Norge! Uke 11

Note from Cecily: I have been keeping track of the weeks since Nick left us, but Nick has consistently counted the weeks from the time he arrived in Norway... maybe the time he feels his life really, truly began! I will adjust accordingly. Week 17 of his mission is week (Uke) 11 of NORWAY!


God Jul alle sammen! Its Christmas and i got stuff to do, like partying, so im gonna try to keep this pretty short. 

Last P-day was by far the best P-day ever! A couple weeks ago i was trying to think of some p-day activities and i saw this place on google maps called Rossefjellet. Its a mountain kinda close to us and there were some cool pics so we decided we had to go. Rossefjellet is kinda out in the middle of nowhere, but theres a tiny town (like 4 buildings) thats pretty close called Reddal. So there arent very many buses that go out there. But I was determined so after a while i figured out how to get there by switching buses 3 or 4 times. We met up with the Elders in our district and went and did this hike. It was probably the most amazing and beautiful hike I had ever done and the view from the top was incredible. I would highly recommend it if you're ever in Norway for some weird reason. After we hiked back down it was about 3:30 and the sun had set so it was getting dark. And there was no bus to take us back because none went back from Reddal after like 1. So we got to walk 12 km back to Grimstad where there was a bus to take us home. It was a lot of walking and it was cold and dark, but it was one of the funnest days of my mission so far!

The rest of the week was good but nothing else super noteworthy happened until yesterday. In church there was a blessing for Daniel and Sandra's new baby. Daniel and Sandra are Italian. And a lot of their italian family came to visit. None of them spoke Norwegian of course, so I got to translate the talks into English to Daniel who could then translate it to Italian for his family. It was super fun and it was one of the most interesting church meetings ive ever had.

Then last night we had Christmas dinner with Dagfinn, Ik Boon, and her Tai hun. Dagfinn was a captian of a ship a long time ago and met Ik Boon when he was in Korea one time and married her. So if you were wondering, no Ik Boon is not a Norwegian name. They made a ton of good traditional Norwegian Christmas food for us like ribbe, and pølser, and it was really good.

Today I will be hanging out with the Fyhn family and skyping home to my family so that will be lit. Merry christmas yall! Hilsen fra Norge!

The view from on top of Rossefjellet

Elder Brooks and I and a Giant Boulder on Rossefjellet

Me walking on a frozen Lake

Week 16: Adventures

Hallo alle sammen!

Im gonna start with last p-day because we had a fun adventure. We were planning a trip to grimstad because Elder Brooks wanted to find this second hand store that was there. Apparently im just awful at transportation. We were supposed to get off the bus along the way to Grimstad and get on a different bus, but i didnt know that. I guess I have gotten too cocky with my bus taking abilities over the last 2-3 months of taking busses every day. So we stayed on the bus too long and by the time i realized our mistake we were miles away from where we wanted to be. So when we realized that, we had a feeling of failure but also we were laughing at ourselves too so it was funny. So we were wondering what we should do when i looked out the window and saw a cool looking mountain. So i we decided to get off the bus right there and climb it. It turned out being really cool and slightly dangerous and cold. I slipped on ice a few times, almost fell off a cliff, and rolled my ankle and pulled a couple muscles. It was super fun though and eventually we made it down and caught a bus back home.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we went on splits with the zone leaders. That was super fun and probably the highlight was tuesday night when I went banking with Elder Wakefield. We banked on one door and a nice younger girl answered but then she said i dont live here and sent out her old Grandpa (we think) who was a crazy preacher from some other church. He grabbed us by the necks and started shaking us telling us we were doing a great job except that we should be sharing the bible with people instead of Mormons Bok. He was very intense and insane and he kept talking about how we have the fire of the holy spirit in us. So that was fun.

On friday we decided to go visit an inactive member who I had never met but Elder Brooks had. Her name is Nuvia and she is from Venezuela. Apparently she got converted and baptized there but the missionaries didnt teach her very well because she knows absolutely nothing about the gospel. She is super nice and chill though and she taught me some spanish. I learned that it is very difficult to learn another language from someone who you can only speak Norwegian with.

