September 30, 2013

Hey Morosa! 

K well I don't know quite where to start with this one. I'll probably just go and you'll hop on with me at some point I'm sure. The first crazy thing is that I am training again! Elder Newey... heh. that made me laugh too :) haven't met the kid yet though so we'll see if he actually lives up to his name. That makes child number 4. and 3 grand children. :) If we have a mission conference at christmas again i'm going to have to get a slekt picture with all of my sons and grandsons. :) Anyways. I'm super sad to see Elder Garrard go though. I don't think i've ever just felt so ... on top of things as I have with him. Thats partly just because I came to bergen knowing and believing we would succeed and we did. So that was pretty legit. Though slightly OCD, we got along great together, and earned each others trust on a very deep level I think :) 

Anyways so that is that random news. In other news I love life. I think I have just learned to move forward doing everything that I can in the future, and things have just kinda fallen into place. I can't even really explain it to myself. i can't really explain exactly where I'm at or how I feel, I just.... kinda got lost along the way. Does that make any sense? I can't believe it took me so long to really understand how important all of this is and really just throw myself into it wholeheartedly but at least it happened eventtually. That doesn't mean that it always stays liek that, as things always seem to go up and down but ever since my 'spiritual plummet'... sort of that i had a couple months back, what i've built back up is much strongr, and much... different than it was before. :) 

I like it. 

'And he saw that the seed was good, and the foundation of that very strong' therefore, he did not feel the urge to squish it with his finger like he does with all the random fruit flies in his apt. 

yay. :) 

(really though. I'm at straight war with the Fruit flies... I think I've scared my companion on several occasions. Just recently instead of killing them by the fifties with my hands I decided to take a page out of your book and use a vaccuum. :) much more effective)

I'm also grateful to have had a mother who raised me on salads :) Because honestly there is nothing that tastes more delicious than a salad after almost never making any of them. Last night it was literally like: forget the pizza, the salad is the best part! (it did have avacado and fettecini cheese in it... or at least some sort of really delicous cheese cube :) Serisously though. I just had that random thought. That you really don't get stuff as a kid, but when you're older its like duh, thats why you said don't play video games and eat potato chips all day. Life is worth so much more than that. Sorry. Wierd tangent. 

NO. I am not vegaterian nor will I ever be so. 

ok. wow. some actual stuff that happened. My whole district bossed it up last week. We broke the record for new investigators. All that president said was: how did you do that? it was miracles. and we are all pumped. like. We've had miracles like every day. Get kbabbed in the city, and say a prayer to find out if we should stay or go. get a call and have a member walk up and point out a less active who is across the square. Prayer = instantly answered. me and Garrard contacted: get this: 0 hours last week. And found more people than we had the week before just on Public transport, and random things that happened. So cool. Wednesday I went on splits with Elder collard and we taught Adal this way cool guy. You'll keep hearing more about him. But his story is that he's never had a religion though he's always believed very strongly in God. 3 Days before he met us he got a way strong feeling he needed to go find a church. Then he met us. 2 lessons later he's commited to getting baptized in a month. I was freaking out. of my 

mind.

He asked us and we were the ones who said: yes. yes we can baptize you. Can you say prepared? Yesterday we taught this way cool american kid named max and a whole norwegian family who we found at the baptism. SOOO COOL. She fed us this way good pizza and her 15 year old daughter had invited no less than FIVE of her friends to come talk to the mormon missionaries. IT WAS SOOOO ....... weird. And cool. By the end though we were just outnumbered and outugnned. :) But it still went way good. We also met her 24 year old daughter and they invited us over to dinner at her and her boyfriends house for dinner this week. So that'll be cool. Anyways. it was all legit. Ran into struggling less active ysa randomly on the street that was super cool. anyways. helped a funny pillipino guy move. We are going to teach him and his family too. Anyways. I almost don't have enough time for everything. ...

Thats cool. 

Anyways. i'm going to stop boring you with stories now but generally noted: I'm doing good. And i'm pumped for General Conference. I have by far the best job in the mission. And yup. I hope you guys have a great one! christmas will be here before you know it right?!? heh. time flyr. hly toledo!

Love

Christopher

 

 

Pictures :)

Halloween carving contest

Ummmmm....

Sad missionaries? Contemplative missionaries? Silly missionaries? Yes, that.

September 23, 2013

Hey MOM!!!!!

I'm sooooo happy right now I could explode!!!!!! I literally have nothing to complain about other than the fact my knee hurts because I played dodgeball too hard :) FRee for ALL!!!! Styel :) So thats my story. I have 30 minutes starting now to write you and change. Darn it. You at least will get the idea that i'm happy :) Not stress free, but happy. :)

I'll respondere first :). yes I have a car NOW. I didn't then :) We just borrowed the Broughs (senior couple) car. so pretty. sometimes we drive around with him. All the time we are driving right next to beautiful still water, or through tunnels. No end of fun. I love driving here :) um. yeah. The Broughs got emergency transferred to oslo as of this morning. So for 6 weeks I'm in charge of their car, their apt., their Ysa, their missionaries, and Sisters Broughs beautiful orchid that needs a  good name :) Something elegant. I was crushed. I love them. They cant leave. Especially not now when we actually have some good momentum. in the month or so this district has been in bergen it has been incredible. I've had some of the most powerful spiritual meetings this week. One with the bishop, and with the missionaries, and the broughs, and just knowing how to plow forward. We just get it now. We are going hard in the paint, throwin bows in the lane. :) Its been incredible to feel the whole spirit of the district go up. Soo col. 

so yeah now I have a car for the first time :) Its pretty cool. I can just use it if I want. Yay! 

um. mom. I'll look that up when I have an English hymn book. I can't really look that up here. sorry. :) Id lvoe to. And I'll just make sure that you can norwegian and then you guys will be the only one's whithout a secret hemmelig språk :) heh. anyways. 

yeah. I had a way fun splits with Elder Clarke this week. That was pretty fun. Me and Garrard had like 3 miracles yesterday even though none of our people showed up, through just random things that we were doing we still found people. We havent had any time to contact hardly at all and yet we are still finding tons of way prepared people. This week I had a finding experience like I haven't had since oslo. We prayed and felt led to walk up this street. Amid hundreds of ungdom, we found this one lady who I decided to stop. It started out normal but the she was like: oh yeah, I'm a mormon. ... awkward. This happens especially when you know you don't quite know everyone in the ward. so.... which uh famliy are you a part of? The Johansen famiily she says. But me and my mother havent been to church for a long time. Like ok. cool. now i'm getting a little pumped. you can often find less actives on the street that can be way cool. But then she said. yeah she left like right before I was baptized.... ok. so are you baptized.'

no. 

ok.... uh..... What do you believe in? yeah. i'm christian. But i'm mormon christian... but your not døpt? nope. have you read the book of mormon. Of Course! Thats why i tell people i'm mormon. Cause I really do believe that its true. ok

wait. We tell people why baptism is so important. Well I have time friday at 11.... uh..... okkkk.? (is this a joke?) 

Yup

I met someone who believes they are mormon but isn't baptized, and yup. I just about died. It could not go anywhere, but she was super prepared. That's all I really have to say about that.

