Hey everybody!!!
THis week was a good one. Reeeeaaaalllyyyyy long though. Not really sure why. THere was a lot of good stuff going on. We got a few new investigators so that was really good. The light is definitely taking some getting used to. ITs so weird. Its hard to tell whats sunset and whats sunrise any more. They both seem to happen around the same time. The sun is gone though. IT doesnt come above the mountains anymore so thats sad haha. But we took its power and stored it in a light on our desk. ITs supposed to help. WE'll see what it does. haha. ITs good though because there are lots of good picture opportunities. I love this place so much. ITs so pretty and im feel like im getting a lot more done than i did in moss. We are having quite a bit of success. ITs great. Its pretty cold. It usually is around -10 C i dont know what that is in fahrenheit. But it sounds like you guys are about the same! Its so weird. IT feels way colder. I guess when youre out in it all day its different though. Its worth it though. Last night we were trying a few potentials. On the way up to a door there were northern lights and we saw a really bright shooting star. THen we saw a shooting star on the way back down as well. It was fantastic. It got us really pumped. We are having a good time up here. Me and elder p get along well. But he is dying soon... but hes doing good. I love the district too. THe elders in tromsø are all awesome. Im scared theyll be changed out next week though. THatll be sad. Theres a lot of good things up here in northern norway. President keeps telling us its our badge of honor to be in alta during mørke tid. Im told the sun will completely disappear this week though. Thatll be cool. :P This last week was good though. We had zone leader training in trondheim on wednesday. That was way good. We didnt get to overnight though. so four more flights in one day!We were trying a lot of try backs this week. We got two new investigators from that. We knocked on a formers door and he said no thanks. We are all heathens here. THen a lady in the back asked who it was. She saw us and started crying. SHe had been praying for help. So they invited us in. It was interesting. THey were all drunk and smoking. THey talked about how they used week now and then because its good. hha it was interesting. But they invited us back and we are going back tomorrow. Hopefully they are sober... ha We have a few other investigators we are working with. One named *. I think i talked about him last week. Hes english and way cool. We are meeting with him tomorrow. The branch is doing really well. WE are meeting with a few of them this week. We are driving up to hammerfest this week too. ITs up even farther north. We only get to go there once a transfer or so. So it will be good. Theres a few inactive members and our mission leader live up there so it will be good. Sunday, November 23, 2014
11/16/14
11/9/14
Hey guys!!! Wow only 45 days.. THats so weird!!!! ITs hard to believe how fast time flies... Christmas will be awesome. THe member we lived with promised us lutefisk... So i will get to try it! whoo! haha sounds like you all are doing good. Good to hear from jacob for once haha. except what is this about leaving before i come home???? ill take that up with him personally.. haha I started applying for utah state. I hope i did it all right. I dont know if i should go to utah state. They have nothing to do with architecture but suu does.... It would be a lot easier to just live with you guys too. dang it. I thought i could get by with another major before going to u of u but i dont think that would lead in to it very well. Maybe ill apply there too... but anyway. Alta is still great. its pretty small. Contacting isnt really good for much. But we knock on doors a lot. So thats good i guess. We get some success with it up here. The people in the north are a little more friendly. So its awesome. I love it up here. It hasnt gone completely dark yet... But the sun is pretty much gone now. ha It snowed all day on monday and tuesday, theres still quite a bit here. Wednesday was really cold. We had the travelling assistants visiting on splits. When we woke up the member below us told us it was supposed to be -19. I only saw it get down to -14. But it was still really cold. We had a lot of cool things happen though. While on the streets a guy from england walked up to us and asked if he could get a book of mormon in english. ME and elder p taught him on friday and he was awesome. We are going back this week. We worked really hard all day with the travelling aps and got a lot of things going so that was really cool. One of the aps really wanted to see the northern lights before he went home so hed been praying for it. When we were banking we saw a little bit and he was a little bummed but figured hes still seen more than most people. Later that night we were all getting into bed and he went to go close the window and just started freaking out. The sky was just covered in lights. It was amazing!!!! They were dancing like crazy and had lots of colors mixed in with the green. It was the best lights show id seen. It was so pretty!!! We were all really excited to see it. I tried taking pictures but I couldnt get any thing good. Turns out my cameras not too good with northern lights pictures. oh well. Ill steal some from my comp. but the lord hears our prayers!!! even if its to see the northern lights. haha I dont know what else i would need for my package.... i bought some vitamins earlier. I got two bottles on sale for 100 crowns total. so that wasnt bad at all. They should last me my time up here... I think. BUt other than that im doing really well!!! Sorry i was applying for school and stuff so i didnt have so much time.... Ill have to tell more stories later. I love you guys!!! Thanks for your prayers. :) I hope you all have a good week!!!! Love Elder Newey
11/3/14
Hey Everybody!!!!
I dont think I like having the sun setting when i come out of church at 2:00 . Its so weird... Im trying to get used to that. Ill have to go buy those vitamins. Theyre so expensive here though. Ill get them though. ITs better than being depressed. We are going to have a district meeting about keeping up our motivation and energy this week. SHould be good. THis last week was way good. We had zone conference in trondheim on friday. But we live so out of the way that we took a plane the night before and came home on saturday so we were gone for a few days. Trondheim is a way cool city. Id love to serve there some day. It was cool to be around other missionaries again. Its so weird to be so isolated. haha district meeting over skype is weird. Kinda unfortunate. But the conference was really good. WE talked a lot about working with the members. THat will work great up here... haha jk president mentioned something about if it doesnt apply too much where you are use it later. IT was really good though. We can still use it on our few members. After the conference we went and got kebabs with some missionaries down there. It ws good. There were a lot of people dressed up because it was halloween. But then we went back to the church and had game night with the ysa in that ward. It was fun. We left about 10 the next morning. I had to take 4 planes this week. Crazy. One the way down, we had to fly all the way to oslo then back up to trondheim. It was a lot of travel time. I think about 7 hours til we were finally where we wanted to be. The way back wasnt so bad. WE just went to tromsø then alta. It was good. Planes arent bad at all. Ive been on about 26 or so i think now on my mission. FLying is cool. We really are trying to find new people up here to teach. We have a few investigators but nobody is really progressing too much but we are trying to find more. WE got an office referral this morning. So that will be good to follow up on tonight. hopefully it was real haha. I still love this area. The branch is doing well. Testimony meeting was good yesterday. Almost everyone there bore their testimony and we filled the entire hour. We dont have to do too much in church actually. We set up the sacrament. A new convert blesses it usually. I have spoken two of the three sundays here. But thats just cuz one was testimony meeting and the other was my first sunday. SO not too bad. It would be good for me though. I need to learn how to talk in front of people. haha ITs really good though. The members are good people. We just need more of them. Its pretty cool, theres actually been 4 baptisms here this year which is incredible. 2 of them moved though to other parts of norway. The other two are active and have the priesthood. One from nigeria and one from the ukraine. pretty sweet. I love it. Its been snowing pretty much all day today. we came home to snow on saturday so we have a bit haha. The light is so weird. When the sun goes down it makes a weird glow. Everything is kinda yellow. I got a good picture of it yesterday. But everything is going great. Light
Hey Guys!!!!
