Week of November 29th

Monday was Pres Evensen’s birthday so I decorated their apartment door before I went to bed!

We had them over for a birthday breakfast and then they had us over for a birthday dinner of Norwegian Hot dogs (they are so much better than ours). Their hot dogs are foot longs and their buns are about 5” and little. You hold the bun in the middle and eat the ends by dipping them in mustard and catsup and then eat the bun with the rest of the meat. Their car needed to be run, with the cold weather, so we went for a ride and stopped to walk through a mall and get some groceries.
I bought a couple of Christmas items so after our ride we came home and I put up our Christmas decorations. It took me 15 mins!!!

We had a Relief Society Christmas activity this week at Sister Krus’ house. It was cold and had been snowing but Sister Mattsson, Sister Evensen and I took our walking sticks, bundled up and walked the mile to RS. It was a fun evening on simple ways to enjoy friends and neighbors for the holidays. Then we bundled up again and walked home.
Chuck worked the recommend desk on Wednesday morning and when I arrived at the temple he had me turn around and look at the sky. There was a beautiful and bright rainbow, BUT it was not raining. It was one of God’s beautiful creations caused by the ice crystals in the air. I wish I would have had my camera! Everyone was amazed!
In my Swedish class this week we talked about Swedish names: mother (moder or mor), father (far), grandfather (farfar or morfar), children (barn), grandchildren (barnbarn), grandmother (farmor or mormor), brothers and sisters (syskon), niece (systerdotter or broderdotter). It was a fun class. Chuck’s class was on irregular verbs!!
We are still doing indexing and loving it. I try to do at least one batch a day and in the month of November I did 1500 names. I am indexing 1930 census records for different states and Chuck does marriage and birth records which are harder and take more time.
The visiting group has been from Moss, Norway and they held their own sessions. We had a couple of people come to the temple for the first time, a wedding where the bride wore her mother’s wedding dress (she looked beautiful), and a family with two beautiful children that were sealed. What a wonderful week! There was a big group of youth in the baptistry on Saturday.
We received the updated Swedish translation cards for the women this week. Now I start all over again trying to say the words they have updated. It is an exciting time but a challenge for me.
Some of the temple workers that come now will not return again until after we are released so we bought a journal to have them write their addresses and a message to us. Henden’s and Steffensen’s left this week and more will leave next week. This is the sad part of saying goodbye; not knowing if you will ever see these friends again.
Enjoyed out Skype time with the Tobler’s, after technical problems were solved (thanks Dan)! Thanks for your emails, your IM’s, letters and your faith and prayers. We love you!!