WE ARE GOING TO SHOOT TO GET THE FAMILY TO SUPPORT HIM AND HOPEFULLY HAVE A FAMILY BAPTISM

Heisann!

Glad to hear things are good at home!  Things are really warming up here.  So that hike that I went on it was Cold but while hiking and stuff it didn't matter.  We did another hike again today and I did it in short sleeves again, I will tell you about that later though. 

Transfers are in a week, not totally sure what will happen with my comp and I.  We just hear from the ZL's through phone if we are moving or not.  Last week was just Zone leader training, so we just had the Zl's training the district.  We have 6 here in Bergen.  Everything is by air here.  Luckily most of the flights are under an hour.

We have a teach with X's whole family tonight, we are going to shoot to get the family to support him and hopefully in about 3 weeks we will have a family baptism!!!  And with that family baptism a baptism with X too!  So things are looking up and I am really excited for it.  Other than that this week was super long.  Just a lot of contacting.  X was sick all week so we couldn't teach him.  But he told us that is still is excited about everything so that is good.

Other than that there was not a whole lot going on. 

The hike that I was talking about was super long today but way fun and was absolutely grueling.  Definitely the gnarliest hike I have been on.  It was all covered in snow but it was super warm out.  I love Norway!

The hike took forever today so I have to run but I was so pumped to hear from you!

Jeg elsker deg så mye!

Din sønn,

Eldste Jones

IT IS A POWERFUL THING TO BE ABLE TO SAY A PERSONAL PRAYER OUT LOUD.

Hei sann!

So glad to hear from you! That is so awesome to hear that you guys had a baptism in the Ward!!!!  I am so excited to hear that!  So sweet!

First things first, questions.  Unfortunately we didn't have any investigators to Church.  The baptism got postponed.  The work is going SO WELL!  And yes I have been kinda of sick here.  I have had a cough and a fever but nothing bad enough to keep me from working.  So that is the short version, but this week has been way better than any of that sounds.  So here it is.

A lot has happened here over the last week.  First thing, we had the Assistants to the President here on splits with us.  They are studs!  We got to go contacting with them for about 2 hours or so.  We ended up talking to this man.  He was really interesting had a lot of cool stories to share with us but we didn't really get to share a whole lot with him.  But we did get a return appointment with him, so that was awesome.  Then my companion and I taught him on Saturday for the return appointment.  It was so awesome, super good teach. We got him to recognize the spirit at one point of the lesson and even got a baptismal commitment with him!  So now we have two baptismal commitments!

Next we had Zone leader training.  It was really cool.  It was the first one I have had, and we did it all in Norwegian.  It was super cool to get to hear from the ZL's and hear how the mission is doing.  The biggest thing that I took out of it was that I cannot lose sight of my potential.  We are the Children of God and are promised everything that the Father has, so don't settle for anything less!  We were also given some time for personal prayers. It is such a powerful thing to be able to say a personal prayer out loud... I would suggest taking time to do it more often.  It is something that you don't get to do really on the mission but it is way beneficial.

Last big thing, out investigator missed his baptismal date.  He still has a big problem with reading from the book of Mormon and getting a answer to pray about Joseph Smith.  He has an illness called Chronic Fatigue Sickness that makes him tired all the time. So we are at the point of sending him a scripture a day to help him read something every day.  We reset his baptismal date for march 16.  So hopefully we could have two baptisms that day seeing as our other investigator's is the same day as well.

Other than that things have been really good.  Except I have had some very humbling experiences this week... all a direct result of Ice. In short I have slipped on Ice 3 times this week.  I made it 3 weeks in the Mission field with no incident.  Now I have 3 falls on record.

The family that live above us are still awesome.  They brought us pork chops the other night when we got home. I love that family so much.  They are all awesome.  Nothing but respect for every member of that family.  Jørgen, the 11 year old son, comes down at least a couple nights a week and hangs with us.  He is super cool, and he tells us about how he invites people to come to church like all the time. The kid is such a stud!

Other than that nothing much.  Last p-day we hiked up the Mountain Fløyen. I will attach some pictures of that.

Jeg elsker deg so mye!  

Eldste Jones

I AM LEARNING A LOT. I LOVE PERSONAL STUDY.

