St.
Olof).
When we got home, we walked to the little
shop by the train stop and got dinner to take home and eat.
Tuesday
– We headed to Zone Conference in Gubbängen and got
there about 8am and were able to help The Baileys finish putting table runners
on the tables - it really looked nice.
At 8:30, we had 15 minutes of personal study and then went into the presentations
from the District Leaders.
Today’s theme
was Faith, Hope and Charity. There were
some fantastic thoughts presented. We
had lunch, and the Birthday song and then we moved into the chapel for
testimonies and musical numbers. This
was a sad day, because our friends, the Apartment Couple, the Clouse’s are
finishing up their mission and will leave next Tuesday. The Bailey’s, our Office Couple are leaving
about a week later – We all cried.
Our
Mission President and his wife will be leaving in July – so our Mission as
we know it – is not going to look the same!
People change, the work is still here, and the Gospel remains the Same!
Wednesday
– We are back to work today! It was nice to get back, I didn’t finish my
box today, but I will early tomorrow. So
many little papers.
On our way home we saw a girl
almost get hit by a car today. I’ll give
you a lesson on the Transportation rules here in Sweden!
There is a hierarchy here, Buses
are #1, Bikes are #2 and Pedestrians #3.
For example, if anybody sees a bus coming, you let them go first - they
have the right of way – because they have a tight schedule. Bikes have the right of way – except when
they have a red light – and yes there are tiny signals just for the bikes –
they have their own lane on the sidewalk, next to the lane for Pedestrians. Then Pedestrians have to obey signals – but if
there are no cars, buses you can walk across the street – but you understand it’s
at your own risk. Generally, the lights
are synced when there are two lanes of traffic, but at our round-a-bout they
are not. The lights stop the cars going east
and we can walk to the center island and wait for the light to change for the
cars going west.
There was a lot of people walking
home today, and there was a girl out in front, with her ear buds on and she was
looking at her phone, she didn’t stop in the middle island and a van had to stop
fast to not hit her – there was another car coming that stopped and all of us
in the middle were just shocked and gasping.
No one was close enough to her to pull her back, she didn’t hear anything
and merrily kept walking and I don’t know that she even knows how close she
came to being hit. We have safety videos
we watch to remind Missionaries to have “situational awareness” …know what is
going on around you!
We were able to talk to Jennifer
and then Jaylen and we got a Marco Polo from Janell. Janell and Joshua are headed to California,
Arizona and Utah for a quick break before Joshua goes back to school.
Thursday
– Work was good.
The Sall’s have been working on a list of forms that we don’t tag to
redact and it’s in alphabetical order, so it has been a great tool. All three
of our couples ended up in the lunchroom together – we had a great discussion. We walked to the train after work with the
Salls today.
We got a Marco Polo from Janell; they
were in St. Johns staying in our Motor-home!
It was 1 am AZ time, they made it to Arizona!
Friday
– Work was fine, we got the shuttles shipped off, had
lunch together again. We left at 3 pm to
get home for laundry! We had corn on the
cob, that’s not out of the ordinary – but this corn comes in a vacuumed packed
package! It tasted…just like corn!
Saturday
– Busy day today, we went to the Temple for the 10 o’clock
session. It was good to be back; they
were closed over the holidays for cleaning.
We took the Quist’s home from the temple – they had to ride the train to
the temple.
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| Clouse's and Richardson's |
President Youngberg showed us some
Mission History books, and a First Edition of the Book of Mormon in Swedish –
one was dated 1878.
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| Pres & Sis Youngberg - with Elder & Sister Bailey |
We were able to get pictures afterward and
said our Goodbyes.
Sunday
– We had a Ward Conference today, and they changed our
Bishopric. It was a great meeting and
then we went into Relief Society and it was packed! The Stake President and the new Bishop came
in to say a few words at the end of the hour.
They had “Fika” after church, but we didn’t stay. On the way home we saw the beautiful SUN!
We are pretty sure we won’t have
any more holidays now, so we will have to get used to working 5 days a
week!
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| SUN! |
We hope you are having a
wonderful New Year! Hope you are warm
and healthy.
We think of you often and miss
you! Love hearing from you! Love, John & Linda, Mom & Dad, Gramma
& Grampa
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