Swashbuckler

We enjoyed this hope you do too!

Gabi and Sarmale

After another week of computer challenges I am back to posting at least for now. First a continuation of our great visit with Gabi from Romania. Wednesday evening after our tour, Gabi made Sarmale which I talk about in the previous post about Gabi. Here are more pictures of the process. Then Thursday evening he made Langos (which is a fried bread with cheese and sunflower seeds - it was fantastic) and Chorba (a soup which is also delicious). Gabi made so much food we called up two families (Greta's and Valla's) and asked if we could bring dinner over and they were happy to have us as they were just getting home from work and had nothing ready. We fed 14 people and still had food left over - Gabi is quite the cook. The pictures are of two of the 8 different sites we visited. Just as we finished the last place of our tour for the day we saw what looked like a vehicle way off the road and two people standing outside the vehicle. I asked Gabi "Do you think they are waving at us?" and he said "I think I can see some hands above their heads." So we drove to where they were on some very bad roads. They had driven through a steam running over the road and somehow had gotten off the road and were stuck in the mud. They asked us to pull them out (we have a very small Skoda). I asked if they had a rope and he said no. I said without how can I pull you out. He then said he saw a rope on the side of the road about 500 meters back. We back up and found the rope. With some jerry-rigging we got the two cars connected and as I had to drive back into the water, I was concerned it was not going to work but I pulled them right out. They were very lucky we even saw them and since it was late in the day and we never saw another vehicle on the road they may have just had to spend the night in their car.
The last two pictures are of a hot springs named Dead Man Springs because one night a man walking through the area fell in and even though he was rescued died the next day from the burns.

Another Great Baptism

Today was another very special day. It started with Zone Conference which as always was a very spiritual experience. We are blessed with great missionaries who taught, gave talks and bore testimonies. President Olauson also provided great training and spiritual insight to help each of us be better missionaries and to be our best.

Following Zone Conference we had Nina´s baptism. Nina is originally from England and will be returning home in three weeks as her work contract here has come to an end. Nina came to Church the first time in December 2008. We have been teaching her sporadically throughout this past year as her family in England has been very upset with her for talking to us. About two months ago she began to sense we were teaching her something important. The Holy Ghost helped her make the decision to find out if what we were teaching was really true. Once she made the decision to be baptized, she has been extremely happy (even with being sick for a week) as you can tell in the pictures taken at her baptism.

Gabi Is Here From Romania

While we were serving in Romania in 2005-06 we made many friends and this week Gabi came to visit us. He arrived yesterday and we took a quick tour of Reykjavík as the sun was shinning before heading out for the Golden Circle Tour where the sun wasn´t shinning. This morning we had Dutch Babies for breakfast and head out on the South Coast Tour minus sunshine but the clouds were so high we could see for miles and it was a great day with no rain and very little wind. This evening Gabi made a traditional Romania dish called Sarmale for dinner tomorrow along with some of our Icelandic friends to enjoy a truly Romanian dinner with langos and meat ball soup.

Another Great Baptism

Sorry about not posting for awhile but I have had considerable computer problems for the last week plus and am still getting trying to get things working again. Last Friday October 16 we had another great baptism in Reykjavík. Eyþor Franzson Wechner was baptized. We have known him since early this year and he has been very active in the YSA program including being one of the Family Home Evening leaders and he also plays the organ in Church. One of our first experiences with him was at his school recital at the state church. It was wonderful to be able to be at his baptism. The man who baptized him joined the Church last November and is such a strength to the Church in Iceland (that is another story).

Religious Freedom

I just read the transcript of Elder Dallin H. Oaks speech given at BYU-Idaho on 13 October 2009. I recommend it to everyone as it provides both a perspective of what is happening to our freedom and what each of us must do to protect it. Click on the title of this post to go to the transcript.

Interesting Food

One of the fun parts of being on a mission is the chance to try different foods or in some cases the need to try something different. Iceland has been no exception. We have both enjoyed the food here way too much. Leg of lamb is definitely at the top of both our lists. I have also added many delicious fish entrees. Now it may seem odd we are also learning to like food from India, but there are more food selections from India here than we have ever seen before. Tonight we had a Spinach with Cottage Cheese and Sauce (basically soup) that came in a foil pouch. We just had to immerse the foil pouch in boiling water. It sounded good but out of the pouch it did not look so good - we both laughed as we both thought at the same time it looked like a new born's diaper. It wasn't bad but a little too much garlic. But then we looked at the package and saw the best before date was July 2009 and we just bought it today, maybe that caused the garlic to be too strong. We will continue to try and hopefully enjoy the great foods of the world.