March 11, 2013

Dude.

Sorry that's not a very good way to start a letter to my mother but I feel like it is appropriate for how pumped I am right now. Like just way pumped. Best week ever. Officially. Unfortunately for both of us we have almost no time to email, cause we just barely got to the church here, after flying down an hill covered with the slipperiest ice i've ever seen. I'm sittering here with my superest awesome companion eldste Burt, eating marshmallows, and listening to Zelda music :D Ok wooa. I have way too much energy. Way too much has happendd.

I unfortunately didn't even get to write in my journal about the entire last week until today. thats how busy we've been. 

dude dang it I have way too much I could say! I love sushi! Elly doesn't though. That's ok cause he's up in Narvik with my favorite man ever :) I'm excited to see how he's doing. Tuesday, we went and saw Laila one last time. Shes the cake lady :) sorry eller kake means, or cake. I was just trying to get you to look up some norwegian cake. Look up BløtKake if you can. it means moist cake. sorry I'lll try and get better at translatilng the wierd things I say sometims. :)  guess what everyone!!! I can now email anyone I want. (outside of mission boundaries) So just let me know how things are going! And I may or may have time to send things back. If you prefer handwritten I can do that too... just let me know! :) 

I was way sad to see my greenie go. I don't think I realized just how much fun it was to train him until he was gone. It was pretty much one of the coolest experiences ever. He is a way cool kid and he'll end up being a way good missionary. Wednesday was the weirderst best hardest day of my whole ever. I hugged my greenie goodbye that morning, only to see Kim running up to me. Finally the Zl's got there so I went inside with him and talked with him for like.... 5 hours. Then we went and got food. I'm not sure if you know this but I could talk about a convo. with Kim for all day. Especially one that long. My last feelings were just it was so cool how he talked about how much he loved getting to know me. all his friends hate me, because I steal all of his free tiem. :) He is one of the those people whether he eventualy gets baptized or not he will be one of my best friends for life. We jsut talked about everyting and to be honest thats just how I worked with him, and how he worked with me. It was sooo cool. With no companion I just got to spend time with the coolest guy ever. And just talk. I absolutely lvoed it. I love him. Best last day ever. Then Andre came all the way from Drøbak just to take me back to his house to have one last time with his family. Again. Best thing ever. 

It was soo cool to be with their family and jsut talk to them about everything that had happend. the Growth that I saw in myself and them samtidig was just incredible. Sooo cool. Kristoffer Anderson made fun of my girlfriend. I may be a missionary but whooo. It's going down man. :) its alright. You should invite Kristy over when Andre comes. Then she could meet him! so cool! He wants to meet her :)  Saying goodbye to him was literally the worst thing ever. Short of leaving all of you. It was way cool. He was sooo nice to me. Best experience ever. 

When I got on the train the next day and it was leading out of oslo it was super weird as I saw all the places I had been and remembered all the things that I had done. When I got off Elder Burt gave me a big hug and we were instantly jelled. Like. it was weird. He reminds me a lot of Kaleb actually if that makes any sensse. He's jsut a way cool guy. He had a hard time with his last companion so when we came together it was just instatnly awesome. He says he can't put into words just how right this little comp. is but he knows that it is. His greenie prolly wont get here for another few weeks so i'll have a chance to get to know moss pretty well. To answer you question about whether or not they feed me the answer is there is no better place in Norway to be fed. Moss is a town of about 30000 but about 200 of those are members. The ward is huge, and all of them are super young families. I felt like I was back in a Utah wrad ysteersday. It was weird. There are way too many of them. I am super way weirded out by how small this place is, but destpite that we have jsut had a balst and have foudn some way cool people. 

On saturday they did a talentaften, or talent show, and it was legit. Super funny. Way cool activity, just super chill :) to give you an idea of just how big food is to these people I think me and Burt got asked at least 30 different times whky we didn't have food in our hands. :)

 it's been way different here. I feel like I almost don't even know how to do missionary work here, and there are way too many people in the ward for me to keep track of. But we have experienced tons of miracles, and had the most fun ever along the way. There really hasn't been a still moment for us. There is always someone to move, help lay concrete, or stop randomly on the street. we've preayed a lot and felt like there would be someone at the talent show to find, and sure enough, there was a norwegian lady who said she felt the spirit way strong in the activity and said she would love to hear about the gospel. She also said she never would have let us in. :) Woa. Miracle. Referrals.... dude. :)

There is a man who has been coming to church for 3 weeks but only speask persian. Miracle = happened. Less active gone for a year randomly shows yesterday speaking persian. Woa. appt. on saturday. We can do this! 