SO I still love this area. Im starting to get used to the cold now... But its been warmer the last couple of days. Today is raining. Unfortunately the clouds mean no northern lights... But we saw some really cool ones earlier in the week. Its crazy. Theyre so cool to watch. Green is the most common color. But earlier this week we saw some yellow and a little purple. They didnt last too long though. They go fast. THat night we ran in to get our cameras they were gone when we came out. I tried getting pictures the next night but its hard to get a cool picture. Theyre so amazing. I got an email from deanna that i thought was really cool. SHe mentioned how Christ is a light. WHich was really cool because i have been thinking about that a lot lately. During conference in elder uchtdorfs talk he talked about strengthening the light in others. At least thats the biggest part i got out of it. But i started thinking a lot about how i need to strengthen others lights. And that is my reason to be here. To strengthen the light in those around me. So i started praying and studying how I could do That. I found a lot of help. Not only in study but in conference. Elder Eyring talked about doing it with love and trust. I think ive said a lot of that before. But I kept studying, and i realized that to strengthen the light you have to be a light. So I started studying some more and I noticed how often Christ is referred to as the light. It amazes me still How many times I started seeing it. But Christ really is the greatest example of strengthening the light in others. We all have light. in varying brightness and areas. But there is a light in everyone. Christ always found that light and strengthened it. When he strengthened the light, he brings light to another area. I am really enjoying studying light! Christ is the light. So I decided that really, being like the savior is the best way to strengthen your own light to strengthen the light of others. Im still really studying this trying to figure out how i can best do this, cuz I feel very strongly that that is what I am supposed to do! strengthen the light! But Deannas email talked about how Christ is the light. And she compared it to the northern lights. And how He moves in his majesty and power. Cuz they move too. They dance. they move around. Where ever they are there is beauty. I couldnt help but just stare at them as they jumped around. Its amazing. ITs how it is. The lights in the sky dance around with majesty and what could be considered power. But Christs majesty and power is so much greater. The people here seem not to notice the lights too much. They dont seem to notice Christs light either. THey are too distracted by other things around them. But one day the light of Christ will touch them. Whether it be from us as missionaries or from a friend, family member, neighbor, random acquaintance or what ever, it will touch them. Christs light really will grow. Til it touches every part of the earth. ANd then all men have to choose whether to accept the light or crawl back into the darkness. I just want you all to know that i have a testimony of this light that is Christ. He lives. ANd he loves every single one of Gods children. I watched "because of him" and read mosiah 16:6-9 the other day with a new convert. That is my testimony as well. He is the light and the life of the world. A light that is endless. and unlike the northern lights, it is never to be dimmed.10/20/14
Hey guys!!!
Alta is awesome. Its so different here but i love it. Im going to really enjoy being up here. THe city is pretty small, but the branch boundaries are bigger than all of denmark... We cover a big area... but we dont go to most of it. There were 9 people in church on sunday. 2 missionaries, an investigator, the branch president and his wife, a less active member, the mission leader and the member lady and her son that we live with. It was awesome. Its so different! we meet in a little tiny building that we rent out on sundays. THey have to have 20 people that come regularly for 3 months or so to get a building to ourselves. So we are working on that. THeres 40 people on the list though. so we have a lot of people we can reactivate too. Our apartment is the loft of a member lady in the ward. She has a 50 year old handicapped son. HEs super talented with music. He plays piano writes music and plays guitar and the baritone as well. He loves the missionaries. HE makes it fun. The house is on a farm. I feel like im at grandma and grandpa neweys house. Its way cool. Theres a couple dogs and a bunny, and they dont have any other animals themselves but they let other people use it so theres sheep and horses out sometimes. ITs super cold. At least it feels like it. ITs been about -5 C. Its snowed a couple times. BUt theres not too much left right now. I guess the night before i came the northern lights were really strong. I saw a little bit last night. It was so cool!!!! I live in the arctic now! ITs so crazy. I love it though. Im definitely using my coat now though. ITs not too dark yet. IT starts getting dark around 5 now. Im told by the middle of november the light will be gone.. THat will be fun. I should probably find some vitamin d to start taking... The new companion is cool. His name is elder P. HEs a cool guy. HE goes home at the beginning of january. SO ill probably be his last companion. District meetings are weird here... we have to do them over skype because we are so far away from the other missionaries. Next week we get to do it in person because i have to go to tromsø to interview their investigator to be baptized. ITs only elders in the district. ANd a senior couple. There all cool from what i have seen. Elder k and s were in the mtc with me and theyre both in tromsø. ITll be good to work with them again. THis week was awesome. It was a good week to start off the transfer. We had a challenge from the zone leaders to go out and not come back in until we found a new investigator or it was time to be inside. So we decided to double the goal and go for 2 new investigators. WE had geir pray for us and then we went to go try a tryback before banking the rest of the day. The tryback let us in, introduced his family of 4 and then we taught them. ANd they told us we could come back! So we found 4 new investigators. We were way excited!!! the next day we found a former that told us to come back too. So we are really hoping they all stay positive. Im loving this area though already. ITs so cool up here. I really hope that something in the gospel interests the family though. THey told us to come back, but they also said they werent planning on changing religions. But thats what they all say at first i guess :) SO we will be fasting and praying for them. BUt thats how things are going here. THanks for all the love and prayers! love you guys!!!! Have a great week.
Love Elder NEwey
10/13/14
Hey Guys!
I'm emailing normally again. haha It shouldn't happen too often like last week.. ha .
This next transfer will be interesting. Alta will be way cool. ITs a long ways up... Ill be flying on wednesday. SHould be fun! I talked to the elder im replacing there and he said the northern lights are already shining. So im excited. But then he said that its going to be really cold and its already snowed. Yeay...ha it'll be good though. Im pretty excited actually. I should probably buy that vitamin d soon..
Glad your stressful week is over mom. Thats always nice to have that over with. I'm stressing about flying a bit. Weight limits and stuff are stressful! But i'm sure it will work out. Thats awesome you guys get to go to arizona this weekend though that will be fun. Not for very long though. I miss temples!!! That will be way cool to go see.
