Ein sérstök bæn (One special prayer)

I got an email recently from one of the former missionaries who had served in Iceland from 1976 to 1978. His name is Rob Mikkelsen. This is a mission picture of him (he's the one on the left). This is one that is quite a bit more recent.

Rob happened to be in Iceland when the land was dedicated for the preaching of the gospel back in 1977. Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, who was the European Area Supervisor at the time, was the general authority from the Seventy to come and dedicate the land. The dedication took place on September 18, 1977. Rob wasn't in the city at the time. He had recently been transfered to Akureyri up in the north so he didn't take part. But he remembered hearing about it and later getting a copy of the typed-up dedicatory prayer which is in the mission archives. The follow is the text of the dedicatory prayer that day that he sent me:

"Our Beloved Heavenly Father:

"We are assembled here on this holy spot of ground, having been assigned by the First Presidency, to dedicate this beautiful land of Iceland for the preaching of the Gospel and the establishment of Thy Church and Kingdom on this far north island. We are grateful unto Thee, Heavenly Father, that a large group could be here on this occasion and that we have the opportunity to offer our supplications unto Thee. The view from this hillside is breathtaking with the beautiful city of Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland and also the glacier-covered Esche mountains eastwardly. The Atlantic ocean lies to the west and north.

"Dear Father, we are grateful to Thee for the faith of this people and especially for those who embraced the Gospel one hundred and twenty-five years ago and made the long journey to the Rocky Mountains. The descendants of those noble pioneers are now returning to this land to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

"We are thankful for the freedom of worship extended to us and the friendship of the newspapers, radio, and television. They seem to recognize something special regarding the church.

"Dear Heavenly Father, we give thanks unto Thee for the advancement of Thy work throughout the world. Thy gospel will bring peace, happiness, and salvation to all mankind.

"Under the direction of the First Presidency of Thy Church and in the authority of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood which is in me vested, I dedicate the land of Iceland for the preaching of the Gospel and for the establishment of Thy Church and Kingdom on this land. I bless this people that there may be many wonderful sons and daughters of Thee who will recognize the truth and embrace the Gospel. I invoke a blessing upon the members of Thy church here that they may keep the commandments, that they may serve Thee, that they will magnify their respective callings in Thy church. May they follow the words of the Saviour found in the Book of John: 'There is no greater joy than to see my children walk in truth.' We pray that the grandchildren and great-grandchildren will keep the commandments and build up Thy Kingdom. May the members of the Church receive their patriarchal blessings. May they be endowed in Thy holy temples. We pray that this people will perform much research in genealogy work, and may this research be so successful that all of their families will be reunited at the proper time.

"Bless the non-members that dwell in this land. May they be receptive to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. May they be friendly to our missionaries and members as well.

"I invoke Thy blessings upon the government. Through the principles of the Gospel may they be inspired so that peace may always prevail in this land.

"We pray for all of those who direct Thy work here, President Roger L. Hansen and President Byron T. Geslison. Both are noble men who have labored diligently to move Thy work at this time. Bless all of those who follow them that they may be also inspired to direct Thy work effectively so that many will join the church.

"We are thankful for Thy prophets, those spoken of in the Old Testament: Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Jeremiah, and others. We are thankful for Thy apostles who lived at the time of the Saviour. We are thankful for the prophet Joseph Smith through whom the Gospel was restored. We are grateful for all of the great and noble prophets who have followed Joseph Smith.

"We recognize in President Spencer W. Kimball as being one of the greatest of all of our leaders and pray that Thou will bless and sustain him with health and strength. Bless his counselors, President Nathan Eldon Tanner and President Marion G. Romney. Bless the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Magnify them as they travel throughout the world as special witnesses. We are most grateful for the atoning sacrifice of Thy son, Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind. We are indebted to Him for all that we have and all that we are.

"Heavenly Father, we are thankful for Thy Kingdom which has been established here upon the earth. We express gratitude for Thy Priesthood which has been restored to us. May we honor it by living righteously. We are mindful of all of the auxiliaries of the church--the Sunday School, Primary, Relief Society, and Mutual.

"I invoke Thy blessings of this day on this beautiful land which is a land of beautiful lakes and tall mountains covered with eternal glaciers. Wilt Thou bless it abundantly. May it produce the necessities of life for this people.

"The inspired words of Thy prophet Alma are indicative as to how we should live and the paths we should take. He declared:

'And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle: easy to be entreated: full of patience and longsuffering: being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times: asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal: always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive.

'And now, may the peace of God rest upon you, and upon your houses and lands, and upon your flocks and herds, and all that you possess, your women and your children, according to your faith and good works, from this time forth and forever,' Alma 7:23, 27.

