Husker du den mannen?...‏

June 15, 2015

Hei family!!
 

(Translation for the title "Remember that guy?...").  My first week in Drammen, Sister smith woke up in the middle of the night and kept asking me, "Husker du den mannen?"... Turns out she was sleep talking, which is HILARIOUS! i hope I get to the point that I'm sleep talking in Norwegian! :) But we have also decided it is the theme of this transfer, because we have been led to so many incredible people lately, and find ourselves saying, "remember that one guy? Yep, he is golden!"

One day in particular this last week, we walked a few miles out to a less active member's house to visit her.  She ended up being sick... so we went out to the street and started talking to this kid, he told us he had to go, but that we could walk with him and tell him more.  So we did (of course) and after about a half hour, he told us he really wasn't that interested.  So we were feeling pretty bummed at this point because we were now in the middle of a random neighborhood with about an hour left before our next appointment.  We decided we would walk a little further, and we came to a little soccer field where a guy was walking his dog.  And his dog looked JUST LIKE DEXTER! So naturally, I had to talk to him. Long story short, we ended up talking to him for about an hour about Jesus Christ and He had changed this guy's life! We gave him the Book of Mormon and he kissed it and said, "I need this book". We were like... uh... YEAH YA DO! We told him that we needed to get to another appointment and started walking back the way we came and he said, "Wait, weren't you girls walking the other way?" So, we outright told him how we had been led to talk to him specifically and that God needed us to find him, and he said, "wow, that is a miracle!!" So there ya go! Miracles happen!!! (But we knew that ;)

We found 6 new investigators this week and for each and every one of them we had felt really strongly to talk to them.  On Saturday, we had planned to visit a member, and she forgot.  Luckily we were in the city center and could do some contacting.  We talked to these two ladies from Romania, who just opened up their life stories immediately and started telling us about trials that they were facing.  Amazingly, Søster Smith had grabbed a Romanian Book of Mormon that morning and put it in her bag! Again, miracles happen!

So, to answer some questions: Yes I got the hump day package, (It came last week) and I LOVED IT!!!! I loved all of the letters too! And the AWESOME analogy about a camel being like a seasoned missionary! And just so ya know, they don't have Graham Crackers here... so those were GREATLY needed...and almost gone by now... ;) Drammen is beautiful.  It is a smaller city, and it has a big river that divides the city in half.  Our apartment is quite a ways from the city, so that's a little different.  I really took living in the city for granted... :) The ward is the biggest in all of Norway!  There are around 220 members that come each week, and three sets of missionaries.  It's mostly families, but it's not like Stavanger where the entire ward was related! Currently we are teaching...about 20 people, and about 5 are officially progressing. President Evans and Sister Evans are going home really soon and we will have our last Zone Conference with them on Thursday.  They are the sweetest people ever and they have changed my life, I'm going to miss them so much!

We had the sister training leaders come this week, Sister Hartley and Sister Neilsen. They are just awesome! Søster Neilsen and I taught a lady and her daughter and we decided to bring one of the young women, Erica, to teach them.  We brought up baptism and the mom told us that she just needed to decide.  Erica spoke up and said, "When I was trying to decide if I should get baptized, I knelt down and said a prayer.  Can we try that?" My jaw dropped.  Ok family, this girl is 13!!! And she invited our investigators to pray about baptism!! SO POWERFUL! That lesson went so well, and hopefully we'll be able to set a date with them soon.

Hitting my halfway mark last week has really got me thinking about what kind of missionary I'm becoming.  If I've really tried my best each day, and what more I can do.  Sometimes I look back on my mission so far, and it doesn't really feel like I've done much or really helped anyone.  I hope I have, but what I do know, is that I am being changed and refined into the person that I can become.  I'm figuring out what it really means to lose yourself in order to find yourself.  That always really confused me before, but the more I focus on myself and what I want, the less I progress.  The more I focus on others and their needs, the more I surprise myself with who I am becoming.  I know that this church is true.  I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and that He performed the Atonement in order to know exactly how I feel.  I know that the Book of Mormon is true.  I have seen it shake people, give peace, and change so many lives.  I know that God loves His children.  He loves them SO MUCH! We can't even comprehend it!  

I LOVE YOU ALL!! I'm so proud of you! I love showing off our family picture to everyone, then testifying about eternal families! You are amazing every last one of ya!!

Love, Søster Heywood