Dear Family,
It has been an interesting week. We went up to Trondheim on Tuesday to work with Elders Corrigan and Phipps. It was a blast. A lot of awesome experiences finding prepared people. Trondheim is a cool city with tons of students from all over Norway. We focused a lot on extending bold and concise commitments. I've noticed that by committing with yes/no questions it forces people to actually commit to something instead of being wishy washy. People really struggle with committing to something that is different or foreign and helping them say "Yes" is so much better than "I'll check my schedule." It's kind of like when i say yes when someone asks me if I am going to finish my food. Any one of my companions knows that I won't leave till it's all gone :)
We have been spending time getting ready for Zone Conferences next week! We haven't really had a real zone conference for a long time. Elder Johnson visited, President Hill arrived, President Evans left, etc. A lot of "special event" meetings. It's going to be awesome to have a spiritual pump up and an opportunity to get united as a mission.
Alright, so the miracle of the week goes once again to B. This story just keeps evolving and getting more and more awesome. First miracle event. I don't know if I mentioned this already, but B. has another daughter back in Africa and he has started telling her about the church. The other day he told us "I need the number of the mission president down there. She needs to be baptized!" So we got him some contact info and his daughter may be getting taught soon. We've been on a treasure hunt trying to get his membership information. He has a lot of different names which makes it hard. Miracle number 2: His mom is in town! She lives up in Harstad and was supposed to be taking a plane back to Liberia to visit family but missed the flight! Super sad, but as a result she is going to be at B's house until Wednesday! Turns out his mom was baptized with him back in Sierra - Leone! She was a primary teacher and started singing all the songs with us. "I am a child of God," "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam." She told us her point of view of their fleeing from war, building the church, and being forced to flee again 4 years after joining the church. I couldn't help but think of the early saints of the church being forced to flee from the temple they had just built in Kirtland. I told her to write a story about her life so I could read it :) She is making us dinner tonight and we're going to try to get her membership info over to Norway and then convince her to move down south. I've even adopted the family last name and they call me "Parkinkoon" now haha. Love that family and love finding lost sheep.
That's it for the week! Sorry it's short. After a mild fall it's starting to get cold. Time to start bundling up :)
Love,
Eldste Parkinson
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| Some of the Saturday sport gang. I think it hit 0 degrees :) |
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| Stake Conference in Romerike -- Where's Waldo? |