"May we long remember this holy day. May we magnify our callings in Thy Kingdom so that the land of Iceland will be one of the strongholds of Thy Church, we pray in the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, amen."

Snjór á Íslandi eða í Utah? (Snow in Iceland or Utah?)

I guess it is not too difficult to guess where these snowy shots were taken this week since I wasn't in Iceland. It should also be easy to guess where they were taken because trees like this don't grow in Iceland. We did have a freak April snow storm in Utah a few days ago that really was bizarre. Now, two days later, all the snow has melted and the grass is greening up and the trees are all blossoming. Old man winter has no real power in April, even when he works really hard like he did this one night.

I was really glad to have had my camera with me this morning. This is what I saw as I walked through my backyard and to the busstop to get to work at about 8:30am on April 16, 2009.

Blanda og Para (Mix and match)

Imagine arriving at the MTC and going to your first day of classes as a new missionary called to Iceland. You get to your classroom with your companion and find out that it will just be the two of you with the teacher. In the classroom next to yours is a rowdy bunch (comparatively) of 14 missionaries, some of them sisters, all going to Denmark officially (you got your call to Denmark but likely will never see it). This is how it was/is for most called to Iceland and then arrive at the MTC since the early days.

Because there were always so few who were called to go to Iceland, there were bound to be some problems with keeping an even number of missionaries in the country. What if someone got really sick and had to go home? It has happened. What if someone chose not to stay on their mission for the full two years? It has happened. Having five or seven missionaries in Iceland is not a good thing.

From the early days in the 1970's this was an occasional problem. The mission presidents in Denmark began to send over a Danish missionary who would be going home before too long to even things up. These were apparently strong missionaries who were willing to spend a few months in Iceland at the end of their missions where they understood almost nothing of the Icelandic they were hearing.

One of the first to do this for the work in Iceland was a missionary named Grant Grow. He left Denmark 29 years ago this month to spend an extra six months at the end of his mission in Iceland. Orell Anderson was a missionary at the time in Iceland and would have had to go home early had not Grant agreed to extend his mission six months. There were nine missionaries at the time in Iceland and he made it an even ten. Not so bad to be able to spend an extra six months on your mission in Iceland during the spring and summer there. A beauty incomparable.
This is a picture of Grant with his wife, Monique, and their two youngest kids. Grant spent a good part of his career as a Master Gardener. He owned an orchid-growing business for many years but is now retired. Thanks to some of these great and willing Danish missionaries like Grant Grow, the work in Iceland was and is able to run smoothly. Takk fyrir, Grant!

Bræður okkar í Kanada (Our brothers in Canada)

Only six of the 166 LDS missionaries who have ever served in Iceland were called from outside the United States. Four of these missionaries were from Canada, one from Denmark and one from England. These six make up 3.6% of the total who ever served there.

The first of the six was called from Canada in 1976, just a year after the mission opened. His name is Mike Little. He was about the 13th or 14th missionary ever called to serve in Iceland. I was able to track him down about three years ago and add him to our contact list of RM's who had served in Iceland. When we were preparing for our first ever missionary reunion in April 2007, he wanted to come but was kept in Canada because his oldest daughter was having their first grandchild. Mike's grandmother was full Icelandic and his mother understood Icelandic fully, though she didn't speak it really. Mike didn't learn Icelandic till he went on his mission. A picture of Mike and his wife, Jeanette, from a few years back.

The second missionary called from outside the U.S. was Peter Kristján Nordal. I don't remember what province he was from, but he too had Icelandic blood. Peter served just before me starting his mission in 1983. He is one of 18 or so of the 166 who I have not been able to track down since I started looking for all the missionaries three years ago. Some say he was from Ontario, but I can't seem to find him. Any ideas?

The third called from outside the U.S. was Tim Jensen. Tim is from Denmark. He and his wife Karen and their daughters live in Bagsværd, Denmark, which is a suburb of Copenhagen. Tim and his family were on the cover of the Ensign a few years back. What a surprise when I saw that out of the blue. He was a great companion of mine back in 1985 in Keflavík. Tim and I were together as companions when we heard that President Kimball had died. Tim worked for Intel for a good number of years but now works for another IT company whose name I can't remember. Tim is in a stake presidency in the Copenhagen area and was the bishop of the ward where the Danish temple is located before being put into the stake presidency. I was able to visit Denmark a few years ago and he took us around Copenhagen and we saw the sites. Wonderful.

The forth called from outside the U.S. was Andre Geurts in 1992. I've gotten to know Andre just a little from his Facebook page. A few years ago he was working as a cement plant manager in Calgary. He may still be. He has a Harley and loves to spend time with it second only to spending time with his wife and daughters.

