The
week started with a weak attempt to go whale watching. We ended up
tossing a frisbee around and watching the sisters almost get attacked by
angry swans. Equally satisfying. After the Pday was over we headed over
to our mission leader's house for some family home evening and a little
run down on how things are done here in Sandvika. He's pretty new and
about the same age as I am. He served a mission in Colorado and has just
recently gotten married. He's a boss. I'm been blessed a lot on my
mission with ward mission leaders who take their calls seriously. He's
newer at it but its hard to tell. He likes to get input from us so we
can incorporate the things we learned from past areas that have worked.
Since Holden and I just came from Drammen we're basically trying to
replicate the machine that that ward was (with some minor adjustments,
of course).
Elder Holden and I spent quite a
bit of time really trying to organize and consolidate our own area here
in Sandvika. It feels amazing to get a good solid feel for what's going
good in our area, what our focuses need to be, and how we need to repent
about the way we do things. Over and over again, we realize that the
trick to being a successful missionary is measured by our commitment to
find, teach, and baptize in an organized manner. We also find that our
success is measured by our ability to inspire others (members,
missionaries, etc.) to do the same; find, teach, and baptize. We like to
do things out of the box and show faith in out of the box ways.
The
thing that I love about serving with Elder Holden besides the fact that
we naturally have fun together is seeing his desire to be successful.
Its contagious and its something that has definitely worn off on me.
Both of us want more than anything to be successful. We know the pains
of doing the wrong things and love the joy that comes from repentance.
We get stoked from working hard and seeing what Heavenly Father can do
through us. We understand that we're not just here to "be on a
mission".
We had a sweet experience getting
asked by the sisters to give a blessing to one of their investigators
this week. It was super special because this investigator was a totally
normal, sweet, norwegian teenager. She was obviously a little hesitant
to get a blessing but the sisters prayed that the spirit would convince
her to be ok with it. The spirit worked and then we got called up to
meet them at the church. I was able to give that blessing and it was a
way powerful, yet simple experience. Representing Christ and bearing his
priesthood to bless others is the best.
Welppp,
there's been a lot of rain this week. Elder holden and I had a "one
more house" story. Basically we wanted to say we experienced it so we
ended up knocking on doors one night even though we're the number one
haters on spending too much time knocking on doors because of its
weirdness and ineffectiveness. So we went around one night saying the
mission story classic "well elder, let's get this last one before we
head home." We probably said it about 30 times until we finally found
"the one". We found this way solid dude that I'm feeling pretty
confident will get baptized. He's norwegian and has recently become
super intersted in christianity. He wants to visit Jerusalem and stuff.
He's looking for the truth but doesn't exactly know what it is or where
to find it. At the end of the day, we were grateful that we tried "one
more house".
Next week we'll be touring it up
Zone Conference style. We'll be flying west to Stavanger and then north
to Trondheim. So we'll be leaving tuesday night and getting home friday
night. I'm pretty pumped to go spread some energy and passion about
member missionary work. Should be sweet!
Thanks
for writing me and making me feel loved. Hope you guys have a great
week. Sorry its halloween time. I'm excited for your guys' Thanksgiving
vacation. Sounds fun. Love you!
Eldste Skinner
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