My Fun Adventures This Last Week Started On Monday

Elder Dawes and I by the bridge. The wind was like 20 mph 

(not an exaggeration) at the top when we went over.

Hey Everyone!

Me by the river of death, 

I mean Saltstraumen.

My fun adventures this last week started on Monday. If you were to look up on the internet the world's strongest whirlpool on the internet, you'd get what's called Saltstraumen. It's on the other side of the fjord from Bodø. So we took the bus out there to go. Getting dropped off right before the bridge, we started walking down towards the channel. So the water going through it shifts directions according to the tide, and it creates these giant whirlpools which can get to be like 10 meters in diameter. The water can get going like 25ish miles per hour roughly, Crazy giant whirlpools! Anyways, we went down, took some pictures, and then hiked over the bridge on to the other side, got more pictures, and then walked back. Much to our surprise, we actually managed to not have to walk home and got a bus coming headed back home.

The Bridge

Our toaster didn't work this week. So after fiddling with it for a bit (just trying to keep pushing the button down with toast inside) and realized that it was just the outlet. So I we then walked to a different outlet and it toasted just fine. It was then that we realized half of the lights/outlets in the house weren't working either. Off to the breaker box we went! So when I think of a breaker box, I imagine a box with switches inside. WRONG! Not ours! It's basically bunch of ceramic casings. And the guide on the side for which one went to each circuit was not very clear and hard to follow. I found out that unscrewing all of them and screwing them back in didn't actually work. Thanks any tech advisers ever. Unplugging it and plugging it back in didn't work. So later that night I was talking with the Branch President and found out that those ceramic things, had replaceable fuses in them, so we just had to find the popped fuse and luckily had some replacements there too. Thankfully, we had light that night.

We were out talking to people a few days ago and after talking to this guy for a bit, I realized that what he was saying didn't sound like Norwegian. Come to find out, he was visiting from Denmark. And despite the jokes of not being able to understand Danish, I actually managed to carry a conversation while knowing what he said back. That was quite the experience. Me speaking Norwegian. The other guy Danish. And following it all. Good conversation!

To end this week's email, I'd like to take a flashback to about a month and a half ago. Before Elder Dawes got here to Norway, and knowing he'd be coming here, I decided that while at the beginning of his mission, he should have a very Norwegian experience. And what a better way than food! So I decided to make him some stereotypical Norwegian food for his first week. Potatoes. Fiskekaker (fish cakes). And kjøttkaker (meat cakes). This is primarily what was common food back in the days when a lot of people were more poor. And that's mostly what we had. From that Wednesday until Sunday night, cereal for breakfast, and combinations of potatoes, meat cakes, and fish cakes for the other meals. Don't worry, it didn't taste bad, it just starts to wear on you after a few days. By Friday, Elder Dawes pulled out a cookbook from home (with great recipes by the way) suggesting we could have some of those maybe the next week or in the future or something. Then on Saturday, he asked if I usually bought the same food every week, and I said yes. Normally, I tend to buy the same food each week (just not that week). On Sunday, he asked the same question, same response. Well, when planning for what to buy the next day at the grocery store he started making a list. So I told him we'd need some oil, butter, cereal, milk, bread (the normal everyday stuff that you'd normally have in most places in the world). So he says, "And kjøttkaker (meat cakes) too?" I turned to him and said, "What if I told you we don't eat this normally?" He then looked really confused, and I continued and said, "This is Norway. We live in a first world country. We eat normal food here!" Needless to say, he wasn't happy with me for having us eat the same food over and over again (don't worry, there was gravy too so that was good). But despite being not pleased with me, he was still sooooooo relieved to not be eating that much again! We ate much better after that.

By the way! While walking past a café Saturday, they were playing the radio outside and all of a sudden we start hearing English. American commercials. They were playing an American radio station! I died laughing because I hadn't heard commercials for appliance stores in a long time. It was just funny having some commercial going for like Home Depot or something.

I hope you all have a great week! Take care!

Sincerely,

Elder Mickelson

“We can say we believe in Christ as we believe in the sun at noon day, not that we can see it, but that by it, we can see everything else”. -C.S. Lewis

Looking at Bodø from Saltstraumen's bridge

Big whirlpools 

Saltstraumen whirlpools plus mountains