Finally got pictures transferred from my phone so here's more pictures. Some of Sweden. Some of missionaries. For Elder Seely's parents, there's some of our visit with him. Pictures of lingonberries, mushrooms, heather. A smorgasbord of pictures.
We took the places of Elder Ward and Elder Jackson in the mission office. They had taken over from Elder Deshler and Elder Seely who had become the office workers when we left Sweden in March. Elder Deshler and Elder Seely had moved our two offices into one room and we really like it. Nice to work in the same office as LeRon, instead of us each being in separate rooms. I wondered if I would like it because LeRon likes music playing and I like quiet. But it's working out great.
Syster Wilson (on left) and new Syster Evensen (on right) from Norway are serving right here.
Farewell to Elder Merrell (on left) who's going home. We worked with Elder Merrell for almost two months in the mission office earlier this year. Had great times singing together and eating treats. Remember the fun birthday party, Elder Merrell? L-R: Elder Merrell, Elder McGill, Elder Stinson, Elder Ward. We're all at the mission home, singing together while Elder Torrie plays.
Singing and laughing together. Elder Walker, Elder Merrell, Elder McGill, Elder Stinson, and Elder Ward.
Elder Hoyt, Elder Olson, Elder Walker. We share the office with these young missionaries. They're a big help, especially when it comes to the Swedish language.
This sweet sister translated for us in sacrament meeting in February. She did a great job, although she could have said anything in English and we wouldn't have known whether it was right or wrong! Her 18 months are up and she is going home.
Syster Albrecht and Elder Merrell are going home. Most missionaries are sad/happy to be going. Sad to leave the great people they've met but happy to go home to family and friends. They all leave with a love for things Swedish and are fluent in the language. Syster Albrecht and Elder Merrell are visiting with Elder McGill.
Elder Stinson is from New Zealand. Love to hear his accent. Since he's from part of the British Commonwealth, as are we, we feel a kinship to him. Elder Ward did a great job of helping me get back in the harness in the office.
We're at the airport to help welcome the new missionaries. Thought we'd get our picture taken too.
Since we didn't get our picture taken at the airport with President and Syster Davis when we first came, we did it today.
Our fearless leaders, President & Syster Davis, are great mission leaders.
Do you think Elder Torrie is smiling? I don't know. Can't see if his eyes are shining.
The Davis's were so excited to welcome their daughter. How would it be to have your mission president be your dad? Very different but fun too.
Mission presidents do not hug sister missionaries; they just shake their hands. But this is different with President Davis and his daughter!
Beautiful model of the Vasa ship. It was originally painted in brilliant colors. See an earlier post about the Vasa Museum.
The Swedish king insisted on elaborate carvings. The bigger, the better. No wonder it sank just a few minutes into its maiden voyage. So top heavy. Just as the breeze caught the sails, she listed slightly and then on to her side, and then sank to the bottom of the sea, along with 30 crewmen who couldn't get out. That's especially sad since the engineers and builders knew the ship would likely not float as the king hoped.
Amazing that this ornate ship was at the bottom of the sea for 330 years!
In the fall, all the stores sell beautiful heather in all different colors. We first saw heather in Scotland. It's an evergreen and very hardy.
We named our oldest daughter Heather. One time she was talking with her friends about the meaning of their names. She said, "I'm just a shrub." It was so funny. But our Heather is like the heather -- resilient, hardy, and beautiful.
We welcomed another senior couple, Elder & Syster Cowgur. They will be traveling all over Scandinavia, helping people learn to be self-reliant using the church's self-reliance program. It's a great program teaching people how to save, how to budget, how to start new businesses, how to get out of debt and more.
Elder Seely (on left) and his companion, Elder Childs (on right) came to visit us last week. We worked with Elder Seely in the mission office in January and February and became very close to him, especially when we learned that his family came originally from Alberta. In fact, the Torries have owned some Seely land for years. We remember LeRon's dad, Marvin Torrie, talking about the "Seely quarter." We checked the old maps, and sure enough, two quarters were owned by Seely brothers, who were brothers to Elder Seely's great-grandfather. It's a small world.
Elder Seely, Elder Nordgren, Elder Stinson, Elder Childs. Elders Nordgren and Stinson currently share the mission office with us.
So wonderful to see Elder Seely again! He's a great missionary with an excellent command of the Swedish language. He's nearly finished his 2-year mission.
