God Jul!

December 22, 2013

God jul!

I never know how to begin my emails but i'm glad you like them! its tough for me to remember all that has happened this week.. its all been a blur. I do want to get better at emailing so that all the people who read the blog actually have something interesting to read.

This week has consisted some obvious christmas fun. We got eat dinner with our MMK and help his family make christmas candy and decorate the Christmas tree. The tree's here are different.. sorta dinky but I like them. The tree was decorated with good taste. You would approve mom. I love christmas and it blows my mind how fast the 25th has come around. Its also nice not having to worry about whether or not i'm getting that skateboard, or whatever I used to ask for. I know I was way uptight with making sure I secured myself presents. I also remember always wanting to be surpirsed.. I wasn't a peeker thats for sure. I still love being surprised. I also still love going after things I want and figuring our how it can happen. "Heyy, if we put our money together.." that kind of stuff. Christmas is so much fun! This is my first Christmas away from home i've noticed but i'm not feeling homesick at all. We're treated well here in trondheim so I cant complain. I'll need to make sure those elders in the rest of the lonelier spots are ok though. Here in Norway, christmas isn't just a 2 day thing. They drag it out for about 5 days so its way sweet. they've got the right idea. Missionary work this week will be tough for finding but I'm excited to spend time with some members and experience a Norwegian christmas. This morning we had the classic grøtt, rice porridge. I didn't win the prize by finding the almond though:/ ate that bland stuff for nothing! Haha I also tried some pickled herring on bread, had to experience it. Not bad but I didn't go asking for more. Tomorrow we'll see what sort of weird food pops up. I'm so excited but at the same time it comes so fast that it still feels like it shouldn't be Christmas time already. 

I can't wait to Skype you all on Wednesday. It'll be fun and then maybe you'll feel more updated:) come prepared with your questions, comments, concerns, jokes, whatever!!

Merry Christmas! Love you!

Eldste Skinner 

p.s. here's a picture from another baptism we had in the district on saturday :) Missionary work.. gotta love it!!

December 16, 2013

kjære alle sammen!

Well this week was super crazy.. I don't even know where to begin. Tore did get baptized and the meeting went great. So awesome. All the stressful preparation was worth it. Its a true miracle to find some Norwegian dude on the streets, start teaching him and then see him be baptized. Amazing and I'm grateful for the spirit that unquestionably did all the work.

We had an awesome Zone leader training meeting. We conducted it but president did all the teaching, its was way inspirational. He talked about how missionary life is a lot like climbing Mt. Everest. So true.

We had a freaking Hurricane this week in Trondheim!! It was super intense. Happened in the afternoon after ZLT, while all the missionaries were at the airport trying to get back to their areas. There was absolutely no chance of any planes coming in or landing so they all came back to spend the night. So we had 18 elders in our apartment that night.. so fun but the apartment is back to filthiness. no worries though, it was great for all of us to spend time together. It was actually really crazy because from like 6 to 9, everyone in the city was ordered by the police to stay inside. Apparently the first time in the history of trondheim. the winds were said to be about 35 m/s and up to 50 in some places. So as we all chilled in the church we set up a projector and watch Monsters inc. president said it was cool. We didn't want to risk playing indoor hockey and trashing the church/some elder's face. It was so weird to see a disney movie.. super entertaining, I was sucked in.

With  president, we meet with him in a meeting in Oslo at the beginning of every month as ZL's. Every missionary is interviewed 1 on 1 as often as occasion will allow. We were all interviewed when he came this week. For the most part though we talk to him on the phone and every missionary sends emails every P-day to fill him in. President Evans is awesome!

That christmas concert was embarrassing but super fun. I dont think any of the Norwegians or old people understood what was going on. It was funny to us and the americans in the crowd. We did it in English because we were asked to. We really didn't haven't any time to prepare anything because of this week's craziness.

We went to IKEA this morning and I quickly realized how much I am like you. I was completely overwhelmed and almost bought some covers for my dyna blanket but I chickened out. The pattern I was given when I came into norway wasn't exactly my first choice.. almost but a fun one today. Maybe I'll go back. The Ikea is pretty much the same here and I'm sure they have the same products. We got some cheap food afterwards as well, only place I've eaten in norway with free refills. I also saw those gingerbread houses that I remember annika wanting last year.. It all reminded me of home. Although I would say that I enjoy it a lot more now than I used to. I was also in H&M today.. that was a nightmare, the one here in Theim is way nicer than any other ones I've been to. The Christmas shopping is insane here and our apartment is right in the center of all of it. This city is my favorite and we're slowly finding some cool people to teach the gospel to.

