November 26, 2012

HI Momsicle!!!

Hey! Ever'body else! Call mom momsicle! It'll be fun! 

Ok mom. Jeg gidder ikke å gjøre noe ellers.... Whats the translastion for that.... basically I can't be bothered to do anything else :) Aka i'm lazy. I hope that's good though! :) 

Business First: no I haven't gotten a package. Did you send one! Thats soo exciting! :D

I forgot a couple things for my christmas list!!! 

-a nice looking sweater. Preferably with color :) (i would get one here but they are sahuper expensive) 

-a recorder. This is more for you guys in reality. Mostly I want to be able to just send an audio file rather than writing for 9000 years.  

-erm... ooh! if you could find a very tiny version of risk. That would be awesome. I don't even know if those exsist though :) 

 

K well.... my week was.... Awesome. I don't even know why. It was just fun. Monday night I went on splits again with the same guy elder lillywhite I did at the beginning (where I got my ticket) only this time I was basically going to pirate one of the families that they are working with (because they were getting whitewashed). It was super fun. Talking to adults in norwegian is still pretty normal for me but talking to the little 12 year old kid was just fun. The Norsk tacos they fed us were also super good. They served the meat in a little um...... what would you call it... like a supsended bowl that had a little candle under it to keep it warm. It was super cool. It's also nice because I don't have to exert myself that much to understand what people are saying. So much easier. ANyways they were way cool. 

Tuesday.... oh yeah... hmm. I'll have to send some pictures next week because I forgot my cord... Sorry! I'll repent! Basically it was the last day before everyone moved, and there were some missionaries going home so we all went out and bought k babs which was really fun. That night we taught one of our progressing invs. with a member, and afterwords that member (25 year old guy with crazy hair, and.... he's so cool. THats all I can say about him) took us to a chinease resturaunt for dinner. It was really fun. I also am now the only teacher for the intermediate norwegian class. I have no Idea who's Idea it was to make me in charge of that but its not good :) Acutally its fun. I just don't feel like that great of a teacher. 

We visited Laila again this week. I don't remember if I mentioned her or not, but she is a 70 year old less active norwegian lady who is super nice, and feeds us SUPER good desserts whenever we go over. It's fun. I think in that whole 2 hour visit me and anderson said maybe... 9 sentences. She really just needs to talk. It's cool though. She wants to come back to church and eventually get to the temple. (I miss the temple so badly) We also got to move Mia this week with her family. It took like half the day but it was super fun. It was funny because Mia thinks i'm just this completely pure and innocent angel boy (that's my nickname) and she didn't want to see me have to move all of her stuff. She's so funny. Her mom also fed us a cake from what apparently is the best cake shop in Norway. I beleive. them. a lot. IT was SOOO good. Literally. I didn't think a cake could be that good. It was perfection. That's how I would describe it :D Thanksgiving actually..... hmm. I forgot about it. Turns out the couple here wasn't doing one with us, so we didn't actually have thanksgiving. I forgot about it to be honest. I didn't realize it was thanksgiving until that night. We did have spaghetti with a really cool family though. They had a little 1 year old girl who was super cute. She kept coming over and trying to attack my scriptures :) Anyways. It was fun. 

Lest everyone think I'm completly apostate and all I do is have fun at this point.... actually that's about it :) I have fun. But. In terms of success this week was one of our best. ( and worst... not our fault though :( ) We had a couple come to church yesterday who was super cool. Just to put in perspective how rare it is for couples to be baptized... just know it doesn't happen :) There has only been one couple in like... 5 years. Anyways they said they are coming to church every week and well... we'll just have to see. I don't know yet. But it would be super cool. In terms of poopieness the hard part was losing contact with Konrad. I'm pretty sure I mentioned him before. Basically he just dropped off the face of the planet. So that was really hard. But in all it was a really good week. Me and my comp. had a special fast for the things we wanted to accomplish this transfer, and it is just cool to know that you are doing what you need to be doing. I would also say I feel the prayers and the help i'm recieving in a very real way. I cannot say that I am perfect, but I am defenitely growing a changing like I need to be. 

That's about all I got for now :) It's so fun to hear about how all of you guys are doing at home! Just keep living it up, because honestly life is awesome! 

