November Is Ending

Well heisann familie FRA NORGE:)

 

  What more can i say other than i love NORWAY and the peole in Norway! lately i have realised that people are way nicer than i think sometimes! although many people we talk to say they don't have time or i have to catch a bus... even when they are headed the wrong direction... which always makes me laugh and sometimes i will call them out and they will start walking the other way...one time experience it was way funny! People in Norway are very set back but many people say that there is a Norwegian wall... no there is no wall that is just the people they are a little stubborn but who isn't and don't forget a little pride full but as well we all get that way;)! this week as i have realized has been a great week and we are well on our way to coming close to our goals for what the mission president has set! November will be coming out with17 baptisms this month which is the highest in Norway all year and probably for a long while! as our goals are to have 20 baptisms for December and will be our goal every month from now on! This is what is required from us missionaries and members if we want the second stake and to be able to apply for a temple! we need to show the traveling 70 and of course the prophet that we are in need of these things and the lord will then grant it unto us! we are well over our goal for this years baptisms already! we still have a month left and i think MOSS is really going to pull through this next month! we have 5 dates scheduled! 3 of which are triplets! as we have prepared ourselves daily in doing everything that we can and using our time in the most effective ways as possible! the lords spirit is really over Norway and is softening the hearts on people all over this land! i absolutely love this work and it gets better everyday with me and my companion elder lillywhite:) the lord is watching over us!!

 

  Norway is an amazing place i would just like to say! as me and Lilly work our hardest we are blessed and are really starting to recognize the lords hand in our daily work! weather we talk to one person a day or weather all our appointments fall through it doesn't really matter because its not up to us, but is taken care of by the lord and his loving ways! we have been finding more and more people to add to the teaching pool and its surprising even as young as me and my companion are and as much as i worry sometimes we have been blessed with the spirit as we teach and testify to the people we find and we are becoming in the hearts of the people! we do a lot of finding lately and as we look we find! and when we find we teach and teach with the spirit! i know my language is not amazing by any means but its grows more everyday with the help of the lord! still hard to understand everything but getting the gist or most of what said is help full but always asking if you heard them right is a great way to learn!

 

  Well our teaching is getting better as a companionship and we are adjusting to each others teaching styles and its starting to take off for the both of us! we are getting almost 20 teaches a week on anything to random lessons to full first and second teaches! people are preparing themselves more and more for baptism but its just the last step of faith that many people struggle with! if they could only see the end result sometimes that knowing will come with time and that even our knowledge is not perfect by any means! i learn everyday new and interesting things from the gospel and i am so blessed and we only want the same for them! that first step of baptism by no means is the end but the beginning of all things! learning that Joesph smith was a prophet that Jesus Christ was the son of God and that god lives along with Jesus Christ! baptism is only the beginning to a happy life and will only increase your faith everyday afterwards!

  

 We teach a man who is this same way and is just struggling taking that last step to the new beginning! he is so close and i know he will get baptised so soon but its just he wants that almost perfect knowledge no matter what. As much as we talk to him it comes back to that same thing but he is someone that actually reads and prays and comes to church everyweek! he is a REAL stud! it is incredible to see him grow and to watch him go from no church every in his life to knowing as much as i do for the most part! he has the best questions that really make myself think and i have to go study them and get back to him sometimes! he really wants the fullness of the gospel! He is super smart and bright and he is well on his way to making that first step to the new beginning! i cant wait for that day when i get to see him in the water! before my mission one thing i never realized is how close you become to your investigators and begin to love them like you brother and only want the best for them! you watch them grow and you desire their salvation! i truly have love for my investigators and they make me grow stronger everyday that i meet with them! its hard to explain in words but you truly care for everyone that you meet! that is something that i have realized and is something i will always look forward to in my mission and through out my life!

 

  i know the lord blesses us and along with the world! as a missionary just think how many people pray for missionaries? well probably about at least 5 million people wouldnt you think? when at any other time in life will you be blessed more? i really dont know! it really makes you think of why you are blessed on a mission! we have almost all LDS people in the world praying for us and even the prophet prays for us! now thats intense! even as missionaries we pray for other missionaries through out the world and especially in our own mission area! well i just want all of you to know that i have a strong desire to serve the lord and its not always easy some days you break down and cry and wonder why its so hard! well we go on missions to build ourselvs and to grow and to have trials thats one reason we are on the earth is to face trials but to stick with it through thick and thin and in the end we will inherrit eternal life! its promised to us in the scriptures many times if we 1. have faith 2. repent ourselves 3. become baptized by the proper authority 4. receive the holy ghost 5. endure to the end! thorugh these simple steps we can inherit eternal life! who wouldnt want that? i know that i do and as i serve a mission you realized more and more how much you want it!i know my savior lives and that he atoned for my sins so that i one day can aspire to live with him again! i know joeseph smith was a prophet and restored the church so we can have the fullness of the everlasting gospel here on the earth today! therefore we have a living prophet today who leads and guides us(Thomas S. Monson) through all our hard times! i love being a missionary in norway and i am so blessed to have a family that everyone have been through the temple and are worthy! i love this gospel with all my heart might mind and strength! i hope you all have a great week and strive to have the spirit with you!

