Icelandic tour guides experienced Searcy with past HUE students during a surprise visit. A fter developing relationships with students and faculty from a Harding University international program, two Icelandic tour guides left their homes to visit their American friends, surprise a professor and explore Searcy on Friday, Nov. 2, 2018. Rocka Jonsdottir and Johannes Logason were the designated tour guides for the students and faculty of the Harding University in England (HUE) trips' week-long stop in Iceland. Dr. Jack Shock, distinguished professor of communication, was the faculty member Jonsdottir and Logason surprised with their visit to Harding. "I turned around the corner and just saw [Jonsdottir and Logason] standing in the lobby of the Reynolds Center," Shock said. "It took my breath away." Shock said he, Jonsdottir and Logason kept in constant contact since he last saw them in Iceland in September 2018. He expressed that the way the students treated Jonsdottir and Logason fostered the relationship between the HUE groups and their Icelandic tour guides, offering examples of occasions where students showed interest in what the guides were showing or explaining.to them and cleaned trash out of the bus Jonsdottir drove. "I have said it many times and will say it many more times, I think that is the true aroma ofChrist," Shock said. "It's when you walk by and you treat somebody ... with kindness and respect, they treat you with kindness and respect, and you focus on the things that you have in common." During their trip to Arkansas, Jonsdottir and Logason used the opportunity to participate in various American cultural experiences. These experiences included a visit to the William J. Clinton Library and Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas, a trip to Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee, and short excursions around Searcy where they met Mayor David Morris and were taken to their first live American football game. According to Dr. Jim Miller, associate professor and chair of the communication department, Jonsdottir and Logason gave the mayor a book about Iceland and in turn, Morris presented them with keys to the city. "We knew that we would get a really good welcome here, and that they would show us around, like we've been doing [in Iceland], and we don't regret it," Logason said. "This has been a great time." Junior Danielle Turner went on the HUE trip in spring 2018 and befriended Jonsdottir and Logason. Turner recounted the visit with the Icelandic tour guides in America. "Having them be here was really weird because I felt like we should have more to offer them because Iceland was so fun," Turner said. "We were going to glaciers and all this fun stuff [in Iceland], and I was like, 'Do you want to go to Zaxby's?'" Shock believed Jonsdottir and Logason's visit to Arkansas offered them a more unique view of the United States than the places they usually saw while working with their travel agency. "This was the first time they had any reason to visit anything other than the coast --- east coast, west coast, Las Vegas," Shock said. "So, we were happy to show themsomething other than neon lights." story by Caleb Manor 37 I HUE
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