Week 17 Alesund Norway

Hei hei alle sammen! 

      Hey everyone hope you all had a great week! Mine was pretty packed full of crazy things and spiritual experiences. First off our P day last week was dope we found a place with all you can eat pizza and it reminded me of when all the boys would pull up to Pizza Pie Cafe and me and my boy Elder Jake Jenson would have eating competitions! HaHa! The pizza was nothing like in America but aye it was good enough for me it brought back some good memories with the boys!! I do have to say one of my most favorite things about where I'm living right now is our early morning runs in the pitch dark. All the trails are lit up but our days are getting really short! The sun doesn't come up until about 9am and it sets at 4:30 in the afternoon. When we reach the top of our run there's a natural spring coming out of the mountain we drink from and I fill my Yeti completely full and the water stays cold the entire day with no ice!! It's the best tasting water I've ever had!! The water is worth the run in the freezing cold and pouring rain. We're using our blue lights more and more because the days are so short. I'm not sure the science behind it but it's required in our mission for at least an hour a day!  The travel shoe dryers I brought from home have saved me more than once. I leave them in my shoes over night and the next morning my shoes are dry and warm!!  I sleep with my wool socks on at night because the weather is changing quickly and winter is for sure going to be so cold but I love this country!

      Tuesday we flew to Oslo for a couple days for some trainings and it was so fun President Tew is such a spiritual giant but also knows how to have fun with his "Sons". We got there and made some money food. (Sister Tew is such a G with cooking and I literally call her like every other day asking for recipes and good stuff. She's teaching us how to cook within our budget and with foods from Norway!  My companion and I make homemade wheat bread (I'm sure my mom is so happy I'm finally loving wheat bread) every other day and we always make some for the sacrament on Sunday. It's so good, we even add  raisins to it every once in awhile to change it up, groceries are so expensive here!) We then had a great day of learning and studying from the scriptures and break out sessions on how we can be better missionaries. That was pretty much all day then we headed back to the mission home for dinner. The food wasn't done cooking so President Tew pulled out spike ball and a ping pong table! I got so hyped so we all started ballin and it was so fun just being with all the boys it was a good time. Then the dinner was ready and it looked so good I was so stoked. Sadly it didn't turn out how I wanted it to... I pounded this amazing salad and then came the main course. It was this amazing chicken with this yummy sauce and I started to eat it. Then within the first few bites I just got this awful feeling in my stomach and I just stopped eating. I could feel my tongue and my lips start to swell up and I knew that something that I ate had nuts in it.  I was so sad because that chicken was so good but I knew I couldn't eat anymore. I just kinda sat there with a blank stare for a little bit not knowing what to do because everyone was at the table and I didn't want to make some big scene so I just said a little prayer in my heart that someone would leave the table so I could go talk to them in the kitchen. As soon as I finished my prayer President Tew got up and just walked into the kitchen, I followed right after him. I asked him if there was nuts in the food we just ate and he said "No I'm almost positive there wasn't any, we remembered that you were allergic! Are you having a reaction?" And I said, " yeh I think so." Then here was the cool part, instead of getting the keys and heading to the hospital he asked me if I wanted a Priesthood blessing. I took the offer and we went into another room and him and my companion gave me a blessing. During the prayer I thought I was going to throw up mid way through which woulda been awful and my throat was itching really bad and starting to swell up. After the blessing was done I just felt peace. Usually when this happens I'm tripping out and my body is like sweating and going crazy but I just had a feeling that everything was going to be fine and I just need to get to the hospital and get some medicine in me. So right after the blessing ended, I ran to the bathroom and just started throwing up like crazy I was in so much pain, it's not a feeling of nausea it's really intense cramping! It was kinda funny honestly but then we cruised over to the hospital and I laid in the back of Sister Tew's car feeling so sick! They got some IVs in me then they had to give me this big shot in the backside and they asked Sister Tew to leave hahaha that was funny. Then I kept throwing up pretty bad and Eldste Lindberg was walking through the hospital and heard someone in the bathroom throwing up and he thought they were dying!  He's like man that would stink and he knocked on the door and it was me and we both started laughing it was great. Then the medicine kicked in and everything was good but they told me they wanted me to stay over night in the hospital just because they didn't want anything to happen and I was like oh no c'mon I'm not going to get any sleep. So they went and asked the doctor again and since the mission home was so close they said I could go home so that was a miracle. Once we got back to the mission home I was so tired but the senior couple that helped make dinner were very concerned about me and had waited up for us to get back late that night. (They were the ones that added the crushed cashews and cashew oil to the chicken from the recipe...  Sister Tew purposefully left it out because of me and had no idea they had put it in but they were just helping her out!  Haha!!) I fell right to sleep as this whole process really wears on my body and makes me so tired. Then we finished out the conference the next day and had some good times. Our flight left super late that day so we had to stay at the mission office and chill till we had to catch the plane so we went and contacted out on the streets for a little and it was awesome because I could understand everyone because they don't have some crazy dialect. Then we played a round of SCUD and I took a W.