From the tall (not so skinny anymore dude...) running around Norway,

- Eldste Christopher Whetten

... No seriously. I've gained weight. I broke the 150 barrier this week! Woot! Go team not excercising!

PS. I SOLEMNLY SWEAR TO SEND PICTURES NEXT WEEK :)

November 19, 2012

HIIIIII MÅÅÅMAA!!!!

HI! So I have a question. Do these emails that I send you keep getting sent to everyone else as well? I don't really know anymore :) It's much more natural just to write directly to you. :) When was it..... It was a day earlier this week where I had just had a super up and down sort of day. You know, the one where you have about 70000 emotions all at once and you A: can't write them down, and B: You don't really have anyone right there that you can talk about them with. Don't get me wrong, Elder Anderson is probably one of the coolest people I will ever get the chance to know in my entire life, and he's a great listener, I just... can't speak like I could with you :

So. This week was probably one of my favorite ever. I'll start with the biggest news... I'M MOVING TO: oslo. GUESS WHO MY COMPANION IS!!!!!???????????? Anderson :) Again. I think he's going to kill me after 4 1\2 months. Me and him are probably equally surprised about this. Probably because, he is a very not normal missionary who will ingrain inside of me many of the things that he does, that are never going to come out again. I only remember 2 compliments I've ever gotten from him. The biggest is that he said I don't have anything else to learn from him, and that he said I'm completely prepared to take on pretty much anything or anyone at this point. You will enjoy especially mom, some of the biggest things I've learned from him are to not stress about time or numbers or anything. He does missionary work by being a non-missionary sort of person. Missionary work that involves really strengthening the area, people, missionaries and others around you, rather than worrying about how many teaches or investigators you have. (which btw we do pretty well at regardless) 

My point is: I'm excited. A lot. He will be with me longer than anyone else on his mission before, and I'm going to be with him within a couple months of his going home. In missions you have a Father who is your first comp. and then a Mother who is you second companion. (who finishes the little training book we have) I am going to be a single parent child so to speak, which will affect a lot what happens to me throughout my mission. The good news is, we have been entirely on the same page about everything for the last little while, with companionship unity being one of the best things we do, far beyond to actually being really good friends. Anyways. We'll see how that goes :) 

Also you mentioned a change in transfer lengths. Right now they are 9 week transfers :P Which actaully is perfect I think. President wants to change it to 12 weeks because that's how often we'll be getting new missionaries now. Bleh. 12 weeks is too long. That means I'll have 6 transfers after this one. Oh well. I'm not in charge! 

In other news of what happened this week: Guess What!?!? Our primary program was yesterday too! Guess what else? Norwegian kids are way cuter than american kids :) Every missionary's dream is to have a little norwegian kid one day. Cause really. It's soo fantastic.  Also norwegian pancakes are super good. You take bacon bits, slather it with jam and roll it up like a soft taco. :) mmmm. Jeg gleder meg til at jeg kan dele norske mat med dere :D We also had a baptism this week for this really cool dude named Hakim. The dude's a stud. THe sisters have been teaching him since I got here and it was way cool to see him get døpt! 

We also had an investigator there with us for the baptism. Did you know that 85% of investagtors who see dåps get døpt!?! thats awesome! Dåp= batism btw. å døpe = to baptize :D I'm tired of typing the word baptism :) Lets Dåp som people! Anyways. We have several progressing investigators now, and I guess we'll just have to see how that goes with them. All I can say is like... ah! All you want is for them to find out that it's true. Anyways. 

We met this way cool girl from trondheim on the street this week, who we ended up teaching the next day. I remember the first day,I couldn't really undrstand that much of what she said because Her dialect was waaay weird. Seriously though they use tons of different words like what would be pronounced Va, to me the prounounce Kæ. It's weird. like for realzies. But. The second day without even realizing it, I could understand her completely and participate in the conversation. I didn't even notice it until later, when Anderson looked over at me when we going back to help the Ap's  and said: You understood her today didn't you? I said yes, and he just shrugged and smiled a little. It's always a good reminder to know where my language skills really come from :) 

OOOh!!! I played the piano at the dåps meeting on saturday. by the time I practiced enough to play the songs I had them memorized :) It was pretty comical though. Elder Godfrey who we have now named elder Goob ( litterally you know exactly who is now :) was trying to learn how to conduct from me which was really funny :) I guess all that practicing paid off after all! I also taught an intermediate norwegian class all by myself this week which was only slightly awesome :) Oooh also guess What!? Since i'm not moving I'm actually having thanksgiving with all of the other young single adults here! (with food made by the ekte par... i mean senior couple here! ) they also moved moves day up one day so that the people going home could be there for thanksgiving. 

