Week 92 & 93 Oslo Norway

 Wow what a week! 

    I didn't have much time to write last week but we had a lot of lessons and teaches it was sweet! Our friend, who was self referred, is doing well and reading the Book of Mormon. Hopefully we can get a baptismal date with him soon. We also did a lot of finding because we knew we would be traveling a lot this week so we found 3 new people which was solid. Then we went to the golf range and hit a few balls last week with the member who is a pro golfer and owns a course here in Norway, which was a blast. She's an awesome member and golfer! I'm a bit rusty but finally hit some nice shots after a couple of hard slices. 

    Sunday night we caught our flight up to northern Norway for splits and Zone conference. We arrived in Harstad and went on splits Monday and grinded with Elder Ence and Graff. They're solid elders and good guys! My companion was able to meet his grandpa for the first time too, we have dinner with his moms aunt tonight and was able to say hi to his moms childhood friend while we've been up here. Then for P day we got the chance to visit the Lofoten Islands!! It was literally a chance of a lifetime and a dream come true for me, it is considered one of the most beautiful places on earth! We went on a dope hike and saw the city of Reine from the top of some mountains, it was amazing! The people who live here fish, hike and eat dried cod heads. Then we drove down to Bodø and will be having zone conference there tomorrow. Then after that we will fly down to Bergen and go on splits there then have the last zone conference for the transfer. It's always fun to be able to travel around and go on splits with people and hold zone conferences it's been a blast. Being on the Lord's errand is always amazing! I've been reading in the Book of Mormon in the war chapters. And it's crazy to see how many insights you can receive from chapters that are filled with so much fighting. One thing I have seen is how guided Moroni was during all the the wars he went through. He was patient, humble and relied so much on the spirit. Even during times of fighting and hatred he was listening to the whisperings of the spirit which was motivating to me to know that we can always rely on the spirit even in crazy times for both spiritual and physical things. Hope you all have a solid week and remember to rely on the spirit in all things.  

Eldste Spaddy 🙌🏽

Week 91 Oslo Norway

 What a week! 

    Man conference was legendary holy cow! We didn't get to watch the last session live because of the time change but when I woke up the next morning and my phone had blown up with so many messages, I really thought people were messing with me so we pulled up the talk and we LOST it! Agh this is literally going to change the game for missionary work and members here. We can just imagine the missionaries in like 3 years taking all the investigators through the temple open house and so many Norwegians are going to love a big beautiful building like that so they will all wonder what it is. And then getting all the members here going through the temple as well! It's a big problem here that people have not received their endowments and you can just tell they are missing something. So it will be a big turn around for this beautiful country! Elder Bednar came to Norway awhile back and gave the saints a promise that if they start helping with missionary work and following the commandments that there WOULD be a temple built here and that they will have to stop holding talks in sacrament because they will be confirming so many people and giving them the gift of the holy ghost. And its amazing to be a part of that prophecy as it's being fulfilled! Definitely a conference to remember for me. The talks were amazing as well! I loved so many of them I don't even know where to start. But one of them was by sister Jones when she talked about the importance of helping kids gain their testimony! Conversion is not a coincidence, it is nurtured and cared for in the home! I wish more people would get that here because they let their kids decide what they do with there lives at 11 years old. Then another one was by Renlund about how things are not fair and we can't get offended. Being offended is a choice and not something that other people can force upon us. And then President Nelson's talk on faith! That man is such a stud he is definitely a man of God. 

    We had a solid week teaching wise as well! We had been in the office for hours doing some office work and then we just pulled out the old paper area book and started calling people. We found 2 people to teach that had previously met with missionaries because of it and then we got my first SOLID referral on my mission! It was a self referral who requested a Book of Mormon. His name was Alex Locke and I told my companion "I bet he's a British bloke that was raised here!" Low and behold we show up and the dude tells us his parents are from the UK but he was raised here. Then we started asking about how he knew about the church and why he wanted a Book of Mormon? And he proceeds to tell us that he was playing Star Wars Galaxy on the X Box with some returned missionaries from Utah and he asked them about what they believe and they told him to go to cometochrist.org and request a Book of Mormon and the missionaries will be on your doorstep within 24 hours. So after he got done playing at like 2 am he got online and ordered one. Then when we woke up we got ahold of him and had a solid lesson at 11 that morning! Super solid guy was stoked to read the book and watched all the general conference sessions.... Live! So it'll be exciting to see where this bloke goes. We planned our zone conferences and bought our flight tickets to Northern Norway and Bergen for zone conferences this transfer! So that will be good. Crazy to think this is my 2nd to last set of zone conferences which is weird to think about. But I'm excited to grind and keep the ball rolling as summer comes and the weather is getting better and the days are getting longer! Being a missionary is awesome and I'm excited to finish strong! 

