Busy time in Göteborg

Dome Church Organ

Dearest Friends and family, we have had a very busy week, full of all kinds of discoveries.   Monday was of course FHE.  We started meeting in the lobby over the Christmas break because there weren’t many of us.  Now when we start at 7 pm, there are still just a few of us so the YSA elect to stay in the lobby.  Then by about 7:20 more have arrived and there are so many of us that we can’t fit any more chairs in the lobby.  We either have to get different couches that hold more people or a bigger lobby!  The YSA claim that meeting on the couches is more like a real family night!  (without the whining or fighting, of course.)  this week the game was sardines.  The one that was the hardest to find was in the lunch room, under the table but on the seat of the chairs.  After about 6 or 8 minutes of looking, no one had found him.  So his youngest brother who hadn’t been playing said, “he thinks just like me.  I’ll find him.”  And sure enough, he did.  He walked into the lunch room and found him instantly!

Tuesday morning we got a call from the fellow who lives across the street from the center, his name is Marzio, asking if we wanted to go for a walk in old Göteborg.  We met him in front of the center at 11 and he toured us through the oldest part of the city.  It was a beautiful clear-sky day with the sun shining brightly.  But there was a wind that shot ice cycles right through you, so we were bundled to the eyes.  Three of the interesting things we saw were:  1)  the Domkyrken  –  the Göteborg cathedral of the Swedish church.  It takes up a block in this section of town.  The building isn’t that big but it has lots of space and garden around it.  It is right across the street from a Pizza Hut.  It is called Gustavi Cathedral after the king who founded Göteborg in 1621.  There has been a church on the site since 1633.  It isn’t a beautiful building –  just plain on the outside —  but it has a huge organ on the south end  and the north end,  where the altar is, has a very unusual cross.  It is probably 15 or 16 feet tall and looks as if it were made of logs.  It is gilded with gold and has what appears to be a sunburst behind it.  The strangest thing is, there is no crucified Christ on it.  It is empty!  The literature says that what appears to be cloth draped over the cross arm represents the grave cloth from the Savior’s tomb.  And there are several angels around it.  The story is that when the Swedish church broke from the catholic church they did whatever they could to be just the opposite of the mother church.  Whatever the reason, I thought it was very interesting.     2)  the old armory  –  it was a huge brick building, right in the middle of a very busy part of the old town,

Beautiful stained Glass windows in German Church

with huge iron shutters on all the windows.  Apparently Göteborg burned several times and to keep the fire away from the powder that was stored in the building the shutters were made of iron.  No other building that we saw in the whole of the old town had shutters of any kind, let alone iron.  The doors were also iron. 
3)   Christinae Kyrka  –  the German church.   It is named after a queen who gave them her patronage but called the German church by the locals.   The

Marzio, Syster and Äldste Anderson

congregation was established just 2 years after the city was founded by protestant immigrants from the Netherlands, Scotland and Germany.  Their church burned to the ground in 1669 when the entire city was destroyed by fire and another  building was erected in 1672. It too burned to the ground in 1746 and the current building was built in 1748.  It is a yellow building right next to the outer canal nestled between several other large buildings.  Unlike the cathedral which had no stained glass, this church had nothing but stained glass windows.  The pictures in them were mostly the ancient apostles.  Behind the altar was a private ‘chapel’ that had been constructed by a prominent general who was a parishioner.  It contained his large tomb as well as the burial spots of his wife and several of their small children.  (he and his wife had 22 children, only 3 of whom lived to adulthood)  it is a rounded room with nooks and each nook has 2 statues of the ancient apostles in it.  The most interesting things in the building were the window with Peter in it and the Peter statue –  they both pictured him with a large key in one hand and a large book in the other.  I have no clue if anyone connected to that church has any idea what the key means.  But it reminded me of a story of President Kimball and several of the Quorum of the Twelve visiting a church somewhere in Europe (Germany, I think)  and seeing just such a picture and telling the minister that was showing them around this famous church that the key Peter was holding represented the keys of the priesthood and that they were once again on the earth and he and those men with him held them.

Chinese night

The rest of the week was pretty normal with taco casserole for dinner and Friday chill was ‘China Night’

Accupuncture demonstration

–  one of the boys who was doing it brought his aunt and she cooked Chinese food for us all  –  about 15 of us!  Dumplings, a rice noodle salad, some sort of seasoned meat and a wonderful baked chicken with honey and stuff on it.  The sauce for the dumplings looked like soy sauce with some little green onions in it.  The first bite was fine. The second bite, bit back.  And the third bite turned me into a fire breathing dragon!  I have no clue what it was called, but eat it with caution!  Special note:  I ate the entire meal with chop sticks!

So much for Sweden.  We hope all of you have had great a week, too.  We sure miss all of you.  And we love you.

Äldste and Syster Anderson

Ps.  Hope you enjoy some pictures of the churches and a picture of us and our friend who showed us around, Marzio DeMari. The statue we are standing in front of is King Gustav II Adolf, the founder of Göteborg.