Dinner with friends

Nov 21 We were invited to the Wiklof’s for dinner. They also live in a beautiful home. They have been so nice to us. He works with us with the Center. They have 5 children one is at BYU Hawaii, the rest are at home. She is the Stake Relief Society President. She is also a very good cook. She has helped me learn how to survive in the grocery store. She has also helped me adjust to the customs. All I have to do is call and ask and she clues me in.

The 2 Sister's (in red) are our the Sister missionaries who serve with us in Lund. They are both so nice and they have beautiful voices. (Sister page in the front, I call her Snow White as her voice is so clear and sweet. Sister Dabb is next to her and the 2 of them have been asked to sing at several events.)

 

Here we are at our church building in Lund. It is a real cute building. The chapel and the cultural hall are one room with a divider. The baptismal font has a big round window right behind the font. It is a little room that opens into the hallway. They have a tiny “hallway” type kitchen. All the classrooms are small but the people’s hearts are huge, everyone has been so nice to us and they are so glad that we are there to help out.

Our 1st day of Snow November 19, 2010

 We were shopping in the Torg when all of a sudden the rain turned to snow. This was the 1st SNOW of the season. It was pretty exciting for us. It has rained a lot but that doesn’t stop anyone from walking or biking!! So we also enjoyed walking in the rain. Now the snow!

Lund City Park and Grand Hotel November 13, 2010

Nov 13 “Lund City Park”

We live on a street called Nygaten, in Lund. At one end of our street is this amazing park. We love to take walks in it. It has many pathways, play areas, big duck pond, a bird Avery, and a huge sports center. It also has an observatory (it is not open in the winter) we still have not gone completely around the whole park yet.



 

This "Artwork" was carved from a tree that was here. It was very well done with lots of detals.

The pathways in the park are just beautiful. Later on in the blog you will see this same spot in the winter!!

There are tons of apartments in Lund. This one is next to the park.

If you click on the photo it will enlarge it.

This is the entrance to the park from where we live.

The blue car behind Neal is in front of our apartment. Our apartment is the one with the red roof. That is how close we are to the park. To the right of us is a cross street, that is the street we walk up to the center. It takes us 5 minutes.

In Sweden everyone WALKS or ride bikes. It has taken me awhile to figure it out but I know why they walk/bike so much. It is impossible to find parking and when you do they charge you for it. Plus gas in Sweden is $8.50 a gallon (they use liters, but Neal figured it out!!!) Plus everything you need is so close or you can take a bus. Their bus and train systems are incredible. Plus they love to walk for exercise.

Here is one of many bike “parking lots”. Bikes have the right of way or so they think!! Better watch out or you will get run over! They have sidewalks that have ½ for bikes and ½ for pedestrians. Better not walk in the bike part!! We know from experience.



 

The Central Station is the lit up building in back of the bikes.

The Grand Hotel

On the other end of our street is the Torg (Tory) with the Grand Hotel in it. It is a beautiful Hotel. We love this area. Across from the Torg are cute stores and down ½ block is the Central Train Station!! We walk this way almost every day. Neal is in hog heaven. We have been on the trains a lot. (You can buy a train/bus pass and have unlimited use of the trains and busses!!) I think they lost money on us!!

Inside the Grand hotel.

Sharpening Training November 11, 2010

Nov. 11 We had a Missionary Sharpening Meeting in Lund. The Mission Pres and his wife traveled from Stockholm and did training for the missionaries. One thing that Sister Anderson likes to do as the missionaries are arriving is putting them to work in helping with a meal. This way she is teaching them to cook and they sure have a good time helping. She is teaching them how to make a vegetable soup. They were in charge of getting all the vegetables ready. All of the missionaries are so nice and so pleasant to be around. All the training was not only informative but they make it a lot of fun.

Centret for Unga Vuxna "Center for Young Adults"

Centret for Unga Vuxna (The center for Young Adults!)

This is where we spend most of our time. It is a place 18-30 year old singles can go for activities and socializing.

There is a student council that plans the firesides, Family Home Evenings, parties, service projects, and other activities. I cook a dinner at the Center for them on Thursdays. Plus I make treats for all the activities. (So I am in the kitchen a lot!!) Neal takes care of all the paperwork and e-mails and enjoys being around them. They look to us as “mom and dad’s” We have around 30 active participating. We also attend all of their planning meetings. They come from Lund, Malmo, and Helsingborg plus a few far out cities.





Our Center is on the 5th floor of this building. At the bottom is a cute little market, so if I forget an ingredient, I can go to the market and pick up what I need. Our apartment is only a 5 minute walk to the Center. The Center has 2 large rooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen, our office and a game room (which they are re-doing so it is a mess)

 This is their Logo and is on our door.

 Neal at his desk. He is sure learning more about computers.  He has to keep lots of records and information. Plus send out quarterly reports to the Europe office.

 

This is the other half of

our office. It is used for small meetings.

 This is a fairly large room. This end has the pool table and where the chairs are,  now have 2 computers for the kids to use. At the other end of the room is what they call the "cozy" area.  It has a sectional sofa and round table plus a couple of chairs. They like to hang out here and visit, play pool and surf facebook! Many of them use the computers for their university classes.