ELDSTE FARNSWORTH

 

ps for those that were wondering i had thankgiving dinner on saturday with a random non member family and it went great and they were very nice the man was from america and they served us a wonderfull thankgiving! they want us to come over for more dinners but are not interested but they are a super awesome family:)

Humility

Well the mission.... i couldnt love it more being out here and loving the people i talk to everyday! i love the people of norway! One thing i have noticed here is the more you love the people here the easier it is to talk to people! you start to gain peoples trust and they can see that you are doing everything you can to bring people to the knowledge of the restored church member or nonmember they see our efforts daily! for anyone that reads these that is not sure about a mission....just go! the lord has already prepared you and you are more ready than you think! we have all been called to this marvelous work and he needs us to bring people back to the fullness of the gospel! being on a mission will teach you many things and one thing i work on everyday is called HUMILITY.... not so great at it but i work my way towards improving my ownself! the mission really does relate to basically every thing that is ahead of us after the mission we can always use what we learned on our missions to apply it to our lives after the mission! A mission will bless you lives more than you know! just go!!:)

   well as any other week we face challenges head on and have to use the lord to figure out what me must do! we had a zone conference this past week on wednesday and it was a great experiance for teaching for me and my new companion! as we still adjust our teaching skills to match eachothers teaching skills we can see how we both need to work better as a team and we got a lot of tips from the meeting! zone conference is always such a boost in confidence for everyone! we also learned (since president had a conflict) how to have comebacks to people that argue on all sorts of questions from god doesnt have a body to women priests to many other subjects so i guess we are prepared to help people understand that take stands against us? since he said "we are bullet proof" which is by all means true but we try not to take on the arguements but if they happen we can help people address their concerns:)

   as far as everything goes with people being prepared for baptism....there of course are quite a few but its just getting the dates to stay! getting people to make that step of faith! its really getting hard to keep the dates that people make no matter how prepared they are they will just never do it! we found out that one of our investigators wont be baptized this week because he just hasnt had the confirmation on the full things yet but yet we thought he had by his experiances but  i guess he doesnt feel it so we are working to see what else is going on because we know he believes its just getting over that stump what is in the way? he is super great though he is becoming a great friend and he will be baptized before i leave Moss! i know that for fact! he is there and ready just needs to take the step of faith! like i said before there are many people that are becoming more prepared and actually today i was invited to thanksgiving dinner over the phone from some random person i have never met? guess my last companion has met her once or so but really wants the missionaries over with them?! so i would not pass up that oppurtunity thats for sure! they are not members either so its a perfect oppertunity! other than that we have got some new investigators that really seem to be progressing well and i think there will be alot to come out of the new people we are teaching so just stay tuned:) the lords spirit is over norway and big things are going to start happening soon!!

  This week has actually been a great week and a very tough week and its strengthened both me and my companion and we are moving forward well together! president johansen is expecting a lot out of Moss from the two young missionaries ( me and lillywhite)! i believe everything will turn out great and that we will have great success and more things will start to happen more and more!!

   not much else to say but to give you a challenge! i have been studying the book of mormon of course but also preach my gospel! chapter four is all about how we can recognize the spirit and how we can come closer and feel in harmony with the spirit! so my challenge for you is....have you felt the spirit lately? if not or not so much? what can you do to feel that peace in your life? what can you do to bring that spirit and that bright light into your life? i know as i go through my own person struggles and trying to do everything i can as a missionary to be completly diligent that when you know that everything is working out the lord will bless you and things that we pray for will help us and provide us with strength! i know that prayer works but it does take time and effort on our part we can not just have faith because faith with out works is dead! i know that god will help us through our struggles and will provide us a way IF we are willing to put some work in on our own part! i love it here i know there is no better place for me than in norway! i love my savior Jesus Christ and he lives and loves me! Joeseph Smith restored the church through the very power of god! we have a prophet on the earth today who leads and guides us to live our lifes in harmony of the spirit! i hope all have a great week and i love you all cant wait to hear from you have a great week:):)

  

