Uke 42: David's Baptism!

HEI DERE! This week was definitely one of the best I have had so far on my mission!!!

We started off with an awesome hike on p-day! We took a ton of pictures but ill just share 1 probably because I got a lot of good pictures this week that I would rather share!! The next day we had our final district meeting for the transfer, and I will be moving this week. It's been an honor serving in the brostrict, I will miss it but I got plenty of stuff to look forward to in my next area! We did splits with the ZL's this week and I got to be companions with Elder Pfeifer, who was one of my companions when I was serving down in Arendal. That was fun, and we celebrated with some deilig Siesta Kebab and Espa Boller, which are apparently the worlds best boller!

The rest of the week was pretty chill but not much happened until Saturday. I was getting a little area burny this week because I knew I would be moving. On Saturday we drove up to Lillehammer to visit Barbara and Markus, the cool young couple in the branch here. After that, we met with David and prepared him for his baptism which would be the next day!

Sunday was definitely the highlight / climax of the week. On Sunday morning, we met at the church with David, a few members, the mission president, and his wife, to do the baptism! The morning was cloudy and a little rainy but when it was time for the baptism, the rain stopped and we got some sunshine! We baptized David in Mjøsa, the big lake right by us. The lake was beautiful and peaceful and the water was not too cold! We drove back to the church and changed into dry clothes and had waffles for breakfast that the branch president's wife made for us. We had lots of time before church started so we talked a lot with David and President and Søster Tew. 

This was probably also the best church meeting I have ever been to in Hamar! We had several visitors, the Tews gave great talks (They are already super good at Norwegian). We had 2 investigators there, and of course David, who just got baptized before. And for the first time since I came here 6 months ago, we had enough people here to have a young people class! After church we had some refreshments to celebrate David's baptism and it was super fun and hyggelig! During the party, president Tew pulled me aside and told me that on Wednesday I WILL BE MOVING TO ALTA! It is the northernmost mission area at least in Norway, possibly the world. It will be incredible! That was a very exciting way to end my day at church, and today was the best possible way I could have imagined ending my time here in Hamar! The last 6 months have been awesome and I have come to love this place a lot, but Alta will be amazing!

Here are some highlight pictures from our hike, the baptism, splits, and me with the Breiviks, some of my favorite members in Hamar. Ha det bra!!

Uke 41: Berry Bonanza

Last p-day my companion and I went on an adventure in the lowlands to find the legendary multer! It's something called a cloud-berry in English but I had never heard of them before like 10 days ago. We drove out to a nature reserve place called Lavsjømyrene which literally means  the low-sea-swamps. It actually wasn't very swampy because Norway is having a drought and the hottest summer ever recorded so it was actually totally dry but it was still cool. We decided to come here because Elder Steele heard that cloudberries were very rare and impossible to cultivate but we found out they grew here. There were some pretty cool trails and we ended up finding a lot of cloudberries! We then found out that we didn't really like them very much. They're aight, but not what I was expecting from one of the world's most sought after berries. We picked a ton anyway because it was chill and we didn't have much else to do. Also we picked a ton of wlid blueberries that were everywhere. We took them home and froze them, and they are still sitting in the freezer, and they will continue doing that until we find out what to do with them since neither of us like just eating them very much. It was worth it for the hike though, and I got some pics down under

On Tuesday we had a combined district meeting (aka council) with Oslo district because our new mission president wanted to meet us because the transfer ends next week. It was a little weird being in a district meeting with 17 people instead of the normal 4 up in my brostrict. It was great to meet President Tew though! He's a stud and a funny guy.

On wednesday, we wanted to play soccer with our investigator and a few inactive young guys in the branch. So we started playing on the field at a school. There were a bunch of foreign exchange students there so we ended up playing with kids from 10-15 countries and all speaking english together. It was super fun even though my companion and I are bad at soccer! Apparently we are also a little out of shape because it wrecked our legs and we're still sore from it. 

The rest of the week was pretty chill but not a lot happened. Then on Saturday there was a baptism for an 8 year old girl in the branch. One of our really positive investigators came and loved it!

The next day, in church, we had about 20 German tourists there so that was fun, aber Ich kann nicht Deutsch sprechen.

Here are some pics from our multetur. Nyt dem langsomt.

Uke 40: Gathering Israel, Gathering Berries

We brewed up some fresh homemade beer this week! We made pizza for dinner one day last week, but we made too much crust so we stored the leftovers in a covered bowl planning to use it another day. But we kinda forgot about it for about a week and when we remembered, we opened it up to throw it away and it was very fermented. 

Last P-day we went to Furuberget, a largish hill that is a nature reserve 10 minutes from our house. This is where my last companion and I went sledding in February and March. It looked very different without any snow, and also there were all kinds of wild berries everywhere and it was ganske lit. We ate a lot of berries. Everything is so expensive in Norway, so Eldste Steele and I are thinking about switching over to just being gatherers instead of buying groceries every week. There are actually berries pretty much everywhere we go so if we spend a few hours banking on doors and we need a break we can just walk over to the side of the road and find some raspberries or wild strawberries to snack on.

Also I herded cows this week!!!!! We were doing service for a guy and while we were at his house, his neighbor, who has a big farm, asked us if we could help guide his cows about a kilometer down the road to a little lake. Norway is apparently having a crazy drought this year ( even though it still looks pretty green to me ) so the cows need to drink a lot i guess. It was pretty fun!