There are so many other things. It was a boss week. I have been able to really help the people around me, and I'm seeing it more than ever. Me and Garrard get along great, and I've never had a companionship that i've felt the spirit this constantly. Its like... all the time. United together and with God. the coolest thing for me as a DL is just to be getting straight revelation about how I can help my district even if half of them are sisters. its pretty cool. and super fun. anyways

I love you mom! I need to send some pictures, but you'll get those eventually. my words can only come once. :) 

love,

Christopher

September 16, 2013

Hey momsidile! :)

I live in a suburb of Bergen called Paradis. Norway isn't that big so they don't have really big addresses. :) I mean come on... There are less people in the country than the state of utah. :) Yes I live in Paradise :) And I got some letters from Kristy this week so that address really does work. :) 

My life is good :) I really don't have that much to say really. Hmm. I'll talk about that first. I love being a district leader. I actually feel like I really know what I'm suppossed to be doing here and I really feel like I have the opportunity to do a lot of good things in that respect. There is a lot of things that need to be done with the ward and with 8 missionaries you kind of need someone with enough experience to kindof lead out and take the lead on that. So that's been fun. Its also been fun to really find out how I can actually help them. I feel like I actually influence people a lot more now than I did even when I was a zone leader, just because Bergen is the one big city in Norway that really doesn't get much contact with anywhere else. And I really almost have more to do here than I did in stavanger. But it's been super fun, I I've been super grateful for that I actually have been given some inspiration on where to actually put my efforts. And the same really applies to my companion. :) Elder Garrard is a pretty funny kid for as quiet as he is, but we've really become really good friends, and he's helped me a lot to finally just kinda go for it. This really is the part of my mission where time is flying by so much faster than I thought possible, and all you can do is just try to do everything that you can to be your best. As a returned missionary in the ward wisely stated: 'You know, you two really have quite the dynamic companionship. I think it works really well. He then pointed at me and said: so you must be the disobedient one' :) yup. Ok not really, but when put side by side with a greenie who makes salads out of herbal tea and olive oil, because he just has to make a salad, and it just has to be perfect, I guess I am the one that takes things at a slightly slower pace. Except when we run. I think we run more uphill than I ever have in my life. And we do it pretty fast too :) Thats what you get with 2 rival cross country runners :) (no we don't race, its just that even taking it slow we are pretty fast :)

In other news, we have made some way good progress with some of the YSA in the ward. We taught one of the new converts Bob, who.... I love. I have a straight man crush on the dude. He speaks this funny version of the oslo dialect where he'll say something REALLY fast, and then just pause like norwegians do by keeping a constant tone and then finishing even faster. A lot of the members dont even catch everything that he says. He went hiking wtih us, we made food together, and yesterday I went on splits with him to go visit some inactive YSA. Despite the fact no one answered, and it was pouring rain, we had a great time skipping rocks at the oceans edge whilst we waited for the bus. I loved it and had a blast :) We visited another dood who let us in and we had a way chill talk with him as well. I tuned his guitar for him (i'm picking up all kinds of fun skills on my mission :) and we played some music together. We taught the boyfriend of 4 years of one of the YSA who is an atheist. Not like a religion hater, but someone who truly believes that we are animals on a random planet. It was a super interesting teach, and I loved being a part of it actually. Her testimony was fantastic and he'll probably be just one of those people that take a little bit of time :) 

hmm... What else? I think thats most of it :) We hiked up a mountain last pday that was super cool. At the top we were going through the clouds, and up almost a straight up slope all there was was a big iron rod that wound up the mountain. The cool part was that you could only see about 20 feet in front of you so more than half the group you could only hear and not see :) I caught a frog, and then we ran down the mountain... carefully :) 

Evelyn is now a member, and from what I've heard it was an absolutely incredible experience for them yesterday. :) .... Yay :D Thats all I have to say about that. My heart ached to be there, but I was needed here. Literally actually. I'm the only missionary who can translate, so I ended up translating all three hours yesterday. It was pretty fun. The little primary program was super fun, the only problem was that some of those little girls talked waaaaay to fast and I missed parts here and there. The people on the recieving end said I did a good job though :) 

We had a baptism here on saturday and we had a super cool experience with one of the nonmember friends that came. We went in and helped her make food and just talked to her about things and she almost died i think because she just kept saying over and over how utrolig flink we are at the språk and she was just really impressed. :) But afterwords we talked to her and we are teaching her and her famliy this week after she feeds us homemade pizza! Again, random cooking skills on the mish that come in handy :) Then to top it off, Brother Mørklid, (who I will just have to describe later.... he's just ... fun :) (he's the guy who gives everyone ties if you've heard about him) came walking down one end of the big hall whistling the western dueling song, and after he did the first line I just whistled the second and turned around and we had one of the moments ever just walking down the hall slowly guns ready whilstling at each other :) You would have to have been there :) 

Life is crazy. I have way too much to do. But I love it all. I'm just enjoying the ride right now :) And doing everything I possibly can to help everyone here succeed. I've never felt drive and love like this before in my entire life. I will go and I will do. And when I fail, I'll just get back up again. Because guess what matthew. It comes back :)

Love,

Christopher :)

PS. mom. All I can talk about is skipping rocks :) So painting rocks must be much cooler. My life would sound cool if you could actually come here and see how incredible this place is. Its unbelievable. As we drive around i can't get over it :)  To answer that part of your letter last week. Don't give up on your dream of coming here. :)

September 9, 2013

Heh, Momps. I could do this all day :)

Anyways, Ill just read you letter later today. We are going to hike one of the mountains that surrounds bergen today so that should be pretty fun. And besides I don't really know what to say anyways. 

I'll prolly start by talking about how legit stavanger still is :) jk, but really that place is straight the best. The Haugens my adopted grandparents(senior couple missionaries) came up and I straight flipped out with joy. They were telling me about all the things that have been happening in stavanger and is pretty much legit. Evelyn and sven are getting DØPT!!! This weeek!!! YEsss!!! she made it! Another guy I taught is gettting baptized in two weeks, and Christian this sweet swedish cagefighter super nice quiet guy also said he wants to get baptized. .... REally. I want do die from joy with thta place. 

On a more spiritual note, I had a very interesting thought about all that. In Stavanger by the end, I loved everyone missionary and member and investigator alike, I probably prayed harder for them than anyone else in my entire life. By the end it was almost just a plea of, I don't even care if i'm a part of it, just let them succeed! just  help them. In a way I had made a promise with God which was, Help these people, and I don't even have to be here to see it, or have anything to do with it. Leaving was the hardest thing in the world. It tore me apart. but in a way more real than ever before, God answered my prayer. Or the prayers that I said all the time. I thought that was kinda cool :)

Bergen is a pretty cool place too :) We are teaching some way cool people. A greek kid named Achilleas came to chuch just randomly yesterday which is pretty much like the best thing ever. Super cool :) We taught a guy named paul, who was completely enthralled by the book of mormon musical and just couldnt resist the urge to actually talk to us and get one :) We are starting to get to know the members a lot more which is sweet, and things are just doing better. I also feel more awake and more energized than I have in probably 7 or 8 months. So the iron pills are definatly helping with that :) My companion is super cool to actually. We have developed a way good relationship where we just learn a lot from each other and we are probably more focused than I've ever been before on my whole mission. He's kinda like some of the kids I used to hang out with before who were just super smart and didn't quite knnow what to do with it :) He really enjoys all the times that I just analyze situations and people around us. Apparently I've gotten really good at that. Takk for det eldste Anderson :) 

Really though. I don't have too much exciting to say, other than that a gay guy tried to squish my kbab this week :) Or that we missed our bus because it went into a secret underground tunnel. and then got lost walking around in the rain for about an hour with our completely soaked little map :) fun times. :) 

ANywyas. Have a great week. I might add some responses later to whatever you say but we'll see. I love you sooo much! 

love,

Christopher :)

September 2, 2013

HEy Momsawhimsicle! (have I used that one before?)

Yeah... let's talk stream of thaught thats like going to be 10 times worse. because I have tons of thoughts that could get acroos but 0 time. unfortunately none of the missionaries can get library cards yet becasue they haven't gotten their information so we have 8 missionaries that have to use the one computer in the church, so unfortunately I really don't have that much time at all today. I don't even really know where you want me to start either... I don't have time to go back and look at all the questions you asked me from last week so if I miss anything just let me know and I'll get to it next week. 

