K well.... Do you know what my
problem is today? It's a good problem really :) It's the problem where I
could write constantly for the next three hours with ease, and I still
wouldn't be able to convey how I feel completely. I literally had more
incredible experiences than can fit in one small email to peoples. But
enough chatter. :)
I blame my camera :) I promise my tree is DECKED
with ornaments! Do you crazy people know how many you gave me? A lot. I
think the poor little tree is going to cave under the weight of it all
:) I'm sorry. I'll take a better picture when it's light (which by the
way... I haven't seen the sun in a long time... It barely gets over the
horizon covered by buildings for me :) just so I can prove how awesome
it looks :) But in terms of having any artistic skill, where in the
world did you get that silly idea? I actually thought about that as I
was setting it up: wow, I have 0 artistic ability :) But seriously,
that little tree has filled me with a lot of joy when I needed it :)
My package is here! The Ap's told me that they had a
package for me last night and that this time they will just bring it
with them the next time they come to Oslo which is at the latest
tomorrow. Woot! I'm so excited. I've heard from several sources mom,
that you're pretty much killing yourself making all of this
wonderfullness for me :) Thank you so much! I don't even have any of it
yet and it already makes me more happy than you will ever know. So,
hopefully I can get all of them before Christmas, but we'll have to see
:)
Heh that's funny. I realize I've probably done the
worst job of anyone in the world at describing who my companion is :) I
would say he is completely the opposite of a trial for me. Actually I
take that back :) He is. But that's because he pushes me to become my
best. There are so many things that I have been able to acheive and do,
only because I had him as a way to help me acomplish that. :) When I say
he's burny and girl crazy, I wouldn't say he's any worse than myself :)
It's mostly just if he smells one. It's more of a joke than anything
else :) If I was to get completely serious on you, I would say be
completely honest and tell you than Elder Anderson has changed me for
the rest of my life. He loves my more personally and deeply than I can
understand, And of every person I can or could ever think of, there was
not one that could be more well hand-picked than him. The fact that he
is my companion was complete revalation, and
neither of us want to go anywhere. We are going through an exteremely
difficult time on our missions, but despite that we are more united, and
lift and strengthen each other as much as is humanly possible. The
amount of progress I've made on my mission is on large part him, no
matter if it's language, teaching, people, missionary work, or personal
growth. Anything. We both have what the other lack, and can lift and
strengthen each other.
Anyways no I didn't get to go to the Christmas
Concert... :( Sad day. I would only go if we had an investigator, and
all of ours dropped off the face of the planet right before it all
happened... sad. oh well. You can't win them all :) I did watch the
whole Christmas Concert from like... 2007 (with sidssel) while I made
cookies for dinner one night! That was fun! So I'm not completely
deprived. :) K well... that's about it for answering questions. We are
making hand-made candles for some of the old ladies that we visit, and I
scrounged together some pretty good american Chocolate Chip Cookies for
some of the families in the ward :) It's hard when Vanilla, Brown
sugar, and Chocolate Chips, and Shortening, doen't exsist here.
Thankfully the old senior missionary couple helped me :)
I'm going to go crazy.... Hobbitssss...
Everywhere..... Around the T-bane stasjon.... :) I want to know... Has
anyone seen it yet? How good is it? Actually... Don't tell me. :) I
would burn. I'll just have to wait for that. :) Also.
Does anyone realize that this is my last email home..... See everyone on the other side!
Ok.
Well I wish that I had 5 hours to write to you guys. Because basically
it would take that long to write all of the incredible experiences I've
had this week. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't all farts and sunshine, and
there were times where if I had tripped and fallen, I probably wouldn't
have gotten back up. But I would probably count this week as an early
Christmas gift to me. :) I don't even know really where to start with
that. Basically our week consisted of a lot of appointments falling
through, us going to the completely wrong side of the fjord for an
appointment, and just a bunch of other things. This being almost the
entire transfer like this so far, it took a lot out of me, to keep
pushing to be effective and stay positive. I will say that we were very
blessed for our efforts to just keep going, and never give up. I was
lead more by the spirit this week than I probably ever have been in my
life. Almost every single day I knew where to go what to do and what to
say. I always thought something like that wouldn't be as incredible as I
think it is now. On tuesday, we felt impressed to walk up this weird
little sidepath that led into a grove of trees and pretty much the
middle of nowhere. But we did, and talked to the first guy we stopped
for like 45 minutes. the only problem with this, is that it was about
-15 degrees Celcius and all we did was stand. ow. I literally do not
think I've ever had my whole body lose as much heat as it did at that
time and be as cold. The Freezing Humid air literally rips through
whatever it is your wearing almost instantly when you walk outside. I
wasn't ever warm for like 2 days afterwords. Though we don't know why we
were led to that guy, we did know that it was the spirit that led us
there. He was pretty funny though :) He had us call upon
the name of the Lord with him to be saved... Oh the things you do on
missions :) I wish i had had that videotaped.
