Nov 18

Dear Family and Friends,

Another fine week here in the promised land. It had been unusually warm some days though! I mean, it's not warm at all, but for Norway in November, it is very unusual! There isn't even any snow yet! Some days it just feels like a nice chilly fall night, and then others I feel like all the layers in the world couldn't keep me warm. So it's been weird. But I'm ready for some real Norwegian winter. Bring on the snow! It is also getting way dark. It's pretty dark by 4:30, so that I'm still getting used to that.

So Friday, I probably had one of the best days of my mission. It was just amazing. The morning started off a little rough though. We went and did some service with this guy who just lives out in the middle of nowhere, but his house is like right on the fjord and it was just beautiful. But anyways, there was this huge ditch next to his house that we had to fill in, so for about 3 hours we were just hauling way heavy wheelbarrows full of gravel and pouring them in the ditch, then covering it with dirt until it looked as good as new! It's hard to really describe.. but my back is dang sore from all of it.. Anyways, after that we ate lunch with this guy, who made us some hot dogs and burgers. Let me just tell you, Norwegian hot dogs are nothing compared to American dogs. Same with the pizza here. Not even close. Anyways, I was stuffed full from hot dogs, and probably ate one more than I should have, and I told myself I would never eat another hot dog again. So after that we went home and studied for about an hour, and then we went to The Weggersen's for dinner. That's the Cheaper by the Dozen family. Seriously the coolest family in the entire world though! The problem was, I was still completely full from lunch! We finished lunch at like 2:30, and then we had dinner at 4:30. I didn't know how I was going to force down any more food.. and to make it worse, right when we walked into their house, all we saw were a bunch of hot dogs on the table!! Some how I forced down three more. I thought I was going to explode..

 (Just a way cool church down in the city. I'm pretty sure it's one of the State Church buildings, which means it's a Lutheran church. It's way cool!)

After dinner we went down the our church building to meet President and Sister Evans, since they were going to come with us to teach the Jonas family. I talked to sister Evans while Elder Weaver had an interview with President. Then we left and had the best lesson ever with the Family!! We talked about the importance of reading and praying everyday. We also got a wedding date for the parents, and a baptismal date for the family! They are getting married on December 7, and then baptized on the 14th:) So I am pumped for that!

Last thing we had planned for the day was to go visit the Eduardo family. They are the ones who referred the Jonas family to the church. The Eduardo's are from Angola, and were baptized about a year. Funniest and nicest people. So we planned on just going and sharing a thought and seeing how things were going and talking to them about some other referrals we have, but as soon as we got in, we saw that they already had a friend there! So we just talked to them for a little, and got to know their friend. Her name is Samya, and she is from Brazil. We didn't know if she was interested in the church or if she was just there visiting the Eduardo's. Anyways, we still just shared a thought, and then we asked if there was anything we could do for them.. there was a couple seconds of silence, and we were just about to wrap up Samya came out of nowhere and just say "pray for me." Then she just broke out in tears and started to tell us about how she is going through such a hard time right now, It was really sad, but it gave us a great opportunity to bear testimony, that God really is there, and that God really does love her. And then we invited her to come to church the next day, and she did:) The spirit was just really strong, and it strengthened my testimony about the Gospel. We are going to start teaching her the lessons this week:) It also shows how important the members are! The Eduardo family is a perfect example to all of us. This is how missionary work should be, because it is the most effective.

The Church is true! It really is! And there is no greater happiness than the happiness that comes from the gospel:)

Elder Nilsson

(A look of my study room/bedroom...)