April 14, 2014

Hello!

Oslo was pretty sweet this week. We had an awesome meeting with just all the district and zone leaders from all around the mission. We focused on what we can do to help out the mission. I feel like we're really struggling now, even in our zone. We have a crazy goal for baptisms by the end of the year and we are no where near on track. Can be stressful, especially for president. I sometimes wish we could just wander around and not have to worry about reaching goals and hitting certain numbers. I know that numbers do push us to try harder and be as effecient as possible, but its no fun to feel like your struggling even when your trying our best. It also makes it easy to focus on people as numbers rather than real people who need the gospel . Something that I've really been doing lately is focusing on taking action, making plans, setting goals, etc that can get the northern zone going. Here in trondheim, we've really been discussing with elder Halvorsen on how we can boost the teamwork here in Trondheim. Halvorsen is legit. He's the district leader here right now and his grandpa served here in Norway at the same time as grandma joyce. So we're trying to take charge and get the work exploding here. No "sleeping through the revolution" up here.  This city has a lot of potential its just so sad to see how tough it is to get things going. So I'm really just praying and thinking of ideas for how we can hasten the work up here. Leadership isn't something I ever expected to do as a missionary. I had no idea missionary leadership existed. It adds a whole new twist on serving and coming closer to the Lord. I'm grateful for all the dang challenges and responsibilities that come with it. I know its preparing me for a lot in the future so that's something I'm grateful for. 

Stoked for easter! Easter here in Norway is a big deal. It seems like everyone is either hiding at home for a week straight or or going on vacation to some place warm. Norwegians and their freakin holidays. There's been all sorts of sales on the classic Kvik Lunsj so I'm not complaining. You would think that it'd be a great time for having great conversations about christ and his gospel so we're looking forward to see what could happen. We've had some cool experiences this week with being lead by the spirit, which is easily the coolest part of missionary work. There was no huge promptings or anything but we were totally lead to a recent convert who has been skipping out on church lately. We tried catching two busses to head out to this neighborhood where someone had been referred to us. But me somehow managed to miss it twice. Apparently we weren't supposed to go there. So we had the random idea to knock on some doors out in this area where we saw a cool little apartment complex. The wierd thing was that the bus to get out there was already about to leave so we had to turn around and race it to the next stop. So we chase this bus number 4 peter parker style. We get on the bus pretty winded and wet from the rain. As I sat down, I looked around and saw the recent convert that we've been trying to help out. So I jump on over to him and sit by him and we start talking. I could immediately tell that he really did need and want our help. I was super happy that we were led to him. We got to meet with him and help him out with things today.

 

I also had a cool experience this week with 30 highschool students. We had a whole freaking class of 18 year olds come into the church on tuesday to come and learn ad ask questions.. Obviously it was there teacher that set it up but it was a sweet experience. We all met in the chapel and us misisonaries stood up front to present a little history about the restoration of god's truth and christ's gospel. It went really well. Not really sure how much they cared but I definaitely felt the spirit as we were teaching. Who knows who was actually listening. Afterwards they asked us all sorts of questions about what we believe in. I was amazed that they actually had like 20 plus questions to ask. Of course we got the classic questions about polygamy and gays and all that good stuff. We were able to confidently answer all their questions. We also gave them a tour around the church and offered them some books of mormon and baked goods. It was a pretty cool experience although I was of course a little nervous at first. Its tough to teach kids that are pretty much the same age and mostly don't even believe in god. The promise that the holy ghost will fill your mouth with the words to say definitley proved to be true. 

The mission is still legit. Thanks for all the love and support. I really am working my hardest and trying to enjoy this experience as much as possible.

Have a happy easter! Love you:)

Eldste Skinner

April 7, 2014

I loved that snowboarding talk obviously. Some of the talks by the 70 on sunday afternoon were legit as well. Conference felt like christmas and I'm sad its over. Can't wait for the Liahona's to come so I can start studying them. Got a lot of things I want to start working on now!! I only have one more conference as a missionary and then I 'll be on the normal member side  having to worry about all this craziness out there in the world. I'm happy for this mission experience which Is helping me to be ready to be a strong priesthood holding husband and father. Crazy to think about how fast that will come up. My testimony was seriously strengthened hearing from the talks at conference. Its so true about how fast the world is changing and how easily and acceptable it is to break some of gods serious commandments. How did satan gain so much influence? pretty messed up. Luckily we have the truth of the gospel (and the blessings that come along with it) on the earth today which can keep us safe in our "4 minutes" to perform. 

