Week 52 Drammen Norway

Whatttup everyone this week was sick! 

       Super spiritual and fun for sure! We have a baptismal date set for our guy Luke and he's so stoked about it and it should be really good. We had some realty good lessons with him this week and we're able to focus one just on the Savoir and how he has impacted Luke. And it was truly amazing to see how much he realized the changes in his life purely based off of building a relationship with Christ. It's been such an amazing experience for me to be the tool in the Lords hands to help a guy who is hungry for the gospel change his life around and start making sense of this crazy world we live in. He's so excited to get baptized and is sharing it with all his buddies and the people he lives with. It's so cool because there was a quote given by one of the brethren that said " You become truly converted to the gospel when you begin to share it with those around you!" Which is so true Luke is a STUD! 

     Then we have a whole different story with this other girl that we've been working with. We started playing coed softball with this team that was led by a couple in our ward and we met this ysa girl and after talking about the Sunday meeting the next day I said, "Hey you should totally come to church tomorrow it would be sweet" and she was like,  "I'm not really Christian but I'll come". Since then she has loved it and wants to learn more about what we do. So we invited this other YSA member to join us and we've been going on hikes while talking with her about the gospel and answering a few questions.  The two of them went to high school together and have been hitting it of and becoming better friends. Then the other day out of no where she's like "guys I hear you have like specific sit down lessons you teach people? I want that?!"  We were like ok when can you meet? And she's like,  "I have 1 hour in between work and practice so I can then and if you need more time we can meet again the day after". We said alrighty sounds good, we can do that! So we're solidly teaching her and she's loving it and reading the book of Mormon tons and just eating it up. It's cool to see these people who have never had religion in their life just so engaged and wanting to know more it's so inspiring and motivating! 

     We played a ton of beach volleyball this week,  they seemed to like us after we played them even though we were the Mormon Missionaries from American. Then they asked us if we played American football and I got pumped. They had had a few beers of course so they were all pretty tipsy and got hyped and tried to start tackling. This one dude came flying at me and I juked him out and he just slid in the grass. The next play this bigger dude came flying down the middle and one of our buddies just went body to body and got trucked it was so funny so I chased the guy down and then picked him up and dropped him and everyone was going crazy, it was so funny. Other than that we drove down to Presidents house in Oslo for interviews and had some good chats about life, the guy is a stud I love him. The next day we woke up and took him shopping! With the new rules with missionary attire we decided to help him get some blue shirts and some nice slacks to look fresh. Then we chatted and had some good laughs with them and made some salmon and potatoes for dinner and they loved it! Super solid week for sure, love being a missionary its dope. Love yall and send me an email I would love that :) 

Eldste Spaddy 🤙🏽

We went shopping with President Tew for our new blue shirts, played a lot of sand volleyball and made some salmon and potatoes for him and Sister Tew. 

 No ties and blue shirts, crazy but it has honestly made a difference. Norwegians hate ties and it made us stick out and look stupid so it's been sweet.

 Back to baking bread

 Jergen's on a road trip to see everyone before he leaves on his mission to Italy. I was hoping to serve in Bergen before he left but it was so good to see him.

Week 51 Drammen Norway

We had a pretty solid week this week for sure! 

        With the corona rules we can't proselyte so we've been finding other ways to reach out to people which has been great! For the most part we do tons of service, social media contacting and my favorite is sport contacting. The service opportunities have been so much fun as we just help random people, they eventually ask what we're doing in Norway and we let them know we're missionaries and love to help people for free!  They don't really believe the free part and always ask if they can pay us just a little. We nicely tell them no but then let them know we'd love to sit down and have dinner with them and their families sometime! They usually love the idea because they're curious about why were there but not sure what questions to ask and then we teach them at dinner. This worked well with one of the families but when we went over to their house they had a massive dog that they own to scare away the bears. (I think I've told you guys before that the dogs here are so big and I've never seen so many massive sized breeds in all my life!) Well this monstrous dog comes running up to me so of course I try to be nice and pet it. Big mistake, it starts barking like crazy, turns and bites me right on the butt. My first thought was to kick it but then I realized the whole family was there and it literally weighed more than me. I think it would've killed me if I would of responded aggressively so I just played it off like no big deal. Then when we got home, I checked and found teeth marks all over my bum.  Haha, good stuff, I was blessed it didn't break through the skin but there's a pretty good bruise. 

