February 24, 2014

Hey!

Sounds like you guys had a way fun week. Pyry is awesome, they hook me up with some sweet packages every now and then and its always the best surprise. Is he still flying helicopters? I think that would be a sweet job! I still remember being in Finland when Jakob was born. I didn't know that he speaks swedish though. Thats pretty cool.. swedish is almost the same except for some different funky sounds and words. I think Swedish is sweet.

This week was sweet. We had some crazy 10 degree days. The winter seems to have never come and its starting to warm up to springtime. President came to Trondheim this weekend for some interviews and to speak in church. That was pretty fun.. he's not sending me home or anything.. He also got to join us for a ward activity. We had a quiz night. It was a lot of fun, the ramona oaks ward could do something like that.

 I think I'll be staying in Trondheim at least one more Transfer but who know's anything can happen. I'm totally fine with where I'm at though and have know complaints with how the mission life is going. Just trying to get some serious momentum in the area. We're still looking for those who are really going to progress and become converted. Everything will work out if we keep working hard. We've really been trying to get our investigators to church (been a struggle for the whole mission). It really makes a big difference in the progress of those we're teaching. On Sunday we had about 10 or so who said they'd come to church and only 2 came. I'm grateful for those 2 though.. better than the usual 0. This sweet lady from Iran came and brought her kid. We just met her on the streets and invited her to come to church and totally came, we haven't even taught her yet. She and her 8 year old son are not shy at all, its so funny how people are different. The boy just totally just says goodbye to his mom and goes to primary to meet the other kids. It was cool. We were hoping our member that speaks persian would be  there to talk to her but he wasn't. He's a new convert and seems like he's starting to get discouraged. We've been trying to get a hold of him along with the rest of the ward, but his adress is wrong on the record and his phone has been lost. So we were called to go spec ops and find him. We prayed and were lead right to him on saturday. It was intense. It was a beautiful warm day with a bunch of people out in the streets and we were totally spiritually guided to him. We found him standing scattered amongst the multitude of people between a hipster jazz band a bunch of communist paraders... interesting day. Later that same day we found this sweet 86 year old lady and taught her. She gave us some orange Fanta and sang to us as she played the guitar. Classic old Norwegian lady except not mean and she said she's never too old to learn new things. Going back on tuesday to teach her with some members who can sing with her and teach the gospel with us. Next week willl be great. This week I'll be flying up to Tromsø again for splits. I know, poor me.. flying all over Norway every week. Whetten and I were talking about this last week.. him and I are undoubtedly the 2 most expensive missionaries in the whole world. please keep paying your tithing.. I have no excuse not to when I get home.

I got a fresh haircut today. I went to this legit place but I had a newbie-chick cut my hair for "cheap". She did a good job and it was better than cutting my own hair or going to the muslim chop shops.

Still loving Norway. Its a great adventure. Enjoy working. Have an awesome week, thank you for being the best. I think about how great of a mom you are all the time and all my comps know you're awesome too. Love you!

Eldste Niklas Anton Skinner

February 17, 2014

Heyyy

Its been an awesome week. Valentines day was nothing special but that's alright. Enjoying the break from worrying about the women. It finally rained today. other than that its been super dry and windy. I guess there's been some crazy fires up here while its snowy down south. I don't think I'll ever expereince a real winter. Its hardly ever been in the negatives.

What made this week so awesome was our trip up to Bodø and Narvik. Eldste Whetten and I had our meeting here in Trondheim and it was pretty good but it was kind of the same experience that you were mentioning last email. Sometimes its harder to get others as pumped about something as you are and sometimes the thoughts just aren't flowing. After Trondheims meeting we headed up to Bodø to give the exact same meeting with only minor adjustments. For some reason this meeting was a million times better. It seemed like eveything was flowing.It almost seemed as if the spirit was being more helpful. I don't really know why the two were so different but i'm grateful that everyone seemed to get something out from it. Here in the north, things are really starting to turn around. We've had some areas that are starting to get things going after weeks of not having anything. Our meetings and training with our missionaries are starting to pay off. Prayers are being answered! We went out on the streets after our meeting in Bodø and found all sorts of people for the missionaries there to start working with. They were pretty pumped. I totally feel like i'm blabering on about lame stuff but it was a pretty cool experience to just jump off a plane, gather a bunch of missionaries together, and then see them get excited and motivated. It the best feeling to go into a place and feel like you did exactly what heavenly father needed us to do.

