Dec 1-6, 2009

Attached is our update for the past week. this has been a good week here in Norway and we expect the new week to be equally satisfying.

 

love,

Gerald and Nancy/mom and dad/elder and Sister Sorensen

Most of Monday was spent returning from Kristiansund to Trondheim and getting the car unloaded. We did arrive home in time to attend Family Home Evening with the young singles (plus the older singles who join us). We enjoyed a good discussion on “faith”. Nancy had prepared some fruit for snacks. I asked one of the young men, Stian, to give the closing prayer. As he stood up to offer the prayer, he grabbed his neck and said “Oh, my neck”, then slowly went to his knees, bowed his head to the floor, then rolled over on his side and lay there unconscious. We were all a bit shocked, I knelt down by him and tried to talk to him, but there was no response. I felt his pulse and it was strong. Harald called the hospital and they sent an ambulance over (it is only a block away). They gave him some oxygen and took vital signs, then loaded him on a stretcher and took him to the hospital. Nadia, one of our young single adult girls and I rode in the ambulance with him. After about an hour at the hospital, he woke up and we were able to visit with him for a while. They kept him in the hospital for 2 days for observation and tests and he was released on Wednesday. He said he has a head ache, but otherwise feels good. It is finals time at school so he missed a final on Tuesday, but should be able to make it up. While he was unconscious, we talked with both his father and mother, both said, “Oh, he has had this happen before, but it is not serious, he will come out of it”. I was not willing to have him laying on the floor for an hour while we waited for him “to come out of it”. Apparently he injured his neck some years ago playing “fotbol” (soccer) and has had episodes like this since—the last one being about 3 years ago according to his father. Anyway, we are glad that Stian is back up and about. We got home Monday night at about midnight, after taking the sister missionaries home earlier, then Nadia when we finally left the hospital.

On Tuesday we tried to catch up on laundry, having been gone on the weekend and Monday, then in the early afternoon met the sisters at the church to join them in teaching Wan Yu about the Priesthood. He is (obviously) from China and has set a date on 16 January to be baptized. He has found great comfort in the gospel and shares it with his wife by phone and email as she is still in China, but will be returning here on December 14. They will then be gone to Germany for a vacation for a few weeks until early January.

After teaching Wan Yu, we took the bus to the airport for our trip to Oslo for zone conference. We were scheduled to have a dinner and Christmas program this evening and then the conference meeting on Wednesday. The North zone includes Trondheim, Ålesund, Alta, Tromsø and Bodø. All except Ålesund are north of us. President Johansen had asked us a couple of weeks ago to plan a program for Friday evening, so Nancy and the sisters got together and planned a program with some games, singing, piano number, and a reading of Luke 2. As we were making assignments, one of the requests was for the Zone leader, Elder Caffrey, to play a piano number. He called back a day or two later and said he had been in a zone leaders conference in Oslo with the president and they had decided that there would not be time for the program, as the missionaries wanted to watch “the Muppets Christmas Carol”, which lasts an hour and 20 minutes. So we dropped the planning, but were not very excited about replacing that with a movie. While we were in Ålesund on Saturday, Sister Johansen called and asked how the program planning was coming, and Nancy told her of the most recent decision by the zone leaders. She was not real happy, talked with Pres. Johansen and soon we had a call from Elder Hunsaker (the other ZL) saying that we should go ahead with the program plans, that the President had said we could be out later because of the late start we would be getting on the evening. So, Nancy called the sisters and we put things back in motion for a program. After dinner on Tuesday night, we put chairs in a circle and played a couple of games to get everyone involved, then went to the relief society room and watched the movie-it was cute, but not worth the time we spent watching it—then I introduced the program for the remainder of the evening—which we shortened somewhat because it was getting late. Elder Caffrey played and sang a song he had composed—he could really “tickle the ivories”. We then did some community singing, I read from Luke 2 about the birth of the Savior, then Elder Christensen sang the first verse of Silent Night and the group joined in on the last 2 verses. President Johansen gave out gifts to all of the missionaries—ties to the elders and scarves for the sisters and we all headed off to the places we would be spending the night. We stayed with the Johansens at the mission home and had a good visit with them. We enjoy being with them and marvel at all that a mission president and wife must do.