Ryan Daniels was the fifth called from outside the U.S. in 1996. He is from Medicine Hat, Alberta and works as an engineer, I believe. Don't know too much about him, other than he and his wife have a few kids.

The final called from outside the U.S. was Jordan Balla from England who started his mission in 2004. He was married in the last year or so and did a math degree at the University of Durham in England. Don't know what he is doing for work right now but he has tons of pictures on his Facebook page to clue you in.

From all corners of the earth missionaries come to serve. To all corners of the earth they go....

Frægar bækur og bókasafnið á Akureyri (Famous books and the library in Akureyri)

I spent the winter of 1985-86 in Akureyri in the north of Iceland as a missionary. I had two different companions during that winter, Joe Holt and Michael Miller. I don't recall who I was with at the time, but I remember going into the library there in Akureyri one day during that winter. I don't know if we were just trying to get warm or were looking for some icelandic books to read. We weren't looking for a computer to use for a minute since there was not such thing as email or the internet at that time.

I only remember two things about that visit to the Akureyri library that day. One was that I heard a mother say to her four-year-old child, "Út með þig!" which means, "Out with you!" She was holding a bunch of books and trying to herd her child out the door. The reason I remember it to this day is because the preposition "með" or "with" is almost always followed by a pronoun in the dative case, not the accusative like she had done (fascinating, I know). The other reason I remember that day in the library was because I found a copy of Oliver Twist in Icelandic. I remember wishing I had a copy of that book, but couldn't find one. It must have been out of print--or perhaps I was too preoccupied with my mission to really search for the book.

Many years ago, the Icelandic Reading Society and the city of Spanish Fork, Utah donated a large collection of books written in Icelandic to the BYU Harold B. Lee library. Most of them were a part of a collection that had been put together from the family libraries of Icelanders who had immigrated to Spanish Fork from Iceland between 1853 and 1914. As the original Icelandic immigrants would pass away and the surviving children didn't speak Icelandic, the books went unread and were eventually donated to this collection. In the end, Spanish Fork thought it best to donate the collection to BYU to be preserved and used by a wider audience of possible readers.

I look through the collection on occasion. I currently have three books from this collection checked out. One is a very worn copy of Oliver Twist, published in 1906, 103 years ago. It was translated from the English by Páll E. Ólason. I thought I'd never get to read it in Icelandic! The second book is Ben Hur. It was published in Winnipeg, Canada where a good many Icelanders immigrated during the heaviest immigration years in the late 1800's. It was published in 1909, 100 years ago and was translated by Jón Bjarnason. What a herculean task! The third book must have been much easier to translate into Icelandic. It was a collection of three Tarzan books by Edgar Rice Burroughs and published in 1923. Extremely fun reading. The stories are engaging enough that I am eager to keep working through the parts that I don't fully understand.

A curious fact: In 1930 one book per 12,497 persons was published in the U.S. In Iceland in the same year there was one book per 466 persons. I don't know what the current ratio is, but I heard often on my mission that this still held true.

So many books. So little time. So many Icelandic words I don't know!

Á vegamótum (At the crossroads)

I am really quite lucky. I have somehow ended up frequently being at the crossroads of things that happen in the Church in Iceland. I don't know how it has happened over the years.

The newly called young man who will be going to Iceland on his mission in May of this year came by my office again. Remember he is from California. He is coming to the Icelandic class we have on campus two of three days a week that we hold the class. He comes with a friend who is an RM already who served in a Spanish-speaking country. They are trying to catch as much as they can in the class. It's tough since it's a 202 class and the other students are quite a ways along. But it is fun to have them there. Well, when Eric dropped by my office last week, he came with a brother, Dale, his mother, Karen, and the friend he comes to the Icelandic class with, Brandon Cruz. We chatted about Iceland and the great future that is in store for him there.

I then went out to another blog that I am following of a family of Icelanders whose son, Matti, is on a mission just an hour north of me here in Utah. I saw a picture of a former missionary to Iceland who was having dinner with Matti and his companions. The former missionary in this picture is named Greg Larsen who is a dentist in the Salt Lake valley and served in Iceland a few years before me. It was fun to see them together in a picture. Matti's parents, Ólafur and Björg, are in the Reykjavík branch.

