June 10, 2013

Well Momsie,

As much as you tell me about what's going on, it still doesn't feel real... ;) So sorry if that bursts your bubble. I see pictures of home and it might as well be a joke :) But that's ok. I've given up the thought that life is normal or stable or anything. I just kinda go with it and take every day as it comes :)

You will be pleased to know mom that long before I read what you said about what I would tell dad about his email, that is exactly what I said... I got owned on that one :) You had me picked out way to well on that one. The thing is today I don't have so much time because we are going to go 'pratice driving' *cough cough* around the countryside :) Cause.... NOrway blows my mind... But! I also really do need some practice for the test. It is not uncommon for missionaries to fail their driving test so I don't really have any intention of falilng mine, and I haven't driven for a year... A YEAR I haven't touched the wheel... I actually kinda miss it alot. ITs alright though. I enjoy the methods of transportaiion we have here. :D Yea for no 4000 krown speeding tickets! (that's not a joke)

As for my life... Its kindof really exciting and boring all at the same time :) I legitamtely haven't had time to really write in my journal about it. I'll write one morning about the week before, and not even get through one day, not neccassarily because I have loads to say but more becasue I don't have any time, (and I fall asleep) :P So with that pattern I really haven't been able to keep up yet. But there are lots of cool things that keep happening. The biggest change this week was with Constanitn. We were helping him with language in the library when he saw  one of his aftrican buddies and introduced us to his friend Collins. Collins was playing it pretty smooth, and starting asking some probing questions... So we answered and then constatin just said: Hey, why don't we set up an appointment to meet later because right now I need their help :) So later that week, we met with a Jehovahs witness dude along with our own investigator playing as the 'member' :) it was hilarious. Constantin was busting the questions out, and busting out the Joseph Smith and the Restoration pamphlets on this guy. When we visited hime and his wife last night it was so interesting becasue we asked him if he believed that God and Christ came down and visited this boy Joseph smith and he believed it 100 %. It was incredible. He still doesn't know how to not be catholic, but the more he is with our church the more he likes it. He says he has one foot with christ and one foot with the catholics. A very interesting way to state that :) He is soo cool though :) He just cracks up over the funniest stuff, and when he gives the best bro high fives ever it makes a cool cuppy sound :) His wife wants to learn though. So hopefully that goes well :) 

I went on splits with my good old friend Elder Callister (half companion from Sarpsborg) and that was super fun. We met with the Jdub, met with Gian this super crazy awesome dancing phillipino guy, and talked to some other people. We planned for our training meetings this week, gave a bunch of training, and somehow still had enough time go out and find people :) We had this funny italian guy come to church who had some weird fundamentalist views. He was cool though. Other than that, I had a whole bunch of way cool conversations this week, with companoins and friends. The stress finally bubbled over and somehow I can still feel all the pressure, but I feel at peace. With every new challenge I can just feel myself growing under the weight of it. For as much as I don't like being a leader sometimes, you learn to deal with really interesting problems that bring out the worst and best parts of your character all at the same time. :) 

I am a terrible person because I disagree with a few things. One thing I learned I disagree with is our rule to constantly be with someone alllllllll the time. ON thursday I had a couple hours while we waited for our companions to switch back, and I can't tell you how much I enjoyed that alone time. I would almost consider it a neccessary part of dealing with the stress and everything that piles up in life. It really helped me to get to this state of perfect peace and of a what you coould possibly call a bright hope :) I'm glad it's stuck around. 

OTher than that, I don't really have a whole lot to say. My life is weird. I'm broken, and so not broken at the same time :) I kinda like it :) Keep havin an awesome summer! ... and um.....

well. Trying to express love over an email is always awkward... :D

love,

Christopher

June 3, 2013

HEy Mom!

I'm glad Kristy showed you some of those pictures. I felt like death and wanted a nap so I only gave them to her, but today I'll make you a deal and send some more :) Do I really look older...? I haven't been gone for that long :) 

As for Preikestolen, Pictures are cool but don't do it justice for just how awesome it was to actually be up there. The rain left just in time so that we could see everything before we went down. It was sooooo coool! :)   I took some of the sisters backpacks and was still hopping around like a jack in the box. .  It's about an hour and a hlaf at our pace, and a little over 2 hours at the sisters pace :) 

As for Burt being my companion I'm pretty excited. I would say that there is a really good dynamic between the two of us. We teach differently but the same, and are really able to cover what the other doesn't have. However, what was cool in Moss was how much we grew together and that's not something that will just magically be recreated. So it will be fun. But different. And I can basicallly gurantee we are going to end up as one of each others favorite companions on the mission. Especially since they kicked Chancellor out so fast, we'll probably have the whole summer to just ... Do it. LETS GO!

