Missionary
Week 78 March 9, 2020 ~ March 15, 2020
It’s
about time I finished telling you about our last week in Sweden! It was a crazy mixed up week and even at the
time it felt like it went just as fast as the other weeks, until we were waiting
to hear something – anything about when we would be leaving!
Monday – Left for work at our normal time, I had a lot of
Dcam errors today but did finish a box and almost got another one done. We went
to lunch at 1pm and ate with Salls and Quists.
We left at 4pm. I saw that Ole was
working at the desk, so I stopped and asked him to show me tax records that I
need to look at every page to see if my Grandmother was in anyone’s household. I did not find her.
The Salls came home with us to
see our apartment, they are interested in moving into our apartment when we
leave, it has a shorter train ride into work.
We had tacos for dinner
Tuesday – We went to work in a mist. Worked on box and finished it. I fixed some re-work – we had Volume numbers
for several boxes and found out that instead of D11: it was suppose to be roman
numerals – so we had to bring up every box and re-do the meta data to reflect
the Roman Numerals! Not hard, but you have
to go through the evaluation on each one. That is now done.
My Dcam errors they think is because
Win7 has not been updated – they want me to finish this last week then they
will send in my computer to be updated to Win10. I finished my work at 2pm and went upstairs
to do a little genealogy work. I searched several books, and databases but can’t
find my grandmother from birth to about the age of 7. She did go to Germany, but I couldn’t find
the passenger list for that either.
We went home and had dinner and
started packing our Big suitcase with all of our souvenirs, it was jammed
packed and weighed in at 40lbs. John
wasn’t feeling very good today he had a sore throat.
Wednesday – Went to work we were a little late for train but
caught the 6:33 and snuck into one of the first cars before they closed the
door. I finished my box today. John texted our Mission President wife to
tell her that he had a little cold (they’d asked us to inform them if we had
any health issues so they could go through protocol). He felt fine, but she sent back the decision
that because we are trying to be good community people with the Coronavirus
going on that if you are sick you need to be home. So, we finished our boxes and transferred
files and we counted it our last day there.
It felt like it came to a screaming halt. We cleaned out our stations and made sure we
had taken all of our belongings. We were
going to take the Quists and Salls to lunch but told them we had to go home and
gave them some money to go to lunch since we couldn’t take them. John doesn’t have a temperature. We are hoping that we can still fly home on
the 17th. We picked up food
at the train station.
Thursday – Happy Birthday to our Granddaughter Rylee! We slept in a bit, had breakfast – we have 1
egg left. Got a call from Sis Youngberg
and informed us that the church is sending ALL Senior Couples Home, from ALL of
Europe Missions! USA has banned all
flights by Friday night at Midnight. We
haven’t heard back but we are all packed and apartment is cleaned and we did
all laundry. We Marco Polo’d all the kids
to tell them we’re coming home we just don’t know when! Our supervisor Sven, called to say goodbye to
us. We are ready to go when we get a call. Friday or maybe Saturday. We also may be quarantined for 2 weeks at
home.
Friday
– Friday the 13th! My grandmother – Elvira Karlson Ashburn was born
on a Friday the 13th – and she told me that it was a lucky day for
her because she was born! We had cereal
for breakfast, finished cleaning the kitchen. We still have freezer items. We got an email from Sister Youngberg that she
had sent our itineraries – then she said except for yours! “We are asking if you are to keep your scheduled
flight on Tuesday!” We just got word it’s
11:30am that the Quists are flying out Saturday at 11, going to Amsterdam, Detroit
and Phoenix. Wish we knew something!
Had dinner – leftovers! We talked with Jaylen, sent Marco’s to all
kids tonight – we got a call from Sister Youngberg she sent our itinerary – We leave
Sunday morning – supposedly same flight we had scheduled – Stockholm to London
and then Phoenix.
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| Our Apartment - The one with our Christmas Tree on the Balcony |
Saturday – We were up around 5am – John went to laundry and
we started the last loads of laundry – sheets and blankets. We got a call from Sister Youngberg and we
don’t know who is taking us to the airport yet, but we may have to stay at the
Club house and go with some of the Junior Missionaries that are going home also. We cleaned out the fridge, freezer and
cupboards of any opened packages. We went
and got the car washed and gassed up.