Trattkantarell are "funnel chanterelle" which are mushrooms that grow here. People love them. I haven't tasted them yet. They are apparently the most common of wild edible mushrooms. Syster Davis is going to show me where they grow sometime. There's a forest right by the mission home and she's seen them growing there.
The red berries are lingonberries. Swedes love them but Elder Torrie and I think they are very bitter. They are often served with Swedish meatballs.
President and Syster Davis take new missionaries to Stockholm's Vasa Museum on the day they arrive. We got to go along too. The Vasa Museum houses the only almost fully intact (95% original) 17th century ship that has ever been salvaged. It sank in 1628 on its maiden voyage, having gone only a few hundred meters out to sea. It was too top-heavy with twice as many guns as it should have had and 500 heavy wooden sculptures. The king, who didn't know anything about engineering a ship, instructed the builders to build it like he wanted it. They were too afraid to point out that it wouldn't float like that. Many lives were lost when it sank.
In the business world, the Vasa syndrome refers to problems in communication and management as had happened in the building of the Vasa ship. President Davis encourages his missionaries to speak up if they see a problem and to listen to other people's opinions. We don't need the Vasa syndrome in our mission!
After more than 300 years at the bottom of the Stockholm harbor, the Vasa was raised and restored. It was once painted in bright colors. Must have been quite the picture when it first set sail. And it definitely was quite the picture when it slowly listed to the side and tipped right over!
The very cold water of the Baltic Sea helped preserve the wood. 95% of the wood is original. It was amazing. When I can get the pictures off my phone, I'll post them. I've got some good ones.
Back at the mission home after the Vasa Museum, three very tired new missionaries are trying to stay awake while we orient them.
Just a few papers for the missionaries to sign and a few words of council about money from Elder Torrie and then the missionaries can have dinner and go to bed. It's been a very long 36 hours for them. As you know, all missionaries pay their own way, usually with help from their families. The money is put into one fund which Elder Torrie administers, giving missionaries money from that fund every two weeks.
Family History is a big deal here in Sweden. People may not be so interested in religion, but they are definitely interested in Family History, or genealogy, as we used to call it. Our missionaries spend about 10 hours per week helping people here to find their roots. It's a great way to meet people. Everyone wants to know where they come from. DNA is a big thing here too. So nice to learn more about ourselves.
LeRon and I have no Swedish ancestry that we know of, so it's been great fun to find we're related to 3 junior missionaries who are serving in Sweden. In January, when I saw that an Elder Muhlestein was coming, I knew he had to be related. After all, my dad is Arnold Muhlestein Conrad and his mother's maiden name is Muhlestein. I contacted Elder Muhlestein, and sure enough, we both descend through my great-grandfather, Nicholas Muhlestein, who was born in Switzerland. Another missionary is Elder Hancock who descends from my ancestor, Solomon Hancock's, brother. My mother was a Hancock. My Hancock relatives have always been proud that they descended from John Hancock, first signer of the American Declaration of Independence, but after I did research, I found that he had no children who lived to adulthood. So much for that myth!
Elder & Syster Torrie are at the Arlanda airport in Stockholm, greeting my second cousin, once removed, Elder Muhlestein from California. He descends from my Grandma Ida Muhlestein Conrad's brother, Israel Muhlestein. He looks like he fits in with my dad's family! And later we learned that Elder Scott, who is also in this mission, is also descended from Nicholas Muhlestein. Small world!
We were so excited to greet the three new missionaries who have just arrived from the States -- Syster Birrell (blond hair), Elder Muhlestein, and Syster Davis (who is actually President & Syster Davis' daughter -- she received her mission call before they did!) The Elders on the outside are the Assistants to the President -- Elder McGill and Elder Hoyt. President & Syster Davis are second from left and second from right. We love working closely with the Davis's and the Assistants and four other missionaries who work in our office.
It's cold and rainy. We're here at the waterfront in Stockholm. Behind us is the city hall, called the Stadshuset. It's a gorgeous building and is the site of the annual Nobel Prize banquet. Alfred Nobel was a Swede who invented, among other things, dynamite. With the money he made from his inventions, he established the Nobel Prizes. L-R: Syster Davis, Elder & Syster Torrie, my cousin Elder Muhlestein, President Davis.
There are several theories about what the three crowns on the top of the Stadshuset tower represent. You can just barely see them above the tower. They could represent the union of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway at one point in history. The three crowns are seen in many places, including on the Swedish coat of arms.
