July 7

God bless America, and happy 4th of July!
We were supposed to go over to Wenke's house, since it was her birthday too, but she was sick, so we had no celebrations or anything. I played God Bless America in our apartment at night, but I don't think my Canadian friend Elder Skoien enjoyed it as much as I did:)

We had a good week! We were able to get some new investigators this week. There is one man named Dawit from Eritrea that came to church a few weeks ago because Robert invited him. He is a really good guy but we hadn't really been able to get contact with him since then, and it sounded like his wife might have been kind of against the whole thing.

On Wednesday, we decided to go around and try a bunch of people back and try and share the Book of Mormon with them, but we ended up missing our first bus (I swear it came early), so we just took the next one, which took us to a different try back that we had. We got off the bus and started looking for the address that we had. We were checking a bunch of mailboxes to see if we could find the right house, and when we came to one house which we knew wasn't the right one, we both just decided we would try it. So we did, and a 14 year old kid opened up, went and got his mom, and she let us in! 

I was really confused because we hadn't even said anything yet other than that we were missionaries, but they just let us in like they were expecting us. And that doesn't happen very often haha. So we were pumped! We got upstairs, and saw Dawit! We ended up teaching them the Restoration and giving them all a Book of Mormon, and committed them to read and pray. And then we ended with a kneeling prayer. It was awesome! Dawit's wife wasn't against it at all, and their three kids totally loved it! So that was a miracle, and we are excited about that:) 

Things are going up and down with Johan. He is super sensitive to the Holy Ghost, and says he has been feeling a really strong "Energy" when he meets with us. It's great too because we can tell when he is feeling it because he stops talking and starts breathing really fast haha and he feels it a lot! He just has a lot of beliefs and ideas that he isn't quite willing to give up yet, but he comes to our little church meeting every week, and is willing to meet with us and learn more!  

On Sunday, we decided that instead of just having me and Elder Skoien give talks every week, that we would watch a general conference talk. So Elder Skoien gave an awesome talk about prophets, and then we watched Christoffersons talk about the Resurrection. 
And it was awesome. (watch this 1 1/2 min clip)

 We watched the movie Joseph Smith Prophet of the Restoration after church with Johan Robert, and Stein (the guy we got the baptismal date with who then fell of the face of the earth), and of course that movie was awesome too, and brought a strong spirit.

For some reason, Johan just won't accept that if Joseph Smith was a prophet then this church is the only true church. So that's a little frustrating, but the Holy Ghost will help him understand that:)

To answer some of your questions mom; no, I haven't really had any good dog stories yet haha but I've still got some time;) 

The weather is ok. It doesn't feel like summer at all. We have had a couple of nice sunny days, but they aren't ever hot like a summer day in Utah. There is usually a cool breeze, and most days have been pretty cloudy and we've had some drizzling rain. Our apartment is really nice, but I don't think most apartments or houses really have air conditioning, people just open there windows. Some people will have some kind of fan in there house to keep it cool. And we don't have a car anymore, so actually do a lot of walking and take busses every once in a while:) 

About Norwegian! We hardly ever speak English with Norwegians, and if they try then we just keep speaking Norwegian haha. I feel pretty comfortable speaking it, although understanding the dialect is tricky sometimes, but it's getting a lot better. But we do talk to a lot of foreigners, so we just ask them if it's better to speak Norwegian or English, and most prefer Norwegian, so we just speak really slow and try and understand their broken Norwegian haha. But God has definitely helped with the language. It's gotten a lot better:) Our two main investigators right now are Johan from Sweden, and Dolly from Liberia, so we speak English with both of them just because it's easier, even though Johan can understand Norwegian, and Dolly can speak Norwegian. So we definitely speak a lot of Norwegian!

OH! And I found out last week that David A. Bednar is coming to visit our mission in September!!!!!! I'm so pumped!! I don't know any details or anything, or if I'll get to see him, but still!! I guess it's been years since an apostle has come to the Norway mission. So I'm way excited for that!

Love you all so much! By the way, the internet here is way to slow to send pictures, so I'm really sorry about that.. ;( The church and the gospel are true! And when we LIVE it's teachings, that's when we are most happy and most prepared for the future. What a wonderful thing:)

Elder Nilsson

(mom likes pics, so she adds them if I don't send any..haha)

June 30

Hey, sorry I don't really have much time to write a big email this week. We had an awesome Zone Conference on Tuesday and it was all about the Book of Mormon! I loved it! Things slowed down a little this week as far as teaching goes, but no problem:) We went fishing today with Robert for a little! We just cast from the shore, and didn't end up catching anything. I'll have some pictures next time! 

