Week 25 Alesund Norway

Hey guys Merry Christmas!
       Woohoo yeah this week was dope for sure. A lot happend but I'll just share some of the highlights we had! During the Christmas week we had some days where we were not suppose to be knocking and proselyting and were asked to just visit members and less actives! So we did just that! There is this super dope guy from the Congo who is a member but hasn't come since I've been here but he wanted us to go with him to the gym and get a Christmas pump in, I haven't been in a gym in 6 months so it was nice. Christmas Eve was a fun day! Norwegians celebrate Christmas day on the 24 25 and 26 so it's pretty dope they eat huge meals with lamb, pork, potatoes and gravy which was delicious! We do a lot of service with this group who does free service around the city and they wrote our names down to go eat at this restaurant for a Christmas eve lunch because they knew we didn't have family to celebrate it with so that was nice of them! But it was so cool this restaurant just made this amazing meal for like 15 people and there were a lot of single moms with kids who didn't have a lot and were new to the area and they fed us and gave us all presents! It was the cutest thing the mom and her daughter sitting next to us were from Madagascar and the daughter was just so happy that Santa came and gave her some gifts it was so cute. Then that night we were going to go eat with a member and make some American chocolate chip cookies because that's one of her favorites. But we couldn't find our baking soda and all the stores were closed so we went and knocked on some doors to ask people if they had some but NO one has it here because they don't bake! Everyone just buys packaged food or microwave food so we were out of luck. But then we decided to call the ysa aged girl we teach and see if her and her family had some. She said yes and that we could come over, so little back ground info, her family has been a little skeptic of their daughter meeting with us and probably thought we were JWs but they invited us in and got to know us and found out we're not as weird as they thought! They gave us some treats and then the mom found out we knit so she wants us to come back and knit with her so that's dope! Later they gave us some fresh cod and king crab legs to put in our freezer. Her dad's a fisherman and it made our day for them to share with us. Then on Christmas we woke up and opened the stuff we got from family and friends and that was great. We got some deer steaks from out friend we teach a week ago and I decided to grill some up so we had steak and mashed potatoes for lunch which was money then we went to the house of the family we teach and had a good dinner with them and a nerf war with there son it was dope. Then on the 26 it was a cleaning day so we deep cleaned our entire apartment even though it was already way clean  ( shout out to momma spaddy for teaching me to stay clean always!) We had to extra queen mattresses in the other room in our apartment so we switched them out and are sleeping like kings now. Then that night we had some extra dough from the cookies and we were going to go around and deliver them to people we know, and on the way to the family who gave us the baking soda, I was walking across a cross walk and it was super icey and of course I slipped and the pretty glass plate of warm homemade cookies shattered all over the streets and I landed in the glass and sliced up my hand. It was so funny I couldn't stop laughing because all these cars were just looking at me like man that stinks! Then we looked up and our friend who we teach was right on the other side of the street looking at us and I felt so dumb hahahah I was like hey so sorry I dropped your cookies, can I wash my hand off at your house and she was like yes hurry. So we get to her house and her her mom went straight into mom mode and washed my hand right up put some bandages on it and sent me on my way to the hospital. The doctor fixed it right up and then we finished delivering the cookies to our friends. Then today, P day, we went to the house of this family we have gotten really close with. They live on this dope island out in the sea about an hour boat ride from Ålesund, it's so stinking pretty! We got there and they took us out to this 3d Target bow shooting course it was so cool. They had deer targets and like viking stuff all set up and they have tournaments there and people from all around Scandinavia come and compete it was so sick. We shot these hand made wooden recurve bows with arrows that they have hand made it was so cool!  And I thought I was decent at shooting bows till the Dad of the family gets up there and starts nailing some crazy shots! Through trees ,rocks all sorts of stuff. Then we came back and they had made some amazing duck meat with vegetables and homemade pizza it was delicious! Pretty good week here for sure. Hope you all had a merry Christmas!

Eldste McSpadden

The original Thor!!

 Thanks for all the thoughtful gifts for me and my companion!

Coolest collection of bows!

 Such a fun day!!