Came home and packed up the car and took our last pictures of our
apartment.
Then we headed to the Mission
Office. We gave the Elders there all our
food. The Elders that are taking over
for the Mission Office couple took us to the airport hotel, in our car since
all the suitcases were packed in it.
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| Stockholm Arlanda Airport |
We finally found the Radisson Blue
Hotel and got all our luggage to our room and walked around to find where we
need to go in the morning. Nice to have
the hotel at the airport – it was a long walk, but we will have a luggage
cart. We went down to MacDonald’s for
dinner and walked as far as we could the other way – so we’ve seen the
airport. We saw where we came in our
first day and Clouse’s picked us up. It
was dusk and we looked out the huge windows and saw a million birds flying off
one of the roofs of the buildings and from the light poles. It was amazing. We came back to room and talked to Jon, Jenn
and Matt – we got an email telling us that there was to be no big groups gathering
at the airports so that put a kink in all the kids plans – So now they are
deciding who is going to come down and get us!
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| On our way! |
Sunday
– We were up at 5am and got ready, and made our way to
our gate, we were told that we couldn’t fly into Phoenix because Phoenix wasn’t
accepting planes that needed screening for the virus. So, they took us to another counter to re-book
us going somewhere else. Then the lady
said – we just need to get you on the first flight to London and then figure
out where you will be going from there – but if we don’t go now, you’ll miss
that flight. We made it on that flight
and that lady came and found us on the plane with a scrap paper with some
numbers on it and said “I think we have you booked going into LAX” We thanked her for getting that much info to
us.
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| One of the treats we got! |
We made it to London and had to
pick up our luggage and go through all of the security again – we lost a tube
of toothpaste! We had a little time and
got to eat a sandwich. We were able to
call and talk to some of the kids – Then we were off to our new gate going to
LAX.
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| London Airport |
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| Leaving London |
The flight to LA was I think a 10 hr.
flight – we napped a little – maybe 1-2 hrs.
We had to stand in a long line to get a kiosk and answer the same
questions that we had filled out on a paper on the flight over. Then we had to wait in line for our
temperatures to be taken and then we had to wait in a line for customs. We had to go pick up all of our luggage and the
baggage carts were not free! All of the
Europe terminals they are free and plentiful – not in LAX. We let the kids know we were in the US and waiting
for our flight to Phoenix.
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| Our Welcome Home Sign - We are glad to be home!! |
We got into
Phoenix about 11:30 pm and we have been up for 27-28 hours! We picked up our luggage and rolled 4 big
bags and 2 carry-ons and got them outside and Jon and Jaylen had driven down
and picked us up at Terminal 4 – Door 3 North!
They had to drive 2x around the complex until they could get in line to
pick us up. John got to them first and
started to load the car and it was so good to see our boys! We hugged and got in the car – and off we
went for our 4-hour drive back home! We
talked all the way – catching up on as much as we could! We stayed awake the whole time too. We arrived in St. Johns at 3am – Arizona time,
dropped Jon off at his house and came home to our Motor home!
We slept for about 4 hours and it was time to
get up!
Monday
– March 16th – We are so
glad to be home. We have seen all the
kids here in St. Johns – Titus was scared of us – he hid behind his dad’s legs while
we visited with the rest of the family. We’ve
been able to call Brothers and Sisters and friends to tell them we are
home. We are in self-quarantine for 14
days. We have not been released from our
mission – our Stake President will have to do that sometime after the 14 days.
We are out of our quarantine and
now we have to stay at home anyway! So,
we hope that everyone is staying healthy and safe. Our best to you. Thank you for going on our adventure to
Sweden with us! We loved the Country and
the people. We are grateful for our time
there – the places we saw and the people we met. We will miss them, but we are so happy to be
around our little family once again.
That was the hardest thing, to be so far away from loved ones.
Love, John & Linda, Mom &
Dad, Gramma & Grampa