     The social media contacting involves ads we create talking about what we believe, what makes us happy and how our lives are enriched with the knowledge of the gospel. People can then message us and ask as many questions as they want. That's how we found Luke, we've been teaching him for sometime and he loves to read the Book of Mormon. His testimony is growing and he's decided to be baptized on the 25th of July! So that's exciting news! He's such a great guy and really loves everything he's learning. Social media contacting is going really well here in Norway and we love the people contacting us who are really interested in learning. 

       Then with sport contacting, we just pull up to a court or soccer field and find some people who'll play. (My companion played soccer at Lone Peak HS so he loves the footy over here) We always ask for their numbers and talk to them about our church while we play, it's dope! But I've learned that people don't like getting schooled by dudes in white shirts and ties! But it's been good, we had tons of lessons and service opportunities this week and we also finally had church IN PERSON!! That was a blessing! We had a girl that we played sport with, earlier in the week, come to church and our friend who's getting baptized.  Also one of the members we've been reactivating showed up with his friend, we we're super excited for such a good turnout for our first Sunday back!           My 19th birthday was this week and our landlords invited us over for some yummy food which was nice. They're an older couple and different missionaries have been living in their basement for years, they love their missionaries but have never joined the church.  So we'll have to work on that... Thanks for all the birthday wishes, I appreciated it! We found so many new people to teach this week, which was good and the members here are dope as well. On Sunday, we had a couple from America smoke us up some ribs on his Traeger for Father's Day, it was heavenly and such a blessing. I found out that's what my family had back home too, kind of funny. Life's good and I'm just chillin living life here, I absolutely love my mission and love living in Norway! I hope everyone Is doing well. 

      Something I liked from my personal study this week is in Revelations! When John the Beloved has a vision and he sees Christ in the midst of 7 candle sticks and 7 stars. Those candle sticks represented the 7 churches of Asia minor (modern day Turkey) but can also represent the church as a whole. Christ is the light and life of the world we need to let His light shine within us and not hide it from others. We need to be the ones sharing his love throughout the world in these crazy times! I love reading the scriptures and coming closer to my Savior, my perspective on life has changed so much by being a full time servant of the Lord and I'm so grateful I get to share this wonderful message with others. Have a good week! 🤠

Eldste Spaddy 🤙🏽

Had some tasty ribs at his house this week and met so many new people through sport contacting that were interested in learning more about why we're here in Norway. 

 Vintage fur coats are so popular here, these are a few I found that I thought were super dope. Volunteering in second hand boutiques creates some interesting finds!

 I sleep outside in my hammock most nights because we don't have any air-conditioning and this is my view from my back porch! This is about as dark as it gets now days as the sun sets at about 11pm, but never really goes all the way down, and then rises around 3am.  God created such a beautiful country when he made Norway! I feel like I'm seriously living in a fairytale...