THat said, moves has never been harder for me than it was this week... actually I take that back, leaving Anderson was harder. But this one was surprisingly very hard. I had 0 desire to leave elder Chancellor. In a few short weeks, had really drawn a connection with him that feels like it got ripped away super prematurely. With being sick, and him not wanting to leave, the time before wednesday was really hard, and quite draining. Then the whole rest of the week was just a mess, and now we have 2 zone conferences in a row... (dont ask me why... i dont know)... it'll be fun. I love going to Bergen, so I can't complain too much. just our topic this time is really hard to make interesting, or even to do in the hele tatt. (at all) 

Despite how I felt, Thursday I woke up feeling more sick than I ever have on my mission. With all this new stress and responsiblity, and sickness, I was not too happy. But I fought through it. :) And through studies I learned some really cool things about prayer, and how to make your prayers meaningful. It has a lot to do with what your honest desires are. If you pray for what you honestly sincerely want, that prayer will mean the world to you and you can feel that it gets answered. The rest of the day was awesome. We had a member call us with a refferal who wanted help moving and they ended up being super cool. WE had a cool pump up session with all the youth that night, showed the poor three new sisters and burt around stavanger, and finally had an hour phone call from one of the former members here who said is 110% convinced of the church and will do everything he can to get baptized. 

Calls like that are not super normal. :) 

We flew into Oslo again on friday, watched a kid tackle a girl playing volleyball on saturday, and I met with our sweet berudian guy again last night. Saturday we met with the cooolest norwegain atheist who is sincere and honest and prepared and AHHHH! This morning I woke up feeling better than I did all last week so thats a good thing. I really need to not be sick anymore. WIth 20 new sisters in the mission now, the mission is 40% sisters and more than half of those are new. 

On a very personal level, the lessons I am learning are becoming more confusing, and more clear at the same time. :) I'm learning how to write down how I feel a lot better, but at the same time, I look at the last 3 months since I left oslo (DUDE ITS ONLY BEEN 3 MONTHS!!?!?!) And I've learned and grown so much I couldn't even tell you. THis week was Persistence. I'm not allowed to give up now. I feel more exhausted in a 'life force' kind of sense than ever before, but I can't give in...I can never give up. No matter what you feel, you need to get up, deal with the problems of the day, fight to do your best to be creative and loving and christlike, and then when you sleep terribly you go again. 

I don't really know what it is about a mission that is so specail yet, but there is something different here. LIke I know we are here to help people, but sometimes I feel like the Lord has other things in mind. ANyways. I just love you enough to wish I could share what I feel with exactness. Unfortunatlely, i'm a lazy 20 year old who wants to go play basketball and sleep, and try and get ready for another week. ANd it's kindof really hard anyways. Thank you so much for what you shared mom :) Despite every challenge and every weakness, I know we can all make it :) Have a fantastical week!

Christopher

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

May 6, 2013

Mom,

I'm super excited to be a dad :) But I doubt even then I will understand how much you love me :) It's a principle that I've talked about with several other people, that even if I was the biggest bum on the planet here, you all would still love me and be proud of me :) So now its just up to me to live up to that :) 

About my currency and my parental situation: Sandnes is about a 15 minute train ride from stavanger, so the Stavanger Zl's and the Sandnes Elders live together for the time being. What basically happened is I got moved here so that I would go to the stavanger Elders area, but since they are zone leaders, he didnt want them in a 3 some... so then i was with sandnes. With moves this last week, I got a bed (yea!)  yea, and even did I recieve a position and place in the which that I could study, Yea, and I say unto you, in this thing was the missionary Elder Whetten quite glad of heart, that he could now study in peace, without the persecution of his bretheren the lamanites. And Behold the wicked Elder Abrahams, was kast out, and sent to the faraway land of trondheim, and for this cause what Elder whetten able to acheive his place in the stavanger area :) 

or in other words, one of the dudes left for trondheim :) So I get his spot and his phone and job and stuff :) Make sense? Not that I've really been able to enjoy it yet because we've been running around like mad people trying to get ready for the zone training thingy tomorrow but it's been nice. Even though moving around has been hard, I do know that I'm being taught the things I need, and I'm getting some extra help to help me meet my new responsibilties and do everything I need too :) 

