To Norway and back

Final checklist

2011-02-09T20:15:00.001+01:00

Hello All or is that y'all or alle sammen!!

Luggage by the front door - check!

Vacuum, mop, dust - check!

Laundry - check !

Dinner stuff for institute - check!

Scotcheroos (not to good) - check!

Get dressed - Un check!

Tickets - check!!

See you Friday in Richland, March 1st in Arizona and later in Florida!!

Thanks for your support and love,

Love you all

MOM and DAD

Farewell to Norway 2/2011

2011-02-09T20:13:00.001+01:00

This will be our last report from Norway and as you can see, you are not getting a full report on the past couple of weeks. The time has gone by too fast!

I will just say that this has been an amazing experience that we will never forget. We have made friends with a lot of wonderful people--both old and young. We have come to love people we did not know when we arrived in Trondheim in August 2009 and it will be hard to leave. We have said good bye to many. The hardest will be tonight when we say good bye to our wonderful group of young single adults. This will be our last dinner and institute class with them and just thinking about it gets both of us teary eyed, it will be terrible when we are actually looking at them and know that this will be the last--for a while at least. We hope to have some of them take our offer to come visit.

On Sunday the branch held a common "break the fast" meal together and we had the opportunity to exchange greetings and hugs with most of the older members of the branch. Monday night was our last family home evening with the young adults and I gave a lesson on the "promises of the Lord". We had fun activities afterward and enjoyed the left over desserts from Sunday. It was not hard to say goodbye to them on Monday night, because we knew we would be back on Wednesday. Tonight is when the flood gates will open.

On Monday afternoon, we took the 6 young missionaries serving here to lunch at EGON, a nice restaurant on the top of a tower (similar to the Seattle space needle, but not near as high). It sits on a hill and gives a good view over trondheim. The floor rotates, so in an hour you see for 360 degrees round the city. They offer a 99 kroner (~$15.00) "all you can eat pizza and salad buffet". Some of the elders were looking at that while salivating, but mom reminded them that they can afford to do that on their own, they better try something better than pizza since she was buying. So we had a great lunch, wonderful scenery and great companionship--all for a paltry 1800 knorner (~$300).

Yesterday, the missionaries cooked breakfast for us at the church--breakfast burritos. Then they all left to fly to Stavanger to attend a zone conference. They will return late tonight, but we will be gone by then, so we said our good byes to them yesterday. It was not as hard as it will be to say good bye to the young adults, because we know the missionaries will also be back in the US in the next year and they live in places we visit--like Utah and AZ.

Our replacements, the Springers, arrived by train from Oslo yesterday afternoon and we got them into their apartment. I am amazed at how much stuff we are able to cram into a VW Polo--however, I am not considering buying one in place of a truck! We have been moving things to their apt for the past couple of weeks, so they have lots of bags of "stuff"--some supplies, some food, some papers, our printer, etc. etc. to figure out what to do with in addition to all the things they brought. We enjoyed a good dinner with them at a nice restaurant in town (Carl Johan) and then returned to our apartments to get some sleep. It was hard for us to get to sleep, as there were a thousand things going through our minds. In fact, mom got up at about 2 and did some family search indexing on the computer for an hour or so. Now she is sleeping soundly.

It snowed off and on all day yesterday and there is probably 3 inches of new snow on the ground now. It is wet and sloppy, but we hope will not delay plane arrivals and departures.

This has been a marvelous experience, to share the gospel with wonderful people here in Norway. We have grown to love the members, new converts, missionaries and many whom they have brought to church who have not yet accepted the invitation to be baptized. It is hard to leave, knowing that we may not see some of them again and they have had such a great impact on our lives--and we hope we have had a good impact on theirs.

On the other hand, there is a loving family and many loving friends waiting at home and we are anxious to see all of you once again. People ask "what is the first thing you are going to do when you get home?" Mom says "get a pedicure" and I say, "go water skiing". Do we have any plans for the coming months?--Oh yes! Speak in church (Feb 20 and 27), watch Meghan and Paige play basketball, also several of the younger grandchildren, visit new grandchildren (Ammon and Taylee) as well as their siblings in AZ, attend Marissa's wedding in March, visit Rustin and family in FL, attend General conference in April, Shayla's wedding in May, College World Series in June, hill Cumorah pageant in july, Twin Lakes in July, Lea's baptism in AZ in August, mom's class reunion in CA in Sept, and so it goes. In January 2012, we plan to visit with Gaye and Bud in Ghana, so there is much to do. Somewhere in all of that there will be yard work to do (probably can't convince the kids to keep doing it after we get home. But we hear from the neighbors that they have done a better job than I did and other chores to catch up on. Kristin told me she has already started on my "to do" list at home, just to make sure I don't get lazy.

We love each of you and appreciate your love and support while we have been enjoying our opportunity to serve here in Norway May God bless each of you with the things you need to find happiness in this life and the life to come. That comes through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Picture of our young adults after family home evening on Monday.

love,

mom and dad/Gerald and Nancy/grandma and grandpa/nana and granddad

Week Jan 24-30, 2011

2011-01-31T21:37:00.001+01:00

Here it is only Monday morning and we are getting this letter out already. We have had a wonderful week and look forward to yet another good week in a winter wonderland. The temperature has been above 0 for most of the week, so snow is melting, but not real fast--then on Saturday night we got another couple of inches of snow to replace what has been melting. We can see a bit of brown near the top of the hill behind our apartment, so this is the first sign of spring. right now it is raining.

Happy birthday this week to Meghan and Paige (2/2), Jonathan (2/6) and Lizzy (2/7)

We will start with the end of the week first. Today (Sunday) we were scheduled to speak in church, this being the last regular Sunday that we will be in Trondheim. We were the only assigned speakers, so when mom got up to speak at about 20 after 1, the Branch President turned to me and said, “how much time you have will depend on how long she speaks.” Her talk lasted about 10 minutes.

When I got up to speak, I told the congregation what the Branch President had said to me, then commented that “I knew I would have a lot of time, as she is limited by the language (she always gives her talks in Norwegian), but when we get home and speak, she will not have that limitation, so all I will have time to do then is get up at the end and say ‘amen’ and sit down.”

We were asked to speak on the topic of senior missionary service and our experiences here in Trondheim. Mom gave a good talk about the blessings we have received during our time here and she also talked about the young adults we have had the opportunity to work with. She did well until she got to that point, then her voice began to quiver and it became difficult for her to see what she had written because of the tears. But, she did a good job and was able to get through with it without too much difficulty.

At the start of Sacrament meeting, the Branch President (Rune Krogstad) said a few nice things about our service here, then turned time to his first counselor, Kjell Paulsen, who asked us to come to the mike with him. He presented us with a nice painted wooden plate and a nice card from the branch.

After the meeting, his wife, Margareth, gave us a door plaque and a small painted wooden bowl—all of which match the painting on the plate. We were very touched by their kindness. And after all of this, we are supposed to give talks. I told them sitting there listening to the kind remarks from both Rune and Kjell made me feel like I was sitting in my own funeral.

After church we were invited to the home of Bjarne and Annali Hansen for dinner. Bjarne is the Elders Quorum president and recently received his Phd in psychology. He has a private practice here in town and also teaches at the university. Annali is educated as an MD, but has not been working much for the past couple of years, as they have a young (1-1/2 year old) daughter. Bjarne is the cook in the family and always has delicious food. They had also invited a young woman from Ghana who has been in the branch since last fall. She is studying here and her husband is studying at BYU-Idaho. She is delightful and had lots of interesting stories about the church in Ghana.

The sister missionaries are teaching a woman (Kassandra) from Honduras who does not speak much Norsk or English, so they teach her in Spanish. Turns out that Sister Berggren majored in Spanish at BYU. They invited mom to join them on Saturday when they visited with Kassandra. She said she could understand more in the lesson in Spanish than when they teach in Norsk.

On Saturday we had scheduled our second annual “polar dip” in the Trondheimfjord. This time we had recruited one additional young single adult woman (Audhild Storseth-from Norway), so we had a group of 4 (doubled from the first time I went with Terje Dorr). Unfortunately, when we got to the “sjøbadet” (sea bath) we found that the building that houses the change rooms has been torn down as they are going to build a new one a short distance away.

The platform and ladder down to the fjord were still in place, but there was so much debris between where we were and that area that we decided it would not be wise to attempt the crossing. So…we took a couple of pictures of us anxious to get in the water, but unable to do so. Mom says it was the Lord’s way of protecting us from our own stupidity.

On Thursday we flew to Stavanger to attend a zone conference on Friday. Thursday evening, Elder Jose Teixeira and his wife gave a fireside for the youth and young single adults. We got to Stavanger in time to catch the remarks of Elder and Sister Teixeira, but missed the talks from President and Sister Johansen. They had done a fireside in Oslo on Wednesday night and we were going to watch that as our institute class. We had dinner on Wednesday night, then went into the chapel to watch the fireside. We use a video conferencing system, which also allows us to participate (they can both see and hear us). There were young adult groups in Bergen and Tromsø participating as well. At the beginning, we could all see and hear each other, then when the fireside got started, none of us could hear Oslo. After several “hang up and redial” we gave up and went into the cultural hall and played a few games before everyone went home. So our youth were not able to hear what the Teixeira’s had to say, but we did, as they gave the same talks in Stavanger.

After the Thursday night fireside, we met with the other senior missionary couples from Bergen, Stavanger, Kristiansand and Tromsø to share what is happening in our various “centers for young adults”. The Hickmans, who are in Kristiansand have only been in Norway for 2 weeks and neither of them speak Norsk, and they are trying to establish a center. They have an uphill battle, but the Lord always seems to provide a way to accomplish what he asks us to do. As a result of this meeting, we did not get back to the hotel until about 10:30, and were to be back at the chapel on Friday morning at 8:30 to start zone conference, so it was a short night.

We were asked to share our testimonies toward the end of the zone conference, as it was our last. It was emotional for both of us as we looked into the faces of the young missionaries there, many of whom we have served with here in Trondheim who are now serving in other cities. It was interesting that Elder Teixeira was there (he is 2^nd counselor in the Europe Area Presidency), as it was he who presided at the Richland Stake conference in November 2008 when I was released from my calling as stake president. It seemed fitting that he should be here when we were about to be released from our mission. We had a good opportunity to visit a little before and after the zone conference. The current Area Presidency is the first in the history of the Church in Europe in which all members are from Europe. The President is Elder Erich Kopieschke from Germany, first counselor is Elder Gerald Causse, from France, and Elder Teixeira from Portugal as second counselor. During the time we have been in Norway, all of them have been to a zone conference.

It was rather nostalgic to be back in Stavanger so near to the time we will be leaving Norway, as I have so many fond memories of Stavanger from 50 years ago. The city has changed a lot, but there are some things that do not change—like the 1000 year old cathedral in the center of town.

However, we have found that our hearts belong to Trondheim this time. There is no question that it is the association with the people that makes a place dear to ones heart and this time our association with the people has been mostly in Trondheim.

Construction in the church building continues. I have been photographing the progress since the end of October when they began and was hopeful (but not optimistic) that I would be able to record the completion—that will not happen unless we stay to at least the end of March. Most of the ventilation system above the main floor is complete and they will soon be putting new lighting and ceiling tiles above the main hallway, but there is still a lot of work to be done downstairs and the elevator shaft is in, but nothing more. This has been a bit of a disruption, but we have only not been able to use the building one week back in October. We have had to do a lot of cleaning and work around ladders, scaffolding, compressors, etc. but things have gone forward almost as normal.

We talked yesterday about having a dinner for the young adults after fast and testimony meeting next Sunday. Somehow it has morphed to a dinner for the whole branch. President Krogstad announced it from the pulpit at the start of Sacrament meeting yesterday and I had not been able to talk with mom since that happened in our missionary meeting that ended just before the start of church. I was watching her as she sat on the organ bench while he was talking, but fortunately she did not have here earpiece in and thus did not hear the translation.

We still have much to do and now literally so little time to do it in. Not sure if we will get a letter written next week, so this may be the last you receive from Norway. It is with very mixed emotions that we begin this week, knowing that it will be filled with many “lasts”—last time we visit Brother and sister so and so, last time we attend church here on Sunday, etc. We try not to think of these things, but people constantly remind us. The Springers will arrive next Tuesday (the 8^th) and we will help them get into their apartment. We will be here for Institute and dinner on Wednesday the 9^th, then spend the night at the “Rica Hell Hotel” and be off to Oslo on the morning of the 10^th.

As much as we do not look forward to leaving these wonderful members and friends, we look forward to being reunited with each of you—watching ball games, enjoying evenings together, and just knowing that we can pick up the phone (when we get one) and call and talk.

Love to all

Mom and dad/Gerald and Nancy/grandma and grandpa/Nana and granddad

Week Jan 19-23, 2011

2011-01-24T07:00:00.001+01:00

If we make the week short enough, we can get this letter out on Sunday. We are seeing what may be the beginning of spring now. .Temperatures for most of the week have been above 0, so it is getting wet, sloppy and slippery.

The bus ride back from Mo I Rana last Sunday left mom with a sore back for most of the week, but she still managed to make dinner for Institute on Wednesday. We enjoyed a good lesson on Section 84 of the Doctrine and Covenants after dinner. Somehow even though the class is over at 8, we never get out of the building until 9:30 or 10. There always seems to be a lot to talk about with young adults.

We spent time with the Husby’s on Friday. His health has improved quite a bit since he was released from the hospital several weeks ago. We enjoyed a nice lunch with them and then watched the church film “Legacy”.

Work in the church building makes it difficult for the missionaries to find a quiet place to teach and it does not appear that the work will be finished anytime soon. It was initially to begin in August and finish before Christmas. Work finally began the end of October and they were still saying it would be finished the end of January. Now they say the end of March. I have kept a good photo record of the process and was hoping to be able to see the completion, but I think that is wishful thinking.

Mom spent some time on Thursday evening with a less active woman in the branch helping her get started with “family search indexing”. Right now the only thing she does is sing in the choir, so hopefully the spirit of family history work will move her to be more faithful in attending church and enjoying the blessings of the gospel. While she was doing that, I joined two of the elders as they taught a beginning Norwegian class to a group of about 13 students from such diverse places as Italy, Honduras, Tanzania, Seattle, Vancouver B.C, Chile, Ghana and Angola.

Saturday we enjoyed a couple of hours of sports in the cultural hall with a good group of young adults, after which I joined Elders Gardner and Carmichael in teaching one of their investigators.

Today (Sunday) we had a good group of members and investigators in attendance at church. There are three women who only come once a month because of the distance they must travel to get to Trondheim (4 hours for one and 2 hours for the other 2). All 3 were here at the same time today, plus a young man (Robert) who lives in Kristiansund (a 4 hour boat ride). Robert arrived at about 6 on Saturday evening, had dinner with Erik and Eli-Kristine Paulsen (former branch president who has just returned from 6 months studying in New Zealand), then Erik brought him to our apartment where he and I talked about the priesthood and the temple. He has been a member for about 2 years now and is a priest, but because he has not been able to get to church very often, has not yet received the Melchizedek Priesthood. We have encouraged him to come here once a month so he can be taught more and can show the branch president that he is ready to be ordained an Elder. This is the second time he has been here since we arrived. The first time was in September when we brought him back from Kristiansund with us. He seems to be committed to coming once a month now.

During English Sunday School class the teacher divided the class into small groups to read and discuss various scriptures and then present their findings to the class. We have been using the gospel principles manual and “Signs of the Second Coming” was the topic. One group (consisting of a missionary, an investigator and Robert) had “coming forth of the Book or Mormon” as their topic. When asked to share their thoughts, Brad, (the investigator-first time at church) got up to explain their discussion. He did a great job and everyone was surprised! All the missionaries had pounding hearts and huge grins! It was his choice to give their response.

After church we watched a rebroadcast of the young adult fireside from 2 weeks ago. Elder Christoffersen talked about taking each day—one day at a time. We have had difficulties watching these “streaming videos” in the past because we were only connected through a wireless network and it was not fast enough. Our branch technical specialist fixed a broken connection for the internet on Saturday and we now get the full benefit of a high speed internet. At the conclusion of the fireside, mom had prepared a dinner for the young adults and missionaries. When dinner was over, I took Robert to the boat so he could return home. We then spent time visiting with some of the young adults and then found our way home.

This week we have had lots of rain. The temperature for most of the week has been on the + side of 0 and today hit a high of 7 C (~45F). With the mounds of snow and ice that are everywhere, there is lots of water running everywhere and sidewalks and parking lots are VERY slippery, with a layer of water on top of the ice. So far we have been lucky enough to not fall—slipped several times, but have not hit the ground. We hold each other up!

For those who have wanted to know when we will speak in church upon our return, we now have two dates. Since our ward was divided a few months ago, we have been asked to speak in the Cottonwood ward (our ward) on Sunday, February 20. We will then speak in the new Duportail Ward on the 27^th. Both meetings start at 9 a.m with Cottonwood meeting in the Paradise building in West Richland and Duportail ward meeting in the Richland Stake Center.

We are being asked a lot “are you excited to be going home”? Yes, we are, but we are sad to leave behind so many good friends here. Some of whom we know we will not see again in this life. Having email, facebook and Skype will make the separation a little easier.

We love each of you and look forward to seeing you soon.

Mom and dad/Gerald and Nancy/Grandma and grandpa/Nana and granddad

Jan 10-19, 2011

2011-01-19T07:19:00.001+01:00

Attached for your information is our latest report from Trondheim. We have actually seen some temperatures on the + side of 0 this week, so things are getting a little sloppy, then of course it freezes at night and everything is slippery as can be, but this is a sign that spring can't be too many months away.
This has been another busy week with most of the young single adults having made it back from Christmas vacation by the time we had our activity on Friday evening. Ingrid finally made it back from the U.S. at about midnight on Thursday, after being delayed by snow storms in Atlanta and Amsterdam. The last to return was Alex, who had been in Egypt and made it back on Saturday.
We had our first institute class of the year on Wednesday, with only 3 young adults present due to work and vacations. Nadia, the instructor, is still sick with what seems to be strep throat, so I (Gerald) got to teach the lesson from the Doctrine and Covenants.
On Tuesday evening, we had a video conference with the other couple missionaries working with the Centers for Young Adults in other parts of Norway—Oslo, Bergen, Kristiansand, Stavanger and Tromsø. There is a new couple who just arrived on Tuesday afternoon in time to join the meeting. They are the Hickmans and come from the Salt Lake City area. They will be opening a new Center for Young Adults in Kristiansand. It should be interesting, as neither of them has ever been to Norway before and therefore they speak no Norwegian. This is the same situation with the Springers, who will be replacing us when we return home next month. President Johansen has been trying to rent a building in Kristiansand for the Center and hoped to have it ready before the Hickmans arrived. Unfortunately, religious bias is still alive and well in Kristiansand (the Bible belt of Norway). He had two facilities located (first one, then when it fell through the second) and things were moving along well when the building owners realized this would be used by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. At that point, the buildings were no longer available for rent.
We don’t often see or talk with the other couples in the mission, so it is fun to get together with them even if it is just on a video conference call for about 90 minutes. Also on the call were President and Sister Johansen (mission president) and President Odd Gjevik, counselor in the District Presidency with responsibility for the young single adults.
An interesting experience from the week. There is still a lot of remodeling work going on in and outside of the building and on Tuesday morning, I noticed a man was welding some reinforcing wire in forms for the new back steps. Some time ago I had noted that the bracket on the basketball rim was cracked and caused the rim to “clang” everytime it was hit by the ball. I thought this would be my opportunity to get it welded free if I could just get it removed and out to him. I borrowed a drill driver from one of the inside workers and got the rim off, but by the time I got outside, the welder was gone. On Wednesday, I joined the elders in teaching a 40 year old man who has been to Church several times. Before they started the lesson, I asked him where he works. He said “for a construction company”. Then clarified that he works in the office, not doing the construction. I asked if he knew any welders and he said yes, so I showed him the cracked rim and asked if he thought he could get it repaired. He said the man owed him some favors, so he was pretty sure he could get it repaired. He took the rim when he left the lesson and called back about 9:30 on Thursday morning to say it was done. He met us at the church later in the day with a repaired rim—very good weld and he had even repainted where it was welded. Friday evening the Springers were here to join us in our trip to Mo I Rana, so with the help of Elder Springer and a few borrowed tools left by the workers, we got the rim reattached for use in sports on Saturday.

