HEY EVERYONE:)

 

 well i will say first that being in a car area tends to drain the mission account pretty fast since we have no other missionaries in the area we have all of øst fold to cover (all the east below Oslo)! so we do a lot of driving back and forth and money flies out the window its crazy haha! we have gotten alot of work done in this past week even with the many rainy days and being soaking wet:) which is actually not so bad when its pretty warm out:) but we used our time in other ways as well such as going through and organizing the less active single adults we can visit and gettin numbers and address for them and since sometimes other missionaries didnt clean or did the bare minimun (mom would be proud to learn) we organized and cleaned our appartment because i just couldnt stand to look at it anylonger! SO THE DEED IS DONE!! there is quite a bit to say but we will see what comes out in this email...:)

 

 we had an awesome experiance this sunday which was that we had a suprise visit from the missionpresident and his wife and we also had 5 investigators in church which was awesome:) 2 of which will be baptized in a couple of weeks:) and one was a lady we met on friday from lithuania! we held our investigator class and it went so well with member testimony of two 1 year converts who have fallen in love with the gospel:) its helped so much and i had forgotten what that was like having members testify or in that same manner having them on teaches! it was so incredible to feel that spirit members add to the lesson:)

 

 The member that moved from Mo I Rana called me a couple days ago and after praying for six months for her daughter...she will be getting baptized along with her brother and her best friend and we have been spending a lot of time with them and teaching them as well as playing games with them since they are younger and the mom loves having us to show the example for her kids and we have seen such a change in her life and with her kids as well! she gave the sweetest testimony on sunday and even though it was in english it was so great! i felt the spirit from what she said and the blessings she has received in her life by reading *the mormons bok* haha:)

 

  one of the days when it was pouring rain we were going to go to the church to do some searching for less active single adults and as we were on our way out to the car i turned to my comp in the pouring rain..literally pouring....and said `what do we need to be doing right now`? he said with an unsure voice...ummmm go to the church? i laughed and said `no`and said what SHOULD WE BE DOING? he looked at me and said go kontakting? Jepp! we put our stuff in the car and went out kontacting and there was no so many people out but we walked around for an hour and we said a prayer for guidance and a couple minutes later there was the guy we needed...a guy we had met a couple days ago and talked to him and invited him to church and tried setting up another appointment even though both fell through we found who the lord put in our way:) its the little things that make a difference and help us realize what we are doing and how we can up our perfomance! i love being out here and have been so blessed! there is so much for me here to do in fredrikstad and i am looking forward to staying here!!:) i have really been trying to establish a stronger testimony in jesus christ lately and i have seen me love for my savior sky rocket and appreciate the things in a deeper fashion lately! i challenge any one who reads this to see how you can up your testimony in christ this week:) i love you all and have a great week!!:)

Pictures from Norway

Hiked up the mountain to see the sun rise

Back down by Moss

This is the river that we had one of our first baptism in!

A NEW PLACE IN FREDRIKSTAD!

Hællæ!! hey family and good friends!:)

 

 the first week in fredrikstad has already gone by pretty quick! I will not lie leaving my grounds in Mo I Rana was almost like leaving home! all the people that i knew and contacted multiple times aday and even had little jokes with them and especially the members who i have become closely associated with! i will truly miss all people there and all the good times that i have had there but i didnt know what else todo for that area and its good to come back to civilazation i can say that much! being the only two missionaries and the closest people were over 3 hours away and never saw to many missionaries and i realized as i got to the oslo center how much i had been deprived of missionaries,but that was a good thing as well i learned alot of lessons on doing what ever i could especially under loose watch and trust to do what we are suppose todo! i was truly blessed to have served there and now i am blessed to serve in one of the first places to ever have missionaries! some of the first pioneers came out from fredrikstad in the 1850s and the missionaries who converted them were throwen in jail with many others as well!