In terms of cool things that happened this week, We just started teaching this man and his wife from Uganda, and its been super cool. Both of them came to church and it was just a really cool first teach with them. I have never had so many normal teaches as I have here. Wedenesday was national, rage against the man, day :) Nobody works, no storyes are open, and it's basically a day where everyone marches on the gågates holding picket signs and such :) pretty cool. I ate a deadly kbab though... ugh. not good for you :)

As for sickness, I really don't know what I've had. just a general: I feel like poopiness kind of feeling. I'm fine now :) I'm just workiing on getting both feet on the ground right now. That may not happen since we're flying up to bergen this week but we'll see. I just want to go back to Moss, or Oslo where things made sense :) 

Thank you so much for the birthday wishes mom :) I won't tell you the story where we jogged home in a straight up blizzardy hail storm this week :) Every inch was soaked. I literally felt like I had just stepped into an icy pool of water and then started running in a full suit. :) Weirdo. Myself :) Or the part where we went to the gorgous beach and stood by the edge of the rocks so wee could get cool pics of us getting splashed on... heh ok fine I'll just give you the pic :) it's pretty cool :D I await the pckge with anticicpatinon :) I really need some more space on my camera! 

Well I'm out of time. But thank you sooo much mom. If nothing else just know I feel good right now. I really needed the love today :) i'm just going to stop worrying about things so much. ANd go tell people what I know can change their lives. Missionary work is the coolest experience on this planet. 

 Loves!

Christopher

ps OH. the call! I'll prolly just email you guys later this week when I getr that figured out :)  Me and Elder CHancellor haven't gotten that far yet :) itll be sunday morning sometime though :) AH I'm 20... werid. Doesn't feel like it at all . 

April 29, 2013

Hey Mom!!

Ke well i'm just going to start by answering all the little random questions you just threw into that email :)

So firstly the norwegian questions!

I would say that i'm definately losing my hold on the english language. :) the more you speak norwegian the more it happens. Unfrotunetly I actaully need to be somewhere wher they just speak norwegain. :) Depending on the companion, if we have been speaking just norwegain, i definately think in norwegain, and we always pray in norsk. Here is Stavanger, we have a lot of americans and a lot of phillipenos so quiete a bit of English is actualy spoken. soo... yeah. I prolly won't be that bad. but yeah i definately pray and think in it :) 

As for the call I don't really have a clue yet. It'll probably be .... before you guys have church or during or... hmm. when do you want me to call you? We'll prolly do it in the evening for us so I don't know what you want to do. Just let me know :)

As for Kim he was lost for a little bit but i've been personally emailing him so and I know that the Elders still have contact with him. No he's not baptized but he still exsists so thats a good start anyway. He's the last one that I know of that I have ever taught so far. I'll keep trying though :) Kim is totally awesome though :) I love that guy. 

spring is definatly being very slow in getting here. Well apparently it was really nice and sunny in stavanger until I got here... so I guess it's my fault :) It's especailly apparent when you're climbing on rocks by the sea barefoot and letting HUGE waves crash up against the rocks and completely cover you :) THat¨' s pretty cold :) But super fun!

ANyways... I don't really have much time left, and I feel.... kindof dead. A lot. REad dads email. :) that explains a little more :) But I still had a good week! I got to go to Haugesund on splits and it was absolutely gorgeous. THe coolest bus ride on this planet (except for maybe the double dekker bus we took this week!) The bus went in tunnels under teh sea, and ferrys that go over it! I could swear that the senery here was taken straight out of LOTR! ITs crazy! ANd soooo pretty! I couldn't really get that much from my camera inside the bus (and i'm completely out of space on my memory card BTW) ...  (like 100% out as of today) (after clearing out a whole bunch of weird ones... the ones left are just awesome) but on top of the boat I got some waaaay cool ones! It was cool to just chill on the top of it by myself :) Way cool! (little cold :) ANd the ferry ride back (i took just a ferry this time) was in the middle of a huge storm and there were waves going almost all the way over the little boat. needless to say everyone got sick. But it was cool! We went contacting with the sisters and by that i mean i mostly just contacted by myself for a little while...

OH! We did have the best dinner so far in norway though. Just perfectly cooked lamb for all the missionaries.... soooo good! Mom.... I'm getting man cuddly... its weird. THe mission deos wierd things to you. anyways. we we squishing on the couch afterwords. It was a way fun night! ...

Yeah other than being absolutely gorgous... this was a weird week. I feel like i'm going full out, but that's only about 25% of what that's supposed to be... maybe it's because my favorite person in the whole entire world goes home this week.... By Anderson.... I'll miss you. I talked to him last night for like 45 minutes which was waaaay funner than it sounds. :) That man has changed my life forever. Good luck dude. 