    ELDSTE FARNSWORTH

New Companion

Well this week would be the week to put the lord to the test in many different ways! the first one i would have to say is that as we go through companion exchanges i had to say good bye to my trainner and say hello to elder lillywhite who is only one transfer ahead of me! to start this letter off i want to tell you a little about the norway mission! well when i first got here we were at 62 missionaries inthe land of norway! from september to january we will have lost a total of 25 missoniaries making our mission soon to be a very very young mission! there will be a total of about 10 missionaries that will have been here for more that 6 months about! our mission is about to become very young! As we pray everyday for guidence we can see alread how the lord blesses us and wants to give us more blessings as we strive to be better missionaries and to live as best we can according to the mission rules! Me and my companion are now going to seriously stay to the rules for this new reason... so our goal this year before it ends that is....is 115 baptisms....we are very close! we had a mission call on saturday morning telling us that that number is not enough and that in the next three months our goal is 20 a month...we have some serious challenges coming our way and living exactly to these rules is how we are going to have to get all these 20 baptisms! the lord wants to bless us and i am striving to get those blessings!

   As this week being with my new companion we needed alot of help and still do! we have two missionaries assigned to be traveling AP`s to help new missionaries like us get everything on track! they were here for 3 days and helped us very much! we were able to get weekly planning done and to get things on track and to see how its done in a better stand point from experianced missionaries! we have alot of goals that are going to help us and we are going to accomplish these goals by doing our best as usual of course but with a higher expectancy than normal! the lord wants to bless us! we need to seek for his guidance more than ever! My companion and i are really getting into the work this week and he is great! pictures soon will be coming so youwill get to see him soon enough! he is from layton utah and is a very hard worker maybe a little to much to over the edge but it will be good for me!

   Well there isnt to much to share this week we did a lot of finding! since the AP`S were here we wanted to add to the teaching pool and try to get some more solid investigators and with having 4 missionaries in Moss its possible! we found 2 new investigators and we are starting to teach them and its going very well actually! we met with a girl today from germany actually just here to be a nanny and she is now a serious new investigator and she is really excited about everything so i am as well very excited!

   ok well i know everyone is wondering about a batismal date that was on friday right well as everyone has their freewill he thought it was a little to early so we held off on that and we set a date that is pretty concrete now for the 26 and 27 so we are really getting ready for it and he is getting super excited about everything and i think he is ready! we have not taught him everything so we are just keeping hiim reading and understanding and going back through the lessons:) This kid will be a kid i would always stay in touch with he is WAYYYY cool! very out going and is like a good friend that i cant communicate with very well....hate that but its getting better:)

   as far as the kid that walked into the church to find out what we believed....well its going.....well its interesting but we teach him lets just say its a story i will tell you eventually:)

   well this week i have been reading in ALMA! lots of good stuff in there and a lot to learn! have you ever read alma 5? well lets just say thats my challenge even if you have! its almost like a list that you can go through and see if you are ready to meet god? i deffinatly and not but maybe some are...;) so a little message to everyone is to take our weaknesses and make them into strengths! non of us are perfect and this scripture will hopefully show a lot of us how much more we can do in our life! i read it and even as a missionary i said WOW! there is a lot to take out of it!

   well i just want to share my own testimony that i love this chuch and as i have found out for myself that it is true through my own reading and praying that joeseph smith restored his church in these latter days and that it was by the power of god that this chuch is here on earth again that we do have a prophet that does lead and guide our church and that we have the priesthood keys to administer these sacred ordinaces to help us receive eternal life! i love being a missionary and its so fun! everone talks about there mission even after they are old and you wonder sometimes if they really did have all those experiances! or if they really could have done everyting! As i have come to find out the mission really does prepare you for life to come in the REAL world which is to shortly come to me! we are out teaching everyday and helping people with their problems and we can truly help people if they will take 15 minutes to listen to us! i am so thankful for my parents at home that support me and for my five sisters that are such a good examples to me and always have been! i pray for you all the time! thanks for all the letters you send and email and what not they really are inspiring and help me get through the rough times as a missionary! i love and miss all of you! have a great week:)