On Friday evening the young adults had planned a “welcome back” party for all who had been gone for the Christmas vacation. Mom had those present assist in preparing the ingredients for straw hats, which they enjoy eating. After dinner, she brought out the ingredients to make “ice cream in a baggie”. Some of them were here when we did this a year ago, but for many it was a new experience and one they enjoyed. Following the ice cream dessert, we cleared away the tables and chairs and held a paper airplane flying contest (for distance). She had asked Elder Whitehead (who is a private pilot) to organize it and it was a lot of fun. He had groups of 4 stand on the front edge of the stage and launch their planes, then the winners of each of the 4 groups had a fly off to determine the ultimate winner. There were two of the finalists whose planes hit the divider between the cultural hall and chapel, so they had to fly again—with the divider open. The winner landed just inside the chapel. Following this we brought out a long rope and they jumped rope, seeing how many they could get in jumping at one time—7 was the best. It was a fun evening with a good group of young people and missionaries.

Saturday morning we were up early to get the train to Mo. The Springers had flown in Friday morning so we could show them the apartment we rented for them and to join us in the trip north. Unfortunately, the elders making their arrangements had found that it was cheaper for them to fly up to Mo than to take the train, even with the stopover in Trondheim. So they caught the airport bus from the train station and we caught the train. They arrived in Mo at about 10 a.m. and we arrived at 2:15 p.m. This was our last trip to visit these faithful members in Mo I Rana and it was emotional to think that we will probably not see most of them again in this life. We have been there once a month (missed two) since October 2009 and because there are so few members there, it has been easy to become acquainted with each of them and their challenges. We marvel at the faithfulness of these members, most now in their mid 70’s to 80’s. The older women are all widows and have various health problems, but health allowing, they are faithfully in attendance each Sunday. They so much desire to have missionaries back full time to help “grow the branch”.
We both talked in church on Sunday, as did the Springers. We both had a hard time concluding our remarks, as we expressed our love and appreciation to these wonderful saints. After Sacrament meeting, they normally have a combined priesthood and relief society meeting, but this time they moved the chairs out of the way and brought in a table which was then set with sandwiches (smøbrød) and cakes—a little farewell lunch. We enjoyed good food and a chance to visit for the next hour before we had to head back to the train station and the Springers headed for the airport for their flight back to Oslo.
When it was time for the train to arrive, there was an announcement that the train was not coming, but there was a bus waiting outside (groan!). What should have been a comfortable 7 hours on the train, with room to stretch out, walk around, visit a dining car and the bathroom if needed, turned out to be 6 hours on a crowded bus (not a greyhound type, but a local bus—no room between seats, no bathroom, bumpy, etc. etc.). When we arrived in Steinkjer (about 2 hours from Trondheim) we caught up with a local train for the remainder of the trip home--arriving at 11:30 p.m. and home at just after midnight. It certainly made our last trip to Mo a memorable one.
As a result, Monday was a day of rest and laundry, followed by our meeting with the young adult council and family home evening. I met the landlord of the apartment the Springers will be renting, paid him for their February rent and picked up keys so we can move the things we will be leaving with them into their apartment.
Tuesday night was moms last choir practice. We had a good District meeting with the missionaries on Tuesday morning, led by Elder Mathews. He is a good leader. Tonight will be institute, so mom is busy today with dinner preparations—burritos.
So this turned out to be a week and a half, but maybe that will make it easier to get the remainder of the week on time come Sunday.
We love each of you and look forward to seeing you soon. We are excited to hear soon about Steve and Rozann’s new baby. Congratulations to Meghan and Paige on their all-state soccer selections.
Love,
Mom and dad/grandma and grandpa/nana and granddad/Gerald and Nancy

HOME

2011-01-17T19:08:00.001+01:00

We have heard from Brother Dearing (counselor in the bishopric) and we will be speaking in church in the Cottonwood Ward on Sunday February 20 at 9:00 a.m. The ward now meets in the Paradise building in West Richland. So now you can respond to those people who ask when we will be reporting on our mission.

We look forward to seeing all of you soon.

Rozann, how is everything going for you? We don't remember hearing a date when the baby is due.

love,

mom and dad

January 3–9, 2011

2011-01-15T00:11:00.002+01:00

Attached for your reading pleasure is our latest (but not late) report of life in Norway.
love,
mom and dad/gerald and nancy/grandma and grandpa/nana and granddad
We will try to get this done in only one week this time. The year has started off in a hurry and it will only get faster as it moves forward.
On Monday afternoon, we had a phone call from a woman who used to be a member of the branch, but has “written herself out” of the Church (had her name removed).. She had just bought a new computer and wanted to know if I could help her get it set up. She said, “I didn’t know if I could ask you to do this since I am no longer a member.” I told her that we are still friends, so there is no reason for her to hesitate to call. After thinking about it for a while, I called Elder Gardner (our resident computer geek) and asked if he and his companion had time to help her. We picked them up and went to her home where Elder Gardner soon had her new PC working like she wanted. We then hurried to the church where we had a small (4 young adults, Harald Myhren and the two of us), but fun group at family home evening. Most of the young adults are still out of town for the holidays and those that are here have worked a lot during the holidays.
The Family Home Evening lesson was given by Lisa, a convert of about 2 years from China. This was her first attempt and she did a really great job. It is fun to see these young people grow in their abilities and confidence.
After the lesson, we played a fun game called Villa Paletti. It is a “building” game along the lines of Jenga, but with some interesting twists. If you have a chance to buy one, it is a lot of fun and will entertain kids from about 8 up to us old folks.

Tuesday was our first District meeting under the leadership of our new DL, Elder Mathews, from AZ. His father was raised in the Columbia Basin—family comes from Mathews Corners. He is a good missionary and we are pleased to have him in Trondheim. He has been in Alesund (south of us) for the past 6 months and is excited to be in a bigger town with a sizeable branch.
After District meeting, we visited several older members, attended the branch council meeting (Gerald) and choir (Nancy). After council meeting I took the sisters out to visit an investigator who lives about 25 km out of town toward the airport.
Wednesday was a visit with less active members followed by dinner for the missionaries. Mom would normally cook dinner for the young adults and missionaries on Wednesday night before institute and although we have not held institute since mid December, we figured we might as well stay in the habit of fixing dinners, so we have continued even though most of the young adults are gone. Missionaries still have to eat.
On Thursday, we visited a less active sister who has recently had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in her stomach. She had her first chemo treatment on Wednesday and asked for a blessing afterward. So we visited with her and her daughter who had just arrived on Tuesday from Bangkok, Thailand to spend some time with her mother as she recuperates. It is interesting that many people who do not come to church regularly, for one reason or another, still have the faith to ask for a priesthood blessing when they are in need. It is a great comfort to us to know that we are able to help in this manner.
Two weeks ago, the 2^nd counselor in the branch presidency asked if we could give talks in church on the 9^th. Then last Sunday evening the branch president sent an email and asked when our last Sunday would be. After we responded that it would be the 6^th of February, he sent back and said, “I know you are talking on the 9^th but I would like for you to talk on the 30^th as well, since that will be the last meeting to hear from you other than the testimony meeting on the 6^th. On Saturday evening, the counselor told me that he had lined up another speaker for the 9^th and he (the counselor) would talk, so we would not need to talk both weeks. I told him I had a talk prepared and was happy to do both days, but thought that Nancy would appreciate a reprieve, so she got a break. Actually she had her talk prepared and planned to give the same talk on the 16^th when we visit Mo I Rana, but was not unhappy that she only had to play the organ in Church today.
Saturday afternoon was the branch “juletrefest” (Christmas tree party). It is an annual affair, usually the 2^nd Saturday after the new year. It is primarily for the children to enjoy dancing around the Christmas tree, but the adults seem to enjoy it as much as the kids. Santa (julenissen) came and had a bag of goodies for each child and there were plenty of snacks for all. We were pleased to have one of the less active families we visit come to the party. This week, the Christmas tree will be taken down and stored until next year.
After church today, we were invited to the home of Kjell and Margareth Paulsen for dinner. Their son, Erik and wife Eli-Kristin and their 1-1/2 year old daughter were also there, as they have just returned from 6 months study in New Zealand. It was a fun afternoon visiting with the family and we enjoyed a good Norsk dinner.
The mother of one of the branch members was visiting from Bergen today and as we were saying good-bye to her we realized that we will not see her again before we leave Trondheim. She was previously the Mission Relief Society president and we have enjoyed visiting with her as she has come to conferences here and on other social occasions to visit family. We try not to think of these things because it would be too painful to dwell on it, but suddenly you realize as you say good bye, that it will truly be good bye. We have truly come to feel a love for the people here in Trondheim as well as other places where we are blessed to visit.
We are enjoying “warmer” weather now—back above freezing on occasion and for the most part around -6 to -2 C, which seems balmy after what we experienced in November and December.
We send our love to each of you and look forward to seeing you soon.
Love,
Mom and dad/Gerald and Nancy/grandma and grandpa/nana and granddad

Trondheim Fjord--2nd time

2010-05-03T14:00:00.005+02:00

We so enjoyed the dip in the trondheim fjord, that we decided to do it again the next Saturday (April 24). This time, Terji Dorr and I were joined by Corrie Dam, a young woman who has been meeting with the sister missionaries for the past few months. Corrie comes from The Netherlands and likes to swim, so when I mentioned that I had been in the fjord, she said she would like to come if we do it again. I replied, "we are doing it next Saturday". So she brought her swim suit when she came down to play sports on Saturday and afterward, the 4 of us (Nancy as photographer) made our way back down to the Sjobadet. As we got back on the deck, Corrie said "shall we do it again?" So we proceeded back down to "do it again". The water seemed colder the second time in, perhaps because it penetrated deeper? I think you can tell the the picture on the bottom is "before" and on the top, "after".

April 19-25, 2010

2010-04-25T06:27:00.000+02:00

The big news this week has been that airplanes began to fly again throughout Scandinavia and other parts of Europe, so missionaries in Norway moved to their assigned new locations on Wednesday as planned and those who were being released actually got to travel home. For us, it was to see Elder Bartholomew travel to Kristiansand to become a senior companion. Elder Tedrow arrived here at about noon to replace him. Elder Tedrow is from Springville, UT and his family is good friends with Stephanie’s parents. He arrived in Norway back in mid-February and has been serving in Stavanger. Sister Engebretsen returned to Provo and home and family (arrived safe and sound but several hours late) and Sister West, from England came to replace her serving with Sister Molholt. Sister West has been in Norway for about a year and has most recently served in Bergen after the first 4 months in Oslo. We were sad to see the “old” ones leave, but happy to welcome the new.

We have spent a fair amount of time this week with the moves. President Johansen held a conference call with all the missionaries on Monday night at 10 p.m. and told them that the flights were beginning to occur, so he planned to go forward with the moves as scheduled (even though on Sunday morning he had said they probably would not be occurring until the new missionaries from the MTC arrived). Sister Engebretsen had been assuming she had another month to serve, so had not been making preparations to go home. On Tuesday night, we picked her and Sister Molholt up in the student housing area at about 9:30 p.m. and helped her get things packed. We put her two large suitcases in the car and took them with us at about 12:30 a.m. and were to pick the sisters up again at 5 a.m. to get her to the airport. At about 4:20, Sister Engebretsen called and said, “I can’t find my wallet anywhere, it must be in one of the suitcases.” Nancy had packed the larger of the two and was certain it was not there, but Sis Engebretsen had started packing the smaller of the two before she finished, so she told me where it might be and I went to the car (it is now dawn at that time of day) and sure enough, it was where she said it might be—crisis avoided. We got her to the airport (no tickets on the way to Hell) and watched her through security then returned home for breakfast and preparation for the day. We spent the day as Sis Molholt’s companions. We taught a young woman they have been meeting with for the past couple of weeks. Nina is a student and comes from Stavanger. She is been coming to church and other activities and is very delightful. After that, it was begin preparations for Institute dinner while Sis Molholt taught with some of the members as her companion. After institute, we took Sis Molholt to the airport to meet Sis West on a 9:00 p.m. flight from Bergen. By the time we got back to our apt it was about 11 p.m. Having only had about 3 hours sleep Tuesday night, we were ready for a good night’s sleep.

On Thursday, since the weather is much better now, we drove out to Meråker (about 1-1/2 hour out of town) to visit a member whom we have not visited for a few months, then stopped to visit another older couple on the way back to town. They recently returned from their winter in Spain.

Friday was such a beautiful day we decided to go for a walk. Nadia, one of our young adults, was enjoying the sunshine and reading. So we joined her on the bench and soaked up a little sun.

Friday evening we had a “cooking night” with the Young single adults and missionaries. They all like the chicken noodle soup Nancy makes (thanks to Stephanie for the recipe) so she thought it would be good to teach them to make it. She had all the ingredients in the kitchen, with instructions for preparation of each ingredient taped to the front of the cupboard doors. This way 2 or 3 could work together on each part and then put it all together to cook. She also had ingredients and instructions for rice krispie treats and 3 of the young men prepared them. After the dinner was cooked, it was served and we all enjoyed a tasty dinner. There were 26 present, including about 6 investigators. After dinner, they made dessert—ice cream made in zip-lock baggies—It was fun and tasty. After all the ice cream had been made and eaten, they cleared the tables and set up the volleyball net and played volleyball. The last of the group finished playing at about 10:30 and we went home happy and tired. The evening was a very big success!!

Saturday was busy with sports with the young single adults, after which we took the sisters to visit a member who lives near us—Jan-Erik Carlsen—who was celebrating his 78^th birthday. Nancy had made rice krispie treats, which has become one of his favorites. Then it was back to the church to meet Terje Dorr so we could once again make a trip to the Trondhiem fjord for an “ice bath”. This time we were joined by Corrie, a young woman from the Netherlands who will be baptized next Saturday. She loves to swim and when I mentioned to her during the week that I had accompanied Terje there the previous Saturday, she said she would like to do that. So like the tradition of diving into the Columbia on New Year’s Day, which started with Alison and I, this event appears to be growing. I told several of the young single adults that we would go swimming in the fjord next New Year’s day. After we came out of the water and had climbed the stairs up to the top deck, Corrie said, “shall we do it again?” So it was back down the steps and dive in once more.

Saturday evening we joined the sisters as they taught two investigators—Torgeorge and Nina. We watched a church video about the Prophet Joseph Smith. It was very good and the Spirit was strong. While Nancy practiced the piano afterward for a while, I vacuumed the building and then we headed home for dinner. We had to go to the store for something and on the way passed a McDonalds. She said some French fries sounded good, so we got in the drive thru. They were advertising a new (at least to us) chicken, bacon and onion sandwich, which sounded good, so that was dinner. We have stopped at McDonalds once before to buy a milkshake. It is not something we do often, as a meal costs about $15.00 for each of us.

Today was a beautiful day (still is) with warm sun and a wonderful spirit in church. There were 81 people in church today, including 15 investigators. It is exciting to see the growth that is occurring here. When we arrived last fall, the attendance was between 40 and 50. We feel blessed to be here and witness the exciting things that are happening with the church in Norway. We have great young missionaries, supportive members and people who are interested in learning more about Jesus Christ and His gospel.

We pray that all is well with each of you.

Love,

Mom and dad/Gerald and Nancy/grandma and grandpa/Nana and granddad

April 24th

2010-04-24T06:21:00.000+02:00

Today sunrise was listed as 4:18am with sunset at 10:13 pm. Our days are getting longer by 6 minutes a day.

Happy birthday to me - Alison :)

2010-04-20T06:18:00.000+02:00

It is already April 20 here in Norway, so we want to be the first ones to wish you a Happy Birthday!!! It hardly seems possible that it has been 31 years since you entered the world and blessed our family. Now you continue to bless our family as well as your own and Jeff's plus many others whom you help and influence. April 20 is starting out as a pretty day here, but the clouds are moving in and it will be overcast for a period, but we are hopeful that the sun will come through several times throughout the day. The weather changes here almost by the minute--sun, rain, cloudy, snow, sun, etc. We can see it all in a very short period of time.

The airlines are flying again, so missionary transfers will be taking place tomorrow. We will be losing Sis. Engebretsen, which will make us sad, but we will be getting Sis. West, which will make us happy. I will probably get to make several airport runs tomorrow to deliver and pick up missionaries. In addition to the sisters, Elder Bartholomew will be moving to be a senior companion and we will be getting a new missionary (came to Norway in Feb.)--elder Tedrow. His grandparents are good friends with Doyle and Carolyn Davis (Stephanie's parents).

We have our district meeting today and then we will be teaching an investigator with the sisters later in the afternoon. I think mom will be helping Sis Engebretsen pack tonight.

I assume you have seen the blog video of my dip in the Trondheim fjord. It is not as much fun as diving in the Columbia and swimming to shore. There is no good shore to swim to at this location on the fjord--just a wall.

We enjoy seeing your pictures and comments on your blog. Your children are growing too fast!! We love to hear Abby talk when we Skype. Hope you are feeling good still and staying healthy.

Here are a couple of photos of mom playing "bump" with the missionaries for P-day yesterday.

love and Happy Birthday.

mom and dad

Sjobadet

2010-04-18T17:01:00.002+02:00

Here are pictures of the diving/swimming area

DIP IN TRONDHEIM FJORD-PART 2

2010-04-18T16:47:00.002+02:00

Last Sunday I overheard a conversation between Harald Myhren and Terje Dorr, in which Terje said something about having taken an "ice bath" in the fjord. I asked about it and he said he goes to a place called "Sjøbadet" where one can get into the fjord. I told him to call me next time he was going and by the end of the conversation, we had agreed to meet at the church at 2 p.m. the next Saturday. At the appointed hour, we met and I changed into my swim suit, sweat pants and a sweat shirt and the three of us (Terje, Nancy and I) drove to the closest place we could park. He said one used to be able to park right next to the dressing rooms, but they are now building a new road between the fjord and the train station and it is necessary to walk about 300 meters to get to the bathing area. The walk was on a narrow path between the construction and the train tracks, up a ladder to cross the road construction, down a ladder on the other side, then along another narrow walkway between the road and some buildings, around the side of the bathhouse to the swimming area. There are change rooms, a large deck area with a diving board (about 10' above the water) and 2 diving platforms about 15 and 25 feet above the water--we did not use either of these. There was also a set of stairs going down to the water--we used these. The bottom stairs were in the water about waist deep. When we got to that point, we stepped off, getting our whole body under the water, then came back up the stairs to make the journey back out. It was fun, but not as fun as diving off the dock into the Columbia. Terje said the sea is still about zero degrees Celcius, so it was cold and I was glad we did not dive off.

Trondheim Fjord

2010-04-18T15:35:00.002+02:00

Last week at church I overheard a conversation between Harald Myhren and Terje Dorr, in which Terje said something about going to an "ice bath" in the fjord. I asked if he went in the fjord this time of year and he said, "yes". I asked where and he replied to a place called "Sjøbadet" (sea bath). I asked when he would be going again and he said "Saturday". So I told him I was interested and to call me. We made arrangements to meet at the church at 2 p.m. on Saturday. At the appointed hour on Saturday, we met and I changed into my swim suit with a pair of sweat pants and sweat shirt. We (Terje, Nancy and I) then drove to a location near the place where he goes. He said you used to be able to drive right up to the small house the swim club has on the fjord, but they are now building a new highway that goes between the fjord and the train tracks, so we had to park (in a no parking area--but he put a note on the window saying "we are at sjøbadet. Went there at 2:30, shall be back in 30 minutes") The note must have worked, as I did not get a ticket or get towed. We had to walk about 300 meters, going down a small path between the construction area and the railroad tracks, climb up a ladder on one side of the new road surface and down on the other side, then again down a small path between the construction and a few buildings, then finally came to the bath house. There were dressing rooms to change in, a large deck area, a diving board about 10' above the water and two diving platforms about 15 and 25 feet above the water--we did not use either of these. There was also a set of stairs that went down from the deck to the water--we used these. It was not like diving into the Columbia River, as we just went to the bottom of the stairs (which was under water). At this point we were about up to our waist in wate, then sat down and submerged the rest of our body in the water, came up and climbed back up the stairs to change. The wind was blowing and there were white caps on the water, but we did not swim away from the stairs.