I was thinking I would send my christmas list in the handwritten letter today but you probably need it before the letter will get there.... 5 weeks!?!?!? boo. Kristy usually gets them the same week if I send them on monday... ;D so. I actually have a few things suprisingly... 

-A scarf. I'm not sure if you can hand do one in time but really. In terms of things I'll A: use B: love, this probably tops the list. 

-I need a couple more ties :) Get creative! Also. I cracked :) I'm not sure if I told you but the skinny tie look has grown on me a ton. Not super skinny. But like medium ish I loooove! And I don't have any yet. P.s. if there more than about 25 bucks I can get some cool norwegain ones instead. (don't know how exspensive they are) mostly I hate picking ties. :) Go team! 

-I still need journals. Like... soon! (i'm on the last limbs of the one i'm using :) 

-Music!!! HOly smokes! I need like.... a lot more. :) Mostly I'm thinking of things like laurnes flute music would be perfect, and enya and stuff like that. Anything that is just nice and quiet and awesome is what I need :) I want Sissel!!!! (norwegian person! it's sooo awesome!) maybe i'll get some here and send it home... :)

-Socks. :) I need some more gym type socks (no show is the only thing I will wear... just sayin) I've worn holes the two pair I brought. 

-I want everyone to do something creative and send me it. :) You all can decide what that is. 

-Maybe some sort of easily transportable picture. like, that I can hang up on my wall or something. Nothing fancy though!

In terms of sending stuff home... that's kinda up to you guys. :) The way that all the other missionaries send stuff home is by spending 550 kr. for a box that has a 20 ish pound limit. THats 100$ appx. THen there's the matter of I don't really have anything right now I could send home :S And it's going to be pretty expensive to send anything. So that's up to you guys. I'm definately doing things but in terms of a full blown package i'm not sure if you guys want that or not. Guaranteed I'll send at least one, But it's up to you guys really. 

K well. Dude. I wish I could see that video now. Apparantly pogosticking has gone crazy in our family and Matthew keeps claiming he'll send me stuff but he never has :) I guess it's prolly too big. Also... Dude! I'm prolly going to get to go to a Norwegain Christmas Concert! The lady singing is the rival to Sissel from Bergen ( member of the church btw) it'll be awesome :) 

Same as you, it's fun to get handwritten letters. But, it's so much easier to figure what's actually going on through emails. :) Just keep in mind I'll send handwritten letters to those who send them :) 

K. Well I love you all so much!!! I think i've said everything I need in this letter sooo. yeah! Tons of loves! I'm going to go relax and destressify. 

Love the little dude running around in Norge,

Christopher

November 12, 2012

HI Momma!

K i'm just going to respond to your email for a sec...
Sorry. Snart is Norsk for soon :) I didn't realize that one. The english language needs a word like koselig. :) (prounounced Cooshely)...sort of . :) Just tell me and I'll translate stuff :)

***********When did I ever say the Echo shoes hurt my feet?!?!?!?!?************* It was my tennis shoes. And i already got new ones :) Dude my echo shoes are bosslike. LIke, they couldnt be more perfect. There are no problems here :) !!!!

To be honest, I don't think I'm going to have Thanksgiving this year either, because it is moves day :) Crazy! I have like 10 more days left, and then I could move again! I dont really want to! ARGGH! We have like 4 people were are trying to get baptismal commitments with this week, and I can almost... garantee that one of them goes through, and I don't want to miss that. :P
Sigh... I guess we really don't get to pick. Also it's weird because I'm sad and not sad to be getting a new companion. I didn't think anyone could ever have the effect on me like he has, but at the same time Im excited to have a companion where that "Greenyness" never exsited. I honestly couldn't tell you how he feels because He really doesn't show like any emotion at all but I would have to guess it's been good for him too. I dunno. :) He's just an extremely stoic person who likes messing with people :) But I've come a lot farther than I thought I could before him.

