ZONE CONFERENCE, NORTHERN LIGHTS IN OSLO AND TENNIS WITH A PRO FOR P-DAY!!!

Heia! 

That is way crazy to hear about the earthquake that hit!  It does seem like forever since we had the last one in California. I definitely haven't felt one here in Norway that is for sure! Elder S told me that his Brother just got called to Peru!  I told him that I had friends there and stuff, way crazy!

Anyways, the past week here has been pretty low key. We taught our investigators, and had the normal stuff going on.  However, I almost forgot, we had zone conference!  It actually was a really good meeting this week.  We combined all of our zone and the Telemark zone.  So that meant that we had about 50 missionaries together.  That will probably be the closest I ever get to having a mission conference...  but it was still way awesome!  I got to see Elder E and other familiar faces.  So it was definitely a treat. 

Unfortunately it was still really rough though.  Most of the investigators in our teaching pool have stagnated. They are not really progressing anymore and are becoming really flakey.  A and I didn't get the chance to come to church, but we did get to visit them at home.  They are having a really difficult time.  They sold everything they had to come to Norway and now are living on that.  They are trying to find jobs but that is almost impossible because they do not speak the language.  They want to be members but they feel that they cannot pay tithing when they have to take care of their little girl. So they are in a very tight situation to say the least.  We shall see though.  Hopefully the lord blesses them with a great job that they feel comfortable paying tithing on or something...

On Saturday we had ward party that was pretty fun to.  It was a culture party, so we had food from a ton of different places and lots of different people performing different things.  There is a guy from Taiwan that lives in the ward that forced me to help him with his act.  He was going to show how a chinese yo-yo worked.  So I went up there and did it with him, it was way embarrasing considering I am not good at it at all!  Luckily it only lasted like 2 minutes.  After the party though we had Q's baptism. That went great.  I sang with Elder D and K (the taiwanese guy) while Q changed his clothes.  That went well enough to I guess.  We sang ''The Lord is my Sheppard''

Other than that our other investigators are about the same. Not to much of a change in the last week. 

The new district is pretty great though!  We have Elder S and Elder D living below us in our apartment building.  They come upstairs to our place a lot of the time.  Every Wednesday we have what we call Whip-it-up Wednesdays where we make smoothies and then every Sunday we have Sunday Sundaes!  We have made some delicious food haha. 

This week is going to be pretty nuts though.  We have Mission Leadership Council on Wednesday which will be an all day meeting, and then we have general conference all weekend.  On top of that, Elder W will be gone in Drammen for a baptism that is happening there on Thursday.  So I get to work with the other elders that day!  So it seems like we are going to missing out on a lot of proselyting time!

I have one more story.  I forgot to tell it last week.  We totally got to see the Nothern Lights here in Oslo!  We were in the center when we got a call saying they were outside. We were teaching a less active that had never seen them before either and so we all got up and ran outside to get a peek.  After searching for like 15 minutes to find a dark spot where we could see them we ended up on the castle grounds, and there they were.  The Northern Lights in Oslo.  That was way sweet too.  So now I can say that I have seen them twice!

Anyways, today is going to be pretty busy.  The sister are teaching a tennis player that was on the pro tour.  She comes from Lithiwania and is now a coach here in Norway.  We are all going to her facilities to get to play some tennis for our p-day.  There are two elders here right now that both played in high school and then the rest of us.  So it should be pretty fun.  I am way excited!

Anyways, Jeg elsker deg!

Din sønn,

Eldste Jones

heia!

Another busy week flown by here in Oslo.  I can't believe that I have been here for almost 3 months now!  That is also way crazy to hear about Nate, Darcy, and Jenna.  Things never stop changing back there!  Also, I am way jealous that you get to see Jennifer Nettles too, that sounds awesome!

I will take the questions first though.  Member dinners here in Oslo are pretty solid. I get fed like 2 a week or so.  That is obviously way more than when I was in Narvik. It is also a lot more than when I was in Trondheim.  Not quite sure why that is. 

I guess you could say that there are a lot of philipinos.  There is usually at least one family in each big ward, sometimes more than that.  So we get a lot of philipino experiences here in Norway haha.  I am not sure if there is a large percentage though here in Norway as a whole though.  I would say no.  There are a lot more immigrants from the middle east and eastern Europe.