One Amazing Week

Well i got a lot of news to share with you all! it truly has been one of those amazing weeks and who knows where the time goes! ill tell you where the time goes, its all devoted to the lord and he blesses me and my companion as we try our hardest to keep everything going and get everything oraganized! he is such a great companion and i dont know what i am going to do with out him,.......since 9 weeks have past and it is now time for new changes to occur! well ill get this out of the way first and guess where i am heading next....yea thats right MOSS im staying in Moss! which is totally fine there is so much todo here and i just hope i can keep up with all my companions goals and what not and be a great missionary like he is! well he is going to Stavanger! what an amazing place and they have a sweet dialect! Anyway my new companion i get on wednesday! his name is elder lillywhite! he is in hamar right now so he is in the stake and he is only one transfer ahead of me! i wont lie i am a little worried about the language since we are both pretty close but he is super smart and i know the lord will bless us and boost us with crazy spirit no matter the situation! there are so many here that will miss my comp since he has been here for 6 months and they know him so very well but dont worrie everyone that knows me and gettting know people just like at our own ward at home knows i get along with grown ups and kids like they aare my best friends! i am so excited for all the things that are coming up!
    well anyway celebrated halloween this past monday and lets just say its not the same here when it comes to halloween! for one pumpkins are pretty scarce here in not easy to find and to mention that fact me and the comp carved mellons:) i carved a cantolope and he carved some other type of mellon! also went trick or treating with 6 of the 14 kids and that was lots of fun running around to the houses that would actually answer! when they do give you candy its not like "oh here take a hand full.... its more like here is a jelly been savor it...! the kids were so happy anyway and didnt want to go home! and good thing that we had fredriksted elders with us to or we would have never rounded up all the kids!
   well this week to no suprise was busy as alwasy and filled with awesome experiances to help me grow! learned how more about the spirit world while teaching a guy from seventh day in venice or what ever its called! sat at his house and argued for an hour and we couldnt even put a breath in he wouldnt even let us speak! when we finally could we just said ok listen we are not here to argue but simply to ask you to read this book! all these questions you have and arguements that you try to argue can be answered and we want to answer them but you need to just calm down and listen! he was freaking out! but all went well and havent really taught him yet but he came to church! also invited us over to play gutair and record music and talk a little! learned some chords on the gutiar and my comp made some musik with him! we are teaching him this week but is still way timid on the fact of the bible says this is my gospel nothing else....ok man take a step back reread the bible and read this as well and you will see how they are used in comparison! he is a stuborn man but very fun to be around!
  well we had a ton of teaches this week and referrals and just were so busy so with everything but we did a great job this week! havent gone contacting or knocking in like three weeks basically besides on splits but thats because i was in fredriksted and the work in moss is just incredibly different and i love the work in moss! i am getting better with using members and they are such a great help in learning and helping investigators! what a great testimony they can always add and help me when i dont understand alot of what is said when i am getting yelled at and thats when it gets hard to understand! '
  so i have a great story for you that people always here about and always say to themselfs "i wish that would happen to me"! its that kind of story and its incredible! well so we usually have district meeting on fridays but had to switch it to thursday since the fredriksted elders were going to oslo on friday! so we had it at 19:30 and it went well of course and we walked out and there was a kid in the church talking to an older guy. we went up to him and were saying good bye and the man said "hey heres the missionaries!" then told us that this kid read our news paper article a couple weeks ago and wanted to find out and wandered into the chuch and say a man and yelled to him and asked if there were any mormons here? oh boy did he find out fast that he was in the right place! we taught him on saturday and talked to him about being baptized and he was like thats so cool that i can do that! came to church and loved it and i was talking tohim and he said his mom toook away his book of mormon and asked if he could have another one! me and him walked to the car real fast and he told me and he is going to go to utah and go to the salt lake temple and go inside! i simplly said well if you want to go in you have to be a member and he said HOW DO I DO THAT? are you kidding let me just hit you with some knowledge and baptize you now! ha! well he had taken some leohona`s from the church and read all about temple marriage and loved it! we are meeting him later today hopefully and he is just a dream investigator!
  well we have the other member referral we got who is straight on track for baptism and he is so awesome! he is also a dream investigator he askes some amazing questions and has put me in to study more on the millenium since he has been coming to church for about six months he has a lot of questions! no other investigator would ask about the millenium and i found out how little i iknew about it and even harder to explain in norwegian! he is trying for friday and we pray and fast for him all the time and he is getting those good feelings and now is just trying to figure out what they are! he is such a cool kid and is very smart! he reminds me of a friend back at home and looks just like him! he is a man that the lord has truly prepared to receive the gospel and is ready to be a member! whether its this friday or not this kid was inspired to know about the gospel!
   well studies this week have been in mosiah! i love mosiah and there is so much to learn from that book! everything is going so well here in norway and i love it here! i could not have asked for a better place to go on my mission....oh wait i didnt ask...I WAS CALLED! the lord knows what we need best and this is where i know i need to be! the people here are so great! some are a little pridefull but thats everywhere around the world! well my weekly challenge is to find out more on the millenium! there is some absolutly incredible things to learn! i know that as you try to do this you will learn so much and see even more how true this church is and how much knowledge we are able to receive from this wonderful gospel! i want my learning and understanding to go more and more and thats why i study everyday and try my best! may not be the brightest bulb but the lord will bless me as i try and i know the lord will bless you as well! well i hope all is well and thanks for all the emails! its so great to hear how everyone is doing! keep up the good work!!
ELDER FARNSWORTH