I have to start out with honesty.... Stavanger is the best. Looking back I love that place with my whole heart and soul. I miss it way more than I've ever missed anything ever before, and this was definitely the hardest move that I've ever had, short of maybe coming on the mission to begin with. I loved everything about that place. I loved every single member in that ward, and the group of missionaries that we had there is by far beyond anything that I've ever experienced anywhere else. We had more inside jokes, and supported each other more than I've ever felt ever. It was fantastic. That last day was soooo bittersweet. The bishop had us over for a final supper, as did our mission leader and constantin and generosa. just as a random tidbit, the lady things went awesome with, Evelyn apparently has gotten even better. Only word to describe her is straight bosslike :) She's holding onto this despite TOns of opposition. Its crazy. SHE's soooo cool though!!!! AHH. I was reading through my happy book from stavanger and there were so many good memories in there I thought I was going to die of joy. and sadness because i'm gone.... We had the biggest smackdowns ever with constantin and generosa but she still didn't set a date before I left. There was nothing more I could have done. They bought me a way cool tie though and I'll definitely send a whole bunch of pics when I get the time! 

Bergen as a city is legit. My first few days there were........ I won't really say how bad they were. They were just very unenjoyable. Turns out i've had Anemia for months, and I came down with a virus right when I got here that basically plummeted my physical, spiritual, and emotional state into a horrible spiral that hit rock bottom on saturday where I couldn't even hold my head up and stay awake enough to eat my food. It was not a fun experience. And I wasn't in the position to deal with my new companion who is great but is a little too anxious, or zealous is the word I might use. Overall, 0 of the people that were in our area before have wanted to meet with us again, so we have started from straight ground 0. Nothing. Really. there were so many emotions connected to this moves... I can't even begin to describe them. But in all it was not fun, and I didn't feel competent or like I could do anything. 

Monday we flew to Trondheim, and the first good moment and shining ray of hope was when I saw Elder Holden, who was my companion back in sandnes. We straight ran from one end of the church to the other and tackled each other in the best hug in the world. Missionary hugs usually don't do it for me. That one was more like both of us had had such a hard time since leaving and coming back together was the best thing ever. Seeing our whole district again was awesome. We had almost 50 misionaries in that city contacting that night, and playing 4 different sports at this one field right in sentrum. Literally the place was flooded. Supper fun. That was where my spirits finally started to feel a ltitle bit better again. I heard the voice that is Elder Whetten finally talking in the back of my head cheering me on again. Shortly said, The next day was incredible. Elder Kearon is a straight boss of the world. I needed that so badly, and the Iron pills that i got from sister Pace. Starting Wednesday life got a million times better. 

We started implementing plans on how we were going to work with the bishop and the youth, and me being the only one over like 6 months in norway was the one leading out on all of thesse. Its interesting to have such a young group of missionaries here. OH!" to answer your questions, we all stayed in the elders apt for mish conf. The sisters got hotels.... yup. We fit 36 missionaries on the FLOOR that night. it was insane. I didn't personally take any pictures but I should have. I didn't feel so good....  anyways. our district is cool though. We found some way cool people through our language class, and actually this week was my most successful week in terms of just straight finding new people to teach which was cool considering we were gone for two days. Ok wee

I gotta wrap this up soon.. .ahhh there's so much. We drove to this one members house who lives like an hour away though, and it was the coolest drive ever. there is no other city in norway or in the world quite like bergen. Its amazing. SUch a cool city. ANd I feel so much better. I will say shortly that me and my companion are near perfect for each other. or at least as a trainer and a greenie. I find myself more and more like elder anderson. Which is ok because I worship him :) So things are going much better. I haven't felt this awake with so much energy in months.... 

Thank you so much for the loves. I don't really feel like there was that much spiritual in there, other than I just loved loving stavanger. That was one thing I learned. I had no idea how much I would come to love that place. I'll send pictures when I can. Until then ... have fun! sounds like Gavin is still awesome, and the matthew is still crazy. Alt er i orden. :) I love yo so much mom! 

have a great week!

Love,

Christopher

ps. time.... is FLYING. Holy smokes. They weren't kidding. time just flies. its weird.

August 19, 2013

Oi Mumsicle!

First off. The only people we work with are not drunks or atheists. See story below :) That said, we work with a lot of drunks and atheists :) 

That picture was with a troll named Hildor who guards our path to the church thank you very much! Recently Hildor has been causing some problems though... :)

I will try and get everything I have to say for today in today's email because i move to bergen on wednesday and next monday and tuesday I will be in trondheim and wont get on for emails until tuesday night and then only for a short amount of time since the mission conference is happenening there :) This next week is going to blow the worlds mind though. Bergen is almost getting completely whitewashed, with 7 new missionaries completely unfamiliar with bergen, 3 of which are completely new to norway. that makes 8 total plus the Broughs who are the senior couple there. So my next week is going to be next to insane :) should be fun. Bergen has been struggling a ton so this will be a really cool oppporunity to see if we can do anything to help.

In terms of me, the pattern still stands that my last week in every area is straight awesome. Everytime I've left an area we had just gotten a baptismal date and the same goes for this week. I just have to tell you about Evelyn first. We taught her on saturday about the restoration and the plan of salvation and it blew my mind. She said over and over, I'm ready for this. This feels so right for me. She had had a faith in christ and lost it during her teenage years like most kids in Norway. After 10 years she met a friend who was an inactive member of our church and spoke with him about the gospel. She began realizing she knew something was there and wanted to follow what she wanted regarding faith. She realized the world teaches so heavily to rely on the brain rather than the heart. In my studies that very morning I realized that our feelings and our heart are what make us human, and children of God. Any robot can think, learn, and reason to no end: Ever learning, never coming to a knowledge of the truth. (2 TIm 3) :) I know I can't really explain my personal experiences in any way that is interesting, but it was just an incredible experience to meet someone who God had been preparing their entire lives. And when she decided to come to church, she was ready. She committed to be baptized on the 15th and though I won't be here to see it, she will follow through with that. :) She has such an incredible spirit and it was so cool to see her as we talked about joseph smith and the book of mormon, she looked anxious and finally just pointed at the book I was holding, and said: can I see that yet? .... of course you can. :) Testimonies were powerful and she cried through much of the whole thing. If we hadn't run to the church and I was sweating so much, I probably would have cried too. It was soo cool though. Daniel Kidøy her friend who told her about a church that taught all the things she had been personally recieving revalation about on her own, is also coming to church now, along with another friend who also wants to be baptized. The whole story is just pretty cool :) 

After church we had the biggest throwdown of love I've ever had on my entire mission. We talked with Constantin and Generosa just in the empty cultural hall about baptism and we went suuuuper bold and really tried to help her understand how important it was that she ask God, not her sister, about whether she should get baptized. Constantin came up big and said: if it is something you want to do then do it. Don't fear. So constantin do you want to be baptized? Yes of course I do. I don't even have enough time before I move to meet with everyone that wants to meet with us but we are going to their house on tuesday night and following up on their praying about setting a date. They will make it :) Someday they will. But she is ready. She understand christ now, and she loves church. Now she just needs to make the decision to follow him. :) After that we went to the Sande's house and ate dinner together. We had a wonderful lesson about the Holy ghost. The saddest part was when she learned I was leaving you could tell she was super sad about it.  I have been teaching her almost my entire time here and it has been so incredible to be with her and constantin. Seeing people grow is one of the most amazing things ever :) 

In other random news, after Menighetsråd we had this super random guy we contacted like 2 months ago showed up to church while we were getting ready to go home and eat but we ended up teaching him instead, and commiting him to come to church :) woot! monday we taught a guy in the middle of the biggest rainstorm i've ever seen where we were stuck under a tree for an hour.  it was funny to see all the people  huddled around thee pond sheltering themselves from the rain :) Tueday we taught the nicest quietest swedish cagefighter in existence :) Dude. His swedish was awesome :) And aside from our teach with Evelyn, it was probably one of my most spiritual teaches ever. All that practicing paid off as we were able to make it super personal and super meaningful. I choked up in that one too. It was amazing. Wednesday I got to see my son Ellsworth and Chancellor again at a training meeting in oslo :) Me and ellsworth and Holden (he's my daughter) are training at the same time. Which means I get another son and two grandsons at the same time :) super cool! 

