Norway? No Way!: April 28

My First "Son"

God dag all sammen!!

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad, and Happy Birthday later this week Austin! I love you!

It's been quite a week. This weekend I was able to visit my home town of Drammen!! Stake Conference was this week, and we were able to take the 3 hour drive down, and it was awesome! Along with the incredible scenery as we drove along the fjord, it was so awesome to be able to see so many people I got to meet while I served there. Especially the Jonas family! They were there and are still strong and active, and the oldest daughter, Misha is actually engaged to a member and will be getting married in the temple! It was awesome to see them again, and they are doing really really well:)

The whole stake conference was about Missionary work. Elder Herbertsen, who is an Area Seventy, was there and gave some awesome talks about members and missionaries working together. He gave a list of ten SIMPLE things that members can do to help missionaries.

10 Simple Things members can do to help the Missionaries:

1.       Learn the names of missionaries in your
          stake, ward or branch.
2.       Pray for those missionaries by name.
3.       Pray for missionary experiences.
4.       Feed the missionaries.
5.       At church, look for anyone you don’t know
          and talk to them.
6.       Invite the missionaries to teach you a
          “practice” lesson.
7.       Offer your home to fellowship
          investigators (invite them to your home
          after church for dinner, FHE, etc).
8.       Offer your home for the missionaries to
          bring people to teach lessons.
9.       Decide you will not be shy about sharing
          the gospel.
10. Offer to provide rides for investigators and
        less actives.

There is something in that list that we can ALL do!! Pick one (or several) and do it!

Got another call from President Evans on Friday. This one surprised me as much as the one where he emergency transferred us! He told me that I will be training a new missionary! In Missionary language, this means that I will be a "father", and he will be my "son". There is also some missionary language that says that wherever your first area is, is where you were "born". So that means I was born in Drammen. My new companion? Ya, he was born in Drammen too. Except literally. haha He was born in Drammen, and is full Norwegian, but moved to Canada and has lived there is whole life! Not sure where in Canada, but I'll let you know Tanner. Cause you're Canadian too, aren't you??

I'm really excited to train, even though I feel like I was just barely being trained myself. But it's a great opportunity to learn and grow!

I will be staying in Sandefjord, and two elders will be moving in to Tønsberg, so I will mostly just be in Sandefjord except for church on Sundays. Should be an exciting week!

We had a really good lesson with an guy named Erling this week! He is in his 60's probably and already knows a ton about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. He is retired, but was a professor at a university and loves the history aspect of the Bible, and that is one reason why he is so interested in the Book of Mormon. He has a really strong Christian faith and said he has been thinking a lot about the meaning of life. So we talked to him about the Book of Mormon, watched the Restoration video, which he loved, and invited him to pray and read! He is super open and accepted both commitments! I'm really excited about him. He's traveling all month, but we will teach him again when he gets back:)

It's so great to hear from everyone! I love you all! The church is true.

Elder Nilsson