April 14

I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go, Dear Lord

Hello!

Another week down, and boy was it a week. I will just give a little recap:)

We have really gotten used to Nordstrand and Oslo. It's been awesome here! Pretty much the first half of the week consisted of us setting up an appointment with a guy from Portugal named Helder, who we really thought we would get a baptismal date with. He's the coolest!

We had an appointment with him Monday, but he never answered his door...
Even though we could hear him inside...
It was weird...
So we called him the next day and he said
"sorry", and told us to come back that night at 6!
So we did,
and he didn't answer again.
So we called him, and he said that he had to work, but that we could come back the next night at 6.
So we did.
This time we weren't able to bring a portuguese speaking member, so we were going to have to use google translate a lot.. .
But, he didn't answer again.. .
So that was a bummer. haha

On Thursday, there was a huge mission leadership meeting in Oslo, so I went on splits with Elder Newey, since his companion had to go to the meeting, which lasted almost all day.. So me and Elder Newey, who was in my MTC group, went out and contacted for a while, and had a unusually large amount of conversations and happy people to talk to! It was great!

Then we went and ate a delicious dinner with a member.

On Friday, we met with a kid from Kenya named Timothy. Me and Elder Duncan(below)

contacted him on the street last week. He pretty much bore his testimony on faith when we talked to him the first time, so we were pretty excited about him, and our lesson with him went awesome. He had never heard about the Book of Mormon or the Restoration before and that it would be really important and great if it was true. He is solid, and said he would read, pray, and be baptized if he found out it was true. The only problem is that he said he would be busy til the end of May... But it was still really awesome!
Later that night, and I'm talking like 10:30, right before I knelt down to say my nightly prayer, we got a text message... From President Evans... We were just like, "woah, that doesn't happen very often." Not only that, but the text said "Call me ASAP. -President". So, we called him right away. And pretty much the first thing he says is, " I'm moving you and Elder Nelson to Sandefjord tomorrow."
  

SO! I am in Sandefjord now! We woke up Saturday morning, packed up, cleaned the apartment a little bit, and took at train at noon to Sandefjord! There was some problems with the missionaries here, I don't really know any details.. But not only are we in Sandefjord, but we are also in charge of Tønsberg! We just barely took over Nordstrand, and now we have Sandefjord, AND Tønsberg! Which were two separate areas before we got here.

And I'm back in a branch:) The branch is in Tønsberg (which is the oldest town in Norway), and it's about a 30 minute drive outside of Sandefjord. And we have a car! So that's nice. But its all still pretty crazy haha but I really like it here.

Pondering in Sandefjord on our new balcony.. There is a pretty cool view. It's just blocked by that big red roof.

It's a beautiful area, and one of the families here have really taken us in and helped us a ton. The Fyhn family. They are the best. And they have 3 daughters that are deaf, so we have been learning a ton of Norwegian sign language! I think it's so fun haha.

So it was a pretty eventful week! Still don't really know our way around, but we have a GPS, thank goodness:) Transfers are in 3 weeks, and we have no idea if we will even be staying, so it will be interesting... I hope I remembered everything! haha my new address is:

Thor Bryns Gate 7 #4302
3211 Sandefjord, Norway

The Church is true!
Faith is powerful!
And God loves us!


MVH
Elder Nilsson

Elder Shanklin and I.
I am among Giants...