To answer your questions I think we are both feeling much better now than before. This last week was my turn to get sick and I'm just mostly getting over it today. It wasn't as bad as his however so it didn't really change anything we did. It's just more fun when you don't have a headache and a sore throat all day when you're talking to people. This week was a lot of fun though. We had a lot more dinners this week than I've ever had before! We met with a Norsk family with three little boys 5 and under, and it was a ton of fun :) Dude I love little boys. THey are so crazy and fun :) Then we met with a guy from taiwain who had us over for dinner. And it was make it yourself sushi. mmmmm I've never had sushi before but it was waayyy good. :) LIke.... mmmm. And yesterday we actually met with a british family. Heh. British accents are so cool. Especially on little kids. It was funny because one of the boys wouldn't eat, so I ended up playing rock paper scissors, and the loser had to eat a bite of food. Needless to say I'm good and figuring out how to beat him when he tells me what I should be :) it was super fun. dude. I miss kids. Ok mostly my family :) Anyways, THis week was super fun. I taught the Norwegian class on thursday... and yup.

OOh I did go knocking this week. We got all 6 elders together along with 4 members and went and knocked on doors. It was really cool to be with all of them. Kinda like a small army. I went with a swedish guy :) He was cool. Hard to understand though. We also had a guy who we met with before and didn't want to meet again who is now super positive. Way cool! ANywas. I want to go play crud. A Super fun pool game with. yeah. Don't want to explain that right now.

But first... How, was I not told that Sarah was getting married in a month.... Lauren. You're in trouble. :) or maybe sarah. Say that to her. Also make sure if you do see a cool movie,  really do make a list for me. That will help a lot :)

I'm not sure if you knew this but I actually will be able to skype you guys on christmas. It's not just a call :) And yes I don't think there is a problem with Kristy coming :) Soooo yeah. I think that's all for this week! Next week I'll be able to tell you what's going to happen to me! Woot! I'm soooo excited!

Love,

Christopher

November 5, 2012

Hi. My name is.... Billy :)

Dude!?! To answer a lot of questions that you guys have, I can probably sum most of them up by saying, You don't hear anything as a missionary. But I have heard blips here and there, and it sounds like america is suddenly exploding now that I'm gone :) Hopefully there is still something left when I get home! In terms of my halloween week.... Um. Nothing. I forgot it was halloween actually. Norway actually doesnt really celebrate it that much, and I'm kinda wholed up in the middle of a giant city which doesn't help anything. (mostly people just use it as an excuse to throw a party) I do remember talking with Anderson that night and being like... OH YEaH! its halloween dude! He told me he had a ward party last year that he went to. And then I thought about what I did for halloween, and got really burny :) 

I can't even believe that this transfer is almost over. What's sad is i've already heard rumors about whats going to happen to me next transfer. and the transfer after that. OK well I guess its not sad it's just that you kinda want it to be a surprise you know? Either way i'll still be surprised because all it is so far is just guesses and estimations, but there are some actual backing to a lot of it. It's going to be really weird if I have to leave Oslo though. Hopefully I can stay :) I like it here now. 

In terms of missionary work, its interesting because I came at a transition point in the mission. I still see a lot of the old things that the former president did, whilst also seeing how our new mission president wants to change things and push the work forward. I will say what happened in chuch yestereday according to the norwegian elder here, was nothing short of legendary. Our new Ward mish leader, basically wants ward members to come tract with us so that we can actually be let into houses. Which in all honesty from what I have learned about Norwegians is probably one of the best ways to actually do that. We have met with the Bishop as a group of missionaries which appartently has never happened before, and we are all striving to acheive the same goals. I hope I can stay to see just how much things start changing in the future. 

I will probably send you all a picture soon of what I look like when I dress in my winter coat. It's funny. I look like a giant marshmallow. :) I can't believe that it's still that warm there. Here it already gets dark by about 4:30 and most days are below freezing. It almost seemed like it went from light and sunny to cold and dark overnight. I can keep warm if I want to though :) 

This week anderson felt super sick and on Saturday I ended up having like 6 hours straight where I could just study. Back at home I my first thought would have probably been shoot me now. But here it's completely different. I knew before my mission I didn't really *know* the scriptures, but now I feel like I could study 2 hours a day for the rest of my mission and still not know as much as I wanted to. Anyways, just being able to study that long was something I actually really enjoyed. One thing you learn as a missionary is that church is true. :) crazy right?!? But you learn that mostly because you learn that you literally can answer any objection someone has against the church. Already I can defend almost everything we believe with bible scriptures to the point that they really can't do anything. But like it says in 1 cor. 2:5 It literally doesn't matter. All the proof for or against the BOM in the world cant replace the need for a testimony. For everything I've learned to 'prove' the book of mormon, none of it has really affected me at all. For better or worse. Because that's not what matters :) Speaking of which, does anyone have any fun questions they want me to answer? 

