This week was amazing and I loved week two more than week one! First a little about my wonderful companion Elder Rumsey! He is from Idaho near Rexburg, and he likes doing outdoorsy things and he rides dirt bikes. He really likes healthy food, for example he ate an entire cucumber like a banana... he just ate it. He is a total stud though and he is actually the youngest trainer only having been out 8 months! He is great and the language in is a super funny guy! For those of you wondering how many times I have eaten in a member's house this week here is your answer: 0. They do not feed us up here, but the members are still amazing people and I love them all!! The city I am in is 72,066 people, I don't know if that is big or small, I would recommend you just google it! My favorite part of Norway would be the people! They are absolutely wonderful! They are funny and although some will not talk to us really, they all just wonderful people!!! I have learned a lot about myself the past couple weeks and I would like to share one thing in specific. I by myself have no idea how to speak Norwegian or how to understand Norwegian. I literally know nothing. I do however have a wonderful Savior and God who already know Norwegian and are willing to help me out. I realized the more I lean on my savior the more I can speak and understand Norwegian! Alma 26:12 describes how I feel perfectly, "Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever." Alright well I have some very fun stories to tell so let us go on with the show!
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| The Dynamic Duo |
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| Eldste Shanklin and Eldste Rumsey cooking some food. |
Monday
We went on a hike with the Søstre which we did not finish because of lack of time but it was way beautiful to go up it, and also kinda difficult... I loved it and it was way awesome! The Millers, our senior couple up here, came back from Svalbard and we had family home evening but none of the YSAs showed up because they are all at a huge party for single church members that the church puts on every year for the Scandanavian countries.
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| The beautiful sunshine |
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| I wonder how cold that water is? |
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| Still snow on the mountains in July! |
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| Elders and Sisters on their pday hike |
Tuesday
It was an awesome day and we had a conversation with a young man named Peter! He is in his early 20s but had a lot of questions for us about like God and stuff. We talked with him for a little while and the we testified to him that every question he had could be answered if he would read the Book of Mormon and pray to God. He said he would try and we hope to see him again soon!
Wednesday
We had a mission wide meeting on something called webex which is like skype but better. All the new missionaries introduced themselves including yours truly! It was fun to see all my friends from the MTC again! We then had lunch at the Millers and had tin foil dinners, which were amazing! If you remember from last weeks letter the Qerushis (I need to learn to spell their name...), they are a family that lives in Svalbard and we have young mens with them and they use webex to tune into church, he actually has a business up in Svalbard where he takes a Glacier and melts it down and bottles the water and sells it for $70 a bottle. He gave one to the Millers for free so we could all try it. I thought it was some pretty dang good water and it actually comes from a glacier only 1000 km away from the North Pole so kjempe koldt! We also every week at District meeting have a little pep rally where someone picks a topic, for example this weeks was star wars characters, and you assign something from that topic to people in the District! I was han solo, and I will just leave it at that. You can take that how ever you will!
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| $70 bottle of Norwegian water |
Thursday
Only thing that happened today is we went to get me a big winter coat at the mall, but we ended up finding a pair of shoes that cost $19 so I got those instead. Also they did not have the big winter coats out yet! I lied about that being the only thing... We had a party with our Members tonight and played volleyball, soccer, and frisbee. The Sister's investigator family came and I played frisbee and soccer with there youngest boy Chadi! It was way fun and I had a blast playing sports it was amazing!
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| Glad he is spending his money wisely! |
Friday
Two ladies yelled "Hallejujah Praise God!" as we left the church friday night, which was cool because it was the first time anybody and send anything to us!
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| Hallelujah! |
Saturday
Alright sit down and buckle up because it is story time. Again mom if you do not want to put this on the blog it is okay. Also kennedy and ryker this might freak you out a little so let mom read it first and tell you if it is okay to read. We were banking, knocking, on some doors and having a little bingo competition with the Søstre. While we were banking Elder Rumsey and I had one side of the street while the Søstre had the other side. On our side we were banking in a little two floor apartment complex that was a little run down. I was a little uneasy but decided, eh what the heck I am a missionary and maybe someone here needs the Gospel. Well we knocked on couple doors and the people that came out were a little weird and said they were not interested. We decided to knock on one more door. As we were walking up the stairs we walked past a window, and all the other windows in the complex had a green curtain on them, but this one did not and it was pitch black inside. As I was looking at the window I notice in the top left corner there was something... yeah it was a bloody handprint... I said "Elder Rumsey, you might want to stop and check this out" and when he saw it he said "Elder just turn around and walk away". Which we did, after we got a picture. We got the Søstre told them we were leaving and then we banked somewhere else. We did end of calling the police after we talked to president about it. So that was cool... To end on a high not though, we did end up knocking on a door of a wonderful middle eastern family with a little girl who had heterochromia. One of her eyes was bright light blue and the other was dark brown it was awesome! We talked a little and the Father asked us to come in and join him for some coffee. We had to sadly say no because we had to catch a bus, but we gave him a card with our phone number on it to set up an appointment!
Sunday
I gave a talk in church and we went bonking in the rain! Good way to close the week!
Norway is the best and no one can convince me otherwise! I love serving the people and telling them about there Savior and Redeemer! Another week is done and I hope that I made a difference in someones life this week! Remember to love and serve one another! If Christ could he would come down and do that himself but he can not so he is counting on us to act for him!
Work Hard
Play Hard
Return with Honor
Eldste Shanklin
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