We made it to church!

We (at least I, Dana) were so happy to make it to church on Sunday. When we went in London, we were late so we missed the sacrament. In Visby, we couldn't find it despite our best efforts. So we weren't entirely sure we'd find it in Stockholm. Armed with the address and the map of the metro we set out. We had previously decided to walk the 3 miles but decided to take the metro because of time. It was all an adventure and we made it in time to hear the last of the opening prayer. There were headsets for those who didn't speak swedish so we all picked up a headset and true to the headsets in our building only about half of them worked. It was great to hear the talks but singing the music was the best. The sacrament hymn was "I Stand All Amazed" and like I said I was really grateful to be there partaking of the sacrament so I really didn't sing THAT song. I just sat there choked up. Still good though. Afterwards we spoke with these two sister missionaries both from Utah, Price and Hurricane. They were great and helped us figure out how we could get down to see the Stockholm Sweden Temple. This ward also had apair of Elders from Finland serving in it. I said something about the Youtube video of 2 Finnish young men opening their mission calls and the Sister missionary from Hurricane said that that missionary was currently serving in the mission and had gotten an investigator from the youtube video. WOW! That's pretty funny. Anyway, the rest of their meetings were sort of scattered and really casual because of summer. The best part was that they had refreshments afterwards! Yeah! Spencer was sooooo glad. Cookies after all that suffering! We then went back to the hotel, took naps (Rich & I), and then set off for the Swedish Temple. We found it with no problem then came home and it was a good day.

In Stockholm now.

We left Visby around 2:30pm after cleaning up our little house and getting all the bags to the Gotland ring office. We were able to place our "Gotland Patch" travel bug in a geocache by a cemetery in Visby and do some geocaching on the way home. It was fun and it get's us off the beaten path. Spencer got stung by some stinging nettle or some other stinging plant while retrieving a geocache called "Polhem". It itched for a while and then went away. Some funny things about Sweden are that it costs 10 kronor to use a public toalett. It's about $1.50 to wee! So... we use that as a comparison. For instance, a hagen daz type ice cream bar cost 17 kronor or a little more than it costs to pee. Also, the word "Fart" means something like speed so we see words like infart, utfart, genomfart, toppfart and byggutfart all over the roadways which make us giggle a bit. Here are some more pictures. Collin at the wheel with Rich riding shotgun in an event at the track, running around inside another medeival church and our group effort of a reenactment of Samson holding the pillars and saying "Let me die with the Phillistines!" We are now in a very nice hotel in a room with a sauna and the kids are loving it. All is well. We board the ferry for Finland on Tuesday night and arrive Wednesday morning. It's light most of the way and it's through the archipeligo so we are passing islands most of the time. Cool!

More Pictures!

Here are a few more pictures! In the poppy fields, at the Burmeister place, on the island of Faro climbing on the chalk formations and standing around the H3 by the side of the road. We're having a good time and we were able to SKYPE with Ray and Nora yesterday. It was cool!

We made it to Visby!

After a long day of travel and much waiting around for the unknown, we arrived in Visby around 12:30am June 19th. Read Emily's blog; she has lots of details. Here are a couple of pictures.

On our way to Stockholm!

I type this as I sit here in the Heathrow airport waiting for our next flight. I don't know when I'll post again but rest assured that all is well! We're having a fun time and always remembered to "mind the gap".

We're here! (say this with a british accent)

We arrived after a lovely, long flight. We had a hard time staying awake until it was time to go to bed but we did it. We went to church today at the North London ward. It was very small and very cosmopolitian. More foreigners than anything else. But MANY different shades of God's children. It's weird to think that as I type this our sacrement meeting is just ending at home. Anyway, a young couple helped us find our way back to our hotel by bus which was MUCH cheaper than how we got there. We met a family by the name of Leavitt from Highland, Utah that had children with ages similar to ours. We had a good time. We walked all in and around Regent's Park, ate fish and chips, looked for some geocaches and tried to remember to look right before crossing the street. We walked through Camden street where there is a huge Sunday market with lots of very strange looking people. Different! Tomorrow will be a full day of running so I better get planning.

It's Dallas, Texas!

Collin received his call today and he's going to Dallas, Texas! He reports August 13th to the MTC!

The Pool update!

It's pretty much done. The light and the salt water system have yet to be in but we're good to swim. Yipee! It's been really hot here so we're glad to have the pool full again!

While we wait...

Good News! Collin's call has been issued and was sent out on Friday, June 6th. Our bishop said that they sent him an email confirming this. Our bishop also said that last time it was 10 days until the call was received. Pray for speedy mail service because we shove off for our grand adventure on the 13th of June and won't be back for 3 weeks. Eeeekkk! In the meantime I have been watching people open their mission calls on youtube. It's quite funny. If you want a good laugh just type in mission call and see what you get.