I probably haven't thought about school as much as i should be? i dunno. I should take some time to really think about it. Missions make it hard to think about what's going on at school! Maybe i'll have more time in the north.. .haha everyone i heard is just depressed and drinks up north. Im kinda excited to see how it is. At some point i'll have to apply though to utah state. If i'm going there. I don't even know what id have to do for suu... I don't remember any of those passwords or anything. Ill get on Utah state soon anyway just in case.. I'll see what i have to do at least. I Just hope I can still get the same scholarship they offered the first time. That would be good to be able to give you permission to handle it though.
Sorry for the worry though last week. I figured that could happen haha. We had just decided to do it not too long before hand.. hah But it was fun though. I don't know how much i like museums.. haha IT was still pretty cool though. Oslo is an interesting city.
This week has been pretty good though. Well the last few days i guess. On thursday we taught seminary. THat was fun. I know how early morning seminary teachers feel now. Youth aren't too talkative in the mornings. haha But it was good. The rest of the day we visited a couple member families. We visited the mission leader and his family and another family where the dad is american. He actually went to moms high school in orem. Did you ever know a judson family. ha I think hes younger but maybe not.. Hes a cool guy. They were good visits though. Sad. The mission leader wasn't in church yesterday and i thought he would be so i didn't really say a good good bye . ah well. But friday we taught seminary again. And then we tried finding people.. and then that night we got elder g a new bed so he didn't have to sleep on an air mattress anymore. And we went to the H family again. I'll send a picture with them. THeyre awesome. One of my favorite families here. We had pizza night. It was good. The kids love us its awesome. haha Ill miss them . There really are some cool families in this ward. Saturday we had kino i kirken! Or Theater in church. We watched 17 miracles with the youth in the ward. It was way cool. Such a good movie. I think they all liked it too. Brother hwas there too and he was crying pretty hard. He told us to stop cutting onions during the movies! ( we watched prophet of the restoration ls week.) Sunday was good too. LAst one here in moss. It was fast and testimony meeting. So i bore my testimony. Then said good bye to all the members afterwards. Its a good ward. Itll be way different in alta. 9 people in church im pretty sure? ha itll be good. We went to bishops families house after church though. Theyre a cool family too. I wish I got a picture with them. We taught a afterwards with another member. IT was a really good lesson. She wants to be baptized, but she wont say it until she is finished with the book of mormon. Shes in 3rd nephi! So its coming! today we are having one last pday in fredrikstad with our district. SO that will be fun. And tonight we are going to the F's for fhe. Itll be awesome. THeyre a way cool family too. We were there last week and i felt like it was christmas for some reason..
Alta will be interesting. Way different for sure. I dont know what to expect really! Im way excited though. I will be district leader.. I dont know how that will go either. But we will have a car! Im pretty excited though. Northern lights and lots of other good stuff. Ill take plenty of pictures.
ANyway. Thanks for everything!!! I love you guys!!!! HAve a good week and have fun in arizona!!
Love Elder NEwey
Sunday, October 12, 2014
10/8/14
Hey Guys! SOrry its a few days late this week!!! We got permission to switch our pday to wednesday and we went up to oslo to see a viking ship museum and stuff. It was pretty cool. THings are going good here. Conference was amazing!!! I loved it. ITs so good to here from the leaders of the church. There were so many talks that i loved. I loved elder ballards about staying in the boat. Its so true! WHy would you jumkp out! Is sad when people do. I loved what elder Eyring talked about by being an example by showing trust and care from priesthood session. HE talked about the times he went home after being out with friends and would go and talk with his mom. It was the most choked up I've seen him and i was a little too.... It was a way good talk. I loved President uchtdorfs first one. I got a lot out of that one that I need to be going to strengthen the light in others. Everybodies light is at different levels. And It can be strengthened! SO thats what I want to do. It was really good I loved elder hollands. WE are all blessed with things that we can use to bless others! And we have to give our very best!!!! The sunday afternoon session was probably my favorite. Elder Scotts was so good. It felt like just a very simple, this is what you must do to be happy and successful! I really liked that one. The gospel should be prioritized over everything else!!! Then elder Godoys was maybe my favorite. Mostly because I've been trying to decide what to do about school... I realized that i have to decide soon because i heard deadline for applying to schools is in december and i have to reapply to utah state if i do that. I'm still trying to figure out what is best... But his talk just felt like it was made for me at the time! It was kind of a decision making process. Study the things you have been given like my patriarchal blessing and scriptures and of course prayer to decide what would really be the best thing to do. ITs definitely not an easy decision. SO im trying to broaden my vision and to figure out what would really be the best thing for me to be doing. .. BUt Its hard to think about that! haha but I'm trying to figure it out. Elder Bednars was awesome. There were just so many good talks.. I loved conference.
Im glad things are going good and fast! Everythings flying here too. Moves is next week. im moving.... Im going to alta. as dl. Ill be in the northern most mission area in the world... in winter. Which means i really won't see the sun!! Im kinda really excited. Northern lights!!!!! I have to start taking vitamin d though... thats important.
ANyway i hope you guys are doing great!!! I love you all! Thanks for the prayers. I hope that i can keep the things i learned in conference in my head. There was a lot i learned and want to start applying!!! Im so excited to see how i change!! IT's really what I've thought about a lot in conference. I just felt like God was trying to show me how i am going to be changed in the near future and what i needed to do to get there. I've been really happy lately. I love the mission. BEst thing i ever could have done. Take care of justin when you see him. HE says you guys are awesome. :)
Love Elder NEwey :)
9/29/14
Hey guys! Thanks for the happy birthdays! haha Thats awesome. Its so weird! Im 20! I'm not a teenager anymore.... weird.... Its so weird to think as well that its my last birthday as a missionary. Next time I will be home! Weird!!!!! I remember last years... So weird to think that was a year ago. It blows my mind. It was fast sunday in the mtc and we were packing to go to norway! And Wednesday I'll have been in norway for a year... Crazy! Time goes by way fast. Today we are just in fredrikstad as a District to watch the lego Movie. thats about as crazy as I'll get today. No real big plans. My comp gave me a recorder. as in the instrument for my birthday haha. I thought that was funny. I got dads card today. So i was worried it was just him that loved me haha just kidding. Thanks so much though!
Unfortunately we didn't get Our spring rolls last week... THey cancelled and then they were in belgium.. SO hopefully we'll get them tomorrow. haha Spring rolls are good. Zone leader training is just a meeting for the zone to come together and be taught by the zone leaders... so no im not a zone leader. ha We are sure trying to get the work going here. We are having lots of little miracles happen. I had been looking way too hard for the big miracles to happen but those are not so common. WE have to focus on all the little miracles. when you start noticing all the little miracles, you start to see how much the Lord really is working in Your life. Like Christ Works "one by one" He also helps us With one little thing at a time. He is watching over us and he does care! We just have to look. JUST LOOK! haha thats been something I've thought about a lot lately. you have to see the Things that are actually going on and see how they are working towards Your ultimate goal in the end. Small steps. Big ones dont usually happen so often. They happen Just not very often. But its always good to know that the small miracles are there. :)
I'm impressed that Jacob did brovita! Are you kids dressing up more like Girls each one? :P better watch out for reid when hes a senior... I like Jacobs cardigan. I think I've seen that one before. Where'd he get that? Im glad dads so famous With all the senior boys. Drop by drop is a good point. tHAt is how it Works. We change slowly. SOunds like the Meeting was really good. I CANNOT wait till Conference. Its going to be way good. I hope you guys have a great week!! I love you all!!!!!! THanks so much for Your thoughts and prayers!!!!!!
