October 21, 2013

K. . .

WEll I gotta go. Like it 4 minutes. 

So I'll try and write more later.

But if not. We slept on the floor in stavanger and had zone conference, where I learned that i'm suuuuper old in the mission. Like not just in writing but firsthand as we saw all the other missionaries. It was super fun. OUr plane had a hydrolic leak so we couldnt take off so we spent the night at the airport and ended up eating playing lots of games, getting way close with everyone and getting home the next day :) (like in the early nightime so we ended up sleeping at home.) 

We taught Max a ton this week. He's officially been taught everything he needs for baptism, and we are moving his baptism up to next saturday. LIke. holy smokes. Its super cool. He continues to be the light of our life and miracle max. Other than that it was kinda a rough week though. WE need a good week this week. So were shooting for that :)

I hope everything is going awesome at home! Sorry. An hour for emails really just isnt enough. 

I love you so much mom! 

lvoe,

Christopher

October 14, 2013

I have 11 minutes before I have to leave to meet our invs. max. We are hiking a mountain with him today :) Sorry. I spent my time on other people this week. But. this was a good week. to say the least. 

I'll answer your questions. I unfortunatley am in the same boat as my wayward bretheren. :) I mostly just dont have the room or the need for anything. The only thing I can come up with is a laundry hamper like the kind that you fold into nothing but that can stand up.... and... yup. Thats it. You really dont use or need much on your mission. If you send chocolate dont send plain chocolate. I cant stand normal hersheys anymore. like. It wont be eaten, because we will get so much other milk chocolate that will own its face off. Dark is delicious and doesnt find here, neither does reses or snickers or anything like that. So reses are good. :) But dont go too overboard either since I havent said anything else. :) Skittles are also delicious. :D

4 minutes left. 

I'll try and write later but if not, I love bergen. Elder newey is super chill. Kinda quiet like every other dude ive trained but its been really fun. We have probably commited more people to baptism in one week than ive ever done before in a month :) The coolest one is max. He really wants to get baptized but he goes back to america in 2 months so we told him it might be better to go home and do it but he'd said he'd pray and give us an answer. In one day he read all of mosiah and when he got to chapter 18, he said he just felt like he really wants to do this here. So its happening in a fjord. in a couple weeks. He came to church and loved it. There is a possibility that he will be my new roommate at byu next year. and... yup. just a sweet, humble, ready guy. He loved the plan of salvation about temples. and He said it just feels like something that he had been missing. I cant express my feelings about him. Max literally converted himself. We didnt do anything at all. It was him that wanted to meet like 5 times last week, watch more genearl conference, come to sport eat dinner with us. WE took him to ther Grove family for dinner yesterday and taught the gospel of jesus christ and he loved it. I dont know whky. I told dad this but all my experience makes me appreciate how much we dont do. God leads us to these people. And he leads them to us. quote from max: most people like come to norway to party and stuff, but I came here and ended up reading the gospel. Its kinda funny'... yes max. it is pretty funny. and cool. He knows now why he came. :) ANyways. it literally was just to bless me. Max could have met missionaries anywhere and loved it. He came here for me. So thank you. 

4 minutes overtime. 

There were other way cool things. Our teach with magnus and sissel was amazing. even though magnus is straight atheist, just in meeting with him i can see the cahnge and feel him become just a little less hostile and much more accepting. his girlfriend is doing a good job on him :) 

There were definately hard times. But The good is just smashing the bad into oblivion. Go team. I hope I answered all your question mom :) I love you. 

Your letters are the ones i look forward to the most. SAying bosslike and using 3s for e's is not a requirement for love :) 

Have a great week! yes i did get all your letters! thankn you soooo much! :D

bye!

Christopher

October 7, 2013

Hey Mouayma!

Another week. gone. Theyre flying now people. :) Christmas is in.... like 2 and half months!!! AH! woot! We had another good week with its own fair share of miracles and struggles along with it. The switch was harder than I expected though in a way I think they always are. Especially when things are going well, its hard to try and switch over to something else. Especially with training, just because you give it your all to figure out how to help them get adjusted as fast as possible, whilst still trying to stay on top of all the other things that you have going on at the same time almost by yourself. 

