It has been an Incredible Week!

HEIA FAMILY AND FRIENDS!!!

 

 weeks go by and months pass by as missionary work flies by! another week dead and gone but the memories are in store and written down in the handbook of life:) This week we had the great privilege to fly to Trondheim and to have our last interviews by president johansen and the last zone conference which was absolutely incredible and he gave some advice for the record books! i have it recorded and i am going to try to send it so i guess we will find out! president johansen also told us great news that when we get home "we need to not be in groups and get down to business and make out" hahaha everyone died when he said that and then he said on the second or third date haha:) he is such a funny man and an inspired man at that! it will be sad that he is leaving and leaves exactly at my one year mark...almost! our new mission president comes in on the 29th and his name is don evens! he actually was president johansens teacher at the LTM! it will be great to get new ideas for the mission and see what he has in mind for the Norway Oslo mission! well this week has been great and i have felt the spirit guide my companion and i in our work here!!

 

 well i thought i could share acouple fun experiances about this week and the first is that the lord knows our goals and as we set them he will help us with them! since we have pdays on mondays and then we went to Trondheim and came back late on tuesday we started of the week with no teaches! we got to work with fire in our eyes and ripped every person we saw and talked to everyone possible! we had two days where we got 9 teaches each and now if i didnt know any better that is a record in MO I RANA atleast for me!!

 

 well going along with these teaches yesterday was probably the best day and people seemed to be alot nicer than usual! we started banking in a new area and its going well there! we has prayed over two areas and as we got there we came to a cross road and prayed and i immediatly said ok we are going to øvergata! we approached a house and the datter said they are on the porch out back....haha i was like oh great another super awkward contact but lets do it and elder davidson was like are we really going back? absolutely i have gotten over my fear of awkwardness and marched back and started talking with them! turns out they had just talked about baptisms of small children! i started laughing and she ask us our oppion and i told her and she was in full agreeance even though she didnt believe in god but hoped that something else was there! we told them the restoration and gave the 3 women books! they didnt give us numbers but said they were super interested in hearing about the plan of salvation! so other missionaries its time to be awkward and have a good time:) besides i dont think it gets more awkward then the famous window contact that is very normal in norway! and since their front door is in the back of the house and they already have seen you walk by and then they do the window contact and tell you to dissapear!:) haha well that same day we were in båsmoen there are no buses that go there on sunday so we walked about 9k to get there! we didnt have water bottles and after talking to some people we were getting thirsty so we prayed that someone would give us some water! well lets just say i found a way to talk about the gospel! after you ask them and they reject you just ask them for some water and they will sit and talk with you and sometimes even for 40 minutes and ask for you home adress to send you christmas cards! so i got an adress to send christmas cards to when i get home:) i have met some absolutly incredible people on my mission and i can not forget about there hospitality and generosity they have shown me! i have seen the lords hand in my everyday work here in norway and i know he is blessing all missionaries and families as they remember why we are here and remember what we need to do:) i am falling in love with the norwegian people more and more as i get rejected everyday:) i thank the lord for this oppurtunity!

 

 i thought of a little challenge for everyone this week of going through the christlike attributes and working on one for a week!! faith,knowledge, charity/love, virtue, patience, humility, dilligence just incase you forgot what they were! pick one and study it and do something everyday to help you aquire these! they are life long to accomplish but trying to become like christ is the best thing we can do right? good luck to you all and i love you all:)

Another Week Bites the Dust!

HEIA HEIA!!!

 

 Once more another week down and they just continue to go by faster! its so true that when people say the first 2 months are super slow 6 months are kinda fast 1 year is fast and 2 years its all over! a mission is really only a blink of an eye and especially in gods eyes! so much to learn and so much to do and its all crammed into 2 years with 10 years of experiance trying to be fit into a teenage brain and the crazy thing is IT FITS!! the lord has prepared us from before this earth to accomplish certain things in this life and also to use the talents we were given before this life! i love this work and my increase is only going up!:) the weather is gettting slightly better! we had 21c one day and we walked all over so we were getting a good sweat! that is one thing the elders in south america have beat us europians with is the heat! thank goodness i am in norway! its been rainny but usually at 6 or 7 at night it gets really nice! well i just realized that i havent seen the moon in atleast two months! the sun has been up for over 60 days about! its light all day long, even when we sleep and everything but as much as that was hard at home i have never had a problem sleeping on a mission:)