This week was pretty eventful. We were fed this week by an awesome family here in Trondheim. The wife is a member and from texas. She made us some yummy chili and peach cobbler. The next day elder clarke and I woke up really early. I climbed out of my ikea bunk bed around 420 and then ran to catch the train to the airport. The train ride is only about 35 minutes and the flight from Trondheim to Oslo is a little over an hour or so. When we fly, we just have the Assistants book the flights and they give us the reference codes. I've been saving all my boarding passes and its stacking up pretty high. On the plane we sat next to this miner dude from Ireland who was on his way to a mine to sweden. We find out that he works with the husband to the member we ate peach cobbler with. Small world, probably not a coincidence. We get talking to him about pretty much everything and found out that he has young kids and a wife.. it was actually his anniversary and he had to ditch them again for work. Pretty sad. He told us that miners have one of the highest divorce rates most likely due to the fact that they're always gone for extended periods of time. I was super stoked to be able to tell this dude about the wonderful message of the gospel and how it can bless our families. So I open my mouth and start letting the words fly and.. the homeboy didn't want anything to do with it:( Quickly told me to change the subject. Very open to not wanting to hear anything about "religion". Sometimes missionary work is the most sad and frustrating thing ever. Other times its awesome. Made friends with a homeboy from Jamaica while waiting for the bus. We were chest bumping within 3 minutes. I hope we all realize how blessed we are to be members of the church. Its so awesome when good things happen while sharing the gospel. Greatest joy. the members here in Norway are super faithful and have inspiring stories that get me pumped. Reading about Tony Samuelson gets me pumped. I know there's still people here waiting for me. Trying to get out there and make a difference. I was grateful to be able to teach and find some awesome humble people this week. We even had some investigators including old grandma come to the baptism we had this weekend in the ward. 

Good luck with everything this week! I'll be praying for you mom. Don't want you to get too worked up or stressed out with work. I really wish I could come and help you load those totes so you wouldn't have to do it. I know that Heavenly father looks upon our hearts and therefore he recognizes when we really are trying our best. Keep working hard and he'll take care of you. No need to worry. Just be happy:)

Love you!!

Here's some pics you can laugh at and enjoy. No this isn't what I do all day.. haha

Getting stoked for conference!- March 31, 2014

Suppp guys.

I'm glad you like to get my emails. I love getting emails but its always tough for me to think of exactly what I want to say and how to say it. I can't believe I've sent home an email every week that I've been out. It'll be fun to read them again someday maybe.. almost like a journal. Unfortunately my journal's been neglected with the craziness of time but I do try to right cool little experiences down some place. Something I've been doing lately that's helped me get a lot more out of my studies is keeping a study journal. I've been able to be so much more focused and it seem like I guess so much more out of my studies as I collect what I read, think, feel, relate, etc. all onto a page in my study journal. Studying the gospel is important and I feel like its super beneficial to write the little thoughts and revelations that come to my head through the spirit. Try it out.

Our zone conference on Thursday went really good I think. Fun for us all to come together and just enjoy eachother's company. Some companionships stayed the night twice. It wasn't super stressful and I feel like we all walked out of the meeting itself pumped and  ready to change the way we do missionary work. It really is the time for us to be using the members more. It will help us find more families and prepared people who can stick around. I've been really reflecting a lot lately about how important it is to share the gospel with our friends. I'm super grateful for the experiences I had before the mission with tom and cesar. It still blows my mind that they're converts and going on missions. I don't take the credit for them converting to the gospel but I know how much more effective missionary work can be when you're not a full time missionary. I do know that its scary to "share the gospel" with strangers, acquaintances, and especially friends but I think that's because satan tries so hard to get us to chicken out. I promise that heavenly father will provide anyone with a natural opportunity to do missionary work.. all they got to do is humbly ask, seek, recognize, and then act. I'm sure conference is going to be full of this sort of stuff so I guess there's no dodging it. I don't have a favorite but ya of course Monson, Eyering, Holland, Bednar and Uctdorf are some of the best. Norwegians don't seem to favor Uchdorf over anyone else really. He is european but he's also a German...