Its was way sweet to fly into narvik and work there all the next day. I was with one of our district leaders and we had some awesome experiences with finding. I even got to see most of the members and one of my favorite investigators there. It was such a trippy experience. Not as wierd as I thought it would be though.. but almost comparible to going home to san diego because I felt like i knew the area and people so well. I had a lot of fun and came across some julebrus (christmas soda) that's been gone for a long time here in trondheim. Also there's this new norwegian chocolate bar with oreo bits in it.. unbelievable.

Norways been tearing it up in the olympics. A member here in trondhein keeps us posted with the medal counts. Norway was apparently expected to have a better year though. I had no Idea they competed so well compaired to the bigger countries. I catch glimpses of it every now and then from walking past restaurants and stuff. While we were sitting in the airport I saw about 15 minutes of the norwegian curling team and their cool pants. I saw 2 seconds of snowboarding and it about killed me. That and seeing a 1 to 1 score in overtime between finland and canada. I hope finland freaking won.

Thanks for being so good at writing me and keeping me posted. To be honest its kind of hard to ever know what to say for me because of how fast time flies by with just about the same things happening every week. No day is ever the same but i'm terrible at remember exciting little things that happen that are worth really mentioning. I'll try to pay better attention. glad to hear that you had a great week and got to see pilvi christensen. Enjoy your new shoes and appreciate people for who they are. Everyone is different for a reason. Your don't need to be  "loud, out going, good looking, high energy" to be a sucessful person. Imagine how annoying the world would be if everyone was like that. You already know that though. Its just something I've learned a lot lately. Be yourself and don't feel like you have to have this and that sort of personality to be a good missionary/ person. Annyways I'm done rambling:)

Vi snakkes neste uke. Love you!

Eldste Skinner

Mission Life- February 9, 2014

Hei dere

Still loving up here in Trondheim. My time has flown by here and its definitely not slowing down. I'm ok with that. So I now have kinda got settled in with my new companion. Technically I moved into his area so I don't have the same investigators anymore although I'm still living in the same city. The only thing that changed was my bed and my closet, we also changed up the study room a bit for fun. Nothing like moving furniture.

Eldste Stookey is still in the apartment so we still get to see each other and have that energy. My new comp Elder Whetten is from Alpine Utah and he's actually older than me in the mission. Crazy. I like it because he's a good worker and he know's more Norwegian than I do. Its a great time for some awesome learning experiences. This is also his first time in a while without having to serve with someone younger. It's a whole different experience when 2 more Semi experienced and skilled elders come together.

We've been blessed with some awesome people to teach this week. He say's that ever since I walked into the area, big things started happening. We're super excited about some of these people.

We have a cool family from Congo come to church yesterday and we also have this awesome single mom from Brazil. The other day we taught a girl who was born in Ukraine and she's pretty interested as well. Found a cool dude from Finland named Ari or something like that. Lives out in these ghetto projects that i've recently discovered.

 We've had a pretty happy day today because of what we were able to do as a zone last week. I'm happy to see certain areas get some fresh blood and things are starting to progress.

Next week is going to be insane. tomorrow we're doing a zone leader training here in Trondheim, then on wenesday we're flying up to Bodø for another training meeting, and then on Friday I get to go back to Narvik to help out one of our district leaders up there for a day. I'll be all over the north next week and I'll get to see beautiful Narvik again without the worry of being stuck up there forever.

I'm trying to think of some interesting things that have happened but I'm struggling trying to remember anything. Super blessed and satisfied with the way things are going right now. I just obviously want to keep growing personally (for the rest of my life after the mission).

Going to try and pump up as many missionaries as possible this week. I am familiar with those struggles of teaching though. You're not alone and being in tune with what I need to teach people is something I've been trying to get better at. Preach my gospel has some great stuff for improving teaching skills if you want to check that out (ch.10).

