Iceland Conference

This weekend we had Zone Conference with all the missionaries and the Mission President - President Olauson. We also had an Iceland Conference for both branches in Iceland. It was a great two days to spend with all the missionaries, President Olauson and the great members in the two branches. Zone Conference was Saturday morning and afternoon followed by a Priesthood Session and an adult session in the evening. Systir Bremner spoke on service at the adult session and many of the members were very touched by her comments which included stories from our family. I think the sisters were touched the most as they related to their families. The conference theme was Trusting in the Lord. Many of the members have been greatly affected by the financial mess in Iceland and the theme was most appropriate. Sunday morning a sister originally from Uganda and now married to an American bore her testimony on Trusting the Lord and it was the most beautiful testimony and the Spirit filled the chapel. I was assigned to speak too but we had not been told when we would speak. As this sister spoke I thought I hope I don't follow her, but sure enough I was called on to speak next. I was prepared to give my talk in Icelandic and I wanted to say something about her talk but all I could think of in my limited Icelandic was to thank her. I guess I surprised everyone as the response from the members and President Olauson was more than I wanted. Of course now I have to work harder to try and learn the language as it is one thing to give a talk in a foreign language and entirely another to be able to carry on a conversation in a foreign language. A new twist to this language I learned this weekend makes it even harder to understand - people's names change just like the nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, adverbs, etc. What does that mean - well an example: the name Anna in the nominative case becomes Önnu in the accusative, dative and genitive cases. Other names may change in all four cases. Anyway it makes learning Icelandic even more difficult than I already thought it was. Oh well we have beautiful scenery to look at. The picture of the geyser is right as it is getting ready to blow - I have never seen one so up close before. The other picture is just one of the many beautiful sunrises we enjoy most mornings.