 I also don't know what was different this week but things with E. Anderson just went so much better. I honestly could not have handpicked a better trainer for me. The whole transfer he has pushed me to become my absolute best. I would say that beyond just building me up, he mostly just showed me that I already know exactly how to do missionary work. It's just me thats kinda slow about it. :) I'm not going to pass on mission gossip. But I will sum it up as, I am the most *not* greenie, anyone has seen :) Go team!

In terms of personal accomplishments... I can dunk a basketball :) but not consitently. I'll have to see if anyone can get a picture of it. :) Thats really all I have for this week. Anderson laughed when a drunk guy started yelling profanities at me. I didn't laugh, but I did smile. Everyone around was looking at him like he was a loon. Which he was. :) 

You all owe me pictures of HaLLOWEEN (excluding rachelle)! I owe you pictures of where I live and fun things. Lets trade by next week oK? :D

Ok well I need to go snart! I love you all soooooo much. Guess what!?!  I get to call you guys in like a month and a half! Woot!

Love, 

Christopher

Ps. Dude..... We might have a mormon president. I guarantee I'll hear about that :)

October 30, 2012

Hi Mom!!!

(and evry'body ellers!!)

Ok OK Ok mom!!!! :) Sorry :) I'll answer your questions first, and then tell you how awesome my week was :)  However, Since I can email you, (which is a lot faster anyway) I'm prolly not going to have time to write you a personal letter every week. Well, mostly its the fact that sending a single letter costs over 3$. And I can't email the other people who are writing me. And I'm going to starve if I spend all my money on postage :D So I'll try and balance everything ok? :)

So my shoe size is 11, (or 11.5 if they are smaller shoes). I dunno it's really hard to say. I've worn 12's that were perfect, and the 11's that I have right now are a little too big :) So it depends! What else... Send any packages to the mission home for now. It's prolly easier just because I live in Olso (dude.... I live in Oslo Heck yes! :) and olso is about 40 minutes from the mission office, so the AP's when they come around they'll prolly just bring it too me. It would prolly work at my normal adress too... actually. Assuming I dont move in three weeks (holy smokes another transfer... GONE! ) Just send me stuff at my normal address. but like if for example you send something before Nov 22 (which is moves day) I'm not certain I'll still be at my apt. :) In terms of stuff... Good clicky pens :) Ask Kristy or Lauren. I'm pretty sure they remember the ones I always used. Oh and a couple journals. like a small one for spiritual stuff district meetings and conferences etc... and one for a personal because the one i'm using right now is going to be filled within the next month...and journals cost (cheapest I've found) 50$. Thats insane. it would be cheper to have you buy some and send them than that., Skittles and Starbursts (i miss american candy) :) Mostly this stuff can just fill the box up to the weight limit :D

Sooo what else. I can't believe you got an Ipad. That's ridiculous. It's funny because our companionships phone is literally a brick from like the year 2000. I should take a picture of it because its so old. Anyways, it's hilarious, because literally every single person in Norway has a smart phone, and when we ask for peoples numbers on the street, we pull out this brick... and they usually start laughing a little bit. I miss technology. :( Hey if I was a senior couple I could have an Ipad!