On Saturday we had the branch Christmas party and that was super fun! There was a lot of good food and Ylva Stulen insisted that the missionaries take all the leftovers. So now we have all of our meals for the next week (it was a lot of food). The next day i gave another sacrament meeting talk on nestekjærlighet. It doesnt have a direct english translation but its like loving others / charity. I talked a little about service and for an example i talked about picking pears at the church welfare farm back in Oregon.

Thats about it for the week, so God Jul og ha det bra dere!

Bilder:​​

 Tower pt. 2   @Nominaijah

Grimstad Kirke / the view from the spontaneous hike we took on pday

Elder Brooks got to be Julenissen at the branch Christmas party

Week 15: Christmas Service

Hei dere!

The highlight of this week was definitely Christmas conference. All of the missionaries from the west and the south parts of Norway met up in Oslo for a conference. We had a talent show, practiced some missionary contacting strategies, did funny skits, and I got to see a lot of my MTC district which was the best part.

Other than that it was a very slow week. Last p-day i went shopping in the biggest mall in Scandinavia, so that was cool mostly just to say i ve done it. Im not really super into shopping but as far as shopping goes it was pretty good i guess.

Its snowing more and getting colder. Also theres a lot of ice but i am proud to say i have only slipped and fallen on it twice since coming to Norway. I am very excited about christmas. by the end of this week the snow had melted away again but yesterday it started again and came back stronger. It is very festive here. Aside from all the lights and decorations up around the city, here are some other christmas traditions here: they actually did do a pretty big christmas market thing but it was only for one day. there are a couple other stands that are always up selling christmas stuff and sweaters and reindeer pelts og sånt. In december they ring the church bells a lot. People eat pinekjøtt which is a special type of meat from lamb. There have been some people out from some other church handing out merry christmas card things inviting people to think about jesus and come to church. Most Norwegians are part of the state church and know about Jesus but very very very few are active or believe in God.

Oh also another highlight!!!! We got to do service!!!!!!!!!!!! I have said in a previous email that Norwegians in general pretty much never accept service. I shared a story about the one guy who said we could help change his car tire but he was actually just messing with us. Unless you count that, this week was the first time someone has let us serve them. One day when we were contacting, we walked by the barbershop where an inactive lady in our branch works. We thought we would go in and say hi if she wasnt busy. She wasn't, so we went in and chatted with her for a bit. She was putting up christmas decorations and we asked if we could help and she said yes! So we spent the next hour or two there tying christmas ornaments to threads and then pinning them to the ceiling. It was super fun! She gave us cookies and tea and she is super nice and friendly.

Thats about it for the week. Ha det bra

Bildene

 a super pretty mini fjord i saw on a bus ride

Big Christmas tree in the middle of town

The gågate

More gågate

our slightly ghetto Christmas tree

Week 14: Excited for Christmas!

Hallo alle sammen!

The highlight of this week was probably just how excited i and everyone else in Norway are about Christmas! These Nordmenn take Christmas very seriously and they have been putting up more and more decorations and lights around the city every day. I dont actually have any good pictures of it but ill get some next week. Saturday night there was a Christmas parade put on i think by the marching band at the high school. They marched around the streets playing Christmas music and handing out Julenissen hats (basically santa claus hats). It was supe festive and fun and awesome and i think this is a norwegian christmas thing, but there are people setting up little booths selling roasted almonds with this sugary stuff on it and its really good. Christmas is so amazing here! I kinda regret not taking pictures but oh well.

Another highlight was going on splits with Elder Martineau from Kristiansand. He just recently moved down to K-Sand from Alta (the furthest north missionary area in the world) so he had lots of stories. He is really chill and funny so that was a really fun day, and we got 2 new potential investigators together. In Alta it gets down to -40 C in the winter. He said up there its so cold that you just go numb and cant feel it. Here its not cold enough to make you numb, just cold.

It snowed again this week, and this time it stuck and didnt get rained away so its been super pretty and white everywhere and theres icicles and its awesome. And now i have a warm scarf and hat so i can be out and appreciate it even more.

