Week 21 Alesund Norway

Hey guys! 

      This week flew by it's so weird I feel like I write these emails every other day! This week went really well, we found some new people to teach which is always good! One of them is just a kid I talked to on the bus, I told him the Book of Mormon is an amazing book and that it has helped me in my life so much!  So he took it and said I'll read it man! I got his Facebook and then he left... Later that week I sent him a message saying, "hey, it's the guy who gave you that book on the bus we should meet up and talk about it this week?" He was like, "Ya, I'd like to do that! This book is really good and it has some good answers in it about life!" So we met up with him and started talking about the BOM that I gave him. I made sure the one I handed him had this pass along card in it with life questions and then certain verses to read from the Book of Mormon that have answers to those questions! He actually read a lot of the questions with the verses! So when we met up with him we were able to teach him the first lesson and he was really liking it which was awesome! Then the other person we started teaching was our boy who works at the local 7/11. We always stop in and say wassup to him and he is super cool! Then one day we were going through the area book and found this one name and decided to call the number, the dude answered and it sounded just like our boy at the 7/11. The guy on the other end said he would love to meet up with us again and talk. I guess the sister missionaries had met with this guy and he came to church at one time back in the day. It turns out it is the same guy, our boy from 7/11! Ha, it was so funny we talked with him again in the store and he was like yeh man that's me! We just have a nickname for him so we didn't know it was the same person at first. But it turns out he likes to cut hair as well and haircuts are so expensive here so I asked him to cut my hair and he said he would so we met up and he gave me a fresh fade while we taught him the first lesson! Super cool guy but while he's cutting my hair he said he'd never cut a white boys hair before and it's super hard.  Let's just say the opportunity to teach him the first lesson and bond with him was way worth the week of wearing my beanie hat every day! Refer to pics!!!   HA!! HA!!  We fly to Stavanger tomorrow for splits/Zone Conference and I'm not sure I have time for a new cut!  The other missionaries will love it!  He seems really interested in learning more so that's always exciting and well worth the inexpensive cut! 

        Then on Sunday, we got a random text from a number we didn't have saying " Hey guys it's so and so, it has been a while since you two have been over here! Would you want to have dinner with us tonight? And we just responded and said " We are new missionaries in the area and we don't think we've met before but we would love to come!" So we were hyped because we usually only have 1 dinner a week with our family we teach so it not only was a miracle that they texted us to come teach them but we also got a dinner! We showed up on time and when they opened the door we were so happy to be greeted by the nicest family ever. They let us in took our coats and hung them up then invited us to sit down at the dinner table. It was all set up for us with soooooo much food and the funny thing was I didn't recognize any of it. They are from Kurdistan and it was a traditional Kurdish meal! It was so delicious, even though I still have no idea what we ate!! (Don't worry Mom, Eldste Lindberg immediately asked them if anything in the meal had tree nuts in it and let them know I was deathly allergic before I could even say anything, I think my last reaction scared him!!) They just started talking to us and getting to know us better and were just the kindest people ever. Their son spoke English as well and they thought it was so cool that I was from America. They said that's their son's biggest dream is to go to college in the U.S. It just made me realize how blessed I am to have been born into an amazing family in a place of great opportunity and into the gospel of Jesus Christ!  They're Muslim but they like the BOM and love learning about our religion so we are going to keep teaching them which will be super cool :)) All in all another good week! 

       It's been pretty sunny here which has been nice even though the sun comes up at like 9:30-10 and sets at like 3:30-4 and we have to take vitamin D pills and use our blue lights a lot!  It's so weird the sun just comes up right over the mountains and just kinda chills there for a couple hours and then goes back down so it feels like morning time all day because the sun never moves all the way up into the sky. Then it just sets again!  It's so beautiful so I don't mind and it's different from home which makes my mission unique! The knitting club is going well too, next time we're bringing the laptop so we can teach our new friends how to do family history and I think they will love it! I've been working on my navy blue and white stripped tie and it's coming along real well. I'm making sure it's real tight, like they taught me, and it's even better because I bought my own knitting tools. I actually really enjoy knitting, it's super relaxing especially when normally I can't sit still for very long. Once I'm done, a hat and scarf are next!! I also caught like 20 fish today but they were all to small to keep! I'll find the big ones, I'm not giving up! 

