Week 81 Oslo Norway

 Hey everyone! 

    Another crazy week here, so just as we thought things were about to lighten up it went waaaaay south! We just bought all the tickets and hotels and trains for everyone and then instead of releasing lighter regulations they made it even worse! The British strand of the virus came into Norway and they had like 20 cases and they freaked out and literally shut the whole city of Oslo down. Only grocery stores, and gas at the gas stations are open. Every thing else is closed. Not a single restaurant or store! That was a big bummer but then President Tew called us and said, "the lockdown starts tonight at 5, pack your bags for a week and your moving in with Sister Tew and I so we can still meet and hold conferences!" So I've been living at the mission home for the week. We brought all our laptops and paperwork and study materials and clothes for a week and we've been grinding! It's been a good time, we had a ton of stuff planned and activities ready to go for the week but then we had to cancel all of it and we aren't flying up to Trondheim anymore but we set up our office in the basement and have been doing the work! We've had tons of lessons and lots of good food. Søster Tew  is a healthy food fanatic so we've been making some good stuff, especially her middle eastern food! She lived in Iran as a child and grew up loving that stuff so she makes some pretty amazing dishes. They live in the suburbs just outside of Oslo up in the mountains and it's very peaceful. I got the idea to design our own pass along cards with QR codes on them that are linked to our social media accounts and we just give them out to people and start normal conversations with them when we go on walks to get some fresh air. When we heard about the big lockdown I just got so frustrated with the whole corona again. So I did like 70 pushups then started studying the scriptures, and sure enough that days reading was in Mosiah 23, so I start reading and started laughing and was like well God gives us answers to our prayers! As I read verses 21 - 22 

        21 "Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith."

22 "Nevertheless—whosoever putteth his trust in him the same shall be lifted up at the last day. Yea, and thus it was with this people."

So this week I am working on patience! Hope you all have a good one 🙌🏽

Eldste Spaddy 

Week 80 Oslo Norway

 Wow this week was pretty crazy,

    It started off pretty normal with teachings and stuff and then it got crazy! I took a fat L in one of my posts on Facebook this week... so in Norwegian they have a word for a girl that is a friend that is different from a friend that is a dude. But in English that doesn't exist, so after I reposted a video that we made of Vilde (a recent convert ) the next day our mission president's wife comes up and says, "Hey Elder McSpadden, I loved the video you reposted but I have a question about what you said". Then proceeded to show me the English translation that Facebook used and it said,   "Here is a video of my girlfriend, Vilde and how she received her testimony about the church!" And I just started laughing so hard. So ya, I had to change that but the funny thing is that most of our phones are in Norwegian so I would have never seen the English translation, I'm glad she came up and told me because I would've never known.

     We had a ton of meetings trying to figure out what we wanted to do with moves and zone conferences with all the corona rules. So we planned out most of the stuff and got that ready and felt good about it. Then last night the prime Minister released new rules that said we could gather up to 10 people... but we have 20 missionaries in 3 of our zones and then us President Tew and 1 senior couple. So we grinded, regrouped and started buying plane tickets and hotels in order to reorganize our zone conferences we knew our missionaries needed to see each other. When you live in Norway and don't get to see the sun for most of the winter and then have to stay inside because of Corona a lot of missionaries get depressed. So we're trying to make it so all the missionaries have the chance to see other missionaries and let them have an in person zone conference. We finished at like 11 with buying all the train tickets, flights and bus passes and organizing who's going where and who's staying with who while making sure President can try to get in person interviews with everyone it was crazy. And to put the cherry on top a missionary who is flying to a new area forgot to take the keys for the van out of his pocket, it was sitting in the middle of a round about with it's hazard lights on! So we had to call a bunch of people to see who could run down there, get a spare key and then have another set of missionaries pick up the keys at the train stop before the airport. It all worked out and we got er done! Super fun week for sure, we've just been doing office work a ton then going out on hikes and teaching people in the mountains, it's so dope! I think I ate an actual dinner 2 times this week but that's ok you get in this mode of grinding and you just kind of forget. 

    About 2 weeks ago there was a massive landslide/sink hole that happened about an hour outside of Oslo and the Red Cross was needing some help with all sorts of things. 9 houses and a bunch of apartment buildings just collapsed and sunk down into the ground/ocean it was really sad.  Twelve people died! So President had us gather as many missionaries as we could to help box up food, clothes, toys and other things for all the family's that were affected. There were so many donations it was insane! 

    I've been studying this week the story about Abinadi. When he was brought forth before King Noah and was asked questions and given the opportunity to deny what he said, he bore testimony of the truthfulness of what he said then called the king and his priests unto repentance. Instead of backing down to the majority and going with the flow he stood up for what he believed. He didn't back down just because the king told him he would be killed for what he had said. The interesting thing is that King Noah was touched by the spirit and felt that the words Abinadi said were true and it scared him, but his priests pressured him into killing Abinadi. So in today's world there are a lot of things that the "majority" is choosing, but we can't fall for that just because everyone else is doing it. Stand up for what you know, truth is truth and doctrine is doctrine.

 Hope you all have a good week! 

Eldste Spaddy 🤙🏽

My hot chocolate cup Vilde's sister made me!

We have a grill on our deck with a heat lamp, I love it!

Nico, a recent convert, we happened to run into while we were out. 

A funny park with statutes everywhere, Norwegian art! 

Week 79 Oslo Norway

Hey!

    Don't have too much time but this week was good, a lot of things to do so we kept really busy. I've learned a lot about receiving revelation and being guided by the spirit from being around President Tew, he's such a stud. We started working on transfer boards and getting things planned and purchased for our next transfers.  Our sacrament meeting this week I asked 2 of the people that I had the chance to baptize (Vilde and Luke)  to speak in our zoom meeting and they KILLED it. So that was exciting and good to hear from them. Went on a hike today and had a good view of Oslo so that was fun. 

Hope you all have good week.

Eldste McSpadden