Week 50 Drammen Norway

This week was pretty good...
        Nothing to crazy just super warm weather, allergies, farmer tans, and getting skunked while fishing. We have a friend that we are teaching and he's super dope! We've gone through the first 3 lessons and answered a ton of his questions and he's loving the Book of Mormon and reading it a ton. We'll probably invite him to be baptized here soon which will be exciting. He recognizes and loves feeling the spirit and he asks a lot of good questions. He brought up the Word of Wisdom the other day so we proceeded to teach him more about it and he said, "yeh man, ever since I read about the Word of Wisdom I've thrown out all my coffee and I don't drink or smoke so now I just have to get off my British breakfast tea! I can do it though, I'll just throw it all out. I feel like it's been easy though because ever since I started talking with you guys it just doesn't taste as good to me!" So that's been a sweet little tender mercy the Lord is blessing him with as he listens to the spirit and reads the Book of Mormon. 
          We do tons of service here which is nice and we've had the opportunity to work at this second hand boutique and help organize stuff and work at the register. While I was working at the register this lady and her kids came in looking for a bible and I thought hey I could help with that but in this place we can't wear our tags so I had to be sneaky about it. She asked where she could find one and I led her on a wild goose chase to the back of the store where there was no bible in sight. Then, we walked back there to help and told her if she couldn't find one we could give her one for free. She gave us her number and then we met up with her like a day later and gave her a bible and some picture bible books for her two sons. Then her father in law came to pick her up and just didn't like us one bit. The next day we pulled up to the church and all the books were sitting there so that was kinda sad.  Just trying to be creative, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. 
          We had a siiiiick p day today. The boys in our zone came over for splits and p day so we woke up early and hit this sick fishing spot, caught some small guys but nothing to big. But then we pulled up to this park and played some footy with people and it was fun but I'm not the best so I was like done after an hour. Then we start walking back and I see a bunch of high school boys playing American Football and I dropped my stuff and started balling with them. I didn't realize at first but they were playing tackle hahaha and it wasn't even a real game it was more like smear the queer and some kid came up to tackled me and I stiff armed him to the ground so hard. Then I just TRUCKED this kid to the ground and It felt soooooo good! They were all so hyped and started chanting my name and just gave me the ball everytime and I was just going off it was so fun. Took me back to the good ol days of playing under the lights with my boys. Then I got all their numbers and a bunch of chicks came up and we're trying to put their numbers in my phone and we just started laughing so hard.  Then we found some people playing basketball and had fun with them too, it was great to be outside. Solid week for sure hope your all doing good!

Eldste Spaddy 

Eldste McSpadden, Sobatka, Judson and Garret

 Eldste Meldrum, Garret and McSpadden

 MLC in Oslo:  Eldste Goodwin, Jackson, Sobatks, Judson, President Tew, Meldrum, McSpadden, Garret, and Van Slooten.

 A note and flower from the girls across the street, Haha! Yes, President let the sisters go teach them with the Elders.

Eldste McSpadden, Luke and Meldrum

Week 49 Drammen Norway (Back in Quarantine)

Aye everyone wassup! 

      It was a good week!  We did get some bad news with COVID, we've been put back in quarantine and are not allowed to proselyte. We have to be invited by members to teach which kidna stinks because we were just getting back into really building relationships with people. It's such a slower pace but it's ok I just have to have patience. 

       So before I left to Drammen, we visited a place called Hell in Trondheim. It was funny and we took some pics there and then we headed to the airport so I could catch my flight to Oslo. I got to the airport and the flight attendant said right before boarding that I had to have a mask to get on the airplane. I was like uh I'm out of luck there, sorry. So I started tripping and I thought I wasn't going to be able to get on the plane but then she went somewhere and found me a mask which was nice of her.  I arrived in Drammen safely and I'm excited to be here! It's the biggest ward in all of Scandinavia and it's sweet. We have young single adults, young men and young women and a primary! The ward is really helpful which is good but the work here is pretty slow so I'm going to have to work hard to change that. It's just hard when we have to wait on other people to text us to meet up and teach but that's ok. Our Facebook ads are working pretty well and we have a new friend we're starting to teach who messaged us, he's from Birmingham and he's dope! He's loving the Book of Mormon which is great!.
       In this area the missionaries are invited over for dinner so much, it's a blessing! Norway is so stinking expensive so I'm always trying to save money and be smart with groceries but we've been blessed with 3 dinners a week which is so nice. We have a good set of weights in this apartment so hopefully I can stay in shape with all these yummy meals, it's so nice of the members . Nothing too crazy interesting but this week is going to be busy with tons of meetings and splits and getting to know members! We did some service for a YSA and we were taking off baseboards and crown molding in a room and I caught a 2×4 to the forehead and cut my hand in the process so Elder Meldrum got a good laugh at that. Also, there's a guy who coaches an American football team and he invited us to come help at practice. I couldn't be more happy to get to throw around a football again. My  comp and I are homies and we get along well so that's good. He played soccer for Lone Peak and our dads know each other from work so it's a good time. Today we are driving down to Oslo to go on a hike with the AP's, President and Sister Tew and hit some swaggy second hand stores that are like famous so that'll be fun. Hope ya'll have a good week! 

Eldste Spaddy 🤘🏽

Week 48 Trondheim Norway

Ayyye wassup everyone, this week was great! 

    Time flies, pretty sad news I got told I'm leaving Tromdheim and being transferred! I was super surprised because I haven't even been to church here yet or even met most the members and the work was just starting to pick up! We had a family that we started working with through my Facebook ad and they are super dope! They are from the Congo and have the CUTEST baby ever she's adorable. They're so prepared and are accepting everything we're teaching them! I bet they will be baptized when this craziness is all over with and church starts up again. That's our biggest obstacle is we don't have church meetings so it's difficult to baptize people when they've never been to church!  

      I'm headed to Drammen down in the south eastern part of Norway which is also exciting too! I'll be a zone leader of the south zone which will be fun because I get to travel a ton to and maybe even head way up north to go on splits but we'll see. Drammen is the biggest ward in Norway so that's fire. I haven't been in a sacrament meeting where I didn't bless or pass the sacrement and give a talk in like 9 months so being here will be sweet! I get to actually work with members and see young single adults and youth which will be fun. 

      This week we had a sweet lesson with Tim Kaholly and his family which was so cool! He had tons of questions about the afterlife so I invited his whole family to come in and sit down to listen. They were the cutest most reverent little homies ever!! I drew the plan of Salvation on a piece of paper and asked them questions, I was prompted to ask the little boy Japhet how Jesus has helped him in his life and he said, "He helped me come to Norway and get a better life and blessed me with a nice family who loves me!"  It was so cute and the spirit was so strong. I Love that family and I pray they continue to progress! 

      Now for some funny stuff, there's this big strip mall with outdoor areas filled with bars, shops, etc... when the weather is good every one is outside, it's crazy. Everyone just walks around in swimsuits because they only get so much warm weather and sunlight during the year. One of out favorite things to do is walk past big crowds of people and just wave at all the people who stare at us and look at us weird. But this time we had a bunch of people stop us and say, "hey boys, can we buy you some beers?!" We just started laughing and politely declined just as this lady came up and started praising us for the work we do and how she's a good Christian. She was a bit drunk and could barely stumble back to her chair but a nice gesture for sure. We played more ball this week and I'm starting to get my touch back, I've never been a shooter but I've been grinding and getting my shot back into a rhythm and it's been paying off. I went off in the first game and hit like 4 threes and had a swaggy pull back and dropped this kid. All the boys started laughing at him and then I drained another 3. Elder Templeton hadn't really had the opportunity to even touch the ball  the whole game because his team didn't pass him the ball so they hadn't seen him play. The next game I got picked first and he got picked LAST and I was dying it was so funny. He goes, "man this is the first time in my life I've been picked last in a game of basketball" and we were laughing about it the whole night. But then he went off the next game and these guys were like "daaaaaang man this white kid can BALL! Ya'll sleepin on him!" We were just crying laughing so hard, I'm going to miss Elder Templeton we've had such a good time together and we're definitely homies for life. I'm happy he lives close so we can mob when we get back home. 

       Sunday was like my going away dinner so the senior couple made me roast, potatoes and gravy and it was so good I ate myself sick. Like literally I couldn't walk home I felt so sick and I kept telling Elder Templeton " dude I'm going to throw up" and he's like you better tell me so I can video it. We kept walking and a group of girls walk by and I said hello to them and I just about hurled right in front of them. I kept her down and manned through it but I was so lucky, Elder Templeton was laughing so hard at me while he was videoing me just in case. 

      Saturday we had a meetup with a bunch of Americans at some park thing and it was dope to be able to talk to some fellow Patriots. Breaks my heart seeing the way people are acting back home right now and I loved President Nelson's advice he sent out! I also like a quote by Ezra Taft Benson that says something like, "The only thing that can keep this world from self destruction and bring everything and everyone together is the Gospel of Jesus Christ."  I know that's true with all my heart. Going to miss this place and the people here but stoked to keep experiencing Norway! Have a great week everybody!

Eldste McSpadden

Last P-day with Elder Templeton, we headed over to an Island where Vikings would execute people and put there enemies heads on sticks to scare away people coming to the island.