Hope everyone has a great 4th of July!

  (Mom: Wish our fireworks look like yours!)

The Book of Mormon is true, and so is the church! I love it!

Elder Nilsson

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

June 16

Congratulations to Aubrey and Chance Young! I'm so happy that the wedding went well, and that they are happy:) So awesome! Maybe you can put up the video I made on my blog so that I can see how it turned out?

Well this week was pretty exciting! We had the Traveling AP's come to Kristiansund on Monday, Tuesday, and a little bit of Wednesday to help us out a little. Every once in a while President will call two experienced missionaries that are going home soon as Traveling AP's, and they pretty much just get to travel around Norway for a transfer and help find people to teach! Just so happens that one of them is my trainer, Elder Weaver, so it was fun to go out with him again after I was able to get a little more experience under my belt:) 

 

But pretty much those three days were just full of miracles. We just went so hard with them and were just knocking doors and running around trying people back and getting into houses and teaching lessons, running in order to catch buses, and it was the most intense and awesome moments ever! We found 7 new investigators throughout the week, and a ton more potentials! It feels so good to have some things going now, and we all just felt so grateful for all of the blessings the Lord gave us this week. I'll start talking about individual people as we continue to meet with them and stuff:)

Even through all of the rejection, my testimony of the Savior, and of the Book of Mormon, and of this church is getting stronger and stronger. I know it's true and I love it so much!!

Me, Elder Badger, Elder Skoien, and Elder Weaver at the Kristiansund airport

June 9

First of all I can't believe my best friend Aubrey is going to get married this week! I'm so excited for you Aub! Wish I could be there, but I'm busy trying to tell all of these Norwegians how important it is that THEY get married, cause they seem to really struggle with that here. I hope I'll at least be able to represent myself in cardboard form, but if not, you know I'm there in spirit:) Hope everything goes well with the wedding!!

Well, this week we did a lot of finding. A lot of knocking and a lot of contacting. We're trying to think of some other ways, but sometimes you just gotta do it. We do have a bunch of referrals from Robert, one of members, and so we are hoping to get some lessons out of that in the coming weeks. We had a solid three people at church this week! So it was me, Elder Skøien, and Robert. haha It was a good meeting though. I even started to tear up a little bit during my talk haha. After church we took the sacrament to an old lady named Judith Thrane. She is really sweet, and we watched the Restoration film with her. Man, even though I've seen it about 100 times, I can feel the spirit so strongly every single time. I love Joseph Smith! What a guy! I know that through him, God has restored the true church with the fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Even though some days after talking to a ton of people who think we are crazy for believing such a thing, and it feels like we might be the only ones within a trillion miles that does, I could never deny all of the times that the Holy Ghost has confirmed and testified to me that it is true. And I'm so grateful for that! 

We got to fly down to Oslo on Thursday for a training meeting which went really well. And then this week we will be flying up to Trondheim for a zone meeting, and then two weeks after that we will be flying up to Trondheim again for another zone meeting. So lots of flying: we are going to become really familiar with the little airport here really fast haha. 

We haven't had too much going on since we have been here, but things are always looking up. The Norway mission has a ton of momentum right now and a lot of miracles are happening! And miracles are going to start happening here in Kristiansund. 

Thanks for all of your prayers and support! Until next time!

Elder Nilsson

This is the kind of stuff I get to look at every time I fly:) I love it!

 

June 2

So it's been a pretty crazy week! It probably felt like the longest week of my mission, but not in a bad way. For some reason it just felt really long. But it was good! 

So on Tuesday we flew down here to Kristiansund!

We had no idea where we were or anything about the area or the bus system or where we lived or anything! We just had some papers with some addresses and stuff. But luckily one of the few members here named Robert, came and picked us up at the airport and helped us find our way home. 

Robert is the MAN. He is about 35 I think, and is just this short little guy from Berma. He is just the most friendly happy loving guy and he knows everything about the city here! He showed us around a little bit and helped us figure out where things were and everything. The best thing about Robert is that he shares the gospel with everyone. And I mean everyone! He was baptized about 6 years ago. I don't think there is a person that has met him who hasn't also been invited to church by him. He tells everyone about the gospel, and as a result we have received a ton of referrals from him! Most of them are foreigners, who don't really speak the language real well, but that's ok! 

Anyways, for the first couple of days we had to do a lot of knocking and contacting since we didn't really have much to work with. We have some referrals from Robert, but are in the process of contacting them and setting up appointments.

