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.