January 5

Happy 2015 everyone! It's going to be a great year, I can already feel it. Although the first day of 2015 wasn't that good for us. It was really poor, actually. We started out the day with normal office chores and then headed out to go and get some proselytting done. We stopped to get gas on the way, and without even thinking about it, put gas in our diesel van. So that was a disaster. We had to have someone come and tow it and get it into the shop so they could drain the tank and flush the engine. We laugh about it now, but it was pretty frustrating at the time. Such a sister thing to do, right? Between that and missing a bunch of trains, subways, etc. for different reasons, we were having a pretty rough day. But we eventually made it out to my friend Athina's house, and they made us pinekjøtt, a traditional Norwegian Christmas meal, and it was all good. Sometimes you just have to take a step back and laugh at yourself. 

We had a good New Year's Eve together with the Norwegians. It was fun to play games and eat good food together as we prepared to welcome the new year in. At midnight we went outside to watch all the fireworks that Norwegians light off for New Year's Eve, but it was really foggy outside and we couldn't see much. It felt more like we were in the war than anything, because we heard a lot of bangs but didn't really see much. Driving home we could hardly see the road in front of us, so that made for an adventure. 

The work is going forward here in Sandvika, despite everything. We have done a lot of preparing for moves and several conferences we are going to have in January, but we have also done our best to be out when we could, and the Lord blessed us with a lot of new investigators this week. One family in particular sticks out in my mind. We had decided to try back a few people at a place we call "the complex." Just an apartment complex with a lot of humble people that we like to frequent when we have some time. No one was really home or said no, so we were just trying to find someone who would listen and we really wanted to show our faith. It was time for us to leave to get some more stuff done, but we decided to just try one more floor, so we walked down towards number three. But on the way to number 3 we had a prompting that we needed to stop at 5 instead. We had no idea why, but we did it anyway, and the people on that floor were just brutal. Not very nice at all. It was pretty rough but we kept going, and we came to the last door. An African man opened the door and did not seem very positive at all. But we weren't going to give up that easy. We were persistent and pushed a little bit, and he finally let us come in. There ended up being 4 people there who we were able to teach and the spirit was so strong as we committed them all to come to church with us next Sunday. They were all new investigators and are going to come. It is so wonderful when the Lord guides us to His prepared children.

Other than that, life is just crazy, but it is good. Elder Halverson is going to come into the office and serve with me this week, and I am really excited. We were in the MTC together and have been friends throughout the entire mission, so it is going to be fun. He is also from Utah, and we are going to have some adventures together. Missions are so much fun, and so is missionary work! Go do it. It will be great, I promise. 

Thanks for everything and have a wonderful week!

The district and me and Elder Skinner at New Year's.