I talked to president about my date.  He said that the official date in the system is November 11th. But that is subject to change, and most likely will be changed based on transfers.  Because of the transition from 9 to 6 week transfers lots of the missionaries have scheduled date to go home during a trasfer.  At least the older missionaries do.  I am the last of the nine week transfers, so that is why mine falls in the middle too. So, that is why I don't have a for sure date.

Anyways, the past week has been pretty crazy.  It was moves.  So that meant that we got a whole new district and a lot of new missionaries in the zone.  There was a lot of stuff to transition over from Sisters to Elders and lots of stuff to get going in the zone.  Elder W and I spent a lot of time focusing this week on the zone and trying to get everything running. 

But things went pretty well for us.  We got to start working with a family that moved to Oslo from Drammen.  Their names are I and A, and they are from Greece. They haven't been in norway to long and only speak a little bit of Norwegian.  But they had been taught by the missionaries in Drammen for a long time and just love the Church.  They had the opportunity of coming to church on sunday and were there for all three hours!  It was just awesome!

Other than that we continued working with some of our previous investigators. Lots of them have more or less the same obstacle.  They feel like The Book of Mormon is true, but don't connect the dots that they should then move forward in faith.  So they are content reading and praying and meeting with us but struggle to come to church or commit to a date for baptism.  So Elder W and I have to figure out how to help these people connect the dots that they have. 

I think that is what we all have to do though.  We all have to connect the dots and try do it over and over and over again.  This is what the gospel is, it is the means to bring us back to our Heavenly Father.  It is the way that we can come closer to Him.  So as we ''connect the dots'' we bring ourselves closer to the Father.

Anyways, so that is this week then, connecting the dots.  Last week there was not a whole lot of stories to share.  Just a lot of work.

This week we are going to have zone conference. That will actually be tomorrow.  So that means that we are going to have all of the missionaries in our zone and in the telemark zone here in Oslo.  I will get to see Elder E and many other familiar faces!  So I am pretty excited for that.

It should be a good week!

Jeg elsker deg så mye!

Eldste Jones

Heia!

That is still so wierd for me to think that Bishop is actually brother Baker!  But I am glad to hear that you had a good sunday and that things are going well at home!

It was defintely another crazy week here in Oslo. We had a lot happen once again, haha.

So moves where definitely exciting.  Elder W and I are both staying here in Oslo.  We have a lot of changes in Oslo though.  Sister C leaves on Thursday to head back to California, and Sister H is getting transferred.  So that companionship of sisters is getting whitewashed and they are replacing them with Elders.  The best part is that Elder S is coming to Oslo!  So he will be the district leader here. Unfortunately Elder C is leaving, but he got a great place to move to, Narvik!  Elder D, who is Elder C's current companion will be Elder S's companion.  They will live in the apartment below Elder W and I.  So it will be a party here in our apartment every night haha!

Outside of Oslo we had some interesting changes to.  Elder L is coming to the east for his last 10 weeks in the mission. He will be in Halden.  Other than that there wasn't a whole lot of changes.  Elder J and N are still in the east with me.  However, President did put Sisters in Tromsø.  That is the farthest north they have been in almost 20 years or so.  So that was pretty exciting to.

As far as our week goes though, things were pretty slow.  We didn't have a whole lot of things happen. Unfortunately we got a text from A saying that he is not ready to move forward and that he needs more time.  A lot more time.  HE asked to take a pause until October.  Luckily we were able to get another teach lined up with him for this week. Hopefully we can figure out what is going on.  But as of now, that baptism is off.

We had a great Sunday though!  We had two investigators in church.  That has't happened for us in a long time.  M finally made it.  He was there for Sacrament meeting and he seemed to enjoy it.  He is still struggling to find an answer though.  We also got another man to church named P.  He is from Morocco and just loves to learn about Christ.  Unfortunately he is really sick so it is hard to meet with him.  So that was the only time we have seen him in like 3 weeks.

Other than that we had a lot of different stuff going on. Because of all of the changes in the ward we decided as a district to split up the ward geogrophically between all of the missionaries.  So now we have a small area in Oslo that we are responsible for.  Hopefully that will help us to attack the work in a more effective and organized way.  We have been struggling to effectively cover this big area. 