Eldste McSpadden

Week 89 & 90 Oslo Norway

 Sorry I didn't write an email last week I didn't realize until it was to late! 

    So I will just go through the past two weeks. It was the end of the transfer so we had to get moves all figured out and planned which is a big sit down session. Planning out how all the missionaries are going to fly, drive or take a train to their new areas while having a companion and getting all the keys and sim cards to the right people can take awhile. So we grinded that out last week and then it was so satisfying to see our plan just unfold perfectly until one of the  elders flight was cancelled because of bad weather so then we had to get a hold of his companion up north and tell him to miss huis flight so that the young elder up there wouldn't be stuck at the airport with no companion and no driver's license! Everything worked out. 

    This week was the beginning of the transfer and we had mission leadership council so we figured out all the corona rules then planned according to those, but come to find out they switched them and then we had to cancel a ton of flights for the zone leaders and STLs flying into Oslo. But we had a good meeting on zoom and then President Tew asked me to bare my testimony because he doesn't know who will be on MLC next transfer and that was weird to think about! It's crazy how fast time is going, we've just been trying to grind and find as many people as we can. We found 2 solid people this week and had 2 great lessons with them before they headed back to Croatia! They had friends who were Mormons and they knew a BYU legend who was from Croatia and played at the Y then was converted and moved back to Croatia and basically opened up the church there. His name was like Coşić or something but they were super positive and were so interested in the plan of salvation. So they are stoked to meet with the missionaries there. We met a group of theologians on Facebook and have had some group calls where  we just study together and read from the Book of Mormon. They haven't been to bible bashy which is good but we'll see. Something I read from my personal study this week was in Alma 32. It's a chapter I have read countless times but I pulled some new insights out of it again. It talks about how the poor are the ones who are humble because they were forced to be humble but were more willing to accept the message of Christ. But think about how blessed the people will be who choose to humble themselves before the Lord and accept his message. There are a lot of people in Norway who have everything they want and they don't think they need religion which is sad. But the people who choose to humble themselves and accept His message will be blessed in an even greater degree! And it's a blessing to be able to see that. 

Hope you have great week! 

Week 88 Oslo Norway

 Wow this week was legendary! 

    We were super busy with a lot of stuff. We started off by flying up to Trondheim on Wednesday and got to meet some of the members there that I knew from when I served there. The next day we had our last zone conference with the west coast zone and it went super well! We hyped up the missionaries and then went out on splits with some of them and showed them how to street contact. We have a lot of young missionaries who have never done this stuff because of Corona so we're just grinding and getting them hyped about old school finding ways. Then the next day we rented a car and drove down to Kristiansund and visited an investigator and the Branch President of the small group that meets there. We ate some really good food and I've decided that reindeer steak is my favorite meat now! We went out that night and went fishing with this guy my companion use to teach and we got some cool pics with his camera. Then he said to us, " it looks like the northern lights are going to be out tonight" so then we got hyped but ended up leaving and then they came out after we went to bed I was so sad. The next day we packed up and drove down to Ålesund!! It was so good to be back there, we met up with my boys Kjell and Kimbo and we had a bonfire and roasted hot dogs and had a nice good talk. Then later that night after we got home we get a call from Robert ( the guy from Kristiansund ) saying that the northern lights were out again!! So we sprinted outside and up a hill and we saw them!! I was so hyped it's been one of my goals here and I finally got to see them after 20 months! They faded pretty quick so I didn't get any good pictures but we had a feeling they were going to come back so we waited and waited. All the people who were waiting with us on that hill including President and Sister Tew left and went home. But we waited and then they came back very slightly but then out of nowhere this dude comes out of the bushes with a nice camera and tells us he takes photos of the northern lights and that this was super rare to see them this far below the arctic circle so we were lucky. He had some cool attachments on his camera to where he could pick up more light when he took pictures and then he said, "well do you guys want some?" so he took some pics of us and they looked super cool. We were so stoked afterwards. We woke up the next day and had church in the little old bakery! It brought back so many good memories and made me realize how much I've grown these last 2 years since my first area in Alesund. My mission has changed me so much and I'm eternally grateful for it. After that we went on a cool hike with Fride and Ida (two recent converts me and my comp taught) and some of their friends to the place Ida was baptized. It was up the mountain under this cool waterfall. It was totally out in the middle of no where but the view was amazing. She lives back in the boonies out in this fjord and it's such a pretty place. Then the next day we packed up and headed 9 hours back home to Oslo. We had planned on going to some world famous hikes but they were all closed because of bad weather. It started snowing and got super foggy so we didn't get to see some of the crazy cool nature we were driving through but it's ok because I've done that drive before. Me and my trainer took the car up there and opened up the area baptized some people and helped out as much as we could and now a year and a half later I drove it back down and the branch is probably going to close down soon. It was sad to see but it is what it is. 