April 12 - 18, 2010

2010-04-18T06:15:00.000+02:00

Attached is our update on activities in Trondheim for the past week. It is starting to look like spring--depending on when you look outside. It can quickly turn from warm and sunny to cold, windy, rain, snow or whatever else can come from the sky. so far we have not seen any ash falling.

The exciting thing this week has been the eruption of the volcano in Iceland which has grounded all planes in northern Europe. We have not seen any other impacts—no ash on the ground, no dark skies—but for the missionaries who were going to be flying various places, it has been a rather large impact. This coming Wednesday (April 21) was to be “transfer day”. Note the word “was”. There were 7 missionaries in the mission scheduled to fly home on Thursday (April 22), one of those being sister Engebretsen who is serving here in Trondheim. She got a call on Friday evening from one of the zone leaders telling her that all flights in Norway and other parts of northern Europe were cancelled as of Thursday morning and there was no scheduled time to resume flights, so her return was delayed for at least a week. Other missionaries who were to be transferred to other cities from where they are currently serving would be traveling on Wednesday to their new cities and there were 5 new missionaries scheduled to arrive on Tuesday from the Missionary Training Center in Provo. Now none of this will be occurring until the air space opens up again. In priesthood meeting this morning, the counselor in the branch presidency who was conduction asked if there were any announcements and I told him that Sister Engebretsen would not be going home this week due to the volcanic eruption. He said, “the lesson today is on ‘Prayer works’ and we have just seen that—we did not want her to leave, so the Lord caused the volcano to erupt.”

We spent about an hour on Tuesday afternoon with the sisters out contacting people on the streets in town. We don’t do much of this and never on our own, so every once in a while they decide we need to experience street contacting and ask us to join them for an hour or so. It was a nice sunny day for most of the time, with occasional sprinkles, so it was a nice day to be out. However it was not very productive as we only got one phone number to call back to a man from Yemen.

We spent time visiting a few less active members of the branch, had a good family home evening meeting on Monday evening. Sister Hansen, whose husband does the cleaning in the building baked a very tasty cake for the single adults as a “thank you” for the work they did the previous Friday evening in cleaning the building. We also had a well attended dinner on Wednesday evening before institute class. One of the missionaries, Elder Bartholomew, cooked dinner for Wednesday evening—a tasty stir fry. We shopped for the ingredients and he and the other elders did the preparation. The remained of the cake from Monday was enjoyed after dinner on Wednesday.

Thursday evening the Relief Society had a scrapbooking evening which Nancy attended. She did not do any scrapbooking, but just enjoyed the time with the sisters and showed off her family pictures.

Saturday was to be the baptism for Corrie Dam, a young student from the Netherlands, but she decided on Wednesday evening to put it off until May 1 so her parents can come from the Netherlands to be a part of it. We are excited that her parents desire to be here, as when she first discussed it with them a couple of months ago, they were very opposed to her joining the church. At first her father was going to come on Friday evening because her mother had to work this weekend. Then she suggested that if they both wanted to come, she would put it off until both could be here. The earliest time they both could attend was May 1, so she told them she would wait. We told her she was inspired because if she had gone ahead with the baptism on Saturday, her father would not have been able to fly so neither of them would have been here. Corrie and the sisters came here for dinner on Saturday evening (cooked by Corrie), then we had a good discussion on the topic of the Godhead. We have enjoyed watching the change in her over the past few months as she has gained a testimony of the gospel and has made the decision to be baptized. She is a lovely young lady (not to mention a wonderful cook) and we are pleased to have her joining the church. She is a great addition to our group of young single adults here.

The other excitement this week was that I found a man in the branch who likes to take and “isbad” (ice bath) by getting in the fjord in the winter. He told me he had been in the fjord the previous week and I told him to call me when he was going again, so we made arrangements to meet at the church on Saturday at 2 p.m. We went to a place called “sjøbadet” (sea bath), a swimming area in the summer, complete with a diving board about 10’ above the water and two diving platforms at about 20 and 25’ above the water—we did not use either of these. There was a set of stairs that went down to the sea, with the bottom few steps under the water. We went down the stairs, then ducked under the water and climbed back up the stairs. It was cold (Terje said it is still at zero C), but now I can say I have been in a Norwegian fjord. This summer I have a commitment to teach some of the young singles how to water ski. Here is a picture of Terje Dorr and I preparing to get wet in the Trondheim fjord (that’s me on the left). Not a typical missionary activity, but this is not a typical mission. (pictures are in the previous post)

There were 72 people to church today, down from the 90 who attended last week, but still an improvement over the normal attendance. We are hoping this is the beginning of a good trend. It was exciting to see two of our less active young men in church today and we are hopeful they will continue to feel the spirit as they come and desire to be active and enjoy the full blessings of the gospel. The missionaries continue to have 6 to 8 investigators in attendance each week and it is exciting to see them as they begin to feel at home in the church.

As I looked around the chapel today in Sacrament meeting, I reflected on the first time we attended here in August. We were asked to bear our testimonies and as I looked over the congregation, there was only one face that I recognized, that was Terjy Dorr, a man who had helped us when we stopped in Trondheim for church in May 2005 for a short while. Today as I looked around, I could call everyone by name and had good feelings about our interactions with each of them. Some are members and some are not, but we have grown to love them all and feel very much at home here.

Today was our fast and testimony day, as we had general conference on the first Sunday in April and last week was our branch conference. I was surprised when Nancy got up and bore her testimony in Norsk. She is doing well with the language, but does not speak it much, as almost everyone speaks English with her, so she does not feel the pressure to speak Norsk. I am proud of how well she is doing and the contributions she makes to the branch. After the branch conference last week, President Johansen said, “I had 4 people tell me to make sure that I don’t move the Sorensens”. It is nice to hear those things, but we know that it is the Lord that makes things happen, not us and we are pleased to be fortunate enough to be here in His service.

Sending our love to each of you,

Mom and dad/Gerald and Nancy/grandma and grandpa/nana and granddad

A DIP IN TRONDHEIM FJORD-APRIL 17, 2010

2010-04-17T18:30:00.003+02:00

I finally found someone who likes to get into cold water, so he invited my to join him today for a dip in the Trohdheim fjord at a location known as "sjobadet" (sea bath). We had to take a long walk (about 300 meters) from where we parked the car to where we entered the fjord, but finally arrived. I will post photos so you get a better idea of how it looks, but the water was COLD. Terje Dorr (the man I went with) said he thought the water was still at zero degrees centigrade. After getting in, I think I agree--it was colder than the Columbia. Anyway, now I can say I have been in a fjord.

Happy Birthday to......Kraig?? :)

2010-04-17T06:13:00.000+02:00

Today I celebrated Kraig's birthday by taking a dip in the Trondheim fjord, since he was kind enough to ski for me on my birthday. Here are a couple of pictures of Terje Dorr and I preparing to dip into the fjord. I have posted video on our blogspot. Mom was the camera man and did a good job. Those who were with us in Norway in 2005 may recognize Terje, he was the man who helped us get set up for church in Trondheim and let us know when the cab was there to take us back to the boat.

Fun day!!!

Spring is coming

2010-04-15T06:10:00.000+02:00

At least that is what the calendar says. Someone forgot to tell the sky, as it is snowing this morning!! Hopefully it will not stay on the ground (or anywhere else), but it does remind us that we are a little north of the equator. The days have been lovely and we are beginning to see green show up on the hillsides and a few buds beginning to appear on trees and bushes.

We were told yesterday that our new car should be at the dealership in Oslo the week of April 26. We plan to drive down to make the swap, but will probably not get around to doing it until the first week in May. Hopefully the snow in the mountains will be gone by then, as I have already removed the snow tires. Hopefully the snow in the valleys will be gone by then also.

Life is still good in the Norway Oslo Mission. The young missionaries are bringing some good young people to church every week and they teach a lot of lessons. We think there will be several baptized in May.

Love,

mom and dad/Gerald and Nancy/grandma and grandpa/nana and granddad

Iceland Volcano eruption - April 15, 2010

2010-04-15T06:07:00.000+02:00

You have probably heard that there was a large volcanic eruption in Iceland earlier today. We have not seen any effects of it here, except there are no airplanes flying anywhere in Scandanavia, Great Britian, The Netherlands, Scotland, Ireland, several large airports in Germany and France have closed also. Fortunately, we were not planning to fly anywhere in the next few days. One of the women here is leaving tonight on the train to go to Drammen. She said it was fortunate that she had bought her ticket earlier, as the trains are all sold out now. Watching the news on TV reminded us of the Mt. St. Helens eruption in 1980.

It has been raining off and on all day today, fortunately we chose to walk up to the store this morning when the rain was "off". We even got a little hail and snow, but it was nothing that stuck. The hill out back is almost all brown now, as is the soccer field below the hill.

We are not being affected by the volcano, except for those who want to fly anywhere. All airports in Norway from Trondheim south are closed. We don't see any ash falling from the sky--just rain and snow. The Trondheim airport was open for about 6 hours yesterday (Friday) morning, but you could only fly to places North of here. All of the major airports in Europe are closed--London, Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, etc. So even if you could fly out of here, you can't get anywhere. Sister Engebretsen was scheduled to leave here next Wednesday to return home, having completed her mission, but she was told last night that her departure will be delayed for at least a week--could be longer, depending on when they open airports and get the crowds who are now stranded, out. She is on a bit of an emotional roller coaster as you might imagine.

We won't be going anywhere by train for a while either, as all the trains are booked. Transfers for the missionaries should be occurring on Wednesday next week, but that is delayed also, as they have to fly or take the train. New missionaries should be arriving on Tuesday, but they won't be able to travel from the US because they can't land in Norway or any of the places in Europe where they would normally transfer. I can't imagine what it must be like in the MTC travel department, with all of the missionaries who are scheduled to leave next Monday to various parts of the world which require a transfer or stop anywhere in Europe. They are stuck in Provo and there will be new missionaries arriving there on Wednesday scheduled to occupy the rooms these missionaries should be vacating. As one broadcaster said, "it lets those of us who run our lives on plans and schedules know that the earth has its own schedule."

The eruption has resulted in some beautiful pictures. Here is a link I found to a Time website.

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1982747_2126388,00.html

Love,

Mom and Dad/Gerald and Nancy/Nana and Granddad/grandma and grandpa

April 4-11, 2010

2010-04-11T06:05:00.002+02:00

Congratulations to Dallin--a big "16" drivers license and all. Happy birthday to Kraig this coming Saturday!

Greetings to all from Norway!

Another fun-filled and interesting week in Trondheim is quickly coming to a close. Spring is still very much working its way into the country, as we continue to have temperatures in the mid 40’s to low 50’s. It is amazing what long sunny days do.

On Monday afternoon, we, along with the missionaries were invited by one of the members to workout at a gym near the center of town. Since Monday was “2^nd Easter Day” it was still a holiday in Norway and the gym was allowing members to invite those who are not members of the gym to come in free and use the facilities. We enjoyed about an hour on the various exercise machines and did enough that we all felt the effects on Tuesday.

Our Family Home Evening Monday evening was a discussion of conference talks, led by Sister Engebretsen. There was a good group (13) present and it was interesting to see what people got out of the talks. Some picked up on things totally different from others, I assume because those were the things that had greatest meaning to them and applied more to their life situation. For refreshments Corrie had made a lemon cheese cake, which was more like a lemon meringue pie. I told her that after the Mississippi mud pie and apple pie she had made last week and now this, I needed to see if I couldn’t find a grandson who could marry her so I could continue to have her desserts for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, there are none who fit her age (25).

We had some good visits with members and investigators with both the elders and sisters during the week and enjoyed feeling the spirit that influences these people to continue to study and pray about the gospel message. Institute class on Wednesday evening was well attended and Nancy’s beef stew (Stephanie’s recipe) was enjoyed by all.

On Friday evening, the young adults and missionaries all met at the church at 6 p.m. to do some cleanup in and around the building in preparation for the branch conference that would occur on Saturday and Sunday. We had 20 young people there and they were amazing. They cleaned all of the chandeliers (10), taking off the bottom “bowl” from each, washing them, cleaning inside and on top of the fixtures and cleaning the covers on the wall sconces. It had been a long time since cleaning of this nature had been done. We had two large ladders in the chapel, with one person up and another down doing the washing of removed parts. To get the ladders in place, it was necessary to move some of the benches out of the chapel to the cultural hall and move others around to get ladders in the right places. This made it easy to vacuum the carpet in areas where it was otherwise difficult. And since we were moving benches, they were all cleaned thoroughly also. Another group of 8 were outside raking leaves, picking up the debris of winter, cleaning gravel (used to improve footing on sidewalks and driveway) from the winter, pulling weeks, etc. Another group was cleaning the kitchen—stove, top of cupboards, etc. They worked hard for 2 hours and got a lot accomplished, then as pay, we brought in pizzas and pop. Having worked so hard, they were hungry!! We had 8 large pizzas and I think there were only 2 pieces left.

On Saturday morning, there was a group of 10 back to play floor hockey in the cultural hall before the conference meeting began later in the afternoon. We picked up President Johansen at the airport at 9:30 and brought him in to the church so he could join the branch mission leader in visiting with several members in their homes before he started meetings at 4:30. Sister Johansen had to be to a women’s conference in Oslo in the morning, so she did not arrive here until 6p.m. but was present for the last half of the evening meeting which started at 6. We heard good counsel from President Johansen and his 2^nd counselor, Pres. Berg as well as the mission Relief Society President. The meeting was well attended by members and investigators and all were spiritually fed.

The Johansen’s spent the night with us and Sister Johansen was not feeling well (flu like symptoms) when they retired for the night. She felt worse when she woke up this morning, but was able to eat some waffles for breakfast before Nancy took her to the airport to return home while Pres. Johansen and I went to a meeting with the missionaries and branch mission leader.

I had suggested to Pres. Johansen that it would probably be good if he could meet with all of the new converts and investigators during Sunday school time, which he agreed to do. There was a large class—27 people in attendance and he led a good discussion. There were 6 young women who were here on a school assignment, to learn about our religion and they enjoyed the whole class, plus the sacrament meeting. There were also 7 investigators in attendance, so he had a good opportunity to encourage those who are investigating the gospel.

We normally have between 50 and 65 people in attendance at Sacrament meeting. Today there were 90. It was impressive to see that the whole chapel was full. Again, we enjoyed good messages from the mission presidency and the branch President, President Paulsen. We feel so blessed to be here with these good people and working with so many fine young people. Corrie has decided to be baptized this next Saturday, so that has made the past few days and the coming week very exciting. She is studying microbiology at the university and wants to be a pathologist. She comes from The Netherlands and is a very sweet young woman (plus being a great cook). It has been exciting to watch her as she has received a testimony of the gospel and has become good friends with others in the branch. We are looking forward to next Saturday!

We are reminded daily of the great love our Father In Heaven has for each of His children. We also have great love for each of our children and grandchildren and are very happy with each of you.

Love,

Mom and dad/Gerald and Nancy/Grandma and Grandpa/Nana and Granddad

March 28 - April 4, 2010

2010-04-05T05:53:00.010+02:00

We have had a wonderful Easter and enjoyed General Conference this weekend. Love to all

Spring has started arriving in Trondheim this week. The snow is mostly gone (except the huge piles and shaded areas). I use the hill behind our apartment as a gauge for spring and the top portion for about 150 feet is brown now instead of white. We have had temperatures up in the mid 40’s which is making everyone shed the winter coats, hats, gloves, boots, etc. The days are longer now—sunrise is about 5:30 a.m. and sunset around 8:30 p..m. It is still fairly light until about 9 p.m.

The best thing about this week is the ending—Easter Sunday today. We have shared the message of the first Easter with most of those we have visited this week. It is amazing to think of how confused and excited the followers of Christ must have been on that first Easter morning. The scriptures tell us that the apostles did not believe Mary when she came and told them that she had seen Christ. Nor did they believe the two whom He walked with on the road to Emmaus. Although He had told them many times that He would rise on the third day, it was still a hard concept for them to understand and only when He actually appeared to them did they finally believe. We are glad that we have the testimonies of all who have seen Him and we have received the witness of The Spirit that He truly does live!

Easter Sunday in Trondheim is starting out as a beautiful day. The sun is shining and the sky is clear blue. We will have the opportunity today to watch some of General Conference. We are 9 hour ahead of the West Coast of the US, so yesterday we watched the Saturday morning session live at 6 p.m. then came home to catch a little bit of the Saturday afternoon session on the computer starting at 10 p.m., before we got too tired and went to bed. We did hear in that session that Brad Risenmay, former stake president in Othello, WA has been called to be an Area Seventy. We were glad to hear that news and ask that those who know Brad express our congratulations to him.

Before the conference session yesterday, one of the members, Harald Myhren, had invited all of the missionaries to join him for “middag” (mid-day meal) at 5 p.m. He cooked the meal at the church and we ate in the cultural hall. It was also Elder Henshaw’s birthday, so Nancy baked a birthday cake (delicious chocolate) and we brought ice cream for dessert. There were a couple of members there early to get the church set up for conference, so they joined us, as did Corrie Dam, a young woman from The Netherlands who has been meeting with the sister missionaries for the past couple of months. Harald gave Elder Henshaw a printed “Happy Birthday” banner, Nancy put three (2 + 1=21) small battery powered candles on the cake and we all sang happy birthday. I gave Elder Henshaw a can of A&W root beer to enjoy with his meal. We found root beer in a store here in town a few weeks ago and bought a few cans to savor at the right moment. They were a real bargain at $5/can.

There is a group of students studying film production at the college who visited the church a few weeks ago and wanted to do a documentary on missionary life. They were present on Monday evening and filmed our Family Home Evening. I was “fortunate” enough to have been assigned the lesson for the night before we knew they wanted to come. It was hard to ignore them, as they had bright lights on in the room and a large boom mike that was moved over those who were responding. However, it was a good experience and everyone pretty well participated as normal and the film crew got a good lesson on the importance of “inquiring of the Lord” when we have decisions to make in life.

On Tuesday we drove out to visit with the Husby’s in a place called Hommelvik. They have just returned from winter in Spain, so we were anxious to visit with them again. Ivar, who is not a member of the church, is about 85 and is starting to have signs of memory loss. Malfried is 82 and still very sharp. Although not a member, Ivar attends church with his wife every week that they are able. I asked him one day why he has not been baptized and he said “I am afraid of the water”.

On Wednesday morning I got a call from the VW dealer saying that our car was ready and as they would be closing at 1:00 p.m. (everything shuts down for Easter week, beginning at 1 on Wednesday for most businesses and will be closed until Tuesday morning) could I come over before then to pick it up. When I got there, I asked what they had done and was told that they replaced the fuel pump—something I had been suggesting as the problem from the first time. Since it had taken so long to get this right, they only charged their cost for the fuel pump, no labor and paid for our rental car. I think we are through with car failures. Our new car is supposed to be in Oslo the end of this month, so we will drive to Oslo sometime toward the end of April to pick it up and drive back. On the way down or back, we plan to stop in the small town of Skjåk to visit with Erna Skogset, a woman I knew in Oslo when I was a missionary there in 1960. We visited with her in Oslo when we were here 5 years ago on vacation and we have talked a few times since. She lives with her son and daughter-in-law and has Parkinson’s disease, does not hear well and has a hard time talking, but otherwise, she is doing well. Occasionally I get a phone call from her but cannot hear anything from her end. But we are glad that she is thinking of us.

We had been invited to lunch on Wednesday with one of the members, Inger Jorgensen. Her husband, George, works on a boat and is gone for a month or two at a time. When we arrived, Nancy said something to her about being lonely. She replied, “I am often alone, but never lonely.” I thought that was a good reply and truly fits her, she is always involved with several things and does not have time to be lonely. She chairs an inter faith council here in Trondheim, which is a huge step as in the past Mormons would not even have been invited to sit with such councils.

