TRIP TO MO I RANA

A couple of weeks ago, President Johansen decided to move the two elders out of the small northern town of Mo I Rana (Mo in Rana). When he did, he asked us to travel there once per month to visit, encourage and assist the small branch (about 25 people on the branch roster with about 10 active). We made our first trip the weekend of October 10-12, traveling by train on Saturday (7 hours), arriving at about 2:30 p.m. The snow was falling hard and heavy when we got off the train. We were met by the branch president Jan-Erik Granaas (60 years old, never married). Fortunately, it stopped snowing shortly after we got in the car and the sky was clear the rest of the weekend. We went first to the home of Sister Anna Aasheim (85 year old widow, joined the church back in the 70's), this is where we would spend the night Saturday and Sunday. We visited with her for a while, then went to visit some other members (all widows in their 80s) and returned to Sister Aasheim's where we enjoyed a light meal with her, visited for a while, then went downstairs to bed. The room was pretty cold, but the bed was warm. We slept well, then got up in the morning for breakfast with Sis Aasheim and prepared for church. President Granaas picked us all up and took us to the church. When we arrived, there was one other car there, driven by a sister Rannveig Flataas (57 year old, husband not member). She had two other 80+ year old sisters with her. We went in and President Granaas and I got the sacrament table prepared. Mom figured out how to work the keyboard and began to play hymns for prelude. When it was time to start the meeting, there were 6 of us present. During the sacrament hymn, a young mother and her 3 children (6, 3 and 2) arrived. Mom played the piano and I led the opening hymn. Nobody led the sacrament hymn, as I was preparing the sacrament. I blessed the sacrament and the BP passed it.

After the sacrament, mom gave her talk on Noah in Norwegian and did a good job, her norwegian has improved since she first gave the talk a couple of weeks ago in Trondheim. She will have an opportunity to speak in church at least once per month when we go to Mo. I gave a talk on blessings we enjoy as a result of the restoration of the gospel. This is (I think) the first time I have given a talk in many years where I did not spend part of the time before speaking revising my talk because a previous speaker used something I had planned or had taken too much time and I had to decide what to leave out. I don't think I will have that problem with mom as my companion.

After sacrament meeting, we held a combined priesthood and relief society lesson, while mom went with Bonnie (the young mother) to hold primary with Bonnie's 3 children. Bonnie's husband is a member, but was not at church today. For those of you who don't like a 3 hour block of church time on Sunday, move to Mo, they only meet for 2 hours.

After church, President Granaas took the 3 widows home (Rannveig had to leave after sacrament meeting), then came back to pick us up--Bonnie and her kids walked home. We then went to visit a man the elders had been teaching and discussed the Book of Mormon and encouraged him to quit smoking, invited him to come to church next week. He said he has "social anxiety" and does not do well in crowds. I asked if he was uncomfortable with the 3 of us visiting with him and he said, "No". I told him that there were only a few more people at church, so he should be able to do well there.

 

We then went to Sis. Aasheim's home for dinner, then to visit a less active member family about a 45 minute drive out of town. The husband is norwegian, his wife (young enough to be his daughter) is from the Philippines and they have a 5 year old son. We had a pleasant visit with them and encouraged them to come to church. They have lived in the Philippines for about 7 years and returned to Norway about a year ago. The wife (Mila) was very active in the church at home and misses the associations here, so hopefully we can encourage Frans to begin coming back to church with his family.

We spent the night again at Sister Aasheim, then took a cab to the train station for an 8:20 a.m. trip back to Trondheim. The trip back was as beautiful as the trip up, but we were on the other side of the train, so we saw rivers, towns, forest and mountains whereas we saw mostly fjords on the way up, with mountains in the distance. On the train a man got on at one of the first stops after we did and I heard him speaking english, so when he came near where we were to get a cup of coffee from the vending machine, I got up and talked with him. His name is James Parker and he is from Nashville TN. He said he has been coming to Norway for about the past 5 years and is writing a novel about some events in northern Norway during the 2nd world war. We enjoyed visiting as he would come to the vending machine during the trip. He said he was familiar with the church and had talked with missionaries before.

It was raining when we arrived in Trondheim (surprise!), but it was nice to be home again.