If you haven't gotten the picture yet this week was awesome. ITs the first week I've ever gotten thiiiisss close to actually reaching ALL of my goals :) And we set some pretty high ones cause we knew this week was going to be awesome. It was super cool. We ninja karateied some flies, watched the tour de fjord bike race in the middle of stavanger sentrum, and played intense uno. 

My heart is done with leaving places. I still have like forever left and i'm already done with leaving. When some of the youth learned that we were leaving it was just super sad. Stavanger has been one of the best places ever :) I had this random thought though mom, that i'm going to love being home, just because the relationships you have there are sooo precious. I don't think you realize that until you go out and you don't have it for a long time. When you have it again there is nothing better :) I feel more than ever that my family really are my best friends in the whole world ever :) 

Since I wont be able to say much next week, I love you all! Go kick some life's butt! 

loves!

Elder Christopher Whetten

July 29, 2013

You see Wuthmer,

It is actually quite a specific art that of the norwegian language :) Because thou canst speak jo the normal Norwegian  but the googler doesn't quite have its puny brain wrapped around the awesomeness of DIALECT!!!! JK.  I'll try not to type in dialect if I do end up saying anything in norwegian. The problem is that I often just throw in one word that's norwegian and there is so many meanings for the word noe, that any translator who wasn't a real person who could speak norwegian and english would get completely owned. Like for example ødelagt. Dos that even come up as anything normal? Its the past tense of destroy. Æ ska' ødelegge Dæ!!! jk. that was dialect :) sorry :) Anyways. that's one challenge with norwegian is that you have tons of different dialects that all have different ways of saying really basic words. It takes a long time to learn and get used to :) BAsically I have to be your translator... :) so just ask me! I apologize however for my unintentional norwegain words that have become common to my språk. 

I'm glad you liked his email. :) Its honestly pretty hard to email every single week. Especially here. There is so many crazy things that happen if I went into all the details that I would If I were just talking... I would be writing all day. I don't have the patience or the time for that. :) But I'll try to be better. Sorry for crappy emails! Not neccessarily a strong point of mine, however I have seen/read much worse :) And you are right mom :) And Fred is wrong! He's still awesome though... :)

This week was actually a really fun week. It started out pretty crazy on monday where we taught some phillipino's norwegian, and then about the gospel, and then showed them how to get around stavanger :) They are all super new so we were just kinda helping them around :) it was super fun. Then they all came to FHE on monday night, where Elder Burt and I took the lesson :) IT was actually super cool. We sat down to plan the lesson like 15 minutes before it started because we had been running around like crazy people all day and found out that planning a 20 minute lesson when you are used to doing 3-4 meetings takes about 30 seconds :) So that was fun. After our missionary oriented lesson to all the YSA we played skit in a bag and I have some funny videos of that. :) One of the investigators that came is a profesional actor and it was super funny. I just hit Holden with noodles :) That was my job! I don't know if any of you are familiar with Philippinos and kareoke but they love it. We had a little kareoke party afterwords and that was super funny. You just had to be there though. There were a few people that were A: amazing at singing, and B: Were getting really into it. I think I almost died laughing :) 

Middle of the week we had a bunch of time with no appointments, so we hit the streets hard this week. It was pretty fun too actually. We ended up setting up 3 appointments right in a row for wednesday but when we went not a single person showed up... bummer. Sånn er livet. (such is life)... sort of :) Wednesday was also the start of the Glad Mat Festival, which translated directly and indeirectly means the Happy Food Festival :) Basically there were thousands of people going and the streets were either empty or had just streams of people going to that.... We walked through it once and had a drunk guy go crazy on us :) It was a funny experience. He ended up hitting his glasses off his face and straight yelling at us in the middle of thousands of people. Burt gave him a little pat on the arm and we walked off, him screaming the whole way... Good one dude. I officially knocked on a door in a hotel, and had crazy birdfeeding man come up and talk to us. :) ACtually we've been having run ins with drunk dudes a lot this week... walking home there were like 4 in a row that one after the other kept yelling after us... :) yeah well. 

What am I even talking about? The best part of the week was the end where we taught this American lady named sarah. She's probably the nicest person I've ever taught on my whole mission. Ok, well one of the coolest anyways :) America is awesome. ANd for your information I don't deny the fact that i'm ever coming home. I'm just not allowed to think about that very much. We talked with her for like 2 hours and it was super cool. Yay for people that actually believe in God!!!! Really. You have no idea how nice it is to talk to someone who doesn't question that God answers prayers. We taught the coolest muslim I've ever met too. Most of them just tell you to DU Må lese kuranen Forstår du?!?!? and its irritating :) On that day we had 0 time to contact but I stopped one dude and we ended up getting an appt with him for the next day. HE was Super cool! He's from cuba but I feel like he's from jamacia. :) Super chill kid. 

We also got stopped by some Christian Youth Missionaries this week. We were just chilling waiting for our jamacian dude to show up and these two girls and a dude came over and talked to us. We actually noticed them a long time before that becasue they were dressed modestly and here that stuck out a ton.... LIke you have no idea. It caught our attention... med en gang?... uh sorry :) But they just came over and asked if they could pray for us. It was interesting becasue they were just dresssed in normal clothes but it was still pretty cool. I actually felt like they were on our team :) For funsies I opened up a personal dialog at the same time as they were praying, and was able to see the situatioin the way God saw it. I think I have become much more at peace with how much God really does love all of us, despite the clear infuence of Satan. 

ANyways. We did some more stuff. but i'm kinda out of time. to answer your questions really quick I use a plane like every week and half to two weeks... depends on whats' going on :) I like it though. That is one dream that will never die. I wish I could fly sooo badly :) i love it :) Especially when its just a one day I don't have to pack all my greier sort of thing :) but it is tiring. I'm sure you know :P I'll probably let you know more about what's happening at transfers next week.. the end of this 12 week one is in 3 weeks. WE just had a mini transfer where they took one of our sisters away which was super sad. We actually have gotten pretty close. Much crying happened when she left. I'm so sick of goodbye's. :) oh well. I honestly have no idea what is going to happen to me, but we'll see :) Itll be fun :) To answer your question, I love life. And I'm super happy despite how hard it is :) ANd I love you all to pieces. :D Sorry I can't join you all this year but I'll be back before you know it :) 

Thank you so much Funmommie!!!! :)  I really like that :) 

love,

Christopher

August 12, 2013

OK FunMomsicle,

I should tell you the new fad that we've adopted here in Stavanger: The Care Face. Apparently its a normal thing for Norwegian kids to do but its basically a face you give when you would say 'really?'. yup. its pretty fun. you basically just pull down on your eyelid with one finger and stare at them with an expressionless face. Yup. THen you have staring contests like that to see who laughs first. its like a staring contest on steroids :) 

Don't ask me why I shared that :) 

There really isn't too much to say about this week. I think I might have said a little bit too much last week and I don't have very much time so I'm going to have to keep this one shorter. And on top of that our Zone Training and me getting the flu took most of the week. The things that did happen were straight miracles that fell from heaven right into our laps... So there isn't a whole lot to say :)

We had a way cool training about Goal setting and planning with a focus on Christ. It was kinda weird how a 3 hour meeting about that ended up being the best on yet. One of the practicals that Elder Burt and I showed in front of everyone was a Comp study practical where we practicaled inside a practical. Basically my point with this is that I was teaching a plan of salvation teach and he said he believed in reincarnation and wanted to be a lion. I started laughing so hard I started crying and physically couldn't continue with with the practical. KO. Good one bro :) it was super good though.