As it is Easter break we did not have institute class on Wednesday night, but we still got together with the young adults for dinner followed by an activity. I put together the pictures and videos I had taken of the snow activity last Friday evening and we watched that, then played a game (balloon hockey) until everyone was exhausted, then they just sat and visited for an hour or so. It was a good evening. I had met with Sister Molholt earlier in the evening as she was teaching Corrie and at one point, Corrie expressed some concerns and I told her that whenever she felt a need to talk, she could call the sisters. She said, yes, but these problems usually come up after 11 p.m. I said well, they should be asleep at that time, but we (Nancy and I) are usually still up and if not, I keep the cell phone by the bed and will answer whenever, so I gave her our phone number. At about 11:15, I looked at the phone and saw that I had missed a call at 10:57, when we were in the kitchen and the phone was in the bedroom, I did not recognize the number so was going to ignore it until the morning, then I remembered my conversation with Corrie earlier in the evening and something told me I had better reply. So I called the number and sure enough, it was Corrie. She had been working late at the laboratory where she is doing a project for school. When she looked outside at a little before 11, it had gotten very dark and there was no one out and about because of the Easter holiday. She felt worried about her safety in walking home and since she did not know where else to turn, she decided to take me up on my offer. We went to her lab and picked her up and took her home.

We have enjoyed General Conference, although it is a different experience. On Saturday at 4 p.m. we watched a rebroadcast of the Young Women broadcast from a week ago, then we had the dinner with Harald and the missionaries. That was followed by a live broadcast of the Saturday morning session of conference at 6 p.m.

Today, Sunday, we returned to church at 11 a.m. to watch a rebroadcast of the Priesthood session from last night. At 2 p.m. we watched a rebroadcast of the Saturday afternoon session. We had dinner with the young adults at 4:30 (tacos for Easter dinner??). Corrie made a “Mississippi mud pie” and an apple pie for dessert—both delicious. I told her if I was 50 years younger and single, she would be on the top of my list. At 5:30 p.m. we watched Music and the Spoken Word, followed by the Sunday morning session (live). The missionaries had asked the president if they could stay at the church to watch the Sunday afternoon session (which started at 10 p.m.), so we watched that until it ended at midnight, then took Corrie and some of the missionaries home and it is now only 1:30 a.m.

We are grateful to be here engaged in the Lord’s work among some wonderful people. We are especially mindful today of the sacrifice of the Savior for each of us and are grateful to Him.

May God bless each of you and your families with health and the peace that He brings.

Love,

Mom and dad/Gerald and Nancy/grandma and grandpa/Elder and Sister Sorensen

New Area 70 - April Conference

2010-04-03T05:49:00.000+02:00

From: Gerald and Nancy Sorensen <gandnsorensen@gmail.com>
To: Alison and Jeff <sorenmay@yahoo.com>
Sent: Sat, April 3, 2010 1:29:56 PM
Subject: NEW AREA 70

Just heard Brad Risenmay (former Othello SP) sustained as an Area 70. Congratulations on having an Area 70 in the family.

love,

dad

On Sat, Apr 3, 2010 at 2:42 PM, Alison Risenmay <sorenmay@yahoo.com> wrote:

We missed that. The beginning of the first session got cut off in the recording and Lea had a baseball game so we missed the beginning of the second session. Jeff may have heard it, but he's been down for two days with some sort of flu-type bug. The mere mention of food makes him run for the bathroom.....lucky for the missionaries who are coming over to eat with us..... Are you watching conference via broadcast or on the internet?

Made about 24 jars of strawberry jam so now my kids can have pb&J and not just pb sandwiches. I pulled a store bought jam from the cupboard and noone will eat it. :) Now to freeze some strawberries for later use.

What a loving note from the sister missionaries - they only get to see a glimpse of everything you do and have done throughout your lives - we love you!

Happy Easter! Love, Alison, Jeff, Lea, Lucas & Abbey

We watch some live, some rebroadcast and some at home on the computer. Yesterday (Saturday) we saw the YW broadcast at 2 p.m. (rebroadcast--we had seen it earlier on the computer) and the Sat a.m. session at 6 p.m. (live). We watched the first part of the Sat. p.m. session on the computer beginning at 10 p.m. last night, then went to bed. Today we will go to the church to watch the PH session at 11 a.m. (rebroadcast), then see a rebroadcast of the Sat p.m session at 2 p.m. We will then have a dinner at the church with the YSA and missionaries at 4:30 and then watch the Sunday a.m. session live beginning at 5:30 with Music and the spoken word. The Sunday p.m. session we will watch on the computer sometime on Monday.

Glad to hear that you were able to get some strawberry jam made. Mom (and me also) has become a fan of what the Norwegians call tyttebær jam (loganberry). We eat almost exclusively storebought jam, but it is very tasty. So how was Lea's ballgame? Hope she is doing well. Sorry to hear that Jeff has been sick, that is not fun. We have a beautiful day here today, the sun is shining and the sky is clear blue. It froze last night, but should be up to about 40 or 45 during the day. Here are a couple of recent photos--one of us taken Friday evening near an old church wneh we were on our way to visit a family in an area called Melhus. The other of the hill behind our apt. This is how I measure how spring is progressing. We now have daylight beginning about 5:30 and lasting until close to 9 p.m.

Love to all,

dad and mom

winter view from apt window

Feelings

2010-04-03T05:43:00.004+02:00

Our mission is different from that of the young missionaries who are out each day meeting people on the street, bus or wherever, to teach those who will listen about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We spend a lot of time "doing" things to support the missionaries, helping the young adults, making repairs around the church, etc. Mom says that she came on a mission to cook and do dishes. If we ever get to feeling that we are not doing much, it is at that time that we get a note like the attached, which helps remind us that there are lots of ways to serve.

We love and appreciate each of you and are glad to hear of the good things you all are doing.

Love,

mom and dad/Grandma and Grandpa/Nana and Granddad/Gerald and Nancy

Happy Easter!

2010-04-03T05:40:00.001+02:00

Since Easter arrives here a little earlier than for most of you, let us wish each of you a very Happy Easter. It is amazing to think of the events of that first Easter morning. There are probably no greater words than those spoken to Mary--"why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here for He has risen"!!

We are truly grateful for the knowledge that He truly did rise on the 3rd day and because of His resurrection, we shall all be resurrected and have the opportunity to dwell once again in the presence of our Father.

We have a beautiful day here in Trondheim this morning and the prediction is that Easter Sunday will be equally good.

May God continue to watch over and bless each of you and your families.

love,

mom and dad/Gerald and Nancy/

It's April 1st

2010-04-01T05:45:00.000+02:00

Yes,I am still healthy, perhaps with a demented sense of humor. Just checking to see how many read to the end of emails. Hope you are all having a great day.

Love,

dad and mom/Gerald and Nancy/grandma and grandpa/nana and granddad

RYAN:

Yeah, I never made it past the coming home with a broken leg in traction….boy Norway have made your jokes LESS Funny HAHA

Meghan and Paige are on their way home from FL and I sent them a text that Jacob from NEW MOON was coming to my work today and all the family is invited for a meet and greet…..you would have thought I was their enemy, since they won’t be home till tomorrow

Response to 'Coming Home'

2010-04-01T05:33:00.001+02:00

I forwarded the responses I received - Dad may have received others to just him - these all replied to the group and were posted on Facebook.com

Jeff: I’m very impressed he was able to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes, when he acknowledged it was a joke in the same email. Very well done.

steven: April Fools, right?
arlo: I hope this is april fools. Arlo
kraig: Was there a horse in the back seat too? April Fool's?
ryan: HAHA or you’ll wish you just broke your leg!!
email #2 from Ryan: Oh, and Cheri’s pregnant
Kraig again: Are you sure it was your leg and not your humerus that got jostled around?

my cousin (bud's daughter:)

I sure got sucked in by this one. Kudos to everyone who caught the joke sooner than I did! Jim just pointed out the disclaimer at the bottom of the email. Uncle Gerald -- you get the April Fool's crown!

Love,

Elise

from FB:

My dad, who is in Norway , just sent a note saying he broke his leg & has to come home. I didn't read the entire email, but quickly called him. The moment I heard his voice I realized it is already April Fools Day in Norway . He got me GOOD! - kristin

Me too - I about fell out of my chair running to the phone to call Jeff. In the back of my mind wondering if he managed to put a horse in my backyard too.....dad....sheesh. -alison

I think i stopped breathing for a second, then was going to help him break his leg....ryan

side note:
My dad's original email and I didn't scroll to the bottom. it's not uncommon for his emails to be one or two lines - why scroll!? ugh?! that'll teach us to pay attention. :) You got us all!! :)

Coming home

2010-04-01T05:31:00.000+02:00

Yesterday (Wed. March 31) I picked up our car from the dealership with a new fuel pump.I think they have finally solved the problem. On the way home, someone ran a red light and "t-boned" the car. My left leg was broken and the mission president has decided that it would be better for us to return home for rehab, as I will need to have the leg in traction for quite some time. Perhaps we will be able to return when I am able to move about a little easier.

Travel plans are being made by the mission, so I will let you know as soon as we know. Love you all.

dad

NOTE THIS WAS WRITTEN ON APRIL 1 HERE IN NORWAY---THERE WAS NO ACCIDENT. MY LEG WILL NOT BE IN TRACTION, BUT I AM PULLING ON YOURS. AND WE ARE NOT COMING HOME.

Car update

2010-03-31T05:31:00.000+02:00

Hopefully the saga of my Polo has finally ended. I picked it up this morning and they had replaced the fuel pump (what I suggested a month and a half ago). Anyway, now we can probably make the drive to Oslo toward the end of April to pick up a new car (another VW Polo). By then we are hoping that the weather will be good and we can enjoy the scenery along the way without worrying about being stranded somewhere in the middle of Gudbrandsdalen.

Have a Happy Easter

love,

mom and dad/Gerald and Nancy/grandma and grandpa

spring may be coming!!!

2010-03-29T13:20:00.004+02:00

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.

March 24 – 28, 2010

2010-03-29T05:23:00.000+02:00

TRONDHEIM, NORWAY

March 24 – 28, 2010

Dear Family and Friends:

Another short week has passed. We had 19 (including the missionaries) to dinner before Institute. The missionaries can stay to institute if they have an investigator. In the fall we began setting the table for 12 (4 missionaries) and sometimes we filled it. Later we set for 16 and now we set for 20. We do have 8 missionaries including us, but the Lord is blessing them with people to teach and bring to church.

Friday we left the apartment to go meet the sisters at the apartment of one of their investigators, a young student from Ghana. The trunk of the car was loaded with all the things we were taking to the sledding activity at 5 that evening. Wouldn’t you know—the car would not start. It showed the same symptoms it did a month ago before the local VW dealership had it in their shop for almost a month. Needless to say, I was not happy, as I had told the service manager when I picked it up a week ago that I was not convinced that anything they had done had addressed the problem I was having with the car.

So it was back to our friends at Viking tow service (I am getting to know all of their drivers by now). They towed the car to the dealer and I picked up a rental car—again. Of course there were no mechanics around by the time the car got there on Friday and since this is Easter week, it is questionable if there will be any working this week. At least the rental car is a step up from the VW Polo we drive. Maybe they can just keep it. Here is an altogether too familiar sight. The good thing about this is that it has never failed to start at some very inconvenient time or hazardous location. The Lord does watch out for us.

Friday night we had a great YSA activity. We still have LOTs OF SNOW, so why not go sledding. Our YSA from Nigeria, Mozambique and China had never been sledding. They were all hesitant at first. Benildo from “M” went first. He loved it. By the time the sledding was finished, he asked what time we were coming the next day. All had a great time. Included in the group was a young Australian girl the elders had met on Wednesday. She came to our dinner and returned Friday for the sledding activity. We returned to the church for hotdogs and hot chocolate. Great bonding!!

Saturday a few came to play sports (one young man and two young women). So Gerald joined them and they played volleyball and then floor hockey. Oh the energy (at least on the part of 3 of the 4)!

We have had a YSA president and now we have a vice president also. We are holding regular meetings with them, the branch president and the institute teacher. Finally getting organized is really improving the program and gives it more enthusiasm also.

Our cupboards are now stocked. We went to the store and bought quite a bit of food. People shop here every few days. Shelf life isn’t as long as in the U. S. Now I can at least make a few things without running to the store for each days meals.

The sisters, a new convert and an investigator came to dinner today. It is always special to have them here.

The new convert, Shina, is learning to play the piano. His goal is to play in church next year. He really is interested and tries very hard since we only get together Sunday after church for about 10-15 minutes each week. He doesn’t have anything to practice on, so each week it is all new. This week is spring break so he plans to be at the church to practice.

Today I had to speak in church. I hate it when people get up and read their talks. I said that and then read my talk in Norwegian. Is that an oxymoron? My pronunciation is getting better. I couldn’t have translated it directly into English, but generally I did know what I was saying.

One of the YSA played prelude in RS and in Sacrament Meeting. She is getting more confident. One of the other YSA played in Primary today. I think they have heard me make many mistakes and so that gives them more confidence in their piano playing skill. At least they are practicing and trying to improve.

The Lord is blessing the people here in Trondheim and it is exciting to be a part of it. We are making wonderful friendships here with missionaries, members and young students from all over the world. We are happy to be sharing the message of the restoration of the Gospel with them.

We love each of you and pray for your continued health and happiness.

Mom and dad/Gerald and Nancy/grandma and grandpa/nana and granddad

March 15-23, 2010

2010-03-24T05:21:00.000+01:00

WEEK OF MARCH 15-23. 2010

TRONDHEIM, NORWAY

Just so you won’t think our weeks are a little longer here than other places, I am covering the time from Monday Wednesday of the next week because there has not been time to write anything until today. That is how the “week” has gone.

We were planning to enjoy a fun “P-day” with the single missionaries by going bowling at the local bowling alley. Nancy was especially looking forward to this as she loves to bowl. I took the rental car back to the VW dealer in the morning and picked up our car—after having been in and out of their shop since Feb. 20—drove home, picked up Nancy and as we were headed to town, noted that the engine temperature light came on. I thought at first it might just be some random thing, and planned to drop Nancy off at the bowling alley, then take the car to the dealer. I then watched as the temperature gauge continued to rise and realized that we were not going to get into town and back to the dealer, so I pulled off the highway into a parking lot near a gas station. I got out and looked under the hood and found that the coolant reservoir was empty. I got water from the station, filled the reservoir, then started the engine to circulate the water to the engine and as it went down, poured in more water—then noted it was coming out as fast as it was going in. So I shut down and called the dealer and our friends at Viking tow service (I think we have met every driver they have). It was about 2 p.m. at this time and it was cold and snowing. We sat in the car and played “Farkle” for a while, then I worried that we were not going to get to the dealership before they all went home for the day. I called Viking to see how long it would be and the dispatcher said at least another hour as there were lots of stuck cars and accidents they were taking care of and had people in front of us who had already been waiting for over 2 hours. At this point, Nancy was getting cold (and beating me badly in the game) so I called a cab, went to the dealership and picked up our faithful rental car—again. I returned with the rental car and took Nancy to the church, then went back to wait for the tow truck, which arrived at about 4:30. After seeing the car off, I returned to the church where we met at 5:30 with the young single adult council to discuss the plans for the young single adults. After the meeting it was time for family home evening which included a good lesson given by Elder Bartholomew and a fun time playing games afterward. Victor (a convert from January) conducted the FHE for the first time and had an enjoyable time doing so. He is very quiet, but did a good job keeping things moving. It is so much fun to see the growth of these young people as they develop confidence in their abilities and testimonies. There were 9 in attendance, including one non-member.

Tuesday there was a “pensjonist lunch” (retired people lunch—or anyone else who is free at noon). These are arranged by one of the sisters in the branch (Inger Jørgensen) as a way to get the older folks involved with each other and encourage them to bring their non-member friends and members who don’t always come to church. She had invited a woman who has written several books about Trondheim history—as she experienced it while growing up here. The lady’s name is Ester Nordmark and she is in her mid 80’s. She was delightful to listen to (I tried my best to translate for Nancy) and to visit with as we enjoyed some Norwegian waffles afterward (waffles are not a breakfast food in Norway, they are used as desserts in the evening, or for lunch—but we enjoy them anytime). Nancy accompanied some community singing during the program and also played a piano solo after Ester had talked. They enjoy having her here for her musical talents among other talents.

In the evening we had an appointment with Eirik and Åsta. When we arrived with Sisters Engebretsen and Mølholt at 7 p.m., Eirik was not yet home from work and would not be coming until after 8. Åsta’s father, Jeffrey Stevens was there, as one of the twins (Victoria) had been sick and he was helping Åsta. They were in bed by the time we arrived so we did not get to enjoy their presence. After we talked about Victoria, I asked Åsta if she would like me to give Victoria a blessing, which I did with the assistance of Jeffrey. We had taken some rice krispie treats out with us, as Eirik had mentioned on our last visit that he really liked them. Nancy also took the ingredients and the recipe so he could learn to make them. We had a very good visit with Åsta and her father, then he left to return to his home and we visited for a while with Åsta and learned a little more of their family. They have been praying together since we began visiting and she said they all feel a difference in their home. Eirik is a good man, works hard to provide for his family and then comes home to work hard remodeling their home. Now that there is some daylight after work, he usually comes home, changes clothes and goes to work outside.

On Wednesday I picked up our car again, we attended District meeting and Nancy prepared dinner for institute. The service agent at the dealership said he made the mechanics drive it for an hour or so yesterday after they finished working on it (someone had forgotten to tighten a clamp on a coolant hose) so he had some confidence that I would not be back again.

On Thursday I shoveled snow from the church parking lot and Nancy spent a good part of the day working on a “member book” for use by the missionaries. It is intended to have some basic information on the members of the branch, along with a photo so when new missionaries are assigned, they can review the book and get a better feel for the members before coming to church the first Sunday or when they are preparing to meet with members. In the evening was the Relief Society (hjelpeforening in Norsk) held their birthday dinner which Nancy attended and played the piano for the singing. I spent the time in the YSA room studying.

On Friday we tried to catch up on things at home—laundry, vacuuming, etc. before leaving to spend the weekend in Mo I Rana. Nancy spent more time working on the member book. We also spent time on the talk Nancy would be giving in Mo (and also giving the talk next Sunday in Trondheim). She tries to get as much mileage as possible out of her talks. She was asked to speak this coming Sunday in Trondheim on the atonement and resurrection, so that is the topic she talked on in Mo. We will not be back to Mo before Easter, so the topic is timely. She is doing much better with her talks and is still determined that she will give them in Norsk, which the members all appreciate—even though almost all of them would understand it in English. They appreciate her efforts to speak their language. One of them told her on the first Sunday we were here and she bore her testimony in Norsk that she was the first of the sisters in the couple missionaries that they could remember having spoken in Norsk. So she wants to continue to do that and is doing well. She understands much more now and is able to follow most conversations and talks in church—but is not comfortable trying to engage in conversation.

On Saturday, we picked up the sisters at 0700 and caught the 0740 train to Mo. It was a foggy day for most of the trip, but the fog and the snow made for beautiful scenery. For some reason we were about an hour late arriving, but were met by Jan Erik Granaas, the branch president when we arrived. He took us to our hotel where we dropped our luggage, then went off to visit members. The sisters had prepared book marks for each of the members, which included a scripture on one side and a quote from President Uchtdorf on the other. They shared the scripture with the members (everyone we visited were older widows) and sang a song before we moved onto the next home. These older sisters love it when the young sister missionaries come to visit. They had called everyone on the branch list to encourage them to come to church on Sunday and for those who live near the city center, asked about visiting on Saturday afternoon. There is one woman who has not been to church for years, but she said yes we could come visit. When we drove to her place, President Granaas said, “she has never let any of the branch leaders in. She used to let the missionaries come visit occasionally, but not the branch leaders or home teachers.” When we knocked on the door, it took her some time to come to the door, and he said, “she saw us through the window, so she will probably not answer the door.” Finally she answered and was surprised to find 5 people standing on the door step, then she said, “well, you can stand out there or you can come in”. So we all went in and had a good visit with her. She lives right on the harbor, with a beautiful view of the fjord, in an old home she has lived in for many years. Her husband passed away many years ago and it is just her and “skip” her little dog. Hopefully now that President Granaas has been in her home, she will continue to allow members to visit with her and bless her life.

