February 18, 2013

Hey Momsicle!

We're going to go with no organization today ok!?! I'm bored of orgainizing things... so i'm just going to go completely at random.

First of all, Lykke til with the moth war. One day I will return with reinforcements. I always did find a sort of pleasure out of destroying all of them. 

Second of all, this week was really. Hard. Monday was fun though. I took my companion out knocking for the first time, and it was way supppper cool. We decided on an area to go and you can get there either by tram or by subway. Subway is faster but for some reason I just randomly decided to take the tram. This was beyond what I just chose because when I got on a couple stops later this 20 year old girl got on and sat on the seats just across from where i was standing. Immedieately she started staring at me, so embarrassed I looked away of course. But she kept staring at me. So finally I just walked over to her and started a conversation. For as weird as it was, it was actually way smooth, and it ended with her giving me her number as she was running off the tram. Soooo that was way cool. She is studying to be a priest for the Norsk State Church. So that was fun. I also continue to be fascinated with atheists. There was this man that we stopped from England, and when we mentioned religion he told us we should probably move on because he was militant atheist. Sadly I did. But the whole night I was pretty fired up... I wish I had talked to that man :) Anywasy. THen when we went knocking the first house that we knocked on let us in. let us in. It was cool. Lucky bug gets in on his first time :) There little boy Phillipå was hillarious. Also I can't back this up by we may have seen a little bit of the northern lights that night. Or we were just crazy. I'm almost blind now so I can't trust my own eyes. (seriously , .... I'm almost blind. I can tell I'm getting worse and worse.) Question: if you have bad eyesight and you don't wear glasses do you eyes get worse faster because you are straining them to see everything? I'm pretty sure you guys know that one :) 

Moving onward, the middle of my week was really hard. Don't really have a good explanation for why, I would just wake up and feel terrible. But we kept fighting. And even though more than half of the things that we had planned this week cancelled on us, we still met with a lot of people and had a lot of success :) And some funny things happen. We taught this one guy named Paul, who is pretty much a big cheeze in norway. He is a professor of philosopy, the producer at the opera house, a strategic guy for Norway. Cool right? Well anywaze, he basically started out by saying, I've read about 50 books about atheism, so I won't just smash those all over your head, i'll jsut try and listen. DId it go well... yeah :) But we were supposed to be getting off to an open house that was about an hour south of Oslo, so we tried to get out but my companion really had to use the bathroom. So finally after I talked with this guy in the hall for like 10 minutes we booked it out as fast as we could. AFter running as fast as we could and catching subway's ands stuffs, we finally learned that we missed the bus. So with basically nothing else to do we just wandered around the docks in Oslo trying to find someone. :) If only he hadn't needed the bathroom... Maybe that was just funny to me. Then later when we were walking around this one kid just stops us out of nowhere and asks me if I can hold his antenna down for him. Sure why not? So he leads us into this parking garage, and gets in the oldest dinkiest little car i've ever seen in my life. And as he drives out i'm wakling beside his car holding this ridiculously long antenna down. It was pretty comical. :) And then a man asked my companion if he would marry him to his boyfriend. Unfortunately he had no idea what this man had said. Looking back though we've had some good laughs about it. :)

We had someone who tried to drop us this week as well, who we went and convinced him not only to keep meeting with us but to read out of the Book of Mormon 10 minutes every day. :) It was cool. He is a way nice guy! We finally had people that said they were coming to church, and we actually had this way cool guy named Ken come. So that was really good, and I had an incredible experience with the sacrament. Beyond helping Hakim the new member here to Bless the sacrament for the first time, I am always amazed by how powerful the sacrament can be. For just those few minutes, you don't need to worry about being a missionary, or anything else, other than focusing on the savior and what He has done for you. it was really cool. All of my studies this week have been fantastic as well. As I continue to study the general conference talks and the scriptures, I conttinue to be amazed by just how personal my studies can be. If I am trying to learn something, everything that I study will connect together, and teach me something new, each and every day. That happened almost every day this week where I would just get exactly what I needed. I particularly love Elder Eyerings talk about The pavilions that cover us. When you are willing to pray in humility, that is when you can align your will with the Lord's. There is nothing left that hides you, if every day, you kneel down and you pray with all the humility you can muster. The most part of what I have learned on my mission and I continue to learn is this: I can't do it alone. So stop trying man. Maybe one day I'll actually be able to stop :) 