So that was basically monday planning for it, tuesday giving it and helping the sisters out. Wednesday we went on contacting splits with the sisters around the pond which was super fun, and went super well cause we set some goals that actually worked! Woot! Go team :) Sister Mourik was concerned that the only people she can stop are muslims so I explained that sometimes people have a certain knack for stopping certain people and the only people I ever talk to are Atheists. :) So as a bonus to her, we got her an appt with a cool atheist girl. She was extatic :) That night was super funny. I think I've told you that our MMK here is the former LEADER of the most elite special forces group in all of Europe. More or less or mission leader is one of the most deadly assasins in the world. Yup. That's not a joke either. and he doesn't like being late... so when he got a call from us asking him why he forgot he had some ... funny exclamations :) It was a funny night. I hope this huge talent show that we are doing next week goes well. To bad I won't be here anymore.... that kindof really sucks a lot. 

Thursday morning I got a call that I was being released as a zone leader and I'm going to Bergen to be the District Leader and as a Trainer. Right before I go to Bergen. So that was funny. THis is interesting because I was put in so young and I feel like i'm being released right when President doesn't have anyone to replace me with. In a way I almost felt like I had failed but I honestly don't really feel that way. I*m just needed somewhere else :) This next transfer has 14 new elders so even the zone leaders here in stavanger will be training. So tons of chiz is going down next week. ANd I'm going to go live life peacefully in Bergen and work my brains off :) I'll say more later but I'm super excited. Bergen is a suupper cool place. that is what the world goes to when they think of Norway :) Tons of famoous things are there. And i'm excited to be in a big city again. BAsically the funnest thing ever. check out this webstie that has a sick video that shows what bergen is like: BergenWeekend.co.nf ps. I will be there for this... :)

yeah so then we flew to bergen and it was the prettiest flight I've ever been on. The pilot slowed down a bit and flew lower just so we could see the spectacularness of HardangerFjord. It was ammmmazing. The we flew back and dinner with Chris and Chelsea hill. :) They are soooo cool. 

Friday and Saturday I was sick with the flu. Call me retarded but we went out anyways. for as long as I could without throwiing up, and instead of getting nothing we kept running into investigators and teaching them on benches on the streets. That LITERALLY was all the time we had this week so that was ssuper cool. Having the flu sucks. But actually we ended this week more positive than ever before in Stavanger. We have 5 people we are going to commit to baptism this week. Most of whom fell from the sky ie. just showed up at church and said she wanted to be a member.... uh... or a dude who contacted us in bergen and looked up the churhc, and downloaded the bom on vacation and has read almost the whole thing and really wants to meet withus this week... uhhh.... ok :) 

Yestereday was awesome. We had constantin and Generosa in church again, along with guy we met a few weeks ago and this way cool lady. After church and running around like crazy people we went to the Steffonsons with CandG for dinner. It was a barbecue on the back porch and it was the funnest thing ever. We sang more songs, and taught them about christ. It was super cool and now Generosa just needs to get herself DØPT already!!!!! :) 

ok. too long of an email already :) But I love you all so much. Needless to say I have felt the prayers in my behalf. My testimony was and is being tested to the very core. But the farther I go the closer I feel to Him and the more I feel like my true confidence in myself, and my self worth is unbreakable. one year ago, getting released as a zone leader would have been hard. If you account it at all to numbers I would feel like I have failed. Burts dad said: a leader feels success when his zone succeeds. Well... My zone has been struggling under my watch, but that hasn't made me feel like a failure. IT's just forced me to find out where the spirit works with me. ANd it just keeps comming. :) THat's alright. It doesn't bother me too much :) I love you all soooo much :) I'm just kinda giddy to move forward. ANd i'm super pumped to train :) 

I told this to Lauren but when all is said and done Satan blinds people. I dare you to find meaning in life without Jesus Christ. You can be happy without him, but you will never be full. Or at least when I looked at myself I couldn't get there without it :)   

Love, 

Your son,

E. Christopher Wheten

ps. I'll get on later and answer back to your eamil ok? ;) VannKrig!!!! 

Life is Epic. 

August 5, 2013

Hey MinneMomma!

(that means my mom in english, and memory momma in norwegian :) )

Sounds like you guys had a super fun week. :) According to Lauren you all are 'vacationed out' :) sounds fun. I'm also very grateful that our poor car made it one last time :) For some reason it seems like that little van will survive just about anything :) Just as a random question, how much would it cost to actually buy a couple of kayaks? I don't feel like they would be super expensive but maybe I'm wrong :) 

I'm going to have to be honest however this last week was good, but it was really hard. I'm almost at a complete loss of what to say about it. .. :/ This is one of those times, that just being able to talk to you would be about a million times more effective than trying to write it down in an email. In terms of cool events, i had a funny experience on tuesday. It was the day of my driving test and I have to give a little backround so that you know why I was a little bit stressed about it. When I got here Anderson told me that I needed to take the test in an automatic car because a manual is a lot harder. (if you want to drive manuals, you have to get a specific license for it) I didn't reallyt know why because I had always driven a manual at home but I figured that he was probably right. When my driving instructor showed up though, she had a manual car and not an automatic. Fast forward a little bit she was kind of less nice, and told me that unless I spent money out my ears I wouldn't be ready to pass the test, but I told her to stuff it and that I was going to take the test anyway. so thats what happened. I was a little stressed out about it because the difference between the cars is that manual transmissions here you hit the brake first and not the clutch. I had to switch around my whole way of doing things and if I messed up once, I would fail. but at the actual test it went awesome. :) He told me I passed before we were even back at the vegvesen again :) so that was cool! Yay for being able to drive anywwhere in europe for forever and get cheaper insurance! Go team. what was funny is that I ended up wandering around Forus by myself for like 40 minutes before I decided to give up trying to find a bus and just call Elder Haugen (the senior couple here) :) He is a funny guy :) Ps. dad, the 600 kr. or 100 dollars ish I pulled out was to cover a little extra on my drivers license. So that is all money i now have back in cash... it didn't go anywhere :) I don't really know wehre I was going with that story, but I might as well just let you read it and not erase it :) 

Wednesday we flew to oslo again (we are going to be flying every week for the next 7 weeks... crazy!) and had a good time there. The highlight was talking to Elder Abrams about some of the funny things that happen in Stavanger..... Stavanger is pretty much the best area ever :) Yesterday's testimony meeting involved all of the youth and ysa getting up and bearing testiomony about how awesome it is to be out with the missionaries :) Thats been one of the coolest things here is taking them all out all the time. Our mission leaders stepson is actually leaving for utah this week for exchange school! woot! that means Andrè will be leaving soon! aww.... but yay! 

THursday we taught one american family with 3 little boys and there ended up being another american family who just moved here with 3 more little kids there too... it was a madhouse. :) That was the family that I skyped from if you remember their little kids :) IT was a crazy house. Nei takk to teaching primary :) It was fun though. We had Emil the bishops son with us and hes pretty much the chillest coolest kid ever. Myklebustveien man.... we ended up wandering around the countryside for like an hour trying to find this one house in the middle of nowhere, and when we finally found it this kid in his boxers answered the door and said the dude we were looking for wasnt home.... wah wah waaaaa... oh well. We taugh Generosa again and that was super funny. She ended up draggin constantin to an activity on friday with her. she is super cool. Other than that I don't have a whole lot to say.... unless you want to hear about when my Mission president took all the senior couples to a pub for dinner :) 

I love you all so much. I had a dream that rachelle and Fred and you and dad came as missionary couples to norway and were in my zone.... :) it was funny :) I can't wait to be home and go chill in the Idaho house with you. Unfortunately for me I know the second I'm sitting there doing nothing I will want to come back so badly it will hurt, so I'm going to try my very best to enjoy this despite how long and hard the road seems sometimes. :) thank you for always always listening to me mom. It means the world to me. Nothing can quite compare with your parents no matter how hard it may try :)

Love the son that will be yours forever and ever and ever some more,

Christopher :)

July 22, 2013

Hey Crazy!

I do have to admit.... I think you take the crazy cake for this week :) So GJ! Bra Gjort! Det var dødsbra Altså!

jk.