Not much else interesting happened this week. Merry Christmas / God Jul!

Frozen lake the day after it snowed

Sunrise

Sunset

Eldste Nick Spencer

Strømsbuveien 7 I

4836 Arendal

Week 13: Ups and Downs

Today was an ups and downs week.

I didnt have a really cool P-day this week because apparently the only time people actually want to meet with us is on p-day. so last p-day and this p-day actually will be more of a missionary work day than any other days of the week.

On Tuesday it started snowing in the morning and didnt stop all day. By the time we went to sleep there was about 2 inches on the ground and it was still going strong. Then when we woke up it was raining and all the snow had turned to slush.

 We were on fire from last week and we had about 7 appointments planned with investigators or potential investigators. Then 6 of them cancelled. and one got postponed. So yeah it was kinda rough, but that left plenty of time for other stuff which was good.

I used part of that time to write my sacrament meeting talk for sunday. It went really well and i was super pumped about that because it was the best/longest talk i have ever given and it was in a foreign language.

On Saturday we celebrated Thanksgiving! The Cooks (senior missionary couple) invited all our district over to have thanksgiving dinner after district meeting. They made turkey and stuffing and potatoes and pie and it was amazing. Elder Brooks and I contributed by making like 60 cookies (the recipe was bigger than we thought). Only about 15 got eaten so we made ourselves sick on sunday eating all the leftover cookies.

Also a highlight of this week was we traveled back to Kilsund, a tiny town on the ocean, to do more tracting and we saw deer and got 2 more potential investigators.

Pictures: Kilsund

Week 12: Staying in the Bahamas of Norway!

Norwegians like trolls. Sinnatrolla translates to the angry troll.

Transfers are this week!!!!! And............. i'm staying in Arendal with Eldste Brooks. I'm really happy about that though because I love Arendal and I'm excited to spend Christmas here. I love our branch here and know almost all of the members. They don't actually invite us over for middag very often but there's only like 40-50 of them and I see them for 3 hours every sunday so i'm familiar with all of them.

I am loving the cold! It's so fun! I like going out in my big warm clothing and not sweating and seeing frost and frozen puddles so it's awesome. I've heard Arendal compared to " the bahamas of Norway". Yes it is the least cold place in Norway. No it is not the Bahamas. It's usually right around 0 degrees Celcius, and I slipped on my first ice this week. The issue was the puddle was only partially frozen so it was solid enough for me to slip on it  but thin enough that there was still a lot of ice cold liquid water under it. So I got soaked and that was cold but it was funny so #worthit

There is no snow yet. I've asked some people here and they've said that they don't get much at all here. Maybe a few inches in december/january but that's it. One awesome thing though is that the city puts up a ton of Christmas trees everywhere so when we go contacting on the gågate there are like 2-3 trees all lit up in front of every single shop in town so it's really pretty. And there's Christmas lights hung up everywhere. 

P-DAY: We went to Grimstad to find a second-hand store that we heard was good, because I need a scarf and hat for winter, and i'm cheap. I don't think we found it, but we found 2 other little ones that were cool but didn't have what i was looking for. So we gave up and went on a hike near the town up a cool hill called lille binabb where we found a stray cat that liked us.

Stray cat on lille Binabb (ok maybe it didn't like me that much)

Lille Binabb

Lille Binabb

We went back to Longum this week for one of our appointments and got sent away as soon as we knocked on their door again. So that was a little disappointing. The other follow up appointment is scheduled for this Friday so we'll find out if that one goes through.

We had another fun Finding week: We found another tiny town about a 30 min bus ride away called Kilsund. That was fun and we found 2 potentials there. Also Kilsund was one of the most beautiful places I have seen so far here in Norway, and that's saying a lot. Pictures are included below.

Kilsund

Kilsund

Also this week I hit a big landmark on my mission. We got our first official investigator that was found and taught completely by us! Before this point we had gotten 2 other official investigators, but they were either a referral from a member, or a previous investigator who became re-interested. So i'm pretty proud and happy about that.