         This next week were flying down to Stavanger for zone conference which is going to be so fun! It gets a little lonely sometimes up here in little Ålesund because the closest missionaries are like 8 hours away from us so zone conference is always fun to see all the boys! We're all so tight here in Norway because there's only like 50 of us so we all know each other and we're all tight which is so sick. Anyways, hope y'all have a good week, send me pictures it's the best and  when I get emails they make my day!! 

Eldste McSpadden 

Note from Heather:
President and Sister Tew messaged me this week after spending last weekend with Truxton:
"Your son is an amazing missionary!  He's fearless, happy, full of love, determined, and bold in sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ as one of his disciples ….he is a great teacher with amazing fluency in the Norwegian language after only 2 months in the land!   Life is good!


Kurdish dinner! So good, we were so grateful!!

 Front view of the new cut...  the glasses are the guys who cut my hair!

 Back view!

 Thanks Momma!  Package with some peanut butter!!

 First fish caught in Norway!

 Yes, we'll still be hungry! 20 others just like this I had to throw back in...

Week 20 Alesund Norway

Oi what's up everyone! Hope your all doing well. 

       We had another great week up here in Ålesund for sure. We had a bunch of lessons this week and the whole week was filled with the spirit. It started off with our British friend. He loves talking with us about religion but just has a really hard time with the Book of Mormon. Our lesson had been going on for about an hour and he was just talking our ears off and I finally said, "Everything you've said matches up with the teachings of Christ and the teachings in that book (pointing to the Book of Mormon) you believe the same things we do! And he finally goes   "alright alright alright lads here's what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna read the whole book, all of it, pray to my father in heaven to see if it's TRUE and I'm going to call you guys when I'm done." And me and my comp just smiled and said,  "alright sounds good to us, then let us know how it goes and  make sure to ask us if you have any questions." So that was super cool! Then on Friday our Mission President and his wife flew up here to Ålesund to check it out and go on some teaches with us. Wow was it a blast! We planned so many lessons so they could meet everyone we were teaching and it worked out well!  They of course spoiled us so much they're such nice people and President always refers to us as his sons. I feel so much love from President and Sister Tew, they have such strong testimonies of the gospel and are the best examples to all of us missionaries.  They're very loving and bold as they teach and it's awesome.  As soon as we picked them up from the airport we drove straight to a lesson. It went super well and they gave amazing insights that our friend needed! Then after that we drove to their hotel and let them drop off their stuff then headed to another lesson. We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and baptism on our drive and it was so inspiring. We then went back and changed into our hiking clothes to have our lesson with Kjell (the man who is on baptismal date) and his son. We bought some stuff to make s'mores and headed up the mountain. We got to this dope look out point and built a fire cuz it was super snowy and cold! We got it going and had some hot chocolate and then we taught Kjell and Kimbo what s'mores were! They loved them! Kjell is so dope he's literally a modern day Viking and even sounds like one too. He built his own house from the ground up and specializes in wood carpentry, his beard is pretty sick too, he's so cool! We then talked about his baptism and he's super stoked for it. Him and President Tew really bonded and it was great! The next day we woke up and worked out with President in the hotel. They had a sauna in there and we were going to test it out but it wasn't working sadly. We ate breakfast with them and it was the best thing I've eaten in such a long time! We had the opportunity to have personal study together and learned a lot from President! We had some teaches in the morning and visited some less actives! Then Sister Tew said she was hungry and said she was craving sushi! (Sushi actually was created in Norway and introduced to Japan) We were so excited, so we went to an all you can eat sushi buffet and you KNOW me and Eldste Lindberg made the best of that. We then had some more lessons that went super well and then had dinner with Kjell and his family that night. We talked more about baptism and President Tew shared some cool miracles that have happened In Norway recently which motivated him so much to be baptized. We had about 10 people show up to church and had a great Sunday meeting, President and Sister Tew gave talks and an awesome lesson. The spirit was so strong! We had our last teach with them and it went so well! We're planning on setting the couple we taught on baptismal date here in the next couple weeks. Really good week for us and it makes me so happy to be a missionary, I love sharing the gospel with others and feeling the spirit so strong as we teach them the true plan of happiness! I've had so many cool experiences that I will never forget in the short time I've been out. Can't wait to keep having more! Hope you all have a good week!