You can see the three crowns, the official symbol of Sweden, on this bag I bought just before we left Stockholm in March.
We saw this photo on heavy glass when we were here in January and absolutely loved it. We wanted to buy it but decided against it at the time. So when we got here, first thing, we went down to the store and bought it. It's very heavy so we won't be taking it home with us when we leave Sweden. Oh well. We'll enjoy it for now. Love that elephant! The background is definitely not Africa though. But it looks well on our wall next to the zebras. Reminds us of happy times in Africa.
We've been back in Sweden for 3 weeks now. We never thought we would be back. The missionary department had been talking to us about going back to Africa sometime. We had decided we would apply again next year and go wherever we were asked to go in the fall of 2021, possibly back to Africa somewhere. So we began making plans for the upcoming year.
Then President Davis, the new mission president in the Sweden Stockholm Mission, phoned and said the brethren in Salt Lake City had given him permission to ask us to return. What could we say? The mission needed us and our visas to Sweden were still valid. So we began scrambling to get the most important things done. I told LeRon that I needed two months to get ready but I was able to do everything in two weeks. That was definitely a miracle.
We left Calgary on September 30 and arrived in Sweden on Thursday, October 1st. Back to the same office, the same flat, the same everything. At least we knew what we needed to do and where we could shop for groceries.
Our picture will go back on the map in the stake president's office! We are serving here -- in the Sweden Stockholm Mission. Almost all other missionaries from the Taber Stake have been reassigned to Canada.
Our grandchildren who live close by are 9 months older than they were the last time we were in the stake president's office for a setting-apart blessing. Nice to receive another priesthood blessing from President Mark Baldry before setting off on the next leg of our adventure.
We flew from Calgary to Montreal to Lisbon, Portugal. I had a hard time finding the women's restrooms at the airport. The signage is somewhat different from what we are used to!
From Lisbon, we flew to Stockholm, where President and Syster Davis met us at the airport. We had worn masks all during our flights and in airports. But as soon as we walked out of the airport, we took the masks off. Very few people in Sweden wear masks.
So here's a little more about our mission, which I wrote after we returned home in March 2020. After that I will do a post about our return to the mission in October 2020.
June 30, 2020
We've been home now for a little more than three months. The pandemic sent most senior couples home although each mission could keep one couple. We could have stayed but felt that we had done what we needed to do in Sweden and we felt good about going home. When President Youngberg first told us, on March 12, that the church wanted us to go home, we rebelled against the thought and said we wanted to stay. But then we both felt strongly that we needed to go. We both had felt, in the beginning of our mission, that we wouldn't be in Sweden for the entire 18 months. We told the President on March 14 that we would go, and found that he had already made travel arrangements because he had felt that we should go. So that definitely confirmed our feelings. Since we've been home, we've seen several reasons that it's been good to be here.
A couple more things I wanted to say about our mission to Sweden . . . One thing we found curious is that people don't close their curtains, even at night. There's so much darkness here that Swedes love their lights. It's so nice to see open curtains in a big city. In North America, everyone closes their curtains at night and even in the day. Of course we on the farm keep our curtains open. One lady in Sweden said that when people see curtains closed, they wonder what people are hiding!
We enjoyed getting to know the young missionaries and we were happy to bring the office computer systems up to snuff. I think things had been done a certain way for years and years and no one wanted to change them. LeRon and I made major changes, which hopefully will help office senior missionaries in years to come. We felt like we accomplished what we were sent to Sweden to do and President Youngberg was pleased with our efforts. The Youngberg's completed their 3-year mission the end of June. Glad we got to work with them. They are super, down-to-earth, people.
I wanted to put pictures of our last days in Sweden here but I think they must be on my computer at home in Alberta. Oh well. Here's some of after we got home. The last picture should be first but I can't move the pictures around now that blogger has supposedly "updated!"
This northern lights painting is really striking. We didn't see northern lights in Sweden but we definitely have in Alberta. Many years ago, I was driving home from Taber and the sky above me was filled with northern lights in a band from east to west. The lights were colorful and swirling like the dresses of ballroom dancers. So amazing.
We zipped down to Gamla Stan (the Old Town), Saturday afternoon before we left, to pick up a few souvenirs. Dala Horses have become iconic symbols of Sweden. The original ones were orangey-red as in the horses on the left. They are still hand-carved and hand-painted but they are now painted in many colors, and every one is unique.
