Gratulere med Dagen, Norwegians say it too.....

Do you know your primary songs to be able to read the title?! :) Oct 25th is shared by 3 special people in our family: Dad, Tanner (Steven's oldest son) and Shay (Steven's youngest girl).

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD (aka husband, grandpa, Elder, Gug, uncle, brother, brother-in-law, friend - did I miss any?!), TANNER and SHAY!!!! :)

Email received on 10/22 entitled: Dry suits: why? Because my Richland Siblings were going skiing for Dad's birthday and needed the drysuits.....yet they'll go swim on Christmas day and/or New Years - who really is crazy enough to do that?! :)

The only thing I know for sure is that I did not bring the dry suits to Norway with me.  They are folded up in large ziploc bags and should be down stairs somewhere. Seems that  may have put them in the storage room, but not sure.

Our day has gone quite well. I started by teaching seminary to our one student via skype, then mom hemmed a skirt for one of the sister missionaries, then we went shopping. The sister missionaries like to jog in the mornings, so I said a week or two ago, "why don't you jog up to our apartment some morning and I will cook breakfast."  they thought that was a good idea, so they then started asking, "who else can we invite?"  So I think the breakfast crowd for Saturday morning is up to about 10 and counting--4 missionaries, 4 young single adults from the branch, two students the sisters have been teaching the gospel to--and they are still trying to find others. This apt will be packed if all come---and we hope they do.It will be a "twin lakes" breakfast with a norwegian twist.

After shopping, we came home and put the groceries away, then went to visit an older couple in the branch (she is a member, he is not) who live in a place called Hommelvik--about 15 miles out of town. They are right close to the fjord and it was a beautiful day, so the scenery was spectacular. She had made dinner "fårikål" (pronounced for i coal)--lamb in cabbage--It is a traditional Norwegian dinner, boiled lamb and boiled cabbage. The couple will be leaving on November 14 to go to Spain for the winter (Norwegian equivalent of going to Arizona or Florida for the winter. Then on the way home we stopped at the hospital where I had visited yesterday. I had received a text message (yes I receve them and even send some) from one of our members yesterday morning asking if we could visit her sister and her husband. He is in the hospital with lung cancer. I stopped there yesterday with one of the young elders and visited for a while. The husband was sleeping soundly all the time we were there, so we just talked with his wife.  She is from the Philippines and he is Norwegian.  She said his outlook did not appear too promising as the cancer has also moved to his brain. She was pretty distraught, he had just recently retired and they had plans to do many things, but now it appears that he may not live much longer. After we talked for a while, I asked her if she would like a blessing. She said, I'm catholic, will you do that for me. I told her that her religion did not matter, if she would like, we would be happy to give the blessing--which we did.  Anyway when we arrived there at about 8 tonight, he was sleeping soundly and the nurse said she had gone back to the hotel (the hospital owns and operates a hotel right next door for those who have family in the hospital). We then stopped by the church and talked with the sisters who were there doing some planning for tomorrow.   Then we finally came home to get ready for seminary class tomorow--so we can start all over again. Oh yes, i almost forgot, we found an apartment down town for the elders to move to.

love, 

dad

Saturday - Oct 24th

The two sister missionaries here in Trondheim go out and jog (actually they run) every morning--about 5 or 6 miles. One day a few weeks ago, I said "why don't your run up to our apartment one saturday and I will fix you breakfast?"  So they thought that would be a good idea and then said "it would be fun if we could get all the young single adults (YSA)  and some of our investigators there also--can we invite them?"  Sure, why not.  So today, we had 4 missionaries (2 elders and 2 sisters), 4 YSA from the branch and two investigators-one from China and one from Nigeria here for breakfast. We fixed hash browns, scrambled eggs, Norwegian waffles, bread, cheeze, jam, fresh strawberries, orange juice and milk.  The elders arrived about 45 minutes early, so they helped by cleaning off the patio chairs so we could bring them in, cracked and stirred the eggs and mixed the waffle batter. After breakfast, Sister Engebretsen and Nadia Haugen (our only YSA girl) came out of the den with a plate of cookies with 8 candles (7 +1=71). When they were lighting the candles in the den, they set off the fire alarm in the room--oops!  They all sang happy birthday in norwegian (Sister Engebretsen and Nadia did the little dance that goes with it). Sister Engebretsen had made the attached card which she had everyone sign (some chinese and some Tagalog included-one of our YSA is from the Philippines)..She said "how do you like the swim suit, complete with missionary name tag?" I told her that was pretty special and noted that the driver also had a name tag. She said, "yeah that's me, I figured if you could break the rules, so can I."

The young man from the philippines (Jonjie) has not been active for several years, but is coming quite regular and enjoys the association. It is his younger brother whom I am teaching seminary via Skype.  He told us that he would be playing his guitar and singing at a filippino halloween fest this evening and invited us to come. So Nancy and I went at 4 p.m with the two elders and enjoyed some good filippino cooking, then when it was time for Jonjie to perform, we went and picked up the sisters and brought them to listen along with one of the norwegian YSA young men.  We all had a good time visiting, as Jonjie's mother and 2 brothers were there as well as another filippino woman who is a member and is married to a norwegian. We also met several other norwegians married to filippino women whom we visited with.

The weather the past 4 days has been absolutely gorgeous, clear blue skies and crisp fall air. The leaves around town have all turned and are quickly falling.

We are enjoying the people we are meeting here and all that we are able to do.  We were excited to have so many here for breakfast today and to see them getting well acquainted with each other. After breakfast, they all stayed for about an hour and played games at the table, then all headed for the bus to get back to the day's activities.

We love all of you and miss you, but we would not trade this time for anything. We are enjoying talking to and teaching those who are not members about the restored gospel. It is exciting to see the light in their eyes when they hear of Joseph Smith's vision and learn of the book of mormon.

We hope Tanner and Shay have as good a birthday as I have had.

Love,

mom and dad/gerald and nancy/elder and sister Sorensen

PS: tried to add the card the Sisters made, but can't get it to add on. I'll figure something out so you can see it - it's awesome! thank you for resending it Dad - I finally got it to work! love ya and Happy birthday! - alison and fam :)