I've heard that Norway's been doing great in the olympics so far and that after day one they had more than the US. Everyone here loves their olympics and seems to think that I want the states to do better than Norway. Thanks for the Email! Happy valentines day! let me know if there's anything I can do for you guys. Love you:)

Eldste Skinner

"Norway is still $W33T" - February 3, 2014

Hei

Another Pday. super crazy. I don't really have a favorite day of the week but usually our preparation days are the fastest and sundays are the craziest with church. I forgot about the super bowl to be honest.. but I do know that I missed out on the Winter X-games! Lame. I heard about it from these 4 dudes we talked to in a college parking lot late one night. Apparently Torstein Horgmo (one of my favorite snowboarders) is from right here in Trondheim. They say he's usually traveling around but you can see him around in the city every now and then. I'm going for the miracle baptismal story with him. Torstein won the gold medal for best trick last year I'm pretty sure.

This week was pretty sweet and I learned a lot about listening to the spirit. These 4 guys I just mentioned were found because of the spirit. We were totally lead to them after our appointment didn't show up (its been happening a lot lately). It was cold and almost time to go home but for some reason we felt like we should start heading over to this bridge towards a business school even though it didn't make the most sense due to the lack of people to talk to. Straight darkness and no one in sight. So we start going but later feel like its a dumb idea. So we turned around. After we turned around to take a more normal route home we start second guessing ourselves (maybe by this time its triple guessing). So we stop again and then just say a prayer asking for some direction. Long story short, we end up going over the bridge and then eventually find these dudes throwing an american football under the orange amber parking lot lights. Its not an every day sight to see so we just went up to them and asked what the freak they were doing. They were cool and then became interested in what we were doing. Stookey talked to three football dudes and I talked to the snow boarder friend. We connected really well. I told him about how much i miss shreddin but about how its totally worth giving up tp share what I know to be true. He's not getting baptised but at the very least, he now knows that mormons are somewhat normal people. I was grateful that we listened to the spirit even though it didn't make a whole lot of sense. I was also grateful for the reminder that I have certain people here in norway that i'm supposed to connect with. I was also happy to learn that this is the worst winter for snowboarding since the 60's. At least here in Trondheim. There is no snow at all. 

Another fun fact..  I went and visited some less actives in Hell this week. No joke. There's a place here in trondheim over by the airport called Hell. We taught some awesome members and invited them to say peace out to Hell and come to church. Unfortunately they chose to stay in hell.

 Moves call was yesterday. Stooks and I are no more. To keep the streak alive of not being with a companion for more than 6 weeks, I'm getting a new companion. Its actually just elder Whetten (the other Zoneleader). Our mission is now semi back to normal so I'll be serving full time with another ZL. No more district leader responsibility either. We're getting Elder Clarke to run the district now. He was in the MTC with me. (now this is where melissa does a mini freak out and facebook/instagram stocks his girlfriend to let her know haha ;))

Good luck with everything back at home! keep it going! Love you all a bunch:)

Eldste Skinner 

January 27, 2013

Hva som skjer folkens,,,

I'm super tired after all we did this week. Elder Stookey and I went extra hard and got a lot of new things going in our area. We've been kind of struggling as of lately dealing with a lot of dissappointments and sketchy investigators who aren't as into the gospel as we want them to be haha. Its been great this week though because we met with some new cool people who seem to be pretty positive. One of them is a total hippy and his house smells like he looks. We have this other way cool Norwegian lady who is extra spiritual and has some sort of connections with spiritual type of stuff. sounds like a 6th sense. We also met this dude from Africa that says he wants to get baptised on March 1st. We're ok with that. OUr buddy from San Fransisco has had some type of stomach surgery so we haven't been able to meet with him yet but he's still texting us every now and then. Tore, who we baptised about a month or two ago passed the sacrament yesterday so that madde me happy. He also is still coming to the activities and making friends with all the members. He brought a table curling game the other day and we got to play with that. It was just like the curling in the olympics. We played finland vs norway and finland won. The best part about this week was involving members on our teaches. There were 3 different people that we taught with three different members and it was an awesome experience. I keep learning and reminding myself that this is the way the work is supposed to be. Best way to strengthen the members and the investigators. It adds a little bit more pressure on us missionaries but its definitely the right way to do it. Hopefully you get invited to teach investigators sometime. Most of our teaches are with people at the church so we just have the members try to come a little early so we can let them know how we can work together and give them kind of a deal as to what our focus and goals are for the teach.

