Week 38 Trondheim Norway (2020 Quarantine)

Yoo wassup everybody hope you guys aren't insane yet. 

     Stuffs been pretty much the same here until like 2 days ago! We had a potential person who we rang and she actually turned out to be solid! It was definitely a tender mercy from the Lord because it's been so frustrating not being able to do the Lords work! Especially me being stuck in a house for ever I was going crazy and needed some people to teach and she was golden! We taught her two lessons and the last one was amazing. She accepted a baptism date and said if she learns more that she would love to be baptized so that was dope! Let's just hope this virus stuff blows over soon or this new way of doing missionary work continues to work.  Then today we received a message from our MTC teacher back home in Provo. He served in this area, Trondheim,  and just texted one of his investigators he use to teach to see how he was doing. He said, "man that's really weird you texted me I literally just started searching more about the church and started reading the Book of Mormon again. Can we talk sometime about it?" So our MTC teacher sent us a message saying,  "hey boys, here ya go!" Hahah it was great, it made our day. It's pretty dope to be a missionary in these crazy times! People are really starting to believe there is a God and their hearts are softening, it's sad it's taking a pandemic to get some desire but hey Heavenly Father knows what he's doing and it seems to be working. Miracles are happening in Norway!!  I've had a lot of time to study and learn so much about the gospel during this quarantine! I've learned so much in this past week even though sometimes I want to go out so bad I'm grateful for the time I've had to study and learn. One thing that I've come to know more strongly is that we are children of God. I've known that my entire life but sometimes me being me, I need to know how and why. So I started studying a ton about it and I was reading in Acts and it talks about us being the "offspring " of God. And it got me thinking what is offspring because it's used in so many different ways so I looked it up in a dictionary the actual meanings of it. And right then my question was answered! The second definition said, "Offspring is a result of something that has come into existence." I had the strongest reassurance from the spirit that Christ is "the only begotten son" of God and we are his offspring or children :) I know God created us and that we are his children and I know he loves us all! He's got a plan for us no matter what's happening around us it's part of His plan. I would also love to give a shout out to all my boys who were sent home this past week, I love each of those boys with all my heart and am heartbroken to see their service in those different countries come to a pause. I have come to love the people of Norway with all of my heart and I would be devastated to leave, so I know how ya feel boys. Just know God has a plan for all of us, I feel blessed to have friends who are going through this with me at this time. We'll never forget this time in our lives.

      Thank you to all who sent me emails and videos and stuff they made me so happy! Hope you all have so much fun with your families with all this time you have.

Eldste McSpaddy 🤘🏽

 More hours of sunlight...

Week 37 Trondheim Norway (2020 Quarantine starts)

Hey everybody hope y'all have been doing good! 

    This week was pretty frustrating but it happens! On Wednesday, I flew into Trondheim went and grabbed my luggage and then met up with my new companion. We drove straight to our flat dropped off my stuff and went to a teach, I was happy to be busy! We have this older member we are working with and he's such a nice guy, really funny and he plays the accordion so that's cool. Thursday it was pretty sad, we got a message saying we had an online meeting and so all the missionaries hopped on and President Tew was crying pretty hard. He proceeded to tell all of us that because of all the craziness that certain missionaries will be going home. He then continued to name off a list of all the missionaries heading home in the next day. Luckily I'm still here and I'm chilling! Super sad though quite a few of the people here had to be flown home which really stunk. The missionary that replaced me in Alesund went home and then they had to do an emergency transfer to cover him.  We don't have a lot of missionaries in our mission as it is and then to loose so many along with a lot of senior companions it's hard. After that we were told we were being placed in quarantine as well which was even worse! It's so hard to do missionarimy work when your in your apartment all day but we're trying our best and thinking about all the different ways we can find people. So grateful for technology and that we have that blessing to be able to forward the work of the Lord in a time like this! I've been reading and studying a ton which is good for me and I've learned so much which is great but I'm starting to go a little crazy being inside all day so you guys have to help me out! Send me emails videos funny stuff things to do whatever to keep me busy and if you need help with something I can do just let me know and I'd love to help! Other than that we do a lot of teaches over skype and messenger which is good but ya just get sick of it after a while but this is going to be for a while so I better get use to it. But just some thoughts over the week, I'm so grateful for president Russel M Nelson and his guidance for each one of us. Homeboy knows what he's talking about and he's helping us! He listens to Heavenly Father and was inspired to give us Come Follow Me, prepared us for this next general conference and has been telling us to take our vitamins! Let's continue following him and his council and everything will be alright. That made me think of where I'm at in the Book of Mormon right now, I'm at the end of Alma where the people of Ammon are starting to get scared of the Lamanites and they start thinking about breaking the covenant they made and fight against the Lamanites. But Helaman, being a stud, and a follower of God decides to calm them down and say look you guys made a covenant to never fight again. Don't break that and not only lose the war but lose your souls. Let's trust in God and ask for guidance. That's when he gets the idea to have their sons, who didn't make a covenant with God, to take up arms and defend their Families their Freedom and their Liberty! So that's exactly what happens, the 2000 stripling warriors defended what was right and end up beating the Lamanites and are all saved and watched over. In crazy scary situations we need to trust in the Lord and his prophets to guide and direct us on what we need to do. Just like one of my favorite primary hymns says " Follow the Prohet, he knows the way!" I've really had to rely on that knowledge and I bear testimony that Russel M Nelson is a prohet of God and he WILL help us be ready for whatever comes. Keep it up and SEND ME EMAILS AND VIDEOS so I don't go insane haha have a great week and wash your hands! 

