July 23, 2012

My new companion is 6'7"

The Elders in Oslo

Hei hei familie,

How are things going?  This week has been great.  Eldste Johnson finished off the transfer strong by having appointments all day on Tuesday.  It was a lot of fun!  We got another referral for a girl named L.  She was a foreign exchange student in Las Vegas and went to church for ten months with her host family.  She has also been to four temple grounds and has read half the Book of Mormon.  She is amazing and we had our first teach with her on Tuesday.  We are hoping that we can start meeting with her and that she will start coming to church in Oslo.  She is out of town this week like most Norwegians are.  Norwegians know how to travel and that is one thing I'm going to bring back with me from my mission ha ha.  Everyone has a cabin that they hang out in and then they also travel around the world. 

We had moves on Wednesday and Eldste Johnson and I took some greenies out and contacted with them.  It was so much fun and it made miss being with a new missionary ha ha.  Its like a deer in the headlights.  We also made food for all of the new missionaries.  We received four elders and two sisters.  Sister P that came in is related to President Johansen and her best friend dated Andrew Todd ha ha.  All her friends at Utah State went to my high school that was pretty funny. 

I got my new companion Eldste Torjesen on Wednesday.  Were going to have a blast this transfer.  I have never talked so much Norwegian in my life!  Its great i have like a walking dictionary and he has helped me a lot with my language already.  The problem is I think I'm getting my Kristiansand dialect back ha ha.  We do everything in Norwegian and i just act like he can't speak English even though he is really good at English.

On Thursday President Evans came down to Oslo and wanted to watch our weekly planning and spend some time with us.  He told us he wants to learn how to do everything a missionary does now for example weekly planning, teaching, and contacting.  After weekly planning we ate lunch together and then we had an appointment that he came to.  We had a lot of fun. 

We played basketball on Saturday with the other Elders.  We are going to be starting up a sports activity every Saturday so hopefully I can work on my basketball game.  Eldste Torjesen is really good and played on the high school team when he was an exchange student in Washington.  He is about 6'7" and can dunk the ball pretty easy ha ha. 

There was a big memorial on Sunday because of the shootings at Utøye and the bomb that went off last year.  On our way to church we passed the state church and it was way crowded.  The King and the royal family was there.  After church we went and ate with another family that live outside of Oslo.  There view from their house was incredible.  It overlooked the Oslo fjord and i will send some pictures.  When we got back to Oslo we went to a service at the State Church.  It wasn't to bad and it's pretty interesting how they partake of the sacrament.  After the meeting we walked over to the coast where they were having a free concert for the memorial.  It was huge and they estimated over 100,000 people came to it.  The Prime Minister spoke for a little bit and then walked by afterwards.  He was like 15 feet away from me with about five body guards.  They really don't have a lot of security here but that's because they don't need it. 

At church i met Jessie's roommate from BYU.  She was there with her family and i took a picture with her and her brother.  Her younger brother is best friends with Elder Bolt's (previous companion) brother in Georgia.  What a small world ha ha. 

I don't have a lot of time today because were going to an island to play beach volleyball.  Its going to be fun! 

The mission is going great and we are seeing so many miracles everyday.  I'm definitely not ready to come home anytime soon.  I still have so much to learn but I'm so grateful for the time that i do have to study the gospel and to build my relationship with my Heavenly Father.  Elder Torjesen and I were talked about what we have done to  strengthen our testimonies.  We also talked about little things that happened before the mission that strengthened our testimonies.  It's amazing to see how God answers our prayers and how personable it is to every single one of us.  God knows us personally and will help us if we come to him.  Ask and you shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you is the most repeated promise in the scriptures.  I love the scriptures and the i love the Gospel!  I love you all and I'll talk to you next week.

Eldste Godfrey