Ha det godt dere!

Week 11: A New Finding Strategy

Hallo alle sammen! This has probably been the best week of my mission! We had lots of adventures and a lot of success!

Tuesday and Wednesday we did splits with the Kristiansand missionaries and that was really fun. Kristiansand is a way bigger city than Arendal so it was fun and interesting to have more than 2 blocks of good contacting area. by the end of the days, I was actually missing Arendal a little bit so it is good to be back. Not too much happened on splits excpet that we taught a guy from Sudan who said he spoke Arabic but almost no norwegian or english. So we found out how to get a restoration video with Arabic commentary. So we showed him that and tried to discuss it a little but he didnt really respond to it so were not sure how much he really understood haha.

The next day, Elder brooks and I got back together and we went into beast mode. We decided that we wanted to try something new for our finding strategy. So we went on google maps and found some small towns/boonies away from Arendal that we wanted to go tracting in: Eydehavn, Longum, and Tvedestrand.

Eydehavn was not packed with success but we got a lot of good stories out of it. I will just share one for the sake of time. There was one guy who was out changing his tire so we walked up and asked if we could help. Fun fact: almost all Norwegians do not like recieving help from others because they think it means that they are weak if they need help, and vikings arent weak. But this guy actually immediately said ja! vær så god! This caught us off gaurd because we werent used to people accepting service, and secondly because we didnt really know how to help him. So he said some other stuff and went back to doing it himself. So we awkwardly walked away thinking that he didn't really want our help and was just messing with us.

Longum: This is where the real stories were made. First of all, we banked on doors in Longum for about 2 hours and we got 2 people who said we could come back for appointments next week. Up to this point on my mission we have had a total of 0 people who we met and set up a first appointment with. So 2 in one night was incredible. We were so pumped after we finished that we were distracted and missed our bus. Busses only come out to Longum every 2 hours. So we started walking. It was hovering right around 0 degrees celcius and it was totally dark outside at 6:00. We walked along the side of the highway for a mile or so then there was construction so we got detoured onto a sketchy little path that took us in a different direction. We walked and proceeded to get lost. We eventually found our way to some weird constuction place where we asked someone how to get to Arendal. We walked a couple more miles before we found the edge of the city, where we were able to catch a bus back home. 

Stranded in Longum

Tvedestrand was awesome too because we found someone and got another appointment! So it was a success. The only issue was it was a few degrees below 0 C and my hands were freezing off so we had to take a break and go buy me some gloves. So that was fun.

Then to top it off, Sunday night we met a girl contacting and got an appointment with her too! So we are currently on fire #jit

Anyways, Arendal is still awesome as usual. Winter is coming and the puddles have frozen. Were just praying for snow now. We are in Christmas mode now and we have 15 christmas songs on a thumbdrive that we listen to on repeat whenever were home. So part of today will be spent trying to expand our appropriate christmas music collection. and shopping.

Have an awesome week yall!

Sunday night tradition: Vanilla sauce chocolate milk

Sunsets at 4:08 pm

Week 10: Epic, awesome, best

The time has gone by so fast out here! I cant believe im almost done with my first transfer. i love it here in Arendal and I am so happy to be here. 

Last P-day was fun. We took a bus out to Tromøy and went to the beach! Actually I dont know if you would call it a beach because there was no sand, but there was the ocean and cool rock formations and stuff so I got some awesome pictures of that which I will attach at the end. Then we went shopping and I made some purchases which I am extremely pumped about. I bought a nice warm coat to prepare me for the next few months and for when I get sent to Alta. Also I think it looks really cool so thats a plus. Then I made possibly the single best purchase of my life. When we were in the store to buy me the coat, we found a rack of traditional Norwegian Sweaters and of course i had to buy one. It looks so cool and ive been obsessed with it over the last week since i got it. Pics will be included of course.

