Trondheim and south

This is the third largest city in Norway, Trondheim. It is on a fjord and this is a river that has a "Brygen" or a warehouse district on the harbor. The most famous brygen is in Bergen and will be shown on another post.
The most outstanding building in Trondheim is the Nidaros Cathederal. It is the main church in Norway, where before the Reformation, the Catholic Bishop of Norway served. Now it is where the Luthern Bishop of Norway serves. It is also where each King is crowned when he becomes king. Norway has a government of a constitutional monarchy. The figures on the face of the cathederal are different prophets and apostles from biblical times.
This is a statue of Olav the Holy, Viking and Saint who Christianized Norway. He was converted during a raid to either England or France, I don't remember, and then returned to Norway and told people they could either become christian or loose their head. No question what they choose.
About three hours south of Trondheim, we stayed in the mountain resort town of Dombås. We ate at a cafeteria and just outside of it is this troll house and troll. We were back in snow again, but not as much as in the north.
This is what we saw several places along the road. The snow would melt during the day and drip down the cliffs of the mountains and then freeze. These huge ice formations were all along the road. Some of the cliffs were five or six hundred feet high and the ice formations were very impressive. Most of them were a deep blue color and very clear.

On the way - Between Tromsø and Trondheim

About four hours south of Tromsø is a town of about twenty thousand called Narvik. It is a sea port and railroad terminis for coal and iron from Sweden. Because of the Gulf Stream, it is ice free in the winter so it is used by Sweden to send their abundant coal and iron ore to other countries. There is a small university there and many Chinese go to school there. This is the senior couple, Elder Byron and Sister Dian Merrell from Vernal, who are assigned to this town. They have baptized three of the Chinese people and are working with others. They are a very great missionary couple. They asked us to stop on our way through and have lunch with them. They then gave us a sack of food to eat on our way.
A view along one of the many fjords showing a storm approaching.
The road followed this river for several miles. This area reminded us of the Bitterroot valley in Montana, with its wide river and pine covered hills on either side and many small communities here and there. Each community had signs advertising the good fishing available on the river. I am sure that there is plenty of activity here in warmer weather. However we thought it was great to be out of snow for awhile.
Every small town or group of houses had its own little white church. We passed so many of them that we wanted to stop and get a picture of at least one. We thought it was interesting that the church yard is also the local cemetary. People can live how they want but when they are dead they are close to the church for protection from evil.
Just north of Trondheim, the third largest city in Norway, is a small town, with a train station, which is named Hell. We had to drive to the station to show you that we have been to Hell. It literally freezes in the winter time. By the way, Hell means luck in the Norwegian language. There is a town just outside of Bergen, the second largest city in Norway, that is named Paradis. We drove through it but were so frazzeled after driving ten hours we did not stop to take a photo. So we can say that we have been to Hell and then to Paradise.

Before leaving Tromsø

All of these pictures are from Tromsø. This is looking at our apartment. Our car is to the right and our apartment is just behind that. The pile of snow to the left is from clearing the entrance and drive way. They just send a snow plow out and push it up into several piles. This is one of them. We heard that it snowed about three feet total during the four days after we left Tromsø.
This is a car that some one parked in the fall with the windshield wipers lifted up so that they wouldn't be frozen to the windshield. The snow plow has just pushed snow away from both sides of the car and left the car buried in the snow. This photo was taken on the 10th of April.
We took some time to take a cable tram ride to the top of a mountain in Tromsø. This shows Sister Humphrey and in the background is the south end of the island that is Tromsø. Tromsø means Troms island. Tromsø is the county seat of the county of Troms, one of the counties in Norway.
This shows the north end of Tromsø and the bridge that goes from the island to the main land, which is in the forground.
Elder Michael Olsen, from Boise, Idaho and Elder Guy Watts, from Great Britain, helping us take packages from our apartment to be mailed to Haugesund. They moved into the apartment after we left.

Last entry for March 2008

On the 26th of March Elder Brian Welch left Tromsø. His time as a missionary was completed except for his exit interview with the mission president and his burning dinner (the final dinner at the mission home, not burnt but because his candle in the land of Norway is burning out it is called a burning dinner). He will be returning to his home in Omaha before the week is over. L-R: Elder Watts, Elder Welch, Sister Humphrey and Elder Humphrey.
On Easter Sunday we had a dinner at our apartment. This is a cake, called a bløtkake, made with cream fruit and frosting. The floral arrangement was very special for Easter Sunday. These were supplied by our neighbor, Linda Bennett and we supplied the ham.
Guests at our Easter dinner. L-R: Elder Welch, Elder Watts, Åge Aspevik, Lill Kristoffersen, Bodil Fredriksen, Linda Bennett, Eveymartine Brogan and Sister Humphrey.
This view is from the main land looking west toward the island of Tromsø. The large ship at the dock is the Hurtigroute ship. It goes to many cities along the west coast of Norway and it takes a week to travel from Bergen to Kirkeness. The latter city is on the border of Norway and Russia.
Looking from Storgata, the main street of downtown Tromsø, up a side street. This is typical buildings for the downtown area of Tromsø. The buildings in the foreground have buisnesses on the ground floor and apartments on the upper floors. The red building and those past it have apartments on all floors.