On Wednesday, we all arrived at the Romerike chapel for conference to begin at 9 a.m. Nancy had been asked to play the piano for the conference. We enjoyed the teaching that was done by the zone leaders and the assistants to the president. They are a good group of missionaries. One of the APs is elder Gilbert from Walla Walla. He is a good leader and missionary. During the lunch, I sat by Elder Hunsaker, one of the ZL from Tromsø, and he told me that his grandmother lives in Richland. I was not familiar with her name (Faye Bisson), but he said she lives in an assistant living center near the temple, so she is not in the Richland Stake. It turns out that our daughter, Kristin, is her visiting teacher. One of the other elders (Elder Crandall) told us he had heard from his grandmother and the Tingeys had been visiting with her and said they knew us. Turns out that his grandmother is Garth Tingey’s sister. We are amazed at how small the world is.

We returned to Trondheim on a 7:30 p.m. flight from Oslo, arriving back home around 10 p..m, tired but spiritually refreshed. Because all of the missionaries were out of town and Stian was still not feeling well, Eli-Christine had cancelled Institute on Wednesday night.

Thursday morning we tried to catch up on what we had not been able to finish on Tuesday, then Nancy went to the RS Christmas dinner and gift exchange that evening. She and the sisters had been asked to do the decorations for the event, but she told the RS president that they would be out of town Tuesday and Wednesday and besides, they have nothing to use for decorations. The dinner was well attended. We picked up Vibeke (Beke) Reardon, a less active sister, and took her to the event and she had a good time visiting with all of the sisters. Her husband is from Scotland and both have been members for most of their lives, but sometime got out of the habit of coming to church and developed a smoking habit which they are now trying to kick. We visit with them and enjoy their company.

On Friday I had to go to the sister’s apartment to read the water meters. I had been called by the landlord when we were in Ålesund saying that he needed to get the information back to the water company before the 5th. We had fun trying to figure out exactly what was needed and where the meters were, as his English is not very good and I was having a hard time figuring out the Norwegian words he was using. Anyway I called him when I was there and we got it figured out. I cut my finger while putting a panel back over the meters, so the sisters gave me a smiley face bandaid to cover the wound. When I was talking with Kristin, Dallin and Aubrey on Skype later that evening, Aubrey said, “nice bandaid, Grandpa”.

Later in the afternoon, I joined the elders as they taught a lesson to a young Norwegian man (Håkon) whom they had met on the street. He is married with two young children and seemed to be interested in what he was taught.

Shina Elegbede came to the church in the evening to meet with the sisters and I took him down to where the baptismal clothing is to see if we had pants to fit. He found a pair that worked well, so Nancy did not have to do alterations. He is very excited about his baptism tomorrow. Shina is from Nigeria and will be here for 2 years studying at the university (masters program). He has been meeting with the sisters for a couple of months and has joined us for many activities and has been attending church regularly. He is a very humble young man and has commented several times on how the gospel has changed his life.

Saturday we enjoyed some “sports” (basketball) with Elders Henshaw and Christensen and a less active young man (Confiance). He was in town yesterday and met one of the members and told her he wanted to come back to church, but felt like he needed to come to church with someone as he would feel funny just coming in by himself after he had not been for the past couple of years. He asked her to have the missionaries call him, which they did, and they invited him to join us on Saturday for sports. He is a nice young man whose heritage is from Ethiopia, although he has lived most of his 19 years in Norway. He and his father and brother were baptized about 4 years ago.

Shina’s baptism took place on Saturday at 4 p.m. Nancy played the piano and I gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. The sisters were so excited, as was Shina. He was baptized by Arne Dahlø and as Arne started to say the prayer, he became very touched by the spirit and had a hard time getting the words out. After he was baptized, Shina stood in the font for close to a minute, hugging Arne and weeping, he was so happy. Xin Slettjord (scheduled to be baptized next Saturday) was there, as were about 4 other investigators. The spirit was strong and all were touched. The event was well supported by the branch members and we all enjoyed each others company and some refreshments afterward before returning home. We had planned on visiting Sister Prestmo and her 2 daughters on Saturday evening. We take the sisters with us on this visit, as they spend time teaching and entertaining the girls while we teach Sister Prestmo. Her husband is not a member, but now at least joins us when we are there for the first few minutes and while we eat whatever she has prepared, then leaves when we begin to talk about the gospel. Sister Engebretsen called as we were leaving town to let her know that we were on the way and she said one of her daughters had been throwing up all day, so it was probably best that we not come out. OK.