We had some interesting moments while working this week to.  Last night we went knocking doors. The whole night families were opening there doors just to say that they were not interested.  So it was a really long night of disappointment.  Luckily for us though the Lord had a reason for it.  After being there for a couple hours with no success we decided to go home.  At the metro stop we ran into one of our investigators!  It was one that said he was going to come to church but didn't.  We were able to have a good conversation and set up a meeting for the next week.  It helped him to realize the importance of church and he said that he would come next week.  I thought it was awesome how the Lord just puts us in the right places at the right times.  It is amazing to see him work through us!

Other than that it was just a lot of teaches and trying to meet with people. Some people are progressing and others are just plugging a long.  We are praying to have some baptisms soon!

I am so thankful for the things that you have taught me!

Jeg elsker deg så utrolig mye!

Din sønn,

Eldste Jones

I CAN FEEL A CHANGE IN ME EACH DAY AS I FOCUS ON THE SAVIOUR AND HIS ATONING SACRIFICE.

Hey there!

Well another week has definitely flown by! I have to say first that I am way jealous of you guys!  It sounds like you guys had an awesome weekend up there in Vegas!  I totally wish I could have come to the concert and stuff.  That is way sad to hear about the boat though... I will miss that thing!

The past week for me has been pretty average.  We unfortunately didn't have a whole lot of lessons, and we did not get to meet with A either.  We still got to meet with M though.  He is doing good, however, he got sick and could not make it to Church on Sunday so we had to drop his baptismal date.  It looks like we are meeting with him tonight though so we should have hope of recovering it tonight.  We are planning to show him a baptismal calendar and giving him a little more accountability for the process.  Hopefully it works!

Other than that we had MLC [Mission Leadership Conference] on Wednesday.  It was weird going there as well, most of the familiar faces are now gone.  I am quickly becoming one of the old ones in the room.  I am not sure I like it...  Sister Evans made us this really good Taco salad while we were there and I was just dying!  It really does feel like home every time we get to go to the mission home!  It is equally sad to leave from there to!

We had a member dinner with a family here in the ward.  They are both from the philippines and have lived here for only a couple years.  Anyways, they fed us a normal philipino dinner like always, but afterward they followed up with a native delicacy, Balut. 

I am really happy to be serving here and helping the people around me.  I know that this work is true and that it really does change lives!  I can feel a change in me each day as I focus on the Saviour and His atoning sacrifice.  This is His church I am am happy to be a part of it!

Anyways,  I don't really have a whole lot else from the week. On Sunday we have moves call again.  So that is always a day to look forward to.  We should have a lot of change here in Oslo, so I am excited to see who is coming!

I hope you have a great week!

Jeg elsker deg!

Eldste Jones

LOST EMAIL

I am so upset!! Between the time I first read Dallin's email this morning and on my phone and carried on a short conversation back and forth with him and then went to find it on my computer to post to the blog it was gone!!  Every other email is there except the initial email from him!!  I can't find it anywhere!!

Here is a summary of what he said:

He had a lot of ups and downs in the week.  They taught F, one of their investigators with a scheduled baptism date.  But when they told him he had to quit smoking it didn't go over well.  F didn't like being told what he could and couldn't do.  Dallin and his companion have been unable to reach him since.  Neither F nor his wife were at church on Sunday and the baptism will not take place as scheduled.

Dallin and his companion went on splits to Romerike and Dallin got to work with Elder J, one of his sons.  Dallin loved working with him again and said he had seen a lot of growth.  Dallin loved hearing about what had gone on in Trondheim after he left.

Dallin mentioned a miracle that they had seen yesterday after church.  A man approached them and said come with me to pray.  He put them in his taxi and drove them.  They realized he was driving them to a member's house.  Dallin and his companion gave the member a blessing because he had been sick.  In talking to the member and after giving the blessing, the taxi driver committed to listening to the discussions and to baptism!  Dallin said it was just the craziest thing!! (Dallin didn't say how the taxi driver knew to get the missionaries or how he knew the member)

I am sure that there are other things that Dallin said in his letter that I am forgetting to mention.  After all I only read it once early this morning.  He did send some pictures in separate emails though from their bonfire last week.  I also got a picture from the senior missionary couple of Dallin sitting at the computer sending me the pictures!!