Speaking of Word of Wisdom problems. Norway has many of the same problems (and a whole bunch of law of chastity ones too very... specail to norway) :) It's interesting because Friday and Saturday nights are literally pointless for us because everyone is drunk. I hate the smell of smoke here too. I don't know if its 50% but it's close. and I know that almost EVERYONE drinks. This last Friday, after we had given Mia a blessing, we were on the trikk back and these two drunk guys got on and just starting to talk to me. It was way funny. The blessing was way cool by the way. Not in Norwegian mind you but it was really special because that is the lady who is 100% convinced im an angel. Speaking of speaking. I gave a talk yesterday! Wow. Cool stuff. On saturday night we got called at like 10 to see if we could give talks in church the next day (5 ish minutes a peice) and of course we said yes. So the next morning I prepared something and studied about takknemlighet eller gratitude. In church I learned that E. Anderson wouldnt actually speak and mine needed to be 8-10 minutes. Oh, and 3 priests from the state church were on visit. :D Just to .. you know... take any pressure off of it. :) So with about as much faith as I could muster, (which ive learned as a missionary that I really dont have all that much) I got up as the first speaker. For some reason I decided to abandon my plan and not use any notes or bullet points I had written down, and just go. The whole experience was incredibly strengthening and humbling for me because... well it wasn't me that could really do that. And it went really well actually. Probably one of the better talks Ive ever given. And in a language I've know studied for 3 months completely freeballed. I will share a couple of the things I was told and know however. More than half the ward has no idea, or won't believe that i've only been here for over a month. The other half... Is surprised lets say. The stake patriarch talked to the senior couple who related to me just how much he was impressed. I didn't really care about anything afterwords however because I ran down to talk to one of the investigators we had in church who I was in charge of.

Speaking of which, I dont want to tell you too much before things happen, but I will say we have a few people who we are starting to teach that are going way good. The guy I'm talking about is Konrad, who is basically the champ of the world. Like... holy smokes I love him. We taught him right before mission conference this week. After we got taught by this really intense muslim guy :) Funny story: I was talking to him afterwords (konrad...not muslim dude) and talking about how he needs more sleep (heh, I can relate to that one) and I just put my arm around him and he just sat there and leaned his head on me for a minute... first thought: This is a 35 year old man.... and then I just went with it. :) He's way put together though and way normal! yay for normal! I'm way looking forward to this next week. Like, its going to be awesome! We also taught this guy who's going on a wilderness adventure in... Thailand! for a month. He was way cool though.

Anyways. Oh yeah we had misison conference this last week with President Teixera. It was way fun to see all my old MTC buddies again and to get to know some more of the missionaries. hooo. I feel bad for whatever area we're in if me and E. linge ever serve together. :) Basically Teixera promised us that By the end of my mission, we will have doubled the number of missionaries and that a whole bunch of stuff is going to happen, and that we need to lead that.  Anywaze.

K well that's about all I got. This week was a lot better. I've starting contacting people and talking people on my own, and me and Elder Anderson are doing a lot better. It's really impossible to give you a good description of how things are. He is just... him. I don't know. I don't even think I've really given a good description in my journal. It's hard to write down how someone is like. He's just way chill, and now that we have goals that we're working towards together things are going way better. Honestly, im not even going to try to describe it. I will fail. I'll try in my journal so you can read that. :D Eldste Godfrey and Eldste Torjesen are our Zone leaders. They are way spunky and cool. We spend most of our evenings down in their apt.. Anderson heckles them too much :) I cant really describe people very well. :P Oh well. I'll try another time when I have more time!

MATTHEW: HELLO?.... IS ANYONE .........THERE?  apparantley not. did you even get my email homie bro? Did you move your adress or somthin? Anyways. I don't think I heard from anyone this week... soo I'll talk to you next week!

K well imma go now! I don't have any money for stamps this week. Sooooo. Sorry peoples. This email was extra long to make up for that right!?

I really love all of you sooo much! I wish I could carry you around in my pocket, or give you a bucket of thoughts so you could know just how crazy all of this is!

Have a great week all of you ok! I love you all!

-Eldste Christopher Whetten

P.S. It's snowing! but we prolly wont go sledding until next week. ALso. It's cold. Really cold. I had some thought about this that I wanted to share.... but I got nothing :) Definetely time to go get a hat and some gloves :D
and its dark.... very dark....

October 25, 2012

HI MOM!!!

