Highlight of the week

The highlight of the week was definitely a visit from Elder Dyches on Friday. We had a big combined p-day in Oslo on Thursday before the conference (played sports, etc.). Elder Dyches used to be a mission president in Portland, so he had a lot of good perspectives and thoughts about missionary work. There were so many things I took away from the conference that it was kind of overwhelming. So many things to do better. One thing that really stood out to me is what he said about the spirit. It can be so easy to get into a habit of just teaching lessons and contacting people in the same way, but the spirit ALWAYS needs to be the one guiding a conversation or else the message will not be relevant to them. Especially here in Norway where people are really hesitant to hear our message and see no need for it. I of course learned this in the MTC, but I am beginning to understand why it is so important. 

Photo sent by a senior sister of Elders hanging out in Oslo

We saw a lot of miracles this week though. On Monday we were on splits up here in Kongsberg. Elder Gunther and I were in the 'city' contacting and found   this really cool guy named Ather. He is from Iraq, but has lived in Norway for a long time. Speaks really good Norsk and English. He told us up front that he had read about us on facebook and wanted to buy the book that we share. So we were like..."we can give it to you right now for free!" We taught him on steps for about half an hour. He was way positive and said he wants us to teach his girlfriend too...and his friends! He is out of town for a week, but we are teaching him again soon!

And then yesterday we finally got to meet with a Norwegian named Kenneth. We found him my first week in kongsberg, but we had to keep canceling lessons because of work, sick kids. The lesson went really well! He said that he never thought the mormon church would be the true Church of Jesus Christ. We have another teach on Wednesday, which makes me so grateful to be in a big ward and bring solid Norwegian members with us. The Bishop calls our ward "the machine." We just need to get our investigators to church and the ward will do the rest!!

I am so grateful for all the wonderful leaders we have in the church, be it in the Drammen Ward or in the 70. All these leaders know how this gospel can bless families and how important missionary work is. They express this through love and service, which is to the benefit of many. 

LoVe,

eldste Parkinson

The King's Mound

It was an awesome week! Those two weeks of finding are starting to pay off! We taught some really cool people this week. One of them was this guy named Asad who has read the Bible, Koran, and Torah and told us he wants to read our book. It is cool when you find people like this that are searching for the truth because they really relate to Joseph smith and the idea of a restoration. 

We are also teaching a couple from India (there is quite a large population here in Kongsberg from India). They have been reading the Book of Mormon and like to learn, but they are very deep rooted in Hinduism. It makes me wish we had members that were from India that we could bring on teaches. 

Yesterday we had 3 investigators in church, which was a miracle. Two of them were formers that we just reconnected with. It was a way cool Sacrament meeting too because a return missionary, current missionary, and soon to be missionary all spoke.There were probably 150 people in church.

I spent a bunch of time going through the area book and we spent one day just biking around and visiting formers. Some of them were still positive and set up appointments with us. Speaking of biking, we do a lot of it. I am actually getting in pretty good shape, especially since we live at the top of a hill. Although, we got in trouble for taking our bikes on the train. Apparently you have to pay 100 crowns to take two bikes on a train? But, you also have to pay to use public restrooms. Gotta love Norway.

Kongsberg is a small enough town that we are starting yo realize that everyone knows everyone. To name a few. 1. Knock on door. Old couple answers and not interested. Say they are picking up their grandchildren. 15 minutes later we try back a potential who is the daughter of the old couple and get to see them pick up their grandchildren. 2. When trying back C's family again we found that C's brother John has met with the missionaries before and already knew Elder Gustaffson. 3. A Peruvian named Wilbur on the potential sheet. bank on his door. Realized he was the cool atheist guy we talked with for 30 minutes on the street 3 days ago. 

Anyways, have a great week. Elder Dyches from the 70 comes on Friday!!

Love,

Elder Parkinson

pic: Andreas heads to England on Thursday!!