Love Elder NEwey
9/22/14
Hey Folkens!!! How are you guys?
Thats awesome you guys got to see the ogden temple dedication. Thats way cool. Elder Bednar is awesome right? haha That is cool to know he was there right after being here. They travel a lot. one of the missionaries asked him how he copes with such a busy schedule. He just said. ITs fun. then he said he loved being out and visiting other places. HE said it was way better than being in meetings in salt lake. I thought that was cool. Prayer is amazing. HE really does just want to hear us. HE wants to to know what is on our mind. HE already knows but he still wants to hear us say it. He loves us a lot!!!! I've been developing my prayers a lot. They are so personal now! At least in my personal prayers. Their really is a difference between personal and public prayers. Both just as important and just as real, but they are just a little different.
I'm sorry you discovered you have to start eating meat mom... Thats sad. But happy birthday on wednesday!!!!!! I have a card... I just haven't sent it yet... haha
The manti temple is awesome. I love it. I only got to go through once there. It was way cool though. I cant wait to go through a temple again! Bednar didnt promise a temple in norway but he did promise a hastening in the work and a third stake and more branches and wards. Pretty cool! SO the work is picking up!
Things are starting to pick up here. Which is lame cuz ill probably leave in like three weeks... ha just kidding. But it is possible. This last week was awesome. Monday we taught an american named * It was really good. He's way cool. He brought us maple syrup. tomorrow he's bringing us spring rolls that his girlfriend is making and then we are going to teach them both about the churhch!!! Im Super excited. They're super cool. I guess he's actually kind of canadian. HE lived in canada for a long time but was born in michigan. Then tuesday we ate dinner at a members house. THey're way cool. The 12 year old kept telling us we had to come to his house for dinner on a tuesday so he could make us dinner. FInally we got one scheduled and he had a friend over so he didn't make the dinner. It was super good though. Super cool family. They just live far away. haha but wednesday we had zone leader training in oslo. My companion asked the president if we could go to the amusment park for my birthday next week but he said no haha. I didnt think it would happen. WE also had waffle night on wednesday with some inactive youths. It was really good. They like to speak english. 2 of them are pretty good but the youngest one just direct translates things and it just ends up funny. Plus the norwegian v w flop. so we had quotes from him like the white wan. and thy are welcome. every children. haha its always funny. Thursday we did weekly planning. That night a less active we've been trying to get an appointment with forever contacted us and asked to have us over. sO we went and visited him. HE was way cool. Hasn't been in church in a while. But he was nice and we at least got to know him abit. HE still has his book of mormon and was telling stories about finding scriptures that mean a lot to him. SO that was really cool. Friday was awesome. WE had lunch with a couple that just moved here a few months ago from byu. Hes mexican and shes norwegian. So we spoke english. We talked about he bednar conference and about missionary work. THey were so cool and just couldn't wait to get started. WE committed them to get preach my gospels and they already have started sharing the gospel with other people. He is going to give a book of mormon to his dentist soon. So thats way cool. After that we had a first teach with a lady named *. WE showed up and it was her and her atheist friend *. HE was drinking wine and they were smoking the whole time. But it was awesome. She was super positive and we are meeting with her again. I hope that * isn't there though because he didnt help much in the discussion... haha drunk high atheists are hard to deal with sometimes. But * really wanted to hear more. And she promised to read. sO that was way good. We were supposed to teach * that night but he sent us a text saying he was busy so we cancelled but we went out to bank and we found him out painting his house. SO we talked to him and his girlfriend for a while and thats where we got them to commit to learning about the gospel. Im super excited about that. THeyre just so cool. So friday was a good day. Saturday was good. We helped a former member who's the mom to the sunday school president move. SO that was really good. There were quite a few members there so it went by pretty fast. I am really starting to love the members here. *** is one of my favorites ha.HEs the sunday school president. Just a super nice guy. After moving we got pizza though. I miss american pizza.... It's just not the same!!!! but after moving we went finding and had a few good conversations with people. REally finding has started to come out of the members. its awesome. Been waitin on this for a while now... but then sunday was awesome. priesthood was good but then in sunday school we went in with the youths who *** was teaching. WE talked to him a while ago about breaking mormon norms like when people pray for the people to magically come next week. sO at the beginning of the class one of the young women prayed for that. ANd after the prayer he asked her what she said. She said that part and he asked what does that mean then for us. One kid said well we have to send the priesthood out to give them blessings or something. But then *** was like "yeah thats good but you all said amen. That means you all agreed to go out and try to get these people to come next week. Who's not here?" then they made a list and committed specific ones to go out and contact these people to come next week. THe youths just volunteered to do it. AH its hard to explain but it was soo cool. me and elder g decided it was basically a mormon messages moment. Especially if they come next week.** committed them to pray with faith before they tried to contact them. IT was one of the coolest things I've witnessed on my mission i was so happy. Its going to be awesome to see how it worked. I don't know if that all made sense. ha its a long story. But then after church we went and visited a member family. It was awesome. tHey gave us my first like real referral. WE had a good time getting to know each other and then we shared our thought. They have five kids under the age of 6 so at one point they were all running around screaming and dinner was just finished so there was a bit of a mess. The dad just stood up and said behold my kingdom. haha it was really funny. But after the thought, they called one of their neighbors and invited him to meet with us and then to general conference. He accepted both. So we are meeting with him tomorrow or wednesday at the families house and then they are coming to conference. ITs so cool! Moss is taking off! I am loving it. I wish i could realize what I'm doing when you can't see the results. IT takes a lot to see that. I read a scripture the other day that said " the way is prepared, and if we will look, we can live forever." I underlined the part, if we will look. That really what we have to do. Just look. and see the way thats prepared. see what you have done. See what you have been blessed with. lots of good stuff. Thats in alma 37:46. I dont know if i quoted it right i translated from my norwegian scripts. but anyway. Thats a long email about my week. It was awesome. :) Im really happy out here. I hope you guys have a great week! I love you all thanks for your prayers i feel them! It would be so much more difficult with out them so thank you!!!
Love Elder Newey
Sunday, September 21, 2014
9/15/14
Hey guys!