    I've been reading a ton recently and just finished a book called Faith is Not Blind. I would HIGHLY recommend it to everyone, it was amazing. But on the way home after we switched driving I started another book called "Yearning for the Living God" and it's about a general authority by the name of F. Enzio Busche who was raised in Germany during Hitler's regime and his conversion story and how he yearned to find God amongst all the evil around him. It is truly an amazing book. I really loved some of the comments he made. First "We must have as our objective the desire to live by the Spirit,  to be guided by the spirit, to act by the Spirit, to teach by the Spirit, and to decide by the Spirit. Then we CANNOT fail!" That is so true, we must have our goals focused on those 5 aspects. And If we do so we cannot fail, and even though we are not perfect we can try our hardest. There's an analogy that President Packer gave in a talk that I loved. He said “If you take a letter half the distance to a mailbox and stop, then start over going half the remaining distance and stop, then repeat the process over and over, theoretically will you ever really get to the mailbox?” One bright student said, “No, but you’ll get close enough to mail the letter.” We cannot reach perfection in this life but we can get close enough to deliver the letter if we really try. But how do we continue forward if it seems like we plateau? Elder Bushce explained it well, "When we are on a spiritual plateau it is necessary for us to understand that we cannot do beyond that plateau until we increase our level of sacrifice and our ability to take one step further!" 

Hope you all have a great week! 

Eldste McSpadden 🤠

They love trolls in Norway!

Our 9 hour drive back home to Oslo.

The Northern lights were amazing!  

Funky bridge where mission impossible was filmed!

Week 87 Oslo Norway

 Aye everyone this week was sweet! 

    We had a busy schedule and a lot of stuff to do. We had 2 zone conferences this week which was exciting so we road tripped with President and Sister Tew down to the different areas and had 2 amazing conferences and did a lot of splits and role plays with the elders. And let me just tell you Norwegian hotels know how to make a breakfast wow they are so good! We also did a ton of street contacting this week! I'm done with Corona and Facebook and being passive so we have been hitting the streets hard and I just ask people if corona has made them think more about God. We found 2 new people which was awesome! 

    We had a crazy experience this week when we were coming home from the office. It was like 10 at night and I stopped this dude and asked him a question and he just said "help me they're coming for me!" And I was like what do you mean who? And he said there are men coming after me to kill me call the cops right now! And I didn't believe him at first because you could tell this guy was a serious drug addict. But then he said they were torturing me because I didn't give them money and I got away but they are coming! Then he pulled up his sleeve and his arm looked like someone had gotten a hatchet and just went crazy on him. I am not fazed by blood and stuff but man it looked really bad. So then I started believing the dude and I called the cops. So these guys pull up and he's like thanks so much! And the cops get out and ask the man to show his arm and they're like, "yep it's him " and I was so confused but then they told me they've had run ins with this guy before. Then he asked me if I had touched the guys arm because he has a disease that makes his flesh rot away because of all the drugs and crazy stuff the dude was on. Luckily none of us touched it and no one was coming to kill him because after I saw his arm I straight up thought I was about to throw down with some dudes. You meet so many weird people on a mission it's awesome! 

    We're flying up to Trondheim tomorrow and road tripping back down while doing zone conferences splits and member visits so that will be sweet, I'm excited! I get to see some of the people I baptized up there which will be a good time. We had a baptism this week with our boy Alessandro!! He is such a stud and bore a sweet testimony it was legit!! He is a legend. On Sunday, we watched church with him and showed him how to perform the sacrament and that was sweet. Then after, I look over and see this sweet electric guitar and he said he played a "little" so I asked him to show us. Little did I know this dude SHREDS on the guitar and just went off playing all these ACDC songs and Pink Floyd and stuff it was so sweet. The guy is such a stud now we just need to find him a wife! Solid week for sure, hope you are all doing well. 

Eldste Spaddy 🤠

Alessandro and I

Farnsworth, Alessandro, VanSlooten and I

Week 86 Oslo Norway

 Hey what up everybody! 

    Hope your all doing well, this week was solid. We had a lot to do and found a couple of people! Our baptism is still on date for Saturday so that is exciting, Alessandro is a stud! Things are going well and we have a solid teaching pool which is good. We have a busy schedule with Zone conferences and splits this next week so that'll be fun. We are also road tripping up to Alesund which was my first area so I'm stoked for that to say whatup to some people there. Sorry for the short emails but I'm busy and have a lot to do 🙌🏽 

Eldste Spaddy 

Elder Farnsworth and I