I stink way bad right now. We jsut played dodgeball with some of the young men for p day so i'm soaked through all my clothes with sweat... its pretty bad. I'm not a boy anymore. i'm like.... almost a man now. its weird. heh. good one right? :) i'm like 20 and half and I think i'm cool enough to be called a man. .. in the least, I feel quite much owned into oldness. ... :) 

Pday last week was awesome. After emails we hiked up Fløyen just with me and Garrard. We didn't really know the way so we just kinda picked our way up. The crazy thing is, there are people that live like 20 meters from the top. Like.... on cliffs. I have some crazy pictures of houses on the straight cliffside. anyways. it was way cool. We had a way chill hike to the top and then when we got there had a transfer review one the most beautiful clear warm day that can possibly exsist during this time in Bergen. It was amazing. And incredibly warming for the heart. After a good while we decided to go ask a woman to take our picture and immediately following I just sat down and starting talking to her. We ended up teaching her for an hour overlooking the entire city of bergen. About 3 minutes in she started crying... Me and Garrard didn't know waht to do. Really. As we talked to her she had felt the spirit really strongly and greatly appreciated the chance to actuallytalk to those weird mormon boys she had always seen. She has seen them around for over 50 years (yeah she was old, but she rode a tram to the top :) and has never talked to them. When she actually heard what we did and why we did it she cried. She cried at several points as we talked with her and it was the coolest unexpected epic mountain teach ever. 

My note with this is that despite how cool it was that didn't mean she was willing to change her faith or try something different. When I walked back and all one visiting missionary could say was, well when is she getting baptized? I was almost disturbed. Our efforts to baptize and convert people are meant well. And this does not in any way take away from the saviors command to baptize as so well put in General Conference, but it goes so much deeper than that. The love and joy that I felt for that woman was 0% contigent on her choice. It was for her, and for the fact that we had been able to give it to her in a beautiffully simple way. It did not matter what she chose.

To continue on, Tuesday was an incredible day with tons of cool things. We had packed it full to the brim with teaching and Kbabs with the district, and fun :) Forget dinner and most of studies. It was his last day and we were going to make it worth it. :) First we ran into max, who has become the boss of the world. since last sunday, he has read over 100 pages in the book of mormon. He loved General Conference too. on tuesday he came up and said uh... yeah i LOVE that book you gave me. its really interesting. I almost died. WHat? Then he asked if it was possible for him to come to church... of course man. he also showed up at the church to watch the last session with us this morning. (we decided to watch it for studies as a district this morning) so cool. Then we met rose. In the little english she speaks she told us that she loved this book. How the bible and this book... the same. :) You need give me 5 or 6 of this book, and i will give it to preachers in dubai. They need this book. ....

Rose. I don't think you understand. no one else believes in this book but us. We have a prophet rose. hmm. yes i know that you have prophets back in dubai... erm. ... yup. Thats how teaching her goes. She believes we have a prophet just not the prophet. :) yeah well. We had a miracle meeting with her on saturday too where we saw her and her 3 little kids on the bybane and had a way good chat. She has a testimony of the book of mormon, and no idea what to do with it :) 

  

Then we taught Adal in a lightless church along with Knut Andreas. So in complete darkness. He recommited to baptism and we just had a waaay good teach with him. Helped go over his questions, and really he just loved it. He asked us to meet the next day. 

I'm running out of friends. And time.... But when our greenies got here, they went straight to teaching language class and then we all taught adal with a whole bunch of electric candles for light. It was sooo cool. :) 

Next day we visited our MMK at night and you will just have to look at the picture. This place is so amazing. And then I legitamately went in a circle and got lost trying to find our street. ... it was embarrasing :) Friday we taught IngerTheresa the coolest laday ever. Her childhood faith is mormonism and really wants to find out if its true. So thats exactly what she's going to do :) Way humble and just good teach. 

General Conference was incredible. I really don't have a whole lot to say about it other than it was exactly what I needed. By the time the next one roles around, I will be different again. I will be able to look back and look at the leaps and bounds i've taken just as I have done these past two times. Only... I really only have this last period where I feel like life will be normal. By next GC I will be on death row. And I don't know how i'll feel. So i'm just not going to worry about it. :) 

It was a beutiful week here, and I just pray things can continue on like they have been going. I hope you guys feel just as we do in my determination that 'we can do this'. Because we will not forget the Lord our God. Thats my spiritual message to you guys this week :) 

I hope you know my eamils are probably more powerful and more thourgouh than my own journal :S'

ya well

Loves!!