Eldste Spaddy 😷🤘🏽

Week 36 Alesund Norway

Wassup guys, hope your all doing great. 
      Had a pretty solid week here and the weather was alright to begin with then it got awful again, so it's been a wet one that's for sure ha. First off I'm getting moved out of Ålesund to a big beautiful city called Trondheim it sounds and looks amazing! I've been mobbing this branch life with a small city and its been an amazing experience. I love this place so much and will miss all the people I've become so tight with here but I'm stoked to head to Trondheim! This week was dope but I feel like they just keeping flying by its weird. Some highlights of my week though! We had some great lessons and the spirit was so strong, that's one thing I love about being a missionary is not only feeling the spirit so strong myself but when other people feel it as well. We had a lesson with the girl who is on date and she is done with the lessons and we are just going over stuff and the baptismal questions with her so she is ready! We also talked about temples and how cool it is to be married for all time and eternity. Talked about my big bro and my sister in law Hannah getting married in the temple, and also that we can do baptisms for the dead and she loved it. Temples are so special and I'm so glad we have a place here on earth to make such sacred covenants. 
   Then on Saturday we had a lesson with a lady we met on Christmas day actually! Me and my last companion were determined to find some people to celebrate Christmas with because we didn't have anything planned because our branch was so tiny. So we went out on the streets and just asked people if they had a place to celebrate Christmas and if we could join. We didn't have much luck but luckily our stud Kjell came in clutch and had us over Christmas night. But we stopped this lady and she said she didn't have anywhere to celebrate Christmas and she moved here from Columbia a couple years ago. So we were like hey we could meet up another time and go on a hike or something because she loved hiking. We kinda lost contact with her then one  day she pulled up to church and it was dope! After that she was busy with school and work and we finally had a lesson and she had come and read all of first Nephi and had questions about it and it was great! We talked about the restoration and Joseph Smith's part in bringing forth the Book of Mormon. She could feel the spirit so much and then we showed her the first vision video and I would look at her out if the corner of my eye during it and she was smiling so hard and the spirit was even stronger then. After I just asked her, how do you feel right now? And she said " Amazing and happy" and I was like yup that's what this gospel can give you. Then she asked about baptism for some reason? And like how it works in our church and what we think about it so we explained it and she was like awesome that's cool and then she had to go to some meeting thing but the missionaries will keep meeting with her and hopefully she will get baptized! 
     On a not so spiritual note one of my highlights of the week was a dinner we had with our HOMIE Maria, she's from Venezuela and the sickest lady you'll meet. We had some dinner with her and her husband and her stepson who aren't members. We ate some good food and talked about life. Her stepson is a G let me tell you, he is a sick skier and served in the Norwegian military up on the Russian Norwegian border and had some sick stories. We just got talking about skiing and snowmobiling and was showing him some videos from my dad and brother Dillon and he loved it. After we were done he offered to drive us home and so we said yes, so we get in his car and we start heading home. When the car turned on it started playing music but it was super low so I didn't really notice it. But after about 5 seconds I realized what it was, one of the greatest bands of all time, The Eagles. I started asking him about his music and he's like  "bro I love this type of music" and I was so stoked. He played the next song and it was " Take it easy " agh I just had a flood of memories of me and my boys driving up the canyon listening to the eagles and mobbing with each other. Love my boys with all my heart and shout out to them for being studs. Then after that he turned on Born in the USA and said this ones for you boys! Hahah it was just great, to bad he's moving to Oslo but if I go down there I'm meeting up with him again for sure! For my last P day in Ålesund we went fishing and caught some fish then visited this sick outlet place and said goodbye to all my homies here. Bitter sweet moment but I'm stoked for other people I'll meet! Hope everyone has a great week! And of course, "Take it Easy" for me 😎🤘🏽

Eldste McSpadden 

I don't ever want to forget any of these families. They've taught me so much!

Helge, Fride and her dad Frode. Fride is such a strong girl and has grown so much with her knowledge of the gospel.

 Kimbo promises to come visit me in Utah!

 Love this kid!!

 Kjell, Marririane, Evan (Kjell's nephew) myself and Kimbo. An amazing family, right here! Love them and they're strong testimonies of the gospel. I'm so blessed to have them in my life.

 Last P-day fishing in Alesund

 Not much bigger than the first time I caught a few, HaHa!

 My Kurdish family: Tahir, Mahnaz, Shakob and Mahan. I don't want to ever forget the time I've spent with them, such a kind loving and thoughtful family.

 The hem kept falling out in my pants so I fixed them myself!  It works!!