Happy Anniversary Mom and DAd!!!!!I Love you guys!Sunday, September 14, 2014
9/7/14 Conference with Elder Bednar
HEy everybody!
This last week was way good. MOstly because of bednar. IT was awesome. Ill talk about that later though. But this week was good otherwise. We had quite a bit of good stuff going. WE got
one of the young men to drive us around on thursday and try people back. It went really well... We had one lady who we've knoked into a few times but she was always busy and she said she would come to church next week. That was good. Plus her boyfriend gave the youth a playstation that he didn't think worked. E tried it and it worked. HA he was happy. Hes claiming blessings for going out with the missionaries. None of the other people really wanted to talk then.. But it was good anyway. Then on friday E came with us to teach A. WE finally got in to teah her! IT was awesome to. When she was at church she got an invitation to the wards temple trip in oktober. She was telling us she really wanted to go. We had to explain that she couldnt go inside unless she was baptized. SHe was like oh ok. What does one have to do to be baptized? We told her she has to believe and take all the lessons. SHe was interested. BUt she just said oh i need to finish the book before i make a choice. But that was huge for us! Then we invited her to the bednar conference and she decided to come. J wasnt able to make it. but A went. also on saturday we decided to show the joseph smith video at the church and we invited tons of people. A came and B and K. B's american and he is dating K who is norwegian and we are teaching him norwegian. We got them to the movie night and they all loved it. IT was awesome. They sent a text the next day saying how cool it was. . But then sunday came and it was awesome. We traveled up to the senter where they had the conference and waited for a while. Then bednar came in. IT was awesome. Right when he walked in everyone stood up really fast and it just went silent. It was amazing. I wish J could have been there . He talked directly to all the non members at the beginning. He basically did a restoration lesson and almost basically said you have to be stupid not to believe in this church. (He did use stupid a few times) hes awesome. He then talked about how easy it is to do missionary work. His quote. " just live the gospel and be weird." He talked about how it is different to be a member of this church and that when people see how different we are they will ask questions because we are weird. compared to the world. It was really cool. The spirit was super strong. I like the slogan for missionary wok to be as bednar said it " just live it" Just live it and people will ask questions and all you have to do is answer them. And he promised that people would ask questions. We just have to answer them right. THen he told them to learn from africa... to humble themselves. It was cool. Then we had to run out of the conference senter and grab a sandwich at the door and then get out to the church building for the missionary meeting. I was kinda bummed. I didnt get to say hi to a lot of the members from bergen or porsgrunn. I saw a couple of them but not too many. But then the missionary meeting was epic. When he came into the chapel it was even more powerful and quiet when we all stood up. It was really cool because he just acted like a real person. Of course he is one but it was just cool to see. He held a discussion with us. He didnt want to just talk to us but he kept telling us to stop being nervous at the beginning. He introduced himself as brother ballard too. It was funny. But he asked a few questoins and let us ask him questions. A lot of what i got out of it was that we need to be agents and not objects. We need to stop praying for things to happen to other people and to start praying to be the one to help people. Instead of saying in your prayer " please bless those that weren't here to be here next week" say please bless us now to go out and find those that werent here and to bring them next week. Thats the secret. We cant expect God to just do things we cant just ask for things to happen. We have to actually ask for help so that we can make these things happen. Im struggling a little to explain my thinking haha. But basically we just need to take more responsibility and to actually be willing to do stuff. To be ready to actully act. To ask for things to do instead of for him to do things for us. It was a really powerfull meeting. So be an agent that acts not an object that is acted upon! Oh and he talked about christs love. How really, God loves us so much, he will make things happen in a way just ot help one person. Elder Bednar said hes been sent to areas to bless just one persons life. He called it the one by one principle. That God really loves every single person individualy and that he helps people individually. ITs really amazing. But yeah. It was a pretty good weekend. I loved it. Thanks for you guys prayers and support. Tell rylee to stop poking me every night. and i love you guys!
Love elder NEwey
Sunday, September 7, 2014
9/1/14
Hey Guys!
Thats sad summer is dying. That is never a good time. I hate how school kills that. You guys might be cooling off faster than we are here. We have been fairly warm still except for a few days of rain. Its no good because my shoes that i bought a while ago, no matter how much the lady at the store said they'd be fine for walking around in, were not made for missionary work. The big holes in the bottoms let in a lot of water... haha But I am on the lookout for cheap shoes. I am pretty disappointed in those shoes. Plus Im told we will be getting ipads soon, and we have to pay 400 dollars for them. THats a lot of money! Things are going well though. I get really excited about potentials we get lately because those have been hard to find, but they usually tell us they changed their mind and they really dont want to hear a message anymore. Lame. But things are going well though. REally excited for the bednar conference this weekend. We had moves call yesterday morning. Im staying here in moss, but elder g is leaving. SO im getting a new companion, elder G. I think hes from utah from what ive heard. I dont know too much about him. Im pretty excited for all thats going to happen here with the bednar conference. We're hoping that j can come. I might even get to see l from bergen if she comes. Shes been meeting with the misisonaries for a long time now. I heard she was really close to baptism last time i talked to the missionaries there. Itll be way cool though. There will be members from all over norway. Im excited. This last week though we did some more banking and kontakting and stuff. It was fun. There hasnt been too much exciting happening here. THanks so much for the package though. American candy is good. ANd jacob, thanks for the little boulder. It sure makes me feel bolder… haha Im jealous of how to train your dragon two! Ill have to watch it in norwegian when it comes out on dvd haha. The first one is really good. Today we are having pday in halden with some of the district. Itll be cool. We're going to se an old fort and the sweden norway border line. Itll be fun. SOunds like you are all doing well though. :) I might need some recipes for healthy snack. THat are cheap. And the ingredients actually exist in norway. Youd be surprised how hard that is sometimes. Hope you guys have fun hiking today! Monday, August 25, 2014
8/25/14
Hey Guys How are you all doing? Norway's doing good. No huge changes here. The last week was pretty good sounds like the home is empty lately. School is back in. That's so weird. I left last time school started!! woah! one year is gone. That's crazy. Thanks for your package by the way! I actually got it this morning. That was cool to get. All of it is awesome! Thanks so much ! I love you guys! We had another conference in oslo this week. Just a zone conference with the aps teaching skills. So lots of practicals and stuff. It was good though. I learned a lot. I haven't seen T, J or A this week. T disappeared and J and A were difficult to meet with. But because of the conference we had the elders from halden staying with us to drive us up and then we had a stake soccer competition that we were able to be in so they stayed with us. Elder D is one of them so him, I and elder G burned shirts for our year mark. that was fun. Still pretty weird that its been a year. Its been a crazy year. Lots of stuff thats happened. The whole * (the guy who was converted and left right after) story is pretty crazy. He's not been in church as far as i know. He doesnt respond to my emails. Last i heard from his bishop was that his parents won't let anybody into the house to visit him and that he hasn't been to the church at all. SO thats sad. That was a while ago. I haven't heard anything since, but W said he's going to track him down and talk to him hah. so we'll see how that goes.I hope he goes to church. But here in moss things are going well. Its been pretty slow but i think it will pick up soon. Yesterday we only had time to knock on one street and we got three people that wanted us to come back because they were busy at the time. That was awesome. Two of them were families. And they were more positive than most of the people that just tell us to come back. So that will be cool. Saturday was fun we had the stake soccer tournament. It was intense. I didn't expect it to be so intense. We were invited to be on the fredrikstads team because moss didnt invite us. So it was a team of 6 americans most of which have never played soccer and a few europeans. Against the other norwegians that take soccer very seriously. I had to hold back and really try not to take people out because there was a lot of non members. That was fun. They were way intense. We lost all 3 of our games. THe europeans weren't so impressed with us. haha there was some yelling. But it was really fun. I was glad to play again. But we were a little sore yesterday. This coming week we are really hoping to get some investigators who will really want to investigate. Moves call will be next sunday. That's exciting. Not too much is going on other than that. We have a few people that we are teaching norwegian to. One guy from canada. So that's exciting. But we are just goin on. Doin our best and I am loving it. Lots of good stuff out here as a missionary.
