I joined Jessi and Anja on the other side of the hostel around 6 AM and we set out for the church.
I thought I would stay awake for the whole ride but I ended up falling asleep in the middle of the trip. I awoke and found ourselves in Jönköping. That was easy!
Anja had the hard part of driving the whole way. She didn't get to sleep at all. And the roads were a little icy too. Anja is our hero of the trip!
We arrived and tried to see if the church was already open. It wasn't open yet, so we went back to the car. Jessi braved the cold and bought a parking ticket for the car. You can see there was frost on the parked cars outside of the church. Brrrrr!
The church bulletin board.
The outside announcement of the morning breakfast.
The entrance to the church.
About twenty minutes later, we noticed people going inside, so we joined them. We walked into the entryway and hung up our coats on the coat racks you find in various buildings all over Sweden.
The entryway of the church.
The information desk and coffee machine.
Breakfast was already set up and ready to go. There was a man taking payment at the door and people were already going in to eat, so we went in too.
The two sides of the breakfast table. MMM! Let's eat!
Apple pastries.. yummy!
Don't forget your drink!
Lovely decorations in the church...
Apples in the entryway.
Flowers on the meeting room tables.
Candelabra and centerpiece on the breakfast table.
A quiet meeting room before the breakfast and lecture began.
Everyone getting their food at the breakfast table (with Anja to the left wondering what exactly I'm taking a picture of).
We had a nice little breakfast and set up all the camera equipment afterwards. Once everything was set up, I grabbed my trusty handheld recorder and began to chat with people in the meeting room. As usual, I asked them about the breakfast, the church, a little bit about the city, and their expectations for the morning.
I finished interviewing and somewhere around this point, Jessi caught a glimpse of Jenny as she was walking into the church. Jenny spent a few minutes setting up a table with books and CDs in the entryway, then she stopped by the table to say hello to us.
We chatted a little bit about the early morning, the drive up from Gothenburg, and the lake in Jönköping. After our little hello, she left to finish the set-up for the lecture.
A packed house. Notice that empty chair? That ONE empty chair? Hands off! It's mine!
The view of the outside from my seat.
The stage setup.
This woman was the host for the introduction and the final closing of the lecture. She works in the church and has done events like this before. That camera in the picture frame belongs to Jessi.
The lecture began about five minutes after nine and lasted about an hour and fifteen minutes.
Screenshots from the lecture:
The lecture, like previous days, was based upon the book. Jenny hit several of the main points from previous lectures, yet added a little spin onto each of the stories. Jessi once said that no two lectures are alike and there are always new bits and pieces in each one. This speech proves that point. The stories were familiar, yet the way they were told was engaging.
This crowd was one of the most engaged of all the audiences during the two weeks. They were made up of people from the church and many people from outside of the church. A great majority had never been there or had been there only a few times.
During the lecture, the audience paid rapt attention. They sat forward, listened intently, and were always focused. Every time Jenny created a dramatic pause, the only sound was of air moving around the room. It was that quiet. There were also many "ah-ha" and "mmhm" moments on people's faces during the speech itself. You could almost hear people thinking through and processing the things they were hearing.
A longer, more thorough report about the content of the speech will appear on jennyberggren.net in the near future for those interested in the finer points of the lecture.
After the speech was over, Jenny went back out to the entryway to meet people and sign her book and CD.
The crowd waiting to meet Jenny after the speech.
Like previous lectures and concerts, I interviewed people in the crowd after everything was over.
The people I met were thoughtful and full of insight. I asked them what they thought of the lecture and they mentioned several things without any prompting. All my interviewees kept coming up with different points to talk about, so it was an easy interview for me. I just sat back and listened. One person would mention a certain aspect of the speech, then a second person would chime in and elaborate on another point. After that, a third person would bring another insight to the discussion. It became a round table discussion that would twist and turn into various topics.
(I'll chronicle their reactions in the next post!)
I spent a pretty good deal of time interviewing and once it was over, I saw that Jenny was still outside talking to people and signing autographs. Everyone had cleared out of the meeting room at that point, with the exception of the people cleaning up after the breakfast. I grabbed my gear and headed out to the entryway.
Oh, did you want some more food? All gone!
Jessi and Anja were outside waiting for the crowd to thin out. Once the crowd thinned, they pulled out their 25 copies of "My Story" that Simon brought to them the night before. All of the CDs had to be opened and the booklets had to be removed so Jenny could sign everything. Thankfully, Jessi had a silver pen for the autographs so they would show up on the cover. A normal pen would have been difficult to read, but this silver marker was just the right type of pen to autograph the album.
Jenny and Jessi working down the list of names of people who wanted a signed copy of "My Story".
Signing the CD booklets for fans. Booklets everywhere!
A very cool book Jessi and Anja created from the photos they took during the January concerts.
We gave Jenny a few small tokens of appreciation after the signing and we also gave her a thank you card that explained our idea of collecting donations for the VOI-Project from the fanbase as a way to thank her for her music and her work over the years. If you haven't been able to donate and would like to do so, click here!
After everything was signed, the four of us moved to a table in the breakfast room and sat down for a few minutes. We also chatted with the woman who was the host for the lecture.
Not long after we sat down, Jessi pulled out her computer so Jenny could listen to the "Gotta Go" fan remixes. There was a contest on The Jenny Source website for remixes and cover versions and it was time for Jenny to decide the winners.
Anja laughing about something as we were listening to the "Gotta Go" fan remixes.
We spent some time sitting and listening. Jenny had to decide one winner for each category, so she whittled down the choices and took another listen to her favorites one last time using a pair of headphones before deciding who would take the top prizes.
Once the remix and cover version winners were decided, Jessi asked about an interview and Jenny obliged, even though it meant she would miss out on a luncheon she had planned to attend. We found a well-lit area in the entryway and sat down on a few benches.
Jenny being interviewed as she answered questions from a thread at the AceBoards.
Once the interview was over, we said our last goodbyes of the trip. We thanked her for the past two weeks and wished each other well.
With the lecture over, we settled back into the car and enjoyed another gorgeous day in Sweden on the drive back to Gothenburg.
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