Week 35 Alesund Norway

This week zoomed by! 
       It was a good one and very eventful! We had some pretty cool things happen by just being guided and directed by the spirit. We had a sick lesson with the girl we are teaching and it was on tithing! She totally just accepted it and has been living all the commandments for a couple weeks now it's so sick. She's like yeh I just make bank because I now charge my friends to be their designated driver. It was dope and were so happy she's choosing to follow Christ and making the best of it.  I can see it's so hard when NO one else chooses to live these high standards and your the only one. We had a very interesting lesson with one of our investigators who we thought was pretty interested and has even been coming to church. When went to visit him again he just went off about how we are a cult and he didn't really want to have anything to do with us.  I was just laughing he's spent way to much time on "bad things about the mormom church .org" and not enough time studying the Book of Mormon for himself. But it was funny he started by asking a bunch of questions and we clarified and corrected a lot of things for him that just weren't true but by the end it was basically him telling us that he has never felt God was there for him so why should he believe in Him?  I asked him if he was happy right now in his life and he said, "yes, actually these past two months have been the most happiest times of my life and I have had a smile on my face every day! I've overcome some mental health issues that have been hard and now I feel true happiness" and I said, "I believe that was God helping you through some hard times and the happiness you feel is because he hasn't given up on you, have you ever thought about that?" And he just kind of looked puzzled and said, "um no, no that, that was all me and well maybe some other people but definitely not God!"  I just kinda nodded my head and said, "alright buddy you keep being you and be happy!" It's pretty sad to see God's hands in people's lives and them not even acknowledge it. I think all three of us could tell by the end of that discussion that he just needs to study a little more before he starts throwing around crazy, false information, it was funny. Good guy though gave us a dope recipe for some yummy bread.
       A cool story that happend this week, following a chain of events that happend Saturday night! We were just walking to the bus stop to hop on a bus we needed to catch and it literally drove past us and didn't even stop. I started off in a dead sprint to catch it and I got right up to it and it just drove off again?! I was like bro come on, I know he literally saw me and that's just not cool... then the dopest thing happend this old couple pulled over and said, " hey you guys get in, we'll help you catch that bus!" So we hopped in and they drove us to the next bus stop, which was a miracle because that NEVER happens here not in a million years. They were like, "are you guys preachers or something? And we laughed and said yeh in a way! Then he said huh ok well you guys catch your bus alright, I tried to give them a book of Mormon but they were not very interested so we just hopped out, it was so nice of them. We caught the bus and went where we needed to go and then that same night we tried to catch the bus coming back into sentrum and the SAME THING happened. It literally just drives right passed us stops and then before I could sprint to catch it we missed it. It was so funny not going to lie I was like man we just can't get any luck today, because all of our appointments got canceled too. It was a rainy night and there was no one on the streets to talk to. I actually turned to Eldste Bennet and said, "man this is the part of missionary work that stinks. When you have NOTHING to do, let's pray for direction and then go knock some doors!" Right then one of our investigators skirted by on a bike, we stopped him had a little chat and got his number because he didn't use facebook often and that was why he wasn't answering us. Then we catch the next bus and I started talking with this guy, he had a Yankees hat on and we started talking to him about it. Then all the sudden he asks like so how much longer you got left? And I said well I'm in Norway for 2 years then I'll go back. I'm actually a missionary for my church and he was like yeh I know I'm a member, and I was like what no way what's your name man and we started chatting. Turns out it was a guy we've been trying to get in contact with but had the wrong address and number so we got his new number and should be meeting up with him next week! Then right as we get off at the bus station another couple that we teach was sitting at a table and we went up and chatted with them for a while. It was a crappy night that turned into a dope one it was so fun!
         Church was good this week we had only 4 in church and it was us two elders our recently baptized friend and the councilor in the branch presidency. It was a good testimony meeting we all shared thoughts then studied in the Book of Mormon from Come Follow Me. Then on Monday we decided to get some baking in because like ALL of our members and investigators are sick right now so we decided to cheer em up with some good ol American chocolate chip cookies. Thanks to my bomb aunt Trisha and her recipes we doubled it and made about 200 cookies! Haha it was great we just made the dough during lunch and baked some and would give them out and were going to keep doing it all week. It was so much though, holy cow we weighed it and it was about 10 pounds of cookie dough it was great. Today it was so funny because everyone here hates Amreica and Trump and I saw this dude driving down the street with an Amreican flag and a Confederate flag flying and I just yelled " Murica!!!" And he started honking his horn and it just made my day it was awesome. America is the best land no doubt about it! Today we did service to help clean out this ladies house and I found an old sewing machine and she was going to toss it out so I asked her if we could take it home and she said I don't know if it works but go ahead, so I took it home and remembered some stuff from my 7th grade CTE class. I sewed up my pants and made em look nice. Shout out to Mrs, Griffin for teaching me how to sew! And I've been cutting hair so I can do some fresh fades now so my kids boutta be looking fresh! Anyways it was a dope week I love being on a mission, you learn so many things and not just spiritually! I can knit, sew, bake, cook and cut hair now it's crazy. Never woulda seen myself doing that but aye I ain't complaining 👀have a good week and listen to your moms they know what there talking about! 

Love Eldste McSpadden