Right after seeing Matti's and Greg's picture, I opened up my emails and saw an email from a former missionary named Travis Hoban who I might have mentioned before. Travis is back in town in Provo and we have arranged to have him teach a 211R Icelandic class in the spring at BYU. a 221R class is a conversation class where the students in the class get together and just speak Icelandic on assigned--and sometimes unassigned--topics. Travis has been home for about 9 or 10 years. I am only allowed to teach one class fall and one winter because of my full time responsibilities in the International Admissions Office. So this is perfect for RM's and others who just want a chance to improve their Icelandic speaking abilities in a little more structured setting than they might be getting otherwise. It can be taken for credit or by audit, so perfect for anyone. So get signed up if you are in the area and want to improve your Iceland skills. This last picture is of Travis.

So many great people have taken and are taking part in the work in Iceland. :)

Undrun! (A surprise!)

Today is Monday. So at five minutes before 4pm I get all my Icelandic books together that I use to teach my Icelandic class at BYU and head over to the classroom. The class is held in the JKB, or the Jesse Knight Building, which used to be the Humanities building until the new Joseph F. Smith building took all the Humanities folks in. When I get to the classroom each day, there is at least one student already there and then the other two wander in. This is the ICLND 202 class and we are having lots of fun this semester putting everything they have learned up to this point into practice. Today we talked a lot about eating at restaurants and what words you would need to know to seem like an Icelandic pro, like "þjónn, ungfrú, flesk, sykur, reikningur, hrísgrjón, smjör" etc. It is a fun class and each of the three is learning a lot and getting better and better.

Once class was over today, I wiped down the white board as usual and then began to leave with the students. Right outside my door though a young man stopped me and said, "Professor Allred?" I said that I was he. He then introduced himself as Eric Ellsworth who had just received his mission call to serve in Iceland. I was really shocked! He is a current BYU student from California and had looked up the class online and found out where we were and dropped by to meet me. The three students were jealous that he'll be getting to go to Iceland in July after being in the MTC for two months. He will be replacing Elder Soelberg who goes home by himself so Elder Ellsworth will go to replace him by himself. Kind of a bum deal in the MTC not having a companion to speak your language to though.

I had Eric come over to my office in the next building and printed a picture of all the elders who are there now and labeled them for him. He recognized President Olauson in the picture which I was impressed with. He is very excited to go to Iceland. He is just beginning to learn about one of the most interesting places on earth. He wants to begin studying the language now, so I suggested he come to the Icelandic class if he could. He will be free to come on Mondays and Fridays, so he'll come then.

I snapped a picture of him before he left. Welcome to the family Eiríkur! There's no going back now!

Af tilviljun? (By chance?)

My blog entries from yesterday were made late in the afternoon while I was at my office trying to catch up on some things on a Saturday afternoon. I almost couldn't get to my office with all the cars in the area trying to park and hurry into the Marriott Center to watch the BYU vs. Utah basketball game. I was there for a few hours and then rushed out of my office heading to where my car was parked. I had to walk through the Tanner building where all the business classes are taught. I followed a young man and a woman out of the building and noticed as I was passing them that the man looked familiar. I took a second look, and sure enough, it was Kris Richardson who had served his mission in Iceland back in 2004. I said, "Kris, is that you?" and sure enough it was. The girl left and we stopped and talked for about 15 minutes. He finished his degree at BYU recently and is preparing for law school in Arizona before too long. Kris and I had met back in 2004 when I was on my first trip to Iceland since my mission and he was there in the middle of his. He came to our mission reunion in 2007 (the first picture here) and two years later I run into him in the parking lot on a Saturday at BYU. Strange coincidence. Some RMs don't like to speak Icelandic with other RMs, but he seemed to enjoy it. I like that.

Til að geta beygt eitt einasta íslenskt orð sem til er! (To be able to decline and conjugate every single Icelandic word that exists!)

Since I am not a native speaker of the Icelandic language I am often looking for sources online that can help me decline a noun or conjugate a verb that I am unfamiliar with when I can't figure out how to do so in my dictionaries. In the Icelandic class I am teaching at BYU right now, I have three students. I was grading one of their writing assignments not too long ago and came upon a website while doing so that was the answer to this problem. The website was designed specifically for Icelanders and has no English. But it is also a really powerful tool for those of us who are non-natives who also want to learn the language correctly. All you do is type in the word and it will show you EVERY SINGLE way the word could be declined or conjugated in EVERY SINGLE language situation. I couldn't believe I had finally found a site that I could go to for EVERY SINGLE Icelandic inflection question and the answers would be there.

