Our Swedish Elders's Farewell



The Swedish Elder's wanted us to come and say good bye to them. Our Tutor Zak Jenson asked us to come to their farewell testimonial.  They were real excited to see us and it was so fun to be with them. I wished them well in a little speech I gave in Swedish! This was on Saturday and they all left on Monday. They have been in the MTC for 9 weeks. They had language lessons everyday most of the day so they really have the language mastered.

Front Row: Elder Nelson, Elder Overstreet, Sister Dabb, Sister Kisser, Me
Back row: Elder Bruun, Neal, Elder Grigg,  Elder Lampihen, Elder Chipman, Elder Youd, Elder Lopp and Elder Nelson
Elder Jenkins was sick so his companion Elder Monson stayed with him so they are not in the photo.

These Elders are the best, they are so helpful and fun to be with. They were sure excited to get to Sweden and see what city they would be serving in.  They will all be in the Mission home in Stockholm for 3 days then off to their areas.





 

While Neal was in a music store, Carol took me to this really cute Chocolate Cafe.

We sat and ate cupcakes and laughed so hard our sides hurt.

 I guess you know that we are still waiting for our

Visa's. So they give us lot of freedom to visit and shop. That will help explain the next photos with our friends. Trust me we still get plenty of time to study our Swedish. In fact sometimes I think my head is going to burst! My Tutor says I am doing real good.



This is my girlfriend from my Montebello High School days. Barbara Schmidt Peterson. We had so much fun when we together.  We were always planning parties at my house and just having fun. She now lives in Utah so she came and picked me up and we spent the afternoon together. It was so much fun to be with her and get caught up on our lives.

 

On our way to our Tuesday Devotional we met our good friend Doug Brenchley. When we were married he sang "Some Enchanted Evening" at our reception in Ogden. He now leads the choir at the MTC (Mission Training Center) The Young Elders under his conducting will be singing at the Priesthood Session of General Conference.









Neal's Surgery



What a surprise. Neal started to have a black dot in his right eye that started to get bigger.  On Monday September 13, with the help of the Mission Home they were able to get him an appointment at 10 with an Opthamologist and was refered to a Retinologist at 11 It was determined that he had a detached retina and had surgery at 5 pm. We still don't have our Visas but it wouldn't make any difference as he cannot fly till the gas bubble in his eye is gone, about 2 weeks. We have found out that our visa's should be here by then. Neal has not had any pain with his eye!



This is our CES group we really got close to them and saw each one as they left for there missions all over the world. Some were waiting for their Visa's and they came in on the last day. What a relief for them.



We were on our way to the cafeteria and heard our names called.  We turned and there was Sister Elizabeth Rosenloft. I t is always so nice to see a familiar face. She is really enjoying the MTC and has a great companion.



We had a volunteer from Provo come to our language class to talk to us in Swedish. He would correct how we said the words and what was proper in their language. His name was Bob Lundquist. We found out that his brother and his wife are serving in the office in the Stockholm Mission Home. On Sunday we got a call from them, letting us know that our Visa's should be there by the end of the month. What a fun time we had with Bob Lundquist who also served his mission 53 years ago in Sweden and was known as "The Big Brown Bear" as he has a beautiful bass voice and did a lot of singing in Sweden. He has also been a member of the Tabernacle Choir!





Neal is by our Swedish Tudors. Zak and Michael.

We were able to spend the weekend in Lehi with Steve's family. We went to Gracie's and Ethan's Soccer games. They both won their games. So they were really excited. They are both star players on their teams.



MTC Provo Utah

Arriving at the MTC (Missionary Training Center) on Monday September 6, 2010

Michael, Ashli, and Carol dropped us off at the MTC.

We are standing inside the famous world map at the MTC pointing to Sweden where we will serve! Notice my arm won't even go up that high.

Our first devotional was on Tuesday September 7, 2010. All Senior Couples have a special area reserved for them right in the front. Elder Lowell Snow of the Seventy and his wife were our keynote speakers. While singing the opening hymn we noticed Doug Brenchly  a good friend of ours was the conductor. He noticed us in the audience and got a big grin on his face and mouthed "Where are you going?" I mouthed back "Sweden!" He will be leading the Missionary Choir in October General Conference.

