Great Missionaries

Yesterday we had our first District Meeting with Elder Smith as our new Assistant to the President and with our two Danish missionaries. Elder Smith wisely used these two Elders to do training since both were Assistants to the President before coming to Iceland. They are both excellent trainers and helped their companions by having them do a good part of the training. It was great to see the synergy that took place between these great missionaries. We were all blessed to be in the training and learn from them. Sorry the picture is so poor - this new camera is either not so good or we don´t know how to use it.

Today we took the 2 Danish elders and their companions on the south coast trip. Since Sister Bremner and I had just taken Elder Smith and Elder Ellsworth on the same trip a couple of weeks ago they did not go this time - probably wanted to stay home and be dry. It rained most of the day and we got fairly wet but it was still a good trip as there are some wonderful sights along the south coast. Elder Smedley had a bad experience with the sands of the glaciers. He thought he could jump onto a rock in the river by the glacier only to find it disappear under him. Thus the picture with wet pant legs and jacket arms and the gloves on his feet to stay warm since his socks and shoes were water logged. The other pictures are taken at Dyrhólaey and the lighthouse and the cave at Reynisfjara.

The last of the August Birthdays

Who can tell me the next August birthday and this is the last for August? OH and Randy's isn't in August so it is the little guy's birthday in August.

#10 - that is the 10th photo in the file

I was tagged by my daughter-in-law, and this is it. The instructions are:

1. Open your first photo folder.
2. Scroll down to the tenth photo
3. Post that photo and story on your blog.
4. Tag five other people to it.

Interestingly the first photo folder did not have pictures in it. So instead I opened Picasa and looked the oldest folder which was under the year 1970. Now how that date got there I have no idea since we were not using Picasa at that time, but here is the 10th photo in that folder. I do not want to tell the story behind the picture because even more interesting is the fact that one of the people in this photo is the birthday person in the previous post. So it looks like the process was meant to be.

In keeping with two others who were tagged an posted their pictures, you're in luck. No one will be tagged here. Just do it if you want to. It was an interesting trip down memory lane. Plus I now wonder how my pictures are organized.

August - The Birthday Month

Can you guess who has the next birthday? It is only a few days away. Sorry for the quality of the picture - I only have access to what we have here in Iceland.

An Exciting First

Last Saturday we were teaching a great family in the Westman Islands. Teaching in the Westman's is difficult because we can not always get there on a set schedule. We want to go every month but sometime it might be two months before we can get back. It is not an ideal way to teach the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. So tonight the Elders came to our apartment and using Skype this beautiful family learned more about Jesus Christ and His Gospel plan. Better yet they are going to have another lesson on Saturday via Skype. When we arrived last Saturday they had a page of questions they had been collecting since our last visit and now they don't have to wait so long to discuss those questions. This was a first for us but maybe others have found other exciting ways to teach the Gospel to people who are too far away to teach on a regular basis.

Again I don't have a picture - why didn't I do a snapshot on Skype? So here are some more pictures of Iceland. Top one is our current Elders taken today on Preparation Day. We just had two Elders complete their missions and two Elders from Denmark came to help our Elders while we wait for our two replacement. The cloud pictures were taken about 9:30 PM a few days ago and the colors are true - no photo enhancements - that is what we saw too.

Fun Teaching the Gospel

We went to the Westman Islands Friday and Saturday to teach with the Elders. The Elders had 8 appointments but only 2 kept their appointments. One appointment was our only members on the island and it is always fun to visit with them and continue to teach. The other family is from Uganda. It is amazing how many people think of God as one who is going to severely punish those who do not follow Jesus Christ. When we told them everyone will have an opportunity to accept Jesus Christ and follow him even if it is after they die, they wanted to know if those who were bad people were going to burn in hell. We taught the resurection and judgement and how God is our loving Heavenly Father and is doing all he can to help us return to live with him and even those they thought should go to hell might have an opportunity for a better resurection. I am certainly grateful for the knowledge God wants us all to return to Him - Moses 1:39. We are looking forward to helping this family learn it to. Going to the Westman Islands is an expensive trip and as we move into Winter a very rough trip. We only go about once a month which makes teaching difficult as sometimes those we are teaching are not available when we can go. So in the case of this family we are going to experiment with using SKYPE to teach them. We have an appointment Wednesday evening with them on SKYPE.

I should remember to take pictures of the families we visit but as always I forget to do it. So instead here are some other pictures. The first is looking at Iceland from the ship - we live on the flat lands sort of between the two raised areas. Next is a shot of the area where early members of the Church were baptised - near our Elders. The shot from the air is when Amanda was here and we did the twin engine flight. The Puffins were taken when it was getting dark and my camera said 1/8 of a second so I was surprised they even turned out.

Another Birthday

Can you guess who's birthday is next? Well we don't have a young picture of the individual but here is a very close relative - child.

One Gorgeous Day

Today is Preparation Day and we wanted to show our Selfoss Elders (Elder Smith and Elder Ellsworth) the Puffins we saw back when Amanda was here. However since we can only take the Elders during the day we didn't see any except in the distance on the water where they are feeding. We saw them at about 10 PM with Amanda as they were probably trying to get some rest. But we had the most beautiful day we have ever had in Iceland. I wore a short sleeve shirt and it was very pleasant. We didn't even bring short sleeve shirts because we were told it would not get warm enough for short sleeve shirts. I was given a left over from EFY in Denmark and it was nice to have today. Enjoy some great pictures.

More Flowers

Today we decided to walk from one end of Selfoss to the other and since we live across the river from the center of Selfoss it makes for a nice walk. Our hope of course is to meet people but not many were out walking so instead Eileen got more pictures of flowers. Hope you enjoy as we sure find them beautiful. The first picture might give you an idea how expensive flowers are here considering this is about a 6 inch pot for approximately $20.00 even at our good exchange rate. But the price does not keep people from buying them as the yards are all very colorful. In case you are wondering the colors are all natural. I have not attempted to enhance or change the colors- they are even more intense in person.

Fun Young Men's Activity

Actually the pictures have nothing to do with the Young Men's activity but we didn't have camera so just thought I would add pictures of waterfalls coming out of the lava with no source for the water visible.

Tuesday I got a call about 2 PM from the YM’s President asking me to teach the YM about architecture that evening. Then a little while later he asked me to teach them how to build a bridge or tower out of straws or Popsicle sticks. I asked how many were coming and he said possibly 2. I headed to the stores to look for materials. After 3 stores I found masking tape and straws. I did a little demo on the strength of a square vs a triangle and then showed them the challenge to build a bridge between two tables to hold a bottle of spices. I put each YM with a missionary to accomplish the task. Sverir age 12 really had a grasp of the idea, drew a very good diagram and went to work. They ended up building something different but it worked and held the weight. I don't think the other team paid much attention to my demo as their design wouldn’t even hold itself up. It was a fun activity and I think they learned something new too.

The first counselor in our branch presidency who brought his son also brought me some rocks. On our Pioneer trek on Saturday I was picking up rocks and asked him where I could find some red pumice, so I think he wanted me to have some even more interesting rocks.