I think i'm starting to get sick.. i took some dayquil and i'm still able to eat so its not too bad. I think this crazy week just wiped me out. So many different crazy things happened this week with a baptism included. Its been a completely different type of missionary week. I'm so grateful for the mission life and the christmas feel up here in trondheim. Eat some gløgg and pepperkaker! We're thinking about getting a apartment christmas card send out.. We'll see what happens. Love you so much, thank you for working hard and being so supportive. setter stor pris på det. Have an awesome week!

Eldste Skinner

Still loving Norway - December 9, 2013

Hellooo!

Thanks for another awesome email. Life's been crazy up here and a little stressful at times but not in a negative way. Still loving Norway.. I think its impossible for me not to love. Its been pretty cold lately but that's no surprise really. We've been really blessed in our district and zone lately in case you didn't know. Right now our zone has 16 baptismal dates and 12 of them come from right here in my district. Our district has more baptismal dates that the other zones do. Completely wild. We've been way blessed with these unheard of numbers. President has just been blown away. I'm not sure why heavenly father started giving us all these awesome people but its a miracle.

Shanklin and I have a baptism on Saturday with a Norwegian guy named Tore. He's a chill 27 year old dude and he's basically a member already with all the activities and church gatherings he's coming to. He might know more members than I do. He's readily accepting all the commandments including the word of wisdom and law of tithing. Our only concern is with the law of chastity because of the homosexual thing, he asked a lot of questions about that. Everyone is liberal here so they sometimes assume that our stance on marriage between only men and women means that we hate gay people. Obviously that's not true and I think he understands that as well, so it looks all good.

 We've planned a pretty awesome baptismal program and came up with a system of getting a bunch of members to come.. basically just give assignments to certain members so they have to. Its genius. We're giving every auxiliary a way to contribute. Administrating is key to ministering. This ward has really opened its eyes to missionary work but we still got a long way to go.

We sat down with our bishop and missionary leader and discussed next year, our goals and stuff. Its awesome to be able to work with such great priesthood leaders.

I had to give a talk yesterday. It was supposed to be next week but they called me on Saturday and said they needed me this week. Its was about Christ and how he is our light. It was pretty good but I hardly had any time to prepare. Especially with all the other mission stuff to take care of. This week is going to be crazy busy. We have a 3 hour zone leader training meeting this week as well with president coming to town. Luckily Elder Jones and I aren't teaching all of it because president wants to teach as well. I love learning from older and wiser people who really know the gospel on a deeper level.

This week after our awesome meeting in the cozy christmas decorated mission home, I had yet another flight story. I have bad luck when it comes to having smooth flights but that's OK because cool stories come from it. No hotel this time but we did get about 40 bucks(got me two slices of pizza..cool). What happened was our plane home from oslo took off but then wasn't able to land in trondheim because the runway was frozen.. so we did some extra flying to kill time as they tried de-icing the runway. They weren't able to get the runway cleared so we ended up turning around and going back to oslo. It was a long night. Eventually we got on another flight to trondheim and managed one of the sketchiest landings ever. You would think that norway would have this whole winter travel thing figured out by now. But I'm not complaining with all these flights that im getting. I'm just hoping all of our missionaries will be able to make it down here to trondheim this week. Those poor brethren up there in the dark arctic circle...

I also had a learning experience last night. We visited these newly wed members at their house. It was spotlessly clean, nice furniture (no kids yet). we talked with them and then taught them them the doctrine of christ as we sipped on some glogg and ate pudding. It was perfect. At the end I felt prompted to give the husband a blessing but thought about the dang bus we were about to miss.. so i IGNORED it!! So LAME. I talked with elder Shanklin about it afterwards and he told me that he ignored the same prompting as well. That was the worst feeling ever so we quickly repented and gave the member a call. We told him that we "forgot" to offer him a blessing when we were at his house. He told us that he could really use one since he's been stressing over his exams. Heavenly Father taught me something that night being the interesting teacher he is. Never again do I want to ignore spiritual promptings. It feels terrible.