 

 well this week has been great and again we(elder davidson and i)have been wrecking house teaching on the streets of mo! making ourselfs known to all nations kindreds and tongues to get this brilliant message across this town!:) so last saturday we found a man and talked to him for a while and we got his number and we got to meet with him on saturday and our teach went almost 3 hours and it was such a great teach! anytime he had a question on doctrine or where in the world we got it from i could just throw out scripture and some that i havent even though of in forever! i could answer every question one after the other! we read from joesephs smiths experiance and he read it all and was amazed and then we read his testimony and he just kepts reading and any questions he had just got answered by the testimony! he has had some crazy experiances in his life with gods power and just being overwhelmed where he couldnt even speak and he has tried to follow christ ever since! we met with him today for 2 hours and went over plan of salvation and same thing happened any concerns just vanished as we explained! we commited him to the 8th of july and he was accepting but said he needs us....psssh i would never just let you do this alone i said to him but it will take effort and he was quite in agreeance!!:)

 

 

  we talked to so many people on the streets this week and had some great experiances! i thank the lord our god with all of the blessings i have received this week! i am loving being a missionary and the experiances really are life lasting experiances that i will never forget! i hope all will have a desire to go on a mission and to make it happen no matter what stands in the way to take care of it and go on the greatest life changing event in your life which is only a beggining to the life after the mission! my mission president gave me this challenge a couple months ago and i have done it a couple times but for everyone i would like you to read almas counsel to his sons in the following chapters 36-42! these are great counsels to anyone needing help and to seriously look for the blessings of the gospel and to apply them into your life!! i hope you all have a great week!!:) i love you all!!:):)

 

 Eldste Farnsworth-

The Farns Report

HALLO ALLESAMMEN:)

 

  well hello to everyone and i hope this finds everyone in good hopes! this week has been a great week and my companion and i have truly seen the lords hand at work for us! sometimes we forget in our day today life to look for the lords hand in all that we do and even in the little things! being in a small area could wear on people and as it has worn on me before i know this is where i am suppose to be!:) we have had quite a few lessons this week with people on the street and its been great and i have felt my teaching skills go WAY UP in this past week and especially with being confident in my language and ESPECIALLY understanding but i will get into those details a little later:)

 

 well we have had some late nights with investigators and helping them move towards the incredible goal of baptism! so a little story is that me and elder johnson about a month ago met a man on the street and he gave us his number and i have contacted him a couple times with him hanging up....well i day later we see him and he is happy to talk but i didnt realize it was him until he gave me his number and i had it in the phone..i thought to myself....oooohh i called you YESTERDAY!! but the better part is that we met with him on tuesday and he willingly excepted to be baptized! it was such a great teach and the spirit was there through out the lesson!:) so to all missionaries you might meet the same person again but dont give up on them!!:)

 

 we have had the great oppurtunity to be with a member this week and have some great time with her and went bowling and ate delicious pizza afterwards and even went and visited an investigator and try to help her as well! we were there for a long time but it was so great to get things into perspective on what we need to help her family with so it all turned out! even better part about being with all these people is we get to speak norwegian and ask questions more and more when we are with them!!

 

 well we have been trying to get a hold of a man that lives quite far away but comes to MO I RANA on saturdays and he is the guy that is always trying to see if we are doing our job....well since we always are i had called him and he said he was in the city but busy...as we were teaching a man on the street the next thing we see is him waiting to talk to us! he had to wait like 15 minutes since we got a new investigator witht the man we were teaching but we talked with him and we gave him a solid first teach right there and i committed him to be baptized right then and there and he excepted and so we are going to start a crazy hard schedule with him or in otherwords for us in taking the bus early in the moring and being with him through out the day and finding something to do in his small town until the bus comes back later in the day time!! he is a chosen vessel of the lord and he is starting to recognize it as well!!