We went to the home of Bengt and Bonnie Andreasen for dinner on Saturday evening. They moved into their new home just before Christmas last year. It sits up on a hillside about 5 minutes drive from the city center and has a beautiful view of the fjord, the city, and the mountains across the fjord. Bengt said, “on a clear day you can see all the way to America.” After dinner we returned to the hotel to rest and prepare for Sunday. Saturday was a beautiful sunny day and it was supposed to be more of the same on Sunday.

When we awoke Sunday and looked out the window, it was snowing and there was enough snow that it was clear it had snowed for a while. We enjoyed breakfast in the hotel, then waited for Pres. Ganaas to pick us up. I went down to the lobby to check out, then while I was returning to the room, stopped and spoke with a man who was standing in the hall. He and two others were doing some remodeling in rooms on one end of the floor. I said “good morning” (in English) and he said, “you are not Norwegian.” (in English) I said, “no, and it sounds like you are not either.” He said he is Norsk, but spent many years living in the US—Minnesota and California. We talked a little about where he had lived and what he is doing now, then he said, “my son and I noted you and your wife and daughters at breakfast this morning, we both commented on how refreshing it was to see two young women wearing long skirts and modestly dressed.” I explained that they were not my daughters, but that we are all missionaries for the Church. We had a good conversation about the church and values before he had to return to work. He is seventh day Adventist, and therefore they were working today.

We had a wonderful sacrament meeting. Nancy played the keyboard and Sister Engebretsen led the singing. I helped Pres. Granaas bless the sacrament and Bengt passed it. Then Nancy spoke, each of the sisters spoke and they sang a couple of primary songs. When they started singing, Lydia, the Andreasens’s 4 year old daughter came up and stood with them, so Sis. Engebretsen pulled a chair up and stood her on the chair while they sang. It was very touching to see how this little girl admired the sister missionaries. After they sang, it was my turn to speak but the time was gone, so I told Pres. Granaas that I could just give my talk another time. He said, no, go ahead, we have time (since the branch only holds 2 meetings on Sunday—Sacrament meeting and a combined Relief Society and Priesthood meeting, if Sacrament meeting runs longer or shorter, they just compensate in the next meeting). So I gave my talk about temples. During the closing song, Lydia pushed her chair up by Sis Engebretsen and Sis Engebretesen stepped behind her and helped her lead the singing. Again, a very touching scene.

While the rest of us held priesthood and RS meeting, the sisters took the 3 children in the next room and held a primary class. After the classes, we all sat around in the chapel area and Nancy brought out the Rice Krispie Treats she had made and we sang happy birthday to Bengt, whose birthday was on Monday and Pres. Granaas whose birthday was the previous week. The people all enjoy rice krispie treats and nobody left until they were all gone. I told everyone that this would be Sis Engebretsen’s last visit to Mo, as she would be going home before the end of April, the sisters and children all gave her long hugs and wished her well. There were hugs for all of the sisters (4) from Nancy and the missionaries before we departed for the train station. It is always a delight to be with these faithful members.

The train was about ½ hour late arriving, so it was about 11 p.m. before we got back home after dropping the sisters off at their apartment.

Monday morning came way too early. But soon Nancy was working on the member book again (our P-day activity) as I did the laundry and started getting things ready to go to zone conference on Tuesday. We had a good FHE on Monday night with 9 young singles (including 3 non-members) and 6 missionaries. It was a full house but a great feeling to have so many there. All of the non-members took an active part in the lesson as well as activities. There is a good spirit among the members, missionaries and investigators as they attend.

We got home at about 9:30 on Monday night and made preparations to get up at 0345 on Tuesday to travel to Stavanger for zone conference.

Nancy was asked to say the opening prayer for the conference and Sister Johnson (one of the other senior sisters) had been asked to lead the music. Sister Johnson said she did not know how to lead music (her husband had accepted for her) and asked Nancy if she knew how. Nancy said, “yes, but I am giving the opening prayer”. So Sister Johnson said you lead and I’ll give the prayer. Nancy was then talking with sister Thomsa who was going to play the piano and Sister Thomas said she was not able to play one of the songs as fast as it should be played, so Nancy asked if she could lead music. She said she was a choir director. So they swapped again and when Elder Miller went to announce the opening hymn and prayer, they had him totally confused. But it all went well.

Zone conference was a wonderful experience. This time all of the senior couples in the mission were in attendance and we met together for about an hour and a half while the young missionaries did some of their training. It was great to be able to get better acquainted with them and to share experiences and ideas. There is much success being gained with the young people in Norway and it is good to be a part of it. We had a wonderful lunch provided by the sisters in Stavanger—RS president, Primary Pres., YW President and a couple of their daughters. Two of the women are Americans whose husbands are here working—one in the US Air Force with NATO and one working for an oil company. I asked the Norsk sister what her name was and she said, Sister Steffensen. I asked if Anskar was her husband and she said, “yes”. So I told her that I had confirmed him a member when he was baptized about 50 years ago. She was excited to know that and then introduced me to her daughter who was there helping out.

At the zone conference in February, we met an Elder Severson who is serving in Bergen. Nancy asked him where his ancestors came from and he said, “Røyken”. She told him that is also where our Severson ancestors came from. Knowing that he would be there this conference also, she copied off the Severson genealogy and brought it with her. At a break in the conference, we sat down and looked at the sheets and he said he thought that one of Oscar Severson’s brothers was his great-grandfather. He will do some checking with his family to confirm (I have sent his parents an email with a copy of the Severson line, so we will see). Anyway, it has been fun to make some family connections here as well as all the other connections we are making.

Too soon, the conference was over and it was back to the airport. Our flight was about 1-1/2 hour late departing, so by the time we got home it was 11:30 p.m. again. These hours and travel schedules are not meant for old bodies. We were spiritually alive, but too tired to do much with it. Today (Wednesday) is a day of getting ready for institute dinner and class. We met briefly with Sister Catherine Bjørnevog where she goes to art school and had a good visit with her. She has come a long way since our first visit with her several months ago. She and her 4 children are in church almost every week now.

We love this work and the people we are blessed to associate with each day. We miss all of you and wish you could be here with us—rather than we being there—as we know you would love the country and people as much as we do. And they would love you as much as we do.

May God continue to bless each of you.

Mom and dad/Gerald and Nancy/grandma and grandpa/nana and granddad.

MARCO--POLO

2010-03-18T16:55:00.002+01:00

We picked up the car on Wednesday, March 17. The problem this time was that whoever worked on it last had not tightened a hose clamp and when the coolant became warm and pressurized the system the hose came off. When I was talking with the service agent to pick it up, he told me he had had 2 mechanics drive it for a couple of hours the previous day when the work was completed, to make sure it was done correctly, then had another mechanic check the work. So far, things seem to have been repaired this time. We had the rental car for almost a month (from Feb 20 to March 17). The VW dealer was to cover the first 5 days of the rental and I told them when I picked up the car that we needed to sit down and look at the bill to determine what they were going to pay for and what the Church would pay for. Today (Thursday, the 18th) he called and said they were going to cover the entire rental car expenses.

The new car left the assembly line 3 days ago and should be in Oslo in about 5 weeks.

SAGA OF THE POLO

2010-03-17T08:18:00.003+01:00

It has been a long time since I posted anything here, so here is an update on our car problems. The first problem raised it's head on Feb. 17, when the car would not start one afternoon and I needed to go pick up 2 older sister missionaries who were coming in from Germany to do some training with us. The tow truck driver got it started and when I asked what he did, he laughed and said, "I have no idea". Anyway it worked until the next morning when I was to pick up the same 2 sisters at their hotel. We ended up walking the 4 blocks from the hotel to the church. Since I was just going to be out of the car long enought to walk into their hotel, I had not bothered to wear an outer coat even though it was -10C. It was a cold walk!!

The car was towed to the dealership (VW) and later in the afternoon they called to say it was ready. I asked what the problem was and was told they replaced an engine coolant sensor and updated the computer. What that had to do with the problem I was seeing was beyond me, but the car worked. We gave the sisters a tour of Trondheim and got them to the airport on Friday morning. On Saturday we were at the church for seveal hours and when we came out at about 2:30 in the afternoon, the car would not start--same symptoms as the last 2 times. Since the dealership was closed on Sat. afternoon, we got in touch with an emergency number in Oslo and they authorized the towing, cab fare to the airport to pick up a rental car and use of a rental car. We picked up the rental car at about 5 on Saturday afternoon.

About Wednesday of the next week, we stopped by the dealership because I had not been able to reach the service technician by phone. He told me the car had a bad head gasket. One of the 3 cylinders had very low compression. It would cost about 25,000 norsk kroner (about $4,000) to do the repairs. I called the mission office and was told that we might as well get it done, even though I am getting a new car in April, as we would pay the price to repair it or have the cost of repairs taken from the tradein value. So they began to work on it, saying it should be back the next week.

We picked up the car on March 9 (Nancy's birthday present), drove about 4 km and visited with some members. I left the car running while I visited with the husband outside where he was working on his daughter's car. When I walked back to the car, it sounded like it had an exhaust leak and the engine temperature light was on--so we went back to the dealer, left the car and took the rental car again. It only took until Monday March 15 for this repair to be completed. I picked up the car at noon on the 15th, drove home (about 15 km) parked for about an hour, then we headed to the city. On the way, the engine temp light came on again and the temp gauge was rising, so I pulled inton a parking lot near a gas station, checked the coolant and found it was empty. I got some water from the station, filled the overflow container, then started the car so the coolant could begin to circulate to the engine. When it did, water was flowing out as fast as I was putting it in. So I called the dealership and the tow company and we waited--and waited. It was about -5 and snowing while we sat in the car and waited for about an hour. I called the tow company and they said it would be at least another hour, as they were very busy (lots of people stuck in the snow and accidents). I called a cab and went to the dealership, picked up the rental car again, came back and took Nancy to the church where she could wait in a warm room and went back to wait for the tow truck. He finally came at about 4:30 and took the car off to the dealer. It is now Wednesday and I have not yet heard what this problem is, but I am not taking the car until they have driven it for at least 20 km so I know it will get me home. The bill was at 35,800 kroner (divide by 6 to get a good approximation of $) when I last picked up the car.

The new car cannot come too soon. Here are pictures of the car being loaded on the truck on Feb. 20 and the rental car we have been driving for the past few weeks.

March 8-14, 2010

2010-03-15T05:18:00.001+01:00

Photo of Victor in his new suit (you'll read about him).

WEEKLY UPDATE

WEEK OF MARCH 8-14

TRONDHEIM, NORWAY

We have had another good week in Trondheim, filled with good experiences with the young single adults, investigators and members here.

On Monday we had a busy day getting things done in the apartment—laundry, vacuuming, shopping, etc. In the evening there were 15 present at family home evening, including 2 investigators and 5 young single adult members—the other 8 being the missionaries. The room is almost filled to capacity with 15 people and it makes us reflect on the first few family home evenings we held here back in August with just the two of us, two sister missionaries and 2 young single adult members. The Lord has truly blessed this small branch. One of the investigators present, Liaqat Rizai from Afghanistan, is planning to be baptized on Saturday.

Tuesday was Nancy’s birthday and she received many birthday greetings from the members here as well as from friends and family at home. She commented that she has never received so many birthday cards as she received this week—and the cards kept coming throughout the week. The first birthday greeting of the day came at 2:45 a.m. via a text message from one of the young single adult women. One of the hazards of working with young single adults is the hours they keep. For the first few weeks we were here, I would turn off the cell phone at night, then realized that this was our only contact method, so have been leaving it on since then and occasionally we get these early morning “greetings”. Anyway, we love Torunn and appreciated her thinking of Nancy so early in the morning and wanting to be the first to wish her a happy birthday. The last greeting of the day came from the Relief Society president (who celebrated her birthday on March 12—the same age as Nancy) at about 10:30 p.m. We enjoyed a good sirloin dinner at EGON, a nice restaurant in downtown Trondhiem.

We had our missionary district meeting as usual on Tuesday morning at 11 and at the end, the sister missionaries brought in a pan of brownies which had been baked by one of the sisters in the branch (Torunn’s mother). Sister Engebretsen also served her a bowl of broccoli with cheese (one of her favorited meals). Later in the afternoon, we picked up our car from the dealership garage (where it has been since Feb. 20). We drove about 3 km to the Hansen’s home to return the empty brownie pan and I left the engine running while Nancy took the pan into the house to visit with Turid and Torunn and I visited with Harald outside, where he was doing some work on Torunn’s car. After 10 or 15 minutes, we went to go into the house and as I got closer to the car I thought “that car sounds awful loud—like an exhaust leak,” I got in to turn it off and noted that the engine temperature light was on. So after visiting for a few minutes more, we returned to the dealership and fortunately, found the service agent still there as they closed at 5 and it was about 5 after. I walked in and he said, “are you back?” “yes, I am back—I’ll trade you for the rental car again.” I explained the problem and left it with him. Sometime during the afternoon, we found time to join the sisters in teaching an investigator, a young student from Turkey.

On Wednesday was Institute. Nancy made chicken noodle soup for dinner—this is a favorite of all who attend and there were 18 present to enjoy the dinner. 15 stayed for institute class. Also on Wednesday evening was a branch council meeting, which I attend representing the missionaries. We leave tired at the end of the day on Monday and Wednesdays but feeling blessed with the good spirit which we enjoy as we meet with the young single adult members and investigators and other branch members and missionaries.

Thursday we met with a 25 year old young man (Hans Christian Moan) who has not been active in the church since he was about 13 and has pretty much been on his own since he was 15. We had a good visit with he and his girlfriend and feel encouraged that we will continue to visit with them. Nancy also met with the sister missionaries and a member (Birgit) to practice a song they will be singing in Church on Sunday.

Friday was a day to catch up again. We did some shopping, I repaired the tread on two stairs in the church going down to the basement rooms and Nancy worked on preparing forms on the computer to help the missionaries become better acquainted with the members. The mission president has asked the missionaries to have a “member book” with member addresses, and basic information so they can more effectively interact with members. So the assignment became Nancy’s to prepare something. While at the mall, I saw a good sale on suits and purchased a new suit plus an extra pair of slacks to match the suit and a pair of gray slacks. They were having a “take 3 pay for 2” sale. I decided my old suit could be given to one of the new converts and help him be dressed in something other than jeans at church.

Friday evening, Nancy met with Torunn and Vera Dahlø to practice a song which they will sing in church the last Sunday of the month. When Nancy and Torun first arrived, they went into the chapel and Nancy sat down at the piano and started to play—there was not a sound from the piano. She opened the top and found that all of the hammers had been removed (she remembered then that Torunn’s dad had told us the piano tuner was working on the piano earlier in the week) to be repaired. They enjoyed a good laugh at their shock, then went to another piano. After they finished practicing at about 8:30, Torunn came home with us and visited until about 11. She needs a little extra attention every once in a while.

Early in the week, we had several days of temperatures up to as much as 6C, so snow was melting and there were large puddles everywhere. On Friday afternoon it started to snow and by Saturday morning , there was about 5” of snow on the ground—on top of the frozen puddles. I awoke early Saturday morning and decided I had better go remove snow from the church parking lot (it is only big enough for 7 cars) as we were having a baptism for Liaqat in the afternoon. Norwegians use large scoops (about 3’ across) to remove snow as opposed to our typical snow shovels. I went to the church and got out the scoop and started working. Just after I started, Harald Myhren—the branch clerk—came out and measured the snow. Then said that there is a firm that is supposed to come remove the snow when there is more than 10 cm. I said, then there is no need for me to do any more? He said, “No, you can continue, they are not all that reliable. Sometimes they come and sometimes they don’t.” It took about an hour and a half and as I was finishing the guy who should be plowing it came by on his 4-wheel drive ATV and did the sidewalk.

The baptism was a great experience. Liaqat speaks some English but next to no Norsk, so the baptismal program was all done in English. The opening prayer was given by Victor who was just baptized in mid-January. Victor is from Nigeria and gave a very sincere and beautiful prayer to start the meeting. I think his first in a group setting. Harald Myhren gave a talk—his first in English. He speaks English quite well, but is always hesitant to use it, especially in a group setting where there are many Norwegians present. In Institute and FHE, we generally give lessons and conduct the business in English because of the many non-Norwegians who are present and all of the YSA speak good English (Harald is 62 years old). Harald wrote his talk in Norsk and Elder Henshaw translated it for him. As Elder Henshaw was trying to convince him that he could do it in English, Nancy said, “you speak better English than I do Norsk, so if I give my talks in Norsk, you can surely do this in English.” He agreed and gave a very good talk. After the baptism, Sister Kimo, a member from the Philippines, had made a nice meal of Filipino food to feed all those who were present.

I had given my old suit and a white shirt to Elder Henshaw and told him to give them to Victor or Liaqat, whomever they would fit. They fit Victor and after the baptism he came upstairs to the dinner wearing his “new” suit and white shirt. He was excited! Came in and gave me a big hug and a “thank you”. He looked good!

On Sunday morning, I noted that it had snowed about 4” in the night, so the parking lot would be buried in snow again. So I went to the church early to shovel snow once more. I went downstairs where the snow scoop and shovel are kept, only to find—nothing. I looked throughout the building with no luck, then woke the branch president to ask if he knew where they may have gone? Would someone borrow them to do their home driveway or sidewalks? No, he did not think so and he did not know where they could be. As I stood on the front steps of the church trying to figure out what I could do, I saw what appeared to be the top half of the handle to a scoop sticking out of the snot along side of an apartment building across the street. I walked over and pulled it out of the snow (it was sitting on dry ground, so had not been used all winter, so I did not think they would mind if I borrowed it for an hour or so. I told Nancy when I came home that it was nice that the Lord provided a way for me to carryout the work I had decided to do. It reminded me of the story of Abraham and Isaac and how Abraham found a ram in the bushes to use for his sacrifice. The Lord provided me with a snow scoop.

Nancy had to be at church at 10 to practice the piano with those who were singing in Sacrament meeting (all of the young missionaries plus Birgit), so I took her in, picking up the sisters on the way and then went to pick up Victor and Liaqat to bring them to church. Victor looked great in his new suit with a white shirt and tie.

Nancy played the piano for Relief Society, as well as the organ in Sacrament meeting and accompanied the special musical number, so she got a good workout. After Priesthood meeting, I took Shina to pick up one of his friends who wanted to come to church. Then returned to teach a temple preparation class for Sister Kimo and an older brother, John Hansen (80). They are both excited to be preparing to go to the temple this summer. Sister Kimo will travel to the Philippines to attend the temple in Cebu when it is completed and John will be going to Stockholm.

After church we had dinner with the young single adults and then watched the YSA fireside broadcast of Elder Rasband’s talk to the young single adults last week. We had 19 to dinner and 15 who stayed for the broadcast. Afterward, we visited with two of the YSA (Nadia and Oscar) and Harald Myhren for about an hour before taking the sister missionaries to deliver cupcakes to some of the members and investigators. The first place they wanted to go was to Sarah Jordan. Sarah lives up a fairly steep hill on a small dirt road. I told them I was not sure we would make it all the way to her house. We got within about 200 yards of the house before the wheels started to spin, so they walked the rest of the way, delivered the cupcakes and I backed down to where the road had a fork. I backed up into one part of it and proceeded to pull forward to head back down the hill, when I went into a ditch and was stuck. The sisters thought hey could push, so they got in front of the car and as Sister Molholt took a step off toward the middle of the car, she stepped into snow about up to her chest and almost disappeared. About that time, Sarah called and asked if we needed help—I said yes. Her husband came down with their 4-wheel drive car and a tow rope and got us out. I told him that perhaps he needed to accompany us out to the main road, to make sure I would make it up the next hill, which he did, but we did not need anymore assistance. This was our first time being stuck in the snow, so I guess we have done well so far—however, winter is not over yet.

At the end of some days, we ask ourselves if we have done any missionary work (teaching the gospel) and have to conclude that there are many ways to do missionary work and not all of them involve sitting in someone’s living room teaching a lesson. We are seeing progress with the young people we work with and have some members attending who have not been to church for some time, so when we look at the bigger picture, we realize we are doing some good. We love the people here. The snow is a pain it times, but everything is so beautiful that it is not possible to dislike it. We just have to say “we are in Norway, what do you expect?”

We send our love to all of you and express our love for the Savior, Jesus Christ. We are mindful each day of the great privilege we have to have such a wonderful family and friends.