       One of the highlights of this week was definitely Sunday! We had two of our investigators there at church with us and we thought it was just going to be us then a family from Utah knocked on the door and said hey are you guys meeting right now? And we said yes come in and join! Then our kinda branch president guy came as well and then this awesome member who was baptized then went inactive right after, came as well! So we had 13 people there it was bumping up in the Ålesund branch! The two parents got up and gave some amazing testimonies that really touched the hearts of our investigators which was perfect. The family from Utah didn't know that they weren't members so they all started chatting and soon found out it was there first time or had only come a couple times before! It was so cool and I didn't have to give a talk or testimony off the swing so that was nice. But I still had the Sunday school lesson. We of course used the Come Follow Me for the week and it was about serving others. We showed this cool video that many of you have probably seen but it's called LIFT and its about these guys in this ward who went over ever morning and night and helped this lady with Multiple Sclerosis get in and out of bed everyday and how it got burdensome but it eventually changed this man's life it was great and the spirit was so strong. Our homie who came for the first time looked at me and said " that was just inspiring  I can't describe what I felt while I watched that " and I said that's the Holy Ghost man it's an awesome feeling isn't it? And he's like heck ya it is, haha he's so cool. Then after the meeting was over we said bye to our friends and we sat down to eat lunch that we had packed then one of our other investigators that we had been teaching just walked in the door of the church house. He is from Egypt and such a cool guy. He went on to tell us that he is really struggling right now and needed help. He feels like there is a dark wall that's stopping him from finding light in his life. And simultaneously me and Eldste Lindberg thought of showing him the Book of Mormon video with the tree of life. They are kind of cheesy but they can also be very powerful! So without telling him anything about it we just put it on and watched it with him. Then at the end I asked him what that meant to him in his life? And he literally nailed it on the dot. He said that even when people  make fun of him and try to pull him down for wanting to follow Christ he needs to keep going on the path. And when the darkness comes it won't take him off the path because he has the rod and the rod is following Jesus and praying! And I was like well man you've got it figured out now let's make a plan! So we set a time every day for him to read from the Book of Mormon and pray. And we told him that if he can change his work hours to come to church he will be blessed. And he said he wants to do it so we will see how that goes! Then we had an awesome lesson with the younger girl we met with last week. She has had a hard time praying because she feels like she's talking to a wall. We read Moroni 10:4-5 with her and said that if she prays with a real intent and and sincere heart that she will find out that God is there for her. So this week was full of awesome things for sure! Tons of cool miracles and random things that happened that I know are straight from God. It's so cool to be apart of Gods work! One thing I've really been thinking about is how to find TRUE happiness. Because so many of the people we teach are struggling with that. And I have come to find out that it is through serving others! When you feel down, sad, depressed or low just go serve someone and I guarantee you will feel happy. That's one of the biggest things I've learned out here is that service can be the cure for everything! When we need healing for the soul don't turn inward and think of things you need to do for yourself. Turn outward and that's when true happiness comes! Love you all hope ya had a dope week. 

P.S.  President Tew is coming to Alesund next week to go on splits with us and meet our investigators he said to plan on him for our morning runs and dinner each night!!  That is so cool I can't wait! We'll be cooking something good!  