So its been a pretty great week! I hope you all are getting excited for the most wonderful time of the year:) have a fun week with work and look forward to those precious days off! Hard work is always worth it in the end! Love you!

Eldste Skinner

December 2, 2013

Hello hello!

Although I wasn't home to join in on all those fun american festivities it was a great week. We actually had a thanksgiving dinner on saturday. We are blessed to have a senior couple here in trondheim and she is an awesome cook. So on saturday we put together a thanksgiving dinner with the ward and all of our investigators. Totally fun and there must've been about 80 who showed up all together. Tons of turkey, stuffing, potatoes, pies, salads, and all that sort of stuff. A bunch of food and we're still eating the leftovers out of the church's fridge. I did not miss out. Christmas is here in Trondheim. As of 5 o'clock last night, the local christmas tree and lights are all a go. Its different than america though, doesn't feel as extravagant.. more simple decorations but still way awesome. Plenty of advent calenders so don't feel like you have to send one. There's really not anything I need in particular. The only thing I'd want would maybe be some old spice fiji and afterhours..but I'm fine with the euro deodorant here as well. Church was great although I had to teach the second hour because i'm not busy enough. It was awesome though because the spirit was there and everyone was participating. I also bore my testimony even though I wasn't planning on doing it. Bigger crowd here in Trondheim than Narvik haha. Always feels good to go up and share what you know to be true. I've learned that if your heart is pounding because you're nervous to get up that usually means that you really need to get up there. Nike just do it.

The missionary work is going pretty well. we're just having a tough time finding people on the streets who will make time to meet up. I hate to say the classic christmas line but... people are too busy with christmas to hear about Christ and his church. There's also a ton of students heading home after finals so its pretty frustrating. We had a pretty cool miracle happen this week. way cool and way simple. Praying works.

So basically we have this one investigator who accepted a baptismal date and loves jesus and all that good stuff. He's from Afghanistan and we call him "the one armed bandit"(TOAB). He's awesome but I haven't been able to teach him since being here. He apparently just fell off the face of the earth. We tried calling him but... nothing. So then Shanklin remembers him showing them his neighborhood (completely random) on Google maps.. no one knows why. Unfortunately they didn't write down the address or anything so we just hoped that it would be saved on the recent searches or something. this was about a month ago so that didn't work. It was hopeless and we had no idea how we were going to a hold of this dude. Well we found him. This is our story as told by Elder Shanklin, enjoy:

TOAB is a gangster man... However he went to Oslo right as Elder Leighton left and Skinner and I havent been able to get a hold of him. Boo. Well one day we decided to have a 'hunt for TOAB day'. We spent some time on the computer trying to creep stalk him. We called Elder Leighton to get info on his address. He showed us his house on Google maps before so for a time we attempted to hack into the churches computer history in order to recover the search that was made. We even called the office to see if they could track our phone bill and give us the number of a phone he called from one time. Crazy stuff. I vaguely recognized a street name in the area I knew he lived so Skinner and I just decided to go out there and find him. So we miss the first bus to his area and have to wait and extra 4 minutes. When we get there we waste some time trying houses and before long we just end up walking around. We felt so ineffective. Elder Skinner fell to his knees and proclaimed 'Man, its gonna take a freaking miracle to find this dude'. So we said a prayer, in the middle of this frozen tundra, asking God to give us a miracle. We felt prompted to try this house that had 7 Russian names on the mailbox, nothing came out of it except some creepy Russian dude answering the door with his pants half on. So we walked around some more and I saw a totally sketchy looking mailbox that had like 40 immigrant style names written all over it. So we decided to try it, why not, we could end up meeting TOAB or we could walk in on a terrorist gathering. As a missionary you just take your chances. So we walked to these two doors and at the first one this Asian dude tells us off and we ask him if he knows anyone named John who lives in the other section of this house. He says he doesn't know but then out of nowhere he just reaches through and opens the door for us. Let us go right in. Uhhhh, okay thanks man. So it's possible we are currently in somebodies house. Like imagine if you walked into your house one day and two missionaries were knocking on your bedroom door, and then your bathroom door, and then the laundry room door. That was us. Then out of nowhere we hear someone come up the stairs and I'm thinking 'yep, this is the end, only moments till I get to meet Jesus'. Skinner is laughing because he can tell I am freaking out a little, and then.....TOAB COMES WALKING UP THE STAIRS (with a bag of lutefisk...?). Ladies and gentleman...'nough said. God had a plan. From the missed bus, to the Russian guy, to the Asian dude, God was in complete control. Anyone who claims coincidence can just stop reading my letters...okay well maybe not but let's be real. So sick, got him back on board, turns out he left his phone in Oslo and had to get a new one. Elder Skinner and I were speechless walking out of that apartment thing. TOAB returns in style!

