Uke 68: Waterfall in Winter

HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

We had a great week! It started off last p-day with an awesome trip to a place called Langfossen. It is one of the 10 most beautiful waterfalls in the world according to some official survey thing. It is a really popular tourist place during the spring and summer. I think it's a little over 600 meters from top to bottom of the waterfall and it falls into a beautiful fjord surrounded by big mountains. We had to take a 2 hour bus ride to get to it, but it was worth it. There wasn't as much water on the waterfall because it's the middle of winter so it was pretty frozen but it was still a lot. There were a few inches of snow at the bottom where we got off the bus, and at least a couple feet at the top! The hike that takes you up the mountain along the waterfall is not really meant to be done in the winter, and we completely lost the trail after a while and just had to climb up the snowy mountainside for a couple kilometers. There is a big cliff right before you get to the top that is impossible to climb unless you're on the trail so we didn't get to do the very last stretch of the hike but the point we got to was also amazing. We drank from the waterfall at the top and got lots of pics and ate some sandwiches in the snow. It took a long time to get up to that point, but the way down went really quick, because we knew where to go a little better and it was just jumping down the mountain and getting covered in snow. We realized we would have to wait like 3 hours before the bus would come so we started hitch hiking. We got picked up by a nice old guy after about 45 mins of walking who took us halfway to Huagesund, to a point where we could take another bus home.

Other than that, not too much happened. We worked on the sauna some more, played volleyball and did some other little stuff, but nothing very interesting, so I'll leave it at that for this week. We don't have good time anyway because we are taking a ferry to Bergen this afternoon for a zone conference! Bergen is Norway's 2nd largest city and I have heard it is really awesome so I am excited for that! Hope yall have a good week!

Uke 67: Please, no weird crustacean diseases

We went to a really cool hike this week called Himakånå! We have been wanting to do it for the last 6 weeks but there was always something else in the way or bad weather. This week, we didn't want to keep procrastinating, so we decided to just do it even though the weather forecast didn't look too nice. It was a beautiful area and the weather was ok when we arrived after a couple hours on a bus so we were pretty happy about that, but it started pouring rain after 15 minutes. But we kept going and by the time we got to the top, the rain stopped and some of the clouds cleared away for a while. There is a steep cliff at the top that is several hundred feet high, and some big rocks jutting off the edge that you can stand on. Also there was quite a bit of snow which made it look even cooler! We got some pics and hung out for a minutes, but not too long because we were behind schedule and had to run down the mountain to catch the bus. We were pretty soaked by the time we were done but it was an awesome trip!

We also celebrated the 70th birthday of Jens, one of the members here in Haugesund this week. He is married to a Filipino woman so he has lots of connections who are willing to make lots of good Filipino food! There were about 40 hungry people there and there was a lot of food leftover at the end, which we were of course responsible for taking home with us. One of the benefits of being a missionary is that all the members always want to give us a ton of food.

We also tried doing crabs again this week... We caught 2 more big ones a few days ago and we decided to give it another try. It went a little more smoothly, but the crabs still didn't taste very good. We were talking to someone about it and we found out we were not cooking them for nearly long enough, and our water wasn't hot enough. So I hope we don't get some weird crustacean disease or anything... me får sjå

Glad i dokker, alle sammen!

Uke 66: Crabbing and Serving

We caught some more sea creatures in our crab traps this week, and this time, it was actually mostly crabs! All together, we caught 1 giant crab, 4 smallish crabs, and 4 small fish. We threw the fish back, brought the crabs home, and boiled them. This was the first time cooking crab for both of of but I think we did it right. The whole process from catching to cooking was fun, but we discovered that picking them apart to eat the small bits of meat is not that enjoyable. Crabs are pretty gross creatures, especially one of them that looked different from the rest and was filled with eggs. That was really disgusting. Maybe from now on, we will just catch crabs for fun and give them away to people who don't dislike eating them. 

We did more sauna service this week and that was fun! We did a lot of work insulating and waterproofing the walls and ceiling, and then cutting tile and putting it on the walls. My companion worked with tile a lot before the mission so he did most of the actual flislegging, and I did most of the cutting. It's hard to take good pictures down there in the basement where we are building it but i did get 1 decent picture of the sauna before we put tile in.

Another interesting thing was church! The high schools in Norway require kids to research religions, so this week, we had 11 girls show up to church to observe and then they had some questions for us after. So it was kinda cool that a third of the people in church this week were visiting! This week was also the last time we got to see our Nigerian friend, Johnbull, because he is moving to Germany for school. We're going to miss that brotha but but he says he's going to move to Utah next year so he will hit us up then.

"Make we go" -Johnbull

Uke 65: Halibut for the Hungry

I'm pretty hungry right now so I'm just gonna attach some pictures and go eat some lunch... Glad i dokker!

These pictures are from Haraldshaugen and accidently catching a halibut in our crab trap.

Note: Haraldshaugen is the place he visited last week, the final resting place of the first viking king of Norway.

Uke 64: Christmas and New Years Cheer

GODT NYTT ÅR!

It was a really fun week here for me and my companion! Someone told me a few months ago that the food you eat between Christmas Eve and New Years doesn't count. Not that I'm too worried about it, but that would probably be a good thing considering how much pinnekjøtt and ribbe and turkey we have eaten this week! We ate a lot of good food and spent a lot of time with great people. I also got to skype my family last week which was awesome! Also, I received a bunch of Christmas cards all at once in the mail yesterday from family and friends at home, so I want to say thanks to all of you! It is great to hear from you (:

Celebrating new years eve last night was super fun! A Filipino lady named Jennifer invited a bunch of people and the 4 missionaries in Haugesund over to her house to eat food and have a hyggelig stund. We stayed up until midnight and watched an amazing show of fireworks! It was dark and cloudy and rainy but the fireworks were lighting up the sky and it was super fun! Norwegians know how to do fireworks!

Some other random highlights: We walked by a pet store yesterday and decided to take a look inside. We found some parrots that could talk and it blew our minds. This morning, we helped Ismo (the branch president) move some stuff to help him build a sauna in his basement. No, thats not normal in Norway, but he is Finnish so maybe that's why... He showed us his huge gun collection and medieval armor. We were driving with him and he took us to a place called Haraldshaugen which is the final resting place of the first viking king of Norway. That was pretty awesome! Another random thing: We have a member here from Nigeria who is studying here. He has the most skikkelig African dialect I have ever heard. I was trying to mimic him and he said I have a good Nigerian accent and I could fit in there. 

Ha det bra dokker