Week 2 in Kongsberg

Week 2 in Kongsberg!  First things first, they took our car :( The elders down in Halden had no way to get to church so we gave them the car on Saturday. To compromise, we got a train/bus pass and bikes. We take the train to church on Sunday and the buses are really of no use in the summer so we bike everywhere now. A lot of our prostelyting time is eaten up by transportation now, but at least I'll be getting in better shape!

A lot of our lessons fell through, so we were on the streets and on doorsteps most of the week. We found a lot of cool people and got a bunch of appointments for next week. Just need to start teaching them!

I met a lot more ward members this week. They are all so solid! The bishop is only 28 and awesome/loves working with the missionaries. The Isaksen family, that we've eaten with a few times now, has a son heading on his mission to London in a week and a half. I know that working with the members is going to be the key here and throughout Norway. We've got some fun activities planned in the next few months to get the missionary work going as a ward. Oh, and Elder Bednar is visiting Norway in a month!

We had a baptism in Drammen on Saturday! The ward had to adjust the yearly baptismal goal because we are on pace to break it!

Not much else to report on. The weather has been a little cooler recently. Norway is still beautiful as ever.

have a great week!

Love, 
Eldste Parkinson

Kongsberg!

As sad as it was to leave Tromsø, I have arrived safely in my new area! My companion is Elder Gustafson, from good ol' Utah. He has a bout 8 months left of his mission. Cool dude. Right before leaving Tromsø we got a baptismal date with a man named Rogers, someone I taught on and off my whole time there. He is a way cool guy from Uganda. Exciting!

Anyway, Kongsberg! Kongsberg is actually a pretty small town (about 25,000). The area was just opened up about 9 months ago. It is part of the Drammen ward, which is about a 40 minute drive from Kongsberg. Church on Sunday was an awesome, completely new experience. Despite almost everybody being on summer vacation there was still tons of people. Youth passing the sacrament. The primary sang a musical number. The missionary work in this ward has been on fire too. A lot of recent baptisms and a lot of member support. There is an awesome family that I have already eaten dinner with twice (they live right outside of Kongsberg).Most of the members are in Drammen, though, so there are not that many members we can work with. 

When I got here we had one really awesome investigator. A 19 year old Norwegian that will be baptized!... but she is moving to Oslo for school. So we just referred her to the sisters. Other than that we do not have any investigators. So find, find, find. We literally spend 4 straight hours contacting on the streets and then the whole evening banking on doors. And the streets of Kongsberg are quite empty haha. But, we found quite a bunch of potentials and set up a bunch of appointments next week. And we have an appointment with C's family on Thursday! They still have no idea that he is a member, but he told us to bank on their door! 

It's hard starting over again, but I feel a renewed sense of urgency and determination since switching areas. It's a great opportunity to really get re-committed. It's also been cool to reflect on how much my testimony of the restored gospel grew while I was in Tromsø. I really do love this message and I love sharing it with others, whether through words or action. That is how you live the gospel and that is how you experience true happiness.

Have a great week!!

Love,

Eldste Parkinson

NOTE:  We got an email from Tom's Mission President that they are getting good information from the U.S. Embassy on the Terrorist threat in Norway.  Threat level has been downgraded, but they keep monitoring the situation and will do all in their power to keep the missionaries safe.

This week...

This week was Moves call! AND........They are taking me from Tromsø. I'm headed down south to Kongsberg! A city south from Oslo. I'll be serving in the Drammen ward, which is supposedly one of the biggest wards in Norway. It seems like a good change. It will be a lot of new things though. The sisters are being taken out of Tromsø (Sister Rupp is going home), so there will be 4 elders up here again.

It was a great week, though. We were able to teach a lot of great lessons and found a lot of cool people. One girl actually contacted us on the street and said she had two books that she needed to give back to us. Apparently 3 years ago a missionary gave her two book of Mormons that she didn't want. We set up a book hand off, turned it into a lesson, and turned her into an investigator! Sweet!

Cruising to church with Arvid!

It was a great last Sunday! We got special permission from president to drive Arvid to church, which was a highlight. We had a really good turnout and a nice potluck type meal together afterwards. For me, the saddest part about leaving this area is leaving the people. That's really what comes to matter most. And there are some cool people that I've gotten to know up here. One cool thing, though, is that Chilonda will be heading down to Kongsberg for school in a few weeks, so I'll get to reconnect with him. John may come visit. I keep pushing for those two to serve missions, especially John. 