September 30, 2013

Hey Morosa! 

K well I don't know quite where to start with this one. I'll probably just go and you'll hop on with me at some point I'm sure. The first crazy thing is that I am training again! Elder Newey... heh. that made me laugh too :) haven't met the kid yet though so we'll see if he actually lives up to his name. That makes child number 4. and 3 grand children. :) If we have a mission conference at christmas again i'm going to have to get a slekt picture with all of my sons and grandsons. :) Anyways. I'm super sad to see Elder Garrard go though. I don't think i've ever just felt so ... on top of things as I have with him. Thats partly just because I came to bergen knowing and believing we would succeed and we did. So that was pretty legit. Though slightly OCD, we got along great together, and earned each others trust on a very deep level I think :) 

Anyways so that is that random news. In other news I love life. I think I have just learned to move forward doing everything that I can in the future, and things have just kinda fallen into place. I can't even really explain it to myself. i can't really explain exactly where I'm at or how I feel, I just.... kinda got lost along the way. Does that make any sense? I can't believe it took me so long to really understand how important all of this is and really just throw myself into it wholeheartedly but at least it happened eventtually. That doesn't mean that it always stays liek that, as things always seem to go up and down but ever since my 'spiritual plummet'... sort of that i had a couple months back, what i've built back up is much strongr, and much... different than it was before. :) 

I like it. 

'And he saw that the seed was good, and the foundation of that very strong' therefore, he did not feel the urge to squish it with his finger like he does with all the random fruit flies in his apt. 

yay. :) 

(really though. I'm at straight war with the Fruit flies... I think I've scared my companion on several occasions. Just recently instead of killing them by the fifties with my hands I decided to take a page out of your book and use a vaccuum. :) much more effective)

I'm also grateful to have had a mother who raised me on salads :) Because honestly there is nothing that tastes more delicious than a salad after almost never making any of them. Last night it was literally like: forget the pizza, the salad is the best part! (it did have avacado and fettecini cheese in it... or at least some sort of really delicous cheese cube :) Serisously though. I just had that random thought. That you really don't get stuff as a kid, but when you're older its like duh, thats why you said don't play video games and eat potato chips all day. Life is worth so much more than that. Sorry. Wierd tangent. 

NO. I am not vegaterian nor will I ever be so. 

ok. wow. some actual stuff that happened. My whole district bossed it up last week. We broke the record for new investigators. All that president said was: how did you do that? it was miracles. and we are all pumped. like. We've had miracles like every day. Get kbabbed in the city, and say a prayer to find out if we should stay or go. get a call and have a member walk up and point out a less active who is across the square. Prayer = instantly answered. me and Garrard contacted: get this: 0 hours last week. And found more people than we had the week before just on Public transport, and random things that happened. So cool. Wednesday I went on splits with Elder collard and we taught Adal this way cool guy. You'll keep hearing more about him. But his story is that he's never had a religion though he's always believed very strongly in God. 3 Days before he met us he got a way strong feeling he needed to go find a church. Then he met us. 2 lessons later he's commited to getting baptized in a month. I was freaking out. of my 

mind.

He asked us and we were the ones who said: yes. yes we can baptize you. Can you say prepared? Yesterday we taught this way cool american kid named max and a whole norwegian family who we found at the baptism. SOOO COOL. She fed us this way good pizza and her 15 year old daughter had invited no less than FIVE of her friends to come talk to the mormon missionaries. IT WAS SOOOO ....... weird. And cool. By the end though we were just outnumbered and outugnned. :) But it still went way good. We also met her 24 year old daughter and they invited us over to dinner at her and her boyfriends house for dinner this week. So that'll be cool. Anyways. it was all legit. Ran into struggling less active ysa randomly on the street that was super cool. anyways. helped a funny pillipino guy move. We are going to teach him and his family too. Anyways. I almost don't have enough time for everything. ...

Thats cool. 

Anyways. i'm going to stop boring you with stories now but generally noted: I'm doing good. And i'm pumped for General Conference. I have by far the best job in the mission. And yup. I hope you guys have a great one! christmas will be here before you know it right?!? heh. time flyr. hly toledo!