Eldste McSpadden 

President Tew, Kjell, Kimbo, Eldste McSpadden and Eldste Lindberg

The cutest kid, future missionary for sure!!

 Family dinner with President Tew, Kjell and his family!  The best people!

 Working off a little frustration!!

 Camp fire in the mountains, best place to teach the gospel and eat s'mores with banana's, they loved it!

Week 19 Alesund Norway

Oi hva skjer kompiser! Hey what's up everyone! 

     It's going good here in Ålesund. It was so stinking cold this week it's suppose to be -10 C this next week. Which means winter is coming! Agh yesss, I'm so hyped for it to start snowing more! That also means it's snowmobiling season, so shout out to my brother and dad back home. Go tear it up, I know it won't be the same without me digging along side you guys to get unstuck ;) 

      Anyways this week flew by, its weird how you just get lost in the work and the next thing you know it's another week! It was busy for sure with lots of lessons! We met with the part member family and we set a baptismal date for him and his son on December 14th, which was dope! We need to find a great spot with a sandy beach or fjord that we can cut out a square of ice in the water so we can baptize him and his son. So that will be such a sweet day but a tad bit chilly. The closest font is 9 hours away. We had a funny lesson with one of our friends that made me laugh so hard! He is an African preacher but loves meeting with us and loves talking about the Bible and Book of Mormon, he's figuring out the connection a little more every time we meet with him. We met up in the library to have a lesson and about half way through this angry Norwegian lady comes up and starts yelling at us and telling us we shouldn't be in here and to go somewhere else to talk about our loud Bible crap. We politely apologized and then our friend looked so scared and said,  "I don't think she likes to talk about the Bible very much" and I laughed so hard he is so funny. We had another good lesson with our British bloke and he is going to pray about the Book of Mormon this week and we will meet this weekend to see how it went!
      Another person that we are teaching is from Lithuania and he is hilarious. He swears so much and he doesn't speak Norwegian and his English is limited but he makes me laugh. He invited us to go on a hike and talk about God so we said sweet man, we'll be there. I thought it was going to be some light stroll up to another amazing view overlooking the city. But nope we drove out to this tiny island with this massive cliff and it looked straight up! I had a water bottle and a granola bar with my rain coat and a sweater. I was not prepared for this hike but it was amazing as always. We climbed almost straight up and when we got to the top of this cliff there was a beautiful lake that was full of fresh water you could go and just drink out of. You can't swim or do anything there except fish from the banks, I thought that was so cool! There was this big rock that hung out over the cliff and it was like 500 meters down and we climbed out on it and then sat on the edge it was so sketchy but fun! We then hiked all the way to the top and right as we were about to summit we heard a helicopter coming towards us. It hovered over us for a minute and at first we thought maybe someone was hurt and they had mistaken us for another group. Then all of the sudden this dude hops out and a rope drops down, he starts running towards us and we were so confused. He then turned off and we looked over and there was this massive bag of supplies just laying there on the ground with wood and stuff. The helicopter was still hovering right over us and we watched him hook up the bag to the rope and then the helicopter took off. We started talking with the guy and he said he was from Sweden and a bag of supplies fell out of the helicopter so they had to come back and pick it up. Then the helicopter came back outta nowhere and picked him up the same way it picked up the bag of supplies, it was so cool ha! The view was so amazing but it was freezing cold so we took some pics then headed home. We got to the apartment and made some good food to warm us back up.
     Then a cool miracle that happened to us! We joined this service club and we just randomly go do service in the community! One of the things we were able to do this week was to attend a knitting group! In Norway everyone knows how to knit! So we got together with these cute old Norwegian ladies who all just sit around drink coffee and knit together! As part of the service club we joined we decided this would be perfect, so now I can say I learned how to knit on my mission. It was so funny they were all so happy we came and were overly happy to teach me how to knit! My comp is from Denmark and he tells me if your Scandinavian you know how to knit! He's amazing at knitting and was already cruising along while they all would randomly say to me, "your doing it wrong let me show you." It was so fun, we're going back next week to show them how to do family search and explain how to look up their family history so it should be good! My goal is to knit myself a scarf with Norwegian wool!!  Ha! Ha!  So on Monday, we get a call  from our knitting ladies asking us if we can come help someone move and we of course agreed to come help! When we got there two other people were there to help, a lady from Australia and a young Norwegian guy. We started talking and all the sudden the dude said" oh your mormon missionaries, my favorite quote is  'A saint is just a sinner who keeps on trying'."  My comp and I look at each other and we're like wait that's from Uchtdorf. Then he goes on to say he's a baptized member of the church and holds the priesthood but has been going to a different church because when the missionaries left this area he wasn't sure what to do.  Elder Lindberg and I have been searching for this guy ever since we arrived in Alesund, we've read his name on our sheet with the names of the members in the area multiple times but have not been able to find him.  As soon as he told us his name we knew exactly who he was! Miracles... All in all it was a good week! Hope you all are doing good! 

