Springtime For Lund

By Kim

We have had a great week! We are at the end of the 1^st quarter so we are trying to get the missionary apartment inspections completed. in fact on Tuesday we did 3! Weeks ago the Senior Couple serving in  Göteborg, Äldste and Syster Hawley from Montana, invited us to join them in Landskrona and Helsingborg  on the 15^th of March. The Hawleys are headed home next month and have picked up some extra apartment checks throughout the mission to give them a chance to also do some sight-seeing. We had been looking forward to spending the day with them and had even looked up a few things we wanted to see in Helsingborg.

That morning we inspected the Systers apartment here in Lund. They needed a few screws tightened and we taught them how to clean out the vacuum cleaner. Their place was as clean as we expected! And then we were off to Landskrona/Helsingborg, about a 45 minute drive. We met the Hawley’s at one of the Elders apartments and did 2 apartment checks with them. And that was it… no sight-seeing at all… they had other plans… So we drove on home to our work in Lund.

That’s not to say we didn’t see any sights.  You can’t travel through Sweden with without seeing sights.

Here is Phillip standing in front of the Landskrona  Cathedral. This is the view from the Landskrona Elders’  entry.  Landskrona, Sweden has been calculated to be the exact center of Europe.  They never would have qualified if Norway didn’t stretch so far north.

This is Helsinborg’s City hall, caught on the fly at a stop light.

And here’s a sample of the sort of landscapes we drive through. Lutheran churches dominate the cities and villages. From this particular spot we could see two other steeples. While the Church of Sweden was considered the state church the government was obligated to provide a enough churches to the populace. The government severed its ties to the church in 2000.

We see quite a few windmills as well.  This is one we pass by frequently, but there's hardly ever an opportunity to stop.  As for today we’ve got a meeting in Lund to hurry back to.

In April 22-24 the Malmö Stake will sponsor about 200 young adults for a weekend called “Create”. I sit with the young adult council that is planning the weekend. When we arrived at this week’s meeting our food chairman had prepared a lovely dinner for us including a fancy table with elegantly folded napkins. We started with crawfish followed by pike in a horseradish sauce with boiled potatoes. It was a pleasant surprise; especially for the young adults on the committee who arrive straight from work or school without dinner. It was delicious, but there were more bones in that piece of fish then I have dealt with since I was a child! The food chairman’s name is Kalle and he is a non-member. He has been socially converted for years but doesn’t want to hear anymore missionary lessons right now. He does attend church on Sundays – He is from Columbia and speaks Spanish and Swedish… We do a lot of sign language in the kitchen.

So, on Wednesday we had another apartment inspection in Malmö, and needed to shop for the Institute dinner the next day.

On Thursday night I fed the Institute students taco soup. Everyone raved… but they always do :).  I have purchased 2 large crock-pots since I got here and I love them! I dumped all the ingredients into them that morning and then Phillip and I left for the day! We were back at the center 45 minutes before meal time and everything was good to go. I used combined recipes from Sarah McBride and Sherri Barrow. Thank you for your cooking skills. I feed about 20 YA’s each week. My budget is about $2.50 per person. I am welcome to other ideas because figuring out what to feed them is the hardest part! OH! … and it has to be gluten free!

On that same Thursday (after the taco soup was in the crock-pots) we drove about 30 minutes to Vellinge Blomman, my favorite store in Sweden! It is a greenhouse / holiday store. Elizabeth is in the Malmö congregation, but has problems getting to church because of her health. However, she likes to go to Vellinge Blomman quarterly. We went with her in January and purchased our Amaryllis. This time the store was decorated for Easter! I bought an orchid and several small plants. The small plants were about $1.75 each and I plan to give them as birthday presents next month to the systers I visit teach because it is my birthday!

Here are some photos of the audio animatronic displays we saw at Vellinge Blomman. They had about ten diaramas representing a variety of folk tales featuring eggs.  For example, the dwarves from Snow White were portrayed by eggs wearing beards.

The Three Little Pigs

Rapunzel

An eggland village.

Swedish traditions for Easter include witches.  They represent the forces of evil that were thwarted by the resurrection of Christ.  It is not unusual for small children, especially girls, to dress up as witches for Easter

Witches for sale

Another tradition is to tie colorful feathers to birch twigs.  In former times on the night before Easter the twigs would be waved in the air to scare off the witches flying overhead.  Now they are mostly featured as decorations

Some have even made it into our home.

The next day was our weekly District Meeting. Our district leader conducted a discussion on how hope is connected to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is such a joy to sit in these meetings and hear these young missionaries share their keen insights on the gospel.

Afterwards, we went to a Chinese buffet on Kyrkogatan which gave us another unexpected chance to see some of the sights, all from the same bus stop.

Domkyrkan (Judgement church)

Nearly 1000 years old

Lund University's Universtyhuset

(Note the sphinxes on the upper corners)

The Southwest access to Lund University

As we ate in the courtyard patio, both Phillip and I noticed the layers of brick walls rising above us. We each reached for the phone to take the picture not knowing what was going on in the other's head. I got there first.

New photo of Amaryllis.