Hei Hei

This week has been a blast! The Alta Elders missed their flight due to some miscommunication, so they drove 5 hours to Tromsø and flew with us to Trondheim for zone conference. That was Tuesday. The focus in the mission right now is all about the Book of Mormon. All the missionaries got committed to read the whole Book of Mormon within the next three months with a focus on Christ. It's weird how exciting it is to start the Book of Mormon from the beginning. Really is my favorite book. 

The Branch party on Monday was a blast. Highlight of the party was that Arvid showed up on his four wheeler (he calls it a "moped")! I'm not sure how much I have told you about Arvid, but he is the best. He's an 86 year old man that we visit weekly to bring groceries. He tells us the same stories every week: world war 2, Putin, Jehova Witnesses. etc. We share a spiritual thought every week that goes something like:

Us: "So Arvid what do you think about this scripture?"

Arvid; "Eisenhower, Han var president!"

Anyways, we also helped Arvid cut his grass, and when I say grass I mean weeds, all of which were almost up to my waist. And all Arvid has is this tiny little electric lawn mower and a scythe. 

Ole got baptized on Saturday!! We rented out a swimming pool, which was rather expensive, but it was that or a fjord. Ole has come so far since I met him my first day in Tromsø. The atonement works wonders. 

This week we are singing a number at a funeral for an old lady in our ward that passed away. No idea what to expect for that, but it should be a cool experience. 

I hope you all have a great week! Finally wearing a short sleeve shirt today! 

Love, 

Eldste Parkinson 

ARVID

OLE

MIDNIGHT SUN

Midnight Sun

Parkinson Fam,

It feels like I just barely wrote. Dad, I'm glad you got yourself some livestock! 

We have had a lot of cool experiences this week in Tromsø. We've taught a lot of lessons and found a lot of investigators. We keep finding people from Eritrea. It brings me back to the MTC days where you can't really communicate and have to rely on whiteboards and gospel art books. 

We have a big branch party tonight. Today is a holiday where everybody makes big bonfires and stays up all night for the midnight sun. In Tromsø, we've had the midnight sun for over a month, but we got permission from President to stay up and see it tonight. Although we have a 6 am flight tomorrow to Trondheim. No sleep for the weary. 

I've been learning a lot lately about the importance of bearing testimony. We had a lot of really good teaches this week where the spirit was very strong. Every time it could be attributed to the fact that we shared our testimonies frequently. 

Still have cruise ships dropping in every day. We actually had some tourists in Church on Sunday which was cool. I've loved reading President Holland's talk from a while back called the "The First Great Commandment." So good, go read it if you haven't yet. 

Have a great week!

Love,

Eldste Parkinson

Lots of Miracles

Sorry for writing a few days late, we got a bunch of appointments schedules for Monday so we just switched our P-day this week. It's been a crazy week, though, with lots of miracles. 

Perhaps the biggest miracle this week was with Ole, our investigator that I've already told you a bit about. Anyways, on Wednesday  I was on splits with Elder Naumu (serving in Alta now) and we had a teach with Ole. Ole's one issue has been keeping the word of wisdom. He had cut down a lot on his smoking, but he was struggling to stop. We asked him towards the end of the lesson if he wanted a priesthood blessing and he said yes. I had the opportunity to give the blessing, my first one in Norwegian. The next day i gave him a call to see how it was going. Usually, Ole is a man of very few words, but this time he had something to share. He said that he tried to smoke a cigarette, but when he put it in his mouth it tasted terrible and he couldn't do it! The next day at our lesson he was just beaming. He literally can't smoke anymore. 

We have two traveling assistants for this transfer who live out of a carry on suitcase and visit every area in the mission. They were with us on Friday. One of them had served here in Tromsø a little over a year ago, so it was cool to have his advice with some things. 

It's crazy that I have been in Norway 3 months now. Time flies so fast. I was talking to somebody on their doorstep this week and they were big basketball fans. Updated me on the NBA finals, which I had no clue had even started haha. We got some snow this week, which was weird. It's actually gotten pretty cold again. Maybe summer is already over? Happy fathers day, dad!! Hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Eldste Parkinson

Rainbow!

alt er grønn

What's up fam!

It's been a stellar week in Tromsø! Another 30+ sacrament meeting! All the snow is starting to melt off the mountains and everything is getting so green. And Tourists are starting to take over the city. Every day a couple cruise ships show up and drop off a bunch of tourists. We might need to start contacting in English. 

Ole continues to be stud and we found out that Andre is moving to Svalbard much sooner than we thought, which was kind of a bummer. 

We had a cool experience yesterday. For some reason that Eldste Årsnes and I are not sure of, we brought a Polish Book of Mormon with us yesterday. We missed a bus after church and had about half an hour to contact before the next bus. The first guy we talked to happened to be from Poland and spoke limited Norwegian. When we showed him the Book of Mormon in Polish his eyes popped out of his head. We gave him the book and got his phone number for a future meet! 

It seemed like everyone we talked to on the street this week that wasn't a tourist was a hard core atheist. A lot of them were very willing to talk with us and often tried to turn it into a debate. They all have the same issue; they need evidence. It was interesting reading in the end of the book of Helaman about Samuel the Lamanite. There seemed to be three classification of people after he taught them: 1. Those that believed what he said 2. Those that didn't believe until there was some sort of sign or evidence 3. Those that continue to rationalize and deny even after receiving evidence. I feel like this pattern can be seen through out the scriptures.Just something I've been thinking about this week.

Love you all! 

Eldste Parkinson

Throwback with Elder Garrard and John!

Patience

Parkinson Fam,

Elder Garrard left on Tuesday and Elder Årsnes arrived not to long after that! Elder Årsnes is from Romerike, an area not too far from Oslo. His English is actually better than his Norwegian, so I have to make him speak Norwegian with me. A new sister also arrived named Sister Chapman. She is from Las Vegas. 

The weather is getting really nice finally. We might be wearing short sleeves pretty soon! 

Ole came to church half an hour early this week and just read the Book of Mormon! He's already made it through Isaiah! 

I honestly can't think of much to write this week. I studied this morning a lot about patience, something I've always struggled with. I thought it was interesting to read about the Sons of Mosiah and the trials and tribulations they experienced BEFORE their great success. I often get impatient with the speed at which things are happening here in Norway, but it's important to remember that after you do all that you can you just need to leave it in the Lord's hands. 

Erik- Keep shredding in the MTC!

Hannah- Keep shredding in Sacramento!

Love always,

Eldste Parkinson