Week of February 7th

Happy Birthday Bryan!
Chuck and President Evensen watched the entire Super Bowl game plus the pre-game from 12:30am to 4:00am and President Evensen does not even understand American Football that well. It was the first time that the Super Bowl has been televised in Norway. I watched until halftime and then went to bed. Because of the late night we had a late breakfast and then set out for another first adventure. We went to IKEA and shopped and looked for 2 ½ hrs and even ate lunch there.

Tues we went into Oslo under a beautiful blue sky and the bright sun. We went to this ski jump place, Holmenkollen which they have just rebuilt. They were making final preparations on the track for the first event that evening, the Norwegian Masters Championship. Then we watched it on TV that evening. It is really high and makes Park City look a little small. While we were there Chuck bought me a beautiful Norwegian sweater for Valentine’s Day.
Next we visited the Vigeland Statues in Fronger Park. They all looked very cold as all the statues are nude.
On the way home we stopped by the Frogner Church in Lier where Marit’s parents, grandparents and great-grandparents are buried.

Marit’s birthday was the same day as Bryan’s and it was another beautiful day so we again drove into Oslo. It took us a while to find a parking place and we ended up parking in a lot that cost 60k ($10) an hour. We walked up and saw the park around the palace, the statues and the changing of the guards. It was pretty impressive. Evensen’s son, Martin, used to be one of these guards. We then walked down the street from the palace and walked past the building (Blindern) at the university where President Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize. We saw the Parliament Building, the city hall (Rødset) they call the two goat cheeses. Norway is known for its brown goat cheese and the building is brown brick with two tall towers. There are a lot of beautiful wood pictures on the porch of this building. We then walked to the new Opera House down at the harbor and the building where Marit and her family waited for the ship to take them to America when she was a small girl. Her family lived in Salt Lake for several years. After visiting Oslo we celebrated Marit’s birthday with some of her family. Marit made herself a wonderful birthday cake.
Thursday it was very cold and very snowy so we just stayed inside and Chuck worked on the computer and Marit and I worked on making booties and watched TV. At night Janett, their
daughter, and the Bishop’s wife, came and picked us up and we went to Relief Society. They were making preparations for the Relief Society Social so we helped make terra-cotta lamps and oil containers for the 10 Virgins they are presenting. I even helped clean the Drammen church after the activity was over.

Friday we finished up a few things the Evensens needed to get done before we left. We drove back to Sweden on Saturday because the forecast was for good weather and Monday was reported to be snowy. It was a beautiful day, no clouds and beautiful blue sky and lots of sun. I took a few point and shoot pictures and they turned out pretty good! Everything was clean and white and sparkly.

For Valentine’s Day we took the train into Stockholm and went to Jensen’s Buffhus. There were 8 couples including President and Sister Oscarson from the temple and President and Sister Anderson from the Sweden Mission. We had a great time and the lunch was wonderful.
We send all of you our love on this Valentine’s Day and pray for love and harmony in your homes. We enjoyed our skype time with the Tobler’s this week and Brent it is your turn next week. Thanks for your weekly updates we enjoy knowing what the family is doing. May we all strive to live as Christ lived and forgive others to be forgiven ourselves. The gospel is true; Heavenly Father does love us and wants all of us to return to live with him.