True Story. God answers prays and it was the exact miracle we asked for after doing all that we could. He ended up leaving losing his phone in Oslo and was happy to see us again. We're teaching him on wednesday but i'll actually be flying down to the mission home in Oslo for another meeting. Time is flying by like no other, according to my calculations...

3 days in Trondheim, Norway = 3 minutes in Colstrip, Montana

Anyways, We're all going to play that indoor hockey "innebandi" game. things are super crazy over here and I'm surviving this hard work. Having fun and enjoying the christmas season! Still working on cleaning the apartment and getting our decorations up. I'm sure that's your next project too:) Have an awesome week! Love you all! Let me know if there's anything you're dying to know that I'm maybe forgetting to mention.

Eldste Skinner

November 25, 2013

Halllllloooooo,

Thank you so much mom for that email. It was exactly what I needed and its pretty obvious that Heavenly Father shows his love to us by giving us our families. Your email pretty much just spot on matched what i'm going through right now. To me that's just 100 percent proof that God is real and that the Holy Ghost let you know exactly what was happening to your son here on the other side of the world. How awesome is that. Its so sad for me to meet all these people who are so caught up in science and technology that they see no need for God anymore. This city is pretty tough as far as work goes. There is a lot of people who are absolutely not interested and will even be mentally attacking at times. It doesn't get to me though because I just move on to the next person and the next and the next until I find the one who is prepared and ready. Its such a miracle to cross paths with these certain people.

We are currently teaching this one guy who was found in the city. He's a 27 Norwegian dude. Totally quite and shy but not at all the same time. He's coming to church and all sorts of activities which is awesome because its like he's already a member. We just have to teach him, help him understand what he's getting into and have the spirit testify to him that this is true. He doesn't doubt it but at the same time doesn't know for sure. We got a new investigator with a baptism date. She is from Czech and we were referred to her by a member because she's a cleaner lady and wants to learn the language. So we've been teaching her bits and pieces of the language and then last time the missionaries gave her a Book of Mormon. This last week we taught language for a little and then brought up the gospel in a smooth and almost sneaky way. I asked her how much she's been able to read and she said only 25 pages. We were stoked (normal people dont read that much in a week) and eventually invited her to be baptized on the 21st of December. She said she would if she knew that it was all true. We're just worried that work will keep her from coming to church although she would love to come and make new friends.

We had a way awesome experience with the youth at a indoor beach party activity (snow is dumping outside). We have about 4 youth but the activity had about 16 or so non members! what the heck! is was awesome to see so many people inside the church socializing and playing games with us. We had investigators come as well. We played dodgeball and no one in Norway knows how to properly throw a ball. They looked at me as if I was from another planet. USA baby. It was a lot of fun and really made me love the youth of the church!! I want to do all that I can to help them out. I know its tough, especially in Norway.

This week Elder Jones and I had the idea to gather the whole zone together via google hangout to present what we want to accomplish before the end of the year. It was stressful with all the inevitable technical difficulties of getting 10 companionships and their branch presidents on at the same time. It was also way scary for me because I have all these missionaries and branch presidents staring me down wondering if I really know what I'm doing. I need to have more confidence I've decided and I feel like I'm constantly not where I want to be. I've also come to the conclusion that I don't want to be just a good missionary, but just an absolute stud in the church. Here in Trondheim I' surrounded by a 28 year old bishop and a 26 year old mission leader who are just on a different level of member in the church. I want to be like them and just have that determination and ability to influence others like that. General authority status. I want to be on that level. I got some work to do... haha. But luckily I have this opportunity on the mission to learn and grow.

Try not to worry too much about the house. I can totally picture what going on right now. Enjoy everything this week! enjoy your day off. We'll be having a thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. Have fun! tell everyone hi and that I'm still loving Norway. I'm busy and time is flying by and of course im living in the present and enjoying this opportunity to live in an awesome city. I'd also love some pictures! Anyway, thanks for all the love and support. I am truly grateful for the motivational emails every week. Love you!

