May 27, 2013

Momsyie,

If I gave a bloomin' sunflower about how long your emails are then that.... would be ridiculous. :) You can say as little or as much as you want and i'll still just say whatever it is i'm going to say :) If you start stressing out about saying the right things, then i'm going to start stressing... which isn't good. I like just being able to email whatever the heck I want for as long as I want because I'm just talking to my mother who I know loves me no matter who I am or what I'm doing. so sorry for the short email. the goodside to boring pdays is that you'll get longer letters. the downside to really awesome pdays is that you haven't nearly any time at all. For example: Last pday was my favorite so far. Or I guess you could say the friday and that one. There is nothing like really experiencing norway like that. Super cool :) So I apologize for the shortness, but short of being as short as Matthew, I really had to keep that letter short otherwise, I may have shorted the rules, and President would have had to be short with me. To make up for it, I sent matthew a really long letter this week :)

And as for what to put in emails, I still 95% of the time walk up to the computer screen with absolutely no idea with what i'm going to say. I have this image ingrained in my brain of some lady in our ward who talked about watching what her son said over the course of two years and how she could see him change from being him to being a missionary. I think i must either be not cool enough, or too goofy, cause I don't think that's neccessarily how mine have been. But that's just one of those things you learn here, is that there is not point in worrying about it. :) One of the coolest things I have learned, is the feeling you get from knowing that the Lord has prepared every step of the way for you. When you feel like you're not good enough, you can either find something to change all the time, or you can realize that your path of life, from the second you pray and ask for help, is exactly where the Lord meant you to be. The atonement has so much more meaning than just covering up mistakes. It means the reassurance that you actually are good enough. :) As I look back a little I realize that during the times I thought I was struggling I really was doing fine. I was learning helping and doing exactly what I was intended to do.

That said, I am soooo excited to be feeling better again. When I moved from Moss to Sandnes, that was probably one of the most challenging times so far. to live on the floor with nothing to do while you don't really feel wanted is a great way to spend the time you set aside to serve the Lord instead of being at home with the ones who love you and care about you. But hey. I grew a ton. :) And being with Chancellor has been awesome :D I say has been, because he's leaving this week... I'm feel like i'm getting totally jipped of a companion, but there isn't much I can do about it at this point :) We actually got to be really good friends really fast, and we have had a lot of cool things to do here. So since he's leaving, I get to train the next ZL who will be coming... who is....

Elder Burt. :)

Woot! It's going to be awesome. The man I destroyed Moss with is coming to paradise! To be my fellow ZL! heh.. it's going to be fun :) I'll miss Chancellor though. I'm sick of all these changes. I just want somehting to stay the same for once. I guess I should have appreciated more the chance I got to stay in Oslo with Anderson so long more. Because really... that was awesome. Coolest expererience ever :)

I have a confession to make: I have been coveting all of my pictures on purpose... because they are awesome.... You really have to get the story behind a lot of them to get the whole meaning, so while I'll send some home, I won't send them all :) I'll get on the other compy though and send a few though once i'm done here.

In terms of this last few weeks, We have been meeting with an african guy and his wife from Berundi who is super cool, and gave me a LEGIT looking african mask. The fed us food and their apt. felt like aftrica it was soo hot in there :) He is such a suave guy though :) he hiked preikestolen with us on monday and loved it, and he has been coming to church, and he has a testimony of the church. We just need to get the catholic out of him somehow. We help This scottish former member guy put a door on upsidedown, cleaned his basement, and put a faulty basketball hoop. This guy is awesome... he's about fifty, and he talks at LITERALLY 4 times the speed of any normal human being, in a scootish accent that i'm only starting to get used to :) our ward mission leadeer is also scottish, only he was in the military as a trained killer :) He treats us like we're his squardron and that we have to grab every guy off the street and dunk em' in the water :) It's pretty legit. He told us about some War Toture methods he's gone through for real before, and gave a self defense class where he started stabbing his wife with a fake knife :) The man is awesome. His wife is just as crazy though :) We go to a cycling class every once in a while and she just straight yells at us in norweiganin to go harder. Its awesome. If you ever come to stavanger, or I come back, they have already offered to take us in and give us a place to sleep :) Way cool family.

I flew to Oslo for a leadership training meeting last week, and i'm flying out again this week for Zone leader Council, and then the week after that is Zone conferance, and before I know it The summer will be over and ahhhh!

I should say a little about Preikestolen.... it was about a 2 hour hike up, and we drove onto a ferry that took us over the fjord to get us there but the whole way there I thought I must be drooling. It was so amazing. Preikestolen lies on the Lysefjord, which is one of the most famous in Norway. You'll see why when you see some pictures. I've never seen anything like it :) It was raining the whole way up which was actually kinda fun (and dangerous) and when we got to the top I got to be mr. photagrapher (and i'm really proud of some of my pictures) and then the sun came out and we hiked down. We drove around the fjord to get home a different way and by this time it was clear blue skies and i'm pretty sure we all were dying of joy as we drove home. Then we threw Holden inthe back and drove around some round abouts :)

MOm. When I write in my journal I feel like it's never good enough. I can't capture my feelings in words. Mind you, I actually am getting slighlty more poetic and cool at parts, I simply can't do it. This week was stressful, tiring, magical, thoughtful, sickness, chill, fun, patience inducing, and everything. I'm trying to do everything I can, and sometimes it's easy to look at the results and there isn't a whole lot to show for everything that you've done. The coolest experiences are often the most simple. When i went back to oslo, just sitting in the center I was at every day for six months just brought back those emotions that were so specific to how life was training and with Elder Anderson. THough you can't describe it, I look at how much i've changed even in the few short months since i've been in oslo, and the change is huge. I continue to learn so much, and I wishh I could hold it all in my brain. Anyways.

Enough babbling! The only reason you would have a norweigain flag at a zoo... no idea :) The only cool animals native to norway I know of are some sort of giant forest cat and regnsdyr.... reindeer. I like panda bears too :) If you were an animal, what would you be? Oooh, or if you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?

K well... this has been a really short email. Hopefully i'll have more time to write you next week :) Once things settle down a bit that should be good. Course, i'm the only one in stavanger not getting moved out, so i'm going to have to help a lot of new missionaries get to know this place and get around, when I've only been here for like 3 weeks :) Should be fun. I have no idea what i'm doing man. Just going to town. thats what. playing fetch with dogs on the pier.... so pretty. Cool guy too :)

I love you tons mom! Continue to have it well there up in Seattle!

Love

Christopher