Then Monday night we got on a train to Oslo for First Transfer Training. That is where all the new missionaries meet up and get some extra missionary training. Mostly it was just fun to see more of my MTC squad. They split us up into 2 sessions so i didnt get to see everyone from my MTC group, but it was still super fun and awesome. While there we got to go see the Royal Palace and do some other fun stuff.

We still work hard every day and so far we have mostly just had lots of people who dont show up to appointments but we did find one guy on the street who said he might be interested and took a book of mormon this week so that was cool. 

Fun Fact: Norwegians love Christmas. A lot. All they stores in Arendal have started putting up Christmas decorations and I am so glad I have the opportunity to be here for the Christmas season. One thing I tried for the first time this week was Julebrus. This is a Norwegian tradition: Every decently sized town in Norway makes their own flavor of soda every year for Christmas and its called Julebrus, which literally translates to "Christmas Soda". So I got to have some Arendalsk Julebrus this week and it was delicous and we listened to Christmas music while we did it. 

Ha en god uke videre (Have a good week ahead)

Julebrus and my sweater

Bus stop in the Boonies of Norway

Possibly one of the most epic pics ever taken of me (not saying much)

Me at the ocean #viking

I found some muskeg here while we were at the coast and it reminded me of Petersburg. Actually everything here reminds me of Petersburg. Anyways heres some muskeg for y'all. enjoy

Week 9: A super awesome week!

Hallo alle sammen!!! This week was super awesome!

Im gonna start with last P-Day. (7 days ago) This was my first real P-day because we were really busy for the first one so i didnt get to do any cool stuff but this one was good. We took a bus out to Tromøybruet, the bridge that goes accross to the island right accross from us. Its a super huge high up bridge and its an awesome view! I will attach some pics at the end. We crossed over it and started exploring part of the forest on the other side and we found a mini abandoned lighthouse which was cool, and its just awesome to have some adventures in the forest. Missionary work is kind of an adventure, but its not the same as going out and doing stuff like that. Also it was very refreshing to wear normal people clothes in public. 10/10 would reccommend doing once a week.

Anyways, on wednesday we got to take a train up to Drammen for my first zone conference. It was really cool to be surrounded by so many awesome missionaries! Its easy to take it for granted in America, but here I have really grown to appreciate having so many spiritual people around me because of how few members or even religious people there are. I have a story about that, which i will address later because im getting off topic. At zone conf, I got to see 3 of my MTC homies. I like my new companion a lot but its good to see the people that i became friends with way back in the olden days of the MTC. And its fun to travel and see new places because Arendal is pretty small.

Oslo Fjord Zone Conference

I am adjusting to missionary life just fine. Our lifestyle itself is pretty simple and easy. The hard part is the missionary work. Finding people who are interested is very difficult, but its ok. We had a couple cancelled appointments this week, but we had one succesful appointment with Mira, a very interesting Hungarian lady. Shes been an investigator for like 3 years (a long time). Idk how we got onto this topic but I explained to her that baptism just had to be done by immersion, it doesnt matter if its in the baptismal font or in a lake or the ocean. She was very surprised by this and said that was the only thing keeping her back from baptism! She was just afraid of the baptismal font because shes a little bit paranoid and thinks its like a trap and we might try to drown her. But if its in the ocean she can just swim away to avoid being drowned! So we may or may not be having a baptism soon haha. Like i said, shes an intersting lady and needless to say there are a few things she needs to understand better before we can baptize her.

On Saturday there was a baptismal service in Kristiansand that we got to go to. There have been I think 19 baptisms in all of Norway in 2017 so its a big deal when one happens. So we went and it was awesome even though we didnt know the lady.

I mentioned earlier that i have a story about it being nice to be around other religious people. Yesterday evening we were tracting. We were mostly just getting shut out a lot. By the time we got close to the end of this long street, there had been several people tell us that we already came and knocked on their door a few days ago. We definitely werent tracting in this area a few days ago, so we started thinking. Who else goes around knocking on doors talking about religion? JEHOVAS VITNER! We got to the last house at the end of the street and banked on the door. The man who opened the door started talking to us and we realized that he was the JW who had been going around in this area! We realized that when his wife came over and gave us a JW pamphlet. We actually had a good pleasant conversation with them, and they were by far the most kind and open people we had talked to that evening. I have heard a lot of things about the JWs, but my first experience with them in Norway was very positive haha. It was good and refreshing to talk to someone who was at least interested in religion, even if they are not LDS.

