Locked and Loaded

(Note: pictures are now being added to previous days)

We awoke early this morning so that we could get to church on time. We had contacted Jim's missionary companion, Ron Wennerlund, from 39 years ago and he told us which church to go to and most of his family was there too. We figured out our route on the subway and discovered that the exit we needed to get to was closed due to reconstruction. Not this again....this reminded me of our last trip. Everytime we found our way on the metro it was waylaid due to one reason or another.

After getting off at the wrong stop we turned around and got back on and got off at another stop that had buses waiting for us to take us to the metro station that we needed to go to. Very nice that they helped us out that way.

We got off at the right stop and walked about 1/3 mile to the church. This suburb part of Stockholm is very rural. It reminds me of Flagstaff with trees and little cabins/homes. It is nothing like the Stockholm that we have been seeing for the last 2 days. It was just a nice little town.
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We walked into church and were greeted by a nice lady about our age who asked if we were visitors. I guess she could tell that we weren't Swedish but she welcomed us and we found our seats at the back of the church.

Everything was in Swedish and I asked Jim if he could understand what was being said. He said it is easier to understand and he sort of understood what the meeting was about.

The church has many young and old families. Jim was trying to see if he could find the father of his missionary companion but all we could see were the backs of heads and 40 years ago the man would have had more hair and hair a different color! We pretty much just figured out that we would never find Ron's family but at least we got to go church there.

After church the same lady we had met at the beginning came up and asked if we wanted to stay for the next meeting, Sunday School. We told her that we were looking for the family of Jim's companion. She asked who that might be and I said, "Ron Wennerlund". By this time an elderly man had joined her and she said, "That would be us! I am Ron's sister and this is my father" pointing to the elderly man. What a coincidence or divine fate or whatever! We had a lovely visit with her, her father, another sister of Ron's and her husband who is a doctor that we were going to look up if we needed to. So it turned out to be a great morning and upon leaving we asked a man who was standing outside if he would take our picture by the front of the church. He was gracious to do that and in talking with him we discovered that he had lived in one of the areas, Malmo, where Jim had been for 6 months. He was a few years younger than Jim but thought that he remembered him. He was a famous swimmer, Matt Bloom, "maybe you have heard of me?" We hadn't but I am going to Google him. It made us feel that all the traveling to get to church was well worth it.

We decided to go to Gamla Stan (an island) which until the 1600's was Stockholm. It actually means "Old Town" and that is where the Royal Palace and the Royal Armory are. Also housed on Gamla Stan is the Nobel Museum. Gamla Stan is mostly pedestrian so it is a fun place to walk around.

We got off the metro and found our way to the Changing of the Guards as Sweden still has a King and Royal Family. This changing of the Guards takes place every day and the pomp and circumstance is much like London's Changing of the Guard. They have a Royal Band with Royal music and it was all very rousing to say the least. We enjoyed being on the Palace grounds while the band played and the guards changed and then went to find lunch.
(These guys were standing there saying, "Hey, you look just as dumb in your blue army uniform as I do, but MY
M-16 is locked and loaded!)

We toured the Nobel Museum and were very impressed with their display of all the Nobel Prize winners from Mr. Nobel on.

Rick Steves says that the Royal Armory is a "Must See". The nice thing about the armory is the fact that it houses all the Royal garments and armory and carriages and they have to keep it cool because of their preciousness. Since Stockholm is experiencing a heat wave that broke millenial records yesterday, it was nice being inside the cool, dark rooms of the Armory.

We walked across some bridge (did we mention that Stockholm is the "Venice of the North"?) and sat on a park bench, eating ice cream and watching the plethera of sun bathers. Since 50% of Stockholm live in apartments (which don't have balconies or pools, etc.) when the weather gets nice those 50% throng to the parks and sunbathe and sunbathe. No matter where we have walked these past few days, if there is grass nearby you will see men and women in swimsuits sunbathing. I have never seen so many sunburned people in my life! Everyone has a sunburn--like it is a rite of passage or something.

We decided that we had a full day and found the nearest Metro and came back to the hotel. Of course we are across the street from a Stadium so our Metro was full of sports fans racing to get to their favorite game. We, on the other hand, were more than happy to go in the opposite direction and get to our room where we could put up our feet and plan our strategy for tomorrow. Print this post