Love to all,

Mom and dad/grandma and grandpa/nana and granddad/Gerald and Nancy

March 8th - HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!! :)

2010-03-08T05:16:00.000+01:00

Happy Birthday!!!

We love you! With love from the States: AZ, WA and FL!

Weekly update - March 1-7, 2010

2010-03-08T05:12:00.001+01:00

Attached for your information is a copy of our latest mission report. I am also attaching a photo of Eirik and Asta's twin girls--Emma (missing a tooth) and Victoria. They turned 3 on Feb. 13 and are a delight. They help to ease the fact that we are not near any of our own grandchildren.

love,

mom and dad/gerald and Nancy/grandma and grandpa/nana and granddad

WEEK OF MARCH 1-7, 2010

TRONDHEIM, NORWAY

It is now Monday morning after a very busy, but fulfilling week. We had a wonderful Family Home Evening last Monday with the young single adults. There were 15 in attendance, including a young Vietnamese girl whom Elders Johnson and Spencer had met just a few hours earlier. For the first few months we were holding FHE with the young adults, I (Gerald) gave the lesson each week and Nancy provided the refreshments. Then we decided things don’t work that way with a family, so a couple of months ago we held a “family council” at FHE and talked about rotating assignments for the FHE. Nancy put together a FHE assignment chart and at the start of each meeting, we make assignments for the next week. The evenings have been much more educational and entertaining since then and we do not feel stressed about what to do or prepare.

On Tuesday evening, we visited with Åsta and Eirik and their twin daughters, Emma and Victoria. It was a very good and spiritual lesson on the restoration of the Priesthood. Eirik asked before we left what the treat was that we brought to them before Christmas (Rice Krispie Treats) as he really liked them and would like the recipe. We decided next time we visit we will take the ingredients and Nancy will help him make them. They are a lovely young couple and we see a lot of change in the time we have been visiting. They are holding family prayer with their daughters now and reading the scriptures. The biggest problem is thy live an hour out of town and Eirik is doing a lot of remodeling on their home, so now that there is some daylight after he gets home from work, he spends that time outside working on the house, as well as Saturdays and Sundays. Somehow we know the Lord will help them make the decision to become involved in the church. When we returned from there at about 8:30, we went to a small theater in town to see a presentation that Catherina had been working on for the past several weeks. She too has come a long way in her activity in the church since we first met her back in October.

On Wednesday, we enjoyed a good dinner before Institute, prepared by Egil, one of the YSA. Egil was a cook on a ship for the past few years and made a very tasty lasagna. After dinner, Nadia gave a great lesson from 3 Nephi 12-14. There were 3 investigators present and they enjoyed the evening. At the branch council meeting earlier in the evening, we had a good discussion about creating a branch mission plan and I was able to make some helpful suggestions based on things we had learned from President Belnap in the Kennewick mission a few years ago.

On Thursday morning, I picked up President Johansen at the airport and brought him to the Church, where he was to interview Liaqat for baptism. Liaqat is a young man from Afghanistan who came to church one family home evening with a friend who had been meeting with Elders Henshaw and Richardson because he had nothing else to do that night. He became acquainted with the members and other missionaries and has been a regular participant in FHE, activities and Church meetings since. He has been taught by the elders and will be baptized this coming Saturday. While he was here, the President interviewed all of the missionaries as well as doing temple recommend interviews for a number of members. He picked one of the most beautiful days we have had for several weeks. The sky was clear blue and the sun was shining all day and the temperature even got close to zero. His visit was all too short and I took him back to the airport at about 4 p.m. He wanted to know what he could do for us and I said, “just leave us here in Trondheim.” This summer we will lose two couples—the Arnesens who are in the mission office and the Thomas’s who are over the YSA Outreach Center in Oslo. That is a large and wonderful facility—in a separate building from the church buildings and would be considered the “plum” assignment in YSA centers. When we first saw it and then a day later saw what we had to work with in Trondheim, I thought how nice it would be to be in Oslo. But now that we have been here for a few months, we have come to love these young people and the other members here and could not imagine leaving to go serve elsewhere. We realize once again that it is the people that are important, not the facilities.

On Friday, we had our district meeting with the missionaries, then enjoyed a pizza lunch before we went to visit the Reardons, a less active couple in the branch. James is from Scotland and Vibeke (Becky) is from Norway, but they lived in Scotland for a number of years. After our visit with them, it was a stop at the store to buy treats for a YSA activity in the evening. The YSA leaders had decided a week ago that they wanted to have an evening of unstructured activities without the young missionaries, where they could get together with the investigators and new members to become better acquainted. We had a group of 11 (including us), including 2 non-members and one of the recent converts. They had a great time together and we think the evening provided the kind of bonding they were hoping for.

On Saturday it was our sports day and we had a good turnout of young people. They played “inebande” (floor hockey) in the cultural hall—set up a chair at each end of the floor as the goal (ball has to go through the chair legs) and go at it. There were 9 people to start, so they had three 3-man teams and the losing team was replaced by the one on the sidelines after 2 goals against. Then a couple of others arrived so it became five 2-man teams with a new team rotating in after a goal had been scored. This is fast paced and there were a few bruises on Sunday. I had purchased some new hockey sticks a few weeks ago and they played last week and broke 2 of the 3 new ones (they were a cheap set), so then I bought 2 new ones, paying more for one stick than I had paid for the 3. They withstood the events of at least one Saturday.

On Sunday we enjoyed a wonderful fast and testimony meeting. Nancy played the piano for relief society and also played the organ in Sacrament meeting. I taught a temple preparation class in Sunday School and blessed the sacrament in Sacrament meeting. In priesthood meeting when they were making assignments for the sacrament, I asked Shino if he was ready to bless the Sacrament. He said, “can I do it in English?” After some discussion, it was decided it would be better if he did it “på Norsk”. So after class, we went through it a couple of times, then Robin (our YSA president) took him in the chapel, where they went through it a few more times. Shina is from Nigeria and joined the church on Dec. 5 last year. In January, he performed the baptism of Benildo and for the past couple of weeks he has passed the sacrament. He did a wonderful job blessing the sacrament and the members complimented him afterward on his good Norwegian. There were 5 investigators at church, including one lady whom Elder Johnson had met on the street in front of the church just before the start of Sacrament meeting. He was waiting for someone else and began a conversation with this woman and invited her to join us for church—and she did!

Nancy bore her testimony in Sacrament meeting and shared her feelings for the gospel and the members here. Benildo, a convert in January from Mozambique also bore his testimony and shared his feelings on how much his life has changed since he first met the missionaries. He has a wife and 2 young children at home and will return there in June. He shares the gospel with his wife over the internet and can’t wait to attend church with them when he returns. He said his wife called him one day and said she was sick. He told her he would pray for her. She called back the next day and told him she was better.

We invited Nadia and Corrie (non-member from The Netherlands) to dinner after church and had an enjoyable afternoon with them. They have become great friends and Corrie is doing well as she studies the gospel with the sisters. She is planning to sing in church with Nadia and the sisters in a few weeks.

After we took Nadia and Corrie to their apartments, we picked up Elders Henshaw and Bartholomew and went to visit an older (88) member (Alf Andersen) who is in a rest home. We enjoyed sharing the sacrament with him and spent time sharing thoughts and mostly listening while he talked. It was clear that he does not get a lot of visitors other than his wife, as he talked almost non-stop the entire time we were there. He is missing most of the fingers on his right hand and I asked what had happened. He said he was a machinist on a fishing boat many years ago and got his hand caught in some machinery. He said, “I had to borrow a knife from the cook to cut off the remainder of the fingers to make it a clean removal. You have to do some strange things when you are out to sea.”

I almost forgot—the weather! It snowed a little on Saturday night, but the temperature never dipped below zero during the night. On Sunday it was positive all day long and reached a high of +6. It stayed positive through the night and is +5 this morning. This has been desired for some time, but now things are very slick as the snow on top melts but the 3 or 4 inches of ice underneath in most of the walking areas is very slippery. We think spring may be on the way!!!

We love the young people as well as the older members we meet here in Trondheim. It is wonderful to see the changes in those who accept the gospel of Jesus Christ. Being here makes us all the more mindful of the great blessing our families have been in our lives and how much we love each of you. We miss you, but would not want to be anywhere else at this time. The young people here all speak of our children as though they know each of you personally, they have seen so many pictures and heard stories of your lives.

May God continue to bless each of you with all that you need to enjoy happiness.

Love,

Mom and dad/grandma and grandpa/Nana and granddad/Gerald and Nancy

Kraig update

2010-03-05T05:06:00.000+01:00

He tore a ligament in his right thumb about a month ago while playing...yep, you guessed it, church basketball. He has been in a splint since the injury. The doctor was able to reattach/repair the ligament without having to take a tendon out of Kraig's forearm. He will be in a cast for 6 weeks and then a splint for another 6 weeks. He is planning to return to work on Wednesday, so we'll see how that goes. He is doing well, although learning to function without his right hand will take some getting used to.

Just wanted to let you all know that the surgery went very well this morning. The doctor was able to repair the ligament without needing a tendon graft so that was good news. Kraig is doing well. Thanks for your prayers and help.
Stephanie

fra hustruen til en misjonspresident i Chile

2010-03-04T05:05:00.000+01:00

M E R I D I A N M A G A Z I N E
In Chile: The Lord’s Earthquake Warning
By Sister Lisa Laycock
Editor’s Note: President Larry Laycock and his wife, Sister Lisa Laycock head the Santiago Chile East Mission and had spent the two weeks prior to the 8.8 earthquake visiting each missionary apartment and preparing them for an earthquake. They brought specific instructions on what to do, supplied water purification bottles for the missionaries, told them how to create a 36-hour kit for emergencies and how to stay in communication should an earthquake strike. They prayed with each missionary and dedicated their apartments. Why? Because of a special experience that alerted them to what was coming. They told their missionaries, “If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear.”
They have 171 full-time proselyting missionaries in this mission.
Special thanks to the Laycocks for allowing Meridian to publish this letter that Sister Laycock sent to her family shortly after the earthquake sharing their remarkable experience of kindness from the Lord. They are in Chile with their son, Landon.
The picture of the missionaries on the cover and in this article were taken at a March 1st gathering. These are post-earthquake smiling faces.
Dear Everyone,
I am writing to let you all know how very grateful we are for your prayers, concern, and love. Please keep praying! We need the Lord's help and guidance in order to do all He would have us do to learn what He would have us learn from this earth quake tragedy, and to minister in the way He would have us minister.
During the past few days, we have witnessed many events which serve to remind us that the Lord is in charge and that as missionaries and members of His church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we are performing His work, and as President Monson teaches, "When we are on the Lord's errand, we are entitled to His help." I want to share with you a few miracles that will help you to understand our profound feelings of gratitude.
When we were set apart for this calling, Elder Scott of the Council of the Twelve Apostles taught us many important lessons. He spoke from personal experience when he was a mission president in Argentina. One message that he shared with us is this: "At times, during your mission, you will be awakened in the middle of the night or the early morning hours with thoughts of specific things you should do for certain missionaries. Do not ignore these thoughts. They are promptings from the Holy Ghost who will communicate with you in the stillness of the night or the peace of the early morning hours. He will speak to you then because that is when you are still enough to hear."
Elder Scott further instructed us to keep a notebook beside our bed so that we could record these precious promptings. He said that by the next morning, we would be likely to forget the promptings if we didn't write them down.
We have been astonished at the fulfillment of Elder Scott's prophetic words. We have received many promptings in the exact manner that Elder Scott described. We are so thankful that Elder Scott taught us how to recognize and act upon these precious promptings. Had he not taught us, we may not have given these promptings the attention they require.
Nearly two-and-one-half weeks ago, I was awakened at around 4:00 AM by just such a prompting. I did not hear a voice, but the thought was as clear as if it had been in the form of spoken words: "There is going to be an earthquake. Prepare your missionaries." I sat up in bed and immediately remembered Elder Scott's counsel. That morning I told Larry what had happened. He immediately set to work organizing our missionaries to prepare for an earthquake.
In talking with our office missionaries to arrange for them to put together a list of everything we would need to prepare...in both Spanish and English...we discovered that the Lord had also let two of our office missionaries know of the possibility of an earthquake (in the form of dreams) and the need to prepare our mission.

We set a goal and arranged our schedule so that we could visit every apartment in the mission to check for safety and to review with our missionaries what to do in case of an earth quake. What a wonderful experience we have had as we have met with them and shared scriptures with them about being spiritually and physically prepared. "...if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear" (D&C 38:30).
We instructed every missionary to have a "go-bag" (36 hour kit). We reviewed our emergency action plan with them of where to go and what to do if they had phone service and in case they did not. We gave everyone a paper with all instructions in English and Spanish, and we reminded them that "this life is the time to prepare to meet God" (Alma 34:32-34). We shared with them our thoughts and feelings about the need for spiritual and physical safety.
Some of them became frightened and asked us if we knew something they didn't know. We smiled and repeated "...if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear." We didn't want to unduly alarm them, but we did want to impress upon them the need to be prepared. We tearfully reminded them of our recent transfer conference where we had shared our feelings about our dear Elder McKay Burrows who was unexpectedly called home in January while serving his mission in Romania...how he was prepared in every way to meet God. We reissued our challenge to "be prepared" in every way. Then we knelt with them in their apartment and dedicated each apartment, asking for a blessing of safety and security to be upon every apartment.
When the earthquake came, we were prepared. We did not experience the panic that many felt. We knew we were prepared. Because of the words of the Lord's chosen Apostle, Elder Scott, we had listened and heeded the quiet, but clear promptings of the Holy Ghost. We were blessed with peace in the midst of chaos. We learned an important lesson: our preparation helped us to avoid panic and fear, but the Lord, in His wisdom, allowed us to experience enough discomfort to know that He has all power. He is in charge. We are nothing without Him. We are dependent upon Him for every breath we take. Only He can save us from death and destruction. He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is our perfect example. If we follow Him, we will be saved through obedience to the laws and ordinances of His Gospel.
As the earthquake became more violent, the mission home groaned and wailed. The power died, so the whole city was black. The windows made a hideous screeching sound, and flying objects banged against swaying walls. The printer/fax machine, books, book ends, and fifty-pound television burst from the entertainment center and crashed to the floor, cabinets emptied, drawers flew open, the refrigerator moved, water sloshed out of the toilets, the floor jolted up and down as we ran across it trying to hold onto the walls to keep from falling down, and the piano toppled over like a small toy. As we made our way to the back yard, I remember thinking, "God is all-powerful. He is our only refuge from this horrible mess." I prayed and prayed for Him to still the earth.
When we reached the back yard, we watched in terror. By the light of the moon we could see the swimming pool water form giant waves and crash out onto the rocks. House and car alarms screamed into the night...some from being crushed by falling debris and others, I guess, from the bizarre movement of the earth. I am not sure if the intense rumbling sounds came from the earth itself or from everything else that was shaking so violently. Finally, it stopped.
When the calm came, we had to sit down because our legs were weak and unstable. My legs stayed wobbly all day and night yesterday. Today the muscles in my legs hurt like I ran a marathon. The aftershocks have been extremely unsettling. Each one begins like the one last night started. We just close our eyes and wait to see if it escalates or dies down. .I have never experienced anything like this!
We were awakened this morning by a very strong after shock. Larry jumped out of bed and yelled, "Welcome to another glorious day in Chile!" We just had to laugh. We moved a mattress into the floor in our bedroom and made Landon sleep in our room. He was in his room with the door locked the night before and we couldn't wake him up. He never locks his door, but he was playing a joke on Larry because every morning Larry wakes him at 5:30 AM for seminary by tickling him unmercifully. So Landon had decided to stop him.
When we couldn't open his door, in the middle of the quake, we thought he was trapped, so we screamed and banged. Landon thought that everything was falling off the walls because we were banging so hard on the door. I think we scared him more than the earthquake did!
Today, we attended a strong ward where Larry was invited to speak. The entire chapel and beyond was filled. People were so humble and so teachable. Larry taught the importance of doing the small things. He taught about Jesus Christ and the opportunity we have to love one another and to share what we have with others.
It was a great blessing for us to be with these beautiful Chilean people. Some have lost their homes...or at least parts of their homes. But they are strong and they want to serve the Lord. He taught of the scripture in Luke 21:11,13 which says, "and great earthquakes shall be in divers places...and it shall turn to you for a testimony." He also welcomed the sweet young woman who was in the congregation with the missionaries...her first time attending church...and then he invited her to be baptized from the pulpit. He asked her to please invite us to her baptism, and she said, "I will." The Lord always knows what His people need.
Landon was reading in Alma 15:17 today. He said, Mom listen to this. This is what is happening here in Chile just like in happened in Ammonihah. The people were humbled and "checked as to the pride of their hearts and began to humble themselves before God, watching and praying continually that they might be delivered from Satan, and from death, and from destruction."

Our hearts are filled to the brim with gratitude for all of the blessings we have received in the Chile Santiago East Mission. We see miracles every day. In the midst of great pain and suffering, we can always find our Savior. He stands with His arms open, pleading for all of us to humble ourselves and come unto Him. He loves us. He invites us to accept His gift...the atonement. He invites us to repent. He wants us to love one another and to serve one another. He wants us to bring our families and those we love to Him. We can do it. We can do all that He asks, no matter how difficult it may seem. "With God all things are possible"
We are having a devotional tomorrow for all of our missionaries to talk about the last week of Christ's life in preparation for Easter. We want to remind our missionaries to teach and preach with increased vigor of Christ. Last Monday in our office meeting, Larry suddenly stopped in the middle, and said, "During the prayer, I had a very strong impression that March 2010 is going to be our best baptizing month we have ever had in this mission."
Now we know why he received that feeling. We are going to prepare to bring many souls to the waters of baptism in March. Please continue to pray for us and for the people of Chile. Please pray for the missionaries to have strength and courage to do all that is being required of them, even in difficult times.
We are so thankful that the tsunami did not turn out badly in Hawaii. Who would ever think that an earthquake in Chile could threaten the shores of Hawaii? Thankfully, the Lord is in charge. He is the one to whom we must turn for refuge from every storm. He has the power to save us.
Editor’s Note:
The letter ends here, but President and Sister Laycock told us:
“We’ve never experienced anything like the earthquake. We have had 90 aftershocks, some stronger than others. Our legs are wobbly. It is a scary feeling to experience an aftershock because it brings back all the feelings we had during the earthquake.
“We love being with our missionaries. Because they were prepared, they were immediately able to turn their attention to helping others. They were never concerned about themselves. They were concerned with those who need help and by mid-morning the day of the earthquake, we were able to dispatch them to help others. We told them to investigate the needs of their neighbors and help in any way they could.
President Laycock noted, “The Spanish translation of Luke 21:13 says that there will be earthquakes in many places, and it will give you the occasion to bear testimony. We met with 10 sisters this morning, and one of them mentioned a neighbor next door whom they always asked if she would have time to speak with them, and she always said no. Yet in the crescendo of the toll of the earthquake, she was speechless with fear and not prepared. When the sisters said, ‘Could we pray with you?’, she answered, ‘I have time to pray with you.’ It opened the door to a teaching opportunity to share the gospel.
President and Sister Laycock said, “Everyone we talk to has been so willing to talk about Christ and God’s power. We’ve been sharing God’s love with them. We are seeing God’s love everywhere. People are reaching out to one another. They are serving one another. The news reports looting. We are seeing a different side. We are seeing people who want to communicate with God, who are sincerely looking for the truth.”

The Boxing Sister - Sister Molholt

2010-03-01T21:30:00.001+01:00

Feb 21-28, 2010

2010-03-01T21:18:00.001+01:00

Hello Family and Friends

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

Recipe - apple cake

2010-02-26T05:03:00.000+01:00

Here is a good cake recipe. I had some pears and apples and used them and it worked also.

APPLE CAKE

3 eggs

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup oil

Stir this together

Add

2 1/2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla

Add

6 cups big apple chunks (don't peel the apples) Just core and then cut in chunks.

Blend well (may be a little hard - but it works)

Bake in over 30 minutes at 375. It gives baking directions in celcius so I am just guessing at the temperature and time. It may need to bake a little longer. Check it and see.

I usually use the canned whip cream as we do not have cool whip here!!!

