spring may be coming!!!

We are having temperatures on the + side of zero now and the snow is melting, so spring may be around the corner. We could not let winter get by without enjoying the snow, so last friday evening at 5 the young single adults and two sister missionaries met at the church and piled into 2 cars (11 altogether) and drove about 10 minutes to an area called Lian, to the South and west of town. We had an assortment of sliding devices and were the only ones on the hill (unlike Richland, there is more than one sledding hill in Trondheim). The first car was already there and the passengers enjoying sledding when we arrived, as I had to pick up Terry (a friend of Shina's) at the university on the way out. That plus the fact that I took a wrong turn when we got close to Lian didn't help our on-time arrival. Two others, Egil and Oscar, arrived after us, so we had a total of 13 participants, including two non-members--Terry from China and Phoebe from Australia. Four of those present had never been sledding before--Shina and Benildo from Africa, Terry and Lisa, both from China. They were a bit hesitant at first, but then got the hang of it and had a ball. As we were getting ready to leave, Benildo asked, "what time are we coming tomorrow?"

After sledding, we returned to the church where we zapped hotdogs and warmed up hot chocolate and enjoyed visiting and reliving the experiences. We stayed until about 9:30 playing "golf" with Nadia and Phoebe.

Earlier in the day, we were going to meet the sisters at Justices' apartment to teach him. However when we got in the car it would not start--same problem as before the dealership worked on it for a month. We are now driving a rental car again--a VW Golf this time--while they try to figure out the problem. I told them to check the fuel pump for the 3rd or 4th time. The biggest problem with the car failure is we had lots of "stuff" in the back for the sledding activity and had to take it all out, carry it up to the apt, then back down to load it in the rental car. Mom gets good exercise going up and down the stairs.

We have some great young people here and they are good about including the new members and investigators in activities. Last night (Sunday) we had Sisters Engebretsen and Molholt here for dinner with Shina and Corrie. They are teaching Corrie and she is present for about everything we do with the young people. She comes from the Netherlands and is studying microbiology here.

At our last zone conference in Stavanger, all of the couples in the mission were there and we had a chance to share ideas and experiences. There are 5 full time couples, plus a member couple in Stavanger who work with the YSA there (he is in the USAF working with NATO). It was good to get to spend some time with the other couples. Elder Arnesen (he and his wife work in the mission office) is planning a "couples retreat" sometime in May--should be fun.