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 

May 27, 2013

Hello:)
I love getting your emails too!

This week has been another great week. We taught the fun Law of Chastity, Word of Wisdom, and Tithing lessons this week to Jan. So fun! He took it pretty well and the spirit was with us as we testified that following these commandments would richly bless him and his family. He passed his Baptismal interview so we're excited for this Saturday! The ward's been doing a great job fellowshipping him as well. We've been fasting a praying a lot that he will be ready to make that covenant with the Lord and that June first will be a special day for him. He picked my companion to baptise him! how awesome. Its his first baptism too. We are so blessed. Hard work pays off eventually here in Norway.

I went on splits twice this week in Moss with another greeny. We were tearing up the streets with our brand new language skills haha. It was a lot of fun trying to carry conversations with people at their doorstep or on the streets. I hate it when people switch to english on me, I just keep talking to them in Norwegian most of the time. Depending on the situation I switch to English because thats obviously my better language. In Moss, I rode a bike for the first time on my mission (took 4 months). Super fun if you dont think about how ridiculous you look with the goofy helmets and missionary get-up. It was pretty embarrassing but then again I don't really care. The hardest, most frustrating part of the mission is not being able to express my self in Norwegian. I fell like I have no personality. Its awkward but I just laugh and smile and try my best. Norway is sweet though and I love the language, its pretty sweet. I've noticed how certain people sound "cooler" than others even though its all the same language, something that i've never really noticed in English. Someone gave a closing prayer in church yesterday in what I found out to be Swedish. That was pretty cool.

Nothing particularly new is happening over here. Norway feels like home now. Its super sweet living here in Europe. The states are cool too though. I've been thinking a lot about how fortunate I am to be fluent in English though. People are crazy about American culture such as movies, tv shows, and music and I dont even think they understand half the stuff being said. I see someone wearing something with "stars and stripes" everyday! Proud to be an American, but super stoked to pretend to be norwegian for 2 years.

The Fort in Halden was awesome! I took lots of pictures but none of my pictures do justice of how unbelievably pretty it is over here in Norway. You're just gonna have to take my word for it.

I love you all and I hope you guys have a fun time organizing the garage. yeeesh!

Ha det dere!

Eldste Skinner

Mission Update

Dear Parents

I want to take this opportunity to update you on the Mission.  I trust that your missionary is keeping you apprised of his or her personal activities and hope that you will find this note to be of additional help. 

Spring was two weeks late this year, but now everything is green and beautiful.  We just need it to stop raining!  On Tuesday we welcome twenty-one new missionaries, including 17 sisters.  This will bring our total number of missionaries to nearly 80 and by fall we will have 95 (there were just over 50 when Sister Evans and I arrived last July).  This growth necessitates more extensive training of those who will be assigned as senior companions as well as the opening of new proselyting areas, either in existing cities or in new ones.  It is hard to open areas that are a distance from a branch or ward, so we grow from the “center out” as much as we can.

Our baptisms are steady but not spectacular.  I recently challenged the missionaries to have baptized 100 people by year’s end.  I know that we are capable of so much more!  I am learning that it is the consecration and faith of the missionary that is a key factor in his or her ability to find, teach and eventually baptize.  Yet I hasten to add that a missionary’s success cannot be judged solely by baptisms.  In the meantime, we are baptizing a greater percentage of people who have been referred by the members.  That rate is now at 50% and member referrals result in higher rates of convert retention.

We started a new tradition a few months ago.  At 11:00 AM we stop whatever we are doing and pray for the success of the mission.  It really brings us together.

Your missionaries are charged each week to spend a significant amount of their time in finding.  There are traditionally four ways that we find:  member referrals, self-referrals, street contacting, and tracting.  In addition, each missionary pair is encouraged to visit five members each week and to share a doctrinal message with them.  Finally, they set a goal of fellowshipping at least one less-active each transfer.  Through it all we work closely with the stakes, wards, and branches.  It is the only way that we will enjoy “real growth” in Norway.

Lately, we have experienced many miracles in the form of people throughout the country who contacted us, wanting to be taught and baptized.  These are people who, in some instances, came into contact with the missionaries months or even years ago.  One man who was recently baptized is 79 years old and had been reading the standard works, off and on, for 50 years!

I want you to know that I love your missionaries.  Each time one of them leaves to go back home, it gets harder and harder to say goodbye.  Your missionaries are my greatest joy as a mission president.  We recently created a private Facebook group for our returned missionaries.  It should be an effective way of staying in touch with them through the years.

Thanks for your prayers—for your missionary, the mission, and for Norway.

Sincerely

President Evans

May 20, 2013

Hallo alle sammen!!

Sounds like you guys have had a busy and warm week! 

I'm loving Norway and feel like im adjusting to it. We've had a great week. Missionary work has been awesome! We have a baptism scheduled for June 1st. We've been teaching a guy named Jan ever since I got here and its amazing to see how much the spirit has worked on him. Missionaries have taught him before but this time around he is totally repentent and looking for a fresh start for his life. His wife is a member and his son is the talkative one from skype. I'm excited for him to be baptised because I know the gospel blesses families and baptism will be that fresh start he needs. We also have a few investigators we're working on getting baptismal dates with as well. 

Syttende Mai was so fun. We got to go to Oslo all day. There were so many people! Some were dressed in their traditional Norwegian bonads. There were some Sammis as well. For the most part everyone was wearing suits so we blended in as Missionaries (all 20 of us). It was so fun to see all the flags and to party it up with the Norwegians. The parade was very traditional and centered on the children/schools. The King had to wave to everyone for like 3 hours straight. I think the best part was just being in an different culture and cruising the streets of Oslo. Norway is so cool and they are so proud of thier country (cant blame them). Its been pretty warm lately, around 26C although its rainy right now. Everything is getting super pretty and green!