My cousin Myrna and Bill brought their grandson Michael Marshall to the MTC on Wednesday. I was able to break away from lunch and find them. It was fun to see a new "greenie" arrive. He is going to French speaking mission in Canada. It was good to see some familiar faces!

Wednesday night we called Michael to see if they were having a girl or a boy.  They said I would have to go to the MTC Post Office and pick up a package. The P.O. was closed so we had to wait till after our 1st class Thursday morning. We were so surprised to be handed this big cookie just like what you see. (It was not in a package) It was delivered by UPS (it did have a plastic cover on it) We took it to our zone class, there are 5 Sr Couples in our zone. We all enjoyed eating what we could then found some Young Elders and gave the rest of the cookie to them.

WE ARE SO HAPPY TO HAVE ANOTHER GRANDDAUGHTER COMING THE END OF JANUARY!!!

We stopped by to chat with some Elders studying, they asked where we were from and we said Ridgecrest, CA this Elder said "well I have a brother that lives in Ridgecrest. Come to find out his brother lives in our ward, he name is McCain Cox!!
What a small world

This is our zone group

Elder and Sister Oakden (SL Headquarters security), Elder and Sister Poelson (Michigan, CES), Us,

Elder and Sister Hatch (Congo, office work) Elder and Sister Lurf (Kenya, Africa CES)

These are all the Senior Missionary Couples with us at the MTC. Can you find us?

Saturday was our P-Day (Preparation Day) so we walked across the street to the Provo Temple and did a session.

Our Mission Farewell

Bert and Marie Gould and Rosalee Ferguson had a Farewell Open House for us. We had a nice time visiting and saying goodbye to our good friends. We appreciated the delicious cookies and good conversation. We will miss our friends and look forward to keeping in touch!

Our six kids and their families came home for our farewell. We had family pictures taken by Kiahna Williams. It was quite a fun photo session with 13 adults and 11 grand kids.

Here is a picture of us with all eleven grand kids! They each have such cute personalities. They had so much fun playing in our backyard catching lizards, riding the train, climbing on rocks into the "grand canyon", and making up all kinds of fun games. We will miss spending time with them!

On Friday night the older kids slept out in a tent in the backyard. Before morning they all ended up inside except for Cater...he is a trooper! The younger kids wanted in on the action so we set up a pup tent in the living room for them.

On Sunday was our farewell. Neal and I spoke in Sacrament Meeting and my grand kids and primary girls sang the song "The Holy Ghost." They did a great job! After church it was nice to have all of our family over including my sister and brother and some of their families. The kids got a nice cake with a Swedish flag on it that said "Best Wishes." We sure had a good time visiting with everyone.

A rare picture of my sister, brother, and me (Carolyn Richmond, Bill Blake, me)

On Monday Carol, Allison, Steven, and Rebecca and their families drove to Corona Del Mar to spend a day with me at the beach. They all know how much I love the beach! We had such a relaxing day playing in the sand and swimming in the ocean.

I love the water and had fun jumping waves with my grand kids. Ben loves the water as much as I do!

Group shot on the beach!

While the kids played in the sand the adults had a good time visiting and playing Frisbee!

The kids had so much fun looking for sea shells and playing in the water. I am so glad that I got to spend the day relaxing on the beach with some of my kids and grand kids before I left to Sweden. That night we went to Balboa Pier and then to a fun Mexican Restaurant. It was sure hard to say goodbye to Alli, Rebecca, and Emily and their families. We will say goodbye to the Utah kids when we go into the MTC.

On Tuesday I traveled with Carol to Barstow. Neal met us there with Lily so Carol could drive her to Utah. Neal's sister Noni is going to watch her for us while we are on our mission. Lily has been Neal's little buddy, it was sure hard for us to say goodbye to her! We enjoyed spending our last weekend in Ridgecrest with family. Now we are off on a new adventure to Sweden!