I really have almost 0 idea what I'm going to say. I know... I'm terrible. I already spent way too much time freaking out at lauren about how awesome her story is :) Make sure she knows how awesome it is that I think it is.... Go Team! As for your weather, I might have to agrue and say that our weather for this week is actually going to be better than yours. It is absolutely nydeligt here right now. Its almost hot even. I almost don't even want to wear my new warm fuzzy sweater around the apartment :) 

K well. You all probably think i'm an apostate bum because all I ever say I feel like is weird random stuff and nothing about what actually is going on.... All you hear is the funny stories where we are walking to the bus by the pond stariing at this guy eating a big subway style sandwhich which.... gets knapped by a bird that swoops down over his shoulder after he takes a bite a flies off with it... THat bird was trailed by about 50 other birds who wanted a piece of that sandwich.... the only sad part was the crying dude with no sandwich, and my crying companion who couldn't breath or move he was laughing so hard.... that was a good boost to get us through that day :)

In other news I had one of the Elders from Bergen on splits with me this week, Elder Gustafson. :) He's a goofball but he was a way funny and chill kid. I'll just say we had a really good day. I actually had a fantastic week this week. I needed to know that the Lord was there and He showed me that. I think in a way the more I become immersed in serving and becoming the best I can be I tend to forget who is actually here helping me. I don't really think I ever had that greenie faith that people talk about so maybe mine is coming in just a little bit late :) It is a really cool experience, to look into yourself and to talk to others about where their faith in God really is. No faith is completely certain. No faith is provable. And it is never enough on it's own. Its really up to us to keep finding ways to become better and see His hand in our lives. One day I can't wait to be able to talk to you about some of the experiences that I've had here. I am actually really truly not that good in a lot of ways, but I think that's what's helped me to grow the most. Is through failure. I had a talk with some of the other missionaries last week where they got me talking a little bit about my experience in Oslo, and it's almost a joke its so funny. Its kinda a sad story, but it's one that means almost more than anything else i've ever experienced. But back to splits, Gustafson had an epifany that i'm actually a real person, and that made his life :) We taught Constantin and Generosa and that was probably one of the coolest teaches ever... She actally understood really well what we were teaching, she prayed, and it was just the perfect setting ever! She has no belief in Christ doesn't like church, but now she loves ours, and understands christ. Its the coolest thing in the world to see! He fell asleep, and constantin locked himself out :) 

We taught scottish guys who got way intense, romanians, guys who believe straight up in aliens, and a muslim who had a straight yelling sesh with burt. Wrong day bro. Du MÅ LESE KURANEN FORSTÅR DU?!?!? it was super funny and annoying :) We ran to busses and trains, coreagraphed a dance to backstreet boys, played signs, painted a house, talked with funny kids. I had an inactive man i just randomly sat with at church and I learned he hadn't been back for 15 years, and just decided by himself he wanted to come back... super cool. What a champ. I miss playing with kids... We have some phillipeno people who just moved here that we actually just barely taught, and we are going to go help them around the city right now. soooo yeah. I'm gonna go now. I feel like i just rambled a bunch anyways. A lot of things I learned and felt this week are too personal to share but it's been really good. 

Even if you don't understand, don't give up. Its interesting. I always thought missionaries just had these rock solid testimonies like: dude, I KNOW this is true... but I don't think I'll ever get to that point here. Sometimes its really easy to believe. More often than not it's a lot harder.  WHen the crap hits the fan and its time to go out sometimes you muster all the courage you can and wonder if you really are alone, or if there is someone there helping you, or if all the people who pray for you are really helping. You just keep striving, keep pushing. Nothing comes all once. God works one step at a time. :) 

I love you so much mom! Have fun painting up the biz!

Love

Christopher  

July 15, 2013

Hey Morami!

I would like to start out by saying...  Preikestolen is totally worth the lack of emails that you get though... so sorry. When we went this time there were two main differences from last time: The first was the scouts.... there were, at least 5 billion scouts on that mountian. So the uncool part is that I don't think there was a single section of the trail we weren't trying to pass up a whole bunch of little kids. so that was annoying. The cool part of that, (thought this isn't point number 2yet) is that that day was the official record for the number of people to hike that mountain in one day :) I'm glad we took the bus, because there was literally nowhere to park! The Cooler part, was that the weather was awesoem! I actually prefer some clouds to give some definition to the sky, but to have a view with a completely blue sky was pretty cool too. :) I'll take that.

Unfortunately I don't really remember anything from last week so I can't really update you about it.... Here. I'll engage the Hukommelse.... OH! Last week was awsesome! I may have mentioned the youth mtc thing that we did but I would like to reiterate how cool that was. We had two hours with all of them to teach them and work with them and it was super cool. Unfortunately becasue me and elder burt were in Oslo last week, and were super busy the rest of the week, we didn't have a whole bunch of time to plan anything. The good news is that missionary work is pretty easy for me to talk about so when they all just stared at me like I was supposed to know what was going on... I just went for it. I guess since i'm such an oldie they all expect me to be able to do that now :) Um... I feel like i'm boring you... What else was exciting... OH! That couple that came last week to church came again! And we went bowling with them this week :) I've definately lsot my bowling skill however... sad day :) Yeah well. Neither of them had bowled before, so after explaining the rules they just went for it. Whats awesome is she's a rather shy person. In fact thats why the missionaries haven't been able to get her to come to church before. But when she started beating all the old guys they were playing with she started exclaiming things in her funny norwegian that were hilaroius. She either fikk masse, eller bare litt. :) Good times. We are teaching them while i'm on splits with a new missionary and going for baptism. Its going to be epic :)

This week we held zone confrences is Stavanger and Bergen, and it actually was pretty cool. its interesting the dynamic of the entire mission right now because it is quickly becoming super SUPER young. Us older missionaries are quickly become those that are supposed to be experts at teaching and at the language. I'll be in the top 10 oldest missionaries in a month.... And i'm only halfway. That's crazy. We played a funny game where we had a funny scavanger hunt around the church, and I got frowned at :) Thursday we were out knocking on doors and we ended up having someone point us to this group of rekkehus, or town houses basically, and this funny guy named Olav answered the door. He was really opptatt with a lot of things, and he doesn't like jdubs. I don't really remember what I was going to say about him... other than it was nice to have someone who despite being against churches whould stop and talk to us about what he believed and why he believed it :) Unfortunately I forgot my happy book so those are most of the things I can pull of the top of my head rigth now.. :)

I also realized if I end up with Elder burt again, which is completely likely since I don't really have anywhere else that he can send me, I will ahve spent half my mission with 2 companions. I love them both though. Yesterday the Sisters got me talking about some of my funny experiences from oslo, and I just went for several minutes... I guess I don't really have anyone I can just talk to like that anymore.... But it was cool to think about my time there. There are some experiences I will always remember very clearly, and the feelings associatied with them. Hmmm good times. :) Sometimes I wonder how I've ended up like I am.

I would say that my midlife crisis is over. Lest I forget it takes a lot out of me to go out and try my absolute best every single day despite all the negative influences around, but somehow you just keep going. I don't know if I never felt stress before my mission or if I just didn't deal with it, but I've definitely learned how to keep myself more balanced, thought that doesnt mean it happens overnight. The beginning of this week was hard. And the decision to completely not care what other people thought about what I was doing was the only thing that took me out of it. I think too many missionaries and people get caught up in impressing people, rather than just becoming that sincerely and not worrying about what they think. I've probalby dealt with different aspects of the same problem a million times so far.  Anyways. wow more ranting. i can't even rant about anything. the more I learn the less I think I know... crazy right?

ANyways. I love you guys. Americans are awesome. ANd so much different. We have a famliy that just moved from america and I think they're crazy. But I think I would have thought they were completely normal a year ago... That's whats weird. They also think we don't get fed tacos... heh. we shouldn't have told them. That would have made it more funny :) Also, can someone tell Elder burt to stop spraying this nasty oily 'good' smelling stuff.... One spray will get me out of the room. He sprayed it straight for like a minute. I had to leave the appt. And when I came back all the floors were covered in oil... 'bleh. 