Scenery and Linger Longer

Sunset 19 March 2008 at 5:27 p.m. Looking west from Håpe area of Tromsø towards Kvaløy.
On March 12, 2008 at 5:15 a.m. looking out our apartment window. The moon and the sunrise.
On the 16th of March we held a "Linger Longer" after the block of church meetings. It was a true pot-luck. We asked people to bring either a salad or a dessert. The only assignments we made was for one member to supply the drinks and another to supply the rolls. A good time was had by every one. Left to right: Maria Peterson, Elder Welch, Viliyana Anatasova, Arvid Hansen, Mark Peterson, Linda Bennett and Elder Humphrey.
The Linger Longer tabels looking the opposite direction. Left to right: Erlend Lunde, Leanna Lunde, Christine Peterson, Eveymartine Brogan, Elder Watts, Britannia Lomax and Jørn Lomax.
Lill Kristoffersen, on the left, a member of our church, and her mother, Bodil. We were invited to Bodil's apartment for an authentic Norwegian dinner of fresh cod fish, boiled potatoes and vegatables. These two ladies will be spending a month in the USA and we offered to let them stay in our home. The invited us to dinner to pay us back and to pick our brains about things to see and do in our corner of the world.

Tromsø in the spring

March 3, 2008. This is looking from the island of Tromsø towards the main land. On the mountain in the background there is a tram that takes people to the top, where there is a spectacular view of Tromsø, a restuarant and trails for hiking. Notice the snow. The roads are plowed but not salted. In parking lot areas the snow is piled up on the boarders and left. That is what can be seen in the left foregroung of the photo.
This was taken from the window of an elementary school. This shows a typical playground area. This is a basketball court-soccer field(but here it is called football). Notice the goals under the basketball standards. The houses in the background are typical housing for this area. The red one is an apartment building with two or three apartments on each floor and two or three floors in the building. A whole family will live in one of these apartments.
These next two photos were taken on Mar. 7, 2009 on a drive from our apartment to a location on the other side of the island. We drove the round about way on the shore road. This is looking accros the fjord towards another, larger island, Kvaløy (meaning whale island). The bridge in the background was built in 1971 and the large space in the middle is to allow ocean going ships to pass under it. We have some members who live on Kvaløy.
This was taken from almost the same location as the previous photo. It is of a group of school children on a field trip. They have a fire going and are roasting hot dogs and marshmellows while they search the shore of the fjord for sea life. Of course the boys are playing as much as they are doing supervised activities.
Every Friday evening we have the church open for college age members to bring their friends over to chill out, play games and find out that you can have good clean fun with out drinking and smoking. The missionaries usually come and meet any members of other faiths. From left to right: Elder Welch, Elder Watts, Åse Svendsen, who is studing astro-
physics at the University of Tromsø, Viliyana Anatasova, who is from Bulgaria and working in Tromsø, Lill Kristoffersen, and Elder Humphrey. This was a mean game of Scrabble.

End of February, first of March in Tromsoø

Another month has passed by and it is time to add to our picture history of our time in Norway. With the passage of time we are rapidly getting more and more light. This photo was taken on the 27th of February at 7:47 am of the sunrise. Even though we have more sunlight it is still winter. Today, March 24, 2008, we have had a snow storm which added four to five inches of new snow to the total on the ground.
A week later a photo taken out of the same window in our apartment, but this one was taken at 6:20 am. We gain around 8 minutes and 30 seconds of light each day. By the 25th of May we will have midnight sun for two months straight.
This picture was taken out of one of the windows of our meeting place for our church. We are on the second floor of an office building on the main street of town, Storgata. We are looking south and the two large brown buildings are the Mack brewrey, the worlds northern most brewrey. They also bottle "Coke" and other soft drinks at this plant. So it is also the northern most bottlery of "Coke".
Sister Humphrey and I tutored two young boys from Rawanda in English in our apartment. They were going to come every week but we only saw them the one time. We hope to have more contact with them so we can possibly teach their mother and father about why we are here.
We received a computer and the software to start a Family History Center in our meeting house. Here is Elder Humphrey teaching the software to Lill Kristofferson, who will be one of the facilitators in the center.