Moving on later that week, we went out contacting
one day on our way to the church, and literally I felt impressed not to
stop people, and Anderson ended up stopping this way cool lady who we
just barely met with an hour ago again. She's cool :) We went the next
day to find the address that she had given us... which really wasn't an
address it was just the number 15 and her name.... We didn't even have a
street name, just what she had pointed at. So after trying for about 40
minutes we said a prayer and finally found the place that she had told
us about. Unfortunately we had to try back again today cause she was
busy but today, I just kept going through all the locked doors in her
building until we found her :) She was super Koselig :) and Hyggelig
Anyways.
Later that first night we hurried after helping at
the center to go out knocking. As we prayed for where to go I felt
impressed to go try a potential investigator back who lived about 40
minutes away. I knew that was a lot of wasted travel time on the chance
that he wasn't home again because we didn't have that much time, but I
knew I needed to go there so we went. As we got to his door his lights
were off and we knew he wasn't home again. I knew we were there for a
reason though so we continued down the small path looking for some other
houses we could knock on. Basically we found nothing, and we had spent
almost all our time in just traveling. But as we walked back I turned
off the path to go up to an apartment building. Now, normally we don't
knock whole apt buildings because the Main door requires a code or
someone to let you in, but we decided to try this one because all the
doors were accessible. After humoursly watching my poor
companion from arizona struggle up the slippery hill behind me refusing
any help because of his stubornness, we knocked on the first door. A
little boy came to the door, and we asked for his parents. When his mom
came to the door, i started by talking about faith, and then for almost
no reason at all, finished my sentence with: Have you heard of the book
of Mormon?
This is basically what she said:
Yes
actually, I just read it. And I really liked the part where it talks
about life after death. My faith doesn't believe in that. :) ....
Well, have you ever seen the missionaries before or talked to us?
Nope she said.
Do you know where you got the book from?
It was a long time ago and I don't really remember. Hey I have some questions....
Basically..... She's what missionaries might call a
golden investigator :) Like. I don't think I can explain just how much
of a miracle this is. Of the over 1 million people in my entire area, we
were led to one door that night. The only one. There is absolutely no
way that we did that. Tell me where there is a person like that anywhere
else. Elder Anderson said, it is probably the most prepared person he's
ever met on his mission. She literally was in the middle of nowhere.
She has kids... like... If that is not a miracle I don't know what is.
Then the next day we were led to a street, and there
were about 4 or 5 people right in a row. You can't pick them all but I
knew exactly the one to talk to. His name is Kim, and by the end of
about 20 minutes he asked if there was any way that we could meet with
him again. He, is also Norwegian. and ... like wow! He asked me why I
stopped him, and as prompted I basically told him I knew exactly who to
talk to out of all those people. Again, Elder Anderson said probably one
of the most prepared people he's met on his entire mission. (There were
2!)
That's just the beggining. We met with a hardcore
Atheist, who in reality is not atheist. :) Sorry, but Atheism doesn't
exsist. But he did have a socialogical explanaition for every function
in christianity and religion in general. Last time he kinda lectured us
on philisophical principles. This time he still talked the most, but we
led him to the point he admitted He knew that God exsisted and
that he just wasn't willing to do anything about it. Probably one of the
smartest men I've ever met, knows like 8 languages, and teaches
philosophy and the university, and we basically showed him that he had
the knowledge, and that everything else was just him proving to himself
that he didn't have to do anything about it. That is our job :) We
brought him to the point that he himself could make the choice even if
he wasn't willing to do that. That doesn't happen through wrote lessons
1,2,3, and 4, that happens because you listen
to him and listen to the spirit. I could go on. :) But just know that
The Lord is in this work.
The last while has been hard, but also extremely
rewarding. I truly love being here, and I'm sooooo SUPER excited to
teach the people that we just found after Christmas. Even if nothing
happens. Even if everyone falls off the face of the planet again and
again and again, I know that I won't give up :) I have learned humility
only in the way you can learn it directly from experiences with the
spirit. I have learned Diligence, patience, trust, and love. As I told
Dad, for me it is not important how long that you can stay standing
during the fight, it's about how many times you can pick yourself back
up again. That's what endurance is.
So that's really my Christmas Gift to all of you! :)
K well it's not really mine... but anyway. :) Just know that your son,
brother, cousin, grandson, nephew, friend, whoever I am to you, is
having a rough go, but that he is doing what he needs to, and is loving
all of it (k well, there are those times where you just lie on the
ground and feel like dying... but hey :)). Also know that he loves you. A
lot. And though he may not be able to write many handwritten letters to
you today, he wanted to share some special things that he had seen this
week. And as apparent by the length of this email, spent a considerable
amount of time to tell you all of this :) I hope thats ok :) I hope you
all have the most fantastically wonderful Christmas ever! Some other
time when I have less important things to talk about I'll share some of
the cool Norwegain Christmas traditions that I'm learning about. Really,
Norway's the place to be man :) Being 'the
missionary' of the family I could lecture you all on the meaning of
Christmas, but I won't do that :) You already know :) You all are much
smarter than me, even if you don't know it :) So just do somehting with
it!
Have a superly Fantastical Christmas everyone!
Love,
Christopher