Well, the site is: http://bin.arnastofnun.is/. No more dead ends or frustration about not knowing for sure how to correctly change a word when I wanted to use it. The site does NOT help with phrases or colloquialisms, but that is small potatoes when you consider what it DOES help with. Thank you to the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies which has developed the online reference for the rest of us. (A missionary from the late 70's or early 80's sent me this picture of early Icelandic training in the MTC. lol)

Nokkrar heimsóknir (Some visits)

Yeah, long time. I know. I've been a busy beaver keeping the wolf away from the door, as my grandpa Best used to always say. But I've had a few visitors come to my office in the last few weeks. The first happened to be right before Christmas on the 23rd of December. Lee and Marti Wohlgemuth had just come home from serving a Senior mission in Iceland a few weeks before to their home in the Ogden area. They had told me that they wanted to come down to Provo sometime and to see me and a few other friends. The first time they tried to come it was snowing too much so they made it down on the 23rd instead. It was snowing that day too, but they came anyway and made it withough too much trouble. This is the photo of them and me that day.

They had to come home from Iceland a few weeks early because of some heart trouble that Elder Wohlgemuth was having, but he seems to be doing better now. Good hard-working folks who I look up to.

Two months later I was in my office again and a colleague called me on the phone and said he had a friend of mine in his office. I turned out that it was Curt Hutchings who was one of my teachers in the MTC back in 1984. He had come up from his home in southern Utah in Ivins with his recently returned missionary son to get him back into BYU after having deferred for his mission. My colleague friend brought the two of them to may office and we had a great time catching up. It is amazing to me how little a deep friendship changes in twenty-five years when the friendship was created during an LDS mission. We've both cashed in a bit of youth to raise great kids, but other than that....

Ofsóknir hinna Heilögu (Persecution of the Saints)

In 1902 a book was published by Prentsmiðja Þjóðólfs called (in English) "A Call to the Kingdom of God". It was written by an Icelander by the name of Jón Jóhannesson, one of the original 20 or so Icelanders who had joined the Church, emigrated to Utah and then returned to their homeland to serve a mission. Jón had a considerable command of the history of Christianity and spends a great deal of time reviewing this history. The following is a quote from his book which I have translated from the Icelandic. He used this book, along with the Book of Mormon, to preach the gospel during his mission. How he would have loved to have an Icelandic Book of Mormon in his day! He said:

"We read also in Matthew 24th ch. 9th - 13th v., where Christ was continuing to warn his disciples concerning these false prophets, and tell them about the afflictions they would experience, he told them that they would be sold into bondage and have their lives taken, and all nations would hate them for his name’s sake, and how clearly we find this prophecy is fulfilled, that they were faithful through persecutions, they were captured and taken bound into dungeons, and within about 32 years after the Savior’s ascension, the first major laws of persecution were put in place against them: they were driven, afflicted, tormented, and in the end all were killed within 100 years of Christ’s birth, except John the revelator, who was exiled to the isle of Patmos, from 93-96 A.D."

Jón goes on to tell how each of the Apostles were killed, each faithful even unto death.

We who have served in Iceland more recently sometimes forget or know little about those who served as missionaries before us there from the 1850's to right before WWI. I'll add a few quotes from his book from time to time. These paragraphs provide an interesting perspective about the teachings in those days which contributed to many baptisms and a great deal of emigration.

Many have gone before.

Hugleiðingar (Reflections)

No matter who we are, God at times gives each of us the opportunity to show whether or not we are capable of real humility. For those of us who are attempting to align our will with God's, it can seem that He gives us these opportunities most often while we are in full view of our painfully obvious faults--faults which are like our shadows on a sunny day--always there and more apparent when the light of God is on us.

In Luke 22:24-27 in the New Testament the apostles were having a "strife among them, [wondering] which of them should be accounted the greatest." I would honestly like to understand how a conversation like that could even have started in the presence of the Son of God, but it did. Jesus then taught a lesson. "but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve...I am among you as he that serveth."

Peter, in his desire to demonstrate his faithfulness in spite of the possibility of prison and death, said he would follow Jesus through anything. Then the chance for real humility came. Jesus told him he would deny him three times before the next day came. I am confident that Peter could not imagine denying the Lord once, let alone three times. He was one of Jesus' favorites, his "rock". One who Satan desired to have so he could lead the children of men astray.

But then Peter really did deny knowing the Lord; he did so three times out of fear and then the "cock crew. And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord...And [he] went out, and wept bitterly."

Since we have each done things of which we are not proud, imagine Peter's feelings as he left the presence of the Lord and wept bitterly. The guilt and feelings of "worthlessness" must have been intense. Peter knew that Jesus was the Son of God, but there he was, having denied even knowing the Lord three separate times.

