May 3, 2013
Well, we made it!  Married 50 wonderful years!  We were surprised by the Relief Society President and her daughter, Jessica, when they stopped by with these beautiful roses, candy and card.

We decided that for our anniversary we would pack a "sack" lunch and walk around the Växjö Lake.  We asked a young man to take our pictures for us as we stood in front of the lake.  We didn't walk ALL the way around the lake, but we did enjoy walking and then sitting on one of the benches they have by the lake to enjoy the picturesque scenery.  As you can see by the blue sky, it was a beautiful day, a little windy, but nice.

They turn this fountain on in the lake when the ice melts.  Notice the church in the background with two steeples.  We have another picture that is more from the front of the church that I will try to find and post later.

This ball is faceted and the facets glimmer in the sun as the ball turns.  We don't know if the wind turns it, or if it is done mechanically.  As you can see, there really isn't much greenery on the trees yet.  However, the past couple of days have been warm and we can see greenery coming.  YES!!!!!

On April 12, 2013, William Anthony Messam joined our family.  He weighed 7 lbs. 1 oz. and was 21 inches long.  We can hardly wait to hold this little great-grandson!  The proud parents are Tony and Desi Messam

 

At Easter time in Sweden, everyone gets branches and ties colored feathers to them and they display them on their porches, balconies, etc.  This is one that was in the middle of town.  There were several of these.  They also had 3 large white eggs in one spot.

They celebrate Easter from Friday through Tuesday and stores and businesses usually close early on Thursday to begin the holiday.  This is typical of many holidays.  They have a holiday the day before and a holiday the day after the real holiday.

This is a picture of the branch council.  Back l to r  Elder Pehrson, Elder Martinsson and us.  Front l to r President Blomberg, Marvin Mulato, Thomas Carlson, Ewa Carlson

Every Monday evening the young single adults (YSA) meet in our apartment for family home evening.  This picture is of our Thanksgiving dinner held November 26, 2012.  We had chicken (not turkey because it is toooooo expensive) and all the trimmings, including stuffing, pumpkin pie, banana cream pie, fruit salad, tossed salad, and mashed potatoes and gravy.  On the left side of the table going from front to back:  Marvin Mulato, Jessica Carlson, Angelica Carlson.  On the right side of the table going from front to back:  Winston Spångberg, Sigrid Blomberg, President Blomberg.

More Thanksgiving pictures.  Left side of table front to back:  Elder Martinsson, Elder Pehrson.  Right side of table is me and Jan Erik Oddbjörn.

We were without elders for a month, but on January 22 two elders were assigned here in Växjö.  l to r  Elder Bressan from Italy and Elder Thorman from USA

On January 28, 2013, we had an American scone night for the YSA family home evening.  Our lesson was on establishing family traditions taken from a talk by Elder Perry.  Dick gave the lesson and then we served our "traditional" scone "breakfast" of scones, bacon, fruit, juice and milk.  They loved the scones.  l to r:  Elder Bressan, Elder Thorman, Brook Mulungi (our investigator) and Marvin Mulato.

 

We arrived in Växjö Sunday night, November 18, 2012.  This is the view of "our" apartment.  The window on the left is the kitchen window and the window in the back of the porch is the bedroom window.

This is a view of the whole apartment building we live in.  There are 4 entrances, A, B, C, and D starting from the left.  We are in C.

 
 On November 14, we started our journey to move from Byske up north down to Växjö in the south.  The first night we stopped in Sundsvall and stayed with Eva-Lotte Nedergård.  She had a nice dinner prepared for us when we arrived and had fixed us a nice breakfast in the morning before she left for work.  The next day, November 15, we continued our journey to Stockholm to attend a couple's conference.  The pictures are of some of the couples that attended the conference.  The top picture (sorry it is fuzzy but it was jiggily) is when we were traveling on the tunnelbanna (train) in to the central station to meet other couples and go to lunch.  l to r  Äldste Marriott, Syster Marriott (yes they are related to the hotel Marriotts), Syster Erickson, Äldste Erickson.  The middle picture is l to r  Syster Johanson, Äldste Johanson (he came over with Dick at the same time on their first missions).

The picture to the right is taken in the mission home and is of Äldste and Syster Bybee.  We just traded places with them.  They are now living in Byske and we are living in Växjö where they had been serving for about a month.  They will be working with the Luleå and Skellefteå branches.  He speaks french and there is a need for french in the Luleå area. They do not speak swedish.

 When people from the district or mission came to visit or for special occasions, the Relief Society would put together a luncheon and we would usually all gather together upstairs and eat and visit.  However, this time Ivar decided he would stay and so we moved the luncheon downstairs to the classroom.  l to r  Fern Girdlestone, Birgit Carlsson Håkan Palm, Gunvor Söderholm.  Håkan Palm is the 2nd counselor in the mission presidency.  He was visiting with us that Sunday and spoke.  We had picked him up on Saturday from the airport and Dick and he went to try to visit members.  We then hosted him for dinner, staying in our apartment, and breakfast.

l to r  Ivar's assistant, Gabriella, Ivar Nilsson, and Fern Girdlestone

l to r  President Solbakk, Jorun Solbakk, Ulla Ehnmark

 

l to r  Ulla Ehnmark, me, Rosita's friend Jessica, Rosita Karlman

 These are just a few pictures of members and missionaries when we served in Skellefteå.  This picture is of Rosita and Bengt Karlman.  We visited with them many times and encouraged them to come to church.  When we left Rosita had accepted a position as a teacher in Sunday School/Relief Society and was attending regularly.  We still hope that Bengt will start coming.