I do have to start out by saying sorry that I didnt write anything last week. Since this is probably to everyone sorry that I didn't write last week. We drove all the way out of Oslo to go shopping which was way cool. A got a super sweet Jacket that is pretty much the best. Ok well its not THE best, but it is cool. Norwegians loved colored rain jackets, which is super cool except if you are a missionary. (because we aren't allowed to have fancy colors... sad day ) Anyways, I love the style, and may or may not have to buy one thats cool before I come home, but thats a subject for another day. So I don't forget I'll just say this now: if anyone ever sends me a surprise package, I am going to need some stuff that is insanely expensive in Norway. (for example if I want a normal pen like the ones I used at college, it costs at least 30 kroner or 6-8 dollars) anyways, crazy stuff. Don't go crazy and send a package now, but all i'm saying is a package does need to include some unattainables. :D

Soooo Unexplained stories from last week: At church I was helping a whole bunch of different investigators, which was way cool. On your mission church really is not about you at all. You are there to work, prolly more than at any other time of the week. But anyways, we got done with everything, and I went downstairs to grab my backpack only to find everything completely gone from the shelf where me and Anderson had put our stuff. After alerting the other missionaries, and asking everyone if they had moved our stuff, we came to the conclusion that nobody had moved it, and it was all now stolen. Great. Awesome. The whole time, I was praying that I had left my camera at home but I wasn't completely sure about it. Anyways, after about an hour of looking around we found our backpacks overturned in the back of the stake presidents office. In all I didn't lose very much, but I did learn my camera was in there. It was safely secured in a small ipod pocket tucked underneath in the big pocket. Its sad because whoever it was went really fast trying to look through everything other wise it would have been found. Anyways, I got waaay super lucky on that one! To celebrate, I will send a video of me and my zone leader arm wrestling. And my jacket!

That week was way good. I think it was thursday that week, that when I went around I literally just poured my soul into every single person we talked to, and we ended up being able to talk to a lot of different people. And for everyone I talked to every single one stopped for at least little bit. It was awesome. Normally I would say 1 out of every 2 people we try and talk to dont even stop walking or even look at us or awknowledge our presence, so the fact that every one stopped to talk to me that day was basically a miracle. We'll have to see if any of them turn out to be really good progressing investigators, but I don't know yet.

Umm... what else! Oooh, I got escorted through a Jehovah's Witness church last saturday when we were meeting with a couple of them. It was funny :) That's really all I have to say about that one. Other than the building is kindove this weird hole in the wall in the middle of Majorstuen.

Stake conference was really cool yesterday. I should have taken some pictures of the building we met in because it is a way cool building and if this were in person I would make everyone guess how much it costed. So guess: ..... Ok you're all wrong. :) Over 7 Million. For a singular, one, church meeting house. prolly 60 % the size of the one on healy blv. It was cool though. Afterwords, I went on splits with one of the AP's and we went tracting (bonking på norsk... not street contacting :) for my first time! It was cool. But nothing super exciting happened other than I realized how much I miss homecooked foods. This time it was bananna bread that sister Evans made for them. Oooh and after that we picked up a new convert, and went to a members house to talk about temples. I miss them a lot. But it was a way cool experience, and I'm starting to get more aquainted with the members here. It was also nice to get out of Oslo for a day seeing as how I've never left before.

Anyways, I hope that was good enough! This week really wasn't all that exciting. In fact it was really hard. So keep me in your prayers! That said, I do know that I'm giving it my all and I'm just trying not to get stressed about it. (which may or may not be working very well :)

Also mom, I'm sorry I can't share enough about what I'm doing here. It's really hard to know what to say, and what will be interesting to you guys. Also I'll try and get some better pictures this week. I don't really have any from last week either. :P anyways. Thank you all so much for everything you do! I love hearing from you and I like that I get emails to answer to now. We literally have no time on p-days, and emails are much better :) So your inspirational scripture of the week is 1 Cor. 2:9. Go Team!

I love you all!

-Christopher Nordmann

Hvis noen av dere skal oversette dette, det skal være morsomt. Men, hvis du egently gjør det, jeg skal si at min norsk, er skikkelige bedre nå. Nesten alle som snakke med meg synes at det er urolig hvor mye jeg kan si til dem, og hvor mye jeg forstår.

October 8, 2012

Hi Peoples of the United states where I am not!