Kristiansund is a really nice place. It's not a very big city, and it already seems like we are starting to see the same people every day haha but It's beautiful and I love it.

Lots of work to be done, and a ton of potential! 

Before we got here the group of members here would maybe meet once a month, but are going to start having a meeting every single week, so that is exciting! We had a meeting this week, and had a huge turn out of 2 two members haha but that's ok! We have to start somewhere! 

It's pretty small and not in that great of shape. But anyways, we had a good meeting. We had a few talks\testimonies and then sang some hymns. We only had 2 hymn books. One in Norwegian and one in English, so the music didn't sound that great, but it's the thought that counts right? :) 

The best part was that Robert brought a friend to church! His name is Stein and he is Norwegian. Probably the most shy and quiet person ever. But, he came to church, and we were able to teach him a lesson afterwards! He looked down the whole time we were teaching him, and only gave us one word answers, but... He accepted the invitation to get baptized on July 5!! It will take some miracles to get him actually ready to be baptized, and we are praying that he will open up a bit more, but just the fact that we were able to get a baptismal date during the first week we were here was a huge blessing. So that was definitely the highlight of the week!

We've got a good week ahead of us. We will be flying back down to Oslo on Thursday for a training meeting, and other than that we will just be out trying to find people! The church is true.

Love you all! Thanks for your support and prayers!

Elder Nilsson

                            Way cool statue!

     Just chillin in the airport heading to Kristiansund!

That is where we meet. It's the only room in the building that we have access to. It's definitely the nicest\cleanest room in the building. The rest is pretty bad. But it's a nice cozy room and it works for now!

 We got invited to a little activity for another church by an awesome canadian couple that lives in our neighborhood. It was awesome! We just had a little barbeque out in a little park and some phillipinos made some phillipino stuff:)

May 26

This was kind of a wild week! 

It started off pretty good actually. We were out knocking earlier this week and this kid about our age opened up. We said we were out sharing a message about God's plan for us and he just let us in! He said he was an exchange student in Green Bay and lived with a Christian family, and that's when he started believing in Christ. We had an awesome lesson with him and taught him about the Restoration. At the end, we asked him how he felt about it, and he said he took it as a sign from God that we came and knocked on his door. We then told him how it was, because before we left that morning we prayed for guidance that God would lead us to someone who was ready, and we just bore our testimony and the Spirit was pretty strong. And then he said he would read and pray about the Book of Mormon, and then he even said the closing prayer! It was incredible! That never really happens while out knocking! So we were pretty pumped...until about 3 hours later when he texted us and said it wasn't for him... I don't get it!! Satan is a jerk. We haven't really been able to contact him since, but I still think he will find the gospel a little later down the road..

On Friday we got some pretty big news. We got a phone call from President Evans. Even though I was about 100 percent positive that I would be staying in Sandefjord for a while, I found out that that will not be the case! President said that he had a couple of assignments for me. He said that there is a new area opening in Kristiansund!

All I know about Kristiansund is that missionaries haven't been there in a loooooong time, and that the church hasn't even been functioning there for 7 years. I guess there is a little group of members that has been meeting somewhere once a month, but not enough to have a branch. I've also heard it's like the most beautiful place in Norway:)

I could not be more excited!! It will still be me and Elder Skoien, so it's going to be crazy since I haven't even been out a year yet and still have a lot to learn, and he has been out for about 4 weeks. 

 

President also told me I will be the District leader for us and the sister missionaries in Ålesund, which is probably the second most beautiful place in the world:) 

 

Anyways, I'm so pumped! It still hasn't really sunk in yet. We fly there tomorrow on one of those small sketchy airplanes with propellers and stuff...which are actually one of like my biggest fears in the world, but for some reason I have always wanted to fly in one haha. It's going to be nuts!!

Preeetty excited for that and it's going to be one crazy week! 

I've been studying a lot about the Grace and the enabling power of the Atonement. I feel more in need of it now than ever. There is an amazing talk given by Brad Wilcox called "His Grace is Sufficient" 

 

One of my favorite quotes from that talk is, "Jesus doesn't make UP the difference. Jesus makes ALL the difference!" I definitely recommend that talk! (text here)I'm so grateful that the Grace of Jesus Christ doesn't just help us and lift us up AFTER all that we can do. But it helps us and empowers us and enables us THROUGHOUT, so that we can really accomplish things and make it through things that by ourselves, we would never be able to accomplish. And that kind of grace comes from obedience, humility, desire, and prayer. I'm so grateful for Jesus Christ and for the Gospel! I know that God loves us and is a part of all of the details of our lives. The church is true.

Elder Nilsson