FEBRUARY FIRE AND FROST

February Fire and Frost

First part of February.....Temperatures are starting to drop.  We are, as of this entry, at 19 degrees at night with a daytime high in the mid-twenties.  Add in the wind-chill factor (and the wind blows here a lot), it is a wee bit nippy!!  We are at about 7 hours of daylight now!  It is nice to come home in the light instead of the dark.

Driving to church on Sunday we were blessed with this absolutely gorgeous sun rise!  Naturally, the pictures don't do it justice.  It looked like the sky was on fire!  Absolutely breathtaking!!!

The sunsets are not to be outdone!  

These were taken on our way home from work!  

We needed to be a wee bit higher to get an unobstructed view.

This one was taken looking out the back of our flat from our deck. 
This is the tail end of the sunset shown above.

Our work here in the National Archives is to scan the Icelandic records.  These  include parish registers, census records, court records, probate, etc. The records are captured digitally and then we send the images to Germany via a "shuttle" (external hard drive) and then Germany sends the images to SLC electronically.  This is the most economical way to do the process.  SLC reviews the images and, if necessary, will ask for rework to be done.  Well, we sent our first shuttle off two weeks ago and never heard anything from Germany.  I contacted our supervisor there and when he checked he found that the shuttle had never been received.

OF COURSE!  OUR FIRST SHUTTLE GETS LOST IN TRANSIT.

I called UPS here in Reykjavik and was told that everything was in proper order when it was sent.  I contacted Germany again and gave them a tracking number and they discovered that German customs had the shuttle and were holding it until an import tax was collected.  Well, these are used shuttles and are not taxed.  However, customs thought it was a new one and that would require an import tax.  Once everything was all explained, the shuttle was released to Family Search.

End of February.....We have sent out three shuttles and the work on all three was acceptable - so, no reworks.  We were happy to get the feedback.  We will now just proceed ahead forward and keep doing what we have been doing.  Sadly, the new scanner is still broken.  We have been told that the new part is here and we should have the scanner up and running by the end of this coming week.  No rush!  It has only been broken since November.

I would say that the highlight of this month was a Branch party celebrating an old Pagan holiday called Thorrablot.
Thorrablot is a midwinter festival and is celebrated from mid-January until mid-February.  The main part of the festival is the eating of traditional Icelandic foods.  The type of food that was eaten by the early Icelandic people.  They were fishermen and farmers and their food was the kind that they could store.  Potatoes, rutabagas, dried or pickled fish, etc.  the evening usually had entertainment and traditional Icelandic songs were sung.  Our little branch held the celebration early in February with all the traditional foods.       

Traditional food - from the top of the picture.....boiled lamb heads, lamb jaw bones,  mashed rutabagas, fermented shark, jellied lamb head meat, dried fish (you eat it with butter), and flat bread.  What you don't see is the pickled herring, herring in curry sauce, mashed potatoes and CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES (thanks to our Elder Shipp and Elder Bytheway).

Jaw bones of the lambs head.  This was my choice.  The teeth were still attached but, at least, no eyes were staring back at me.

Elder Andrew Bytheway (he is John Bytheway's oldest) entertaining us at the celebration.

Becca enjoying her food.

More jaw bones!

A closer look at the lamb heads.

When in Rome.....

I ate guinea pig in Peru, crocodile in Africa, haggis in Scotland and now.......lambs head in Iceland!

The meat was good - tasted like Chicken!!! 

After the party, we walked outside and was greeted by this beautiful display of Northern Lights.  It is so hard to catch the beauty of these lights with you mobile phone.  If you look closely, there is a band of lavender at the bottom.

We watched these lights all the way back to Reykjavik - about 45 minutes!

This Viking ship Sculpture sits at the water's edge in downtown Reykjavik.

Allan holding tax records - one huge and the other tiny.


We are taking images of books that go back into the 1700s.  This "spot" has been in this book for a couple of hundred years.  Can you guess what it is?


The archive buys this wonderful fruit a couple of times a week and is to be enjoyed by everyone!  This amount cost approximately $60.00 USD.

We keep tabs on the weather in all the places our family lives.  Today, we were the warmest of them all!  It has been in the high 40s and we have been getting a lot of rain.  All the snow and ice are gone for now.  We know that there have been major winter storms all over.  We pray you will all keep safe wherever you need to travel.

We had the opportunity to attend a baptism last week.  This is the first one we have attended since we have been here.  However, it was the 2nd in Iceland this year.  Our Icelandic missionaries, there are only 8 Elders in the country, are pretty amazing young men.

It was a blessing to be able to witness the baptism and see how the Gospel lights up the lives of people.  People who are open to the message the missionaries are bringing to them.  People who pray to know for themselves if what they have read and been told is true.  People who feel the Spirit whisper to them that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true.  People who have the desire to follow our Savior Jesus Christ and be baptised.

I feel so blessed - I have a wonderful family, great friends and good health. I have the opportunity to serve our Savior Jesus Christ here in Iceland as we preserve priceless records.

I know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true and am so very happy to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I bear witness that the message our missionaries share is true and invite anyone who is interested to open your heart and let them in.

Looking forward to March.....stay tuned!!