June 24, 2013

Prekæs!
 

I'll start off by saying that I finally have had fish. It was salmon so I excited to try it since everyone says that its not that bad. It was super fishy even though they covered it in sour cream and chese, wasn't a fan but at least I tried it. I would have it again if I had to though. The next day for dinner was even crazier.  We ate like vikings with these two older awesome less active ladies. They had al seven of us over to try some interesting foods. We had a salted lamb leg on flat bread with homemade butter. It looked like roadkill and tasted like super salty jerky. The salt in the raw meat preserves that leg all summer long they said. After that intersesting appetizer, we moved on to the main course. Whale! They grilled up whale meat and it wasn't that bad. The meat is naturally black and super tough and dry, didn't taste like fish or beef. It was a great experience to say that I've eaten whale but don't ever want to do it again. Save the Whales.. because they're really not that good to eat. The tastiest part about the meal was that they brought us Dr. Pepper from sweden! A meal I'll never forget. Another wierd thing I had this week was a hot dog on white bread with shrimp salad and mustard and ketchup. Some how I forced it down. Fortunately helena from finland gave me some finnish pola or however the heck you spell it. The mission is crazy and the members torture us by over loading us with their food.

Yesterday was the Sant Hans Aften, the longest day of the year. We celebrated it with some family's from the ward at Vispen. It was fun to throw on some normal clothes and run around with the kids. We played frisbee, volleyball, and raced. The kids in this ward love us and are so fun to be around and practice norwegian with.

This week I met a bunch a cool people on the streets and hopefully we can start teaching them. This one chill black dude from Ivory Coast was fun to chat with, he started by laughing at us and asking us why we were wearing white shirt and ties. He was fun to joke around withand we really open his eyes to the church. He might come with his daughter some time when he's back in Fredriksatd (he lives in Oslo). It seems like all the potential we find, we cant teach because they live somewhere else so we just have to refer them to other missionaries that are closer to them. I was in Halden for splits this week with Elder Peterson who is going home in a month. We had a crazy day of contacting crack heads and all types of people. At the end of the day we suddenly figured out that I had 7 minutes to pack all my stuff including my dyna and get to the bus stop. After throwing everything in my back pack, stuffing my dyna, and sprinting to the bus stop, we barely made it. It was classic missionary. 

This week we're getting a young man from the Oslo ward to go on a "mini mission" with us this week. So basically he's gonna work, eat, and sleep with us all week. Its gonna be so fun. Great opportunity for us to get him excited to serve a full, 2 year mission. It will also be great to get alot of norwegian learning in. I'll let you know how that goes.

I'll keep praying for isoaiti and isoisa! I was hoping we could go see them right after my mission. A lot of missionaries going home are getting picked up by their parents, touring around norway, and then going home. The church still pays for the missionaries flight home. Just an idea that came to mind, you and dad could do with me if you want. And we could like take a train over to Finland through Sweden to see them again.

Love you so much! thanks for the email. Im glad that drop box thing works, I have a lot of pictures and It would be a good idea to back them up on that but i dont know how much storage I can have. Its awesome because then you can see the pictures too. Keep enjoying time off work. Have fun with Daniel and Ivy! What about Ethans parents in Montana? Tell Ethan congrats and Sabin hello. Vi snakkes!

Your Son,
Eldste Skinner

June 17, 2013

Happy to hear you all had an exciting week with the promotion and the graduation. For Melissa and classes i'd just say good luck with getting classes. Don't wait to sign up, get on a good fast working computer, don't be afraid to sign up for online English or even online American Foundations if you cant get into an actual class. Don't sign up for too many credits but there's not too much to do in Idaho so you should be good with time to study. I had classes everyday and it was a little spread out which I thought would suck but I ended up liking it. It didn't feel like I was zoning out because I was in school for hours at a time. That's about all that I can think of for BYUI right now, other than that just have fun.

This has just been another fast paced week, filled with blessings. We met with one recently reactivated member and taught her 13 year old daughter the restoration and then talked about baptizing her. She says she wants to be baptized but her mom wants to teach her more first. We told her mom that we've been called by God to teach and we'd love to help her teach her daughter. But she kinda didn't seem super motivated to make it happen soon. Its really hard to get appointments with the daughter because the mom is always busy with a crazy work schedule and doesn't want us to teach without her. So its kinda frustrating with not being able to teach as often as we'd like to, especially when the 13 year old comes to church every week and wants to be baptized. I know it will all work out in God's timing.

Finding people to teach by knocking is never really that fun but we found the "promised street" parallel to the glomma river here in Fredrikstad. We met some really cool people who nice to us and willing to talk to about the Book of Mormon and the purpose of life. We found 4 or 5 potentials on that street and we hope to get some investigators to keep teaching. It was truly a magical knocking session... I don't know what we did different because they are definitely not always like that. While contacting on the gågate, we stopped and talked to this lady and then somehow family history got brought up. We invited her to family history night and Tuesday and we found out she actually came and had a good time! Hopefully she keeps coming and becomes curious.

