Welcome to March ! Another week has passed by quickly. We have the other set of elders settled into their new apartment with beds, lights, washing machine and microwave.
We had a fun Family Home Evening with the Young Single Adults (and a few not-so-young single adults) on Monday night. There were 16 people present, which is a nice increase from the 4 or 5 we were having in August and September.
On Tuesday, Gerald waited at the new elder’s apartment for the washing machine to be delivered, then got it set up after it was delivered. In the meantime, I (Nancy) attended a meeting with the missionaries and the new branch mission leader and practiced the songs I would be playing in church on Sunday. Later in the evening, we visited the local boxing club so Gerald could pick up a pair of boxing gloves for Sister Mølholt. Sister Inger Jørgensen, our branch public relations director had talked to one of the newspapers about Sister Mølholt’s pre-mission life as an amateur boxer in Denmark and they wanted to do an interview with her on Wednesday morning. They asked if she could bring a pair of boxing gloves, so she contacted the boxing club to borrow a pair and we were the delivery persons. When we brought them to her at the church on Tuesday evening before they headed home, she was so excited to get her hands into them. Then she began looking for someone to hit.
Wednesday was institute class, preceded by a dinner of “Olive Garden” minestrone soup prepared by Nancy. This is a favorite of the young singles so she made a LOT. The leftovers are always taken care of by the young missionaries as they eat lunch at the church most of the time. Things are a little different here than in the established stakes at home. All of the missionaries and most of the young single adults have keys to the building. The missionaries do a lot of teaching in the building, as it is close to the “student union” building at the university, thus they meet investigators at the student union building and walk the 3 or 4 minutes to the church for the lessons. Since much of their day is spent near the town center, it is also convenient for them to go to the church for lunch, so they keep a supply of food in the refrigerator at church.
Thursday was our first trip to Stavanger for zone conference. We were up at 4 am to catch the bus to the airport at 5 am (standing in -8 C to wait for the bus) and then fly out at 6:30 am. When we arrived in Stavanger we had to take the bus in to town and then take a city bus and then walk UP the hill to the church. There were 8 missionaries on the flight when it left Trondheim and we picked up 8 more during the stopover in Bergen, so there was quite an army marching through the Stavanger airport and on to the bus. We met some of the new missionaries who just arrived a week ago, including Elder Jeffery Tedrow from Springville, whose parents are good friends of Doyle and Carolyn Davis (Kraig’s in-laws). We also met for the first time, Elder Brandon Mathews from AZ. He is related to the Mathews family from the Columbia Basin. The zone leaders are so prepared to help the missionaries improve their contacting and teaching. We left at 4:30 pm and flew thru Oslo to arrive home about 10:30 pm. It makes for a looooonnng day! Stavanger is the city where Gerald spent 18 of the 30 months he was in Norway as a missionary 50 years ago, so he was excited to return. When we arrived, we found that the chapel had been remodeled since we were there in 2005 and the large mural of all of the branch presidents back to the 50’s that was on one of the basement walls had been painted over. Gerald was glad he has pictures of it from our visit in 2005. We did not have time to do any sightseeing or even to try to visit people, so the meeting could just as well have been held in Oslo or Bergen. It was nice to be back in Stavanger, but we feel like Trondheim is our Norway home now.
Friday night we had a YSA ping pong tournament. There were about 16 participants including the sister missionaries as they had investigators participating. When it came to the final match, one participant went with the sisters to teach a man from Ukraine as he had served his mission there. The other went to watch the Olympics. But all had a good time which was the important part.
Saturday we went to Hommelvik (about 30 km out of town) to watch Corrie, one of the young investigators, in a swimming competition. She swims on a club representing the University and they were competing with other clubs from around Norway. We took with us the sister missionaries (they are teaching her) and one of the students from Nigeria who was baptized in December. Corrie comes from the Netherlands and is studying microbiology here. Later in the evening, a Filipino sister prepared dinner for the missionaries and a few others. It was delicious as usual. Several of the men had to go and watch the Olympic curling championship between Canada and Norway. These two teams had met in the championship match in Salt Lake City and Norway won. When one of them was asked this morning how the competition was—he said—“I’d rather not talk about it”. Hmmm, guess who won?!! The newspaper article about sister Mølholt was in the paper on Saturday morning and it was very positive, including a full 8X10 photo of her in her missionary attire—name tag included—and a pair of boxing gloves hanging around her neck.
I (Nancy) played my usual in Relief Society and Sacrament meeting. Gerald taught a temple preparation class and gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. The closing song was “How Great Thou Art”. I don’t know if the members sing that loud or the acoustics make it seem loud. But they do sing!!!
After Sacrament meeting, I spent about ½ hour teaching two of the African converts how to play the piano while Gerald took a couple of other investigators home.
We think we are through looking for apartments and furnishing them for a while, so we can concentrate on other missionary work now. We have an appointment on Tuesday with Eirik and Åsta and are hopeful we can get Eirik committed to baptism. Also on Tuesday, Catherine is doing a presentation on her art project at 8 p.m., so we plan to attend that.
Life is good in Trondheim!! Today the temperature got up to -2 and the sun was shining all day long with beautiful clear skies. Too bad there is still about 2 or 3 feet of snow on the ground. We found out that our car has a blown head gasket so it will not be back until Tuesday or Wednesday. In the meantime, we are enjoying the rental car. If I had known we would have it so long, I might have opted for something bigger and luxurious.
Here is the crew at the swim meet—Sis. Mølholt, Shina Elegbede, Sis. Engebretsen, Corrie Dam, Nancy in
the back.
Here is Sis. Mølholt with her boxing gloves, ready to take on Harald Hansen.
We pray that each of you will have en enjoyable week and that you will enjoy and appreciate the blessings of the gospel. We are so grateful for the blessings of the gospel and wonderful family and friends.
Love,
Mom and dad/Gerald and Nancy/Elder and Sister Sorensen
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