Thanks for the key to life mom! (2 Nephi 31:19-21)thats helpful. I was thinking earlier this week about how you can make your calling and election sure. You make it so simple. Thats basically the formula! We really just have to stick to the basics and really strive to follow christ. He is our head and the center of all we do. WE really should hold our focus on him and do all that we can to be like him. HE is the perfect example. steadfastness in Christ. I think that really just means we really have to try and have him in our thought and live by every word that he teaches. HE is our teacher. He loves us! Its true!! ANyway. I hope you guys have a good week! Love you guys! Thanks for the prayers and support!
Elder NEwey
Monday, August 18, 2014
8/18/14
Hey Guys!
I have more time this week :) ha Its been good though. our zone pday was really good. We played soccer and capture the flag and ultimate frisbee. IT was fun. We stayed the night in romerike for the night with the elders from halden and then we went to conference the next day. It was a really good conference. I really liked it. WE had elder dyches from the area presidency here visiting. I enjoyed it. There was a lot of things he talked about lots of stuff. It was really good. There was a lot of good things said about how we can help the members and how we can be more obedient. THere was a lot of good things there. It was cool to hang out with so many missionaries too for a couple days. The week was good otherwise. We saw *** again. that was good it's been a few weeks since we've since we've seen him. I was pretty happy. He said he'd be in church but he wasn't... ah well. Church was really good. They've been having meetings with the bishops and with the stake presidents teaching them how to do missionary work in their wards. Im hoping good things are going to start coming. We were at a members house for dinner yesterday and they were talking about how they think that elder bednar coming is going to be about hastening the work. I am pretty sure that is what he'll be talking about. That will be cool. I was talking to my distrikt leader last night and we decided its going to be more than just the normal hastening the work... haha :) Im really excited about that. We've been sure trying to be busy here. IT's difficult to find stuff to do sometimes. That's so crazy. Tanners been home for a year and I'll have been out for a year on thursday. Wow. Super weird. It blows my mind how fast time flies. It's kinda scary! But it's awesome. :) haha I know what you mean about getting nervous to talk. I struggle with talking in front of people still. It's rough. But I am working on it! Its funny how i can go out and talk to most of the people on the street pretty easily but talking in front of 150 members is hard!! BUt things are going good here. School started here today so the people should basically all be back from vacation. We are hoping so at least. WE really need to find some people to teach in this area. I am having cool experiences of patience though. ha it's good. I am doing really good though. The weather is cooling off quite a bit. Its been raining a lot. We had a few huge lightning and thunder storms earlier this week. It was crazy. SUper loud. WE never know whether to wear a jacket or not. Because we just have these flash storms that come in and pour and then it would be sunny and humid and too warm for a jacket.. IT's crazy. But it makes it interesting. Thanks so much for the prayers and support it helps a lot! I love you guys :)
Love Elder Newey :)
8/11/14
Hey Guys! SO I have like 15 minutes to email today... WE have no pday because on thursday we are going to have a zone pday in oslo before a half mission conference with a 70. THat will be pretty cool. That's awesome jacob and reid had a good time at efy. Thats a good one. Except i heard it's not even called efy anymore. Its fsy. THats pretty cool. SOunds like they had a good time. Except they didn't tell me about it! hah its ok. THings are going pretty well here though. WE haven't really found anyone else to teach lately. Everyone who gives us their number never answers and then when they do they say they're not interested. So its hard. But it's ok. WE are working hard and doing a lot of praying. I heard brother m served here. I asked a couple people if they ever knew him. I never met anybody that did. BUt that would make sense if he didn't serve in my areas! I like how he named espen too. Thats a norwegian name. Pretty cool. SIster mc was in my district for a while. She was cool. SOunds like a good day though. I miss the 15th ward. Cool people. The mtc will definitely keep your spiritual high going. IT's awesome. Good luck with your talks! I would say definitely that example was pretty huge. AS well as constant fhe and prayer. Prayer is a huge thing. I have realized i guess that prayer is really one of the best things you can do. AS long as there is prayer in the home its kinda like there is an open channel to heavenly Father that he can bless us and speak to us through. You learn a lot through that relationship. I can't think of any specific memories right now... Sorry. Its hard to think when you feel rushed.. haha but Good luck! Thanks for the picture! Thats crazy,.... It can't be that time yet... ha wow.. ANyway I love you guys! Thanks for your prayers and support!
Love Elder NEwey
8/4/14
Hey guys!
I don't have a ton of time today because i have to catch a bus back into moss. We are in fredrikstad today for a district p day. We watched the saratov approach. You're probably as surprised as i am that we got permission for that! It was intense. Now were all worried about getting kidnapped... haha But everything is going well though. The members keep asking us if we are staying busy at church. And we keep saying of course we are. We are using all our time banking and kontakting though! Because finding has been rough lately! But we found a couple really cool potentials the last few days so that was good. Things are still going great with ***. She came to church. And *** dissappeared again... So that's sad. Im sure he'll show up again at some point. ** is doing awesome. I wish he was able to move out though. I have been reading elder holland's talk however long and hard the road this last week. It's amazing. Given me lots to think about. I wouldn't worry too much about the terrorist threat thing... I got one text about it and thats it. Haven't heard anything really... haha Im sure its fine. THats awesome reid and jacob are going to efy. That'll be fun. I hope you guys have an awesome week! I love you all!
Love Elder Newey
7/28/14
Hey Everybody!
