End of June 2008

This is brother and sister Blank. They are from Chili, have been here in Norway since 1985. We are working with them to become active again. We have met their 14 year old granddaughter, who lives in Bountiful, about five miles from our home. It is interesting that we come all the way to Norway to meet someone who lives five miles from us in Utah. Their granddaughter is a sweet girl.
On June 12, we drove to Stavanger to attend a zone conference. All of the young missionaries, two senior couples, the mission president and his wife and Elder Robert Oaks, European Area President and his wife were in attendance. Here we all are.
Elder Oaks with us at the conference.
We belong to "Sons of Norway," an international organization promoting the Norwegian heritage. We belong to the lodge in Salt Lake City. When we got to Haugesund we found out they have a lodge here so we are going to be participating. Elder Humphrey was asked to take some time and tell about why we are here in Haugesand and his Norwegian heritage. Elder Humphrey was the language instructor for the lodge in Salt Lake for seven years. Of course, Sister Humphrey would start his class and then drop out. That was a big mistake! They are having a celebration party on July 3 and have asked Elder Humphrey to talk about our national holiday. We are looking forward to going to it.

People

Sister Ingebjørg Warvik, Relief Society President, conducting an Enrichment Night activity on Food Storage in our chapel. This was the first for some years so the attendance was not high. But it was a beginning.
Some of the sisters at the Enrichment Night, dinner portion. L - R: sister to Reidun Solmunde, Sister Humphrey, Reidun Solmunde a member of our branch.
Elder Gutterrez, left, from Fort Worth, Texas and Elder Kerr, from Scotland. Both serve in the Stavanger area but came to Haugesund to go on a teach and help with a service project at a members home. The members, the Ismo and Marianne Hiltunen family, needed their basement cleaned out so they could have a concrete floor poured. The elders and us hauled everything out this day. The following day we helped brother Hiltunen take a lot of stuff to the dump. Brother Hiltunen is originally from Finland and sister Hiltunen is from Haugesund. They both served missions, he now serves as counselor in the branch presidency and she serves as gospel doctrine teacher and branch organist.
Brother Sigmund A. A. Breivik. He lives about 70 km. from Harmar, Norway, a city in the south eastern part of Norway where he serves as branch president. He previously served as a bishop in the Drammen ward. He works Monday thru Friday in Haugesund and commutes back and forth on weekends. We have been holding Home Evenings with him and single adults in our branch. He is a talented individual, enjoys playing the guitar and singing Norwegian folk songs. He has a strong testimony.
A wonderful family from USA who visited our branch. Jeanie Okland is from Salt Lake, and her granddaughter, sister Rose and her children, Zack, Nick and Eden live in the Phoenix area. Sister Okland has a home about an hour and a half north of Haugesund on the island of Stord. It overlooks the mouth of two fjords. The area is magnificent.
The first Sunday they visited our Sacrament meeting our attendance jumped from about 20 to 33. There were also several other visitors there that Sunday.

A glimpse of Norwegian History

Harold the Fair Hair (Harold Hårfargre in Norwegian) was a fuedal king who wanted to marry a princess from another area in Norway, but she would not marry him until all of Norway was under one king. So he went about through war and diplomacy, uniting all of the different kingdoms. It was in the Haugesund area where this was finalized. Haroldshaugen, Norway's National Unity Monument is just north of the downtown area of Haugesund. The small pillar, next to Sister Humphrey is one of twenty nine representing each county or area ruled by a king. The large pillar in the background is representing the united Norway.
This is St. Olav's church, built aroung 1250 A.D. by Håkon Håkonsen and is still in use today. It is located in Avaldsnes on the island of Karmøy, near the area that was Harlod Hårfarge's royal farm. The Nordvegen (the way north) History Center is beside the church.
On the island of Bukkøy, just east of St. Olav's church is a re-
constructed Viking village. There is a Viking Festival held here the first part of June. The village shows how Vikings lived and constructed their lodgings. This shows a Viking boat turned upside down to form a roof over a communal home, where the meals and household chores were done in common. Then the individual families lived in small tents or buildings surrounding this building.
These men represented the Vikings of old living in their village.
A replica of a Viking boat that was used at the Festival to give children a ride around the bay.

News from Haugesund

We try to go walking two or three times a week (it doesn't always work out that way though) and one of our favorite places is a five minute drive from our apartment. There is a lake called Eivendsvatn with a trail around it. We walk one mile out and one mile back. We have never made it all the way around the lake.
There is a large island just outside of Haugesund named Karmøy. On the west side of the island there are several white sandy beaches. This is one of them seen from the roadway. We were in dress up clothes, on our way to visit a less active member when we saw this beach so we didn't go all the way down to the beach. We were very much overdressed to be at a beach.
This is a small Statue of Liberty on the island of Karmøy. The reason it is here is because all of the copper that was used in making the real Statue of Liberty was mined just behind where I am standing to take this photo. The mine is now closed because the copper is gone. Sister Humphrey has now seen the Statue of Liberty in Haugesund, Toyko, Las Vegas and Centerville, UT. But she has yet to see the original statue in New York harbor. She asks, "What is wrong in this scenerio?"
Elder Humphrey doing a service project. The lady in the picture is Sister Ingebjørg Warvik, our Relief Society president. She is a widow, has a nice home in Hauge-
sund and a cottage overlooking a nearby fjord. Her children are all married and she needed help to paint some of the buildings at her cottage. We spent about four hours one day painting with her. There is a garage, a storage building (which we are painting here), and a gazebo on the property.
This is the view of the fjord from the front yard of Sister Warvik's cottage. Very spectacular.