September!

Hey everyone! It has been a crazy week. Honestly I feel like last Monday was a year ago, but at the same time we had no time at all. To start the week, we had dinner with Clayton M. Christensen on Monday, and it was one of the best experiences I've had to be able to have time with him to talk about the work and the things of the gospel. He is so wise and taught me a lot of things we can apply in the work in Norway. But I will probably come back to that. His whole family was there with him and overall it was a good experience. Not to mention the food was to die for.

We had some good time to work in our area on Tuesday and we got a baptismal date with Evelyn! She is going to be baptized on the 13th of September, and would have done it earlier if we would have let her. She is so cool and so dedicated and has completely changed her life so that she can come closer to Christ. My favorite quote of the week came from her, and she said this: (also, she is Russian, so the accent makes it even better :) Ever since I became the Christian, my lips have always been like this. And then she pushed her lips up into a smile with her fingers. It is such an amazing experience to be able to see people change their lives because of the gospel.

We only had a minute to celebrate the success, however, until it was time to rush off to catch the plane up to Alta to be on splits for the day. In doing so, I was the northernmost missionary in the world for a day, and I met a member named Geir who made my life.  He has some sort of mental handicap (not sure what it is) that makes him have the mind of a 6 year old, even though he is fifty. But he is so cool. He is musically gifted, so he can listen to a piano song a couple of times and then play it perfectly. He used to do classical concerts on TV because he is incredible. He was really sad while I was there because he chipped his tooth and was scared to go to the dentist, so I started playing the piano to try to cheer him up, and he got really excited. He loved the song "Waterfall," so I taught it to him and then we played Entertainer and We Are the Champions together and it was really awesome.

We flew back to our area on Thursday, and that night, every elder in our zone arrived at our apartment to sleep over for the training meeting we had all day the next day. It was a lot of fun and it was good to see everyone, but I sure am glad that we all survived the night. 16 elders is just too many for one apartment. But we all lived to see the next day, and we used it talking about how we can improve the member work in the zone. Such a productive meeting. We had splits again the next day and a lot of service, so I was pretty worn out and ready to re-charge at church when it rolled around. I love being busy.

It is transfer time again already, can you believe it? I am going to get a new companion, Elder Shanklin, and I am really excited about it. We were in the MTC together, and we are going to have some goooood times together. The address will remain the same, so no worries there. Also, my son, Elder Forsberg, will be moving into the apartment with us again and I couldn't be more excited! Talk about party. I am so committed to working my hardest this transfer, and y'all better get the baptismal fonts flowing because the baptisms are headed this way. Missionary work is great.

While I was talking to Elder Christensen this week, he said something I thought was really profound. He said he used to think that we are surrounded in this world by a lot of godless people who have rejected their Eternal Father, but then one day he realized it isn't like that at all. We are surrounded by people who have rejected falsehood about God, and just haven't had the chance to learn the truth about Him yet. We know that, and they don't, so we have to help them learn, and the best way to do that is to ask them to help us teach the gospel. There are a lot of creative ways to do it and I would encourage you all to read his book, "The Power of Everyday Missionaries" if you haven't done so, because it is really good. Missionary work will go forward according to the faith we show in praying for the courage to reach out to those in need.

On Sunday I will be flying to Oslo to spend five hours with Elder Bednar and the rest of the missionaries, and it is blowing my mind. I will give a good report about it next week, because I am sure it will be amazing. Have a great week and we will talk soon!