How are you all doing? I dont know what youre talking about mom, the olympic park looks perfectly safe. Look at all those ropes and stuff. I wouldn't be too worried... ha..
oops now ill finish...
Tell sister hansen hi back ha. It's true I think. I've heard that before I think. It makes sense to me at least. There are forces on both sides of the veil fighting for God's kingdom to grow here on this side. IT's pretty cool. Not only our families as missionaries but also the families of those we talk with. It's really cool. SOmetimes its easy to feel like we are alone in this fight here in moss. Especially since there wasn't even very many members in moss this last week, but it is always good to remember that there are spirits around us. Building us up and keeping us going. I kind of felt it the other day. We had a really long bike ride, and it was like 95 degrees and super humid. So I was getting pretty tired and pretty sweaty. (its been pretty gross here lately.... I've taken a couple showers at meal times cuz I stunk...) But I just felt like there was something pushing my legs forward. It was a long bike ride. And lots of uphill, but it wasn't that difficult. It had been difficult before, but it wasn't too bad. It was really cool. I knew there was something pushing. But yeah. So Its pretty cool. There really are many who are fighting for this side that we don't even see. Thats a good reminder. It becomes easy to feel like we are not enough sometimes. But it doesn't matter. There is always something or someone there to help us out. Plus as christ said, he is laboring with us. Pretty cool :)
Pioneer day..YOu guys didn't do to much for that? Thats ok me either haha. SOunds like you guys had a good week though. WE had a weird week here. All the members were in sweden so that made it slightly difficult to do any member work. We kinda just banked and contacted a lot. But not too many people were interested. It was blazing hot though. I saw it at 35 celsius quite often. And the sun isn't usually down by the time we go to bed, so its just always hot. Always. I hear its supposed to start cooling down though.. So that will be good. But The heat was tough. It was way humid as well. Its apparently record breaking heat for norway. So thats been pretty crazy. Just leaves lots of sweat and stuff. But all is going well other wise. The members are all back, and we have a couple progressing investigators. We've found *** and he is still slightly drunk but he's now invited us to come to his house. So we are going to try tonight. Hopefully he lets us throw out all his alcohol... ANd then theres **. Shes awesome. She has investigated for a while. She just started coming to church and reading again. She was asking about baptism a couple weeks ago. So I have some high hopes for her! THings are going well though. AND I am happy. Its crazy how you pretty much can always find some joy in everything you do.! It's awesome. :)
DOing service was great. WE don't get too do it that often. The norwegian people sure like to be self sustaining. They don't like help. Makes it hard sometimes. But I really enjoy service projects. Gives me something a little different to do. ITs nice. But anyway. I love you guys hope you have a great week!
Love Elder NEwey
7/21/14
Hey GUys!
It was another good week here too! Sounds like you guys are doing good. Mt NEbo is an interesting market. I miss it... ha just kidding. I want to go camping! ha I think I'll wait though. IT has been really hot here lately. IT's been in the 30s Celsius. I dont even know what that is in Fahrenheit. But its hot. ANd its not too fun going around in slacks and a white shirt. But its really fun still. Biking around makes you really sweaty so that's always interesting... But people don't usually say anything about it haha. So that's really good. ANyway im glad you guys didn't see any bears and that everyone made it through their camping adventures. Tell jacob im proud. haha. I thought that was funny. (They put crickets in the girls tents) TAnners beard is getting pretty big! Im impressed! THis week was good here though. Monday after pday we went to a member families for fhe. It was really cool. WE had a lesson planned and were going to use a mormon message and what not. But we realized that they have little kids and they didn't understand english so we couldn't use that, so we kind of went of and made up a lesson as we went about prayer. It was really cool. We were talking about prayer and what it means to truly pray. It was kinda cool because we have been getting the members to name people for us to pray for with them, and one of the extended family members who was inactive that one of the daughters asked us to pray for was at their house during the lesson. SO it was just pretty cool. Theyre an awesome family. The rest of the week was pretty good. WE did lots of trying to work with members, but of course its still a little hard when a lot of the members are on vacation. THis week will be even harder because its temple so most of the ward is in sweden for the whole week. But things are still going well. friday we made cookies and saturday we went around and gave a bunch to members who have been a help to us and put out quotes from the apostles about member missionary work. We are really trying to motivate the members. Still trying to get to know them better. Its hard at first to make them feel like you are actually a friend. We are working on it though. I'm really enjoying it. We found like the two people who are actually going to be home this week and are going to work with them and their friends this week. One even got us a service project to do this week. It was awesome. Little miracles. One we just went to a members house who was leaving today to the temple to drop off a book. They had another member family who had just moved in visiting them for a little ice cream. They invited us in too. WE shared a little spiritual thought and the new family told us that they had some people they were hoping that we could teach in their new neighborhood. And he gave us a service project that we will do on tuesday. Pretty cool. THe Lord is still watching out for us. :) WE are really excited to keep going with all the members. Investigators are still going well. One lady that has been asking a lot of questions about baptism. Which is good because last time she was asked about it she didn't talk with the missionaries for three weeks. But it's awesome. President gave us tips as he watched (scripture study time) it was good. it was a little weird though ha. I got one last picture with elder w. He'll be home on thursday... Weird . Time is flying by too fast. But its been awesome. Yesterday I read in romans 12:12 and it says Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation ; continuing instant in prayer. I've made that my kind of goal. Always rejoicing when there is hope, so pretty much always. patient when it is difficult and there are tribulations. and always being willing to say a prayer. always praying. instantly. I kind of think of how thats going to the lord instantly before anyone or anything else. SO that's pretty cool. I like that one. Arent pat. blessings cool? Theyre so helpful and have a lot of help in them. Forgiveness was definitely a good quality joseph had. Its a good one. But it is hard. Its a good thing THe Lord is always willing to help us! ANyway I better go. WE are going hiking in a bit. Love you guys! Thanks for everything!
Love
Eldste Blake NEwey
7/14/14
Hey Guys!
The glasses were just in the apartment here when I got here. They are fake. :) I thought they were funny. haha. Two months vacation sounds great. haha. I wouldn't take it though. That is such a long time. Luckily there are a few who don't take it. So we have a few members at least to visit haha. WE are really getting on these members. They have a lot to offer with being the highest concentration of mormons in europe... haha I think serge (from Saratov Approach) might have kidnapped ***. HEs kinda disappeared. We have no idea where he is. haha Im sure hes just on ferie or something...
Its a really good activity with the book of Mormon. It's so cool. YOu realize the book really is about Christ.IT is all about him. I'm almost through second nephi in it. Its really cool to experience. Jesus the Christ is awesome. It has a lot of detail and stuff that really explains it all. IT's so cool! I haven't read too much of it. But what i have read, it is awesome. He really is our Savior. Our Redeemer. The Messiah, the Creator, All the names he has! Its So true! I love it. I am so grateful to him. Why would you not want to share this with other people. It's amazing.