Week 24 Alesund Norway

Hey guys hope your all doing doing well! 
     We found out on Saturday I'll be staying here in Ålesund which is going to be sick! Love this place and the people in it! That also means I'll be spending Christmas here which is going to be fun! Christmas time is my favorite time of the year by far and I'm glad I get to be out here doing the Lords work during such a fun time! This week was another good week we had lots of teachings and finding! A lot of our investigators are younger people who are in college here in Ålesund so they're all travelling back with family for Christmas so we packed a lot of lessons in this week trying to meet with all of them before they all dip. So we had some good experiences with them but they were all kind of short follow ups with reading the Book of Mormon and commandment stuff but I always love hearing when someone had a cool experience reading in the book of Mormon. One of our friends were teaching was living the Word of Wisdom this week and she said that it went pretty well but she had 1 cup of coffee because she had two shifts at work and school and needed to wake up. We were so stoked to hear that and she said whenever she needed a boost she would read a couple verses from the BOM and it would always gives her a little boost which was so cool!
      We did a lot of knocking doors this week because we found the jackpot! Ålesund is a very small beautiful city but it's a vacation spot for a lot of people. Almost every weekend there are cruise ships pulling up in the harbor and every one we talk to is a tourist, so it kinda gets annoying. And if people actually live here they're over 65 and trying to talk to a 65 year old Norwegian about religion is impossible so its pointless to knock doors because you can't even say hello before they shut the door! hahah! We knock a lot of doors but this week we were driving back from an appointment and there were like 60 college aged kids just chilling at this bus stop and I was like we need to find out where those guys live so we can talk with them! So the next day we went looking and up behind one of the classroom buildings we found student housing! Ha it was the jackpot we knocked the crap outta those doors and gave out so many copies of the Book of Mormon and set up return appointments for next week it was great. There was one that was super cool though! We had just finished a lesson with a member who was baptized like a couple years ago and she is the coolest person. She went to Thailand and brought us home little Christmas gifts she's just dope. But we were heading back on the bus to go knock some more student housing apartments and we step off the bus and it was just pouring rain. I didn't have my rain coat with me or my water proof shoes or my umbrella so I knew it was going to be a cold hour an a half of knocking! We started knocking and the 4th guy we talked to stepped out and started talking with us and said he had talked with missionaries before! And he was like alright let's hear it I remember the other guys talked a little about some plan and it seemed cool. So we taught him the Plan of Salvation right on his doorstep in the pouring rain and he just kept asking questions it was awesome. All in all we taught him the Plan of Salvation the Restoration the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity. Usually that would be so much information for someone they wouldn't really remember it all but this guy was smart after we were done he went through and did a summary of it all and he nailed it! It was so funny we were just soaking wet and I couldn't feel my feet but the spirit was pretty strong and we were just pumped someone had so many questions we didn't even care. He said he's traveling home for Christmas but will be back in January so we'll meet up with him again which will be cool. Then we went home and tried to warm up made some fish and chips which was so good! 
      One thing I've come to realize this week is that there are people every where ready to hear the message of the restored gospel, you just have to go out and find them! My area was shut down because no one was holding church and no one was getting taught just a couple months ago. Then we came in and were determined to find people who are ready to here it! And this past Sunday we had  12 people at church 5 of them being people we are teaching and 5 members. It's so dope to see a  branch who wasn't even holding sacrament every week because no one came to having 12 people it was so dope! And not everyone who usually comes was there so there really has been good progress here because we've tried to focus on letting the Lord guide us to those elect people. 
       Anyways hope you guys have a good week and Merry Christmas!!!
 Love ya boy,
 Eldste Spaddy! ❄🎁🤘 

This is what it looks like all day now!  The sun never even makes it up over the mountains!  Beautiful sunset or sunrise for a couple hours then pitch dark.  I love Norway!!

Week 23 Alesund Norway

Hey everyone hope your all doing great!

         We had a pretty good week here in the beautiful city of Ålesund! To start off the week we were in Bergen! Bergen is another beautiful place on the west coast of Norway and its huge! So it's awesome to contact in because there's so many people to talk to, we were on splits and I learned a lot of good things. I was with my boy Eldste Tilby from Turlock California. We did a companionship study with one of the young adults in Bergen who's family is close to mine! It was cool to see there inputs and talk with Jørgen and see how prepared he is for a mission! When the splits were over we headed back to the airport to catch ANOTHER flight back to Ålesund. I've flown so much in the time I've been here I feel like I could do the introduction, safety demonstration and the emergency exit talk on the plane all in Norwegian with ease haha! Its alright tho I'm glad I don't have to drive 10 hours to go on splits. And I'll probably be a Gold member on Scandinavian Airlines by the time I finish here so that's a plus. But as we get there all the sudden they told us that our flight was now canceled. So we waited to see what was going to happen then they said another flight will come in a couple hours so their giving us a meal voucher. I've had like 35 bucks worth of meal vouchers from all the canceled flights and blown up engines it's hilarious. But then we went and got some food and I found blue Powerade in the little convenience store so you bet I snagged that. We waited there listening for when our flight was going to come and after 3 hours we finally were like ok its 10 o clock when is this thing coming. So we check on the departure screen and it says Ålesund  Gate Closing. And my heart just sank and then I started sprinting as fast as I could to gate C 31, which of course was on the complete opposite side of the airport. So you can imagine two dudes in suits with duffel bags SPRINTING across the airport hopping down escalators juking people out in church shoes sliding all over the place it was so funny. But not in the moment, I was tripping because President Tew had just told the mission one thing that we Cannot do is miss flights. And we already had a mix up that wasn't our fault last week where we had to buy another flight so I was tripping. I finally come sliding into gate C 31 and the doors are closed. I started banging on the door and waving my arms at the pilot through the window and yelling to get there attention. The flight attendants in the gate refused to open the doors even though the plane hadn't left. Just then after I kinda yelled at one of the dudes to open the door I felt bad and said a little prayer in my head that he would open the door and then the people sitting in the gate next to us said " their coming!" And from my prayer and waving of arms the pilot saw us and the doors opened so we made the plane! I look back at it and I woulda payed money to get that on camera it was so funny, but definitely a miracle and tender mercy from the Lord! 

      Now for a more spiritual highlight we have an investigator who is really progressing and had some cool experiences with prayer and reading the BoM this week. We taught her the Word of Wisdom lesson and she said it was almost impossible for her to live that. But she knew that the Lord would help her try! So she's going to live the Word of Wisdom this week which is SO dope! Little back ground on Norway and Scandinavia in general, the  general population LOVES every thing that goes against the Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity. Which makes it really hard for people to overcome those things because it's a lifestyle they were born into. Just like the Vikings in the old days, eat drink and be merry! Nothing has changed! In fact when your done with Videregånde which is like high school, they do something called Rus, which is like a graduation party where they raise money to go buy and do all sorts of crazy things. So it was so cool to witness a person who humbled themselves before the Lord and is trusting him. 

      We also visited one of the members who is so cool and she was at one of her friends house for the week in this crazy nice modern home out by the ocean next to a light house. It was like movie, straight up one of the coolest houses I've seen here. And it was filled with animals that he has hunted, but sadly I didn't get to meet him. Another small but cool miracle that happened this week! We are in a service group where we go and help people move or clean their houses or apartments and on Wednesdays we knit with the elderly who don't have much family around to have company. But this week we helped this lady clean out her apartment / move. It was really sad to see because her life had been overcome by addictions and she was losing everything. But we helped the best we could by cleaning out all the junk in the place that had built up. Someone let her borrow a trailer to haul all the stuff out with. But there was a top to the trailer and it needed a key to unlock that she had no idea where it was. After 2 hours of hauling junk out of the apartment in the blizzarding snow and 30 minutes of looking for the key, me and Eldste Lindberg decided it was prayer time. So we asked one of the volunteers who was with us, who was the nicest guy ever, if we could say a quick prayer with him to ask God to help us find the key. He said yeh sure we can try! So we said a little prayer together in the hallway of this apartment complex and then we started looking again. Me and Lindberg were hauling out this wooden dresser closet thingy and then we see our boy come walking out of the house with the key in his hand, and he said I found it! And I asked him if he believed that God helped him and he said " Gud finnes" which means god lives! Ha its always a good story when ya have something that's lost and you say a little prayer and you find it, but it's even BETTER when a person who doesn't believe in god finds the key because then you get his number and then meet up another time and talk more about it ;) so that was awesome. So one thing that my testimony really grew on this week was the power of relying on our Lord and Savior! Which made me think of the scripture In Proverbs 3:5-6.       

