Holidays are OVER! Let's get down to business!‏

Dear Family,

As weird as it sounds, I am SO happy for the holidays to be over.  Everything in Norway shuts down for the holidays and the work just kinda stops,... kinda.... I mean "No unhallowed hand can stop the work" right?  Right, but sometimes, a holiday or two slows it down a little.

But the week has been really fun! We have some awesome members that take care of us.  We tried to watch fireworks from our apartment on New Year's Eve, but it was too foggy, so we just closed our eyes and listened to the loud BOOMs!  It was a good time :) We had a mustache and soda party and organized the Book of Mormons in the apartment.  Then as we're doing that, we get a call from President Hill.  He was wondering how to get to our house so he and Sister Hill could bring us some banana bars.  I LOVE THEM!  The Hills not the banana bars... well, the banana bars too... yup! They're both good ;)

The next day (New Year's Day) we went to an older couple in the ward.  They had just barely served a mission as the mission president in Sweden!!! Yeah... That was an intimidating spiritual thought to give :) haha! Nah, it was great!  We talked about a topic that all mission presidents like to talk about: Setting Goals.  Here's the conclusion family:  If we don't set goals, we don't accomplish anything. If we set goals with no plan to achieve them, we'll face even bigger disappointment.  So set goals, then make a SOLID plan.  And make sure you can measure your goals.  For example, I usually have a goal to be bolder...  2 things wrong with that goal.  1. I'm setting the same goal every week because I always could have been bolder, 2. How do I know if I really achieved it?  So instead, our goal for this week is to invite everyone we meet with to baptism.  Now that can be measured.

Anywho... I'll stop with the condensed version of PMG and got on with the rest of the week.  Contacting on the street was ROUGH this week.  Like, worse than it has ever been on my mission.  It was weird.  95% of the people would just walk away and act like we weren't there... even after we made eye contact with them.. Funny how people forget to be people.  

BUT! We went banking (knocking doors), and we decided to use a family history approach.  EVERYONE WAS NICE TO US.  I mean, no one let us in, but people were so nice and really interested in FamilySearch.  It was so cool.  People just love their families!  It was so fun!

The ward had a super fun Christmas party!  I know I know it was on the second of January, but in Norway Christmas lasts technically for 13 days after the 25th.... so technically it's still Christmas time... haha!  We all danced around the Christmas tree ( Yeah, they do that here ) and Julenissen (Santa) even came!!! He's different in Norwegian... :)

I'm emailing a little later and shorter today because we decided to have an OSLO p-day.  So I'll make up for the short email by sending some pictures :)

To answer some questions... I'm 99% positive that I will finish my mission in Asker with Sister Peterson.  I'll be sure to find some kind of mountain and shout from it soon.  I've forgotten to do that the last 50 times! haha!

Welp! I love you family! Keep being examples.  Keep feelin' GROOVY (I sang that to Sister Peterson this week).  Keep up the hard work!

Love, 

Søster Heywood

 Dancing around the Christmas tree

 Søster Peterson and I at the Oslo Opera house

We thought this was pretty great :)

And more photos of our pday in Oslo: