January 22, 2013

I have no explanation for these, so... enjoy!

Lauren

January 7, 2013

Hi Momsicle!!!

It sounds like you guys had a super fun Christmas though :) Maybe not quite as crazy as mine was... My Christmas this year is going to be pretty tuff to beat anywhere in the forseable future :) It was just so much fun to have a whole bunch of people singing and dancing and playing the whole time :) SPEAKING OF WHICH! MY new years.... WAS AWESOME!!!!!! We went over to the Isaksens, which is a british woman married to a norwegian dude. THey are awesome! ANd... the coolest part is they probably have one of the best views of the entire Oslo Fjord i've ever seen. We started by drinking some wine, smoking cigars, and then we played card games. Mom, you would love Pauline Isaksen. :) She bought herself this little automatic card shuffler which she'll just sit there and use over and over again :) it was super funny. Did you guys know that you have trained me waaaay to well in card games? Well, you have. :) No one hear is anywhere near as intense as we are with them. And no one here really stands a chance. It was still fun though. We ate tons of food, I learned i'm allergic to cats, and then we watched a movie called the Nativity. Hilarious. One i¨m definately going to have to finish when I get home. (It really bothers me when you can't finish things) 

Then... THe epicness began. We went out onto their balcony with the awesome view of the entire oslo fjord... and just stood there for like a half hour. Norwegians are super into the whole fireworks thing... LIke. wow. I will never, in my lifetime, probably be able to see a Fireworks show as fantastic as the one I saw for new years this year. like for realsies, the ENTIRE fjord was lit up like Downtown Baghdad. THis is the span from Akers all the way around to Drøbak. I tried taking a video of just how awesome it was but I don't think I could capture the epicness with my camera. If I were to guess we probably heard hundreds of fireworks go off every second. All of their neightors were lighting them up all around us, and we could see all the way to central oslo literally just sparkling and booming in the distance with flashes of light. When we looked over to Sandvika (rich people) There literally was just a constant stream of lights and sound coming from the entire span of the Fjord. All in all, it was the coolest thing ever. 

In terms of the rest of this week, we saw some really cool things happen in our area, but we didn't see the amount of progress that we wanted. We still don't have anyone coming to church, or even that we can teach very regularly. But the people that we found before Christmas are still alive, just unavailable right now. So hopefully we can meet with them this week. Crossing our fingers :) I actually talked with E. Anderson about the very principle of Faith working miracles, and we agreed that faith will always work miracles, just maybe not in the way and in the time you would like. :) In terms of miracles we did meet with Kristine, a girl we found from Trondheim this week, and we taught her by going with her to walk her two little dogs :) What was cool is she actually asked us to pray with her in this little grove of trees, so we'll see if anything comes from that. We met with several families this week, and one of the families that dad is a non member and wants to take the lessons from us! Woot! There kids have way cool legos too :) When I send my pictures home you should find the coolness that they did for us :) 

OH! We had the Juletrefest this week! THis is more or less the ward christmas party, only in Norway it's waaay bigger than at home :) I played the clarient in a little ward band while all 120 people danced in circles around the christmas tree, basicallly like the Prince of Egypt small village town thingy style :) Also, we (the missionaries) performed a number called På Låven Sitter Nissen, which is the most childrens traditional norwegain song they have :) (please note, whenever you see the video of this, that it was coregraphed ... (no idea how to spell that) by me :) ) So now you all can be embarassed that you even know me! Thanks Aubrey for the skills! It's got a really funny story attachted to the song too :) one day I will explain it :) I'm going to save the music for it! Anyways, the whole shebang was super fun. We went to the spanish Family home evening which was super funny, especiallly since they had me play the piano for musical chairs. (really even in a place where people play the piano I still play a bunch). Anyways. 

It was a fun week, and somehow, I'm going to keep going. :) Go team! By the way... no I hadn't opened my stocking. ... So when I get there I'll make sure you get a picture of that... :) Wow you're weird sometimes mom :) 

Ps. I got uh... lov...... Permission! To use dropbox. So if you dad, will tell me which account to sign onto, and give me a folder, I'll just start dumping stuff. Or I can mail stuff home if you don't have space. You choose! But I have fun stuff to send home! Anyways

I love you all! Have fun in the cold! I havent even been wearing my coat the last couple days! Heh... who knew Norway would be warmer than you guys... Well have fun!

WIth Loving bubbles!

