Business Trip to Sweden

OK, to answer Flint's complaint, I will post a couple of pictures from my trip to Stockholm this past week. The top one is of some buildings in the 'old town,' which is a touristy area on an island along with the palace and the parlaiment building. There are lots of little shops selling stuffed moose and viking hats all made in China there, but at least the buildings are authentic.

The second picture shows a Scania truck on a Stockholm street. If you look closely at it, below the headlamp you can see a round lamp that is lit up. That is the LED daytime running lamp that I helped design after my last trip to Sweden in 2007. This time I was there to discuss a quotation we are making for 4 more LED lamps that will go on the next upgrade of the truck.

You can see a few more pictures on my facebook page, but we only had a couple of hours to play tourist.

And it is 75 degrees here in Madison today.  We did a lot of work outside and planted tomatoes and green peppers.  Our garden is almost all in.  The rain has finally stopped, but there is a lot of flooding along the Ohio river.  You can see it a little bit with the webcam they have set up to watch the bridge construction.

http://www.miltonmadisonbridge.com/gallery/live-bridge-cam/

-Newel

My complaint

Actually, I've got a couple of complaints. The first is that I woke up to four inches of snow today. It's gone now, but it is still pretty cold. I have a fire going in the wood stove right now. Where is that global warming everyone complains about? Bring it on!

My second complaint is that there is not much activity on this blog. I want to know what is going on with everyone on a more regular basis.I want more detail about everyone's lives, even if it is mundane and boring. I get the feeling that no one wants to post anything unless they have been nominated for a Nobel Prize.

We spent several days in Wyoming and when we got home Brandon and Jenine came up and spent a couple days with us. We brought Katie and Tagg with us so we had all the grandchildren together for a day. Now we are back to our quiet, normal existence except that Anette is sick with a cold and I am trying hard not to catch it.

I haven't planted any garden yet because it has been too dang cold and wet. We have almost 200% or normal snowpack and it is all going to melt at once. Our stake has already stockpiled thousands of sandbags for the expected flooding. Luckily they just put a much bigger culvert under the road down from our house so we don't expect water to back up into our property. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

I can finally see the sun, so I guess I'll go feed the horses and chickens. I'm serious about the more info situation. I'm also expecting to be nominated for a Nobel Prize, just so you know. I'll post more about it when it happens.

Latest from Creed

Party people
We had one partying week this week. It was awesome. We worked super hard and found some really cool people. One day we got a reference and when we went back to contact it we found a family of 10 and they all listened and paid attention to the lesson we taught. The next day we found a little family of a mom and 3 kids and she said she really needs a church or some sort of activities for her kids to go to. She also asked us the awesome question of what do I have to do to be a member of the church? So that was an awesome contact. We had a lot of lessons this week but sadly when Sunday rolled around none of the people we had found came to church. It was a major bummer but I think if we work hard this week we can get them to church next week and then its all downhill to the font from there.

Even though we didn’t have any investigators in church we have been seeing a lot of inactives come which is super cool. One lady named Sister Sosa has come the last two Sundays and we had visited her a while ago with the Relief society pres and she told us good luck with her because they had tried before. Her family owns a bar and they are some of the last people you would expect to be members but I think she is starting to change. Were also visiting a 16 year old inactive who came last week and he has a few friends in the church he is way more interested in the church than you would expect a 16 year old boy to be, I think it may have to do with the girls in the church. Who can blame him?
My comp is pretty cool. He is originally from Columbia and he spent like 10 years there. Then he moved to Alaska and now he lives in Lehi Utah his dad flies Blackhawk helicopters I think so that is also super cool. He is super good at MMA so Jacob better watch out because my comp will teach me how to rip him apart with my fist and heels. He just got back from Aruba and so he also speaks Papiamento so that is also pretty cool.

Today my comp and all the missionaries from the Islands ABC had to go talk to president and pick up some luggage they left in storage before they went out to the islands so that is what we did this morning. Who is that little red head girl in the wagon with Tagg? Those kids look so big and different I can’t wait to play with them.

Anywho I love you all tons and I’m trying to be like Jesus. I still have a lot of time to learn and I need it too.
love you all

Creed

Pictures from Creed

Creed sent us a memory card with pictures this week. There were hundreds, but obviously I can only include a few. He sounds like he is doing well. His dog bite is healed. It's amazing to me to see the similarities in Third World countries no mater what part of the globe--garbage in the streets, animals roaming, etc. It is hard to believe he is down to seven months.