If anyone needs a boost at any time, go read joseph smith history and the first vision. There is something there that doesn't exist anywhere else.

Have a spendexical Oink!

Love,

Christopher

June 24, 2013

Heh Hei Momsworms!

Slaptastic... Such a good word :) Thats the kind of word I need to be using in my everyday life except for the fact that this week I won't be speaking any english... (except for with people that only speak that :)) I've kinda done something like it before but really never all the way like this week... We'll see how it goes(or lasts :)

Sometimes I am amazed by the little details some people can remember... like this for example. I don't ever remember telling anyone that I had bought an african mask from him :) I will admit it is super cool but I don't even remember telling you guys about it. Anyways. That said i'm not quite sure how you wanted me to know that your aunt went to south africa. Sorry on that one. :) Det visste ikke jeg :) Its cool that she got some stuff like that. I personally think that it's super cool. 

As for Jdub. Its short for 'J' 'W' but you just say 'J' Dub for shortelse :) Like... Dubble U... but just dub.... anyone? No ok. Well they are at least dubbed the J because they are so stinking delirous :) (sorry, I didn't have any good adjectives for J :) No matthew this has nothing to do with dub step. :) though that would be hilarious if he was a jdub. I doubt they would allow that though :) In retrospect, They can be really nice too :) I think it's hilarious to get stopped by some of their proselyting people :) and there have been a few i've gotten to be friends with. Collins = no-friendy bueno though :) And he's dropped :) And were now teaching his friend :) Kiso :) That kids chill out of his mind :) Just a cool kid. 

A little more about our week is that it was weird. I'm doing really well actually :) I learned I need a testimony that isn't based upon the amount that other people are converted and much more based upon how much it has converted me. :) Somthing I'd prolly only learn if i'm actually trying to help other people get a testimony of the same thing that I know to be true. In a weird way though, I would describe my overall feeling as the one you get when you ride wicked at Lagoon. Right after you've shot up you get to the very top, and at that short moment at the top you realize a couple of things: Life is good especially when life includes the people that you love, who may or may not be sitting right next to you in the particular instance in which I am remembering this :) The scenery is awesome :) But at the same time you get this awesomely weird feeling inside your stomach where everything just kinds of lifts up and almost feels like there is no real ground or reality any more. You are flying, standing still, and falling all in the same instant. That is how I feel :) 

As a short sidenote, what I mean about midlife crisis, is much like that :) I think I meant that it was my life inside a life (or the mission life) midlife crisis :) Does that make any sense? Mostly in the way that on a mission I am not perfect. Its really hard. I miss you guys a bunch of bannanas. But every single day is so fulfiling. With the nature of the call comes a sense of resposiblity and understanding about what all this (pretend i'm waving my hands wildly around in a jerky and yet really determined fashion pointing at everything at once) actually means that I never want to go away. I think of the day I leave and I almost want to deny it. Not even because I dont want to go home because if I said that I would be lying... I just don't want to lose the closeness to my savior. This new higher plane of living I've found I never want to go away. I feel myself stretching all the time, and I never want to fall back to who I was before. I don't have to worry about this too much yet, but when I go home, to be able to get there in one solid emotional and spiritual piece, I'm going to have to realize it wont quite be the way it was. 

*Short Sidenote Over*

This weekend was super fun. Siri said the weatherman said it was supposed to rain, and so did my pet rat jimmy, but despite all that we went out and played soccer frisbee and volleyball anyways. :) When I got here sport was cool but over time we've built it a ton so there are actually a good number of investigators and less actives that come now. Turned out to be a really cool thing to do. :) After that I beatboxed to song where you have three people singing all at the same time, and it was way trippy and cool. (that was by the way with the sisters while we were waiting for the bus) Constantin thought it was awesome though some of the other people waiting for the buss probably thought we were a bit strange :) Then I made the sisters dinner :) yay for meatball sandwhiches! (we were there to protect them from crazy muslims actually... :) oh and we had taught this crazy italian philosopher guy who didn't believe in absolute truth... well. anyways it was pretty intense. :) I had my game cap on :) ok actually it wasn't really intense. This guy is pretty much just weird and crazy and funny :) Yeah well. Anyways back to the first train of thought after all that we went the stephensons for... the entire night til 12 :) It was awesome. Now before you all freak out I did have permission to do this. It was Santansaften which is the longest day of the year.... so we got permission to spend the night with members. I should have already told you about this family, its anita and her daughters (the crazy one who reminds me of Julie) and it was super fun. The bishops sons were also there with some other people and amongst all of them, I think there was more prodigy youth musical talent in one room than i've ever seen in my life :) All of them could just bust out songs if you would name one. it was ridiculous. and super cool. Ps. I have videos of all almost the entire weekend. 

Yesterday was the day where you burn stuff and unfortunately it was pretty much hailing on us. But hey we were there anyway! Basically the tradition is to just build the biggest bonfire ever and light it that night. You can cook hotdogs if you want and play games cause its light pretty much the whole time. this is a tradition that probably goes back to the vikings when they would celebrate their precious sun :) Speaking of vikings for pday last week we went and found an old viking sacrificial altar whcih was awesome and then sacrificed some people! Then we went and found an old ww2 bunker down by the beach! It was pretty much awesome. ANyways I feel like i'm just rambling now. IN other news I've been adopted by a philipeno mom who we helped move, became a professional barber as dubbed by Constantin and more. :) 

I mentioned a little about having it a little rough this week which is true, but what is a life without some rough as well? It was mostly just a combination of weirdness and some of the people we had high hopes for not really going anywhere... yet :) I am doing as much as I can to stay positive, and to really become the person I need to be. I may not be very good at butting into other peoples business, but I can definitely at least take care of my own. :) And I will say that with all the youth and familes we met with this week I know that I'm doing what i'm supposed to :) I think in this particular case I didn't even really know what the problem was, let alone how to fix it :) So all there is to do is just move forward, and trust deeply that everything will work itself out. 

OK. well that was probably too much. So i'm gonna bounce now :) But have a great week mom. I would like you to envision me passing out. While that isn't what happened when I saw your painting, its probably what should have happened. I must just be immune somehow :) Even in an entire week I don't think I coould paint a platypus on a octupus if all I had was a leaf. Question: have you ever painted anything Norwayish?

I love you sooo much!

Love

Christopher

Ps. Of course you would know someone tightroped the grand canyon :) 

June 17, 2013

Hey Mom!

I could say it really doesn't matter how long your emails are, but you probably wouldn't listen to me anyways :) So thank you :) Usually since the week before, my life would have hit an up and down rollercoaster like 3 times over but actually this week I have been able to stay quite constant. I still feel pressure, but I can deal with it now. :) So thank you for your prayers mom. I have been made to match the challenge at hand, and miracles are falling from the sky at an incredible rate :) The only night I really didn't have a good sleep was saturday night and that was because of the crazy drunk people partying all night. Literally they were still rocking out by like 8 in the morning. I was not a happy camper that morning :) Other than that I have been sleeping quite well :) .. Even though its only dary for like 4 hours in the night... So I go to sleep in and wake up in light :) its kinda funny! Norways bonfire holdiay comes up this week! tHats where we get to go light a bonfire because its the longest day in Norway! Woot! 

In terms of others stuff, I would like to say that I have been broken on my mission mom. I know that some people get a lot more stiff on their missions, and.... I've done the opposite. So that one definately makees the list :D I guess it's just been my lot in life to be with very different missionaries than myslef. Almost every one of my companions has had the worst most immature potty \ I would have thought you were retarded in high school humors, and I've grown to really like it. :) I've grown a certain liking for Coke and... yup :) Thats about all I have to say about that :) I think the mission is supposed to make you better but I'm getting exposed to like everything and going downhill pretty fast :) My Judgement factor has also broken... judging people doesn't really work. ... like ever. I used to think I didn't but I did. ANd yup I'm going to stop confusing you :) 

As for driving! I practiced for the first time in like a year this week woot! And the lady wants me to take the test in a stickshift. In norway youhave to get a special liscence to drive stick :) sooo. yup. Its weird though. They do the brake before clutch and it just goes against every natural reaction in my whole body. So I had to get used to that. so no I don't have a car. I'm just getting my liscence. :) There are a few areas that have cars though... mostly up north and inland  :) On the west (WITH ALL THE AWESOME FJORDS!) you're exactly right... it makees no sense to have a car. :) so none of us do :) in the EAst they do though .