Thanks so much! We usually walk and ride a tram thing called a bybanen.  We also take buses, I buy a card that works for all public transportation for a month.  The basement is basically one room that has a bunk bed, two desks, a couch, and cabinet with a stove and sink in it.  It is pretty nice, I really like it.    The family above us has 5 kids, 3 girls and 2 boys.  They are super musical and are always playing the piano or singing.  The mom is a professional singer, it is so amazing.  The father is a counseler in the stake presidency.  He is an absolutely amazing man, he came on a teach with us and was an absolute stud.  I love that family.  I will tell more about them later.  The prices seem about right, dirvers liscenses cost about 25000 kroner.  That is about 7 or 8 thousand dollars.  It can be pretty expensive depending what you get.  A whopper is like 50 or 60 kroner which is like 10 or 12 bucks.  The mission pays rent for us, they send the checks out.  

So some cool/funny stories.  

They fed us some of the best fish!  But when I walked in I saw the fish head on the cutting board and then they served the fish.  The fish still had all of the scales and bones on it.  They basically took out all of the guts and then boiled it.  It look super gross but was super good.  It was Cod, if you were wondering.

Then we also helped them move a piano.  I thought I was going to die like three times.  Carrying a standard upright piano across ice is not easy.  Then we had to go up the stairs in their house.  But their stairs were super narrow so only one person could fit on each end.  I ended up on the bottom.  The father was on the top end and eventually he got so tired that he couldn't lift it, so the mom had to climb up the banister to get to him to help pull.  Meanwhile I was stuck holding it on the bottom.  It doesn't sound so funny in the email, but it was awesome.  Loads of fun.

It is looking like we might have to move the baptism date, as he didn't come to Church on sunday.  We are still going to push for the 16th, but it will take a lot of work on his part.  We haven't been able to meet the Egyptian family again.  We actually have really been struggling to find new investigators.  Tons of potentials that we get, but it is tough to get them to an appointment.

That is all okay though, I am learning a lot.  I love personal study.

Anyways today has been really busy.  I have to go.  We climbed one of the seven mountains around bergen today, Fløyen.  It was absolutely beautiful!

Jeg elsker deg, and I am sorry the email was so short today!

Eldste jones

MISSIONARY WORK IS THE BEST!

Hei Sann!

So it sounds like things are very busy back home!  That is awesome!  Things are smooth there.  Taylor didn't email... so beat him up for me.  

Things have been going really well here!  The back pack is doing fine here, someone gave me his backpack cover so that waterproofs it for me.  Bergen is pretty much the best place in the whole mission. Everyone wants to come here and serve.  We have had a lot of rain and snow and sleet and what not though.  So I have been using the boots and the raincoat a lot.  Everything works great.  We get fed by members a lot here.  So that is pretty good too.

The first week was pretty interesting. Bergen has a very distinct dialect of Norway.  I am struggling a lot to understand the people that speak bergensk, but I can understand the missionaries much easier and those people that have the Oslo dialect.  I definitely get most of the missionary side of the conversation but not nearly as much as the Norwegian side.   That will just come in time.  That is all okay though.  I have definitely been blessed with some good language skills, so at least I can get something across to them even if I cannot understand what they say after so well. 

We taught about 4 or 5 lessons last week. We have one progressor with a baptismal date. He came to church yesterday, however he has a chronic sickness that causes him to be tired all of the time.  So he came for the first 2 hours and then left.  We have sacrament last... so he ended up missing sacrament.  But we were still happy he came.  

We focused a lot on finding new investigators because that is what we are hurting for here.  So that meant a lot of street contacting.  Street contacting is actually really fun... when you get people to stop.  Most of the time people here just kind of walk past and say <Nei takk (no thanks).>  But we get people that stop and then we can usually have a pretty good conversation with them.  We met a family from Egypt that we will be teaching this week that I am really excited about and a couple other people.  So good experiences there.

Today I had to go register in Norway and get my oppholdstillatelse, which is basically my permission to be in the Land.  So that was fun.  

We are going to go get my first kebab later today, a kebab is basically the missionary fast food here.  The first one in the land is always paid for by the trainer... so no complaints there.

It has been a really awesome week and I am so pumped to be a missionary.  I have been somewhat unsatisfied with my studies just because jetlag is hitting me still.  But I now know just how crucial Personal Study is in the Morning, it makes or breaks the rest of the day.     

The thing that I have been studying recently is faith. It is something that we can all understand better and continue to build.  It is very easy for someone to be complacent with their faith and not actively try to improve it.  So that is something that I would like to improve on so that I can have such faith that people cannot deny the truthfulness of my testimony.

I am so happy to be here though and serve the Lord. Missionary work is the best!

Din Sønn,

Eldste Jones