Ya boi Eldste McSpadden 

ER visit! I'm still a bit puffy in this pic!!  Always a bit scary but Sister Tew and my companion took good care of me!

 The next morning Sister Tew took these pics to send to my mom so she could see I was ok! It was an early morning for sure after a night like that but I couldn't miss out!

President Tew and his "SONS"!  What a great man, such a good example to all of us!

 Another day of fishing on P-day!  We had a lot of bites but no real catch!

 

Week 16 Alesund Norway

Oi hey hey guys what's up! 
      Eldste McSpadden has been doing good. This week was full of awesome teaches! We have a pretty good teaching pool here in Ålesund and it's so cool to be apart of those miracles! We had interviews with President this week and he kinda told me more of the background on my area and how they shut it down and were almost going to cut off the branch and close it down because nothing was happening. But then President Tew had the prompting to send me and Eldste Lindberg here! He was totally guided by the spirit because there are people here who have definitely been prepared by God to hear the message of His gospel. We have this awesome couple that we started teaching and they are just fantastic. They talk about how they have faith and know that God has helped them in their lives so much and they want to learn more. They had some really good questions and we answered them by the spirit and through the scriptures! My love for the scriptures has really deepened out here being a missionary because I am confident you can think of a question you have and open up to any page in the scriptures and find some sort of answer to your question. The wife then asked a question about how she can help her brother out with some things he is going through. And I just testified of God's love for all of his children and how he knows we all have our struggles in life but that He is the way we can get through them! And she started to cry a little bit and you could tell the spirit had answered her question right then and there. I couldn't stop smiling the rest of the day cuz the spirit was so strong! We had another cool experience with another family we are teaching. They are from the Congo and some of the most humble people I've ever met! They are so cool too and there kids are so funny! They have two albino sons and one daughter and they all speak like 6 different languages it's crazy! I always ask them how to say words and they just laugh at me and say " that one is soooooo easy!" But I think they're hard hahah. But kind of a back story on them. The mother of the family had a really cool experience on meeting the missionaries. So this lady had a lot of questions on how to have a better life for her and her family and what she needs to do for a long time. Then one night she had a dream that two men in white shirts and ties handed her a blue spiritual book that would help her in her life. That next day my comp and his old comp were just visiting the area before I came to check out the area! They just started to talk with people and they stopped this lady and started talking with her and offered to give her a Book of Mormon. She just started crying and saying thank you so much and they were really confused on what was happening because they just thought it was another person to contact! But it was an answer to her questions that she had and God sent those two to answer it. So they're cool people and their family is amazing but the father is still skeptical of the BOM because he was a preacher back in the Congo but he's warming up to it. Then we had a cool lesson yesterday with this girl who is about our age and she is so cool! She tells us her family is like why do you meet with missionaries that's weird and she's like because I want a better life! And we said that's awesome because this gospel can do that. P Day was good this week as well we went on two hikes one called Sukkertoppen that means The Sugar Top in English and Akslafjellen is this other cool look out place over Ålesund which is dope. We got some fresh hair cuts from our Turkish barber and had a good day! We have some trainings this week and we were asked to read some talks and I read one that was so sick! It was a fireside given in the MTC by my boy Jeffery R. Holland the great. That man speaks with such power, I get so hyped every time I read one of his talks. This talk was specifically on missions and how they change your life forever! He started off by saying yeh I bet you are all scared right now but don't be! This is going to be an amazing experience that will change who you are as a person for the rest of time and eternity! He then goes on and tells the missionaries of the story of President Hinkley on his mission writing to his dad. He also said some things that I loved, he said two years is not a long time so don't you DARE waste it! Ha, I can imagine he slammed on the podium when he said that. But I was like your right man let's goooo and we went out and we started going to work!! We also had Zone Conference this last week and that was fire President Tew is such a legend and I love that man! Hope y'all had a good week full of the spirit love you all! 

The sun is out!

All different angles of Alesund from different hikes, such a beautiful country!

Beautiful sites from above!

The kids love to try our shoes on and hang with the missionaries! Love these kids!

