Sweden Here I Come!

Sweden Here I Come!

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Tripanionship!!! Welcome Aldste Barnes


There have been a lot of changes this past week for the Milne Family!  We have been making the adjustment to the adobe house and it's much smaller living space, baseball is in full swing, and Aldste Milne is in a tricompanionship (three companions).  There are definitely some challenges that come along with that arrangement, but for the most part you will find that it allows for more work to be accomplished.  Utilize your ward members to go on splits - that way you are accomplishing double.  I was in a tricompanionship for about six months of my mission.  I dare to say that it is a little more difficult with sister missionaries - way too much drama!  I had two newbies at the same time.  One was  a greenie from North Carolina and the other had been out six weeks and was from Calilfornia.  I then had the greenie transfer and another sister from Utah joined us.  Good luck with your new arrangement - make the most of it in the month you have it!

Dallin mentioned his zone conference training on the Holy Ghost.  What a wonderful gift we have been given.  I am so grateful for the Holy Ghost in my life.  Dallin, remember that the words of Christ will tell you and the Holy Ghost will show you all things that you should do (2 Nephi 2:33).  Also, we have recently been taught by our prophet and a few of the apostles that when it comes to the Holy Ghost we all live far below our privileges.  Do all that you can to develop a strong relationship with the Holy Ghost.  As the third member of the Godhead he too loves you and desires to help you in accomplishing the Father's work.  President Ezra Taft Benson once said in regards to missionary work, "it's the Spirit that counts, it's the Spirit that matters most."  Do all that you can to have the Spirit with you each day, and at the end of each day be sure to acknowledge His help and express gratitude.  Keep up the great work Dallin.  We love and miss you more than you'll ever know.

My Letter this Week:

Dear Dallin,

Greetings from the Adobe!  Little by little we are getting moved in.  Still not quite ready to post pictures, but in a few days for sure.  It has been amazing to me how much of our furniture we can actually fit in it.  However, we still had to rent two storage units to store the rest of our stuff.  That is something you realize real quick when you downsize and that is that all of this is just stuff.......  It is amazing what little you can live with, and that the "stuff" is just more things to clean and worry about.  It is actually a bit liberating.

Since we have moved in we have had more visitors here than in our other house.  People have just shown up out of the blue, mostly family, but we even had three older couples from Idaho stop and knock on our door and ask if they could gather some pecans.  I told them "sure".  They were very happy! Yesterday Kirk came by for a visit and really like all the changes we have made.  Today, Gary came by this morning and then Kim and Mike stopped by this afternoon. It was fun visiting with them and reminiscing. Dad was on cloud nine of course.

This week we didn't have much time to exhale after basketball....  Carter jumped right into baseball.  PVHS played Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  They defeated Kanab on Wednesday (Carter pitched one inning and only threw 10 pitches.  Three up, three down).  He also pitched in the game on Friday against Richfield.  He wasn't supposed to play that game but had to come in and clean it up.  PV lost 9-5 and by the time Carter entered the game the damage had been done.  He pitched the four final innings of the game and gave up two earned runs.  The weather this weekend was beautiful.  We had snow last weekend and it was quite cold until Wednesday.  The last few days have been gorgeous - 70 degree weather is my favorite.

We have attended our new ward twice.  It seems to be a great ward.  The people are all down to earth and very friendly.  Dad is having a great time reconnecting with members he has known since his childhood, and I am trying to keep all of their names straight.  Tonight for family home evening we read out of David Milne's Bible that we had restored.  We sent it back East to Pennsylvania and it was restored by hand.  It is an 1869 Bible and contains several family members signatures.  The entire restoration and keepsake box cost us over $1000.00.  It was worth it.  I will post some pictures of it on the blog.

The boys are out for Spring Break this week.  We will purchase a membership to the Rec. Center tomorrow so they will have something to do.  Dad of course has several projects outlined for them around here.  We still have a lot to do to get this old place in shape, and we also want to get a garden in this week.

How has your week been?  How is the work going there in Kungsbacka?  After all these months Monday morning is still my most favorite time of the week.  Did you go to the doctor this week?  How are you feeling?  I hope Spring is around the corner for you soon - just think, you will not have to go through another winter in Sweden!

How are things with Elder Christiansen?  How much longer do you think you will be in Kungsbacka?  Our thoughts and prayers are with you everyday.  We love and miss you so very much, but we are so proud of you and wouldn't want you anywhere else at this time in your life.  Keep up the great work and have a fabulous week!

All My Love,

Mom


Blaine's Letter this Week:

Hello Elder Milne,

I hope everything is going well for you out there in Sweden.  We were looking at the world globe the other day as we moved things into this adobe.  It was unbelievable realizing that with the earth on it's axis and during it's normal rotation puts Sweden directly on top of the world.  Did you ever think "You were on top of the World?"

