October 27

One more good week in Trondheim behind me, and Autumn is disappearing quick. When I came to Norway, I expected to find a lot of crazy vikings here who don't even stop wearing shorts until it is below zero, but what I really discovered was that the people here are really pretty wimpy when it comes to cold. They bundle up really early in the season and the winter clothes don't come off for a long time into the spring. But I guess they just learned how to deal with the cold better. So it is winter coats, gloves and hats for the people here, and that is a weird feeling for me. But I love it! We had a good week, and we have been doing a lot to try to find some new investigators who will meet with us and progress.

Although we have been finding people my whole time in Trondheim, it has been hard for us in our own area to find people who are willing to meet and progress. Yesterday, however, we had a couple of miracles which helped to see the hand of the Lord helping us to have success in our work here. The first was that we were sitting in sacrament meeting yesterday when we saw an Asian man we didn't recognize come in the door. We went to talk to him after church and found out that his name is Uy and he is from Vietnam. He got a card on the street a while ago, and looked at mormon.org and became interested. He didn't know where our church was, though, so he went through the effort to find the address and show up to see what it is all about. We were able to share a short message about the Book of Mormon and get an appointment for him to come back on Wednesday, so I am excited to watch him progress.

The other miracle was a less-active man named Juan Torres. He has been really hard to get ahold of my entire time in Trondheim, but last night we decided to try one more time and just show up at his house. He ended up actually being home with his two kids, and we were able to go in and share a message with them. He is from Chile and was a really strong member at one point in his life, but after moving to Norway and marrying a non-member, he lost focus on coming to church. He still has a testimony, however, and lives worthily, so we were able to have a very candid discussion about church and commit him to come back. He also has a 9-year-old daughter who needs to be baptized and he knows it. It will be great to be able to visit them on a weekly basis and help their family come closer to Christ.

I have had so many experiences on my mission which have helped me learn that God has a plan for each of His children. I don't know what it is or when it will happen, and most of the time I don't even know when I am a part of His plan, but my goal is just to make myself available to Him so that He can use me if He needs me. And the best part of God's plan is that He needs every one of us. I hope that we can all be there for our Heavenly Father when He needs us so He can use us as a tool with which to bless His children. Go make someone's day this week! Love you all.