Eldste McSpadden 

 Fresh water lake at the top of this crazy steep hike!

 Cliff pic!

Our knitting group, they loved us!

 It's getting super cold!  Winter has hit in Norway!

Week 18 Alesund Norway

Hey hey everyone!

        Hope you all have had a good week. My week was full of some funny stories and sweet miracles! First off transfer ended and I'm staying in Ålesund so that's good. Lost our boy Elder Sobatka he's going down to Fredrikstad and is going to get treated like a king down there so that's good for him. Fredrikstad has tons of members who feed you every day and most missionaries gain some pounds when going there so good luck to him haha. Why I love being a missionary is because you get the weirdest experiences and the coolest experiences, sometimes all in one day! This week me and Elder Lindberg flew down to Bergen which was so fire. We had an in person District council for the first time and it was way good. Then the senior missionary couple were homies and they went and bought Dominos for us all, oh it was so good. Then we had some good contacting in the streets of Bergen it's a sick city. It's so European and everyone is wearing fresh turtlenecks and dope trench coats with loafers on. Then the best part was the dinner that night! My dad's favorite mission companion who he has stayed good friends with lives in Bergen and is the bishop there. So he had us over for dinner that night. We ate som Får I Kål. It's a proper Norwegian meal with lamb, potatoes and cabbage and it was amazing. Veslemøy ( Jørns wife) is an amazing cook holy cow. Then he pulled out an old picture book from his mission and showed me all the pictures of him and my dad back in the day when they served in London together. He was telling me so many funny stories and stuff they did and it made me appreciate the friendships made out on missions. The people I've met here in Norway will be my friends for life. Then we headed back to little Ålesund early the next morning! 