But Jesus knew Peter's heart and the man that he could become. On the sea shore after his resurrection he asked him a pivotal question: "lovest thou me more than these?" If so he said, "Feed my sheep." That the Lord repeated it three times caused Peter to be grieved and offered him another chance to demonstrate real humility. "I give unto men weakness that they may be humble." If we are humble he will "make weak things become strong unto [us]."

Peter then becomes one of the most noble and faith-filled disciples of all. He took full advantage of the opportunities to learn from those terribly humbling and painful experiences. Weak things became strong. "Then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God;"

I know exactly where I am weak. If each of us accepts that we are weak in some areas and then turns to the true source for strength, we can refine ourselves. This refinement will make us better prepared and aware of how to build the kingdom. Our understanding will deepen. Our joy will increase.

So let's embrace the awareness of our weakness and let the real humility teach us.

Josep í Egyptalandi (Joseph in Egypt)

I was recently rereading the story in the Old Testament of Joseph who was sold into Egypt (you know, Joseph Isaacsson). I'm sure you remember the story. Joseph's dad loved him best of his many brothers; His dad gave him the coat of many colors; He had dreams that made his brothers really mad, etc. The part of the story that I was fixating on recently though was the part where his brothers wanted to kill him. One of them said no, let's just put him in this pit. They eventually saw the caravan coming and decided to sell their brother into slavery instead of killing him. Ultimately this puts Joseph in the right place to save his family and everyone else from starving to death during the famine.

I got to thinking about how the situation for the Icelanders (and most other countries in the world right now) is kind of similar. A number of people in the "family" of the Icelanders were only thinking of themselves which then caused a huge problem for another part of the family. But the family members who were strong morally and ethically weathered the very painful and difficult period of time that was thrust upon them, and in the end, those good folks were put into a position to take care of the rest.

A lot of good folks have been thrown into the pit and are just now being sold into captivity. But there are a LOT of moral and ethical people in Iceland who are even now coming together with their insights and wisdom to provide a solution. After a period of time, where the pain will be very real and intense, those good people will bring everyone through it. They will be looked up to for leadership in the future because of their integrity and will bring Iceland forward with important lessons learned. All of this can, of course, be applied to the U.S. as well.

All of us go through really hard times sooner or later. It's how we decide to respond to these hard times that makes all the difference. Are we going to keep on doing the types of things that get us in trouble? Or are we going to hold to our morals and be part of the solution?

Tími minn á Akureyri (My time in Akureyri)

During the winter of 85-86 I moved out of Reykjavík for one of the few times during my mission and went up to Akureyri in the north in Eyjafjörður. I was doing some translating for a family here in Orem this week who have Icelandic ancestry. A good number of the Icelanders in their line lived in Eyjafjörður. I didn't know which fjord that was so I googled it to get a better idea of where these people had lived. It was only then that I realized that Eyjafjörður was the fjord where Akureyri was and where I have lived during that winter in the eighties. A lot of the really well-known Icelanders of history lived in the towns in that fjord, like Nikulás Þormóðsson, Björn Einarsson, Einar Eyólfsson, Eyólfur Einarsson, etc. This Eyólfur created quite a name there through the years, even as far back as in 1300. Just thought I drop in a few pictures from my mission when I was there and some more recent photos that I found on the internet today. Gerið svo vel!

Recent.

Recent.

Mission.

Mission.
Mission

Ennþá á lífi! (Still Alive!)

Wow, September 8th seems like a long time ago (since my last post). Once BYU was back in session and I started teaching the Icelandic 201 course on campus, my life was no longer my own.

I did take a break though recently at the end of a long week on a Friday night and went over to the MTC at the request of another RM who served in Iceland and is one of the Icelandic missionary instructors there right now. Craig Holdaway is his name. He asked me to come over to help out the Senior Couple who was there for just a few days by acting as an investigator and going through scenarios with them. Their names are Rick & Eileen Bremner. They apparently were only going to be in the MTC for a few days as opposed to being there for two months like the seniors I taught back in the late 80's. Good folks, these, and eager to serve. They served a mission in Romania before getting this call to Iceland and were just happy to head out and do their best. During my discussion with them I discovered that they knew one of my student employees at BYU, Henry Bartholomew. He served in the mission office in Romania while they were there and they know each other well. What a small world.

I hope all of the Icelanders are hanging in there with the bank problems there and all over the world. You'll make it through. We are all praying for you (and ourselves a bit too). And if you want a little help with your personal or family finances, Ólafur & Björg in Iceland have set up a financial and debt counseling website that you might want to check out. It is at http://www.financialdebthelptips.com/. Let me know what you think and I will forward the comments on to them.