Also at teh lamest moves call ever yesterday (to which I already knew) i'm moving to be with the Stavanger Elders. So that will be fun. (it was lame because nothing happened....) 

K well. i've lost the will to write more. so I hope that gives some idea of what's going on... hopefully I'll feel a little better next week. Right now i just feel a little off... Could you tell at all? yeah well. 

I love you so much! TAlk to you in like 13 dayS!!! AHHH!! :D

Christopher

April 15, 2013

A ferry, Train, and a plane ride later,

Hey Mom!!!

Unfortunately I'm really just going to have to say the same thing to youthat I said to everyone else..... I have no time today. So sorry. But befor I forget!!!

Smedgata 7
4013 Stavanger
Norway

Yup! I'll tell kristy this too! but if between the two of you I could somehow manage to get a hoodie much the same to my old white one that would be fantastic! I have really needed one. We always open the windows at night here becuase it stinks a ton... soo yeah. its chilly. I need to more koseligness. Also.... some sort of glasses case. so I have some way to carry them around. If this doesn't wrork out thats fine. I'll find one :)

Our family sounds like intense things are happening. I wish I could be there to help you guys. Just know that I definately keep you guys in my prayers mom :) always. Dang, I was totally going to get you guys some pictures today, but unfortunately i haven't had the mulighet yet... sorry no time. I'll send some later !

So to fill in all the gaps you have about sandes... it's actually a way cool area, and the city is super preetty. Every day riding the trian in we actually are right by a fjord and I haven't seen a more 'norway' looking city yet. Actually Stavanger is way cool too. I think I actually like it a little better. its super clean and super pretty, and pdays in this area are some of the best in the mission cause you have so many hikes to go on. If you've ever heard of prekestua, that's the biggest stragiht drop in the world... yupt thats here. I'm going :) And it's just gorgeoues here. This area is definatly a fav of everyone in the mission, despite that the dialect is terribly bad :)

But. I do have to say one thing. I have no idea why i'm here. These past few days have been some of my hardest in a while. I have no idea how long i'm going to be staying here. And the apt. is only meant for 4 people so I've been sleeping on the floor and living out of a broomcloset, and studying on the floor, or couch.... depends :) so that's my life :) i'm like the biggest 3rd wheel possible. I'm with a trainer and his greenie, and they have already been getting tons of success... so i just kinda chill. my existence makes no difference right now... oh well.

What really sucks is how much i was loving life in moss. We had a baptismal date with a guy and had gotten the area from 0 invs. to more the 10 while I was there. super legit. We were doing awesome and I loved life. Now I'm here, and I don't really have a place. All the time the Zl's will just steal me cause they need someone extra, or the couple here is stealing me tonight, or whatever it is... i'm just kinda the werid addition. The tumor as I call myself. oh well there's not a whole lot to do but make the best of it. i definitely love the area though. To answer your other questson I'lll  prolly be here until transfers in two weeks. AFter that I have no idea where i'll be. so hopefully I can survive that . To put a cherry on all of these, weird new feelings of unbelongingness, I've been super sick... so... eyah.

But hey :) I still love life for the most part. It would have been pretty hard to pull down just how good I felt about missions last week. Sometimes they just suck... yeah well. Threesomes aren't super fun though. Especially when the other 2 kinda are already in the groove, i mostly just go where told sit, and watch.... whereas before I was wrecking house as a DL and our area was just starting to totally take off. Anyways. Life is good. I just got to get over this weird awkward phase of not knowing anyone, liveing with more than just one companion, and everything else. sigh. ok. On the other hand... We played innebandy for the first time and thta was super fun. I can dunk. The weather has been beautiful, i get to live out of a broomcloset! And i literally don't have to worry about anything :) So it's pretty fun. I just lmiss burt, and moss, and everyone there. I was just gettting to love everything. yeah. well. So life is good.

I'll definatly have to takes some pics of rosemaling... that could be my new quest :) I have seen some i've just never had my camera with me. Sometimes its just nice to go uten ryggsekk. :) ANyways. I've already wasted enough of your time :) for this upcoming week, I honestly have 0 idea what to expect. I'm just trying as hard to get my feet on the ground and dig in. cause once I do that I can do anything :)

Thank you so much for the pics! I haven't looked at them yet but I will and I'm sure I will love them!!! Dood mom! guess what! I get to call you guys in like less than a month! CWAZY! That'll be fun. Until then I will keep trying to do everything I can here and praying my heart out for everyone. If there is anything else I cna do mom just let me know. If you could give me grandmas email i'd love to eamil her. To answer your question, it's really cool to get something in the mail every once in a hwile but its a lot easier for me to just eamil. so that would be cool :)

I love you all so much!