K I gott gooooo sorry!!!! I lvoe you all! I can't say enough. The lord is helping me way more than I can even realize. Me and my companion are on fire right now. Literally. We are loving life, and each other. And we are witnesses to how much he loves us. I'll tell you more about being a DL later. it's crazy man. but fun :) 

I hope that you all have just as much fun as I'm having! I wish I could write more!

Loves!!!

Christopher!

PS DUUDDE MOM! I GOT GLASSES I CAN SEE! THEY ONLY COSTED LIKE 15 BUCKS TOOOO. WOAAAAA.!!! PICS LATER!

PPS DOOOOOOOODE I LOVE NORSK SUITES!!!! I GOT ONE FOR 500 KROWNS!!! THATS LIKE 80 BUCKS!!!!!! FOR THE BEST LOOKING SUTIE EVER ITS SOOO BOSSS!!!!!! PICS LATER AND WOS..

March 4, 2013

Hi, everybody!  This is a really great letter.  I just thought I would clarify who a couple of the people are, because when I talked to Dave about it he didn't have them all straight.  Kim is the investigator that Christopher has been teaching since last fall, and he is the atheist/psychiatrist who is in his forties.  Andre is Matthew's age, and his father is not a member. 

Hope you enjoy it.

Love, Rosana/Mom

Mom,

Unfortunately, I have noooo time. I will throw down everything I can in 20 minutes and then I've got to go.

Basically this week was incredible. As to the jist of wats happeneing this week, there are visa problems, so I'm actually going to serve in Moss for a couple weeks before I go to Sarpsborg. I'll talk more about Sarpsborg later but it's a tiny little town right by Fredrikstad that I will be opening up for the first time. They already have bought the apt. and everything but my district is just missing it's two greenies so i'll be in Moss for a few weeks. As for postage, just send everything there for now. When I move suddenly I'll let you know and I'll just get the mail from Moss at District meetings.  And yes, I am now the District Leader of what he calls the østfold. Basically everything to the sout east of oslo will be in my district. I will have 2 new greenies, and it should be way fun. We'll be the youngest district in the mission, with the youngest District Leader :P  My thoughts on that are basically... yeah well... ok. If that's what you want me to do. It would have been nice to have a little break, but hey that has never and will never be my lot in life. :D

This week was incredible. Basically the pinnacle of my mission, and the coolest miracles ever happened. But I can't tell them all. We got in with a less active member which was super uber cool. We are now teaching his girlfriend, and that was way fun. Wednesday we went on splits, and I loved Elder Peterson. He was absolutely what I needed right at that point in time. He has no idea but he really helped me a lot. I had felt like I wasn't good enough for a little bit, and as we worked hard together, we also had some time to just chat. it was cool. No time. 

Thursday was really hard. We had 3 people cancel on us but finally the last one who was an old man i've been teaching since october finally said he'd come to church. And that he had developed a faith in christ from meeting with us. Seemingly out of nowhere things were going really well with him. He said he had thought a lot about our visit which had been like a month ago and he had really deepened his his knowledge of the Book of Mormon and had a desire to read it. The spirit had softened his heart. It was incredible to see how the spirit had taken him from someone who refused to pray, refused to come to church, and refused churches in general. We almost dropped him, but almost out of nowhere he just started to get it. It was me an member that went to teach him and it was really fun. I decided what I was going to teach... during the opening prayer. :) And it went awesome. We worked really well together and it was boss. That's all I have to say about it. And very rewarding. He came to church and it was absolutely awesome. He changed. I wish I had more time to talk about this one, but watching the whole process, makes it all the more real for me. I know that it's real. 

