love,
mom and dad/Gerald and Nancy/Grandma and grandpa/Nana and granddad
(Happy birthday to Mom!)
We will begin with the end of the week-Sunday, as it is most
fresh in our minds. It seems that by Sunday, the early part of the week becomes
pretty much a blur. Sunday was, of
course, Mother’s Day in the U.S.
(it was Feb. 14 in Norway)
so even though there were no flowers or talks in church about mothers, we still
had time to reflect on the blessings of wonderful mothers in our lives. We are
both thankful for mothers who were home when we needed them, who taught good
values by the way they lived as well as the words they said and who served The
Lord in whatever capacity they were called to do so.
We are grateful for all of you mothers on this mailing list
who are caring for your families and making a difference in your homes and
communities. Many of the problems in America today
are the result of a system that believes women make no contribution to society
unless they are gainfully employed in the world of work outside of the home. We strongly agree with the words of President
Harald B. Lee who said, "The most important of the Lord's work that you
will ever do will be the work that you do within the walls of your own
home." And also that great statement by President David O. McKay: "No
other success can compensate for failure in the home.” We are grateful for all of you mothers who
recognize the value of your contribution to family, church, community and
nation as you work with your children. We love you.
As it was mother’s day, it was also an opportunity for the
young missionaries to call home (one of only 2 days in the year when they are
allowed to do so, the other being Christmas). We took the laptop to the church
and set it up in a small classroom after our church meetings so the
missionaries could call home on Skype and have an opportunity to see as well as
talk with their mothers (and other family members). The computer was kept busy as the
missionaries, one after another, spent time with their families.
We had scheduled to watch the Church Educational System
fireside broadcast (which was live last week) after church yesterday. First we
would have a dinner, then watch the broadcast.
On Sunday morning, I checked online to see how long the broadcast
was—only to find that it was not yet on the internet. So then it was quickly
find something that could fit the group. It was not hard, with the many good
conference talks and other material that is available. We chose a talk by Elder
Gregory Schwitzer from the last General conference on making good judgments in
life. Since it was in the Sunday afternoon session (and that session came on at
10 p.m. here) not many had seen it yet.
We enjoyed his counsel on how to judge wisely.
Sunday also was the first time that two of our recent
converts gave talks in church. Shina (from Nigeria)
and Benildo (from Mozambique)
spoke in Sacrament meeting on the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ,
respectively. It was exciting to listen to them share their testimonies on
these two important subjects. They spoke in English and one of the branch
members translated to Norsk. Generally, talks are in Norsk and one of the
missionaries or branch members translates to English for those who do not speak
Norsk. That system uses earphones, but to go the other way requires that the
translator stand at the podium by the side of the speaker. We were proud of both of these young men for
the sincere testimonies they bore and their poise in giving their first talk in
Sacrament meeting.
As long as I am working backward, I will continue. On
Saturday was the baptism of Justice Quame-Amaglo from Ghana. Justice is a student here and has been
meeting with the sister missionaries for quite some time. The first thing he
came to was an Institute class and we were all impressed with his knowledge of
the Bible and his willingness to participate even though he did not know anyone
there. He lives not far from the temple
in Accra, so we
have given his name to Gaye and Bud and given him their names so he can contact
them when he returns home in June. It is
exciting to see these young people come to Norway to gain a secular education
and along the way find the spiritual truths of the Gospel. At the close of the baptism meeting on
Saturday, the Branch President said, “you thought you were coming to Norway to gain
an education, but you really came here to find the Gospel so you can bless your
family.”
Now I’ll go back to the start of the week. We had a well
attended family home evening on Monday evening and enjoyed activities with the
young singles afterward. On Tuesday
morning, we got in the car and headed to Oslo
to pick up our new car. There are two
primary routes to Oslo from Trondheim, one through Gudbrandsdalen and the
other through Østerdalen. We had been the Gudbrandsdalen route when we
drove from Oslo
in August, so decided to try the other.
We had beautiful weather in Trondheim
when we began and it remained that way until we got within about 80 km of Oslo when it started to
rain and snow. Fortunately that did not last very long and we arrived in time
to pick up the car before going to spend the night at the mission home with
President and Sister Johansen. The trip
down was a little quicker than through Gudbrandsdalen, mainly because the
scenery is not quite so spectacular and we did not have to stop to take photos.