Random thoughts: I'm glad you're making a list for me mom. I'm going to need that :) Also, It's weird to think how things are going at home. I'm glad Grandma is doing better! I read the package that dad sent me :) We're going sledding today so I need to get off soon, but i loved it dad! I'll prolly say more later! I don't really have a whole lot of money for postage right now though... I'm kinda poor :P Also, random thought of the day.... There are only 60 somethin' links in that chain in the picture you guys sent me :) I love you all so much! I hope you guys swell with joy and don't fry your brains on that TV. 

ALL THEEE loves! 

Christopher 

February 11, 2013

Hey Mom! Happy Mother's Day!!!!!!!

Ha en kjempe lykkelig Morsdag!!!! Happy Norweigian mothers day! And Valentine's day! It was cute to see all the little Norwegian kids to sing the songs that are all so familiar in Norwegian yesterday. Even though I don't get to call you yet I still thought of you :) Soon... ok not really. :) But hey I feel special!

Let's answer some questions then!

- When is Andre coming?  And how do we get ahold of him?  We would love to have him over!

André will be coming about a week before school starts in August and staying until the next July.... So I'll probably just miss him :( Oh well ... can't win them all. To get a hold of him he'll have to get a new phone number, but once it gets a little closer matthew could look him up on facebook or something. I guarantee Matthew could find him at school too :) 

  - Why does the president go on appointments with you?  Does he do it with all the missionaries?  That would totally freak me out.

You know I think he just wants a first hand look of how we actually do everything... It was just really weird to have him there... I dunno. It's more that it was my first teach ever where I went from being led and talking maybe 30% of the time to going to like 75% and leading. Now it would be fine. No problem. It just had to be on our first one. :P And with a guy who it made kinda uncomfortable too... anyways. it's ok. But it was way scary. And he at least has done it with a couple others in Oslo. He's also studied with me before, and gone contacting. 

  

   - Tell me three ways that you and your companion are alike, and three ways that you are different.

Alike: We are both super goofy. We both love zelda. We are both tall and skinny.... This is actually kinda a hard question...

Dislike: I eat a lot differently. I'm a lot more sarcastic. I went to college. I a little bit more bestemt on what I want to do. 

     - Tell me something funny that happened to you this week.

This week...... I was sssoooooooooooooper worked up over Atheists. I want them all! You! Come talk to me! NOW! It was funny. Because I would talk to one and just be way super opptatt about it for forever. I couldn't stop thinking about it. IT was soooo annoying. Just to talk to people on the street and literally all that they can say is A:They are too lazy to try to find God, or B: Just are too lazy to change. Norway is the Non-religious capital of the world. So... I may not be able to destroy the baptists from the bible belt. But by the end of two years of this.... I'll have heard it all :) I will know how to beat an atheist. Especially those who think that they are very 'learned' ... I think those are my favorite. The one's who just use athiesim as an excuse not to believe in God are just annoying. those who have a: I can do whatever I want because I don't believe that anything will happen to me, sort of attitude. Yes you have lots of money now. And a cute samboer who makes you feel lonely sometimes... you have it all :) The throwup on the streets every saturday morning... real nice :) I'll see you on the other side buddy.... then we'll chat. Ha det godt da. I guess it's reallly not all that funny... it mostly just perplexes me. And makes me a little sad. When people honestly can't give you a reason why... They... just say no.  :) I would say the funniest thing from this week is how many times my companion would say something and all I have to do is smile at him for him to ask what was wrong... He usually figures out what he said was wrong. :)

In terms of all the numbers that we got last week, a lot of them ended up never answering their phones, or just setting an appointment, kbabing us, and then saying no. And they went nowhere. Dang it people! Oh well. Things are moving forward. I'm determined to make things happen here, even if it's after I leave. 

