Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Tourists, tourists, and more tourists!

Tja! 

Every time we go out to do our laundry
and even when we come home
at night, this cat comes running
out to us to give us some love.
So this week has been one of those where we went out and talked to all the tourists again.  We ran into some Americans too!  Even ran into a group of church members from Salt Lake City, Utah!  They were so surprised to see two missionaries on Gotland Island.  We really do have missionaries everywhere!  Each week there are waves of people that come from different parts of the world to visit this island.  It’s kind of cool.  This week we talked with a lot of Norwegians too.  We can still communicate with each other even though it is a different language because Swedish and Norwegian are very similar.

Last Monday for our Prep day, we went to this HUGE Viking museum exhibit here in Visby.  It was really interesting and we got some good pictures.  The armor was fun to try on too! 
We even got to try on some armor!  It was SO heavy , ha ha.
Viking museum in Visby... We decided
to have some fun in the kids exhibit!
We had a party with our new members and their families at a members home.  When we drove them back home, we stopped at some old viking ruins which was also interesting and got some greats pics.  

In the town of Visby on this island, there is this thing called “studenten”.  It's basically a big party for the graduating high school students.  They all get in big decorated wagons and are towed by tractors.  They drive around all day and night with really loud music blasting full of the students wearing sailor hats and drinking a lot haha. 

The whole city comes out to watch them drive around. So it was pretty cool!  This year something really sad happened though. Late at night, one of the students tried to jump from one wagon to another and fell… He was run over and killed.  It’s pretty sad especially because Gotland is so small and all the students know each other very well.  It is pretty hard for them, and for the people living here.  
Studenten on Gotland.  There are many
of these decorated wagons and they
party all day and night.
That situation made me think about a few things…  As sad as this situations is, (and so many others) this life is so short when you think about time of eternity.  Having an eternal perspective about life is the ultimate strength.  This isn't just something we hope for... This is something we can know for certainty for our selves.  It’s awesome!  We just need to take the first step, humbling ourselves and admit that it’s possible.  Heavenly Father loves all of us and there is a plan for you and for me.  That knowledge is available to each of us personally.  I am grateful.
Visby...
Love you guys and have a good week! 
Äldste Blackburn

Some old viking shoes.


A skull with the chain mail still on it.

They found this skull with three arrow heads in it... There was a
huge civil war here on Gotland Island back in the dark ages.

They found the largest deposit of Arabic coins here on Gotland
in the whole world!  Those vikings really got around!

Enjoying some warmth of goat fur.



Party for our new members and their families.

This the biggest viking boat grave in Sweden, and it's on Gotland.
 A boat grave is really a grave for the captain of a ship who died,
and they form the rocks into the size of his ship.





Add caption
9000 year old skeleton!


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