Regional Convention 2014

June 11 was the start of my work leave which would last until the 4th of July. That morning, hubby and I began our long journey to the south. The foremost event in this particular "holiday" journey was our annual summer convention held in Västerås, a 7 to 8-hour ride by car from our city.

Västerås' landmark

Exhaustion from the long trip made us stop by a municipality called Hedesunda and passed the night in a camping site where we rented a cottage. I think this is one of the snuggest camping sites we've ever been. It's also close to the lake.

our cottage

lake in the camping area

hiking trail along the lake

moon that night

The following morning, we moved on to our main destination, which was just about an hour away. We checked in to our pre-booked cottage along the lake.

our cottage

lake to the left and our cottage to the right

Our regional convention for this year is entitled Keep Seeking First God's Kingdom, based on Matthew 6:33. The emphasis is on putting the doing of God's will first in  our lives, which involves helping all people to learn about our loving Almighty God and Father and about his wonderful purpose for mankind so that they will have a better life now and in the promised new world. Whatever we do, we must always be mindful to do it for the sake of God's Kingdom. This means living a simple life, being contented with having the basic necessities of life. It's important to note that the Bible verse has an additional assurance: "and all these other things will be added to you." Yes, if we make God's Kingdom foremost in our lives, we will never lack anything, for God himself will see to it that we are well provided with what we need to sustain our present life. The real life is eternity in the future new paradisaic world which awaits those who treasure up spiritual things ahead of the perishable material things in this corroding system of things.

This convention consists of the usual talks, interviews, dramas, dramatic Bible readings, symposiums, new publication releases and demonstrations. New convention features are the several video clips and the Bible drama on screen produced a la stage play.

It's an amazingly historical convention and highly reinvigorating! I wish everyone could attend to experience the kind of joy and enlightenment that the majority of the world have never felt in their lives. After all, this convention is being held all over the world in many languages. Many of these conventions will host international delegates and missionaries from around the globe. This link shows how to find convention locations: Find a Location Near You

At the end of the third day of the convention, we proceeded right away on our trip down south, with Malmö as the target destination. But since it would take another 8 hours or so to get there, we have to stop again at a camping site in Vadstena to spend the night. This was our second time to stay in this place. We hired a cottage this time too since it would take much work to set up the tent that we brought and then dismantle again the following morning.

Vadstena Camping

our rented cottage

dining room in the camping's service building

toilets and baths section

Next episode in this series will cover our stay in Malmö, Skåne. 

Here are a few of the hundreds of pictures I've taken from our camping in Hedesunda, Västerås and Vadstena.

Have a fantastic Sunday!

Under The Apple Blossoms

I know they have all withered away, but I want to keep a memory of their days of glory. It was early summer when all the apple trees in the whole city were profused with blossoms, the sight of them made me wild with rapture. To echo a friend's description, the floral denseness is the closest thing to sakura, or cherry blossoms, which are the world's most loved blooming trees. 

I have never seen them in such profusion in all my past 4 summers since I came here. As I walked or traveled around the city, each tree that came into sight never failed to magnetise my eyes and keep me spellbound.

Some days, I would roam through a neighborhood and sneakily take snapshots of all the blooming trees in each homeowner's yard. I knew some of them noticed me but they seemed glad that somebody admired and took pictures of their lovely trees. Like a ravenous photo-freak that I am, I just kept on shooting, never getting enough of all possible angles that my eyes sought.

In such moments, I felt immersed in a universe densed with clusters of galaxies, each apple blossom a star, each bunch a galaxy, and each tree a cluster of galaxies. It's a kind of universe that is saturated with a sweet scent that floated around me and intoxicated my senses in a delightful way.

Aside from the apple trees, I also had an eye of adoration for the bird cherry trees and the rowans, which also bloomed richly. And I want to include them here.

It's amazing how such common things that others take for granted can redouble my joys and put me in elevated spirits. As I have often stressed, it's all a matter of how we see things and how much we let them affect us in a wonderful way. And sure, these too are some of the gifts of God that make us enjoy living now while waiting for the grand fulfillment of his promise of a real global Paradise where he will satisfy the desires of our hearts.

Linking with Today's Flowers

Our Share of the Summer Holidays

Summer. Popular holiday season. It’s a time when almost everybody (in this part of the world, for sure) takes some weeks off the work and travels somewhere to get away from the humdrums of daily life and enjoy peace by re-bonding with nature or lazing  on some sun-drenched beaches;  or see new places and immerse oneself in the vivacity of other cities.

The pivotal point of our summer holiday was the annual summer convention, which was recently renamed regional convention.  This event has always been the highlight of the year,  which serves to strengthen our spiritual well-being.  Since the English convention for the whole Scandinavia was held in Västerås, Sweden, we had to travel the distance  of more than 600 km. to attend. And since we had to travel this far anyway, we thought it best to use this opportunity to travel down south for this year's holiday.

venue of our convention

This journey was to be the acid test for our newly-purchased car, whether it could survive the road-burning across the distance of almost as half as the continent of Europe, approximately over 5,000 km. from our city, that is north of Sweden, down to the southernmost part of Poland, including the ins and outs of some tourist attractions, and back home. And it did hold out all the way until we came back safe and sound. Its "virgin voyage" in our hands was a triumph.

over-all map of our journey

I'm going to split my travel journal into several blog entries to avoid the tediously long narrative of an entire summer vacation. 

This is just a prologue. Before getting right to my travel blog, I still have one blog to write about, the beauty of which I don't want to just tuck away in a corner and gather dusts, cobwebs and spider webs. This will be my next post.

one night stop-over in a camping site along the way

Linking with Skywatch Friday