     - Tell me something spiritual that happened to you this week.

That's a really good question. On wednesday, I really really wanted to give a good spiritual thought to Andre's family. I was on splits with my DL and we spent all day trying to figure out what to do... Finally right before we left I had it. I was in charge and I just didn't feel right about anything else... So finally I had a topic... but no plan :) So when we got there I gave the thought and it was probably the most fantastic unplanned lesson I've ever given in my life. It was awesome... and then in front of us Palmyra asked her husband to take the lessons from us.... he just stared at her. It was super intense. he said no after we left, but he's not completely closed. We'll see how that goes. It was just a cool testimony of diligence to me. The right one literally didn't come until the last moment. 

     - Dang.  I thought I had more questions than that.  Make up your own question and then answer it.  :)

Coolest Worst thing ever?

There was a dude who we stopped on the street a couple weeks ago. He was super cool and said he had seen missionaries at his house and wanted to talk with us... Last monday he sent a text asking if you could become a mormon.... I said of course almost thinking he was joking and when I tried to set up an appt. he said sure the next time i'm in Oslo. Appartenly he lives in Fredrikstad which is about 2 hours south.... NOOOOO. So I gave the referall and forgot about it. On Saturday after eating a way good dinner with my good friend Bjørn again (he said I could come stay with him if I come back to Norway!!! Actually... he was serious about that... it was pretty cool) so after dinner. I had a text from Fstad to call them.. . So I did and they said that they had just met with Niål and that he told them he had gone onto mormon.org like I had told him to... loved all our values and wanted to become a member. He said: How long would it take? They said you have to come to church 3 times... He said cool! Lets start next week! .... Elder Weaver (cool guy from my group... like 'the' cool guy) and Elder Morris(trained by andy too) were basically yelling praises over the phone. It felt so cool to be able to be a part of that so far. But come on!!!! I'm trying so hard here, and I can't seem to get anything like that... :) oh well. It was cool. 

other thing. Last Monday we'd tried to visit that lady who had read the MB. And after me and Andy's failed attempts and it seemed like she avoided us... SHe was there... And intersted. So we taught her. :) It was soo cool because I had 0 problem understanding her this time. I don't really have a huge problem with anyone :) And shee's still supper cool. Unfortunately she wanted to read the Bom in Norsk this time so she wanted a couple weeks to read before we could teach her. SHe is just a member of the State churhch and she's also a psycologist.(really man what is up with me and pyscologists?!?) But i'm way excited. 

K. THat's a lot of random things but thats about the gist of my week. I'm gonna do some pics now. We had cool teaches, and cool things. But it's still just waking up everyday and keepin on going. Thank you so much for the love! Have a great week! 

Love 

Christopher

February 4, 2013

Wowza! (I don't know why!) Just because

Mumnum,

You really shouldn't have given me that ammo :) I like that one. It's catchy. 

Anyways, what the heck is Ethan doing already having attention problems... I mean, I knew he was cool and all, but wow. He's just going to be like this little angel child that just runs around with everyone. Also in terms of the weather here, it's still just chillin a little below 0 all the time but the bonus is that we've gone from just seeing some daylight to having the sun completely horizantal to you at midday. :) I've never experienced quite the same blinding power as walking into the sun here has had. For some reason too it always seems like we have to walking into the sun.... Oh well. :) I talked to my old friend Elder Badger who is up in Tromsø right now and he says he barely sees the sun for an hour at a time... sad day. Oh well. in a month They'll have more light that we ever had back home :) It changes fast. 