Interesting experience - 50 years in the making

2010-02-22T18:10:00.001+01:00

2.21.10
This morning at 2:30 a.m. my telephone rang. It was a lady, Erna Skogset, whom I knew when I was a missionary here 50 years ago. We have kept in contact a little over the years, she came to visit with us in Oslo when we were here 5 years ago and she was in the early stages of Parkinson's disease. Her husband (Kare) passed away about 3 years ago and she now lives with her son, Torgeir and his wife, Barbara in a little town of Skjak which is about 4 hours from Trondheim. I talked with her before we came to Norway and told her that we were coming and hoped to visit her sometime. I have called many times since we arrived and the only time I reached her, she said, "I am too sick to talk" and hung up. I have tried many times to get in touch with Torgeir, but never got answered. About 3 weeks ago, I called and he answered. We had a good talk (he was about 3 when I visited the family in Oslo in 1960) he told me her Parkinson's is very bad, that she cannot hold the phone and she has great difficulty hearing, but otherwise is doing OK. After that, I sent her a letter and included a photo of her with mom and I in Oslo 5 years ago. Last week when we were on the way to Mo I Rana, she called, but I could not get reception in the area and so we did not talk. Then this morning when the phone rang, I could not hear anyone on the other end, but could see the call came from her phone. About 7:30, she called again and I talked for several minutes, without hearing anything from her end other than the rustling of the phone as her hands shook. finally her daughter-in-law came and picked up the phone, she asked who was there and apologized that Erna had reached a wrong number. I told her "no, she reached whom she intended to reach" and explained our background. She was very kind and explained a little about Erna's condition. I asked for her email address so I could send email to her and she could let Erna read it, that was at least we could communicate. So she gave me her phone number so I could send her a text and she will send back the email address. We hope to get out to Skjak sometime in March when the snow goes away. When I spoke with Torgeir a few weeks ago, it was -10 here and -30 there, so we want it to warm up a little before we make the trip. Anyway, it was good to finally get some contact and I hope she is still living when the snow melts. These calls remind me of how important people are.

love,

dad

Erma, Gerald and Nancy - 1962. Erma came to California to visit them.

2005 - Trip to Norway

Update - Feb 21st

2010-02-22T04:58:00.001+01:00

This has been another of those “2-day” weeks in which the time between Monday and the next Sunday is a blur. We are sure we did something, but without looking at the calendar, would have a hard time remembering what happened yesterday.

To begin with, we were able to pick up the key to the new missionary apartment on Friday the 12th before leaving on Saturday to spend the weekend in Mo I Rana. We had gone to IKEA that Friday afternoon to make sure they had the bunk beds and table we wanted for the apartment—they did not have the bunkbeds, but said they would have some on Saturday.

Monday morning I (Gerald) went to IKEA as soon as they opened to see if they still had the bunkbeds—they did. I bought the beds and called our Branch mission leader (Ole Petter Gjevik) to have him come meet me so he could put the beds on his car rack (he has a Jeep Cherokee), as there was no way I could carry them in or on the Polo. I also called the Elders to have them meet us at the new apartment so they could carry the beds to the elevator and into the room. We got that all done and put the beds together, then it was back to IKEA to buy the table (it fit in the Polo). We had purchased mattresses and pads a week ago as the last time they did not have the mattresses we wanted for the bunkbeds, so we bought them when they were available and had them in our apartment for a week.

Since this would be Elder Richardson’s last Monday in Trondheim, we had told the missionaries we would take them all to EGON for lunch (EGON is a nice restaurant which has an all you can eat pizza and salad bar lunch for “only” 99 kroner--~$15.00), so we dropped the table on the floor of the apartment (still in the box) and headed to meet the missionaries. After lunch we went back to purchase other things needed for the apartment and after dropping those off, it was time to meet one of the members at the church so he could show me how to get the projector which is mounted on the ceiling in the YSA room to work with a laptop. When we finished that, it was time for family home evening and then home to bed.

On Tuesday, our public affairs director (Inger Jørgensen) had made arrangements to have 2 groups of school students (~15 year olds) come to the church to tour the building and find out “what is a Mormon”. In the public schools, they teach a little about religions of the world, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Inger is friends with several teachers, so one day she asked some of them why they did not just bring their classes to the church to find out what we believe, rather than try to explain it themselves. So this year, a few of them took her offer. We had 2 groups of about 20 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning. Each group was with us for about 90 minutes. The first groups started at 9, so we were there at 8:15 and finished at about 1 p.m.

The school groups were interesting. For most of them, the girls all sat on one side of the chapel and the boys on the other. For most of the groups, the girls asked the majority of the questions. Two questions were common for all groups—what do you think about sex before marriage? How about same sex marriage? The young missionaries did most of the presentations and they handled questions very well. At the beginning, they would ask; “How many of you believe in God?” (usually only 3 or 4 hands). “How many believe that there is no God?” (2 or 3 hands). “How many are not sure?” (the remainder). We gave them tours of the building, beginning with the chapel, then the cultural hall, the YSA Institute room, the primary room and baptismal font and finished in the family history center. Most groups were very well mannered and asked good questions all along the way.

After the groups were finished on Tuesday, it was back to shopping for the essentials for a missionary apartment—clothes drying rack, dish towels, ironing board, iron, etc. In the evening, we made phone calls to less active members to invite them to a branch party that would occur on Friday night and see if we could get appointments with some of them.

Wednesday was transfer day. I picked up the two new elders—Elder Torvald Johnson (from Lincoln, Nebraska) and Elder Travis Spencer (from Riverton, UT)—at the airport at 9 a.m. Elder Johnson has been in Norway for about 10 months and came here from Skien (near Oslo). Elder Spencer came from the MTC. Nancy does not accompany me on these runs, as two elders and their luggage take up all the available space in the car. We dropped their luggage at the apartment and then I took them to the church so they could get a taste of missionary work right away. There was a group just starting when we arrived, so Elder Henshaw had the two new missionaries join him (Elder Richardson left on a 6 a.m. flight to Oslo and his new companion would not be in until 5 p.m) and the sisters in front of the group where he did introductions. He told the group that Elder Spencer had just arrived in Norway yesterday with 9 weeks of Norwegian language training before arrival, so he asked Elder Spencer to introduce himself—på Norsk. He did a good job and the kids were impressed. After this group finished, I went to get Nancy, left her at the church and went to set up the table in the new apartment. I parked the car, and then saw a parking place closer to the building so went to move the car and it would not start. After several vain attempts, I called the VW dealer and they told me to call “Viking tow service”, which I did. After about an hour the tow truck showed up. While waiting, I realized that I would not be going anywhere for a while and I was supposed to pick up two senior sister missionaries from Germany at the airport at 4 p.m. I called Elder Henshaw and asked if he could catch the bus to the airport (he was going to ride out with me and wait for his new companion) and meet the two sisters. They were coming to do some training of us and the Heers (a senior couple from Tromsø) on the YSA Outreach Program. The Heers would be arriving on Thursday morning. The tow truck showed up and the driver asked me what the problem was. I told him it seemed to be a fuel problem, as the battery was strong and the car seemed like it wanted to start, but was not getting enough gas. He listened while I cranked it for a while, then checked all the fuses, looked at the owner’s manual, fussed with a few things under the hood, then said “try it now”. I did and it started! I left the car running, got out and asked him “what did you do?” He replied, “I don’t know.” We both had a good laugh, he filled out his paper work and we each went on our way. Now it was time to meet Sister Gutherie and Sister Hansen when they got off the bus downtown, so the table had to wait. I met them, took them to their hotel, then we went to the church where Nancy was preparing dinner for Institute which would begin at 6 p.m. We had a good group at dinner and Nancy made “olive garden” soup, which was a big hit. She made waaaay too much, so the missionaries had lunch for the next few days. After institute, we took Sisters Gutherie and Hansen on a bit of a tour of Trondheim before returning them to their hotel.

On Thursday morning we were at the church at 9 for the school groups, then I went to pick up sisters Gutherie and Hansen at the hotel. I parked on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, they got in and the car would not start!! Same problem as yesterday. We were only about 4 blocks from the church and it was only -10, so we walked to the church, while I called the tow service and the VW dealer. Since I was only going to be gone for a few minutes, I had not bothered to wear my overcoat---bad decision, it was a cold walk! I then walked back to the car to wait for the tow truck. This time, I told him that it was best to just tow it to the dealer and see if I can get it fixed for good. The Heers arrived about the time I got back from the hotel the 2nd time, we visited for a while, then the 6 of us went across the street to a café for lunch before starting a training meeting at 1 p.m. We finished the meeting at about 3:15 and the dealer called to tell me that the car was ready. They have a shuttle van that came to the hospital across the street about that time, so I caught the shuttle and went to get the car. I asked the service rep what the problem was and he said they replaced a coolant temperature sensor and updated some information in the computer. I asked how that fixed a fuel problem and did not get a very comforting answer—but the car started when I got in it. We took the sisters to do some shopping for things from Norway, then took them home and went to IKEA to buy some lamps for the apartment. The elders had put the table together on Wednesday night, but the only light in the apartment was in the bathroom, so we bought two floor lamps and took them to the apartment and set them up so they had light when they returned home that night.

On Friday, we picked up Sisters Gutherie and Hansen at 10 and took them to the airport, then met sisters Engebretsen and Molholt to teach one of their investigators (a young student from Ghana). We then went to the church to begin preparing fruit plates for the branch party that evening. We got a call on Tuesday afternoon asking if we could prepare the fruit plates. One of the counselors in the branch presidency had procured the fruit—a box of grapes, box of apples, box of pears, box of grapes, box of bananas and a box of oranges. We enlisted the help of some of the YSA and began peeling and cutting fruit. We had most of the oranges, apples and pears cut up when Cory Dam (a young student investigator from Holland) and Torunn Hansen (a Norsk member) showed up. Nancy asked if they could put the fruit plates. Cory was amazing! She made the fruit look so appealing.

The branch party started at 6 and began with salads, bread and cold cuts. The fruit was dessert. There were about 50 people present, including several investigators and everyone had plenty to eat and a good time.

On Saturday at 11 a.m., we had our weekly district meeting, as things were hectic on Tuesday. We were at the church until about 2:30 p.m. and when we got ready to leave, the car would not start—same problem! So I called the dealership only to find that they closed at 2 on Saturday. They did have an after hours number—in Oslo—which I called and the lady said she would call Viking (we are getting to be good friends). After about an hour the truck showed up and we both rode with him to the dealership, where we were met by a cab which took us to the airport to pick up a rental car. Things work differently here in Norway. Since our maintenance was all done on schedule with the dealer, the dealership will pay for the rental car (deduct it from the bill), as well as our $100.00 cab ride to the airport. All arranged by the towing company.

On Friday, we had been contacted by Matt Horrocks, a young man who is in the US Air Force stationed in Germany. He was here back in November and spent a night with us so he could go to church on Sunday. Matt was a missionary in Austria several years ago and served with Boyd and Marge Newman. It is amazing how small the world is. He comes to Norway for training with a NATO group he is assigned to and they are stationed a couple of hours out of Trondheim. He was coming to Trondheim on Saturday to snowboard and attend church. We met him in town after picking up the rental car Saturday night and we came to our apartment for ice-cream and some games before retiring for the night. He slept well, as he had been snowboarding for all day on Saturday.

Sunday was a good day—the car started! I dropped Nancy and Matt at church early, then went to pick up one of the new members (Victor) and an investigator (Lenacat). Victor is from Nigeria and Lenacat is from Afghanistan. We had a good group of investigators at church today, at least 6. The three young men who have joined the church since December—Shina, Victor and Benildo (the first two from Nigeria, the latter from Mozambique) all passed the sacrament in church today. It was a wonderful sight to see the three of them in their white shirts and ties taking care of their priesthood duties. Nancy has begun teaching Benildo to play the piano and today Shina said he wanted to learn as well, so she will soon have a full schedule of piano lessons.

Elder Spencer was asked to bear his testimony in Sacrament meeting today and he did a good job. He is anxious to learn the language and speaks it every time he has a chance. Elder Johnson was asked to say the closing prayer at the end of sacrament meeting and when we finished singing the intermediate hymn, he walked up to the podium and got in front of the microphone before the branch president told him “that was the intermediate hymn.” He was asked to speak in church next Sunday, so he will have a chance to be in front of the mike again.

Nancy played the organ in Sacrament meeting and I taught a Temple preparation class in Sunday School. We are enjoying the people here in Trondheim, it is a wonderful town and great people. The missionaries are hard working and they are finding some great young people to teach. We decided we should have some kind of activity for the young singles on the last Friday night of each month. In January it was an International Night and this coming Friday it will be a ping-pong tournament. Next Saturday, Cory, the young woman from Holland will be in a swimming meet in Hommelvik (about 15 km out of town), so we plan to go watch her compete. She is a lovely young lady and enjoys coming to church and meeting with the young singles. Her family is opposed to her joining the church, so she is torn as to what to do.

We have zone conference this week and it will be held in Stavanger, so I am anxious to go there, as this is where I spent 18 months of my mission 50 years ago. We were back in Stavanger in 2005, but have not been there at all since arriving here this time. I’m not sure why I am so excited, as we never have time to do anything but travel from the airport to the church, hold the meetings and return to the airport. Anyway, it will be good to set foot on Stavanger cobblestones again.

We catch the headlines occasionally in the stores and see that Norway is doing well in the winter Olympics in Vancouver.

We are grateful for the opportunity to be here in Norway at this time, serving the Lord among the people in this beautiful land. We pray for each of you.

Love,
Mom and dad/Gerald and Nancy/Grandma and grandpa/Elder and Sister Sørensen

Family update - Steven version (by Rozann)

2010-02-22T04:57:00.002+01:00

Sunday, February 14, 2010

(From Rozann’s viewpoint)

Howdy there,

Thought I would share a few things going on around here. The biggest event being the half marathon Steve and I ran on the 30^th. It’s been a while, but we’ve only told a few people about it. I guess you’ve figured that we survived, and we both did very well for our first time. I was very precise about my goals of running the race in under two hours. I had calculated how fast I needed to run per mile and practiced training many times at that pace. Steve, on the other hand, trained some long distances but always just said he wanted to be able to make it through the race and run the whole thing. When we got to the race, Steve shot out ahead of me and Sara (the friend I ran with). He was running pretty fast, and I have to admit I was a little jealous that he was so far ahead when all he wanted to do was “just finish the race”. I didn’t let that thought bother me long though because we were running at a good pace and were ahead of our goal. Around mile 11, we saw Steve ahead of us. As we caught up to him, he was struggling (possibly because he didn’t have enough food in him). Anyway, we passed him and … I don’t know how to say this politely, but we beat him. J That wasn’t what I was trying to do, but Sara and I ran in 1 hour and 52 minutes, and Steve finished in 1 hour 55 minutes. Steve really had a hard time the last three miles and felt like dying. I thought I would have to go get the car for him, but then he polished off about 10 Oreos at the food table and felt fine. I wasn’t trying to beat Steve. It just happened that way. As it turned out, Steve wasn’t vocalizing all his goals. I found out afterwards that he wanted to beat me. I’m not sure why that was his goal, but it was. The next day our friends at church heckled him a bit. Sunday, he kept talking repeatedly about the race to me. Finally, I realized why he was talking about it so much. I teased, “I met all my goals. I’m content with my race. You’re the only one with regrets (because you didn’t beat me), so now you’re going to want to do this again.” Sure enough, by that evening he was talking about “the next one”. I just had to laugh. Initially, he was the one who didn’t want to run the half.

After running the half marathon, we were ready to quit training. However, that hasn’t been an option since we have our relay race coming up in two weeks. We don’t have to train so much on the long distances (10-12 miles), but we have been running more hills and practicing running 2-3 times a day. I think we’re all ready to take a break from running. My friend said she was going to take a WHOLE WEEK OFF after the race. Steve said, “A whole week? More like a whole month?” However, he’s already planning with some friends to do a sprint triathlon in September.

As for the kids, we’ve had a bit of the sickies in our house lately. Tanner has been sick a couple of times in the last few weeks, Brianna and Ashley were sick once, and Shay just got what Tanner has. Shay’s been feeling miserable the last two days.

Tanner, Brianna, and Ashley had their first basketball games (which were more of a practice & scrimmage) last Saturday. Steve is coaching Brianna and Ashley. (They’re on the same team.) Steve’s co-worker, Tyler Smith, is coaching Tanner’s team. No basketball games were held this weekend due to Wickenburg’s Gold Rush Days. We all enjoyed the parade Saturday morning instead.

Anyway, life always seems to be busy. We are well.

Love,

Steve, Rozann & family

Thing you learn in Norway

2010-02-22T04:56:00.000+01:00

Here are two pictures which tell a lot about Hell. We have learned while here that: (1) Hell does freeze over and (2) the people in Hell will be able to stay in good shape.

Pictures: River and bridge to Hell

Hell training studio (gym)

Hope you all have a good day.

Love,

Mom and Dad/Gerald and Nancy/Grandma and Grandpa/Elder and Sister Sorensen

Feb 8-14, 2010

2010-02-22T04:54:00.001+01:00

Dear Family and Friends:

February 8 -14, 2010 – We are a little late this week. On Saturday we went to Mo I Rana for church on Sunday. We leave at 7 am on Saturday and should return home Sunday 10:30pm. It is a 7 hour train ride. On the return trip two railroad cars came for about a 4 car load of people. There were skiers everywhere with all their gear. They sent them on a bus, but there still were too many people. About an hour into the ride we had to change to a bus as there was a train stalled on the tracks---sssoooo an hour and a half bus ride and then on a regular train and then a pleasant ride the rest of the way home. When we go to Mo, I play the keyboard for church and give a talk in Norwegian. Tithing was the branch president’s request. Gerald talked on the Old Testament as they do not do Sunday School. The branch president teaches RS/Priesthood. There were 11 at church and then the family left. So for RS and PH there were 3 sisters, the branch president and us. We will go again sometime in March. Since all the elders are gone from the north, we will need to visit another branch in Bodø occasionally. Mo is like going as far as Burley to church. Bodø is as far as going to Utah for church. We think we will fly to Bodø

The mission has had some reorganization. We had a North Zone, South Zone and Oslo (Stake) Zone. Now we have a West Zone and an East Zone. There aren’t any elders north of our area now. There is a couple in Tromsø. They moved all the elders to larger areas to build up the church. Oslo is the only stake in Norway. The mission president wants to have two stakes in Norway. The plan is to strengthen the West Zone. West Zone covers a lot of area—Trondheim, Bergen and Stavanger are the larger cities. Also Kristiansand on the South is in the West Zone.

The president called a couple of weeks ago and said that we would have two additional elders in Trondheim as a result of closing the north area, so could we please find them an apartment—in 10 days. We already have found apartments for the current sisters and elders. We are getting to be apartment hunters—but we know what to look for—CLEAN! (with an elevator) Along with finding apartments we have to buy furniture for them—bunk beds, study table, lamp, washing machine, to name a few things. IKEA of Sweden is the place of choice to shop here. It is amazing how much we can fit into a compact sedan.

So apartment hunting and shopping, traveling to Mo, district meeting, FHE, dinner and Institute and visiting a few less actives took all week. The weeks just seem fly by.

Here is a photo of the train on the return trip Sunday.
Love to all,
Mom and Dad/ Grandpa and Grandma/ Nancy and Gerald

2.14.10 - What day is it?!

2010-02-22T04:41:00.000+01:00

Today is Valentines day and also Mothers day in Norway (in addition to Stephanie's birthday). So hope all of you mothers have a good day today and get waited on by your families. We are celebrating the day in MO I RANA. Arrived about 215 yesterday afternoon and after speaking in church today, will leave for home about 330, arriving at 1030. So we may catch some of you on Skype tonight. The weather here is about the same as Trondheim--lots of snow.

Have a good day.