   " 5 ¶ Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." 

This is King Soloman writing about what we must do in order to get through hard times in life. I can truly testify that this IS true and that when hard times come our way, first think of things that  you could be doing to bring yourself closer to the Lord, then ask him for help, and last thing is BELEIVE that he will help. The classic Polar Express says it best, " You need to believe in order to receive!" Since its Christmas time let's all take that advice and strengthen our faith that the Lord does and will help us. Christmas is the best time of the year by far! It's also the best time to be doing service and helping others. So continue to Light the World and be examples of Christ! I love you all and wish you all a Merry Christmas. Enjoy the snow and get the best out of it because you don't realize how much you miss it until all you can do with it is scrape it off your car every morning :) 

Ya boi, Eldste Spaddy ❄

Week 22 Alesund Norway

Hey everyone!! 

        First off Happy Thanksgiving to everybody! I'm  so grateful for all of my friends and family, you've all been such amazing examples to me in my life. 

        This week was pretty stinking crazy! To start off we had Zone conference in Stavanger so we had to catch a flight again and we were told our flight left at 3:00. So we pulled up to the airport at 2 and we look at the departure screen and our flight actually doesn't leave until like 4:15 so we decided to start talking to as many people as we could! We were finally able board our plane and take off. About 20 minutes into our flight I was quietly reading the book "The Saints" and something exploded the noise was so loud and the whole plane just shook like crazy! I looked out the left window and there were flames and smoke coming out the left engine everywhere! I woke up Eldste Lindberg and I was like "Bro did you just see that?" he wakes up and had the funniest look on his face and just said "WHAAT?" I laughed so hard. Then the pilot gets on and he's like " uhmm we're going to have to make an emergency landing back in Ålesund we have um some uh difficulties with the uh engine." And we were like oh shoot our engine blew up! People started freaking out, the flight attendants make everyone buckle their seatbelts and tried to calm people down. Sadly it was on the other side of where I was sitting so I didn't get any pics. But the first thing I thought was "noooo I'm not going to get any Thanksgiving food at zone conference!" I was pretty bummed out! It was a bumpy flight back with a really rough landing but we made it back safe. When we landed there were ambulances and cop cars everywhere because they thought we were going to have to crash land. I guess the story even made it on the World News but Heavenly Father kept us all safe! They started getting people off the plane and people were crying hysterically, calling their families so we were just trying to help people chill out a little. They got us all together and told us what had happened and they said there was technical difficulties with the engine but that they were going to give us a food coupon to get some dinner! Mmmmm?? Whatever that means, I was stoked for dinner! We went in and of course all 93 passengers wanted to hit the pub the only restaurant in the airport (typical Norwegians, loving their beer). So Eldste Lindberg and I just got something quick from the snack bar and then we walked over to the restaurant, there was only one lady taking orders and only one lady cooking! They seemed super overwhelmed!!  So I said " Lindberg let's go be waiters!" He agreed and we just started taking the plates of food and beer to everyone and talking with people it was so funny! It passed the time away rather than just sitting and waiting for our next flight and we met a lot of new people. Then they told us that we were going to have to sleep in Olso but that they bought us a hotel. So we caught our flight to Oslo and arrived around 11 and finally made it to our hotel room. It was way nice and cozy! We woke up at 4 and had an amazing breakfast, Norwegians know how to make breakfast let me tell ya. We then headed back to the airport and hopped on the flight from Oslo to Stavanger. We got there just in time for Zone Conference and the only thing that kept me from falling asleep was a good ol Red Bull baby. 

