The missing photos

This is inside of the ruins of the Brahehus Castle. In the previous blog I have a photo looking out one of these windows. You can tell it is cold. No snow (yet) but cold!

Here is a picture of our friends, the Waites. They helped us out so much. Even though they are clear across the country we still call and get help from them. They have a Center in Uppsula, which is North of Stockholm. He knew of a Pizza Place in Lund so here we are eating pizza in Sweden.  Not exactly the same taste as Pizza in Ridgecrest!!!

Sweden here we come

Sorry we have not kept up with our Blog!!
 We are now in Sweden and have been so busy learning the ropes of our assignments and adjusting to the culture that the time has just flown by!!!

October 28, 2010
 We got our Visa!!!
Here I am in the travel office to check on our visa. Neal and I usually go together but I went alone today not expecting anything as we went in at least 3 times a week!! When i walked in and asked they looked up at me and said Sister Lundwall we just got off the phone and your visa is here!!! Big day for us.
We entered the Missionary Training Center on September 6th, we were to leave for Sweden on September 20th but no Visa, so for 8 weeks we were in the MTC.  Carol, Michael and Ashli came by to help us pack up our stuff as we had them store stuff for us that we would not need in Sweden.  We went to bed at 11PM and had to be ready to leave for the airport at 5AM



October 29, 2010
We left for NYC (yes that is the day of the terrorist threat) so there was only one International runway open and so we waited on the plane.  Three hours later we took off.

October 30, 2010
We arrived in Stockholm at 10:30 AM.  The office couple the Lundquist's picked us up and took us to the Mission Office



This is our Mission Office. At one end is a Pizza Parlor!
They wanted to take us on a tour of Stockholm as they wanted us to keep awake so we could adjust to the time change.

Brother Lundquist also served a mission in Sweden at the same time Neal did (49 years ago).  He drove us by the "Old Mission Home" It is real interesting in Sweden, there is a rule in Sweden that you can't change the outsided appearance of the building and so the Mission name is still on  the building even though it has been sold and used for other purposes.  So it really was like a step back in time to see the building with the name as it was (49 years).
By the time we got to our apartment it was 6PM they wanted to help us unpack and get us settled, we said we would be OK.  When they left we both flopped into bed as we had been up for 26 hours!!  We went right to sleep and woke up 14 hours later!!

We stayed in the Temple Apartments.  They were really nice.  It was more like a motel room but very nice with a nice bathroom.  Downstairs they had a room with computers used mostly for genealogy and they had a big social room and a really nice kitchen.  In the kitchen was a small refrigerator for each apartment.  Plus we could use dishes, pots and pans etc. so that was real nice. 

This is the stairway in the Temple apartments. It was so pretty. 
They also had elevators but we liked the stairs!! 

October 31st No Trick or Treats for us in Sweden!!!
This is where we went to church. This chapel is next door to the Temple Apartments. Some of the meetings were held in the big room at the Temple apartments.  We had an interpreter!!!  I think we have realized we are in a foreign country!!!  The Bylunds (another Sr couple over the Stockholm Center) had us over for dinner.

We were able to do a Temple Session in the Stockholm Temple.  It is a very small temple compared to the ones in the States, but very beautiful and the people are just so nice and accomodating.

November 1-3
The Bylund's really showed us a good time in Stockholm.  They showed us how to ride the trains in Stockholm! They have a really good system.  The train depots were really nice. Neal was in hog heaven with all the trains!!!

Although in order to get from one train to another we had to go on a 4 Story escalator!!!!!! Yikes I don't like heights and I had a real hard time going down the escalato,r going up wasn't as hard but it was so scary!!!  We spent the day with the Bylunds at their center.  They filled us in on how many meals we would be cooking and goodies to make for after their activities.  We participated in their Family Home Evening with their Young Adults. It was a lot of fun and the youth did an outstanding job on the lesson.  Brother Bylund went over the paper work with Neal.  We also went to several tourists spots in Stockholm.

We walked through the heart of Stockholm and then went along the ocean through the historical section then over to the Vasa Museum.

The Vasa Ship has been restored and it is really ingredible.  We went to the movie about it in English!! It was quite a story that it went down on its maiden voyage!  We also went with the tour guide. This was really worth our time. My mom belonged to a Swedish Lodge in Los Angeles it was called the "Vasa Lodge" so this had more meaning to me. I sure thought about my mom and I sure do miss her!

In the museum they have many displays. Here is Neal in the display part of the ship where the cannons were.

November 3, 2010
This is our Mission Home. It is where our Mission President and his wife live.  They are called as Mission Presidents for three years. They will be going home in July and then we will get a new President.  President and Sister Anderson are absolutley remarkable.  They keep track of all the missionaries in Sweden including us!! There are about 84 young Elders and Sisters and 8 Sr. couples like us that are over centers all over Sweden. So they have a big job keeping up with all of us!!  They do lots of entertaining in their home.  In fact when we were there they were hosting a group of people from up north who came down to go to the temple. So she fixed lots of treats for them.  We stayed the night at the mission home so she put us right to work.  She asked me to make Crepes!  I told her I had never made crepes and she said oh don't worry here is a recipe and handed it to me and showed me where the stuff was and gave me a pan and said good luck. Neal was put in charge of the hot cider and he did great!



75 crepes later I had it down pretty good and everyone loved them so I guess I did a good job!!
 It was a lot of fun to help out. Neal was in charge of the hot cider and did a good




Well somehow I lost the photo of this castle but this is the picture outside of its window!!
It is called the Brahehus and was built in 1645. It is near Vexjo. We had met up with the Waites (another Sr Couple) they have a Center in Uppsala, North of Stockholm. They are also in charge of all of the apartments of all the missionaries in Sweden!  So they divide up the apartments into areas and we will be in charge of 6 of them in the Southern part of Sweden within 3 hours of where we will be in Lund. We traveled with them so they could train us how to do an inspection. we did one with them in Vexjo. We then stayed the night in Vexjo and headed for Lund the next day.
They traveled with us to Lund and helped us get groceries and get settled into our apartment. That night we went to our center and met with our Yougn single Adults.  We were received real well, they have been waiting for us for 8 weeks and we are now offically here.