I hope all of you had a blast at conference like we did! This week was full of more craziness, and also a lot more understanding for me. So far, to be honest I hadn't the foggiest idea what was going on around me :) To be honest it's really impossible to describe just how everything is, so i'm just glad that i'm finally starting to get used to it! In general I feel more directed, and I know more of who I am and what I can contribute even now. Despite my desires to be filled with faith, it was really hard when everything around you just gave you a headache, and was so different than what you expected. Now however I feel much more comfortable with all the missionaries around me (who are all awesome) and everyone I get to work with. (the only bad part is that the other 5 elders in oslo are going home soon which means that I'm the youngest and least experienced by a lot)

This week was full of more ups and downs, but I'd say a lot more ups than downs. I was introduced to my first Jehovahs witness teach this week. The whole experience was just kinda funny. We planned to meet him at the library at noon after we went to a funeral, so we took to T-bane, (subway) to Mæjorstuen, and waited for him there. When he got there he called us and told us that the library wouldnt want us to meet there, so we pretty much were like, yeah sure we'll do whatever. Also he was bringing his finance. So we hopped in his car and he drove us pretty much outside of Oslo, to a little kafe. From there they pretty much tried to teach us and convince us that we were wrong for like 3 hours. I was just smiling. By the end they were extremely agitated. I was happy because I actually just smiled and bore testimony, and they couldnt really say anything. It was just like raw greenie testimony vs. them. Go team. The gospel is true. As I have been studying the scriptures and as we watched General Conference, the Gospel has come alive to me more than it ever has before. As I have studied with my companion it has just become clear how bulletproof the church is. They can send 19 (now 18 year old) boys out who dont know absolutely anything and it works. It's awesome because it's true! It's like oh yeah, right. you don't have nothing against us. Despite what I know spiritually, Everything makes sense. As we combine our spiritual knowledge and experiences with the witness of the Book of Mormon, and the testimony of living prophets, we can know without a doubt that this gospel is true. (dont worry i'm still a long ways away from this) Anyways, they offered to give us a ride home but we were like heck no we have public transportation. Ha det! Unfortuneatly we had no idea where the flip we were. And it was pouring rain. What's ironic is we were about 50 feet away from realizing where we were but we didnt realize that until saturday. So we pulled out a little map and finally came to the conclusion that there was no way we were going to be able to figure it out. All we knew is that we were too far west of the city center. So we wandered around until we found a bus station, and whilst Elder anderson planned on taking a bus farther away before we could take a t-bane back I found a trykk we couldd take ( an overground city train thingy) (super cool) so we wandered around some more and finally found it and got back soaking wet. In all I think we were gone for like 5 hours. Effective: probably not. Fun: Definately :) I'll never forget what it feels like to just be standing in the middle of the rain with Elder Anderson, just laughing because you have no peiling where the heck you are.

Anyways Conference was the BESST! So we watched the saturday morning, and the two sunday sessions live. This means our schedule was as follows. 6-8 saturday was sat morn. sunday 11-1 priesthood, 2-4 sat afternoon, 6-8 sunday morn and then we got permission to stay up last night to watch sun afternoon live too! woot! I would like to point out that conference was the beessst! It is also super exciting to be a missionary for this one! Holy Smokes!!!! 18 and 19!!! DUDUE! Being here with a bunch of missionaries was awesome! We projected that Norway will prolly get a ton more sisters (because they are actually allowed to come here) and less elders. But in total over the world there could be like 100,000 missionaries soon. I'm so pumped! Also they changed mtc length by 30%. you might think this doesnt affect you or me because hey I'm already done with that. Well your wrong. All of you. :) I didn't tell any of you this because you would all murder me, but my projected release date was about August 18 ish 2014. This means I literally would not live at home before college again. This happens because transfers in norway are 9 weeks exactly. Do the math and you end up either a month early or a month late of 24 months. And they almost always keep missionaries for an extra month.

BUT. Now they will have to change transfers in some way because new missionaries will be coming ever 6 weeks instead of 9. New game plan entirely. (all of the older missionaries are really excited to hear what happens about this. Im more of a meh, I pretty much still have an eternity) anyways. So it doesn't really change anything for you. I guess. Because you prolly thought I was coming home on time. But hey now I probably am! In other news... The food they fed us for conference was divine. Really you get so used to frozen pizza and eggs that anything else that is real food is heavenly. yum. Cornbread. (Our limited budget in Norway comes out to about 5 dollars a day for food) (which isnt a lot when a liter of milk costs 3 dollars)(and a pack of ramen costs like 1) anyways. I'm poor in Norway! But I love it! Ooh more questions! Send them to me! P.s. Mail takes a long time to get here. Next week will be a month, and I still have not recieved a letter that was sent after I sent my first email. Anyways!

I love you all! The church is true! Thank you for all the love and support!