WE HAD A SUPER FAST START TO THE WEEK WITH A LOT OF TEACHES. WE ENDED UP GETTING A COUPLE BAPTISMAL DATES AS A RESULT OF THOSE TEACHES TOO!

Heia!

I am so jealous!  I have been thinking about the temple a lot this week and have been wanting to go so bad!  That is way cool! That is also way sweet that you got to see Sister E!  I haven't seen Elder E in a long time. It has probably been 6 or 7 months since last time, but I get to see him this month for a combined zone conference, so that should be great!

But ya, about my week.  It has been super crazy.  Elder W and I have been pretty busy.  We had a super fast start to the week with a lot of teaches.  We ended up getting a couple baptismal dates as a result of those teaches too! So that was awesome!  One is with a man named F.  He is from Norway but lived most of his life in Columbia.  He just moved back about 6 weeks ago with his wife.  His wife, M, is a member from Columbia.  He has gone to church for the last 5 years with her there in Columbia.  They love each other a lot and he has finally decided to join her in membership of the church!  So that was so sweet to hear!  He has a smoking problem though so we are going to have to spend a lot of time to help him stop smoking!  He wants to get baptized as soon as possible, so that means we have to do it quick too!

Other than that we taught a man named M from Ghana this week.  He got a baptismal date as well. We had president on a teach with us and M seemed pretty sincere.  So I hope that that works out for him!  Other than that though we meet with a lot fo people and are just trying to help them make progress and meet with us regularly.  Life in a big city is so fast paced that people just don't have time to meet!

The zone did super good to!  So things are starting to improve here and Elder W and I are getting super excited!  I really can't believe how much the Lord blesses us when we try our best!  Our zone has made a real big turn around and we are excited to see it continue!  The Lord is really helping the mission go forward to.  The whole mission is so well!

We are heading out to Romerike again this week.  So that should be a good splits.  Other than that we are just going to continue working!  The lord will continue blessing us to!

Today we are thinking about heading out to a place called Sognsvann. We are going to have a bonfire out there.  It should be pretty good. The weather is starting to act up though so it might not happen.  We will see. 

Anyways, I will take pictures today I promise!  I will also for sure send you some next week!  I actually haven't taken any since coming to Oslo, it has been a pretty busy area haha. 

Jeg elsker deg så mye!  

Din sønn

Eldste Jones

THINGS ARE GOING GREAT HERE! LOVING IT!

Hello again!

Yep, somehow another week has gone by here in Oslo!  It sounds like a
ton of stuff is happening there back at home, especially with the
olympics!  

This past week was definitely hectic with the zone leader trainings
and what not, but has turned out really good!  We had a great splits
out in Fredrikstad and had a great meeting there to! I really like the
place.  It is only like 1 hour away by train and happens to be a
pretty cool city.  Elder W spent 6 months there so he was way
happy to get to go back and visit.  All in all, it was an awesome
trip.

The meeting here in Oslo went well too. I got to see both Elder J
and Elder N, both my sons!  After moves they both got moved here
to the east, along with Elder S.  So it was like a big reunion.

Otherwise things have been super busy.  We have been calling people
left and right and getting a lot of our potentials to meet with us.
We taught a lot last week, which was pretty sweet!

It was C's birthday on Friday so we came and ate dinner here with
him here in the center.  Sister Rasmussen made some awesome chicken
alfredo, it was so good!  Her cooking might be making me gain a couple
pounds!  That is okay though cause Elder W and I have started to
run again.  The weather has been getting a lot better making it
possible to get out and run! The sun has been coming out more and more
too!

You asked about school and stuff like that.... I have no idea.  I am
not sure if I will transfer or if I will be staying at BYUi.  I know
that the application has opened up for transfers and stuff.  I just
haven't made up my mind yet.  

That is about it!  Things are going great here, loving it!

Jeg elsker deg!

Eldste Jones

Heia!

Sounds like things are going crazy there at home!  I am glad to hear that everyone is doing well and that things are going good for everyone!

But anyways, about my week.  It has been super crazy.  We had a lot to do on Monday and Tuesday with Elder B leaving and what not, so those days were a lot of meeting with people and just saying good byes and what not.  But that all came to an end pretty fast because we sent Elder B off on a Train to the airport at about 9 in hte morning and then Elder W arrived a couple minutes later.  So then Elder W and I spent all day babysitting other missionaries and getting them from the train station and then back to it and working with different missionaries around the zone as they came through.  So all in all, Wednesday was definitely a crazy day. I am not looking forward to the next moves day!  That picture was with a new convert and with a less active guy named.  They both had come to say goodbye to Elder B.

