We Eat Whale For Thanksgiving, Right?

Whale, homemade rolls, mashed potatoes, veggies, and some julebrus (Christmas soda)

November 28, 2016

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone,

Us with our Thanksgiving

This week was packed full of delicious food and great company. On Thursday, Thanksgiving, Elder Dawes and I made up a pretty simple, but great dinner! It was a bit of a flashback to last year's Thanksgiving. Whale, mashed potatoes, and some good vegetables.

Me with my food

Hmmm... how can I explain what whale tastes like? Hmmm... Well whale doesn't really taste like beef, or chicken. I've heard it tastes like seal. But I don't know. I haven't tried seal yet. I guess I would say whale tastes like a mix of fish and beef. Yes, more like fishy beef.

The next day, Friday, we had a Branch Thanksgiving dinner. A nice potluck with turkey, stuffing, potatoes, vegetables, etc. It was great. Maybe one day I can cook as good of food as the food that I've eaten while in here.

The Narvik missionaries came down to Bodø for splits this week too. Elders Arnold and Mckell came and visited. It was great having them over.

Elder Dawes and I with our winter coats and shorts

It's been raining/snowing/hailing/freezing the slush since Thanksgiving. So the street has gotten REALLY slick. We were walking down the sidewalk and we hit a pretty smooth spot, and I look to my side, and before I know it, Elder Dawes' feet slipped out from underneath him and he hit the ground. Well, to say the least, the first fall of the year! I guess we'll see who falls next!

The city's tree

Yesterday was the first Sunday in Advent. Advent marks the beginning of the Christmas season here. In Norway, they have a pretty fun tradition each Sunday of Advent. They light a candle each Sunday of Advent and sing a short song each time.

By the way, you should all check out mormon.org and look at the Light the World project. It's a series of little ideas we can do each day to help someone else. Christmas time is a great time for us to think of ways we can help those around us.

Well I hope you all have a wonderful week! Take care everyone!

Have a great week!

Sincerely,

Elder Mickelson

A "tree" of Christmas lights.

My First Thanksgiving In Norway!

Our Thanksgiving dinner

December 2, 2015

Dear Family & Friends,

My first Thanksgiving in Norway! Well Norwegians don't celebrate Thanksgiving... I guess that's for obvious reasons, but we still celebrated it ourselves. So sadly, we didn't have turkey this year for Thanksgiving. I found out that turkeys come in boxes, not wrapped in plastic. So I didn't know I could buy one until after the fact. But that's ok! We ended up cooking up some whale instead. So we had some whale, mashed potatoes, more vegetables, some white gravy (tastes really good on whale by the way), and some rolls (well boller, but it's almost the same thing. I think it has some cinnamon in it though). To top off our feast, we bought ourselves some ice cream. This will definitely be a memorable Thanksgiving.

I got to attend my first District Meeting in person in Tromsø this week! We flew out Monday evening to Tromsø and stayed the night for splits. It was so fun. We had family home evening therein Tromsø with the senior couple and the other missionaries. It was really great to be all together for that. We had District Meeting the next morning. It was about family history. So we got to learn how we could help others start their genealogy work. I was surprised by how simple it is to help someone start their family history! We spent the rest of that day on splits with the Tromsø Elders. It was a lot of fun. We got to contact a ton of people in the streets and go knock on some houses. It was a really great time and I learned a lot more of how I can better teach people.

Alta's Christmas Tree

I will find out on Sunday whether or not I'm staying in Alta. So it's exciting! We'll see soon where I'll be for Christmas!

This week the Church came out with a great Christmas video. I really enjoyed it. The website is christmas.mormon.org It was an awesome video though. Check it out! We've been sharing the website with a lot of people on the streets and it's been working great. Christmas is definitely a time to be with families and enjoy each other's company. It also is a great time for us to think about the Savior and why we even have Christmas.

Have a great week everybody!

Love,

Elder Mickelson