We dropped the sisters at Stian’s apartment so they could check on him and visit some other contacts nearby, then we went to the city center to meet Elder Henshaw and Christensen. They were with two young men who have been at a military base a couple of hours out of Trondheim for the past two weeks on some training exercises with the Norwegian air force. They had made contact with elder Henshaw after calling the church and talking with Myhren. One of them (Matt Horrocks) is from Draper, UT and the other (Ken Meister) is from Ottowa, Canada. Matt is in the US Air Force and Ken the Canadian Air Force. They are both stationed in the Netherlands on assignments with NATO. They had come into town earlier in the day with some others from the base and took the elders to dinner (all you can eat pizza) and were looking for a place to stay for the night. They ended up staying on our couch and we enjoyed visiting with them. Matt said he was a missionary about 10 years ago in Austria and I told him we had some friends, Boyd and Marge Newman, who were in Austria at about that time. He said, “I knew them, we worked together in Innsbruk”. I sent an email to Boyd and he replied back that he remembered Elder Horrocks, so I greeted Matt from Boyd and Marge. Today (Monday) I received an email from Boyd with a picture of Elder Horrocks with a couple of other missionaries in Austria. Matt left after church yesterday, but I forwarded the picture to him. Again, we are reminded of how small the world is in the church.

Sunday we took Ken and Matt to church where we attended our missionary coordination meeting with the branch mission leader and others, then it was time for priesthood and relief society. I went down to priesthood meeting in the basement and after a few minutes, I saw Jecon’s younger brother come down the hall going to Primary, so I went upstairs to see if Jecon was there (he is the young man I teach seminary via Skype) I asked the branch president a few weeks ago to call me to teach the Aaronic Priesthood (Jecon is the only young man in the branch) because I had noted that when he was there in time for Priesthood, he usually stayed upstairs doing nothing or when he came in to priesthood, he just sat, not participating (what 15 year old would participate when most of those present are over 60?). I found him and we went into the outreach room and had a priesthood lesson. During Sunday School, I have been teaching a temple preparation class for Sister Kimo (Jecon’s mother) and Sister Prestmo. Sister Prestmo was not present today, so it was just Sister Kimo. I had to leave a little early to pick up Sister DeLeon and two of their children (they have 5 children and their car does not hold the entire family, so we help out). Brother DeLeon was arriving as I left to pick up the remainder of the family. When I returned with the DeLeons, Elder Henshaw and I went to pick up Confiance and bring him to Sacrament meeting. We arrived back at Sacrament meeting a little late and missed Shina’s confirmation. Later in testimony meeting he got up to share his testimony and it made us all weep. He said, among other things, “little did I know when I came to Norway 4 months ago to study at the university that I would find the gospel which would change my whole life and make me so happy.” This was good for all of those present to hear.

After church, Ken and Matt walked to the town center to meet their friends to return to the base. I took Confiance home, then the DeLeons and then we came home for some dinner. In the evening we visited with Sister Hamdard, a less active member of the branch, and her two children. She is a single mother, born and raised in Afganastan who moved back in the early 80’s to Russsia, then to Sweden, where she joined the church and then to Norway about 14 years ago. Her daughter is 12 and son 10 (and mildly autistic). We enjoyed our visit with her and shared some spiritual thoughts about Christmas with them (as well as some banana bread cupcakes Nancy had made) and then returned home.

This has been a very rich and fulfilling week, packed with things missionaries enjoy. We are delighted to be here in Norway among these wonderful people. We marvel at the faith of those who attend faithfully even though they do not have support from family and must travel long distances or overcome other obstacles, to come and join with the members and partake of the sacrament. We are grateful for our Savior, Jesus Christ, and all that he has done for all mankind.

May you all enjoy the spirit of Christ throughout this Christmas season and the coming year.

Love,
Gerald and Nancy/mom and dad/Elder and Sister Sorensen

Here is what happy missionaries look like. This is Sister Engebretsen, Sister Johnson, Xin Slettjord (to be baptized next Saturday) and Shina Eldgbede (after his baptism)