March 11, 2013

Hi y'all!

I'm way excited to find out where Jake will be serving a mission!  He is going to be a great missionary!  I think you better wait to let me know until Monday so I can stay focused during this next week.  We had a really busy week with the twelve new missionaries we received.  Three got delayed and were sent to the Montana mission until they get their visa's.  We basically lived at the mission home for three days. 

We went and picked up everyone at the airport on Tuesday afternoon.  Everyone was so excited to be there and they are an amazing group of missionaries.  We ate dinner with all of them that night and helped them adapt to their new surroundings.  We started early the next day on orientation and preparing the new missionaries to hit the field.  We left during one of the presentations and went and bought some new phones for the mission. 

Elder Van Wagoner and I had a fun adventure finding the phone store in Oslo and then dropping several thousand dollars on phones.  President and Sister Evans wanted the new i Phones so we got those too.  They look pretty cool!  We were setting the phones up for them and boy am i out of the technology world.  I didn't know how to do anything.  Smart phones were expensive and a new thing for me before my mission and now everyone has a smart phone besides missionaries of course. 

We did some practical training with the new missionaries after lunch up unto dinner.  After dinner we had an amazing testimony meeting and I was a little envious of these new missionaries that are about to start on a amazing adventure in Norway.  On Thursday we had the big moves day where we were busy the entire day.  That night we ate dinner with the missionaries that are departing.  Elder Bekker and Elder Sessions served great missions and I looked up to them a lot.  Elder Bekker's parents and two brothers came to pick him up.

It was weird seeing them and this whole going home thing hit my like a ton of bricks.  I began to realize that this adventure is not going to last forever.  I don't want to go home... I'm excited about seeing you guys and everything I'm going to do when I get home but I don't want this adventure to come to an end.  The testimony meeting we had after dinner was incredible but man is it going to be hard to leave behind all these people I care about.  I'm grateful for the two months I have left!

I haven't received the birthday cards yet but thanks for caring about me.  All I wanted to do was teach people on my birthday so we had appointments lined up the entire day and we had finished the office work the day before.  Sister Evans made me a birthday dinner and cake as you saw in the picture. 

D is doing well. We are still planning on baptizing her on the 24th.  We met this way cool kid named B

Happy 21st Birthday

that we taught last night.  He wants a Book of Mormon so we are going to be teaching him tonight again.  He is also from Kenya but grew up in Norway.  He is a big time soccer player and used to have dreads.  He is way cool and his mom is interested in hearing more about the gospel too.

In the mission we send out a newsletter each month that all the missionaries get.  President and the assistants always write an article and I thought I would share with you all the article I wrote for March.  I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Eldste Godfrey