June 23

We had another really positive week this week! Last week was huge and we were able to find a ton of new investigators and potentials, and this week we have been able to meet with some of them and even found some more new investigators! The majority of the people we have found right now are actually not Norwegian, and aren't very good at speaking the language, so it's been kind of tough teaching them and helping them understand what we are trying to do as missionaries, but they are all super nice people. 

We have a few new investigators from Eritrea, a small African country that I had never heard of before my mission.

The bad part, is that the Book of Mormon hasn't been translated into their language yet! So it's kind of hard to teach them... We've also been praying and trying to find some Norwegian investigators that can be solid leaders and build up the church here. 

Well, we haven't really found too many Norwegians as of right now, but we did find a Swedish guy! His name is Johan and he is about 30 and is a way awesome and smart guy. We were walking in the park and saw him sitting on a bench so we went up and talked to him. I'm not entirely sure what happened during the first half our conversation since he was speaking Swedish, but we understood enough to know that this guy was awesome! And then we all switched to English and we had an awesome conversation with him and talked a little about the Book of Mormon, and gave him a copy. He then said he wanted to come to our church meeting! So we were just praying all week  that he would come. 

So we were in our church building Sunday morning and it was just me, Elder Skoien and Robert, our Burmese member, and about 5 minutes before our meeting was supposed to start I looked out the window and it was DUMPING rain. And then I see a guy walking up the street in a poncho just absolutely drenched, and it was Johan! He came and he walked 30 minutes in the dumping rain to get there! It was awesome! 

I'll be honest and say that I was a little worried that he would be a little turned off at the fact that we only had 1 other member at church... But we had our church meeting nonetheless. Afterwards, we stayed in the church and taught him a lesson, and it went pretty well! He is a very sincere guy and has definitely been prepared, whether he knows it or not. He even told us that he wanted us to know that he doesn't care that we don't really have anyone at church, and that it doesn't make a difference to him. So that was comforting:) He is PUMPED to read the Book of Mormon and is fascinated by it! Anyways it was such a big miracle to find him and that he could come to church. And he said he wanted to come again next week and learn more! Heck yeah!

 

We'll be flying to Trondheim again later today for Zone conference and coming back on Wednesday, so that is always good. I'm getting pretty comfortable with airports! We get to take another little propeller plane. They really aren't that bad, just a lot more shaky and the landings are a little rougher haha. There was about 10 rows of seats on the last one we took. Still freaks me out a little.

I know the church is true and I know the Book of Mormon is true! Man, just read a little bit of it and you can feel it's power! 

I couldn't be happier hearing about all of the amazing things going on back home. I love you all so much! Keep the faith!

Hip Hip!....

P.S. sorry, I haven't done a very good job of taking and new pictures lately. I'll work on it:) 

Love,

Elder Nilsson