July 15, 2013

Where did you read the article about the dress code changes? I've been dying for something like this to happen! I really think that a little bit more style wont hurt the missionary work. Thats an awesome story about the missionaries in Ramona, I wish I felt the same promptings. They sound like they're awesome... make sure you dont feed them too early on monday if thats they're Pday. Today we have a dinner at 4 so our P day gets cut way short:/ its alright though.. Im grateful for dinners. We're gonna go to gamlebyen today which is where 2 missionaries were thrown into jail way back in the 1850's I believe. My area is old!

 We've been trying find like crazy and it never really ends up being as effective as we plan for. One day we really wanted to find people, especially families, so we knocked on doors from 12 to 8 pm. It was intense and we did end up finding some potentials, so that was good. One of them we taught on tuesday. She is from the Congo and has 2 kids and a husband from Serbia. She was way awesome and has a strong faith in christ. She will come to know that the book of mormon is true, and then hopefully things will go from there. We will see. It was cool because we had our 17 year summer missionary with us so he was able to experience a good lesson. His name was Simon and he has lived in Norway for 4 years. He was born in Nigeria and then lived in Canada. He was a cool kid and he still wants to go on a mission after a week with us so thats good. 

Waiting at a busstop about to go home for dinner after knocking some doors in a neighborhood, we met a funny italian dude who spoke norwegian/english. He kept telling us about how he has the voice of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Michael Bolton, Frank Sinatra, and guys like that. I wanted to ask him to sing to us, but he just went ahead and started belting out these love songs at the busstop. It was totally entertaining. He wasn't drunk or on drugs or anything either. Legendary dude!

Some Bulgarians from our language class talked to us for a while the other day about "how tough it is to be a Bulgarian". The one dude who does all the talking in english, has been looking all over for a job or volunteer work but cant find anything. Poor dude. After talking and talking (bulgarians love to talk, no matter what language) he showed us his sick cultural bagpipe. It was a way ancient bulgarian instrument but I cant remember what its called. Hopefully we can help this dude and his family learn the language and start teaching them the gospel in the near future. 

So things are going great over here.. has been nice and sunny 23c for about 12 days straight. Everyone is out boating or on vacation somewhere. I have come to find out that church attendence is terrible in the summer. So the ward consisted of mainly misionaries yesterday haha. Its so wierd and different compared to church back home.

Thanks for another awesome and informative email:) I really appreciate it. Thats so exciting that your coming up to Finland in August! You'll pretty much be right next door. Life is great over here in Scandinavia! Love you!

Eldste Skinner

July 8, 2013

(part 1)
HEy mom! today Im in OSLO! mann oh man I love the city. So fast paced and stylish. Pray that I get transferred here some day haha. We're all going to play some ultimate frisbee as a zone for Pday! Its been super beautiful and summery here the past couple of days although it rained on the 3rd and 4th of july. Scandinavian Summers! I'll try to see if I can email you later tonight. Im totally in a rush.. I just wanted to send something out so you didn't think I forgot about you. haha

Love Your Son, 

Eldste skinner

 

(part 2)

This has been another quick week with all sorts of walking. Our poor buddy from Oslo has done a lot of walking around with us, but we've had some good teaches. Our investigators still have a long way to go, but there's nothing wrong with that. 4th of July wasn't too exciting but it was still a great day.. we started our language class. 5 Bulgarians came and 3 Filipinos came! We went through the basics and it was way fun. Eventually we're going to have the native members help us out. It was great to have non members in our church and curious to learn from us... eventually it will lead into gospel teaching opportunities I think. Today I was in Oslo because we wanted to put together a zone ultimate frisbee activity before a leadership training meeting. Sorry this email is kinda lame. I've been working hard and trying to help out my companion. The language is coming... but then when I get too confident im quickly humbled. Its a fun process. My teacher from the MTC is in Norway so I got to see him today too. I'm so grateful to be here in norway. I'm so grateful to have some an awesome family as well.The gospel is true and will continue to bless our lives if we stå på!
LOVE YOU!

Eldste Skinner

July 1, 2013

Sounds like an awesome week! I'm so excited for Cade and Aaron! Those are some awesome mission calls! All I can say to them is "Welcome to Gods Army". I love those two and they're going to do great. I bet Ethans wedding was awesome and a lot of people came.. thats way sweet! 

We went up to Moss to watch that broadcast on missionary work. WOW. I was so pumped to hear all those talks and the music and videos were awesome too. Holland is amazing even when he's just conducting. The spirit really testifies that everything their saying about how missionary work should be done, is in fact true. Knocking on doors is old school and a waste of time most of the time. We have all these missionaries out in the field and there is so much potential. We really cant do it alone though.. the members play an even bigger part in the gathering of Israel. I wish that we could just show that broadcast in perfect norwegian in sacrament meeeting. I was really bummed because not a single member from our ward was there. So sad. We have a great ward and they do want to help but they just dont really know how/ go to the meetings that teach them how. It can be frustrating but we'll do our best to help and teach them. I really like the analogy perry used with little kids playing soccer. We all need to be better at recognizing our own specific roles and working together to fulfill our common purpose, building up the Lord's kingdom. 

This week has been really tiring and most of it was spent under an umbrella. We are trying to find new investigators to work with.. preferably families so we've done a  lot of knocking. Knocking is only good because I can practice my norwegian but it is pretty much a big waste of time when you do it day after day. We did find some cool people and got them even more curious about life. All of our investigators right now are in the early stages of conversion, like we're teaching them how to pray and stuff like that. Its great, but its a long process. 

We're starting a norwegian language class this week so we've been putting up flyers... we've been getting calls so hopefully it turns about to be a fun way to meet people. We're doing norwegian class because there are a lot of foreigners here who want to learn the language and most of them have a basic foundation of english for us to work with. We'll see how it goes. While putting up flyers we were totally being led by the spirit without knowing it, We met a sweet muslim family, a recent convert who we lost contact with, and a former investigator who wants us to come by sometime. We were definately put into other's paths that day.. it was almost creepy. So blessed. 

I had a practice driving test this week with a traffic school. they wanted to make sure I didn't need a ton driving classes before my license test. It was So much fun to drive a nice new car. It was some 4 door hyundai hatchback. I swear the manuel cars these days are pretty much impossible to stall, so smooth and so much fun. I have my driving test on August 29th. I chose to do it manuel just for fun and here in Norway you have to take it manuel in order to be able to drive both manuel and auto. All the cars are automatic on the mission but you never know what will happen. 

Nothing too crazy happened this week, I've just been physically exhausted from all the walking. I'm still alive and thriving in norway. Its a great place, I am so lucky! I need to send better pictures to you guys. I'll work on that.. its just hard because I have so many. Try not to die in the heat. Happy 4th of July!! Take pictures!  I love you all, tell everyone I say hi.

Eldste Niklas Anton Skinner

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