Church in Alta, and another day in Hammerfest

We got up early Sunday morning to meet May-Liss Holmgren in Kvalsund. She called me on Saturday evening and we agreed that we would meet her at the church Kvalsund and then follow her to Alta for the morning church service. The Elvebakken church was holding their Big Meetings (but they were not nearly as big as the Big Meetings in Sweden and Finland), so the service at the Rafsbotn church was canceled. We drove the half hour drive to the Kvalsund church and a little bit later May-Liss came with her brother Geir-Ove and one of his daughters. After we made our introductions, we headed out for Alta. Before we left Kvalsund, Geir-Ove stopped off at a home that was the location for the Andreas Holmgren homestead. It is a newer house, because the Germans burned everything in the town except the church during their retreat at the end of WWII, but it was still neat to be able to see where the “old” Holmgrens used to live. We then drove the hour and a half to Alta and arrive at the Elvebakken church. The Elvebakken church is the state church, but the Elvebakken congregation affiliated with our church federation does not have their own prayer house, so the use the state church (which they are allowed to use for free).

It was one of the most interesting church service experiences I have ever had. The church has a main sanctuary and then a smaller side sanctuary that connects into the main one at the side; this is where we sat. They had three guest speakers from Finland that were translated into Norwegian.  We had a man sitting directly behind us who leaned forward the whole service and translated it into English for us. It felt very strange because I felt bad for everyone else sitting around us who had to try and ignore the English, and concentrate on the Norwegian translation. Our translator understood Finnish, so he would give us the English translation during the Norwegian translator’s translation. We were able to ignore the Norwegian translation and concentrate on the English, but it was still an odd experience. We had a Swedish man, who lives in Alta, who understands Finnish and can translate it into English, and if there was something he missed in the Finnish, he can understand Norwegian and was able to translate that and then catch back up with the Finnish. Everything worked out well, and the translator did an excellent job; there were three sermons that lasted about two and a half hours.

After the service we drove to a nearby school where they were hosting lunch. It was another experience! We were introduced to so many people, many of whom were Holmgren relatives. We had a good laugh to start with, my mom, David, and myself sat down next to a woman and tried to converse with her. Little did we know, she was Finnish and we couldn’t communicate at all. It was a funny/awkward moment, but then she signaled over to her brother who was able to speak English and we were able to talk for a few minutes. We then wandered around a few minutes and chatted with a few people; people where we knew someone in common. One of these was another Holmgren relative, Odd-Arne Thomassen, who, along with May-Liss, drove us around Alta and showed us many nice areas, including the old church and cemetery. We did not have enough time to search through the very large cemetery, but we were able to take pictures of the church and surrounding area. After showing us around for an hour or so, they took us back to our car at the school. They were going back to the church for the second service, and we were heading back to Hammerfest.

It was great to meet May-Liss, Geir-Ove, and Odd-Arne and we regretfully did not have near enough time to visit with them. That is one of the problems with the trip that we are taking: not enough time to visit with everyone we would like to, and not enough time to see all that we would like to. David and I both agree that another trip to Norway would be a great idea and could possibly be in our future! After we left Alta we drove back to our hotel in Hammerfest and decided to go and get something to eat for dinner. As like many small towns in America, not much was open on a Sunday evening. We basically had two choices: pizza or pizza. We chose pizza! Ok, David and I had pizza, my dad had lasagna, and my mom just had some cheese bread. Either way, it filled our bellies and we were full and happy! To walk off our dinner David and I hiked up the Zig Zag trail and went along the ridge for a while. It was cold, windy, and there was a slight rain, so we were cold, numb, and a bit wet. It was still a great walk and tired us out so we went back to our room and relaxed before bed.

We had an easy morning on Monday. We met a multitude of Holmgrens at the museum here in town at 11:30am. Ole-Johan Valle contacted many relatives who wanted to meet us, so they came to the museum for coffee and then tour the museum. Liv Hanna and Ernst, and Marta and Olav were also there, so it was nice to have faces we knew to be able to talk to as well as meeting the new relatives. After meeting everyone, and having coffee and some pastries, most of us toured the museum; some of the relatives had to leave to go about their planned day. After the museum we drove out to the house that Liv Hanna and Marta grew up in. Their brother Odd lives in the house so his wife Verna (Odd was at work) let us in to tour the house. We met Verna on Saturday, so it was great to see another person who we had already met. After visiting there for a short time, we agreed to go to dinner and then we left and went back to our hotel. We had a little over an hour before dinner, so we went out shopping through the stores; we bought a few souvenirs and also some grocery items to bring with us on our Hurtigruten journey that was coming up.

They dropped Ernst off at our hotel so he could show us the way to the restaurant and we drove up to the hill that overlooks all of Hammerfest. It was a very nice restaurant with an incredible view. Liv Hanna had teased me that I could anything I wanted; she told me they have beef and burgers and pizza! I ended up having spare ribs (David had a whale steak) and it was a fantastic meal. After visiting around the table for a while we said our goodbyes. My parents are to leave on the Hurtigruten tomorrow, so they were going to come and send them off. David and I thought about driving up to Nordkapp, but we decided it was too far of a drive to chance bad weather, and we were feeling a little lazy to drive that distance. We will probably just relax in town and pack our things for our Hurtigruten cruise down to Brønnøysund on Wednesday. After dinner the sky began to clear; it was not totally clear, but mostly blue sky. David and I decided to go on a hike. We went up the Zig Zag trail and kept walking along the hillside overlooking Hammerfest. We went all the way to where we looked down at the nearby small town of Rypefjord. It was very rocky, steep terrain, but because the sun was shining I was actually quite warm. We went on a couple miles hike at ten o’clock at night, in the broad daylight; it was quite the experience and very odd feeling. This is a feeling that would take a while to get used to. After the hike we went back to our hotel to relax and get ready for bed. But then I couldn’t resist; we had great weather! A little past 12:30am, I hiked back up to the top of the hill to take more pictures. It was almost a cloudless “night.” Of course the only clouds in the sky were where the sun was, so I couldn’t get any pictures of the actual sun, but it was completely light out. I am still amazed by this! So I took some pictures and then hiked back down to town and I am now going to try and get to bed. This might be a hard undertaking, but I have to try and get some sleep. Goodnight all!