The rest of the week was kind of slow.  Elder W and I didn't have a lot set up so we had to do a lot of street contacting and knocking.  It was kind of draining.  We found a lot of people though!  I think by the end of the week we had something crazy like 20 or 25 potentials!  So that was a major blessing from the Lord seeing as not much is going on in our area right now.  We needed some new faces and a new start to get this area going.  That is kind of what the whole zone needed to!  Just a new start!  So it should be a great place to start from now and get stuff rolling!

We didn't see our investigators this week.  C was busy with school and went to Sweden for the weekend.  So we had to just wait and see what we can do later with him.  We did get a chance to visit a different church here in Oslo though.  It was another pentacostal church, like the one I visited in Trondheim.  It was pretty cool, nothing like ours, but none the less a good experience.  We went with guy named V, a guy we have taught once before that Elder W found in Drammen before a came and reffered here.  So yep, that was a ton of fun actually.  I just love getting to know the Norwegian people!  

We tried to knock during the beginning of the olympics and it didn't go to well, people were to busy watching and just sent us on our way.  I don't feel like it is to crazy though.  It is not something that comes up everyday.  But occasionally.  But ya, Norway is pretty much the champ of the winter sports.  The kids here learn to ski when they start to walk, everyone goes out and skis whenever they can, the buses and subways are packed with people that just go to the mountains every weekend to ski and board.  So yep, that makes total sense to me.  As to your other question though, yes, Norwegian people are beautiful.  Sister Webber was right, this place is full of beautiful people. It seems like everyone is just like that to... you definitely notice it.  

This next week we will have to travel to Fredrikstad.  We will have a Zone leader Training there.  That should be pretty fun, we have to do one here in Oslo first though. So those will kind of take up the middle of the week for us.  But other than that we have a lot of people to call and a lot of appointments to make!  So hopefully all goes well!

That is about it though, I can't think of to much of anything else for the moment!

Jeg elsker deg!

Eldste Jones

Mom talking: As an afterthought yesterday, in a separate email I asked Dallin if there were missionaries in Liljehammer, the site of the 1994 Olympics.  This was his reply:

Yep, I was just there actually on splits!  It is a pretty cool place.  It is a part of the Romerike area.

Heia!

Well things sound pretty crazy at home.  That was cool to get your email and to hear that the fast is working so fast!  You guys can always have the rain that we have here, there is way to much!

Things here have once again been super crazy!  We had a lot happen in the last week. 

On thursday we had MLC again, that was pretty nuts.  We found out that there would be two new zone leaders and that two of the zone leaders would be released.  So Elder B  (my ZL comp) and Elder L (from another zone) are both getting released now.  Elder B will be travelling to Bergen on Wednesday and I will be staying here.  As a part of the transfers I will have Elder W serving with me here in Oslo as ZL!  Elder W is actually an elder from Irvine, California!  So he is super close to home.  I was way pumped to hear his name, it should be fun getting to know him.  He was friends with Shane and all of the kids that went to Provo from before the mission.  So that was a big surprise.  Also as part of the transfers we will lose a couple other people in the district.  Sister P and Elder T will also be leaving.

But yep... that was probably the biggest news!  Other than that we had another big week here in Oslo.  Lots of teaches and lots of stress trying to get people to progress.  Not with much luck yet.  We taught C a couple more times and we taught some other people to.  Finally C came to church though!  That was a big success.  Unfortunately he left right after the sacrament because he was hungry... so he went to the kitchen and ate his sack lunch while we had testimony meeting.  So it is kind of hard with him right now!  But I think that things will start to get easier because we got a man that speaks chinese here in the ward as well that will be able to teach him with us.  So he should understand a lot more here soon!

We just finished ice skating as our p-day today!  it was pretty fun, the weather finally cleared up and I saw the sun for the first time in about a month!  That was a really big blessing!  It has been a long month with a lot of work and a lot of things to do.  The sun not being there has made it seem forever longer!  It has been weird but it has literally snowed for the past month... so the sun was so welcome!

The sisters took pictures while we were skating so I will have to forward them to you!

Anyways, things are going well.  I am excited to be here in Oslo and get the chance to learn and grow!  I hope that this next transfer is just as successful as this one!

Jeg elsker deg så mye!

Eldste Jones