It seems like in a lot of our lessons lately we have talked a lot about agency. A lot of people ask us why God would let there be war and suffering. We've been using 2 Nephi 2 a lot as we answer that question. We are all free to choose between good and evil and the consequences of our choices can't be blamed on God. At the same time, though, how awesome is it that we have the ability to choose and actually find and experience joy. When you have that perspective it actually makes you grateful for opposition. 

Shout out to Erik as he flies to Hungary this week! An congrats to Sean on getting cleared to go to Spain! It's cool knowing so many people that are beginning there missions right now! Drep dragger!

Deuces Tromsø!!

Love always, 

Eldste Parkinson 

Not much time to write this week, but I'll try to send some pictures as consolation. Thursday morning at 6 we flew down to Trondheim for training from the assistants. It was basically 6 hours of practicals and skill training. Tiring, but really helpful. We flew back to Tromsø pretty late and then missed our bus...didn't get home til midnight. Very long day.

We met a really cool person this week named Ellen. We banked on her door last Sunday and she told us to try back sometime in the afternoon. A pretty typical try back. We tried back on Wednesday and she wasn't home, so we just went out banking in another neighborhood. About an hour or so later I felt a strong prompting to go back and try Ellen again. After much hesitation, we went back and tried again, this time finding her home and in the middle of dinner. She said try again in 45 minutes. We went and banked more and came back for the third time and taught a lesson on her porch! She is absolutely golden! She's a single mom with three kids (a set of twins!), a member of the Baptist church, but admitted she is searching for a new church. We taught her again yesterday, and have another appointment scheduled this next Wednesday!  It pays off to follow up!

It's amazing how much joy it brings you to find prepared people and watch them grown in the gospel.There is nothing that makes me happier. Makes me think of when Lehi eats the fruit and find the real joy when he can share it with others. Share the Fruit! 

We had a branch movie night on Saturday. Watched the one hour Joseph Smith movie. Had a good turnout and ate ice cream after. John and Chilonda (another young member from the Congo) were both there and had a blast. We are going to go play some bball with John today, so that will be fun! Also might be climbing a mountain.

Love you all! 

Eldste Parkinson

View of Tromsø

Love this city!

Hei du der!

It was a long and pretty difficult week here in Tromsø. Everybody is leaving town on vacation, and in Norway when you go on vacation often it is for the whole summer. But, as always, we still saw many miracles and had a lot of cool experiences. 

We had a really solid teach this week with Andre and he came to church for the first time! The spirit was strong the whole meeting, as it always seems to be with fast and testimony meetings. Andre is so golden! His one concern is that he doesn't feel ready to share what he's been investigating with his family, afraid of how they will respond. However, I know that things are going to work out with him and his family in the long run. They leave for Svalbard in a few weeks!

We had a interesting teach with this member of the pentecostal church here in Norway. He's from Cameroon and actually came to Norway as a missionary for his church. Really strong faith. We gave him a Book of Mormon in French a week ago and taught him again on Saturday, However, as people so often do he turned to the internet instead of the Book of Mormon to learn about our doctrine. He started asking us questions about baptisms for the dead and other deep doctrines he didn't agree with. We also got the typical Revelation 22;18 concern about the Book of Mormon. Elder Årsnes and I would respond to his concerns and kept attempting to bring the discussion to our fundamental doctrine, but with no luck. It made me think of that quote that says something like "the fundamental principles of our religion are that Christ died and resurrected, everything else is only appendages to that." So true.

Well, today we are driving a couple hours out of town to some members that live on a farm! They have started coming to church in their electric car lately, and we promised we would come out and help them with their strawberry patch! 

Weather has gotten really hot the last few days, and with the sun being up all day. our air conditionless apartment has become a sauna. The tin foil we put over our windows a while back might have something to do with it too...

Love you all and have a great week!

Eldste Parkinson