Christopher

January 1, 2013

Hi Mom!

so I'll just pretty much go from the call too :) Since I spent like 2 hours writing in my journal about my life since last sunday, it's going to be a lot easier if I just go from the phone call. :) I actually was suprised too when I thought about what we actually talked about in that phonecall... it was basically nothing that I could remember. Like.... nothing :) It was mostly just fun to see all y'alls faces and say HI! I was disapointed when E. Torgjy didn't come up and say hi :) He said he was going to come up and say somehting in Norwegain so you could actually see people communicating, and Torjesen is HILarious. LIke. He is so funny.  But That probably would have been stupid. Me speaking in Norwegain literally means like nothing to you guys. Thats ok though :) Norwegian is only the coolest language ever. ... It's no biggie. :) 

After that super fun phone call, the rest of my Christmas Night was one that i'll never forget. In fact I will remember everything about this Christmas for the rest of my life probably it was so much fun. I have some fun videos of us playing some super fun games with the british family, and we sang songs like weirdos, and played buckaroo if anyone knows what that is :) One of my most memorable things is when me and Elder Earl, (dude who plays the bagpipe and is kinda quiet but just likes to laugh, he's also a fantastic teacher) had a chocolate eating contest. Nick Ivanov, the member who you saw, told us we couldn't leave that night until we had eaten this HUGE bucket of chocolates that they had bought for their normal English Tradition. So we decided to see how fast everyone could eat them all. One like every 30 seconds. So sister pace would throw us both a piece and we'd say GO Go GO! and just pound all this chocolate. The first one to drop out lost. I'm pleased to report that me and Elder Earl made it allt he way through, and ate like 30 chocolates a piece in like 15 minutes. My emotional well being went wacko after this. like. I was probably legally drunk. We drove home at like 12:30 that night after just a super awesome super Koselig time with their family. I have some funny videos I'll have to see if I can ever get home from that day :) It was magnificent though. 

The rest of that week was Mission Conference, which was super fun. I sang in a choir for the talent show, and played a shepherd in the Nativity for our mission. I'm unbeatable at staring contests på grunn av Anderson :) Like. Bring it on. Mission Conference was cool though. I learned a lot about the culture of Norway, and how the church started here. It was way cool. It's been cool because I'm really starting to fall in love with the place. Before too long I'll never want to leave dang it :) Yes your emoticons move mom :) I just remembered I didn't answer your questions yet... AS to what the members got us... I got a lot of really nice wool socks and A Lot of food. ALOT. I have enough sugar to last me till next Christmas at least. :) No I haven't opened my stocking yet... sorry I'll get to that :) And we actually drove the mission van to their house. WE were all singing along to *through heavens eyes* the whole way there and back. Actually on the way back everyone just klunnked out :) It was funny. AS for new years, I'm not allowed to go outside after 6 o clok unless I'm at a members house. Which I will be! Woot! The Isasksens invited me over. Weird story: I taught their son at the MTC and he came back for christmas, and when he saw me we just starting talking in Norwegian. It's times like this when you realize just how far you've come :) 

Um.... Hva ellers.... We taught another hard core atheist I found at the Christmas Gatastands we did last week. It took like 2 and half hours, and we had a way funny member from Hamar named Barbara just bust in on the teach and stay with us at the end. It was way funny, and it actually helped a lot. THat's atheist #2 who admits, that he knows it just comes down to their willingness to show faith to find out if God exsists. We'll see. I hope he comes around. Agency never drives you as crazy as it does on your mission :) I took a huge ferry to an Island out in Oslo Fjord to visit a family. It was a cool boat. ALSO GUESS WHAT!!! I fear No Man! Remember how I said I hated contacting on public transportation this week? Well I also have been working on getting better, and I did it a lot over the last few days. I've talked to someone almost every single time! Most people aren't very nice though.... Unfortunatley for them I was pretty determined to have a conversation with them. :) IT catches people off guard when I ask them about the weather and not about religion. Some people just swear at me though... THats not fun. 

Anyways. This week is either going to be really awesome or it's going to be really frustrating. Either we actually get to meet with the 20 people who said after christmas or they all fall through anyway. Come on! ANyways. I love you guys so much! I forgot to add one thing to the list of things i'm doing when I get home that I gave to dad. I want to spend a night just plopped in front of your chair mom and just talk to you :) Good luck with everything! Get some sleep mom :) I'm not sure how excited I am to see what you put in my stocking... :) No. I'm excited! I love you mom!

Love,

Christopher