We went from no snow in Sweden to very, very cold snowy weather in Alberta. It lasted through April as I remember it. In this picture, we are still isolating so we just look at our grandchildren through the window and wave at them. On warmer days, we opened the window and talked with them. I was sort of happy to be isolating because I was so very tired from our very intense two months in Sweden. I worked a little on mission office stuff from home and LeRon worked a LOT on mission office stuff from home and sent it via the internet of course. We were officially released a month after we returned home.
We never expected to say hej då -- goodbye (pronounced hay doe) -- to Sweden so soon. We arrived in Stockholm on January 16, 2020 and we left exactly two months later on March 16. So sad that the current pandemic has caused all senior missionaries serving in Europe and all junior missionaries with any kind of health concerns to be sent home. And more throughout the world will be going home sooner than expected as the days go by.
I'm so grateful for our Church's very early response in closing down all meetings worldwide, including worship services, and systematically sending missionaries home. Our church leaders never move on anything in haste nor as a knee-jerk response to rumor. So wonderful to know that our prophet-president, Russell M Nelson, receives regular revelation from heaven for our guidance in these latter days. We don't need to fear; we just need to have faith and be obedient.
We have been taught for many years to have a food storage for emergencies and a year ago, the church started a program of studying the gospel in the home as it has moved toward a home-centered and church-supported church. It's been a huge help to families who are now home-bound during this pandemic.
President Nelson's 3-minute message of comfort at this hard time is actually trending as #1 on YouTube right now, and not just among members of the church. Check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1i5-ew2l9k. Interesting and comforting that a 95-year old man, a world-renowned heart surgeon who himself is vulnerable to the Covid virus, is praying for all of us and is so positive about the future.
Back to our thoughts about Sweden. We never really got a chance to get to know Sweden. We were so busy in the office, and on Saturdays we were fixing up our apartment -- doing such things as installing new taps in all the sinks so the incessant dripping would stop, and reorganizing furniture. We always thought that later, when it was warmer and the days were longer, we could start taking short trips outside of Stockholm on Saturdays to see a bit more of Sweden. Now we'll just have to go back someday.
We enjoyed the friendly people we met in the stores and the great members we met at church. We loved the young missionaries with whom we worked on a regular basis and the mission president and his wife. That love came quickly and they are the ones we really miss now that we're home. It was a wonderful experience and we feel that we did what we were sent there to do. We were able to streamline the computer systems and make it easier for someone else to step into our shoes. In fact, Äldste Torrie is still working on some of his spreadsheets and is in regular contact with the missionaries in the office in Stockholm.
When we left Stockholm on March 16, it was getting light at 5 a.m. and the temperature was about 5 C. So nice to have light and relative warmth. Then we came home to Alberta to -14 C and snow and darker mornings because Alberta is already on Daylight Saving Time. We are self-isolating for two weeks. We just wave at our grandchildren and talk to them through the window. Our sons buy our groceries and leave them at the backdoor. We are doing our part to stop the spread of the virus.
I will post a few pictures we took in our last days in Sweden. (If you click on the pictures, it enlarges them). I'll probably do another post later to finish up the pictures. But for now, this is hej då to Sweden.
Once a week we had the missionaries who live in our building (just a few of the 100 junior missionaries in the mission) over for treats and singing together. Here we are celebrating my 68th birthday. I made a strawberry cheesecake and it was delicious. The missionaries wrote 68 with candles. Can't believe I'm that old already. L-R: Äldste Hall, Äldste Jensen, Äldste Seely, 68-year old Syster Torrie, Äldste Sherwood, Äldste Merrell.
Tonight we had a small farewell for Äldste Merrell and Äldste Hall who are being transferred to a new area. They will be missed! We welcomed a new missionary to the office: Äldste Deshler, who will take over my job in the office. Äldste Seely will take over Äldste Torrie's place as financial secretary. Here we are: me, Äldste Seely, Äldste Merrell, new Äldste Deshler, and Äldste Hall.
So great to get to know so many wonderful young women and young men who are giving up 18 months to 2 years of their lives to serve the Lord at their own expense. Here I'm saying farewell to Syster Allred who has finished her 18-month mission and is returning home. Her Swedish is excellent and she often translated for us in sacrament meeting.
What a shock to learn that within a few days, we would be leaving the office and returning home. Here's Äldste Torrie at his desk. It's a stressful time right now as we're trying to finish up all our projects and leave them in the hands of the junior missionaries.