This week I've been running in the morning with elder halvorson who lives with us but is in the other companionship. He's our new District leader and he just came out of good old Narvik. Him and I have a lot in common, except he skis haha. Running's been helping me to actually get a decent work out that can keep me happy throughout the day. Today I found a cheap pair of Chinese wanna be nike free running shoes. I'm totally going to sharpie a swoosh onto the side and call them the "ghetto nikes". Can't wait to wake up tomorrow and run all over the place before the morning eat, shower, shave, get dressed routine. The time change has been super tough to get used too. It'll we way gnarly when elder Clarke have to jump onto a train at 5am on Wednesday in order to get us to the airport for our flight to Oslo. We have another meeting at the mission home.

Awesome. Thanks for keeping me posted on how things or going. Its really nice to hear about how things are going. I love the updates and they're not making me home sick or anything so keep it up. Annika told me how much longer I have. dang girl haha. Loving the mission! things are getting busy for me here so I'm grateful. have a great week! Love you!

Eldste Skinner

March 24, 2014

Greetings!!

The only thing that is constant is change. Deep philosophical quote of the day. Ya Elder Whetten is gone so that leaves me still here in Trondheim. Totally OK with me. This ward has a lot of cool members and I think this city is pretty special. Of course there is a part of me that wants to keep moving around and seeing other parts of the country.. like the west side but I'm living it up here in the North. The weathers been sort of weird. It was contantly snowing but then we've had some amazingly warm spring days that melted all the snow. The days definitely are getting longer and its exciting to feel actual warmth from the sun again.

Elder Clarke and I are getting along great. Ever since the new transfer started last week, I've been stepping my game up more and trying to go even harder. I've noticed a big difference in the work. It's amazing to see what a little extra effort can do. We've been super busy the last past couple of days, running from appointment to appointment and just keeping things balanced and organized. We've also just been pounding down on short 10 minute visits with members and just helping them feel the spirit and energy of missionary work. We just stop by really quick and try to get as many people involved as possible. We're so lucky to be able to teach our sweet old lady investigator. She continues to play the guitar and sing for us. It's super convenient because she has nothing but time for us and has no objections to us bringing members to teach with us. The spirit is present everytime and its super uplifting for the members as well as us. We're coming together and slowly our grandma is making progress. We taught her three times this week. She's been reading and on Sunday she even came to church. We picked her up and made the walk to the church. It took a while but she's 86 years old and made it there and back without a walker or anything. We also had our awesome hippy dude come to church. He was conveniently on his little 2 hour nature walk that morning and agreed to stop by and stay for sacrament meeting . It was "pretty neat".  So ya we've been pretty blessed. My heart is in the work and I'm really feeling like the Lord is blessing me for that. I don't always get to notice the progress of my areas but not i'm starting to see a little. Hopefully it will keep getting better and better.

Had a pretty cool experience with our hippy dude. We taught him about prophets and absolute truth. Things went great and he accepted the fact that.. Yes, we are here on the earth and there has been some sort of  process to get us here and that there is a purpose for it. Although there are many different ideas and beliefs and what not, the truth is the truth. the beautiful thing about truth is that the Holy Ghost can testify to us truth in a way that is recognizable to us personably. So that went seet and we also got to improve our relationship with him by having a little hippy Jam sesh while we waited at this house for the bus to come. So the three of us made some sweet music for about 10 minutes, he liked it especially with my technique for playing the drum.

I've been reading alot about Tony. Blows my mind to learn about him. Proud to be his great grandson and be here in his home country. He's a stud at gaining revelation and being in tune with the promptings of the spirit. Amazing to me.

Well I've got a crazy week ahead of me. Zone conference this Thursday here in Trondheim. Exciting time for us missionaries in the north being able to come all together. I'll try not to get too overwhelmed by getting everything ready for that... It'll be great though.