Bókstafir, Orð, Setningar, Málsgreinar (Letters, Words, Sentences, Paragraphs)

In the MTC I remember getting two little cards from one of my teachers which had all the special rules on them for remembering the right way to decline and conjugate all the words in Icelandic. I kept those two little cards in my scriptures, my bible within a Bible. I looked at them every day for two years and they helped me simplify what seemed in the beginning beyond my abilities. What had at first seemed to be a unique form of "chaos" before long became a beautiful type of "order" which I had in no way comprehended in the beginning. I remember to this day looking at my nametag in the MTC upon arrival and thinking, "If I can ever learn to read, pronounce and understand these seven words, I will be amazed at myself!"

Well, I did learn how to read, pronounce and understand those seven words, and since then have learned about seven or eight more.

Today was my third day of teaching Icelandic at BYU. It is the third class of four--the 201 class. I had been stressing about teaching the first few classes since it was my first time ever teaching instead of just doing my regular job as an administrator. There are three regular students and three who are auditing the class. It looks to me now that I just might enjoy teaching. This is one of the things we were learning/reviewing today:

Nefnifall – Ég er nemandi.
Þolfall - Ég er að tala um nemanda.
Þágufall - Ég er að fara í burtu frá nemanda.
Eignarfall - Ég er að fara til nemanda.
Hann er að tala um mig.
Hún er að fara frá mér.
Það er að koma til mín.

I never learned the "case names" in Icelandic the whole time I was out. It wasn't necessary as a missionary. But now I know them. Nefnifall, Þolfall, Þágufall and Eignarfall. My little cards also had key prepositions on them. Um, frá and til. The nouns that followed always took the same case and therefore were used as key prepositions to help us remember how to decline nouns, pronouns and adjectives. Within all that chaos I soon discovered an order that really was enticing. I was drawn into the language and it's depths where I have been happy to stay and reach. I still have much to learn about Icelandic, but I am happy to have been adopted by the language and it's people.

Ógnartími (Terror Time)

In exactly six days I will begin teaching Icelandic 201 at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. I got offered the job five or six months ago when the current teacher, Friðrik Guðmundsson, told the department that he would be graduating and leaving BYU. He recommended me, so that was that. I was already working full-time at BYU and will do this as an evening class (for extra pay), even though it starts at 4pm on MWF and goes till 5:20pm.

To put it mildly, the TERROR HAS BEGUN! I never knew how demanding putting together a course like this was and how many things the teacher was required to think about and prepare. Setting up the syllabus alone was a nightmare, only made easier because Friðrik gave me the framework so I didn't have to start from scratch. I went to teacher orientation and training today, most of which was spent with the four other student instructors who will be teaching Norwegian, Danish and Swedish. The outgoing Swedish teacher is a native, the newly hired one for winter is an RM. The other two teachers who will teach Danish and Norwegian were RMs as well.

We did part of our training together with the French Department since they have so many more students in those classes each semester. I felt uniquely important and yet insignificant in that part of the training. There were 15 French teachers in the room and one lone Icelandic teacher who was experiencing the increasing terror over the minutes and then hours. The Frenchies all use the same textbook with modern pictures, examples and curriculum. For ICLND 201, I have a book that was printed originally in 1949 which has been reprinted several times, but never updated with more appropriate translation exercises or lesson materials. 101 and 102 have a newer text written by four women professors at the University of Iceland, but these students have already gone through all that material. I felt like Cosette in Les Miserables, when she was little and her mother had died and before Jean came and rescued her. Hand-me-down clothes (books) with most all the faces in the room facing conspicuously in a different direction.

I did feel better that there were more 201 students signed up for Icelandic (seven) than for Swedish (five). Hopefully I can keep at least four or five of them for 201 and then into 202.

Friðrik did say that the terror for him did go away after a month or so (oh, great!) but he never went to class feeling completely at ease since it is a big responsibility to teach a class like this at a university level. My wife starts her first semester of her Master's degree program this semester too, so we won't be busy at all....What option do I have but to prepare as well as I can and show the students the passion that I have for Iceland and it's beautiful language?

Sigur eða ósigur? (Victory or Defeat?)

A friend of mine, Þorbergur Sigurjónsson (pictured at left with his daughter), came to visit me today in my office at BYU. He lives in Utah with his American wife, Amy, and their three daughters, the most recent of whom was just born two months or so ago (this picture is a little older. Jóhannes his brother is also in the picture). He is getting back into BYU to finish up his computer science degree. He took a few semesters off while he was working heavily but now wants to finish up.

