(journal entry from August 31, 2019)
We got to the Stockholm temple in time to attend the last session of the day (which was noon).
The temple here is pretty small and definitely stays true to Scandinavian design and culture. The landscaping is simple and very natural feeling. In fact, behind the back of the temple, you just go down these stairs and it leads to a bit of wild, un-landscaped land. So Swedish. They love to be one with nature. 🙂
It was really neat to get to do an Endowment session here, and especially to get to do temple work for some of my Swedish and Danish ancestors. I was able to do the endowment work for Anne Larsdatter – my 8th Great Grandmother who was from Bornholm. My dad also did the work for one of our Bornholm ancestors. And my mom and Jershon did endowments for two of our Swedish ancestors.
After the temple, we went out to lunch (a pizza place again because we didn’t want to hunt around too long and that was close by). They seriously love their pizza here.
After lunch, we got back in the car and drove another 3 and a half hours down to Jönköping. We checked into our Airbnb which is a 18th century cabin. It is adorable. 🙂
Our Airbnb hosts told us about a festival that was happening tonight so we decided to go check it out. It was called Fallens Dag (Dropping of the Falls) and we had no clue what it was until the end. Haha.
There is a waterfall right next to the Huskvarna and I guess they have used it for a long time for power. It seems that they blocked off the water flow and then did a ceremonious “dropping of the falls” where they let the waterfall flow again. Everything was in Swedish and it was dark outside so we didn’t really know what was going on until everyone was crowding around the small stream (well, it looked small…until the water was allowed to flow again). We still didn’t really know what was going on, but we just stood there like everyone else, acting like we knew what we were waiting for. haha. And then it happened. They dropped the falls (I’m guessing they opened the dam?) and the water came rushing down! It was pretty exciting! Haha… mostly because everyone else was excited. It was fun to be there and get to participate in some local culture. 🙂
And now we are back at our Airbnb, and getting ready to go to sleep. We have another packed day tomorrow…