Things are going really good though. We had a miracle here in the Trondheim district. We've been struggling with the investigators that we've had, they've been kind of burning out and fading away I guess. So we had a fast to help us get a fresh batch that we could work with in addtition to the awesome people we already have. We set a goal to have 25 at the end of two weeks. Yesterday, at the end of week one we had a record breaking 20 new investigators. It was a straight up gift from heavenly father. Fasting always works. This is also something we're implementing in our zone as well. So I guess the ultimate lesson is that heavenly father is mindful of what we need. After last week and being a little frustrating and not having too much going, We asked for some extra help and pushed a little harder. The sacrifices payed off and it feels amazing.

I'll be flying to oslo again this week and then probably to Mo i Rana the day after. This week is going to be another crazy week. I'm seriously struggling with keeping with how fast the days are passing.

Happy to hear about things going on at home. Thanks for keeping me posted and working hard. I got my package as well. The tie was perfect, almost too good to wear! Love you!

Eldste Skinner

January 20, 2014

I cant believe i'm 21 either. What the freak is going on? I had a great birthday although it never really felt like it came. We didn't really do anything different but that was alright because everyday is a good day for a missionary in Norway. Thanks for that awesome birthday messsage on sunday. Good thinking. Not really many people knew it was my birthday.. so I was super happy to hear from you:)

This week has been another amazing adventure. Our Zone leader training went really smooth. We split them up so we could do one here in trondheim as well as one up in tromsø. The one here in Trondheim was my district and then a companionship just north and just south flew to us. We had about 11 missionaries plus a senior couple here on tuesday. The meeting was about 3 hours long and my first time training as a Zoneleader. It was a lot of fun and I feel like everyone walked away feeling pumped up to go out and share the gospel. The next day, elder Whetten and I woke up early and flew up way north to Tromsø. That meeting went maybe even smother and had a better flow and spirit to it. We also made some amazing tomatoe pesto grilled cheese for them since they missed out on the senior couple's amazing cooking. We stayed the next day in tromsø for splits so we could get out working with them to see how we could help them out. It was amazing and kinda made me miss the north. People in the north talk alot differently and seem a lot nicer. Instead of walking  right past you, they would stop mostly everyttime. This Tromsø place is absolutely beutiful though. Its basically an island surrounded by water and mountains. Its just above Narvik so it reminded me a lot of that place except tromsø has way more people and a real city feel. I can see why its called Paris of the north. Whetten finally flew out after having an awesome and effective time with the 4 missionaries that live there. We left feeling super good and pumped for that city adn its potential. I feel like the missionaries really enjoyed having us there and hopefully they got just as much out of it as I did.

For my birthday, we made some bomb chicken parmesian and veggie pasta after church and then ended our day with some tastey fajitas. Stookey bought me a lemon cake and we almost burnt the apartment down by making a ghetto candle out of a pass a long card. I felt so loved by the homies. Today We checked out this fort and we all went to eat some pizza on top of Trondheim. It was pretty memorable. I found an amazing deal on slim slacks at h&m. I saw them last week on sale for about 100 crowns but didn't buy them. Today I checked out H&M and the local board shop for fun and finally got myself to buy something. The slacks were now 50 crowns so I bought 2 and a 4 pack of cool norwegian socks especially for me. I'm so happy my gambling of resisting to buy stuff on sale has payed of. When things here in Norway go on sale, they really go on sale. Elder Stookey got a new grey wool suit at H&M for about 35 bucks. Insane!!