 

  Thiss week we started off with our first appointment by meeting with the bishop and talking about what this ward needs most! ge gave us some good tips and we started a good relationship!:) i was able to meet acouple other people and had to set some new expectations with the investigators as well! its so interesting to be back in my area and to be honest at first i didnt know if i could handle it.....but i know this is where the lord needs me and we have already seen miracles with receiving referrals (which doesnt happen to much in norway) that are super positive! Roseanne(the lady that moved from MO) invited us over the other day and had a girl for us to teach and it went super well! plus her children as well are ready to be baptized just waiting for them to come back from vacation!! my companion and i have alot to do here so our work is set up and our obediance is locked on so we can get our people to progress:)

 

  well i will tell you how amazing it was to be in church and to listen to someone else give a lesson for once!:) to listen and to ponder and to UNDERSTAND! it has been so great but i will say that people do not understand the dialect i was picking up so i have had to drop that completly and go back to something boring! haha i have continued my streak of talks though since the bishop asked us to give a talk so that makes it 29 straight weeks of giving a talk!:) hopefully that will end here soon hhaha:) well the ward is great and i am getting along thanks to my humor i have picked up and my easy going personality makes it super easy to talk to everyone:) well thats the week! i hope everyone is doing so great! it was good to get letters and emails from you this week:) i miss you all and have a great week:)

A Crazy Week!

heia alle sammen!!    i want to thank everyone for the emails that i have received this week and it is such a strength to hear from loved ones at home and also those who are on missions!! i love you all so much and i pray for you all! Well another transfer is done and this transfer has literally flown by and i dont seem to remember everything that happened but i know we have done ALOT here! Well i am moving and its deffinately no where i thought i would be goine! I guess its time for me to go back to my stomping grounds? well close enough that is! ill be going to Fredrikstad! which is the closest city below Moss! i have been there and have contacted there many times so it will be interesting to go back to the place of my birth:) since there is no missionaries in moss right now i will be cover moss as well so that will be very weird! guess the first time wasnt good enough hahaha i need to pick up where i was;) and since i can actually speak now that will help:) the biggest news with that is Roseane the lady that lived here but moved lives in between moss and fredrikstad! so i will be able to pick up with her kids and get them baptized:) and i already talked to her and she was screaming in the phone with joy that i was moving right next to them again:)    well this week in thinking of new ways to work we decided to focus on going to our investigators houses even if it meant being there for way to long and to get things rolling again! we met with the brazilian lady and her family and got a date for the 31 of july and we heard her whole experiance of moving to norway and meeting her husband! its was such and crazy story and with her not even knowing norwegian and just a little english, she had crazy circumstances and met her husband and was married a month and a half after!! we also went fishing with them this week on saturday even though i didnt have much luck and it was rainning and cold but still managed to have a great time!    while also meeting with investigators we met with a couple people from the ward and ate with them and did the preach my gospel way and got referrals! if anyone is not using that guide i would strongly suggest using it! IT WAS MADE FOR US MISSIONARIES! it will guide you in all ways of missionary work! we have really been focusing in trying to get less actives to church but since we cant get ahold of them we are going to be even cooler and use snail mail! whats that? well you know its that......mail box infront of your house? well elder davidson is going to keep the work moving well here! the members way be few but they are great members! my last sunday i made a cake for myself and took it and shared it with everyone and had a great time together! even a guy who we usually play basketball who isnt so interested came to church ON TIME before the rest of the members!! it was a great last sunday and now i can actually listen to others give talks and receive revelation and sit and think about the sacrement which is probably one of the biggest things i have missed! MO I RANA is a great place to be! to say the least that is!    well i mission is a sacred time for any person that goes on a mission and one advice for everyone is to use your time effectively! use the lord and bind him with all we have and show him what you want and how hard you will work for it! i love being out here and i have loved everyting so far even when things are so hard and feel like there is nothing more to do its that last part that means the most in pressing forward and continuing onward! i love the lord and our heavenly father and i have learned so much about the both of them and their divinity! i love this church and it truly brings more happiness than anything! for anyone struggling if the church is true think about all the good times you have had in church think of the love you have felt think of all your friends that have witnessed to you that it is true, now go ask and find out yourself!! i love you all and have a fantastic week!!

The Mo Report

halla!!:)

 

 well its been an interesting week and its gone by super fast! but whats new that is quite normal! well moves are next week and we shall find out where we are going! who knows if i will serve another 2 months in mo or go? who knows!? well if i leave it will be a sad day i have really come to love this place and all the drunk people:) but really i do love it here!! well i dont have a lot of time but i will throw out the main events of this week!!:)

 

 on monday we flew to trondheim and we ended up getting delayed because of the weather and the flying strike everyone is on since people need more money in norway? i dont know i thought they made quite a bit already? guess not haha! we got to trondheim and we got to meet our new president! he is way awesome and he is a great man! his wife is very talkative and has already fallen in love with the work and the missionaries already! just what we need as missionaries is a mission mom that loves us right?:) he told us all about his life and it was very interesting! he remembers you mom and dad from when we lived in arizona!!:) well we had a great spiritual time and even got to do a little contacting in the city!! its great to contact there!

