December 30, 2013

Happy New Years!!

Long time no see :)

That was so cool to see all of you guys on christmas even though its never long enough. It was so weird to see how much everyone has grown. Everyone looked good and healthy! I'm happy to hear you all enjoyed a lot of sunshine. That was one of the things I noticed as we were skyping... how bright the sun was. It was almost hurting my eyes! haha

Trondheim is about to see some big changes with this new year coming. My companion and the other zoneleader are getting transferred after the end of this week. I'm definitely going to miss elder Shanklin and Jones.. they were so awesome and I learned  a lot from them. Great missionaries! The new ones are going to be hardworking as well. I've noticed, however, this pattern of 4 companionships in a row that have lasted 6 weeks or less. I kinda like it but at the same time i've loved all my companions and wouldn't mind being with them for 6 months instead of 6 weeks. Its been a huge blessing to learn from other people and also to try my best to teach and make a positive impact on those I serve with. I'm not perfect though so that's kinda getting in the way. haha.

Christmas was obviously awesome and its still going! never going to forget christmas in Norway thats for sure. I would't say it was necessarily the best christmas i've ever had but it was still great. I'm thinking we always have to try to be together as a family for christmas in the years to come. No place like home for the holidays! Luckily this ward is treating me like family. What a huge blessing of the church. I've been fed like crazy and it was all pretty good food. Nothing was too sketchy except for the bishop bringing non-alcoholic beer and making us try it. Grossest thing i've ever drinken.. no worries about me turning into an alcoholic. I was picturing patrik's and dad's "wooo... BEEER!!" and cracking up. On new year's we'll be with the same members that let me skype. It was nice to get invited and they're even letting us bring our investigators and new converts. We're allowed to stay out until 12 and stuff we as long as we still wake up at 6:30. It will be sweet. We're also going to have the zone fly into trondheim for a christmas zone conference on the second! hopefully everything will go smoothly with that. It will be an all day thing. Presidents going to talk about our goals for next year and it will be awesome and uplifting. there will also be a lot of fun stuff throughout the day and then they'll all stay the night. I'll be a party basically. Can't wait to be with the homies!

Right now we're teaching basically a rap star. Its pretty sweet. He's an interesting dude and keeps things interesting.. kinda reminds me of an skinny african form of quino. The spirits been working pretty hard on him though and we're excited to get him prepped for baptism in January! The one armed bandit should be home soon as well. Hopefully start seeing some progression out of him. When my new companion comes we're going to find a norwegian family of four. that's the dream.

I haven't been sick at all. I thought I was but then I prayerfully took some airborne and dayquil and it went away for good. My package will hopefully be here soon.. sorry its taking so long. those dang norwegians and their vacations. I can't wait to check out the new Bingham house some day, i bet its pretty incredible. Our house is cool too though.

I'm happy you guys had a fun christmas! I'm so grateful for you Mom. We have a pretty sweet family and I love you. Take care of sick dad and enjoy the sunny weather. take advantage of some free time. New years is coming.. nothing like a fresh new start. there's a way good message from Uchdorf.

 http://www.lds.org/liahona/2014/01/the-best-time-to-plant-a-tree?lang=eng

We gotta be our best starting now!! Love you so much!

Snakkes!

Love,

Eldste Niklas Skinner