I actually shed some tears when I learned we were leaving. I had just set up the office the way I wanted it and was working on a lot of computer projects to help things run more smoothly. And yet, just the night before, I had asked LeRon, "Can we keep this up for a year and a half?"
This is where we have been for the last 2 months. It's been a remarkable experience.
With all the senior couples leaving, they have been bringing their vehicles to the mission office. Looks like a used car parking lot now.
The door on the left is the mission office door and the door on the right leads to our apartment and upstairs to the young missionaries' apartment. We only had to walk a few steps each morning to get to our office. It was actually a really good setup.
On our last Saturday, we took the bus and then the tunel-bana down to Gamla Stan to buy one more painting before we left. It's a painting of an iconic main square in Gamla Stan. I love the bright colors. LeRon and I are with the artist, Gabil, in this picture. And here's something very interesting about Sweden: most places, even small businesses, prefer credit card to cash. Even Gabil preferred credit card. Sweden is almost a cash-less society. In fact, you cannot deposit cash into a bank. You have to give the cash to a third party and they somehow work with the bank. Whenever LeRon made cash deposits, he had to inform a company online and get a code and then put the cash into an unmarked lock box on the side of a building. The cash went into the box and somehow made it to the bank. So interesting. The Täby Centrum Mall that we shopped at was almost entirely cashless.
Trolls are a big thing in Scandinavia.
More trolls in this shop window in Gamla Stan. But I think I saw more trolls in Norway when we were there a few years ago.
Many homes fly this particular Swedish flag with its narrow, very long blue and yellow stripes flapping in the wind. On special occasions, the regular Swedish flag is flown, which is rectangular with a yellow Nordic cross on a field of blue.
I was hoping to see the trees all leafed out. I hear it's gorgeous in the spring and summer.
On this last day in Sweden, we got a call from some young sister missionaries asking us to unclog their drain. So we hopped in the car and drove the 20 minutes to their apartment. We drove through a very long tunnel. So interesting how they tunnel from island to island. Mostly, though, bridges connect the island and you don't even realize you're on an island.
Here's Syster Andersen and Syster Bass shining her phone to give Äldste Torrie light to see. Apparently an unnamed sister missionary (not one of the above) jammed some tuna down the drain, thinking it would go through. She didn't realize there's a trap under the sink that, as its name implies, traps large things. It was a stinky job to unclog that drain but the sisters were very grateful. It was nice to visit them in their apartment.
Lots of apartment buildings here in Stockholm. This is looking out the sisters' living room window.
Driving home from unclogging the drain, we saw one of those micro-cars I told you about in an earlier post that young Swedes drive before they get their regular drivers license. They are even teenier than they look.
These little cars can only go about 40 km/hr so can be kind of annoying at times. They obviously can't drive on the motorway.
On our way home from unclogging the drain, we stopped to take photos of some of the houses in our neighborhood that we really like. Here's one that I've often wished I could see inside.
Love the yellow siding with the red roof.
This red house with the white trim is very striking.
Here's a closeup of the red house and it has, of all things, a blue door!
Found this picture from quite a while ago. This was when we first discovered Google Translate on our phones. It was an amazing experience to hold the phone over the Swedish words and have English replace the Swedish. LeRon said it was just like using the Urim and Thummin which, according to the Bible Dictionary, "was an ancient instrument prepared by God to assist man in translating languages and receiving revelation". See Exodus 28:30, Leviticus 8:8, Numbers 27:21, Deuteronomy 33:8, 1 Samuel 28:6, Ezra 2:63, and Nehemiah 7:65. Joseph Smith also used a Urim and Thummim to translate the Book of Mormon. And now here we are in Sweden, using a modern Urim and Thummim to translate! Amazing!
Our last night in the mission. One more time to sing with the missionaries. What an amazing, very special experience.
Above is the video of President Nelson's message of comfort and hope at this time. Interesting and comforting that a 95-year old man who is a world-renowned heart surgeon and who himself is vulnerable to the Covid virus, is praying for all of us and is so positive about the future.
We are happy to be serving the Lord in the Sweden Stockholm Mission (also known as the Sverigemissionen Stockholm) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We are serving an 18-month mission from January 2020 to December 2021 (minus the 6 months we spent at home from March 2020 to October). We have been assigned to work in the mission office again. A new adventure in a new land!
