Week 56 Drammen Norway

This week was one to remember for sure! 

        We had a good busy week with a full schedule but the highlight was the weekend! Luke was baptized on Saturday and it went so well! A ton of members showed up and brought cakes and a variety of food to serve afterwards. Luke is a great missionary as he invited so many friends and family and now we're teaching some of them because of it! It was truly an amazing experience! Right before we both walked down into the water (which ended up being freezing cold because we filled it up to early) we were in the changing room and I said, "Luke this is the best decision you will make in your life right here hands down, don't ever forget this and never forget or throw away the answers you've received from God" and he said, "Not a chance mate, no way I could forget the things I've experienced and the knowledge I have!" It was really motivating and so inspiring to me to know that he knows without a doubt this gospel is true! Super cool, then after that we went over to his house and the family had tons of food and Russian dancing going on it was a blast. On Sunday, Luke and I had the opportunity to speak in church and he KILLED it! You would of thought he'd been a member his whole life and it made it even better that he did it in Norwegian! He's from England and has been living in Norway for only a year and speaks very well. Then I had the opportunity, with his permission, to tell his story from my point of view and bore testimony that there are people out there prepared to hear the gospel and we can't listen to the people who say there aren't. We've got a living witness right here and it amped up the members in our ward to do more missionary work! When he received the Holy Ghost, he said he had a tingling feeling the whole time and he'd never felt it that strong before. He felt as if he could feel the Holy Ghost physically with him at that time! It was awesome and such a testimony building experience for all of us who witnessed it.  
           Monday, we had a little MLC zoom meeting with the other Zone leaders, President Tew and the assistants were talking about how technology has changed missionary work so much! Then a member of the area presidency joined our meeting and asked us to tell our story of how we've been doing things here in Norway and how it's been working. It was so cool because he said they've loved seeing what we've been doing and have been impressed with the ideas we've come up with and how we've really figured out how to use social media to find people who want to learn more.  He said they've taken the videos and ads (including my snowman one) we've been producing and showed them to "a man named Dieter who then showed it to a man named Russell" haha it was great! We're down to 38 missionaries in the whole country of Norway soon and they haven't forgotten about us. We have been blessed to have such amazing tools from the Lord to help us further His work here with all the craziness that's gone on. I'm so grateful to be learning good healthy ways to use technology to the fullest, I've always thought of it as a huge waste of time but it really works to spread the word of God! 
     We had a good p day, of course we went fishing again, caught a nice mackerel but nothing else. Still trying to figure out how to fish the ocean. We're super stoked for Vilde's baptism on Saturday as well, which will be sweet! She's been progressing a ton and even though tons of people are against it she says, "I'm not doing it for anyone else, I'm doing it because I know it's right for me and a can't deny the answers I've received!" Super proud of her and all she's done. We also had a softball tournament on Saturday and that was fun we balled out but came up short in second place. After the game my comp and I were interviewed for the post game recap and we made some pretty funny comments about not drinking enough protein and the fact we didn't hit enough dingers. I hit 2 Homer's so I think I did ight! I've been thinking a lot about Jesus Christ's Atonement this week and how it can change people so dramatically including myself! The atonement can change the nature of someone if we let it and we must USE  it every day. I love the way Kenney Chesney and Randy Travis put it in their song called "Baptism" it says, "It went down with the old man, and up with the new one!" Christ's  atonement can cleanse us from anything and everything IF we allow it to and are humble enough. 
Have a good one 🤠🙌🏽

Eldste Spaddy

MLC with President Tew, amazing man!

Service with Luke 

Luke lives with Bjorn 

Baptism day!

Celebration after the baptism, so much support.

Bjorn is a true Viking!

Eldste Meldrum, Vilde , Luke and I

Softball tournament with Vilde and our team!!

New name tags without our personal names on them. Our mission president requested them to see how it would work and it's amazing how much less we have to explain. Elder in Norwegian means oldest brother and it was so confusing to everyone. Times are changing for the good!! I love how forward thinking our president is and how he's always willing to listen to our thoughts. Being our normal selves is how we teach...

Week 55 Drammen Norway

Hey everyone this week was good we had a lot of good lessons with Luke and Vilde! 

      Luke was so excited as he successfully made it through his baptismal interview and is so ready to be baptized on Friday! I'm super stoked for that and way proud of him. Vilde is grinding on reading the Book of Mormon and we were blessed to be able to meet with her family today and answer TONS of questions about everything and anything you can think of. There is some weird stuff people say about us and it's nice to clear things up. But she will be baptized next Saturday so that's super dope as well! 

     We went fishing again today for p day and I caught one but he slipped off as I pulled him in so I'm still in a slump but I'm hoping to get out of it soon, no worries. We had MLC down in Oslo which is always good and as we ate some good food and had a great discussion on how we can better help the Norway mission. With this corona deal we could be down to 38 missionaries throughout the entire country soon so lots of changes are happening but we're figuring it out. I may or may not have stopped by the Nike store while I was in the city and tried on some fresh kicks.... y'all know shoes are my thing so I had to get myself a late birthday present. I needed a new pair anyways because last week while I was playing with some kids I ripped through my other pair so I had to get some new ones. 

     Other than that I've just been studying the Old Testament and reading a book called "The Blessings of Abraham". That book is insane and has some way cool stuff to learn about in there. President let me check it out of his " Library" and it's a banger. This week I thought a lot about how blessed I am to be a missionary in this crazy time! I've learned so much and I've been able to grow a ton. So glad I have 2 years to learn as much as I can on how to prepare myself for the rest of life. I know that if we stick to the principles of the gospel "every little thing's gunna be alright" as Bob Marley puts it 🤙🏽

Eldste Spaddy 🤠

We saw the cutest baby seal today while we were fishing!  I tried to touch him but he kept trying to bite me...

Week 54 Drammen Norway

Wassup everyone, this week was sick! 
       Time is flying by and it's getting closer and closer to our 2 baptisms which is so exciting! We've been doing a lot of service, playing sport and having lessons with people. Life's good here in Norway and being a missionary is sick! It's by far the best decision I've made up to this point in my life! We found a streetball group that we play ball with and it's been fun because they're actually pretty good and can play which is nice. Most of them are from the Philippines and have heard of the church so it's been a good contacting way! So with Corona and all the rules we haven't been able to contact on the streets or knock doors but President sent out a message letting us know that since its summer break and tons of people are up hiking in the mountains we can set 3-4 hours aside every Saturday to go up and hike! Being in the mountains and contacting people is a more "normal" way to find people here in Norway because that's where everyone is all the time. So that's been awesome and fun and if any of you know me I love being up in the mountains. Makes me think of hitting AF canyon with the boys and mobbing up there. 
         We went on splits with the APs this week down in Oslo and mobbed there with the boys it was a good time. I've been learning a lot of different ways to use social media as a missionary and it helps to share all our ideas and what the church is recommending too. A cool spiritual experience we had this week was when our friend Vilde, who is getting baptized August 1st, had some questions answered in a really cool way. We had a lesson up in the mountains, while we made tinfoil dinners and roasted marshmallow's for s'mores, and talked about her thoughts on why she wants to be baptized. She said, "it just feels right and I feel like I fit in here" but her friends have been giving her tons of crap for it and she's started having doubts about her decision. We asked her to pray about it again and let her know we knew her prayers would be answered. Then the next day was Sunday and she ended up sleeping in on accident and missed our 10am meeting and called to ask us if she should come late or wait til the 12 o clock time? We told her to just come at 12, so she came and no kidding every single talk literally were all based around her questions. One after another people stood up and their topics were on the exact questions she had the day before and had been praying about.  We leaned over and said, "if your still looking for an answer I think the Lord is giving it to you right now!" And she said, "I know I feel like all of these talks were directed right towards me," and then started to cry a little. It was awesome, I had never seen someone's questions answered so clearly in that way. Another super strong testimony to me that the power of prayer really works and now she says her doubts are gone and she knows being baptized is the  right decision. Super grateful I was lucky enough to witness such a tender mercy from our Heavenly Father. He knows each of us and wants us to have faith and never doubt.  
        Another dope thing that happened this week was my trainer Elder Lindberg from Denmark came back to Norway for a visit. He came and mobbed with us for our p day and it was so much fun.  We went on a dope hike with him and his family called Gaustatoppen, Vilde and her husky came with us too. They also brought me all of my favorite Danish food, it was super nice of them. You make friends for life on a mission and I'm so glad I got to see them again and had the opportunity to speak some Danish. 
Solid week for sure, hope y'all keep it real! 

 Gaustatoppen hike on p day with my trainer from Denmark.

 Lindberg's sister, his friend from Denmark, his little brother Benji, me, Lindberg, Eldste Meldrum, Vilde and her dog.

Week 53 Drammen Norway

Hey everybody! 
    First off want to shout out to America for being the greatest country ever and for the freedom we have!! Living in a different country with VERY different views on all sorts of stuff makes you appreciate the land of the free and home of the brave! Hope you all had a good time celebrating with BBQ's, fireworks, shooting guns, boating and living up the freedom we've fought for. We threw a 4th of July party with some Americans in our ward and it turned out great! We grilled and played spike ball and then got a big game of flag football going it was great. After that we went back and grilled again! We ate grill food for like 4 days in a row it was amazing. 
     It was a solid week we have 2 baptismal dates planned in about 3 weeks which is dope!! Super stoked for that!! Then we played lots of sand volleyball and sport with people and made some homies. Nothing to special but I finished the New Testament and started the Old Testament and it was so dope! I love growing my knowledge of the scriptures and of God and it's super interesting. 
Hope y'all have a good one!!