January 20, 2014

I cant believe i'm 21 either. What the freak is going on? I had a great birthday although it never really felt like it came. We didn't really do anything different but that was alright because everyday is a good day for a missionary in Norway. Thanks for that awesome birthday messsage on sunday. Good thinking. Not really many people knew it was my birthday.. so I was super happy to hear from you:)

This week has been another amazing adventure. Our Zone leader training went really smooth. We split them up so we could do one here in trondheim as well as one up in tromsø. The one here in Trondheim was my district and then a companionship just north and just south flew to us. We had about 11 missionaries plus a senior couple here on tuesday. The meeting was about 3 hours long and my first time training as a Zoneleader. It was a lot of fun and I feel like everyone walked away feeling pumped up to go out and share the gospel. The next day, elder Whetten and I woke up early and flew up way north to Tromsø. That meeting went maybe even smother and had a better flow and spirit to it. We also made some amazing tomatoe pesto grilled cheese for them since they missed out on the senior couple's amazing cooking. We stayed the next day in tromsø for splits so we could get out working with them to see how we could help them out. It was amazing and kinda made me miss the north. People in the north talk alot differently and seem a lot nicer. Instead of walking  right past you, they would stop mostly everyttime. This Tromsø place is absolutely beutiful though. Its basically an island surrounded by water and mountains. Its just above Narvik so it reminded me a lot of that place except tromsø has way more people and a real city feel. I can see why its called Paris of the north. Whetten finally flew out after having an awesome and effective time with the 4 missionaries that live there. We left feeling super good and pumped for that city adn its potential. I feel like the missionaries really enjoyed having us there and hopefully they got just as much out of it as I did.

For my birthday, we made some bomb chicken parmesian and veggie pasta after church and then ended our day with some tastey fajitas. Stookey bought me a lemon cake and we almost burnt the apartment down by making a ghetto candle out of a pass a long card. I felt so loved by the homies. Today We checked out this fort and we all went to eat some pizza on top of Trondheim. It was pretty memorable. I found an amazing deal on slim slacks at h&m. I saw them last week on sale for about 100 crowns but didn't buy them. Today I checked out H&M and the local board shop for fun and finally got myself to buy something. The slacks were now 50 crowns so I bought 2 and a 4 pack of cool norwegian socks especially for me. I'm so happy my gambling of resisting to buy stuff on sale has payed of. When things here in Norway go on sale, they really go on sale. Elder Stookey got a new grey wool suit at H&M for about 35 bucks. Insane!!

Thanks for being so loving! that was a super sweet email and I'm happy to see a picture of us to right before I left. This year will be even faster than my first so prepared to be freaked out when I'm home before you know it. Keep working hard. I'm so grateful that you guys have been blessed. Heavenly father is taking care of us! love you!