On Wednesday morning, we
were eating breakfast with the Johansens when his phone rang. It was a carpet
cleaning crew coming to clean their downstairs carpets. After they arrived,
President Johansen went to let them in and show them where to work. When he
came back upstairs, he said, “this crew comes from Denmark
and when one of them asked where I was from, I replied, Salt Lake City, Utah.
He said, ‘I am from American Fork’.” We
went downstairs shortly after to pack our things out to the car and a young man
was there getting set to operate the carpet cleaner. He was a nice looking
young man, with red hair. Nancy asked if he was
from Utah and
he said, “no, my grandfather is.” She
asked, “what is your grandfather’s name?”
“Kenneth Anderson”. She said, “and is your grandmother’s name Marian?” “Yes, do you know them?” His grandfather, Ken Anderson and I,
graduated from BYU together in 1966. He was married to a Danish girl at the
time and after graduation he worked back east for about 6 years, then she
wanted to go back to Denmark,
so they moved to Denmark
about 40 years ago. I have not seen Ken
since the day we graduated. When he returned from moving their truck, we had a
good reunion for a few minutes before we had to leave. He would not have been
in Oslo except
one of the employees had gotten sick the day before and was not able to make
the trip, so when his grandson asked what he should do, Ken said he would come
along and help. I don’t know how Nancy
remembers all of these names and people, (I remember Ken, but could not have
told you his wife’s name) but am glad she does. This is a photo of Ken and I
with our new car in the background.
We drove home through Gudbrandsdalen, which is probably one
of the most beautiful valleys (dal means valley) in the world. So of course the
trip home took a little longer than the trip down, but we enjoyed every
stop. We stopped in a small town called
“Sør-Fron” (South Fron) and saw a pretty
church on the hill on the edge of town, so we stopped to take a few pictures
and look around. I tried the front door
to see if we could look inside, but it was locked. As we were preparing to
leave, a man approached the front steps with keys in his hand. I asked if he
was the priest there and he said, no, he was the organist and was coming to
practice. He said if we wanted to look around, he would let us in so we could
do so. We came in and he went upstairs to the organ and began to practice. The
church was built in 1787 and is of different architecture than most of the
churches we have seen here. We had not been inside long before Nancy was going up the small staircase to
where the organ is. She stood by and watched the organist (Kjell) play until he
finished the piece he was working on, then commented on the organ and asked,
“can I play it?” Of cours he said yes,
so she had an opportunity to sit and play for a few minutes. She was kind of
struggling with the piece he had been playing, so he picked up a hymn book and
asked, “do you know ‘Abide with me’?” He
then turned to that page and set the book in front of her and she played. Kjell had lived and studied in Denmark
for several years and had met missionaries there and had received a Book of
Mormon, so we encouraged him to read it.
Here is Nancy
as the organist in the Sør-Fron
Church.
The rest of the trip was beautiful and interrupted by stops
to get the next picture. We finally arrived home at about 9:30 in the evening.
The nice thing about traveling at this time of year is that it was still
daylight when we arrived. The days are getting longer and in another month or
so, we will not experience any darkness at night—just go from dusk to dawn. Here is a picture of the inside of the Sør-Fron Church taken from the organ area. The building is built in an octagonal shape.
On Thursday, President Johansen flew in to do his interviews
with the young missionaries, so I picked him up at the airport in the morning
and returned him in the afternoon. We both agreed that when we return home, we
will probably find a quiet stretch of highway where we will drive VERY fast to
get rid of all the pent up frustration of driving no faster than 60 mph (and
most of the time less than 50) on Norwegian highways. The trip to Oslo is about 300 miles and for most of the
trip the speed limit is 80 km/hr (48 mph).
In addition to cameras to record those who speed, there are stretches
where they monitor your average speed between two cameras. So one cannot slow
down for the camera and then speed up before the next. So we just drive slow and enjoy the scenery.
On Thursday evening and Friday we visited a few of the less
active members who live out of town and that brought us back to Saturday and
the baptism of Justice. Such is a week
in the life of a senior missionary couple.
Wonderful experiences and lots of interesting things to do with great
people..
Love to all of you,
Mom and dad/Gerald and Nancy/grandma and grandpa/Nana and
granddad
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