Thanks for still being super hardworking, supportive and loving. Have an awesome week! Love you

Eldste Skinner

Endure with Faith- March 17, 2014

What the freak is happening to the family! Things are changing like crazy. Seem's like everone's happy and growing up. That's awesome. I can't believe how awesome that's be to serve in New York. Sounds like an awesome mission. I'm was so relieved to find out that it wasn't billings, montana or something like that. I know Melissa's going to be a legit missionary and I'm super excited for her to get out and experience the missionary life. I'm already feeling old and outdated. I'm so used to the missionary life that I can't even remember how much of a change it was to become a missionary. I'm happy that I don't have to begin that process again though. Right now I'm feeling like I'm at this magic point where I feel experienced enough to go hard and get things done but I don't feel to burnt out or anything like that yet( ihope I never do.)  I still feel super young because of how much I still haven't learned or accomplished, but I'm happy with where I'm at and am looking forward to good things to come my way so that I can learn and grow even more.

We've had a lot of frustrations around the zone and in my own area. As of right now, we're struggling to find positive people t oteach let alone baptise. Its kinda lame but I really feel like its just a trial of faith. Things will turn around after we've done all we can to show our faith. I'm trying to show faith rather than showing that I can endure. Maybe that sounds confusing but it makes sense to me. Sometimes i feel like we missionaries sometimes just endure things rather than just than faithfully endure things. Sometimes, if I'm out finding in the streets, I ask myself, "hmmm. am I out here to show my faith and trust that god will guide us, or am I just out here because I'm a hardworker and I want to show god that I can endure?" Eitherway, I feel that Heavenly Father is pleased but I feel like there is one that is maybe just a little bit better.

Its been an awesome week. I've been in Tromsø. Didn't have to do anything super mountainmanny this time around although we did eat some more whale and got another glimpse of the northern lights. Its been snowing really good the last 3 days straight here. I'm so stoked, it hasn't snowed all winter. We did some sledding this morning and of course I made a jump. Super fun. Trondheim looks way prettier now especially with all the snow covered trees and mountains in the distance.

I'm losing my companion again on Wednesday. He's going to be an assistant to president. So that leaves me here to take care of the north with my new companion Eldste Clarke! He's just been called to be ZL and he was in the MTC with. He's a chill dude who grew up in Hawaii. I'm excited to serve with him. I'm also happy I get to stay in Trondheim a little longer. I can't believe its been 4 months already. All the members here are legit and apart from the dialect, Trondheim is a cool place to live and work.

Not too much craziness has happen. We met with my new finnish homie named Ari. He's cool. He's really interested in religions and I'm excited to teach him more about the book of mormon. We gave him a copy in Finnish and he was liking it already. He told me about how he doesn't understand how finns can have pretty much the exact same high standard of living as norwegians but be completely sad and miserable. I don't know if that's true but I do know that you and the rest of the finnish family seem pretty happy.

I also met this sweet less active guy who flies paragliders. He was telling me scary stories about almost getting hit by planes and stuff. He's a super nice guy andwe talked a little bit about Torrey Pines after I told him where I was from.

I know the mission wont last forever. I'm taking full advantage of it so that I can be tired of it by the time I get home.

Thanks for everything. Good luck this week at work. Have fun! Love you!

Eldste Skinner

Oslo, family updates, reindeer dinner, nidaros cathedral, pretty sweet.- March 10, 2014

What's up?

Trying to think of what I can write is always super tough but it ha for sure been another fast week with a lot of cool unique days. I'm just trying to think about what actually happened though.

well for the first, we've had some awesome teaches with our sweet sweet 86 year old investigator. We taught her two times this week with 2 different member and that was sweet. I love it when working with members works out smoothly like it has in the past. Its pretty easy for us to find people who can connect with her though. She broke our hearts though on sunday when she lost her keys and couldn't come to church. Things are going pretty slow for us right now, partially due to the fact that we're constantly gone from our area. No excuses though. I feel like I'm doing what i'm supposed to and we are definitely being led by the holy ghost. We had one of our investigators who has read the entire book of mormon in about 2 weeks and he randomly decided he was done and wanted to give him back. Its frustrating because there's a huge language barrier keeping us from being able to teach him about why its important. That was kind of a miracle though to hear that. We'll meet up with him again this week and try to get creative with teaching him. Might have to draw pictures and play cherades for him though. We mostly just want him to feel the spirit because that always seems to work.