Institute is held every Thursday in this room. We have about 25 that attend. They really like the instructor. They have the equiptment to broadcast it to the other units around the area so they don't have to travel to attend institute. This is also where we re-broadcast CES Firesides from SLC. We have a one week delay.

The kitchen is cute and cozy and well equipped.  Except “no dish washer” or "garbage disposal" and the sinks are very, very small. So it is real hard to do the dishes.  I pretty much live here. I fix treats every Monday and on Thursday's I fix a dinner for about 10 plus treats for after Institute. (The reason for not having garbage disposals or dish washers is because all the Buildings and homes in Lund are very old so they don't have the right plumbing for it.)

The cabinets under the sinks are not usable. Notice how small the one sink is. (it is the one on the left)



Lund Dom Kyrka="Lund's City Church"

 The Lund “Dom Kyrka” (Dom Kyrka=Dome Church) this is one of the oldest Cathedrals’ in Sweden. It was built in 1145. It is huge and beautiful. Neal is standing a block away so we could get the “Kyrka” in the photo.

                         Also here is the side and the back of the church.




 

 Inside is a beautiful clock. It keeps accurate time. It is a 14th-century astronomical clock. It is set mechanically to keep track of 100 years.









It was built many years after the church. Every day at noon the figures at the top of the clock goes through a musical movement where the Wiseman on each side come out to pay honor to the Christ Child. We have watched it several times.
 
 

The Church has a lot of “folklores” about it.

It is said that the Priest wanted to build a beautiful church but he didn’t have a lot of money. He looked for someone to help him. A brick mason told him he would build a beautiful church for him and he would not charge him any money. But there was a catch; when the church was completed he would have to give up his eyes. The Priest thought about it and said that the Lord had given him everything so to honor him back he would give up his eyes to build the church. The brick mason said “if you can guess my name before the last brick is laid then I will not take your eyes.” So every day the priest would call out names and it was never the right name. The builder told him that he would be finished in one day. The Priest decided to take a walk and look at everything he could, in hopes that he would be able to remember all that that he saw. As he was walking he saw a mother pushing her baby in a buggy and he stopped a ways off so he could remember what they looked like. Well he heard her say to her son, “Don’t worry, papa "Finns" will be putting the last brick on the cathedral tomorrow and then he will be able to be at home with us! So the priest ran to the cathedral and called out "Finns". The brick layer responded then realized the priest had called his name. So now he had worked for nothing. He became so mad that he went to the basement of the cathedral and grabbed one of the support pillars and tried to pull down the cathedral. Well as the story goes he was turned to stone attached to the pillar!! When we went to the basement sure enough there was a pillar with a “stone man” attached to it!!!






This is an Old Danish Kyrka (Church). All of the Danish Churches have the same front design. They look like stair steps. They are all over Sweden. In the old days the Danes had conquered the southern part of Sweden. They had built many churches and Danish buildings. Then in about 1658 Sweden took it back so they still have all the Danish buildings.






 

This is a Torg, pronounced Tory. It is like a big town square. In this one, venders will come and sell produce, fish, flowers, clothing etc. All around the Torg are cute stores and cute cobblestone side streets.

 



Here is Neal buying Torsk (Cod fish).  It was delicious, fresh and cheaper than in the stores.

November 6-8 2010

Nov 6  Mormor’s Bakery:  Our 1st day in Lund we saw this cute bakery. It made me miss all of our grandkids.  In Swedish “Mormor” means grandma! Meaning mother’s mother, farmor would be a father’s mother! Our grandkids call me Mormor. (Meaning I am their mothers mother) We just kept it at that so not to confuse them by some calling me Mormor and others farmor (fathers mother!)

Nov 7 Our 1st Sunday at church the Nilsson’s invited us over for dinner. They have 9 children. Most are in their teens or are in their 20’s. Years ago they bought a school and made it into their home. It is really nice and big. They had us go into their “family room” and we visited and it came up about their Christmas Program they have in their home in Dec. I told them that Neal always sings “Oh Holy Night” at Christmas in our town. Wow she jumped up got some music and asked him to sing “cold turkey” well he did a great job. They are a really nice family and served us a great meal.

Nov 8 I know this sounds funny but I almost go into a panic attack every time I have to go to the grocery store.  Let me tell you why!  Everything is packaged different from us.  Like I found out tomato paste is in a tube like toothpaste! Canned tomatoes are in boxes. Vanilla is in powder form! Soups are in long tubes as is rice pudding. They have a million types of cheese except sharp, cheddar and longhorn!! And of course everything is in Swedish!! 

Here is a tube of pea soup and rice pudding. The food here is very good!!

“Our Street” Nygaten 16 (it is pronounced: “ knee gaten”) We live right in the heart of the historical part of Lund. Our street is so cute. The street is cobblestone and the houses “Apartments” are all different colors.  Each apartment has a main door that you have either a key or code to open, and then you go into a hallway to go to your apt. then open it with a key.

Neal is walking towards our apartment by a pink apt. a couple of doors down from us.

Neal is in front of our apartment. Then he is going in.



 Neal going into entrance of our apartment




This is the street next to us. We love walking down it as it is so colorful.