First off. The only people we work
with are not drunks or atheists. See story below :) That said, we work with a lot of drunks and atheists :)
That picture was with a troll named Hildor who
guards our path to the church thank you very much! Recently Hildor has
been causing some problems though... :)
I will
try and get everything I have to say for today in today's email because i
move to bergen on wednesday and next monday and tuesday I will be in
trondheim and wont get on for emails until tuesday night and then only
for a short amount of time since the mission conference is happenening
there :) This next week is going to blow the worlds mind though. Bergen
is almost getting completely whitewashed, with 7 new missionaries
completely unfamiliar with bergen, 3 of which are completely new to
norway. that makes 8 total plus the Broughs who are the senior couple
there. So my next week is going to be next to insane :) should be fun.
Bergen has been struggling a ton so this will be a really cool
oppporunity to see if we can do anything to help.
In terms of me, the pattern still stands that
my last week in every area is straight awesome. Everytime I've left an
area we had just gotten a baptismal date and the same goes for this
week. I just have to tell you about Evelyn first. We taught her on
saturday about the restoration and the plan of salvation and it blew my
mind. She said over and over, I'm ready for this. This feels so right
for me. She had had a faith in christ and lost it during her teenage
years like most kids in Norway. After 10 years she met a friend who was
an inactive member of our church and spoke with him about the gospel.
She began realizing she knew something was there and wanted to follow
what she wanted regarding faith. She realized the world teaches so
heavily to rely on the brain rather than the heart. In my studies that
very morning I realized that our feelings and our heart are what make us
human, and children of God. Any robot can think, learn,
and reason to no end: Ever learning, never coming to a knowledge of the
truth. (2 TIm 3) :) I know I can't really explain my personal
experiences in any way that is interesting, but it was just an
incredible experience to meet someone who God had been preparing their
entire lives. And when she decided to come to church, she was ready. She
committed to be baptized on the 15th and though I won't be here to see
it, she will follow through with that. :) She has such an incredible
spirit and it was so cool to see her as we talked about joseph smith and
the book of mormon, she looked anxious and finally just pointed at the
book I was holding, and said: can I see that yet? .... of course you
can. :) Testimonies were powerful and she cried through much of the
whole thing. If we hadn't run to the church and I was sweating so much, I
probably would have cried too. It was soo cool though. Daniel Kidøy her
friend who told her about a church that taught all the
things she had been personally recieving revalation about on her own,
is also coming to church now, along with another friend who also wants
to be baptized. The whole story is just pretty cool :)
After church we had the biggest throwdown of love
I've ever had on my entire mission. We talked with Constantin and
Generosa just in the empty cultural hall about baptism and we went
suuuuper bold and really tried to help her understand how important it
was that she ask God, not her sister, about whether she should get baptized. Constantin came up big and said: if it is something you want to do then do it. Don't
fear. So constantin do you want to be baptized? Yes of course I do. I
don't even have enough time before I move to meet with everyone that
wants to meet with us but we are going to their house on tuesday night
and following up on their praying about setting a date. They will make
it :) Someday they will. But she is ready. She understand christ now,
and she loves church. Now she just needs to make the decision to follow him.
:) After that we went to the Sande's house and ate dinner together. We
had a
wonderful lesson about the Holy ghost. The saddest part was when she
learned I was leaving you could tell she was super sad about it. I have
been teaching her almost my entire time here and it has been so
incredible to be with her and constantin. Seeing people grow is one of
the most amazing things ever :)
In other random news, after Menighetsråd we had this
super random guy we contacted like 2 months ago showed up to church
while we were getting ready to go home and eat but we ended up teaching
him instead, and commiting him to come to church :) woot! monday we
taught a guy in the middle of the biggest rainstorm i've ever seen where
we were stuck under a tree for an hour. it was funny to see all the
people huddled around thee pond sheltering themselves from the rain :)
Tueday we taught the nicest quietest swedish cagefighter in existence :)
Dude. His swedish was awesome :) And aside from our teach with Evelyn,
it was probably one of my most spiritual teaches ever. All that
practicing paid off as we were able to make it super personal and super
meaningful. I choked up in that one too. It was amazing. Wednesday I got
to see my son Ellsworth and Chancellor again at a training meeting in
oslo :) Me and ellsworth and Holden
(he's my daughter) are training at the same time. Which means I get
another son and two grandsons at the same time :) super cool!
If you haven't gotten the picture yet this week was
awesome. ITs the first week I've ever gotten thiiiisss close to actually
reaching ALL of my goals :) And we set some pretty high ones cause we
knew this week was going to be awesome. It was super cool. We ninja
karateied some flies, watched the tour de fjord bike race in the middle
of stavanger sentrum, and played intense uno.
My heart is done with leaving places. I still have
like forever left and i'm already done with leaving. When some of the
youth learned that we were leaving it was just super sad. Stavanger has
been one of the best places ever :) I had this random thought though
mom, that i'm going to love being home, just because the relationships
you have there are sooo precious. I don't think you realize that until
you go out and you don't have it for a long time. When you have it again
there is nothing better :) I feel more than ever that my family really
are my best friends in the whole world ever :)
Since I wont be able to say much next week, I love you all! Go kick some life's butt!
loves!
Elder Christopher Whetten
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