Happy Halloween! Halloween is celerabrated in Norway. Its a really new thing though, like its been developing over the last 10ish years, and its definitely not as big as in America but its becoming more popular. Pretty much all American culture is popular here. Everyone listens to american music and wears american clothes and stuff. I kinda expected to get here and be surrounded by tons of Norwegian culture but its not that different here except for the language, and people dress better haha.

Here in sørlandet there is a good mix of pine trees and other trees, so the fall colors are definitely coming though and its beautiful. I think i got some good pics of it which i will send.

So thats about it for this week. I hope all of yall are having good lives. Ha det 

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Week 8: God is looking out for me!

Nothing too crazy happened this week, but I am still loving Norway!

Early this week we found 2 people on the street who said they would be intersted to meet with us! One of them blocked our number, but the other seemed genuinely interested so that was awesome to have a little success there. There hasnt been a ton of success with the missionary work so far but that just makes it even better when you do get it. 

On Wednesday we got to travel to Kristiansand for district meeting which was fun. There are 4 missionaries and a senior couple there, and it was cool to go see that city. Its much bigger and busier than Arendal. Eldste Brooks bought me my first Kebab while we were there, which I guess is a big landmark in the timeline of someone's mission here in Norway haha. One of the coolest things about that trip was just the bus ride to get there. It's about an hour and a half and the scenery is absolutely beautiful! I'm pretty 100% sure i got the most beauiful mission in the world.

My Norwegian skills are definitely improving a lot! It is still difficult to understand all the native Norwegians, but it's getting easier every day. My companion, Eldste Brooks, is really good at understanding people so I can rely on him for that quite a bit. Eldste Brooks and I are getting along very well, because we are both very chill people and enjoy working together. I have really good pronunciation and reading skills, but native Norwegians speak a lot faster than what i'm used to hearing, so its good to have Eldste Brooks to help with that.

The weather this week has been fun. It started out warm and with clear skies, but the last few days its pretty much been raining nonstop. I know God is looking out for me because he held back the storms until the day after I got a rainjacket. The weather reminds me of Petersburg very much. The last 3 days it's pretty much been lightly raining nonstop with a few periods of downpours or breaks. I am keeping warm and dry though. I'll buy a warm coat when it gets colder.

And the scenery here is so beautiful! there are trees everywhere, so that's cool but i think a couple of the coolest things with the scenery are 1. There is water everywhere. There are so many islands, and little bays and inlets, and lakes and ponds everywhere and that's really cool to see. 2. The rock formations. Everywhere you go there are just huge chunks of rock and cliffs jutting out of the earth randomly and it looks so cool. If Norway were warmer, it would be the best place in the world to go cliff jumping because of all the huge cliffs and water everywhere.

Something cool i discoved this week: You know I have always loved rice with butter and cinnamon sugar. What you probably didn't know is that is 100% a Norwegian thing! Its called risgrøt here and it's exactly the same as what I ate back home except that you cook the rice by boiling it in milk in a saucepan, so it has more liquid to it. It's about the consistency of oatmeal. It is so good! And that was just kind of another weird little confirmation to me that I was always supposed to come to Norway. So yall should try risgrøt, its awesome.

McDonald's in Norway

Speed bump warning sign!

Crossing a bridge in Kristiansand

Week 7: An eventful week, and hello to Eldste Brooks!

A LOT has happened in the 10 days since i last emailed! This might be a long email so dont feel bad if you dont want to read that much haha. I would also like to apologize for the fact that im typing from a Norwegain keyboard and for some reason it sometimes randomly capitalizes Words so when that happens dont judge me, its not all my fault.