We had dinner on saturday with 3 professional female golfers. Cecilie Lundgreen invited us to come over in eat with her 2 other mormon golfer friends. They made us Mexican food!! Burritos, Fajitas, Chips and salsa... so good. They travel all around the world for the Womens European Golf Tour and they do great missionary work at the same time. Awesome ladies! They even gave us Koolaid and Lucky Charms all the way from the US. I thought about tyring new food this week. We do service at a less active ladies house just helping her around the yard. She offered to make us open faced sandwiches for lunch. I went for the smoked trout and egg combo. Two things I "hate" ended up not being that bad. It wasn't as good as the standard cheese and salami, but it was pretty good. 

Anyways, I think we're gonna go check out this fort in Halden and stop by the swedish border on the way. 

Enjoy the beach weather! I love you all so much! 

NORWAY!!

What an awesome week. Norway is easily the best country in the world. Its a whole new world, but it feels like home to me... like i've been here before. Its a lot like what a remember from Finland. So cool. Everything is just a little bit different from the US (cars, houses, bathrooms, roads, etc.). Everything is just super different and I love taking it all in. The flight here wasn't too bad, shorter than I expected. Everything went smoothly except for one of my bags didn't make the flight from London to Oslo. I got it the next morning though so it all worked out. President and Sister Evans are awesome! they were waiting for me after I got one of my bags and figured out what was going on with my other one. They were excited to finally get me after 7 weeks of waiting for that Visa. I ate dinner with them and the AP's and it was super good! I interviewed with pres and found out that i'm serving in Fredrikstad with Eldste Weaver.

So I stayed the night at the mission home, and met up with Weaver the next day. Fredrikstad is about an hour long train ride south east from Oslo. Its super great here. Its awesome to be back into cities. Fstad is awesome and I hear it only gets prettier as the summer comes along. Its nice to be back into populated area with water and trees and busy roads. We have a car currently but we use the busses a lot. Public transportation is awesome here. Works like clockwork. Back at home the busses are the loser cruisers but here everyone uses them, especially teenagers since getting a license is super expensive and such a hassle. Eldste Weaver is super cool, we get along great. I've lucked out so far when it comes to companions. He's from Irvine and loves to do all the surfing, skating, and snowboarding stuff too. Its pretty sweet to be 2 california shredders out here to do the Lord's work here in Norway. He's been out for about 7 months so he's pretty good at the language. Norwegian is tough!!! I'm quickly realizing how sucky it was to only have 6 weeks to learn it and then a whole 7 to forget it. Its coming back fast and im learning but I feel so retarded! It sucks to not be able to communicate with anyone or express myself as well as I'd like to. It's super frustrating to have people try to talk to me and i don't know what they're saying, or what to say back. I know that the language will come but its a pretty awkward and painful process. On the plus side, im in the east so I can actually understand quite a bit. Norwegian sounds awesome though, and I can't wait for it to start clicking. The good thing about Norway is that no matter how tough it is to learn the language or preach the gospel, its super pretty and the food is great. Yesterday I had the best waffles ever, with vanilla cream and berry jam. All the food that i've had so far has been awesome. I think its just because the bread, chocolate, milk, cheese, chocolate, potatoes, chocolate, ice cream, chocolate, fruits, vegetables and the chocolate are so much better/different. Kebabs!!! I've had 2 already. Amazing. Eldste Weaver and I ate hotdogs on lomper with some good norwegian sauces on my first night. Norway is known for there love of "hotdogs" and frozen pizza. You'll never guess what my first meal was with a member. Ocsehale lobscouse. It was basically a blend of meat and potatoes. It was super good and I ate a bunch of it. Only, I didn't understand that the meat part was... ox and horse tail. Weaver told me afterwards and I was cracking up. So many awesome things happened this week that I cant really explain it all. Basically we did a lot of service and had some awesome teaches. The missionary work is busy over here and we're working on a couple of solid investigators right now. So this week we're going to work on getting a couple of baptismal dates set up. The Lord has been preparing people here to recieve the truthfulness of the gospel. Its awesome to be able to meet and teach so many different people here in Norway. Its incredibly diverse over here. I've met people from different parts of Africa, people from Poland, Iran, Russia, Tunisia, Finland, all over. Just in a week.

I bore my testimony yesterday, even though I was terrified. I think it went pretty good and everyone was complicating me on my Norwegian. Little did they know that my testimony is about 75 percent of what I can say in Norwegian.  

You'll never guess who's in my ward and I see alllll the time. She's a super crazy and awesome Finnish lady with short spiked red hair. She know's the whole Fristrom family. She was your primary president in Helsinki. Her name is Helena! Haahaa. I met her my second day here while we were helping a family move. I could tell that she was Finnish  from her accent so I told her that my mom is Finnish. Suvi Fristrom. She exploded! it was super crazy. She started telling me all sorts of stories about how great the iso aitti and iso isa are, and how well behaved you all were at church. Iso isa was her home teacher she said. So basically, this is such a small world, and Helena loves me like crazy and says I remind her of uncle Visa. 

Anyways, I absolutely love it here and am so blessed to serve here. Everything is outrageously expensive so im grateful for the sufficient missionary funds we recieve (probably the most out of any mission). But Norway is  Incredibly pretty no matter where you are. The people are awesome. The ward is small but we'll strengthen and build it up. I love being a missionary no matter how tough it gets at times. Thanks for all the love and support. Love you!

Eldste Skinner