       We had an amazing zone conference and we talked a lot about the Light the World initiative and how we can light the world by simply going about doing good. It was an amazing conference filled with the spirit! President Tew is just an amazing man and everytime he speaks the spirit floods the room. He pumps us all up to go do some missionary work and every one always leaves amped up and ready to go. We also watched the Christ child video, it was very humbling to watch and see the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. One thing I really love about it is when the wisemen come before Christ and just fall to their knees and just cry tears of joy! I've really thought about why they were so happy to see him and I came to the conclusion that they were crying tears of gratitude! They knew that this little boy standing in front of them was going to suffer for all the pains and afflictions everyone on this earth had experienced, and would experience! And that through Him we can live with our families forever. That hit me deep because my family is the single most important thing to me in my life! It definitely got me thinking about what I'm grateful for... I'm so grateful for Christ and his sacrifice, I'm grateful for the chance I have to come out and serve Him and my Father in Heaven for 2 short years, I'm grateful for my family, I'm grateful for my amazing friends who have helped me get to where I am right now, I'm grateful for my free country the good ol' USA, and I'm grateful for this gospel! I love being a missionary and serving the people here in the beautiful country of Norway, even though I'm pretty sure their two favorite words are "Not interested". I still love everyday I'm able to be here and serve these amazing people. I love all the funny, cool, spiritual experiences that I get to have that I will never forget and I know I never would of had if I wasn't willing to serve! 

       Now time for some funny things that happened this week. So first off me and Eldste Lindberg are best friends and he reminds me of my boys back home so much. If we aren't having a crazy spiritual lesson we are laughing our heads off. He randomly says things that make me laugh so hard and they're always in different accents and may or may not have swear words in them because "they ain't swear words in Denmark!" And I always ask him like where did he come up with these sayings and he says " there's a method to my madness mate" and I loose it every time. We had been bonking (knocking) doors for like and hour and we usually just switch off every house on who speaks so we get into this routine and this next one was suppose to be my turn but then I thought it was his turn so we rang the doorbell and we both just stood there and then I was like " Hi I'm Eldste Lindberg and uh wait no " ( In Norwegian) then the dude looked at my name tag and I was like wait no I'm Edlste McSpadden and that's Eldste Lindberg and then Lindberg says in a Brittish accent " Ha! fair enough mate" and I just started laughing so hard and the dude just looked at us and thought it was a joke and just said "not interested" and slammed the door while we were laughing it was so funny. It also snowed a ton this week which was dope! 

      We had Thanksgiving dinner at one of our American friends houses with mashed potatoes and gravy which was so nice! It was kind of funny because they kind of argued a little bit but then they all agreed on politics and how the leftist are taking over the world! So politics calmed down the conversation!  We had some good lessons as well this week and the spirit was super strong. Kjell and Marianne are still doing really well! We did a lot of finding this week because all our investigators were busy with family but we met with Fride. She said that if she finds out the Book of Mormon is true that she would be baptized so that was awesome! She's had a hard time with prayer but she had a cool experience with it this week. Her grandpa was super sick and in a lot of pain and she said a prayer in the morning that he would not be in pain anymore and have to suffer any longer. He then passed away later that day and even though it was sad she said it was an answer to her prayers. So we taught her about the Plan of Salvation and she loved it and said when she finds out what we are saying is true she wants to be baptized!  

     My P day here in Bergen has been so fun! We're not around other missionaries ever because we live so far out in the boonies but they planned a few things for us to do while we're here. We woke up and went ice skating then went shopping around in the city and now were chilling at Brasilia, an all you can eat Brazilian buffet like Tucanos, it's so good. So cool!!  The craziest thing happened on the bus on our way to Brasilia. There was a man who was like, "hey um come here are you guys missions? Or missionaries?" And I said, yes! He was like, "my friends are missionaries and I want to meet with you guys!" I got his name and number and the Bergen Elders are going to meet with him on Thursday!  Miracles!!

Hope ya all have a good week! 

Love,

Eldste McSpadden

This is how high the sun comes up each day and then it just sets again at 3:30 in the afternoon!!

Day time!!

 It's a thing to collect all the kommune pins in Norway! It's like community pins so we send mass emails to all the kommunes and they send us pins for free! I'm going to try and get all 400, it's exciting when ya get something in the mail and it's fun. Some of them are so dope! Some have reindeer or polar bears, Viking weapons, helmets, and a lot of them have fish on them. It's so cool! Our mail box was so full!! Ha Ha!!

 Love the snow!!

 Our crazy flights to Stavenger last week!!

Never enough sleep!!!

Ice skating P-Day in Bergen along with splits this week!

Finally bought myself a new winter coat!!

Love me some Carhartt!!

Christmas in Bergen!!!

 We only eat fish and lamb in Alesund, so it was nice to have a little beef!!  So good!