Mission Conference was held all day Friday, the 20th, in Romerike - next to the city of Lillestrøm, where Kerry served for eight months back in 1967-68. Here are all of the missionaries who currently serve in Norway posing with President and Sister Johansen and Jose` Texeira of the Europe area presidency.
After a day's worth of meetings we took an hour or so before dinner for games. Kerry played activities director and did some pep rally stuff - clapping doo-dahs and team games.
Body spelling your team name.
Trivia contests for speed and accuracy
Part of the cookie brigade. We took 8 dozen cookies as part of our carry-on luggage that morning. The group of young men and women ate impressive numbers of cookies not to mention lunch and dinner.
Saturday evening was the first session of the all-Norway LDS Conference. Members from as far north as Alta and all the way south and west gathered to hear the big news.What we did on Saturday morning is the subject of a separate posting.
The Saturday evening meeting burst the seems of the Romerike meeting house. It is the largest chapel that the church has in Norway. Great speakers got us all pumped up about what was to happen on Sunday morning - the formation of a second stake in Norway. This is a big deal if you are LDS. Being in a stake (an independent regional grouping of wards) is a sign of growth and strength in all of the church units within that area.
On Sunday morning we dodged a few raindrops on our way across Young's Torget in downtown Oslo. We met in "Folkets Hus" in the labor union building on the other side of the cobblestones.
Our seats were about halfway back. By the time the meeting started there was standing room only. We estimated the attendance at around 2000.
Part of the meeting was in Norwegian and part in English with translators. When the dust settled we were a part of the new Drammen Norway Stake. It consists of some wards in the east such as Drammen, Skien, and Porsgrunn plus new wards created in the west and south - Bergen, Stavanger, Kristiansund. Also a number of branches such as Haugesund and Arendal round out the new stake. Oslo Stake picked up the Trondheim branch, which is soon to be a ward.
But the meetings were not over. We still had an "Institute Faculty inservice" to attend just across town a little way. As we started walking I realized that I knew that "El Dorado" theater. It was the Kino (movie theater) where we used to go in the 60's - when it was not against mission rules for missionaries to go to the movies. I swear I saw Cool Hand Luke there.
After a couple hours of inservice we set off on foot for the National Theatre. There are several train lines that run under the city including the express line to the airport. Our stop is a hundred feet or so under the theatre.
We were traveling with our friends, the Biesingers, who are the YSA Center couple in Trondheim. Here we are just down from the King's Palace at the head of Carl Johans Gate. I will post our trip to Bygdøy and the Viking ships in a couple of days.
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