Love

Christopher

 

 

Pictures :)

Halloween carving contest

Ummmmm....

Sad missionaries? Contemplative missionaries? Silly missionaries? Yes, that.

September 23, 2013

Hey MOM!!!!!

I'm sooooo happy right now I could explode!!!!!! I literally have nothing to complain about other than the fact my knee hurts because I played dodgeball too hard :) FRee for ALL!!!! Styel :) So thats my story. I have 30 minutes starting now to write you and change. Darn it. You at least will get the idea that i'm happy :) Not stress free, but happy. :)

I'll respondere first :). yes I have a car NOW. I didn't then :) We just borrowed the Broughs (senior couple) car. so pretty. sometimes we drive around with him. All the time we are driving right next to beautiful still water, or through tunnels. No end of fun. I love driving here :) um. yeah. The Broughs got emergency transferred to oslo as of this morning. So for 6 weeks I'm in charge of their car, their apt., their Ysa, their missionaries, and Sisters Broughs beautiful orchid that needs a  good name :) Something elegant. I was crushed. I love them. They cant leave. Especially not now when we actually have some good momentum. in the month or so this district has been in bergen it has been incredible. I've had some of the most powerful spiritual meetings this week. One with the bishop, and with the missionaries, and the broughs, and just knowing how to plow forward. We just get it now. We are going hard in the paint, throwin bows in the lane. :) Its been incredible to feel the whole spirit of the district go up. Soo col. 

so yeah now I have a car for the first time :) Its pretty cool. I can just use it if I want. Yay! 

um. mom. I'll look that up when I have an English hymn book. I can't really look that up here. sorry. :) Id lvoe to. And I'll just make sure that you can norwegian and then you guys will be the only one's whithout a secret hemmelig språk :) heh. anyways. 

yeah. I had a way fun splits with Elder Clarke this week. That was pretty fun. Me and Garrard had like 3 miracles yesterday even though none of our people showed up, through just random things that we were doing we still found people. We havent had any time to contact hardly at all and yet we are still finding tons of way prepared people. This week I had a finding experience like I haven't had since oslo. We prayed and felt led to walk up this street. Amid hundreds of ungdom, we found this one lady who I decided to stop. It started out normal but the she was like: oh yeah, I'm a mormon. ... awkward. This happens especially when you know you don't quite know everyone in the ward. so.... which uh famliy are you a part of? The Johansen famiily she says. But me and my mother havent been to church for a long time. Like ok. cool. now i'm getting a little pumped. you can often find less actives on the street that can be way cool. But then she said. yeah she left like right before I was baptized.... ok. so are you baptized.'

no. 

ok.... uh..... What do you believe in? yeah. i'm christian. But i'm mormon christian... but your not døpt? nope. have you read the book of mormon. Of Course! Thats why i tell people i'm mormon. Cause I really do believe that its true. ok

wait. We tell people why baptism is so important. Well I have time friday at 11.... uh..... okkkk.? (is this a joke?) 

Yup

I met someone who believes they are mormon but isn't baptized, and yup. I just about died. It could not go anywhere, but she was super prepared. That's all I really have to say about that.

There are so many other things. It was a boss week. I have been able to really help the people around me, and I'm seeing it more than ever. Me and Garrard get along great, and I've never had a companionship that i've felt the spirit this constantly. Its like... all the time. United together and with God. the coolest thing for me as a DL is just to be getting straight revelation about how I can help my district even if half of them are sisters. its pretty cool. and super fun. anyways

I love you mom! I need to send some pictures, but you'll get those eventually. my words can only come once. :) 

love,

Christopher

September 16, 2013

Hey momsidile! :)

I live in a suburb of Bergen called Paradis. Norway isn't that big so they don't have really big addresses. :) I mean come on... There are less people in the country than the state of utah. :) Yes I live in Paradise :) And I got some letters from Kristy this week so that address really does work. :) 