On a more spiritual note, our investigator David is doing awesome! He is looking forward to getting baptized in less than 2 weeks, and he is so ready for it! We did a pre-baptismal interview with him and he definitely passed. He has read most of Mormons Bok by now and he is willing to keep all the commandments and commit to the church. He is by far the most prepared person I have ever met so far on my mission and I am grateful that I got to go through the entire process with him, from first finding him on the gågate to baptism! 

Hope you dookies have a good week! Ha det!​​

Uke 39: Praying for David!

We got a baptismal date with David! If everything goes well in the next few weeks, he will be getting baptized in the lake on 28 July! David is a studly young man and he has been so good at studying the book of Mormon! We knew he believed it was true so we invited him to be baptized at the end of the month. He said "yeah but so soon?" We told him we could push it back if needed and we asked if that was too early for him. Then he just got a big smile on his face and said "no not really"  That was definitely the highlight of our week but the rest was good too. 

On Wednesday we went to Zone conference in Oslo and that was awesome! We got to meet our temporary mission president and his wife (The Tews had visa problems so they got a little delayed). President Karlsson is Swedish and his wife is Norwegian. They have been living in Norway for a long time and they were mission president in Sweden about 10 years ago. President Karlsson was super nice and hyggelig and he talked for a long time about his life and his family and things like that. Then his wife came up and roasted all the missionaries for half an hour for having bad Norwegian. (My companion got wrecked) She probably knew she wouldn't get this chance ever again to talk to all the missionaries at once and she did a great job taking advantage of that opportunity. The Tews arrived in Norway on Saturday I think but I haven't met them yet.

Speaking of getting roasted, we were out talking to people on the gågate one morning and a short British guy came up to us and told us to meet him in the park at 3 o'clock when he got off work. We walked to the park at 3 and he had 3 camping chairs set up so we could have a nice pleasant chat in the park. He gave us some cool aid to drink and then told us to bear our testimonies... I've never had anyone tell me to bear my testimony before so that was a little weird but we did it. He then proceeded to tell us why we were wrong and why he was right. That happens every day, that's nothing special. But this guy knew more about the bible and ancient history than anyone I have ever met! He could speak Aramaic and Hebrew and Greek and knew literally everything about the history of Christianity. Also he has read the entire Book of Mormon and he made it very clear that he did not believe it was true. I have to admit, we were not properly prepared for that discussion.

So we had some ups and downs this week, but overall I would definitely say it was a success.  Ha det bra!

Bilder

32: A family of ducks we found while scoping out good baptism spots around the lake

24: View from the Oslo Operahus (We missed our train home after conference so we had some time to explore the city while we waited for the next one the come)

26: same ^

Uke 38: Coolest Hike in Besseggen; Reindeer, and David

If you don't read this email, at least look at the pictures down at the bottom!

This week was super awesome! It started off last monday with the coolest hike I have ever done in my life, and thats what all the pictures are of! Im not gonna write about it, you just gotta see the pictures.

The rest of the week was good too, Elder Steele and i now have a ton of Muslim bros. In the last week I have recieved a lot of Islamic Literature ( A Qur'an, a childrens book of Islam, a small book about Muhammed, and a few printed off documents I havent read yet that look kind of like Muslim general conference talks) The guys we talked to would make some great missionaries  they were fantastic at testifying boldly!

On Thursday we did 8 hours of service for an older church member and her daughter on the other side of the lake. We moved some old firewood that had been stacked up in her sideyard for a presumably long amount of time, and uncoverd a bee nest, millions of ants, and a disgustingly huge beetle. Then we moved some old junk out of a shed to take to the dump. There was a big old desk in there with lots of cupboards and drawers, and Elder Steele and I got to destroy it, and we had fun releasing some manly demolition energy. 

On Friday we met with David (our most positive investigator) for the second time. He had read the Book of Mormon every day and is almost halfway done. Working with David has been the first time in my mission that and investigator has taken Book of Mormon study this seriously. And he said he believes it is true! He came to church yesterday and the members are very excited to have him there and are very friendly and welcoming. Most of the active members are pretty old so it is nice to have a fresh young guy coming to church again!

There are only 4 people in my district: Elder Steele, Me, Elder Pfeifer, and Elder Johnson. Nobody from my MTC group but I was companions with Elder Pfeifer in Arendal, and now he and Johnson are zone leaders.

It is super weird that I have been out here for almost a year. People always ask how long I have been in Norway and it's weird changing my answer from "a little over 6 months" to "almost a year" I will have been in Norway for 9 months in about a week. I still feel pretty young in the mission though because there have not been very  many missionaries come since my group. My group had 14, and since then it has been groups of 2-4 coming in most transfers.

The new mission president is having visa problems so he is not in Norway yet. President and Sister Hill left though, and we are having a temporary mission president until then. Pres Karlson is actually Swedish and Sis Karlson is Norwegian, they are pretty old and theyve been married and living in Norway for a long time. We dont know how long it will take for the Tews to get here. Not many people get 3 mission presidents on their mission so thats pretty special (:

HA DET BRA!

Here are the pictures: Im going to send another email with another link thing because the one below might not work for all of you.