Well, Dallin, you are on top of the world being on your  mission in Sweden.  I hope you feel that way.  With the Lord's creations He has literally put you on top of the world.  Does that make you "All world?"

I think so.  

So keep your chin up and keep your shoulder to the wheel.  We are so proud of you and pray for you always.  Remember, sacrifice brings forth blessings.  You are indeed sacrificing yourself for the Lord and his work.  Please remember this will bring true joy for you in the kingdom when you rest with The Father and the Son.  How blessed you are to represent him.  God bless you.  I love you Dallin.  Thanks for all your hard work getting this adobe remodeled.  You are a fine son.
  
Love,

DAD 


Aldste Milne's Letter Home:


Dear Milne Family,

I thought dad's letter was pretty cool.  I had never thought of that, being on top of the world and stuff.  And yes, I do believe that it does actually make me "all world". haha

Thanks for the email dad.  I had kind of a weird dream last night with the fam in it (I usually dream about the family but I thought this one was funny).  So in the dream I was married, and in my mind I knew that I had married young and was a little uncomfortable with that, then a 5 year old version of Ty shows up and in my mind it was like he was my son.  So I spent a lot of the dream hanging out with Ty and taking care of him but I was also looking all over for my wife because I wanted to find out who she was.  Finally she shows up (A really hot brunette girl haha) I gave her a big hug and told her that I had missed her or whatever and then out of nowhere she whispers in my ear "I want a divorce".  That really threw me off. I kept my cool because there were other people around and somehow knew that she had been cheating on me, I calmly asked her who this other guy was and she pointed him out in the crowd.  Then I got Carter to help me corner this guy later and we gave him a pretty good beating.  And then afterwards I was hanging out with Dad as he was like, "yeah these damn women, but you should have followed Grandpa Glen's advice and married a homely girl Dallin."  And then you got mad at Dad about it I guess or for something else Mom haha.  Super funny dream.  But sad too.  Anyways I thought I'd tell you about it.

But dang I was hoping to get to see some pictures of the adobe today.  Please send some soon.  It doesn't need to be the finished project but I just want to see how its looking.  It sounds really exciting though, that's cool that you guys have had some good company in there lately.  Crazy that baseball is already in full swing.  Sounds like Carter was able to pitch pretty well though coming right off the basketball court just days before.  That 70 degree weather sounds heavenly.  It's actually been pretty nice over here too though lately.  Sun out with a blue sky, we soak it in as much as we can.

A pretty big change happened this week.  One of the elders here had to go home and instead of bringing in a new one, President wants us to just finish the transfer as a tripanionship.  So that will make things interesting these next 4 weeks.  Some positive things about it though is that we now have to combine our work load which should keep us pretty busy actually and make the days go faster.  Elder Barnes is the other missionaries name.  He is from Indianapolis.  I like him.  They have a couple investigators who are looking pretty good as far as progressing towards baptism too so hopefully we can get a job done there.  My doctors appointment is today finally, I'll let you know how it goes later.  Otherwise I am doing okay.  The season changes have given me some allergies but nothing that I am not used to.

We had a cool zone conference with a focus on the Holy Ghost, his role, how we recognize and follow his promptings as well has how we help our investigators recognize and understand the Spirit and its role in our conversion.  Good stuff.  After, we got to do interviews and that went really well.  The Beckstrand's are great people and I sure am glad that they are here.

I love you guys so much and I miss you so much, but like you said, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else right now.

Med Kärlek
Äldste Milne

This week's Pictures:


Ward Council Members
(Aldste Milne you are so Handsome!)


Blaine in his element coaching the PVHS JV team vs. Logan High School




Pictures of the ADOBE!!!


My and Blaine's Room




The new closets we had put in


Ty and Carter's Room





The only bathroom....  Going from four bathrooms to one makes life interesting!



The Living Room





Grandma Bonnie's China


The Kitchen - We had to buy a new table and chairs because our other one was too big!




We added a few new cupboards, and the counter top will be finished this week.
That is an 1896 cast iron stove.  Grandma Mandy would cook on that and Grandpa Othole would stick his feet in it to keep them warm!  They were married for 75 years and raised 10 kids in this house.  Wow!  If we decide to stay more than a month or two we will be adding an addition onto the back of the house with a master bedroom and bath and we will extend the kitchen.

1 comment:

  1. Oh Natalie, everything looks wonderful. Dallin IS SURE HANDSOME! and doing good. I love the pictures of your home, they are BEAUTIFUL. You did a great job moving into the adobe. I need to, however, fix Blaine's baseball swing. I'll be down this weekend. Get the bat out Bulge.

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