Love,

mom and dad\grandma and grandpa

2.15.10

Well….Glad Mors Dag!!!! To you MOM

Love,

Ryan

FWD: Greetings

2010-02-22T04:39:00.002+01:00

Thought you would find this of interest. This is a young man from Burma who joined the church about a year and a half ago. He lives in Kristiansund and we spent some time with him back in November when we went down there for a couple of days, then saw him again when we were there in early December. He was married when he came from Burma with his wife as refugees. They have since divorced and he joined the church, making a very major shift in his lifestyle. He is a very humble young man and very excited to have found the Gospel. We write to him occasionally and have sent some study materials to him. It is fun to see how the gospel affects the lives of people.

love,

dad and mom

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 11:11 AM
Subject: Greetings
To: Gerald and Nancy Sorensen

Dear Elder Sorensen,

I hope things are fine with you. I am also keeping well.

I just want to inform you that I have completed norsk prøve nivå A-3 exam.

It's a bit difficult than I expected in term of grammatical test.

Kristiansund Refugees office has arranged full time Norwegian language

training programe for me up till June of this year. I now could attend

Bergentest course which is equal to TOEFL course. Normally they did not

give the opportunity to learn this level if a refugee could not provide nivå A-3

exam pass result. But they consider to me as I require it for my application

to apply further study.

I would like to come to Trondheim in the near future and attend the Church.

I am very much thankful to Prophet Joseph Smith and Gospel that had changed

my way of living to be better. I am very much encouraged to see and listen

remarked given by Prophet Thomas S. Monson and Presidency from the

Church website during general conferences. I also like to listen radio.lds.org and

read Scriptures.

Thank you very much for taking Spiritually a good cares of me. I am fortunate

to have a chance to meet missionary and learn to be faithful to God.

Keep doing the most important work in bringing light to many.

I send my best prayerful wishes to you and family.

Faithfully yours,

Robert.

======================
Robert Sanga Hualngo
J.P. Clausens Gate 19 A,
6508 Kristiansund N,
Kingdom of Norway.
Mobile No. +47-93425320
========================

Gifts from Norway

2010-02-22T04:32:00.002+01:00

Alison told me that a package we sent to her and Steven arrived yesterday. That means the rest of you should be receiving packages soon too. I think the Richland package went to Kristin, so make sure she shares. There are just some things we thought were "cute"--some rubber ice cube trays, with interesting designs. I included a norsk ice scraper for car windows for each family. These came from my favorite tire store (Dekk1) a dekk is a tire. I find these ice scrapers to be much more effective than the ones we normally use in the US, (I have had plenty of opportunity to use them) hope you will enjoy them. For those of you who don't have to worry about scraping ice in the mornings, use them as a small cutting board or to place a flower pot on, or whatever--put them on your desk at work and let people ask "what in the world is that?".

We just finished a conference call with the mission pres and all the missionaries where they announced the missionary moves that will take place next week. We will be losing Elder Richardson, but Elder Henshaw and the sisters remain here. Elder Henshaw will get a new companion, Elder Bartholomew who came to Norway the same time we did. We will also be getting 2 new elders (we have been apt hunting for the past 2 weeks and have found a nice apt for them). Stephanie--Elder Tedrow will be working in Stavanger for his first area. This was my first area as a missionary and the place where I spent 18 months of my mission. It is quite mild there and there are lots of Americans today because Stavanger is the city where most of the oil companies have their main offices in Norway. They have a good branch of the church in Stavanger so he will be getting a good start.

Love,

Dad

They're off: trip to the Super Bowl 2010

2010-02-14T04:48:00.000+01:00

Anita and Cheri had a little weekend get-away paid for by Campbell's Chunky.

2.4.10

Well, Anita and Cheri left this morning at 6:30 am, I had the honor of driving them over at 5 am, shuffle bags around to maintain the under 50 lb wt limit (crap 53lbs). So you can bring it to the required 50 lbs or pay $125 for the overage, apparently they handle the bag differently if it weighs 3 lbs over.

FYI, Anita did not necessarily win the tickets, she earned them. 6 people were nominated by the regional managers throughout the U.S. (sorry, mom and dad Norway didn’t make the cut). From those 6, the Biggest of Wigs Chose Anita as the winner based her sales and efforts for Campbell ’s, which made her quite a bit more nervous to meet all of them in Miami vs just pulling the name out of a hat.

I’m sure they will have a great time, if they don’t we/I do not want to hear about it..

Ryan

Well, they made it to Miami, FL, poor girls, forecast showed rain and lightning for 3 days….turns out 79 degrees and supposed to get down to 69 degrees this evening, Alison is that very cold???

They were greeted by 1 person who helped them grab there bags, and then a second one brought them water, and then a third took them to there very own awaiting chauffeured Suburban. Since it is 5:30 pm there, they go to a welcome banquet prior to freshening up to go to the evening social.

Meanwhile, since it is only 2:30 pm here, I am still working and soon will be driving myself home to take care of the dogs and get dinner ready for Meghan and Paige. But I do get to pick which side of the bed I sleep on tonight, YEAH!!!, well, I get to pick which side the dogs aren’t sleeping on…..

Ryan

Facebook status updates:

2.6.10 So update on Cheri and Anita, having lots of fun, food and beverages are free, have seen several celebrities, and are currently at the NFL dinner party, about 2000 + people. Miami is very different than the simply life of Tubleweed County, Wa

2.7.10 On the phone with Cheri, it is windy and cold, we all feel bad, but they just got their tickets, section 415, top level, 40 yd line on the visitors side? $1400 tickets.....they go off to the tailgate party in 40 minutes, starts at 1 pm and game starts at 6:30 pm et., they met Troy Aikman at breakfast this morning.....

it was a breakfast with 30 people, he came over and sat at their table with them for a few minutes and talked with them, signed several autographs, got pictures with him....Cheri has changed her mind about Troy (as she calls him now) he is very personable and down to earth. Ryan at Home

Cheri just sent me a text of her ticket i'm sure we can have slide show night....Meanwhile i am headed to the biggest game today, Paige is playing soccer at noon, then we will make the meal for the second biggest game of the day. love you Cheri, Ryan

2.9.10 I am back and what a past 5 days....If you are an NFL fan, you have to attend a Super Bowl at some point in your life. I will be posting pictures within the next few days. Going to the Super Bowl with your best friend......PRICELESS!!!!

Winter pictures

2010-02-12T22:21:00.000+01:00

here are a few winter pictures for those of you who are in places where there is little or no snow. We are getting around quite well. I slipped and fell 3 times in the first couple of weeks that we had snow and ice on the ground--walking from the apt to the car in the parking lot. Then I bought a new pair of boots and have been on my feet ever since. Mom has not fallen at all (thank goodness!!).

This is mom with her two favorite missionaries--Sister Engebretsen (center) and Sister Molholt.

Love,

mom and dad/grandma and grandpa/nana and granddad

Ryan: Very cool pictures, glad I don’t have to shovel, but pretty to see.

Usually when someone has an eye closed in a picture you can photo shop an eye back into the picture, but I guess erasing the eye works also….only 1 photo with mom in it, you’ll figure it out.

Ryan

Shall we compare - winter around the world: Welcome to Phoenix winters - where you can play in the yard and install patios and all without a jacket! :)

Alison/Jeff's backyard - Saturday Feb 6th, 2010, Laveen, AZ

Feb 1 - 7, 2010

2010-02-07T22:04:00.001+01:00

This has been another of those weeks that when Saturday rolls around, we ask “what happened to the days between Sunday and today?”

On Monday, the young missionaries wanted to do something different for P-day and suggested that we take the ferry across the fjord to the town of Rørvik (a 25 minute ride). By the time we all got together and found out ferry schedules, it was about 2 in the afternoon, so we suggested that we do something different today and take the ferry early in the day next Monday. So for “something different” we drove to a ski area just out of town. There were several people there on a cross country ski trail and a large ski jump that was not being used. That got the attention of the missionaries very quickly. Soon, Elder Henshaw and Sister Engebretsen were walking up the stairs toward the top of the jump. They stopped at the bottom of the jump, walked out on the hill and soon Elder Henshaw was on his back sliding down the hill—followed by Sister Engebretsen. When they arrived at the bottom, they were joined by Elder Richardson and Sister Mølholt for the climb back to the top, then one by one, each slid down the hill. If you picture the hill that ski jumpers land on, you will see that it is not a short hill and quite steep. By the time they reached the bottom, snow had been flying in their faces and their hair was coated with snow and ice (it was -15C). The elders were wearing jeans while the sisters were both wearing skirts. After the second time down, they were all ready to go home and get warm before family home evening. We had a good crowd (14 including 6 missionaries) at FHE. It is fun to see the room full and to hear the discussions that take place between many nationalities all joined by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

While we were at the ski hill, I received a call from Pres. Johansen asking if we could find another apartment in Trondheim. He also asked if we could go to Ålesund on Sunday, February 21 because the branch president is going to be out of town. When we checked flights from here to there, we found that there are no direct flights on the weekend. It should be a 45 minute flight, but without direct flights it requires us to fly to Oslo, wait for a couple of hours, then fly to Ålesund. Because of that we can’t fly down on Sunday morning and be there in time for church, so it would require a Saturday flight and stay overnight. Mom suggested that I ask the president to consider sending the office couple, the Arnesens. When I suggested that, he thought that was a wonderful idea and would give them an opportunity to get out of the office for a day and see the workings of a small branch. So now we will not have to be gone from Trondheim 2 weekends in a row (we are going to Mo I Rana this Saturday and Sunday)

Most of the rest of the days were spent looking at apartments for rent. We have come to know Trondheim quite well as this will be the third apartment we have had to find for missionaries. On Thursday afternoon, we found a very nice apartment in a fairly new building in one of the nicer areas in downtown Trondheim. The apartment belongs to a Vietnamese girl who got transferred to Oslo. When I talked with her, she asked how long we wanted to rent and I responded, “as long as possible, how long do you want to rent it?” Her answer, “as long as possible.” Her father met us at the apartment and showed it to us. Afterward, she called to see how we liked it and said that her father liked us and suggested that she should rent to us over the others he had shown it to (we had explained to him that we would not be living there, but it would be 2 American missionaries). I told her we really liked it, but we had appointments to see a couple of others the next morning, so I would call after we had seen them. On Friday I called her back and told her that we would like to rent it and gave her Elder Arnesens name and said I would have him call her to put the contract together. One thing the mission does not do is pay a deposit for an apartment. Instead, they give the owner a “guarantee letter” in which we agree to pay the owner 6 months rent if we terminate the lease early. This keeps the Church from having lots of money in various deposits around the country and also gives the owner a “bonus” if we should ever break the lease, as normally they are looking for 2 months deposit. After she talked with Elder Arnesen, she called me back and said she had to have a deposit and unless I could convince him to pay a deposit, she would need to look for another renter. We really wanted this apartment, so I called Elder Arnesen and talked with him. He sent her a copy of several recent letters and gave her names and phone numbers of the landlords. She called a few of them, then called him back and said she was good with the letter. It is amazing how the Lord works to make it possible for us to have the things we need. Most apartments here are unfurnished, so now Nancy will get to shop again. We have found IKEA to be a great place to shop (along with most of Norway). They have good bunkbeds which I am becoming proficient at putting together with a few simple tools. We know where to get good buys on washing machines and all the other things needed to furnish a missionary apartment.

I finally made contact this week with Erik Sæther. He is a man who stayed in our home about 20 years ago as a 16 year old traveling with a Norwegian school band group. We had 5 young Norwegians between the ages of 15 and 18 stay with us for a couple of days while they performed in Richland. We took them all waterskiing the first day they were there and they had a great time. They left us with a post card on which they all wrote their names and addresses. On the front was an aerial view of Trondheim city and harbor. I brought that with me to see if I could find them here. Todd Merkley had met Erik about 10 years ago when he was here and we have communicated a little before. We will get together with he and his family sometime this week.

We joined the elders and sisters in teaching a few of their investigators during the week and the sisters joined us in teaching Åsta and Eirik last night. They prepared a delicious turkey dinner and we had a very good visit with them. They have twin daughters who will be 3 on the 13th. The sisters were smitten by the two young girls. They are very adorable. Mom helped Åsta get them ready and put them to bed. She read one of them a book (in Norwegian) and said after she came downstairs, “they will probably never here a story like that again!” They live about an hour and 15 minutes out of town, so by the time we got back we just got the sisters home for their 9:30 curfew.

On Friday night, the sisters had planned a “sushi night” as a way of getting two fairly new members (Lisa and Xin) involved with other young single adults. They planned to have Lisa and Xin (both from China) demonstrate how to make sushi and had invited one of the Norwegian members. About Thursday, Sister Engebretsen told us that the party was growing and it looked like there might be 6 of them—“could we do it in your apartment?” “Sure, why not.” By the time Friday night rolled around, there were 8 young women—2 from China, 2 from Norway, 2 American missionaries, one investigator from Turkey (also blind) and one from Uganda. They had a wonderful time and we enjoyed the results.

Today in sacrament meeting, I had the opportunity to bless the youngest daughter of Sister Bjørnevåg. She is 2-1/2 years old and very shy. It was very heart warming to be able to bless her and have the family all present. Sometimes we wonder if we are doing any good, then we see someone like Sister Bjørnevåg who has not been active for sometime start coming to church each week with her 4 children and we can see that we are having an impact.

Last week Benildo, a new convert, said that he wanted to learn to play the piano. I (Nancy) had some simple primary songs that had been put into “C” five finger notes. Today we practiced a little bit on that. Elder Richardson drew the piano keys with the names for the five finger exercise and then he drew a staff to show him where the notes were. I started him on one piece and he asked for the other one—I Am A Child of God. Benildo is married and his wife and children are still in Mozambique. Hopefully he will have another skill when he returns to his native country after his studies at the university are finished.

This is our kind of missionary work in Norway. We are blessed to work with wonderful young missionaries, strong leaders in the branch and great members and investigators.

The past few days the weather has warmed up to as high as 4C. Today it snowed, rained, sun shined, snowed and rained some more. Things are getting a bit slushy now as the temperature has been on the + side of 0 all day. Spring must be just around the corner.

We love the gospel and the opportunity to share it with the people here in Norway (no matter where they may come from).

Love,
Mom and dad/grandma and grandpa/Gerald and Nancy/Elder and Sister Sorensen

Finding things in Norway - is it worth it?!?

2010-02-04T22:01:00.003+01:00

2.4.10
Someone told Nancy a few weeks ago that there was a store that sold Dr. Pepper, so we had to go look. There was a sign on the shelf that said, Dr. Pepper--but the shelf was empty. We went back a few other times and found the same result. Today there were actually cans of Dr. Pepper on the shelf. Nancy waited in the car while I went in to check. I bought 4 cans @ ~$4.00 per can. I told her that this may cause her to give up Dr. Pepper.

We had beautiful weather today--it got up to 0.5 on the plus side of the 0 mark. However the long range forecast is for another cold spell next week. We will be going to Mo I Rana next Saturday (13th), so hope it does not get real cold that week end. Life here is good and we are meeting a lot of wonderful people. Hopefully we are helping some of them. Sunday I will bless the youngest daughter (3 years) of a less active sister we have been visiting for a few months. She and her 4 children have been in church each of the past 3 weeks and she says she is committed to being here every week.

love,

mom and dad/Gerald and Nancy/Grandma and grandpa

PS: I asked Jeff if he would be willing to pay $4/can for a Pepsi if he hadn't had one in 7 months - he was certain he wouldn't EVER pay $4 for a can of soda.....I'm not so sure he could resist. :) I couldn't! :)

From Gaye and Bud - currently serving as Temple President in the Ghana Temple
We relate - it is amazing what you pay for something you want - like $15.00 for 8 oz of. cream cheese to make a carrot cake, or 4 dollars a can for black beans??? Ithink I drive Bud crazy by talking about it is all just monopoly money. Sometimes you hunger for something and are willing to pay unbelievably for it. Things are so expensive, and some things unavailable, such as letttuce we can eat without getting sick, celery, good carrots, etc. But we, too, love it here and are grateful to serve. This week we have falen in love with wonderful people from Liberia - their children are a delight, giving me hugs and high fives whenever they see me. Love, Gaye

Jan 25 - 31, 2010

2010-01-31T21:59:00.000+01:00

January 25 – 31, 2010 from Trondheim, Norway

Dear Family and Friends -

Some days our “missionary work” takes twists and turns. Monday we had to buy a new printer for our Outreach Room, order some more supplies for missionaries, had 14 to FHE (our group is growing). The day began with a doctor’s appointment for Nancy—just a follow up to make sure things are going well—and they are. The Dr. told us he would not be here after the end of February, as he would be taking “paternity leave” to stay home for 8 months to take care of his new daughter while his wife goes back to work—she has already been home for one year after the birth of the baby, now she goes back to work while he stays home to care for the child. This is all at full pay for both of them.

Tuesday was our district meeting and the zone leaders (Elder Hunsaker and Elder Harris) were here to spend the day with Elders Henshaw and Richardson. They made good contributions to the district meeting and were glad to be able to partake of our pizza lunch afterward. We met the elders at the church in the afternoon to participate in teaching one of their investigators.

Wednesday we started the day by picking up Nadia Haugen, (one of our YSA who had been to America for 3 weeks), at the train station (she was arriving by bus from Oslo) took something to the sisters and then to the elders and then home for breakfast. It seems we spent the whole day getting in and out of the car. We had a good institute dinner (prepared by Egil) and a good class discussion. A new institute teacher, Oscar Berg has been called and he taught the lesson tonight, so Gerald was able to enjoy the day. After institute, a few of the YSA stayed around to play some games for a while. When we were coming home at night, it was “what did we do today”?

Thursday, Gerald and Shina went to visit one of our less active young single adults at the café where he works. They had a good pastry and were able to visit for a few minutes. Afterward, we went to visit one of the older members in the branch, Jan Erik Carlsen, who is recovering from a skin infection. He was feeling a little down, so we went to visit. He loves music, so I played his piano for him while he and Gerald talked. Occasionally he would come over to the piano and sing along with the song I was playing, then go back to talking again. He was in better spirits when we left.

Friday night we had an International Night with the YSA. We had Lisa from China, Shina from Nigeria, Sister Moholt said a few things about Denmark, we talked about Norwegian differences to all. Of course, we had to add a few American things. We had a great time together.

Saturday afternoon we had another baptism. That is five baptisms in about six weeks. This man is a refuge from Nigeria. When he came out of the water, he had a new smile on his face.

Sunday was a great day. On the fifth Sunday and we knew that the Priesthood and Relief Society would have a combined lesson so the missionaries asked if the new converts could tell about their conversions. We only had time for the two from Nigeria (Shina and Victor) and the one from Mozambique (Benildo). They all spoke with great confidence about their conversion and how much the gospel was making them happy. It was like a bit of heaven. All have such different backgrounds. Shina was raised going to boarding school which he says is common in his country. Benildo is here studying on a scholarship offered to only four people from Mozambique. He leaves at home a wife and two small children. The baby was born a month after he left. When we were watching his family pictures on Saturday, he reached up to the computer screen to stroke the baby’s face. He came to Norway to get a degree and find the gospel for his family.

In Sacrament Meeting the sister converts told about their conversions. One is a young sister (Lisa) from China who joined the church about 6 years ago in Cypress and the other a 50-ish Norwegian woman (Anny). Anny told of the Word of Wisdom problems she had to overcome. She has been taking lots of medicines and is trying to work out of those and she has lost 40 lbs. She is doing great.

There was a group of about 9 students (studying to be teachers) in attendance at church for the whole 3 hour block of time. They are finding out about other religions, as they will teach religion in school. One of the branch members suggested that they attend our meetings to get first hand knowledge. Two weeks ago there were 3 and last week 20, so we are getting a lot of opportunity to help them know what we believe. The missionaries and several of the YSA sang in sacrament meeting. Considering that they had not practices together, it turned out well. Gerald sang with them and I played the piano.

One of the less active sisters (Catherina Bjørnevåg) we have been visiting attended with her 4 children; this is their 3rd week in a row, so we are quite happy to see them in church each week.

We are enjoying this opportunity to be in Norway sharing the gospel with the people from all over the world and seeing the happiness it brings into their lives. We serve with wonderful young missionaries and good, strong members who fellowship these new converts. It is exciting to look at the congregation each week and see the various nationalities in attendance. God is certainly blessing the missionary work in Norway and at the same time blessing other nations through those who are joining the church here and will return to their own countries to strengthen the church there.

Love to all,
Mom and dad/Gerald and Nancy/grandma and grandpa/Elder and Sister Sorensen