Friday was way cool. I talked with an inactive for about an hour on friday night. I just broke down and said alright dude. lets get real here. why'd you leave? When we got to the end of that conversation, I wanted some silver bullet, something I could say that would convince him, but in the end all he said was God is not important to me. Having the most friends is. And I don't have that in the church. it was a reallly cool conversation and I know that he walked away from it differently than he started, but it was cool. I almost stole the assistants investigator on accident too. :D 

On sunday, I was soooo sad to leave. I couldn't stand to say goodbye to some of those people. but. Hey. Keep going :) Kim left town so he couldn't come to church but as he knew I was leaving he came back early so we could take him to dinner with us to Andre's family. It was sooo. Awesome. After church we took andre and had a companionship study with him where we planned probably the most important teach I've ever had on my mission. As we studied together, I could feel that the Lord was putting that lesson together. There were scriptures which I normally don't use, and things we talked about which I had never done before. All of us were super stoked and before we left we said a kneeling prayer and then ran out of the center guns blazing, and epic Motab music playing in the background. (of our minds) ...(ok maybe just me=) 

We met kim, he ran around, and we took a taxi. 

The Rosenkilde family was the best. It's was super awesome and super fantastic. Samtidig. I remember going downstairs to get my scriptures, and just thinking.... This is my mission. This is what I've been waiting for for 19 years. In the words of Book of Mormon Prophets, The great importance of the salvation of souls weighed upon my mind. It was awesome. The lesson was not eloquent. At all. Nor did I ask good questions, explain things perfectly, or keep it short enough. But there was such an incredibly awesome spirit there you could have touched it in the air. I felt the prayers of many poured into that moment. The last hurrah with Kim. The last shot for me in Oslo. The farewell. It was the coolest experience you could ever have. You are teaching him and Andre's dad is also there. You can feel the power of God manifest in the spirit that was there. He said to me, you're weird man. I've talked to Andre about this. It's like you glow or something.... with weirdness. :) I don't remember exactly how I did it but we committed him to be baptized, and read and pray every day, and he said yes. April 20. duoood. Dang. I'm leaving... :( But I gave it everything i've got. I hope it was enough. I'll just throw in my 2 mites man :) The Sisters can keep cruising in their ship with tons of dates. I got Kim. There was so much more. He looked over at me on the bus home and said: you realize what you just asked me to do? Yes kim. Yes I do.

We destroyed it. It was sooo much awesomeness. I can't even describe it. Pray for Kim. He has to get an answer. He blames his whole life on me up to the point I found him. I know he will.

Many new andventures ahead! so excited! Love you all! Missions Are the BEST! DUDE! 

Loves!

Christopher

FjordVeien 18 

1532 Moss

Norge :) 

Ps. ooh mom! learn to make something norwegian! Cake! Eller Kake. 

February 28, 2013

Hey Mom,

I'm offended :) Let me show you my reasoning for being in the 'sixties'... I was companions with Elder Anderson for 18 weeks, slightly over 4 months. I was in the MTC, for 9, and I've been with Elder Ellsworth for 6... I've had a weekly planner with 9 weeks in it to count. So do the math with me. 18 + 9 + 6 = 33. Did you follow me? good. now here I did make a mistake. I subtracted from 100 and not 104, but thats ok because my release date is actually two weeks early. that would make 69 all told :) I hit my 1\3 mark in just a couple of weeks, sooooooooooo stop counting for me :) I don't want to think about it :) It was only an estimation anyway!!!!

In other news, I.... am leaving Oslo. I can't really express or describe exactly how I feel about this. I'm excited. President told me that I'm opening a brand new area with a super gamel... old missionary (that I might be killing) so that will be way different and way fun. THat means small town time. But I feel super jipped that I only get to train for 6 weeks. It seems way too short of a time. Right now our area is having more success than I've ever seen before on my mission, and I feel like I really have a good grasp on everything here. I can't really share every single experience that I've had over the last week in the kind of detail I would like so you are just going to have to settle for the few things I have time to tell you :) 

I'll start with Thursday. Thursday was a day. That's about all I have to say about it. :) President told us that I'm leaving and I didn't really like that. Then on the streets not a single person was even nice to us, so I was nearly done. I then got a text from Rakel (the woman who had read the BoM who me and Elder Anderson had found... one of my coolest spiritual experiences) saying that she didn't really think any of this was for her. I've tried to ask her why but I've completely lost contact. So I was having a hard time. But we prayed more than ever before, and we prayed specifically that we could see miracles that day. To that point, things really hadn't gone our way. I was in a 'oslo can burn' sort of mood, but we kept going. And what happened that night was one of the best things ever. Sadi the man that we have been teaching for about a month, had us over and we started talking about baptism. I mentioned it and the second I did he leaned forward on his chair just a little, and asked: What is that? So we told him. He grew up muslim but since had lost his faith in God entirely. So we explained very simply Christ and His Atonement and finally commited him to baptism. E. Ellsworth did a great job with the commitment, and to what I still can't understand, he said yes. I talked to him a little bit more, and talked to him about what he was commiting to but he said he understood and really wanted that. This had been a man who the week before had tried to drop us. Who we thought was lost altogether. And now this. Me and Elly didn't know what to do. We walked back to the train in half shock, amazement, excitement, and extreme fear. Went home, I beat him at a couple more games of chess after we broke out the bottle of Julebrus we had been saving just for this occasion, and I just remember looking across him going: oh man.... I did not expect that at all. What next man? Worst day ever, turned miracle. 