Eldste Skinner  

Zone Leader in Trondheim! - November 18, 2013

Hello!

Trondheim (trond- like owned and -heim like time) No complaints whatsoever about this city.

What an insane week. Leaving narvik was exactly as rainy as it was when I came in to the place. I miss that area a lot but I would day I love the city way more. There is so many people here in Trondheim (trond- like owned and -heim like time) and its just so much more fast paced. The dialect here is a little hard to understand but I'll just need a week or so to adjust. Everytime you move its like a different language. I'm comfortable with my language skills but I'm really trying to strech them so I can get a greater variety if things to say and ways to say them. I'm excited for  this area because I finally get to use it a lot more than my last area hardly anyone besides english speakers would talk to us. I love the language and oviously Im not fluent and somedays are just rougher than others but for the most part I feel fine about it. I still do have those humbling moments which just keep pushing me to be better.

So we have this big apartment in the city that we share. There's four of us. I'm with elder Shanklin and he's been here for about 3 months. He's from missouri and we get along great. He's pretty funny and and we're always laughing. Closest match to matt moffitt on this mission. He's a awesome missionary too and I'm just happy I don't have to worry about him and that he can share the responsibilty of this area with me. I don't feel like I have to do it all with him. So grateful. My Zoneleader companion is training. It's kind of confusing. We have an awesome ward but there not doing to hot with working with us at the moments but we've got some plans cooking up. We have no joke the best ward mission leader in Norway if not europe if not the world. He is an absolute perfect example of someone who magnifies his calling. I'm so greatful for him. I love being around other missionaries and members. It feel like a legit army of god.

On a side note, I'm dying over how nasty the apartment is. Probably hasn't been cleaned in years. Its not that bad and I've been slowly doing little things here and there but its pretty bad. I wish I had time to power clean it but I honestly never have time. Its hard enough to get to bed on time. I'm surviving though and trying not to be too stressed out about it, we did some cleaning for a little bit today and then bought groceries. Elder Shanklin cant eat gluten though so we have to buy some things seperately but that was easy. So much more food doen here and it seems to be cheaper and last longer. Christmas is in the air with the julebrus and peperkaker(thin gingerbread cookies). Julebrus is a christmas soda that different breweries from different cities in norway make. Its pretty classic norway. So ya christmas is sneaking in and I'm super excited even though I won't be home with you guys. We'll end up coming together as missionaries at some point in between christmas and new years to have some fun.

Im my area we have two investigators with a baptismal date but I haven't really met with them yet to see how progressed they are. Its funny because for the most part I was just as busy in Narvik as they seem to be here. Hopefully I can start really being busy with appointments and people to baptise before the end of the year. My new job is stressful and eventhough I'm not dealing with the isolation and boringness of Narvik, I would say this new area is harder. I'm still happy though and eventually i'll make the adjustment and realize how much I grew. I just am so new to everything and its kind of overwhelming right now but eventually things will start flowing. Change is always tough but i'll quickly adjust. This city is so awesome though. I don't know a whole lot about this place but It has an amazing cathedral and there's a ton of atheist students here. Plenty of people to talk to at any given timee of day. Perfect. Its still dark but Its a city so its no big deal. I got out of narvik in perfect timing ( i think the sun goes behind the mountain there today, never to be seen until sometime in february or march).

So basically I'm doing great and I know I'll really love this area and time will fly by. I'm happy to hear dad is still shredding the gnar, that's one of the few things i miss but it'll be there for me when I get back. Patrik is a teacher's quorum president? that's way awesome I hope he will really try to get the less active kids to come back, I'm assuming there's a few. With the whole mutual thing can patrik find a good friend to bring along? that will make it more fun for him and give the missionaries some smiles as well. Just my thoughts. If the activities are lame, plan different ones. I remember we always got to pick and if we didn't pick something fun then it was our own fault.

Thanks for the email. I'm really focusing on doing all these things cheerfully even though its tough right now. Its totally a miss stressed out leadership mixed with excitement for being in a cool place with people to baptise. Let me know If you have any specific questions.. Happy thanksgiving! Be thankful for the restored gospel and warmish weather. Love you!

Eldste Skinner