 

 we took another trip with one of our members to aldersund (where torstein was baptized) and it is so incredibly pretty in the summer! GREEN GREEN AND MORE GREEN! Rannveig has my pictures since the camera died on the way she let me use her camera and we got some incredible pictures so plan on next week! we planned on having a grill session but it started POURING RAIN!! so we went home but it was so worth it!

 

 we have been meeting with our investigators almost everyday and helping them over come their challenges and its been going well! preach my gospel is so incredible and i thank the lord for what it does for missionaries!! we have been reading the book of mormon and have watched peoples fears or worries melt away! the power of the book of mormon continues!!:) so our investigators are going strong and that is so incredible!

 

 well today we finally got to go on a hike and we went with the girl from the states and had a great time! she has heard alot of the gospel and her concerns are way sosial then anything else but had a great talk with her and she learned alot! as did we! thanks to the great weather of 18c which is great hiking weather!

  as far as everything else goes i am great and the mission is only starting to fly by faster and faster! i love it here and my testimony is growing more and more every week! i love it! i have gained such a strong support from the book of mormon and how it really helps EVERYONE!! so to everyone with struggles remember that the book of mormon solves problems if you will live by what it teaches and trust in the lord! 2nephi 25:29 and Mosiah 4:8-12! put the lord first and serving others is a great way to help us show him what really matters most!! i love you all and have a great week!!

Another Week Flying By!

Hallo familie og venner!!

 

 OHHHH one thing i will never get use to is seeing how fast a mission goes by or even weeks at a time how fast they go by! i hope life really doesnt go by this fast all the time i feel like i cant soak it up fast enough before the next week is gone! the weather here has been off and one and its been great! 17-22c during this past week so it hasnt been super cold but basically the perfect temperture! you can never forget the people that you talk to on a mission and the CRAZY questions you get as a missionary so i recommend to everyone even if you are not a missionary to write questions down that you get! well i believe it was two weeks ago that a bar popped up right in the middle of sentrum(the part of the city) and its an outside bar so we get alot of funny comments! and whistles and what not from drunk people!!:) even though this week has been tough in finding we still always have a great time laughing and holding ourselfs sane when it gets hard!

 

 well the other day we were really having a rough time on the streets and hadnt had a single teach in hours! we then saw our investigator and talked to him and scheduled an appointment and then walked to our prayer spot and prayed and walked back down the gå gata. we saw our investigator again and talked to him again and we saw to girls starring at us, (us thinking oh great pranks are coming since that happens everyonce and a while) so we walked with our investigator and he left and we kept walking the other way and then we hear the sweetest sound ever.....HEY ELDERS..... i turned around with a astounded look and see the same two girls and so we talked to them for about 45 minutes and got an appointment to teach them and go on a hike and invite our other investigator! they both had friends on missions and they are both from the states but not members but are half norwegian and they speak norwegian and come to norway during the summer months to work! i think they could be quite positive actually!!:) the hike was cancelled since its pouring rain right now! but we rescheduled the hike for next week!:) we didnt get alot of teaches this week but we had quality over quantity this week and met some great people that really liked hearing our messege and being around us!!

 

   we had the chance to attend a birthday party with our brazilian family and every person there besides one person were from other lands! its was funny we were all from other countries! we met some incredible people from iraq who had joined the armed forces with the american troops as translators and are helping take down the bad guys!! like i said the people you meet are great! we also had the oppurtunity to do some service to help prepare for the birthday and built a deck for them! i then realized how weak i am haha! i love giving service and serving others, there is such a great achieving feeling and spiritual uplifting feeling that comes from serving others that you cant get from anything else!! well this week has flown by and i would like to share what i have been studying during my studies lately! this past week i have focused on becoming a better teacher! with learning my own purpose as a missionary (pmg ch1) and then building off that and going through other parts in pmg and trying to go over christ like attributes to help my own teaching in relying on the lord! so for you other missionaries that could be something you could consider:) i have seen my own teaching skills go up this week and the solidness of my teaches!!:) i got the ward package and i wanted to thank everyone for the letters and for the snacks! american peanutbutter......i forgot HOW GOOD IT IS! so next package should include more of that!!:) i truly love all the ward members in the 37th ward! stay strong and have a great week!!:)

 

eldste farnsworth