Dearest Family – We have just ended a very good week ( #24 on the Swedish calendar). On Monday we had a good family night. A young man from AlingsÃ¥s gave the lesson. He had never given one before but he did a marvelous job. He has been taking the missionary preparation c
Family Home Evening
lass and will soon be putting his mission papers in, we hope. His name is Victor Ã…kebrand. A funny thing happened to him. He has been taking the drivers’ education that is required here in Sweden and went on Monday to get his picture taken for his driving license.  He came to the center right from the picture taking. He had on a white shirt and tie and a “Mr. Rogers’ sweaterâ€Â and a ball cap. When he took his cap off, everyone could see that he had cut his hair. He had cut the top very close to his head and had left the sides a little longer, but not much. He looked lik
e a 50 year old man! It was uncanny. I couldn’t get used to it. When we saw him later in the week, he had cut it all the same as the top and called it his missionary haircut.
Tuesday was a zone conference. We had been asked to make cinnamon rolls for the breakfast so had made them on Monday. We had to be to the church before 9 but got a call about 7:30am asking us if we could pick up the assistants at the airport at 9:25am – but please bring the cinnamon rolls to the churchfirst!! So we hurried to the church, hurried to the airport, hurried back to the church and got one of the last cinnamon rolls for our breakfast.
Zone Conference May 2011
Lunch was supposed to be at 12:30 but nothing is ever on time at a zone meeting. Lunch was about 1:45, the meeting that was supposed to end at 2:30 ended about 3:45. It was President Anderson’s last zone meeting with our zone (he and Sister Anderson go home July 1) and all of us senior couples had planned a dinner with them at a restaurant near the center for 4pm. Nobody wanted to eat at 4 because lunch had been so late. We had another meeting at 6pm so decided to go after the last meeting. We got to the restaurant about 7:30, without the President because he had still another meeting. He got there about 8 and we had a nice dinner and visit. It stays light so late around here that we didn’t leave the restaurant until nearly 10 – we were sitting out in the summer dining area on the sidewalk. 2 of the senior couples had 2 or 3 hour trips ahead of them to get home so we were plenty late. Wednesday and Thursday were very quiet at the center. We closed the center on Friday because the Friday chill was a campout and canoe trip up in AlingsÃ¥s. On Friday dad and I went shopping and made a trip to Bohus Fästning – Bohus fortress – a huge castle
Bohaus Castle
that lies in ruins about 8 or 10 miles north and west of Göteborg. It was an interesting place, sort of like Dover Castle in England. It had been built in 1308 to protect Norway’s southern-most border. It had been under siege 14 times and never conquered. One of the main towers is still intact and most of the walls are up.  We took several pictures so we will try to either send you some or put them on the blog. Saturday was the day of the seminary and institute graduations. ( it is strange here. They call vacation, ‘semester’ and they call graduation, ‘examination’.) it was being held at the church and we were asked to be there at 5 to help get the torta ready. It’s a good thing we got there. The couple from Jönköping was also there. The 4 of us made 8 three layer strawberry torta! The layers are: cake, pudding, cake, jam and crumbled meringue and whipped cream, cake, whipped cream and strawberries. They look really good and taste good too. All 8 were eaten after the ceremony, which amazed us. The institute sponsored a dance right after the ceremony. We stayed for a while but the music was way too loud for us old fuddy-duddies.  It was good to finally get outside into the quiet. Today was Stake conference – a broadcast from Salt Lake for all of Scandinavia. It was quite strange. Instead of being a conference where people were in attendance, it was only the 4 people who were on the program sitting in chairs behind a pulpit in a very small room. All the singing and the prayers took place on the local level. Three wards were meeting together in our chapel for the broadcast – when on a normal Sunday just one ward fills the place 2/3 full. Dad and I went down to the center to see if we could get it on the system at the center. We could, so we stayed and watched it alone. We will report to the stake president that we could get it so that next time they can use the center for some of the members. It has been very cloudy and rainy all week around here and the weathermen are predicting more of the same for the coming week. This week marked the one year anniversary of our arrival in Göteborg. Last year it was sunny and warm and wonderful. But we are told that this is much more normal.
We love you all and hope that you are busy and happy and healthy. Have you got plans for the 4th?? Whatever you do, be safe and have fun. You will all have to eat some corn on the cob for us. And a good bar-b-qued steak! We have a new little market near our grocery store that advertises ‘US beef’ – we looked and they were asking 310 SEK per kilogram for T-Bones (that’s about $22 per pound!!) It can’t possibly be that good. So please enjoy your cook-outs and have a bite for us!!   You are always in our thoughts and prayers. We love you, Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, Nikki and Robert