OK! wow. I don't have time. but i'll throw in my 2 cents for this week anyways! This week was epic. like for realsies. 

Tuesday we had a planned teach with a Jehovahs Witness (referall from our invs.) with Constanin. When we got there, he had brought a friend who is learning norwegian with him and then Collins (JW) had a freind with him as well. So there were 6 of us sitting around one table in the library... and then the awesomeness began. He started arguing with us. Apparantly I was the nice patient one so he kept trying to convince me but it was completely retarded. So the polish kid Constantin brought started asking me questions. ANd before collins could get in I just started teaching him (cause I was actually strategically positioned to block him off) So while Burt distracted the Jdub, I taught Kamil a first lesson. By the time I got to Collins's friend and started to get to know him, Collins and Burt were straight yelling at each other. If we weren't 6 dudes around a table we prolly would have been thrown out :) So while they were doing that, I learned that his friend Kiso was from Sri lanka, was catholic, and missed his church, and really liked everything I had said to Kamil. I through down neccesity of authoratative baptism in front of Constantin, and at the end Collins wanted to meet again, I told him no, and then said but hey Kiso can we meet with you? Sure. ... way sweet :) Thanks for the referall collins. Ha det bra :) IT was awesome. One of the coolest teaches I've ever had. Burt was flaming afterwords, and I was bubbling like a balloon. I had had a way spiritual teach with 3 other people while Burt and a Jdub were yelling at each other. QUite fun actually :) 

Wednesday was Zone Conference which I really don't have that much to say about. Apparantly I was supposed to prepare some intro to a practical that I ended up just winging, but I think it went really well :) We met the coolest chilliest muslim ever,,, like really... he was chill out of his mind. So cool :) Thursday we fixed a bike with Alastair and then he took us to the SUPER expensive sea food buffet again. Taught Kamil again with Constantin and it was just awesome. Then I drove, and then.... 

Friday ended up being a really cool day when I felt like I should give one of the former members we are working with a call and he said it must have been straight revalation that I called him. It was just a good convo. with him. He is soooo hard ot understand htough. Stavangersk is the worst dialect. I like it... but its hard. Especially when some people put way more throat into it than they need to. Saturday we had a whooole bunch of people show up to play soccer, and then we ate fried rice... who knew I could make that :) 

In other news, I had a short freak out as I hit what i'm going to call my other life mid life crisis. :) Sometimes im dead and want to just relax. But right now I just feel chill and like I love life whether i'm being pushed donw or whether i'm just getting carried along my way. Its not possible for me to feel bad about what i'm doing here, so in a way i really don't want this to end. But that's ok. I have a long way left. I'm not even to the halfway point yet. whoo. I'm still ok :) Missions are just awesome. MIne is 0 of what I thought it would be. Its 10 times better. That's all I have to say about it. When I share experiences, you prolly don't realize just how cool it is to see the Lord lead you to do the things you need to do. We have like 15 solid people we are working with now. only noine of them has anything to do with me or the work I did. And you probably don't realize how much I freaked out when someone ACTUALLY CALLED ME!!! LIke... I gave him a card. He ran off.... and then called me the next day!!!!!! OH BABY!!! I*M SOOOSOYS STOKED!!!! Best voice message ever!!!! WE are meeting with him in an hour... sooo cool!!! It's unheard of to have someone actually call the number on your card.... woa.

ANyways. My week was great. There is so much more.Last note.... 

MOm. I apologize for not saying:

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE BIRTHDAY PACKAGE!!!! WOOOOOOTTT!!! I love it. Your easter candy is legit. mmmmmmm..... butterfigner eggs kill me. and kit kats.... and mmmm... thank you. ANd the harddvrive is the best! thank you THank you thank you! ANyways. I gotta go now! but I love you all so much! 

Love,

Christopher

June 10, 2013

Well Momsie,

As much as you tell me about what's going on, it still doesn't feel real... ;) So sorry if that bursts your bubble. I see pictures of home and it might as well be a joke :) But that's ok. I've given up the thought that life is normal or stable or anything. I just kinda go with it and take every day as it comes :)

You will be pleased to know mom that long before I read what you said about what I would tell dad about his email, that is exactly what I said... I got owned on that one :) You had me picked out way to well on that one. The thing is today I don't have so much time because we are going to go 'pratice driving' *cough cough* around the countryside :) Cause.... NOrway blows my mind... But! I also really do need some practice for the test. It is not uncommon for missionaries to fail their driving test so I don't really have any intention of falilng mine, and I haven't driven for a year... A YEAR I haven't touched the wheel... I actually kinda miss it alot. ITs alright though. I enjoy the methods of transportaiion we have here. :D Yea for no 4000 krown speeding tickets! (that's not a joke)

As for my life... Its kindof really exciting and boring all at the same time :) I legitamtely haven't had time to really write in my journal about it. I'll write one morning about the week before, and not even get through one day, not neccassarily because I have loads to say but more becasue I don't have any time, (and I fall asleep) :P So with that pattern I really haven't been able to keep up yet. But there are lots of cool things that keep happening. The biggest change this week was with Constanitn. We were helping him with language in the library when he saw  one of his aftrican buddies and introduced us to his friend Collins. Collins was playing it pretty smooth, and starting asking some probing questions... So we answered and then constatin just said: Hey, why don't we set up an appointment to meet later because right now I need their help :) So later that week, we met with a Jehovahs witness dude along with our own investigator playing as the 'member' :) it was hilarious. Constantin was busting the questions out, and busting out the Joseph Smith and the Restoration pamphlets on this guy. When we visited hime and his wife last night it was so interesting becasue we asked him if he believed that God and Christ came down and visited this boy Joseph smith and he believed it 100 %. It was incredible. He still doesn't know how to not be catholic, but the more he is with our church the more he likes it. He says he has one foot with christ and one foot with the catholics. A very interesting way to state that :) He is soo cool though :) He just cracks up over the funniest stuff, and when he gives the best bro high fives ever it makes a cool cuppy sound :) His wife wants to learn though. So hopefully that goes well :) 

I went on splits with my good old friend Elder Callister (half companion from Sarpsborg) and that was super fun. We met with the Jdub, met with Gian this super crazy awesome dancing phillipino guy, and talked to some other people. We planned for our training meetings this week, gave a bunch of training, and somehow still had enough time go out and find people :) We had this funny italian guy come to church who had some weird fundamentalist views. He was cool though. Other than that, I had a whole bunch of way cool conversations this week, with companoins and friends. The stress finally bubbled over and somehow I can still feel all the pressure, but I feel at peace. With every new challenge I can just feel myself growing under the weight of it. For as much as I don't like being a leader sometimes, you learn to deal with really interesting problems that bring out the worst and best parts of your character all at the same time. :) 

I am a terrible person because I disagree with a few things. One thing I learned I disagree with is our rule to constantly be with someone alllllllll the time. ON thursday I had a couple hours while we waited for our companions to switch back, and I can't tell you how much I enjoyed that alone time. I would almost consider it a neccessary part of dealing with the stress and everything that piles up in life. It really helped me to get to this state of perfect peace and of a what you coould possibly call a bright hope :) I'm glad it's stuck around. 

OTher than that, I don't really have a whole lot to say. My life is weird. I'm broken, and so not broken at the same time :) I kinda like it :) Keep havin an awesome summer! ... and um.....

well. Trying to express love over an email is always awkward... :D

love,

Christopher