These were elders in our district.  Top:  Elder Hinkson and Elder Day.  Middle:  Elder Saldutti.  Bottom:  Elder Ross

 

Left:  Elder Ricker.  Elder Ricker crocheted a nice hat and gave to me when he left.  I thought it was so thoughtful and nice of him.  I sent the hat to Oksana for Christmas.  I thought she would look cute in it.                        Right:  Elder Hinkson

 

Here is a picture of l to r Birgit Carlsson and Fern Girldlestone.  We have many fond memories of the time spent with these faithful sister. 

 This is a pretty scene from one of the places that we would walk in Byske.  This is when spring finally arrived--June.

 

These are scenes from the center of town.  You see beautiful flowers all through the town.  They are so happy when summer finally comes and they LOVE flowers, just like I do.

 On May 3, 2012, we were invited by President Newell to fly down to Stockholm to attend a Zone Leaders Council.  After the meeting, we were able to see a few sights before being taken to an apartment to spend the night.  We happened on this restaurant and thought we would take a picture of it since we have a daughter, Tiffany.



This is the mission office.  The building is shared with a pizza place.



These are views from the apartment we stayed in.  It was on the 8th floor.

This is the front of the mission home, office, and chapel known by all as Svartensgatan 3 when Dick was on his first mission.  It is no longer owned by the church.  It is on the historical register for Sweden.

 Pat, Melanie, Dick, and I took a walk to the little resort located on the Gulf of Bothnia.
This view is looking one direction down the beach and the picture below is looking the other direction.

Dick and I first walked to here in the spring when there was still snow on the ground.

You can't see but they have a water slide here and a place to camp.  There are a couple of cafes and a little "snack shack! and a miniature golf place.

A sad postcript to my post of yesterday.  We received today a note from Sten Boström's brother, Allan, that Sten passed away on December 7.  He was taking a walk and fell after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage and passed away after a few minutes.  I am sure he is thrilled to be reunited with his Greta that he missed so much.  We will have to see about getting their temple work done in a year.

Else Bränstrom (on the right) invited us out to her summer stuga (home) on the shores of the Gulf of Bothnia.  Else is a widow who lived below us and was always so friendly and helpful with the language.  Many times we were in her apartment to visit and sometimes have fika (refreshments).  She showed us pictures of her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.  Often we would talk to her about different aspects of the gospel and we gave her a Mormons Bok with our testimony in.  We invited her, along with Eva Pettersson, to our apartment for dinner one evening.  We had a very enjoyable time.  We took Else an orchid plant the night before we left Byske.  She was teary eyed and made us promise to see her the next day before we drove off.  When we stopped in, she had prepared us lunch.  We had planned on stopping on the way, but this was a pleasant surprise.  As we drove off, she stood on her patio and waved goodbye to us with tears streaming down her cheeks.  It was very hard to say goodbye.

Below is a picture of Eva Petterson (on the left).  She invited us and Else over one afternoon for middag (lunch).  She is a cousin to Else's husband. 

Also shown in both pictures is Sten Boström.  He will soon be 88.  He was the one who drove us to the stuga.  He lost his wife about the same time as Dick's mother passed away and he missed her very much.  We talked to him about the plan of salvation and read to him from Alma Chapter 40.  Before we left we gave him a Mormons bok with our testimony in and we underlined the verses in Alma that we had read to him.  He was unhappy we were leaving and wondered why the mission president couldn't leave us there and send somebody else to Växjö.  Now that there are elders in Skellefteå, we will contact them and have them try to teach him.   

This is Melanie and I as we stand next to Storforsen (the great rushing water cascading).  This path we are on is right along the edge of the falls and goes all the way down to a hotel at the bottom.  These falls are one of the longest (not highest) but longest falls in the world.  After eating some snacks at a picnic table nearby, we took the path from near the top all the way down to near the bottom.  They were really rushing, but we understand that it is nothing like in the spring with the runoff.  This was in July.  We spent a wonderful afternoon there.  As we traveled there it was raining, but when we arrived, the sun came out and it was beautiful--cool, but beautiful.

Dick and I had talked about maybe spending our 50th wedding anniversary at the hotel here, but it's a good thing we didn't make reservations since now we are in the south many hundreds of miles away.

This is a model of the Vasa, a ship that was painstakingly built to be the biggest, most elaborate war ship among the european nations.  However, on its first voyage as it was going in the habor, it sunk in front of everybody.  Hundreds died.  It laid in the bottom of the harbor until 1962 when they raised it.  After many years it has been restored as shown below and is housed in a museum under strict temperature control.

The carved figures on the boat, of which there were many, were all painted with colors and goldleafing as the examples show on the left.

This is the St. Clara Church in Stockholm and below are views of the inside.  I hope you can see all of the carving and gold leaf.  It is very elaborate.

Solveig Nyström accompanied us on our excursion in Stockholm.  Dick taught her the gospel 52 years ago