Week 24--Lasagna and Trolley Tracks

I am finally starting to feel like I am catching up in the office, but I'm certainly not caught up.    When John finishes paying his bills for the day, he likes to ask, "Are you done?"  He knows what the answer will be, because the office is work is NEVER done.  It's like the dishes or the laundry.  Each day I find a stopping point and quit working, then finalize the next day's "to do" list.

At our weekly office meeting, we talk about the logistics of transfers, office needs and concerns, and, of course, missionary items, but the meeting is not devoid of spirituality by any means.  We start with a hymn, as we stand around the grand piano in the living room of the mission home, followed by a prayer.  Then we have a "success story" and a spiritual thought based on a scripture.  This week the Assistants  talked about keeping the Sabbath Day Holy, and afterward the President shared, from his Mission President's training, Isaiah 58:13, 14:

 13 ¶ If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:

 14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

He went on to explain, that the key to "turning from thy pleasure" is doing "His will."  As this is what missionaries are striving to do each day, he said that, "Everyday on a mission is a Sabbath Day, and when we return home, our Sabbath Day should be like a day on our mission." Something to ponder, to remember...and to do.

Thursday was our district meeting,.  This is when we meet with the younger missionaries in our district each week for sharing and training.  For convenience sake, we met in the "clubhouse" this week. (The clubhouse is the extra "apartment" in our  Mission Office-apartment "complex."  If you come to visit, this is where you will stay, hopefully.)  After district meetings we usually go out to eat together, but since we were "at home,"  John and I decided a lasagna lunch would be a welcome surprise.  Wednesday night, as I was preparing it, I had other thoughts though.  I hadn't tried to make lasagna in Sweden before.  I couldn't find ricotta cheese, so I fell back to the substitute my mom used,  cottage cheese, no problem.  But the box of noodles confused me. I couldn't tell how many noodles were in the small boxes.  (Everything is packaged smaller here.) So, I bought 4 boxes.  It turned out that the noodles are about 3 1/2 by 6 inches.  Very flat, very thin.  And there are about 20 noodles to a box. When cooked they expand to about 5 x 9, fitting nicely across the pan.  However, getting to that point was the challenge for me.  First, they cooked really fast.  I had cooked two boxes because they seemed small and I needed two pans for our hungry missionaries.  When I drained them, they were just a touch softer than they should have been and though I rinsed them, they stuck together.

I did my best to make one pan of lasagna, but as I finished the first layer of the second pan, realized I couldn't unstick the wad of noodles any more; they were just tearing to shreds.  I started boiling more water and John said, wouldn't adding oil help?  Oh, yeah, I forgot to do that!

They loved it!

Friday we drove to Göteborg again...the 5 1/2 hour trip across the country, to do lunch for the zone conference of 34 missionaries.   We stopped at Brooklyn Burgers in Husqvarna, about 2/3 the way there.  The office elders had told us about this yummy burger, topped with cream cheese and a delicious sauce.  We're glad the Swedes love their "hamburgare" because we do, too!

Names like this make me forget I am in Sweden!  This hamburger joint has been around only 3 years and is opening their 4th location!

While in Göteborg, we decided to visit a few sights we missed on the previous trip:

The power of the river running between and under buildings creates an amazing site.  Formerly the location of a booming textile industry, this suburb of Goteborg called Kvarnby, today houses shops and restaurants.

 Skansen Kronan was a fortress overlooking the town and seaport of Goteborg. 

View of Goteborg from Skansen Kronor

As we were driving in downtown Göteborg, trying to follow our very confused GPS, to a much needed gas station, there was one point on a narrow street that we were following behind a trolley on its tracks.  It was the only way to go, and though it didn't feel right, we noticed a police car behind us, who turned off, so we thought we knew we were ok.  Continuing on, we noticed that there was another lane to our right, but thought is was a bus lane.  (No cars are allowed in bus lanes.)  Then  a 4-6 inch brick divider appeared as we realized we were coming into the trolley stop!  A quick reverse and jump over the brick barrier and we were on the right road, WHEW!  Adrenaline pumping, heads spinning, we were so grateful there wasn't any other traffic--or that police man-- just shocked onlookers!

I think I took this picture just as we should have been maneuvering into the lane on the right...oops.

We ended the day with a stop at a Japanese restaurant for sushi to celebrate our 42nd anniversary (Saturday).  We certainly are having the experience of our lives here--on an 18-month honeymoon in Sweden.  Well, sort of...😉

I am grateful the girls and their families enjoyed being at Loon Lake.  They went home this week, and it was sort of sad to know they aren't there anymore.  While they were there I was reminded that it was for their enjoyment, and the generations to follow, that we built that house.  It still gives us satisfaction, even half a world away.

The grandkids showing off their boats!