 

 well these are some of the crazy events that have happened here in NORWAYYYYYY!!! i hope this little letter can help you all remember the importance in looking for the lord in your lifes this week and make sure you look at the small things as well! the lord wants to bless us, but we need to be willing to put in the work and recognize it!!:) i love you all and i hope you all have a great week!!!!

 

 eldste farnsworth!

pictures that Brad sent in an email

Brad trying on some overalls that he purchased for RUSS week, a week for all seniors to goof around and do what ever.   Some girls walking down the road wearing their RUSS clothes

This is the Brazilian Family that Elder Johnson and Elder Farnsworth have been teaching

A Great Week!!

hello everyone!!

  well its pday again and its been a great and fantastic week! we have seen some great miracles as we have been in trondheim and even though we lost two days in our area we still managed to get more teaches this week than we have in the past month! i have never seen so many miracles after miracles as i have seen this week! i had to start writting them down because it was just one after another! so we have been truly blessed this week!! 

 well on monday at six we had to catch our flight to trondheim and we spent the night in trondheim and we had a specialized training on inviting to the main three things! read praying and church! it was one of the most meaningful advices i have received in the past couple weeks even though it was so simple it was so incredible! we had two days with no teaches since we were gone and then we came home and got right to work and just got 5 or 6 teaches everyday after that! we got a new invetigator and we just had some great contacts and inviting people was so great and they were accepting and ii think we gave out 10 books which is a lot for here in MO I RANA! actually we ran out of books and since its been a celebrating time we have not had any norwegain books so we have gone out with english or arabic as a joke one time:)

 so we had a great time with our new member this week but i will tell you what happened to lead up to us meeting with her was that i had had a feeling since we had gotten home from trondheim that  we needed to hold the activitty and i invited her on friday and sure enough she said she could come and as she came we played games and i just came out and asked if her son would be baptized this weekend....which didnt happen but have a date for him on the 10th along with a suprrise follow up baptism with our branch presidents son who is 91/2! as we have followed the spirit this week it really has payed off as it always does:) so we had splits on friday for the zone leader to interview another lady for baptism who passed with flying colors and she was able to meet the other brazilian lady who was there and theyy became instant friends (since both are brazilian!) it was so great! that was another miracle and it was so incredible! 

 a little info on the lady who passed her interview is that she used to be a serious invetigator when she was in brazil but was way to busy to always meet with the missionaries and now she has a whole plan for her family to get baptized so we are going to do all we can to help her family:) they are so awesome!!

 well this week has been incredible and has been filled with tons of finding oppurtunities and i thank the lord for this!! how is everyones book of mormon reading going? my challenge to everyone this week is to keep up on their reading and to deepen your reading and to really search the scriptures!! i love you all and thanks for the emails!! have a great week!!!

A Packed Week

Hallo family friends and everyone!!

 well i dont know if you remembered or not but if you didnt you are NOT FORGIVEN....but it was my birthday so i am expecting alot of mail in the next couple weeks...:) its has been a crazy week and a half with seeing everyone before elder johnson left and also going to oslo and having meetings its been very crazy! so we able to meet with alot of people this past week as we found out he was leaving this past tuesday and so we had to pack and clean and see everyone possible! i also found out that i will continue here in Mo I Rana with my new companion elder Davidson who is from Oregon! This week has been a great week to finish off our last transfer though!:)

  we were able to meet with a the lady from Iran and ate with her at here house til we almost exploded! she made us some delicous food from Iran and then some normal noodle food! well the funniest thing about that is that i had eaten a LOT OF FOOD and elder johnson was taking his time so i loaded him up with some more food....HE WAS SO MAD! then she took more food and put it on his plate! i was dying of laughter until she put more on my plate as well and i flat out said ^this is impossible i can not eat this and she just laughed so i did the last thing anyone would have expected and i grabbed the fork and LOADED her plate as well:) well i got to talk to mom and dad and that was such a great add to my week and a boost like never before even though when its durinng mothers day we only have 40 minutes but it was a great boost to my week! all my neices are getting so big!