President Tew sent me this pic of him and Brother Hirst this week! He said Brother Hirst served in the England London South mission with my dad and my dad's mission companion Jorn, that lives here in Norway, was his trainer. He remembers my dad as being a legend in the mission field! So glad my dad has set such a good example for me to follow, love that he served a mission worked hard and didn't waste his time while he was there! 

Week 15 Alesund Norway

Oi wassup everyone! 

      Hope all you guys are doing good back home! I've had a good week here in Ålesund and the work is getting done. We have 5 new investigators this week which was so cool because they're all pretty solid and that's what this branch needs! We had 7 people here on Sunday which was great! Next week we should hit 15 which would be amazing! This week was full of good stuff.  We were able to visit some people who live out in the boonies to invite them back to church!! They were like 2 hours away from us which was so crazy because back home I could pass by like 6 temples driving two hours away from home. But it was cool! The first lady we met up with was super nice and way cool! She is from this small little town on the side of this fjord and the view from her window is just stunning. But that meant she had a crazy dialect as well! I couldn't understand anything she was saying at first but then I got use to it and I could get some of it by the end of our visit. She LOVES hiking and so she asked if we could hike while we visited and had a lesson with her and we said for sure! So we got there and just started heading up the trail and it was probably the sickest thing I've ever seen in my!! It was insanely beautiful!! It was so fun there were blueberry bushes everywhere and we would stop and pick some to eat while we were walking and there is so many fresh water springs coming out of the sides of the mountains you can just walk right up and drink out of it and it's so good. Its straight up Voss water at its finest! Then we saw some deer and these massive poisonous red mushrooms that you see in the movies so that was cool. But then we came out of the trees and there was this cool farm with a big barn and I guess this old Norwegian guy just stays up here and farms all alone but his property was just the coolest thing! It was surrounded with trees then just this open electric green pasture with sheep running around and then a giant cliff that lead to this amazing fjord it was so beautiful that dude is living right! And in Norway there is no trespassing laws so we just walked through the sheep and saw all the cool things he had. Then we got to the top of this mountain and we talked about her baptism and what it meant to her and she wants to start coming back to church but its just so far and she works but we promised blessings that if she would come things would work out, so we hope she starts coming again! Then the next day we went and visited these other two households and they fed us which was good I was so happy when they said we were eating haha it made my day! (Groceries are so expensive here and we're always trying to stay on our budget that's why we need to catch some fish!) Their goal is to get temple recommends so they will start coming again. Then we visited this other guy who use to be the branch president and he was super cool and he said he wants to start coming back as well and he's American so he invited us to celebrate Thanksgiving with him so that will be fun because obviously Norwegians don't celebrate that! We had some cool lessons with some of the people we are teaching as well. The one guy that had the cool jordans on met up with us in the library! He came with a bunch of questions for us which was good but we soon realized it was a bunch of anti mormon questions that were not his own but we still answered them all and he was like ok cool I just don't know about your church so I'm trying to learn more! And we said ok cool go to comeuntochrist.org and write down questions you have from there. Then his last question, he was like ok don't make fun of me for asking but I've heard you can't have a beard in your church is that true? And I started laughing and I said NOPE you can have the biggest beard you want! And then I showed a picture of my Uncle Jace because he has a sweet beard right now so shout out to him keep it going! So he seems super interested and is wanting to learn more! He also said he likes how we don't smoke drink and do all that stuff because he doesn't do it either! Then we met this couple street contacting and they had us meet up in this cool coffee shop and they had tons of questions as well and the wife was very fascinated by our stance on the law of chastity and thought it was so important! So we're meeting with them again this week! That's about all for my week but these next couple will be busy! I'll be flying 6 times in the next three weeks for Zone Conference, Splits, Trainings and all that good stuff so it'll be a good!  I fly to Oslo then on to Stavanger today and stay with Eldste Affleck (from my MTC group) and his companion then next week we fly to Oslo and the week after that we fly to Bergen and Jorn and Ves are already planning to have us over for dinner. I can't wait to see them! The closest area to us is like an 8 hour drive so we fly everywhere, we live in the middle of nowhere and I love it! Hope you all have a good week and keep inviting others to come and see how this gospel can bless there lives so much! 

Eldste McSpadden