Church yesterday was packed! So awesome, most people I've sen since I've been here, partially because it was invite a friend to church day and it was stake ward conference. I wish the members realized that they can always invite their friends to church, not just on special "invite your friend to church days".

Today was a super sweet Pday. We got to golf with those pro's for free today and they fed us mexican food and Kool-Aid. They were awesome coaches and I really started to get my swing down at the driving range. They actually knew what they were talking about and when I listened to their advise, I immediately saw better results. It was so much fun. What awesome ladies!

Its been a great week, time's flying by, it kind of feels as if I write you everyday. I love getting your emails and hearing how things are going back at home. I love Norway and I love and miss you all!

God Sommer!

Eldste Skinner

June 10, 2013

Hei hei, 

Im still doing great:) Not getting overly stressed but still pushing myself to work hard. The weather has been lovely all week. Made it nice to walk and take busses everywhere. I still hate the heat so im grateful that it can never get too hot here. We're going to go find a cool place to chill out somewhere down south of Fredrikstad. There's a ton of little islands that the sisters want to see today. 

This week hasn't been too crazy but we didnt get to teach as many people as we wanted to. School's finishing up here as well so not many people had time to meet with us. Summer is almost here so that should be a good time to meet people and find families (until all the Norwegians go on their vacations). We had a quarterly zone conference on friday in Oslo. I always love going to Oslo, its a sweet city that I hope I serve in one day. So many different people, super fast paced. We had 20 minutes to wait for our train back home so we quickly checked out the Opera House. Google search it. Its pretty sweet. We did a ton of walking this week but I didn't really mind. Gives us an opportunity to talk to more people and be seen in the community. 

I got my fødselsnummer in the mail so I went to the DMVish place to start my drivers license process. Should take the test in a couple weeks or so. Norwegian driving is crazy! I like it a lot!

The Scandinavian church conference thing was yesterday, so that was pretty sweet. They stressed the importance of protecting families. M. Russell Ballard told all the women that they are beautiful and need to get freaking married! He also talked about this wave of missionaries and how the members need to get their butts in gear and start inviting friends to church. President Monson was supposed to be there but he stayed home, poor guy. 

I cant really think of anything exciting that happened. Missing busses sucks! we didn't get home until 10:30 one night.. whoops! Its almost time for me to cut my own hair again. Don't know if I should still keep it hipster or just go short and easy to deal with. 

I cant believe how fast time is flying by at the moment. I hope you all are going to the beach and doing fun summer stuff. Enjoy the break off work! Have fun with all the graduations. How exciting for melissa! I feel like I graduated yesterday. Thats how fast 2 years go by. Love you all so much!

Eldste Nikas Skinner

Baptism!

Halla! 

    Sounds like another awesome week. I remember when you did my senior recognition night and the the little display. (i think all that crap still hasn't been put away hahah). Time flys by! Speaking of waffles, I had Fredrikstad's very own and original "hotdog with waffle". Bacically instead of a bun you take a flatter norwegian style waffle, wrap it around the hotdog, throw some old fashion mustard and ketchup on it and boom. there you have it. Started in Fredrikstad. Its actually pretty good, but I still prefer them seperate.

     The baptism was incredible on Saturday! I am so blessed to have a baptism after being here only a month. It was a special day and everything worked out suprisingly well. We were stressing it all week but I can say that our fasts and prayers were answered with a happy and spiritual day for Jan Vidar. He chose me to give a talk on the Holy Ghost so that was tough but somehow I managed enough norwegian to speak for 8 minutes. Baptisms aren't the only thing we focus on as missionaries but it brings me true joy to know that I helped someone find "that strait and narrow path" to the eternal life of happiness. His wife was so happy as well. This is only the beginning for him and his family and I really think/hope that the will hold to the rod and endure to the end.  We celebrated the end of the stressful week with Kebab, then went back to work to start the whole process over again.  

    The new missionaries in our district are excited to work. We now have 7 missionaries in our ward now. The ward loves us and naturally the 3 sisters a little more... They get the car, the refferals, and the dinners. haha but thats alright. As long as the ward is excited about missionary work, it makes our job easier and more effective. I am soooo happy to not be "the greeny" in the ward anymore. Seeing them come in helps me realize how much I actually have progressed. I love helping the greenies out because I remember how frustrating it was at first. Even though the language is still frustrating, It slowly coming and not the only one struggling with it. 

    Other than the baptism, not too much happened. Just the occasional drunk dudes on the bus and wierd girls asking for group hugs. No fish yet other than that smoked trout and egg sandwich. We planning on BBQing some whale sometime either this week or next week with one of our less actives. That will be exciting. The weather will get to 234 occasionally and I start dying. There's no way I'd want to be in 100 degree temperature right now. Another thing to be grateful for in Norge. 

I cant wait to hear from you next week!  Love you!

Eldste Skinner