In terms of superbowl.... wow. It sounds like your talking about spaceships from another universe for all I know :) I'm now to the point where Elder Linge called, the point of no return... Where you think about home, and it doesn't even exsist anymore. For all I know I've been doing this whole mission thing for as long as I can remember. But it's way fun though. It has been a lot of fun to get to know Elder Ellsworth so far. The problem is that we're both kinda goofballs... so we'll see if we can actually accomplish anything, but our balance is really kinda funny. In somethings I'm a little bit more uptight, and in others I don't stress at all. Like, I used to stress hardcore when we'd go visit people... but now now that I'm in charge of understanding everything and leading the whole visit, i'm just like yeah sure cool whateves. I should probably be a little bit more upitght but I'm really not. We had some really good first teaches with some new investigators because of that. Kim continues to be an adventure. I told Kristy in my letter, to just think about being a 19 year old punk kid and trying to tell some 40 year old Norwegian psycologist how they should live their life, or that God exists. Anyways. Every single person we're teaching right now has 0 belief in God which is an incredibly interesting challenge in and of itself. It's definately not something I could do alone. :) If there is one thing I'll be able to do after my mission, I may not be able to destroy baptists from the bible belt, but I'll at least have a lot of experience talking to atheists. The good thing about atheism, is that it's a pretty lazy argument. :) It's pretty hard to argue against trying. :D Which is all I can ask. 

In terms of stories of Bravery and Faith, I would say my first teach as senior with Kim, with a new companion, and with the president there, was pretty scary. But it got better. Our dinner appointment went really good, and I told matthew this but the 17 year old name André in that family is going to Lone Peak!!! Oh BABy!!!! YOU GUYS SHOULD INVITE HIM OVER FOR DINNER ONE NIGHT AND ASK HIM ABOUT NORWAY!!!! I've spent the last 3 months getting to know him and he is literally the coolest kid you will ever meet.... liek ever. He travels out to help Kim with us and we have had some way cool experiences together. Like. I would say that's been the coolest teaching experience so far on my mission is to have him with us and to see him change and our investigator. We are still trying to help his dad, and its way cool to get to know all of his little siblings. It's cool to just see my own confidence and teaching skills improve as I just .... I dont know. do it :) I also taught the invs. Class on sunday with about 20 minutes notice. So I just had to use memorized scripts and it actually went pretty well. ... there were only like 30 people there :) (me being the youngest other than Andre :) No pressure right?

We watched HOw to Train your Dragon In NOrwegian this morning and it was soooo legit :) I want it soooo bad. :) And Norwegian pants. Literally. They own. Sorry that was a little sidetracked :) I should be more serious and stuff....

But really. We saw miracles this week. In one day we found 9 people who wanted to meet again and gave us their number.... 9! That's like half of what i've gotten on my whole mission... do you realize that!? ok prolly not. But I do. I'm just trying to do everything I can to make something happen here. The ward is so much better and I love the people here, we just need to see something come of all of this. :) It's hard but I will always keep going. When I truly think about how cool it is to just go out on the streets and talk to people about the best message the world has ever known, I feel very honored. There is no greater call :)  It's super fun to train Elder Ellsworth. He's almost too much like me... in some ways. Not in others :) But it's fun and it'll be way cool to see both of our progressions here and throughout our whole missions. We have so much left to do! 

Anyways, I'll stop boring you with all my not so brave or faithful stories :) I love all of you so much! Thank you so much for all the love! Keep on being awesome! I should leave some sort of spiritual thought or something.... hm. I can think of lots. I've had the opportunity to bless the sacrament in Norwegian the last couple sundays... I don't know why I chose that as my one, but I know that the Authority that we have to do it really does bring the spirit of Christ. There is no better time of the week in my mind :)

Anyways.! I love you all!

Christopher

p.s. I called Anderson this week. Wow. I felt like I was talking to like.... a part of my life or something. The things we experienced together I will never forget. I almost cried just talking to him. I never realized just how much he had meant to me. Still don't. I just love him soooo much :) Not enough to creep him out with pillowpet hugs though :) I'll just steal all of those :) 

PPS: Check out the new mormon message man. Dud. stud. TIs bomb.