 we met withthe brazilian family and they even made us tons of food and gave johnson a going away present! they always give us some sweet and useful items since her husband is a vendor for the stores around so like shampoo and deoderant so we told them we would use it more since we might stink a little bit haha:) they are so nice and they even made me a cake for my birthday and even gave me some Useful items as well:) i am so grateful for that family and their generocity:) we love meeting with them:) they said they would be baptized in june to so we are working with them towards this goal!:)

 well we had 15 people in church this past week including two investigators:) its was so great to see every seat filled in the church:) so incredible and i was so happy and we had a great lesson prepared as well:)

 well our trip to oslo was long..but before we left we had dinner with rannveig our angel member and with her friend! we had a little lesson with her and she made us some delicious homemade pizza:) we ate til our bellies were completely filled and then she drove us to the air port! we got in to oslo at 1100 and then took the train and had all of johnsons stuff which was SO HEAVY! plus had to walk to the Zone Leaders apartment on the otherside of town! got there around 1130 and stayed up til 130 getting the updates and what not for what we were doing tomorrow and johnson was filled in on his new call as Zone Leader! we had our meeting the next day or the same day and then i left to trondheim later that day and overnighted in trondheim with my new companion and then woke up the next morning early after staying up late as well that night and had to reach our flight and it left at 900 am! we celebrated and planned for our week and ate birthday cake with the brazilian family:) its been a great week!:)

 well i know the lord has been blessing us here and i know he will only continue to help us here! i hope you all know how the lord has blessed you in your life andi am only continueing to see everyday how the lord has blessed me:) i love you all and i hope i hear from you all soon!:)

Snow in May?

Hallo family and friends!

 its always good to have be able to update everyone on how everything is going! The past two weeks have been very hard and i want to apoligize for not being so uplifting! this past week has been a great week and its not even that that many things have happened but enough happened to just make us want to work even harder every day in the cold depts of Mo I Rana! we have had some interesting experiances and some just weird things happen this week!

  well i just would like to state that May 1st in norway is their labor day and no one is home....so that was quite a rough day for finding but we managed to make it through it plus everyting was closed...? Russ which is a huge celebration here is only getting crazier everyday(celebration for graduating teens) which include drinking and smoking and having sex for three weeks straight and also pulling pranks and what ever else there is todo! i can only imagine being in a big city for this event! we have had rain and snow this week but nothing that has actually stuck to the ground so its just been cold! the wind lately has been coming from every direction and its been at times hard to even move its blowing so hard!

 one thing that i really wanted to mention is when we were out contacting this week we met a lady and talked with her and she invited us to a wednesday activity and she told us where it was. well a little back round first is last week we walked out of our church and the door next to ours has a sign that says MOR MÅNE which sounds just like MOR MON and come to find out its her church.... and they believe is some weird things like we all need a different belief and what not but it was hilarious after we read the sign and two days later met her on the street so now we have MORMONS and the MOR MÅNES:)

  the highlight of this week is that we had an investigator come to church!! she participated in the lesson and when sacrement rolled around she even bore he testimony! its was so great! we spent dinner time and the rest of the night teahing them and eating dinner and we are working getting her a date and along with her family but they are in and out of the house all the time so its hard to meet with them and hard to meet with the mother because of her work schedule! to have people in church is so great and i dont know if i told you but last week we had 12 people in church so i finally beat my goal of people so we had 14 altogether! its was so great! This week i have really focused my studies on faith as times of struggle only increase and i have learned so much! i love the bible dictionary and if you every want a great definition just go there it will usually have it! i have found many scriptures that i had never really looked at the same since but i cant quite remember them now....? i do want to say to everyone that i know that chirst true church has been restored to the earth again and that he truly guides this church through a prophet today! i love this church and it has helped me so much! i am so thankful for the scriptures especially the book of mormon! READ IT! FIND YOUR TESTIMONY! it is absolutly incredible what the gospel can do for people today in a world of messed up activity! for a little challenge this week i want you to at the end of everyday see what the lord has done for you that day and then right it down! find the miracles and expect them as well!!:)