My life is good :) I really don't have that much to say really. Hmm. I'll talk about that first. I love being a district leader. I actually feel like I really know what I'm suppossed to be doing here and I really feel like I have the opportunity to do a lot of good things in that respect. There is a lot of things that need to be done with the ward and with 8 missionaries you kind of need someone with enough experience to kindof lead out and take the lead on that. So that's been fun. Its also been fun to really find out how I can actually help them. I feel like I actually influence people a lot more now than I did even when I was a zone leader, just because Bergen is the one big city in Norway that really doesn't get much contact with anywhere else. And I really almost have more to do here than I did in stavanger. But it's been super fun, I I've been super grateful for that I actually have been given some inspiration on where to actually put my efforts. And the same really applies to my companion. :) Elder Garrard is a pretty funny kid for as quiet as he is, but we've really become really good friends, and he's helped me a lot to finally just kinda go for it. This really is the part of my mission where time is flying by so much faster than I thought possible, and all you can do is just try to do everything that you can to be your best. As a returned missionary in the ward wisely stated: 'You know, you two really have quite the dynamic companionship. I think it works really well. He then pointed at me and said: so you must be the disobedient one' :) yup. Ok not really, but when put side by side with a greenie who makes salads out of herbal tea and olive oil, because he just has to make a salad, and it just has to be perfect, I guess I am the one that takes things at a slightly slower pace. Except when we run. I think we run more uphill than I ever have in my life. And we do it pretty fast too :) Thats what you get with 2 rival cross country runners :) (no we don't race, its just that even taking it slow we are pretty fast :)

In other news, we have made some way good progress with some of the YSA in the ward. We taught one of the new converts Bob, who.... I love. I have a straight man crush on the dude. He speaks this funny version of the oslo dialect where he'll say something REALLY fast, and then just pause like norwegians do by keeping a constant tone and then finishing even faster. A lot of the members dont even catch everything that he says. He went hiking wtih us, we made food together, and yesterday I went on splits with him to go visit some inactive YSA. Despite the fact no one answered, and it was pouring rain, we had a great time skipping rocks at the oceans edge whilst we waited for the bus. I loved it and had a blast :) We visited another dood who let us in and we had a way chill talk with him as well. I tuned his guitar for him (i'm picking up all kinds of fun skills on my mission :) and we played some music together. We taught the boyfriend of 4 years of one of the YSA who is an atheist. Not like a religion hater, but someone who truly believes that we are animals on a random planet. It was a super interesting teach, and I loved being a part of it actually. Her testimony was fantastic and he'll probably be just one of those people that take a little bit of time :) 

hmm... What else? I think thats most of it :) We hiked up a mountain last pday that was super cool. At the top we were going through the clouds, and up almost a straight up slope all there was was a big iron rod that wound up the mountain. The cool part was that you could only see about 20 feet in front of you so more than half the group you could only hear and not see :) I caught a frog, and then we ran down the mountain... carefully :) 

Evelyn is now a member, and from what I've heard it was an absolutely incredible experience for them yesterday. :) .... Yay :D Thats all I have to say about that. My heart ached to be there, but I was needed here. Literally actually. I'm the only missionary who can translate, so I ended up translating all three hours yesterday. It was pretty fun. The little primary program was super fun, the only problem was that some of those little girls talked waaaaay to fast and I missed parts here and there. The people on the recieving end said I did a good job though :) 

We had a baptism here on saturday and we had a super cool experience with one of the nonmember friends that came. We went in and helped her make food and just talked to her about things and she almost died i think because she just kept saying over and over how utrolig flink we are at the språk and she was just really impressed. :) But afterwords we talked to her and we are teaching her and her famliy this week after she feeds us homemade pizza! Again, random cooking skills on the mish that come in handy :) Then to top it off, Brother Mørklid, (who I will just have to describe later.... he's just ... fun :) (he's the guy who gives everyone ties if you've heard about him) came walking down one end of the big hall whistling the western dueling song, and after he did the first line I just whistled the second and turned around and we had one of the moments ever just walking down the hall slowly guns ready whilstling at each other :) You would have to have been there :) 

Life is crazy. I have way too much to do. But I love it all. I'm just enjoying the ride right now :) And doing everything I possibly can to help everyone here succeed. I've never felt drive and love like this before in my entire life. I will go and I will do. And when I fail, I'll just get back up again. Because guess what matthew. It comes back :)

Love,

Christopher :)

PS. mom. All I can talk about is skipping rocks :) So painting rocks must be much cooler. My life would sound cool if you could actually come here and see how incredible this place is. Its unbelievable. As we drive around i can't get over it :)  To answer that part of your letter last week. Don't give up on your dream of coming here. :)