I know yall are probably tired of hearing about the MTC so ill keep that part short. My last week there was awesome! I was very ready to get out of there by the end, but i am going to miss some Things about it. I will miss constantly being surrounded by happy People, and the spirit that was there. Also I will miss all of the awesome being that i met there and grew to be Close friends With. The highlight was probably Sunday, the last full day we were there. In sacrament Meeting all of those that were leaving for Sweden and Norway the NeXT day sang the efy medly partly in Swedish and Norwegian. It turned out to be super good and literally everyone that was there was bawling their eyes out by the end. 

Getting ready to leave for Sweden and Norway.... 

Norway/Sweden Elders

Anyways, now to the more exciting part: We left monday morning for the Salt Lake airport and then we were on Our way to Amsterdam. We had a very long and uneventful flight.  In Amsterdam we had a 6 hour layover and we didnt know what to do With all Our time. So one of the other Elders and I decided we would try to go be missionaries and talk to People in the airport. This was difficult because everyone spoke Dutch haha. At one point we talked to this old Dutch guy we saw. We went up ande said hi, and then he chewed us out because he didnt like Americans and he said we were Sodom and Gummorah. So that was my first contacting experience (: Eventually we got on the airplane and had a Shorter flight to Oslo.

Once we landed we got off and met up With the mission president in the airport. We were all so excited and amazed just being in Norway. It is an Incredible Place! We got to the mission home and did some introduction stuff and found out Our first assignments. They made some "Frozen" refences, and then revealed that I would be serving in ARENDAL! My trainer would be Eldste Brooks. Before we departed the NeXT day we ate breakfast and said goodbye to each other. I am going to miss everyone in my District, and it was a little sad to say goodbye. 

I am going to miss my MTC district!

I left for Arendal by Train With one transfer in Nelaug, a small Train station in the middle of nowhere. By the time I got to Nelaug, it was about 6:00 in the evening. I got off of the original Train and went to ask one of the station workers in my broken Norwegian which Train i should get on to go to Arendal. In the time that I was trying to communicate With him, all of the Trains left. I found myself alone at the Nelaug station With 3 old gruff Norwegian men With weird dialects that were difficult to understand. I was able to get from them that the NeXT Train for Arendal would not come for 2 hours. I asked for a phone to borrow to Call Eldste Brooks but i think they told me there was no service way out here, so I could only wait. So thats what i did. I sat in the station and looked at the scenery which was beautiful, but not where i wanted to be at that moment. Eventually the NeXT Train came and i was able to arrive safely at my destination and meet up With Eldste Brooks who had also been waiting 2 hours.

Arendal is actually nothing like it is in Frozen, but it is very beautiful. It is spread out over 2 Islands and part of the Mainland right on the Southern coast of Norway. It is a very old European style town of about 40,000 With a huge Lutheran Cathedral right in the middle. It is surrounded by forests and is very green and picturesque. Also the weather had been pretty good so far so I was able to get some good Pictures.

Yesterday I was able to attend Church. Its a branch of about 45 active members. I had spent the Whole week before contacting and tracting so i had learned by this point that I am not yet very good at understanding Norwegian speakers, and Church was no different. I bore my testimony in Church and a lot of People said i have really good norwegian, so right now i think i need to focus on trying to figure out what others are trying to say to me. Anyways, all of the members were very friendly and Nice to me and one of them gave us cake. In such a small branch like that it feels more like a Family than a congregation. I love it there and it was great to be surrounded by members for the first time after a week away from the MTC.

Bonus Story:

Out contacting one day we stopped to to talk to a middle aged African man we were passing by on the gågate. We introduced ourselves and talked for a bit. He was a little bit odd and he had kind of a funny dialect so we asked him where he was from. I might not be fluent in Norwegian, but i could understand what he said in a very serious voice: "Oh, im from another planet! Mars or Jupiter maybe, I dont know" We politely said we had to leave at that point, partly because we knew he wasn't all there mentally and partly because we were trying to keep from laughing.

So I have had an Incredible and eventful week! Sorry that letter was so long, but i had a lot to talk about. I hope yall have an awesome week, Ha det bra!

Some pictures of Arendal: