Week 64 Drammen Norway

 Hey everyone another great week has gone by, we've been pretty busy! 

      Shout out to my parents who both had birthdays this past week they're the best!! We had Zone conference and splits this week with the Elders who live up north in Tromsø so that was fun. We picked them up from the airport and they stayed with us for Zone Conference then we took them on splits the day after. Zone conference was really good and we had the meetings in our church building in Drammen this time. I had such a strong feeling to invite 2 of our more recent converts to come with us and to invite our friend Bjørn! They were so excited for the invite and all said they loved it.  I'm so glad they were all able to attend the meeting with us,  it was very uplifting and spiritual as always. We talked a lot about the importance of using members and how it helps the missionaries so much when members are involved. I asked Vilde, the girl who we just baptized, to tell her conversion story and give a presentation on how finding her in a more normal natural way was a lot better than if we would of knocked on her door.  She said she would of never let us in so getting to know her through softball, while playing on a team with other members, built trust. She talked about how we need to be friends with people and the gospel will come up because of who we are and who we represent. She did such a great job, it was awesome and motivating to all the missionaries to go out and find more people to teach! She's a great member missionary, so on fire with learning more about the gospel and sharing it with others. Bjørn loved it as well and was eating up every word. Before Zone Conference, I had the feeling to ask President Tew if he had a copy of the book "A marvelous Work and a Wonder" in Norwegian for Bjorn to borrow. He told me he had one sitting on his bookshelf and he'd grab it before he came to Drammen for our meetings.  After our meetings he gave it to Bjørn to read and the man was so happy. He said he went home and read all through the night and that  it helped answer so many more of his questions, it was so cool! He has PTSD from stuff that happened when he was younger so its actually really hard for him to read but he says when he reads the Book of Mormon and the other books we give him it's like he can't stop. He read the entire book in one night and said, "alright boys I need to buy this book go find it for me and it doesn't matter the price!" He's just eating up the gospel and definitely "feasting on the words" love this man, it's so cool to see him grow spiritually. We had 2 lessons with him this week and we invited 2 different members to join us because they both have cool conversion stories and strong testimonies so it was awesome for him to hear. 

     We were invited to a little bonfire up in mountains with this other girl we're teaching and she invited some of her friends. We brought Vilde with us and it was such a great experience to be outside talking with this group of friends about our beliefs. One of her guy friends mom just recently passed away and was asking us tons of questions and is open to religion! So that was sweet! They said they wanted to come to church this Sunday, which'll be good. 

     I was reading in Mormon this week when it talks about all the wicked people that were around him and he's just being faithful and leading the armies even though they are all unrighteous. It's a great example to all of us to stay strong even when we feel like everything and everyone around us is going crazy. I love the principles that are taught in the Book of Mormon and I know when we read it every day we receive protection, guidance and revelation in our lives. Have a good week! 

Eldste Spaddy 🤙🏽

A little paintball fun on p day!

Teaching the gospel around a campfire!

Love our trainings with Bjorn

A cool member family that feeds us quite a bit! 

Week 63 Drammen Norway

 Another week down, we're just working and grinding with the work here in Norway. 

     We had another great lesson with Bjørn and I feel like we helped answer some of his questions, which was good. It's so interesting to me to observe people when they're just focusing on the Bible and see how confused they get but when we read from the Book of Mormon it clarifies and answers all of their questions. The spirit is reassuring and constantly testifying to me of the truth of the Book of Mormon each time I teach others about it. I love this gospel and I know it's true!!  

        We had a BBQ with the ward on Saturday it was so fun. We invited 8 non members and some less actives and they pulled up, which was dope! All of our ward  members were talking to them it was great! We cooked up some burgers and we're supposed to have a wing making competition but when they found out the American missionaries were competing they bailed, haha! I guess they knew they couldn't compete against the honey bbq wings 🙌🏽 we used to make back home, shoutout to the boys for wing night Thursdays. Oh I forgot, before our BBQ we were invited to a 7th day Adventist church and oh man that was quite an experience. I've been to a couple different churches while being here and it was by far the weirdest one. Jehovah's Witnesses are just really boring and can't stop talking about how brother Russell found out that Gods name is Jehovah. The Pinsy Church is just a Christian dance party while they read random bible verses then have cake and coffee afterwards. But this one was different, we showed up to the bible study before and listened to what they had to say and it was so funny what they discussed. Then the service began and we walked in and their was a big back drop with like animated pictures of statues, lions, bears, dragons breathing fire and a bunch of other weird things. The "come follow me" for their church that week was the book of Daniel. This old rich preacher dude just stood up and would read off different prophecies from the book of Daniel and then try to tell us what it meant and I couldn't help but laugh. I was really respectful but then he said,  "if any of you don't believe this you will be cast into the fiery furnace!" Then he slowly backed up while the lights dimmed and the choir popped up and started singing about the Fiery Furnace. Big testimony building experience for me to know without a doubt that I'm teaching, as a missionary, others about the true church and I know that it was restored through prophets with the priesthood.  

       We lifted a lot with Bjørn this week and he's been working with us to improve our form because he's a powerlifting judge as well. We've been helping him spiritually and he's been working with us physically, it's a lot of fun. We balled up some kids again this week and some random guy from Poland, who was like 45, pulled up and started BALLING. Dude couldn't miss but he was reaching left and right so I crossed him up with some dirty handles. BUT then the drive right after that I came down the middle of the key and this dude FLEW outta nowhere and swatted the crap out of me it was so funny he was hyped. Then today for p day we woke up and rearranged our apartment and made a homemade gym in the living room. We borrowed a few weights from Bjørn and set up a bench and some dumb bells then a pull up area outside. We've also been practicing throwing darts on our dart board to try and beat Bjørn because he's so good. Then we played paint ball with a bunch of YSA and non members It was sick. Most of the Norwegians didn't know how to shoot a gun so we lit them up, it was so funny. We have Zone conference this week so that'll be cool!

     On a more spiritual note, I loved a personal study I had this week. I'm reading in The Book of Mormon at the end of 3 Nephi when Christ had just visited the Americas and gathered his disciples and then the prophets started preaching repentance to all the people. In chapter 32 it's 2 verses that tell them to repent of all there sins, murders, plunderings, whoredoms and all kinds of iniquity. Then in 4 Nephi it says that the people listened to them and began to repent. They stopped having division among them and the names, " Nephites and Lamanites" were done away with and the people were unified and they were all one. Then in the next verse it says that there was never a more happier group of people in the history of the creations of God than that group of people at that time because they showed love towards each other and were one in Christ. I wish I could have Trump read those two chapters to the world so everyone could just chill out. It's so sad to see people so divided and cause so much hate amongst each other. The only solution to this problem is Christ, if we all show Christlike love to each other and follow Gods commandments we can be the happiest people ever! I know that's true because I have experienced it in my life. Hope you all have a good week and try to be Christ like to those around you! 

Eldste Spaddy! 🤠

Week 62 Drammen Norway

 Another week down! 

     This one was good as well, we had a lot of opportunities to do service and have been playing sport as well. There's a sand volleyball court pretty close to our apartment and the Bishop and a bunch of the members love it, so we invite all of our friends and we play Thursday nights it's so fun. Reminds me of when the boys would hit Lone Peak pond and play and then grill after and play spike ball. It was funny because after playing this week our bishop was like let's organize a ward activity and have spike ball sand volleyball and grilling! I'll get it set up and you guys just invite all your friends and we will fellowship them. It was awesome, so that's this Saturday let's just hope it doesn't rain like it always does here. We've done quite a bit of service for this family in our ward who has a lot of young kids. They just moved into this new house and the yard is soooooo overgrown so we've been ripping out bushes cutting down trees and all that it's actually fun. I think of it as our yard now because we've worked on it so much and I feel like the inner Utah dad is coming out in me. I love looking at a freshly cut well taken care of lawn! But the most exciting part of this week was our lessons with Bjørn! Last week I asked him the question, "So what are you going to do if you find out the Book of Mormon really is true and this is Christ's church here on the earth?" And he said that's a great question let me think on it. Then we came back on Monday for our lesson and our heavy bench day and he brought up baptism and said, "I feel like there's nothing wrong with it and I'm getting caught up in the small stuff, maybe I need to show God some faith that I really do want to follow Christ's example." So we set a baptismal date for the 3 of October. He got pretty excited and called Luke ( the guy we baptized back in July that moved back to England) and told him about it and Luke is going to come to Norway for the baptism so that'll be awesome! Then we had a great workout and and pumped some iron. Today we went on this siiiiick hike it was crazy. This country is so beautiful it's literally a dream! Hope ya'll have a good week 🙌🏽💪🏽

Eldste McSpadden 

 

Week 61 Drammen Norway

       This week was good, its crazy how fast they've been coming though. I feel like I write these things every other day but we're busy doing the Lords work which is awesome. We had some good lessons and training sessions with Bjørn this week which was awesome. He came to church and loved it which was so great to see! Those are the moments you love being on a mission. We had splits with the boys last week and I got to see my boy Elder Templeton and we balled some kids up! Then we did some service for Vilde and her family. We went up to their family farm and pounded some fence posts in for their sheep and horses. Then they fed us and we spanked them in a round of darts! 

    Sunday we had church which is always awesome. We get to partake of the sacrament and renew our covenants with our Father in heaven. We've been filming this video with a lot of the members and are going to publish it on Facebook and see what can happen it'll be cool. Basically like the 60 beliefs in 60 seconds video. Then Sunday night we drove down to Oslo for a mission leadership meeting and stayed with President and Sister Tew. We got them all to ourselves this time because the other Elders flights didn't get in until 11 so we had some good conversations and studied the scriptures it was awesome. I have been blessed with amazing mission parents!  

       Monday we had our MLC meeting and that went way good and I got to see Elder and Sister Jackson again which was awesome! They fed us some money pancakes with buttermilk white syrup and I almost shed a tear of joy I was so happy. Those 2 are legends for sure. Then we balled some kids up in Oslo Sentrum! These guys were a lot better then the usual dudes we play with so we had to go hard. These guys were all 6 foot 8 black dudes throwing down and we kept up. They were getting so frustrated I would just put a move on them and then drive and they were just slipping and sliding left and right. All their boys were like, "where you aaattttt booiii!" It was so funny. But I gained respect from the guys so that's what was important. Sadly none of them wanted to hear about the church but now they know the Mormon boys ain't messin around! Then we had a good p day with some hikes and yummy kebab's with the boys. They started having riots here in Norway and it was so funny to see all the Norwegians get so mad at the minority people doing it because they were all for it when it was in America because it was equality but now they're saying its gotten " out of hand" ha made me laugh. Hope the legend himself gets another term in presidency so we can keep our country GREAT!! God bless the USA have a good week! 

Eldste Spaddy