Thanks for being so loving! that was a super sweet email and I'm happy to see a picture of us to right before I left. This year will be even faster than my first so prepared to be freaked out when I'm home before you know it. Keep working hard. I'm so grateful that you guys have been blessed. Heavenly father is taking care of us! love you! 

January 13, 2014

Every week I start out saying that it was another fast week. haha Sorry about being repetitive but its totally amazing how time cruises by. We had a lot of cool experiences this week and this coming week will be packed as well. I guess its weird to think that we had such a fun and rewarding week but we did. Elder Stookey is awesome. He came and gave me a huge spark. We're working super hard out in the streets and being real with the people we meet. We have a lot of fun out in the streets together despite the -15 temperature. We 're constantly smiling because we're always laughing. We've noticed this attitude has played a huge part in why we're getting so many people to stop and talk to us. They get sucked in by the positive energy. We're against going the standard boring and ineffective street approaches. We're also excited about working with less actives. Elder Stookey iand I are also good at connecting with the less actives because in a way we were both once there. We're both really grateful for the atonement and the opportunity we have to be out here on this crazy adventure serving the lord. Neither one of us want to go home with regrets. We had a awesome experience finding someone prepared. We actually have experiences like this about everyday but this one was pretty nifty.

We have basically been focusing alot lately on praying throughout the day... really stepping up the frequency and sincerity of our prayers. We were out in this neighborhood trying to meet some less actives. We used some time for some spirit lead door knocking. I haven't knocked on doors hardly at all lately (I usually stick to stopping people on the streets). So we just started praying for crazy miracles that we could find a family or something. Both of us were having good feelings but kept getting let down by uninterested people. It was a little frustrating. We kept stopping and saying specific prayers when no one was around letting heavenly father know how we were feeling and what the situation was. Eventually we end up at this house and a dude with an american flag beanie answered with some pretty good norwegian. He told us we came to the wrong house and that he wasn't interested at all. I knew he was american though so before he closed the door I asked him where he was from. He said that he was from San Francisco and I immediately told him that I was from SD. We switched to english and just had a nice conversation. He was your typical husky, funny, american 27 year old dude that lives with his mom and plays on computers making youtube videos all day. Him and Stookey got talking and he was bringing up all sorts of stuff about what he's read about mormons and all that weird stuff. He was seriously doubting/half mocking the church but we were just trying to be real with him and at least make him feel that the we were "normal people". We kept bearing simple testimonies to him about the church and why we chose to come to norway. He began to be intrigued but still doubtful. He told us that he wanted us to come back to talk about the church but probably wont convert. We will see. Afterwards I felt really great that we were lead to this guy. We felt so impressed afterwards that we were the right companionship to meet him.. maybe others would have scared him off or given up because he was seriously not willing to hear anything at first.

Our new convert Tore who was baptised about a month ago got the aaronic preisthood yesterday. That was special to be a part of. We had a crazy adventure getting our rapper investigator to church. We were sick and tired of him not coming to church so we took the initiative to pick him up and ride the bus with him to sacrament meeting. We ended missing a good part of church for it but he came and liked it. It was funny because it was about -20 as we sat wating at the busstop with him. Once he figured the bus wasn't coming for another 15 minutes he just called a taxi like a true playah. I love this dude, he cracks me up. So we taxied to the church, next time it might be a limo.

This coming week is going to be crazy. We've got some training meetings that we decided to split up so we'll do 2 instead of just one big one. We did it like this so that we can have more personal time with our missionaries. So on wednesday and thursday I'll be up in the so called paris of the north, Tromsø. It'll be a busy week but i'm grateful for the opportunity to serve as a zoneleader because it gives me an opportunity to grow and uplift others. Right now, we're focusing on getting the missionaries pumped for reaching our goals this year and we'll be talking about miracles and expectations. I'm excited for it.

Thanks for all those awesome and funny pictures. Sorry we cant go to Knotts berry farm again on the 19th. I cant believe that was a year ago. I still remember the clothes I wore and the food I ate. Thanks for all the love and birthday wishes.. its freaky to turn 21 but whatever haha. Love you! have a fun warm week.

Eldste Skinner