Have a great week! I'll see ya on the other side!

Christopher

April 8, 2013

Ok OKOK I¨'m soorrryy!! :) wow.. :)
it was only april fools ya know :)

SUPER WEEKEND!!!!

I had planned on doing much worse things and then decided against it so you wouldn't hate me :) Unfortunately today i want to go up to Vestby with the rest of my district since it's our last day together... soo I'm going to have to make this one short mom. sorry :)

but to answer your question We watched all of conference at the Moss chapel... It was... legit. Conference is the best on your mission. We are at teh chapel where all the translating happens so i know all the voices that translate... so cool! We had an invs. come for two of the sessions, and the elders from fstad came up to stay saturday and sunday night with us... we appropriately named it: Super Weekend :) Cause it was super. and great. And a lot of fun. Conference was absolutely incredible. I can't get enough man. Sometimes I don't think i've changed... then. I look back to where I was and how I felt about conference even 6 months ago. It is the world of difference. I don't even know who that was 6 months ago. Its great. Fantastic. president Uchtdorfs preisthood talk was definitely one of my favs and his other one. :) Elder holland man... I feel like I put on a seat belt for all of his talks. its like ok strap in for the ride man. :) Bomb. Absolutely and withouth queestion legit. I think everyone feels just how fiery that guy is though. Also the one by Cardon... bomb. straight up :) I loved the whole thing though. We watched the english in the relief sonc. room but the Sunday aft. we watched in the chapel all by ourselves. We switched the trans. to norwegian a couple of times just for fun :) Anyways

As you may have already picked up, I said this was my last day with my district. Yup. I'm fired. I'm not even going to saprsborg at all either. Nor will Elder Callister ever be my comp. I'm getting sent to Sandnes on the other dødsn' side of norway. Like tomorrow. Burts greenie is coming but Weavers is not, so I'm just getting kicked out altogether. boo. We had a supper fun week together. I was loving life this week. But now i'm gone. Pres threw me a major curveball on that one. So as such i'm no longer DL either :) I must have done a pretty bad job when he came last week ... heh. yup. oh well. You learn right :) Its dumb. ... i'm not happy. I just feel like we are getting a way tight district, and I feel like i know what i'm doing and... nope. denial.

Yeah well.

We can talk more about sandnes later. :)

This week was PACKED. We had tons of fun. We actually had to cancel a ton of stuff to fit everything in this last week. That's a good sign usually :) but woa.... I can't even say it all. Funny story:

Roger.

The end.

Ok just kidding. but really he's a man. ... who came to church.... who wanted us.... to come teach him..... and when....... we got to his house...... you could smell the smoke..... from 2 floors down. (im' singing this in my head right now.) Anyways. Good thing i'm already a second hand smoker otherwise I would have died. He had emptied like 6 pakcs of smokes in like 2 hours... plus 7 bottles of beer. Our clothes have been hanging out the window for days :)

We helped the youth with a missionary activitiy on wednesday and it was hilarious :) And soooper fun. It was soo cool to be able to take a setep back and say wow. I'm a missionary. THis is what we do. Me and burt were just those super pumped super excited missionaries you always see. We love life, and it loves us back.

That family with the 2 boys we had last week INVITED US OVER this week!!!! IT was incredible!!!!!! We had a mission goal to get 60 new invs. this week and just moss and fredrikstad alone got double  what we needed to! It was a great week. Those boys are awesome though I just realized I won't see them ever again. Life is sad sometimes. Yeah well.
We played Badminton

We had a sweet DM where we all felt the spirit way strong, got Kbabs with pineapple and way good saus. WE now have lov to take our suit jackets off All the TIME!!!! yay! ANd we had a way cool member missionary pump up. Just when i know what iæ'm doing i have to leave....

K there is tons more. Incredible Fjord views and epic people, but that's about all i have time for mom :)

 As to emials, I actually print some of them off and read them later. :) THough its always fun to get something in the mail during the week. Either way is fine. just pick. Time isnot a huge issue though :)

I love you so much mom. I'm sorry that a whole bunch of stuff is happening. i'll try my best to be optimistic and show the joy and the love I know I have. :) I truly have learned so much about the atonement though through all of my experiences. Missions are the best. Anywayz. Keep going! I'll talke to you guys from a slightly differnet spot enxt week! Wish me luck! I'm in for a ride.... in a threesome.

Love

Christopher