     One of the days we had just gotten off the bus to start street contacting and we see these three Arab dudes yelling at this African American guy in Arabic. We just kept walking didn't think much about it then they started shoving each other and then It went to a full out brawl. These 3 dudes were just wailing on this guy but as missionaries were not inclined to stop confrontations so we couldn't use the power of " Laying on of hands" to stop it but then outta nowhere the one dude gets up and just tosses the guys down these stairs and then they stopped and ran off but one of them dropped his sick Carhart hat so as they ran by us we handed it back to him as they ran by. It was so funny we were just laughing so hard because it was so random. But to some spiritual things that happened this week! We had an AMAZING sacrament meeting this week. In our little branch in Ålesund the only three people who talk every week is me, my companion and the branch president. So when fast Sunday rolls around for fast and testimony meeting it's usually the same 3 that talk then a little bit of awkward silence because sometimes there's only investigators in church with us haha. But this week we had our part member family we are teaching, then the stud father ( who is not a member.... yet)  brought his inactive mother and brother in law. Then we had another investigator with us then our homie the branch president. So we had 10 people in sacrament meeting! And a couple other people who usually come were just out of town so the branch is growing pretty well! But after us three got done bearing our testimonies, I just said a little prayer to have someone just go up and say just a couple things. Right then the mother of the family stood up with tears in her eyes and I knew it was going to be amazing. She bore one of the strongest testimonies of prayer and how she has seen how prayer helped her back to the covenant path and how her life has done a 180 degree turn through sincere prayer. It was so good and then her mom who has had some real struggles lately stood up as well and bore a testimony on the blessings of family and how she has had some rough family problems but she's so grateful for the gospel and how it keeps families together and can heal any problems that life gives us. And it was so powerful! We then gave our Sunday school lesson and everyone was participating and answering questions it was sweet. Our meeting actually lasted the full 2 hours this week which was dope Haha it usually ends 30 minutes early because we can only say so much. But that is another thing I want to testify on! The power God can give us when we're doing his work. At first when I got up here I would write all my talks in English then translate them and it would take forever and as missionaries were packed from 6:30 to 9:30 everyday so I didn't have time to keep writing these talks every week so I just started trusting in the Lord to help me speak Norwegian and bear my testimony through it. And I've truly seen God just take the wheel and he blessed me in my mind with the words I need to testify of Him! It's so amazing!

       On Monday, we had 3 sweet lessons with our boy from Nigeria, then one with the British bloke and then the YSA Norwegian girl. The one with the African family went so well we helped them finish moving in and put together three pieces of exercise equipment! Then he asked us how to get to our meeting house because he thinks what we do is an example of Christlike behavior and if two young boys who could be out partying drinking and being with girls would take 2 years to just teach and serve others then that shows him examples of Christ! Which was awesome and we just said it's because we've been blessed in our lives with amazing families and friends so we want that for others. And he goes, "ok bruddas I will come to your service. " haha so sick that'll be good. He loves to preach and showed us videos of him preaching in other churches so I can't wait for fast Sunday it should be entertaining. The British guy we taught is so dope and swaggy. He has had a rough life but is trying to find peace in his life. He started studying theology and religion so he is VERY knowledgeable in the Bible and its teachings so its awesome to show him through the Bible and the BOM that this is the same church that Christ had on the earth when he was alive. And he said he would pray about it so we will be meeting with him again! He also loves vinyl records and I talked to him about some of the ones I had and he thought that was sick. Then the Norwegian girl we taught is so dope! She read a lot from the BOM and is liking it so we just need her to pray so we asked her to do so and she said she would even though she thinks it's kind of awkward. Then P day! Wooooww I'm still shocked every time I go on a hike it's just INSANE. You could live in Ålesund and go on a different hike every day and it still would never get old. We went on this sick one called Hallvardfjellet it was stunning. We packed some good Sjokolade Kaker ( chocolate cake) that our branch president made us and went up! There were tons of frozen blueberries and ice cold spring water like everywhere so we ate some cake fresh blueberries and drank some fresh Voss water on top of this fjord it was so dope. Then on the way down I slipped and fell so hard on the ice it was hilarious but my elbow and butt are going to be bruised for a month. But anyways it was weird because they don't really celebrate Halloween or Thanksgiving here so that kinda stinks but Christmas is like a week so that'll be dope. But hope y'all have a great week! 

Eldste McSpadden

Berg family with Elder Sobatka, Tilby, Lindberg and I.

A few pics of my dad on his mission!!  

 Jorn and my dad kicking it back at their mission Presidents desk!! Ha!

Elder Tilby, Sobatka, Jergen Berg, Lindberg, and I.

 Jergen Berg and I. Our dads served in London together way back in the day!!

 My dad's mission companion Jorn Ivar Berg

Elder Sobatka and I 

 Wild blueberries!!