Ate some reindeer last monday. True sami style recipe from a member.

We had a great trip out to oslo this week. I keep forgetting the name of this one finnish lady that works at the mission home. She knows all the fristroms of course, she gives me monthly updates with the happenings of kukka and her. also, apparently otso and amanda  live in Dubai. she was a babysitter for pilvi for a while if that helps you figure out who she is. She's married and lives in oslo now. The meeting in oslo was great and we could really feel presidents love for all the missionaries. that was cool.

On the way back I got called to give a talk. So yesterday I gave a talk on going to church and keeping the sabbath day holy. I told the story about fanny may's great example... all though I don't remember all the details. I was pretty satisfied with my talk. Its been pretty stressful having to plan out meetings for next 2 weeks and stuff but we're getting it taken care of even though we dont have much time.

After my talk, we were on our way to go try to visit a family out in this neighborhood but before we could make it on the trolley, we contacted this Norwegian dude who apparently has talked with missionaries before. He was a way nice young dude. super chill and he's been to san diego. We caught him as he was on his way to the super famous nidaros cathedral. He randomly asked us if we wanted to come inside with him and of course we said yes. it was unbelievable to be able to go in for free and see it. He gave us a little tour and this one church bell ringer girl unlocked some special doors for us. That was an awesome experience.  the dude says he believes in god but not really decided on any church, we got his number and hopefully we can find time to talk with him again later this week after our trip to tromsø. I'm super grateful to be here and feel absolutely blessed. God loves me and i can definitely feel that love by the small little special experiences that come everyday.

Well my time is just about up. Its raining finally and we're going to go teach a member family for FHE tonight. Got another crazy week of traveling ahead of me.. poor me;) I'm making sure to appreciate this experience by enjoying the everyday. not getting down when things are going totally smooth even though i'm trying hard. Have a great week! Love you!

Eldste Skinner

Little Miracles Everyday- March 3, 2014

I'm so happy to see all these people getting out on missions. Although it means I probably wont see them for a while, I'm excited for Tom and Melissa. I can say that the mission is the best experience ever. Its frustrating and hard sometimes and I've been pretty disappointed week after week of not really having any cool people to teach constantly, but I'm still seeing cool little miracles everyday. I'm loving all the personable little lessons that heavenly father is teaching me. I'm loving the opportunity to be in this part of the world. I'm loving it and its amazing to see how fast time is going by. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing everyone again but i'm not necessarily looking forward to leave this place.

Things are going great for me though. I'm really just trying to work on speaking more norwegian throughout the day so that I can be better at finding and teaching the gospel to people. Whetten and I are doing a good job and feel like we're doing all we can but there's just not been a whole lot of exciting news in our area. Our zone is really struggling as well.. well the whole mission is kinda struggling. Its pretty stressful but at the end of the day the only thing that matters is the confirmation that I did what I wassupposed to.

I had another awesome trip up in Tromsø. I was with elder Henriksen who's a funny redheaded norwegian dude. We had a good day of finding some people via contacting on the streets and knocking on some doors. At the end of the day we ate some whale meat with brown sauce and lingonberries. The northern lights also came out that night as well. It was insane. The next day we flew back home early early in the morning. It was a crazy story but basically we trekked across the island through the snow to get to the airport. Thats an extremely long, memorable, symbolic, spiritual story cut short. I don't know how we made it on time but we did. We had to walk and run because the taxi's were all busy and it was too early for busses. I learned a lot from that trip. I know for sure that heavenly father was teaching me something about life through that crazy adventure to the airport in Tromsø. When we made it back to Trondheim, we spent pretty much the whole day hometeaching old people. And I mean old people..  diapers and pee pouches strapped to their leg old. There norgwegian was something else too. Umulig å forstå. Also got too see some crazy northern lights here. Back to back. Amazing right above our back porch.

Be happy that your not super old. I know life is a challenge sometimes, especailly mentally. Just try to enjoy each day and be grateful that we understand God's plan and have already started taking the necessary steps that can bless our lives here and now as well as in the future. God really is our loving heavenly father and this is his son's church. Don't worry about all the other unimportant distractions. Keep working hard.. I really appreciate all of the love you guys give me. Love you!

Eldste Skinner