January 21, 2013

Hey Mom!

hmm... I don't really know where to start with this one. Sometimes I very cleverly arrange my thoughts into something that works but I don't think that's going to work for me this time. And we have A TON to do today. So I can't spend all day emailing either even if I wanted to. So I'll begin by saying there is about a million percent more to say than can be said with anything right now. So sorry :) 

Firstly. I have been called to be a Trainer to the new Elder, Elder Ellsworth from California. I would like to point out at this juncture, that I'm going to die. Also that this is not very normal. I will be training him in Oslo, which means I'm going to be here for a loooonng time. Probably til may. Of the many things that I could say, I will simply say, WHAT I'm training my second companion? What, there are only 2 missionaries coming in, and I'm supposed to train one of them? WHy? I've never even seen or expericienced anything else. LIke. Wow. President told me about this on tuesday of last week. Apparently, he told Elder Earl right after he told me that he had asked that because he was laughing so hard at my reaction. He thought he was going to have to pick me up off the ground because, he thought I was going to die. 

Mom I'm glad that you are not suprised that I'm training because that makes one of us at least. I'm pretty much freaking out. I'm finally getting my second companion, who, I will now be senior over, and be training, and teaching, and languaging... med en gang. Samtidig. All at the same time. It's scary to change companions for the first time, and to go senior, and to train. If it was just one of those things I wouldn't be so worried. But I have just as much work to do on myself as I have to do on him. Do you realize... right now, when we are are in a teach, I look over at my companion and he always knows what to do... I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm terrible at teaching, and somehow I'm supposed to figure out how to help this area, and help the souls find eternal salvation as 2 19 year old kids. One who can mostly speak the language, and one who... well I don't know yet :) 

I had some really good thought to explain my sitiuation and how I feel in a really witty way. Hmm... I can't think of it now. Really though, it was a good one. We're going to go have all you can eat pizza now. I'll try and think of it there, and then finish this email. :) Hey I'm back! 

Picture in your mind a 4 year-olds rendition of the mona lisa when this child uses sidewalk chalk. THen it gets rained on. Then a dog pees on it. That's me! :) 

Jk. But seriously. I'm scared. But. Lest everyone feels as terrible as I am, I am way super duper excited! Dude! I get to train! The coming months in Oslo will be 100% nothing like what I have experienced thus far. Assuming my companion is a cool guy, we are going to hit the streets hard. And we're going to have a blast. Will it be one of the hardest things I ever do? Yes. Will it also be AWESOME and super fun to be with a completely new missionary... yes :) I just went through the whole process of figuring everything out, and learning pretty much life anew, and now I get to help someone else through that same process. 

K well I need more time which I don't have. But. wow. Oh yeah. Ridiculousness. Hmmm :) This week was fun. Wednesday we found this lady who took us into her work and let us teach her, and afterwords we had to get from Carl Barners Plass to Jernbanetorget, in 5 minutes. No this doesn't mean anything to you. But normally when we walk it takes 25 to 30 minutes. We did it in 5 :) I remember just running around on the icy streets like a dork, literally like a full out run. I cought the trikk (tram) barely, but My companion did not. So just as the door was closing I watched him hop the rail and try to get on... just as I kept going. So he kept running. And we made the bus through a miracle. but we made it :) it was fun. We barely missed the train last night though... by like 5 seconds. I'm going to kill myself. I gave myself a haircut and cut a huge bald line on the side of my face. it's skikkelig morsomt. funny. Heh. Dropped toilet paper in the toilet, and almost burned our apt. to the ground. Fun stuff :) 

I have 0 time. .. but. I would like to say a little about how much Grandpa's death has actually affected me. When you think about it, this is the first person I have really fun clear vivid memories with. I was talking to my companion about it on saturday, and at that point I could feel that he had passed away. I wish I could be there with you all. Especially you dad. Just know that I send all the love and thoughts i can home. I honestly didn't know how much it would affect me. But it's a good thing too. I'll be there with you all this week. And I need all of you to be there with me. I'm going to need all the prayers I can get. When I write you next week I will have probably died several times already ... :) And hopefully I'll have more time to write.

I love you all!

Christopher

January 31, 2013

Hey Momsiescle!