The next day we met with another really positive investigator who we've been trying to meet with for a couple weeks, and we met in the middle of the Oslo Train station, and had a really good discussion. He said he would read, pray, everything. He also had grown up in a muslim culture but didn't believe in it. He said Christ was the way, he just didn't know how to get to that... Ok. Greit. Cool We can help you with that :) Sweet you'll come to church... Awesome. That night we went to Laila's and had a way fun time. (She's the nice little old norwegian lady we visit and she gives us cake :D mmmmm cake ) Great day. New cool investigators. People saying they were coming to church... It was looking to be the best week by far we'd ever had. Look out sisters. We're comin for ya :) 

Back down again. Saturday I felt super sick. Not feeling well. We weekly planned but it took ffooooorrever. All our appts. cancelled. We practiced calling Sadi because we had to get him to church. When Ellsworth called Sadi answered... and said he's done. Doesn't want to understand. Says he felt way good when we were there, but that he just didn't want to change. Really liked us, and had felt something, but said he just had no desire. I really tried to talk to him with all the energy of my soul, and he just said no. I committed him to pray but we haven't been able to get in contact with him since. At that point we had one person who was coming to church. All the others cancelled on us. Defeated, Elly tried to make koolaid. Unfortunatly he's never done this before. So he takes two small packets and pours them into one glass. when he tastes it he spits in all over the place. I then inform him that for the amount of powder you just did you need 2 cups of sugar and 4 quarts of water... he had one small glass. It was disgusting. We didn't even have any sugar. Throwing in the towel man. :) In all honesty it was really hard but not quite as hard as it was with Anderson. Me and elly still had quite a bit of good going for us. But it still sucked. :) 

That night we had the worst planning session ever :) We made some stupid joke about making a key indicator for hours spent recieving dream hours and I was just laughing and crying samtidig. Then out of nowhere our phone buzzes. I pick it up and it's Kim. We had invited him to dinner with us with the Rosenkilde's but he hadn't answered, and he said he had been super busy before. but he answered for teh first time in about 2 weeks and said sure! he said yes! unfortunatly we had to reschedule it so it would work for him, but the cool part is we invited him to church and he said yes.... he said yes! no way! Begin Dance Sequence...

Next day, we have several appt.s and two people coming to church, but we get texts from both that they are either very late or can't come... come on. Throw us a bone here man. Can something pleast just be normal? Anyways. Kim came. and we talked with him for forever after church. We rode home together, and Andre had helped us the whole time. After Kim left at about 5 we invited him to come eat with us, so we went back to the center and made food together. It was the funnest thing ever. I love that kid. All of our other investigators that day k'babed or dropped us... We got dropped by a lot this week....

When I think about Oslo, I will remember the growth, my companions, and the people. So much has happened. I love it all sooooo much! It hasn't hit me at all that I will be leaving soon. Oh well. THat's still a ways away! I have way good time again! Just the thought of having to leave makes me sad though. That's just a few stories from this week. There are so many more, and a lot that don't even get in my journal. but that's ok :) I feel good about everything. ANd this week is going to be awesome. We have a dinner with Kim and the Rosenkilde's planned with other way cool stuff. I'm pumped! Let me at em! I'll prolly talk more next week about leaving pains... maybe not :) 

I love you guys sooooo much! Enjoy all the fun new toys you guys are getting! I'm going to go get some supa' slik norsk bukser. (slacks) I'm pumped. Also the weather here is suuper nice. it's like 1 degree! yeay! and I can see the sky for the first time in months! yeay! I've been too long already. sooo good luck! That's my life sort of!

Love you all soooo much!

Christopher :D

ps. Sorry ... ahem.... ahhhh ahem. ya... I'm leaving oslo. so not doin briller here. Mayber later. (glasses)