Þorbergur always speaks Icelandic to me when he visits or calls (which I really appreciate). Since I had been so involved with the Icelandic Men's Handball team games during the Olympics recently, I asked him what his family back in Iceland and everyone else thought about the team making it to the gold-medal game. He said everyone in the whole country stopped everything to watch the game and cheer on the boys. He said even the Icelandic stock market closed--probably since no one would be trading or paying attention to their stocks during that time anyway. What a great thing to have your whole country behind you as you defeat one opponent after another.

Everyone was heartbroken when the team didn't beat France, but in the end, how could the Icelanders not be happy with the team's performance. They only lost to South Korea early on (a fluke) and to France finally. So in the end, winning the silver is really a "glass is half full" kind of thing instead of the opposite. The head coach Guðmundur Guðmundsson and the team did so well that winning the silver was as exciting as winning the gold for such a small country. And they were a blast to watch. Way to go guys!

Ólympíuleikar og handbolti (The Olympic Games and Handball)

I'm sure my old missionary friend who I taught in the MTC was just being polite by sending around the email, but now I think I'm hooked. I haven't seen a full hour-long game of European style handball since I was a missionary 23 years ago. And even back then, we never saw a full game of handball since we didn't watch TV or go to sporting events.

I got an email on Wednesday last week (Aug 13th) from Eric Tuttle who served a mission in Iceland from 1987-1989. He is an architect in Salt Lake City now and has a website for his business at etuttle.net. The email was sent to me and a bunch of other RM's who served in Iceland. The gist of the email was that the Icelandic mens handball team had just beaten the world champions (their second game and second win) and that if we were interested, we could watch a replay of the match at http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/share.html?videoid=1118451. Well, I watched the match against the Germans, then went back and watched the first game they played against the Russians where they beat them too. Well, once I had watched those two games I really was hooked. So this is the standing for the mens handball team from Iceland:

Russia vs. Iceland = 31-33

Germany vs. Iceland = 29-33

South Korea vs. Iceland = 22-21

Denmark vs. Iceland = 32-32 (both teams advance)

Egypt vs. Iceland = 32-32 (Egypt had to beat Iceland to advance and didn't)

Poland vs. Iceland = scheduled

The game between Poland and Iceland will be played at 12:15am Wednesday morning (tomorrow). If you are reading this late, you already know the score. We hope Iceland can go all the way. You can hear their coach calling the whole game from the sidelines saying, "strákar!" which is the word for "boys."

Fun to watch, but since it is not a sport played in the U.S., hard to watch in the U.S. unless you get all the cable channels. "Áfram, strákar!"

Nokkrar Staðreyndir (A Few Facts)

In size, Iceland claims about 40,000 square miles of land. In comparison, that is less that half the size of Utah which claims almost 85,000 square miles of land. Iceland can only boast one land mammal, the Arctic Fox. Six different seal species have been seen around the island, but only the common seal and the grey seal breed all around the country. Twenty-three individual species of whales have been seen in Icelandic waters.

A number of Irish monks wrote of a land called Thule in the 8th and 9th centuries, before Norsemen came to permanently inhabit it. Ari Þorgilsson the Learned, Iceland’s first historian, said that the Irish monks who first were in the land went away eventually because they did not want to live with heathans.

The Faroe Island were discovered and settled before Iceland. Since the Norseman of that day had no compass to sail by, it is not suprising that eventually someone would miss the Faroes when traveling from Norway and then arrive at Iceland. Both versions of Landnámabók or The Book of Settlements agree that the name Iceland came from a disappointed Norwegian named Flóki who made the first attempt to settle the island but lost all his livestock during a very hard winter. Both versions also agree that Iceland was discovered and settled by Norsemen in consequence of their insatiable lust for travel among the Scandinavians during the Viking Age.

Ingólfur Arnarson is named in the Book of Settlements as the first to leave for Iceland and set up a permanent settlement there. He did so in what is now called Reykjavík, the capital. Ari states that Iceland was settled first in 870 A.D. whereas the Book of Settlements states that it was settled first in 874. Recent studies of the Greenland ice cap have settled the matter that Iceland was likely settled just a few years previous to these dates. Icelandic settlement scholars mostly agree that the original number of settlers was around 10,000.

The most common reason for leaving Norway at that time was the aggressive nature of the Norwegian King, Harald Fairhair. Harald inherited a kingdom in eastern Norway but moved to unite all Norway under his rule. He did so with a firm hand and once accomplished, many of the lesser nobles left Norway out of self-preservation and not wanting to be subject to the whims of the new king of all of Norway. Those who had opposed his attempts at taking over all of Norway were then "black listed" in essence and could not be assured of their safety. Egill's Saga is one of the best of the sagas which discusses this tumultuous time in Norway and the lives and events leading these noblemen to Iceland, away from the tempermental King Harald.