It sounds like you guys have had a really super awesome week. And that's good because I had one too! Just out of nowhere the last part of my week with elder Anderson was the one of the best we had had. It was interesting because just as he's leaving we now have investigators to actually teach and things to actually do but that's ok. We got to do enough right before he left that it really helped me. Tuesday we taught an unmarried couple from Ålesund and Trondheim and had a lot of fun on the last day with our old district. Wednesday we had an activity with the young men where we were able to schedule a couple of teaches with cool people and then we split up and taught with young men. This was very good for me to do to kind of have a teach with someone who really wasn't experienced. So that was way good. But what was really cool is that one of the appointments that we had was with Kim! That means nothing to you guys, but he's one of the coolest experiences I've had on my mission. Like for realsies. He was the guy we found right after we found Rakel. We taught him for 3 hours the last night before Anderson left, and the 16 year old Andre Rosenskilde (who we eat dinner with every wednesday) was with us. It was sad to watch him and Anderson part, because the three of us had become way good friends. He's legit. And he's alive again! He was another one that we lost contact with which killed us but he worked out. Go faith! I'm using all of it that i've got. 

To answer you question about her(the lady who had read the book of mormon) I don't think I told you about the worst experience of my life. But that experience was us trying again and again to get in contact with her and it's not even that she said no I don't want to meet its that i'm pretty sure I saw her and she's been ignoring us anyway. Boo. That night where we are almost sure she hid from us I almost wanted to cry. At weekly planning the next day I did cry. Me and Anderson had tried so hard and just hadn't been able to do anything. But it was almost a blessing. We were trying our hardest and doing everything we could and we couldn't get anything out of it. I'm not sure if last transfer meant as much to Elder Anderson as it did to me, but I will never be able to explain just how awesome last transfer was. We had a ton of fun, and the deepness of our relationship together was only increased by the incredible trials that we went through together. For serious though, when I was going through our area with my new companion, he was like wow... You lost them too... yup. Darn it. Anyways. 

Starting on thursday, You will never understand what it feels like to watch basically you're older brother leave you and get sent to Narvik. He's..... gone. For good. THis didn't hit me until like saturday. And really it took me a while before I had any idea what was going on. But my new companion Elder Ellsworth is pretty cool. He reminds me a ton about myself. And really I just had to decide that my experience going forward was going to way different than elder anderson. It's not a problem to teach him or even be the only one who understands people. That hasn't been too much of a problem yet. It's mostly just been the fact that Anderson isn't here. That's like all I know. Everything is just weird without him. Without getting all gushy I almost cried one night when I just missed him. So basically my life was not farts and sunshine for a couple days. It's still kinda weird and kinda hard but it's gotten easier. Anyways. But going forward I know that I can do what I need to here. To answer your question, maybe there is someone I'm supposed to find in Oslo and maybe not. All I know is that the more I rely on the Lord the better I am. I become better, and I know that as long as I do my best I don't have to be perfect. I'm trying to muster all the faith in my being to make something happen. ... We're the underdogs of the mission. The two youngest missionaries in the mission running around Oslo. But it's been fun. The more I have just relaxed and just wait for teaching opportunities to arise for my companion and others they've always come. And I have known what I needed to do. I will thank my own trainer for the rest of my life though :) No one but him could have done what he did for me. 

All I can say is that the Lord has blessed me and helped me to rise to the challenge. I can now understand swedish perfectly, and almost any other dialect that people speak. I understand old people, and have never before just kinda always known what to say. I wouldn't say any of this has anything to do with me. Nor will it ever. :) Hopefully I can get over the whole, needing to be compelled to be humble thing. Anyways. Good times :) When it's hard, it's real. 

On a more personal note:  Grandpa really meant a lot to me, but I am happy for him. Him and Delilah are together again, and I think he is much happier now. His trial in life is finally over, and he has gone to rest in the paradise of his God. I hope I can continue to learn the importance of what this actually means, and nothing is sweeter that an increased understanding of the Savior and what He has truly done for every single person individually. 

I hope I can hold onto who I am and everything I've learned. And that I don't get weird! Anderson kept me not weird... ok that's a lie. It's impossible to not be wierd. :) I love you all so much! 

I pray for all of you, and I need your prayers. I'm getting hammered out here :) But I love it!

Love,

Christopher