That's cool you had tucker and his family over. They really enjoyed that rodeo... SOund like you all had a good time. THat's good. Where did the extra mattress come from? haha You guys got to spend lots of time with family. THats really cool. Josephs 8 now? wow... Crazy. haha I remember being excited for a journal... I remember not too long after my 8th birthday we went and picked up robert from the airport after his mission. ha Crazy. I just remember looking at my watch in bed wondering when we were going to go. THat was a while ago.
This last week was good here as well. Monday night we went out trying to find people. WE tried a less active family. They were busy but we got another appointment. SO that was good. Tuesday. we taught ** the jw... and president called us and told us that he was going to come down and visit us the next day. so wednesday president came down and watched our studies and our weekly planning. HE went kontakting with us for an hour too. It was good. He left after that though. THat night we had a lot going on. WE had a dinner with a member family, they are way on board with the whole missionary work thing. They have a few families they are wanting to invite to church. THen we had mmk and discussed how we are going to continue our plan then I went with the mmk to visit another member family while elder g stayed at the church with another member to set up for our language class and get that started till i came back. THen we had our language class which was good. It was a good day. Thursday we had our distrikt leader and his companion over for splits. we did some banking. Taught **. visited a member family for dinner, visited a couple less actives. and it was all around a good day. friday the whole zone went up to oslo to have a zone skills training thing. WE were there for about 7 hours . We thought it was going to be just practicals. Which there was a lot of that, but it was a really fun actually. WE learned a lot. and Hopefully we take those skills and use them. It was the last time I got to see elder W. That was sad. He goes home next wednesday. Pretty crazy. WE also found out elder bednar is coming to norway in september for a special stake conference, and he will have a 3 hour meeting with the missionaries afterwards. SO that is pretty exciting. Saturday we tried using our new skills and decided to go banking until we found a miracle. WE were out for 5 hours and nobody wanted to talk to us... but finally we found a muslim man who took a book and said he would read it and we could come back after ramadan. So that was really cool. And we felt happy the whole time. So it was good. Sunday I gave my first real talk in norway. I talked about member missionary work. I felt like i did terrible. I still don't do so well with talking in front of people. haha But one of the ladies said she wishes she could tell my mom how proud she should be of me. THat made me feel better haha. So that was my week. One thing I've been thinking about is the hymn be still my soul. One of the best hymns ever. I love it. WE really don't need to worry. CHrist is on our side. And all will be alright in the end. ITs pretty amazing. REally gets me every time i hear it. THey don't have it in norwegian though.. ah well.
ANyway. THis is long...... I hope you guys have a great week! I love you! thanks for your prayers and support!
Love Elder Newey
7/7/14
Hey guys!I miss fourth of july! It isnt the same when you aren't in america
. Nobody really cares as much... It was good though. THat night we played the star spangled banner over and over again and put up my scripture case with the american flag on it. SO it was a day well spent. It was weird though the next morning cuz i realized you guys were watching fireworks when i woke up... Weird... haha This week was pretty good though. We are in a weird transition stage in our area because we are trying to not bank and kontakt anymore but to work with members a lot. The problem is, half the ward is gone on vacation. For a long vacation. Its funny when we ask, hey can we come visit this week, and they say, oh sorry we'll be leaving on vacation tomorrow and we'll be gone two months... SO we are still banking and kontakting, but its really not that effective... This week wasn't bad. We got a couple potentials. SO that was really good. We have a few people who have told us to try back when banking so thats really exciting. ha we are going ham here. Its pretty awesome. *** is still doing good as far as i know. we saw him on tuesday and talked to him for a while, he said he wanted to come to church and to sport and it was cool, but we haven't seen him since, hopefully he's alright. He doesn't have a working phone and he's never home when we try so it makes it hard to contact him. But other than that things are going well. The ward has a goal of 12 baptisms this year, but they have 0 now.. we are working on that. :) Anyway, sounds like you guys had a really good week. Good luck with school mom! Youll do great. SOunds like you guys had a good 4th though. IT's always good to be with family. I would like to see these selfies with jacob hahahaha. that sounds like a good one. I would look at the album. Is jacob busy or something that makes him so tired? Its not like hes very active. :)
A little while ago we got copies of the book of mormon from president Evans at zone conference and we were given the assignment to go through them and mark every time the Savior is mentioned , as well as his attributes and his words. So it's been really cool to go through. It really helps you learn more about the savior when you are completely focused on him. Pretty cool. So I have been thinking a lot about how i think of the savior. And while doing this activity i decided i want it to be like nephi says. How he says That Christ is is support. and he knows in whom he has put his trust. You know that he knows and understands the savior. I am trying to get to know the savior more through this activity. IT's pretty cool to see what his words are and what the prophets in the book of mormon say about him. I really strengthens my testimony of the Savior. I love how much you learn on missions. They are so awesome!!! ANyway. I hope you guys have a really great week! I love you all Thanks for your prayers!
Love Elder Blake Newey
6/30/14
Hey Everyone!!!!
I don't know much of what to say about this week. It was pretty good. I'll tell about what happened yesterday I guess. WIth background stuff. So There's this guy named * that we see in the main street quite often. Usually he is quite drunk. HE likes talking to us and giving us hugs and crying and all that good stuff whenever he sees us. Usually we give him a spiritual thought or something. HE's improved a lot since I first met him. THen he said he didn't have an alcohol problem, we've given him a book of mormon and he apparently reads it every day. But he has now decided that he does have an alcohol problem and he really wants to stop. So we are trying to help him a bit. We saw him on saturday and stopped him before he walked into the bar a less active works at... but we stopped him and told him to come to church. In between sobs and hugs he promised us he would come and we gave him a word of wisdom pamphlet to read. And we said a prayer with him. Hes a super interesting guy... Super emotional when drunk. But so he promised to come to church and then decided to go home to sleep instead so he would be more sober for church. I made him promise not to drink before church. But then church came yesterday and he showed up! With a suit jacket on over his half unbuttoned shirt! so that was exciting. We had a few members come up and tell us that they thought he'd been drinking that morning and we were just saying ya.. we know... we are working on it. But he loved priesthood meeting. THen he stood up and said he had to go for a little walk and he'd be back. But he never came back.. SO after church we met with bishop and talked about how we'd work with members and such but then we decided to go visit *. HE wasn't home but his neighbor leaned out his window and told us we were lost souls. HE then held up the satanic bible and explained to us why we needed to read it and why we were wrong. Then I told him to read the book of mormon and pray about it. He said no, and we declined his book, and then left. I thought it was funny. THe later that night we talked to a drunk old man sitting by a fountain, he told us to sit down so we thought he was positive. No matter how much norwegian we spoke with him he didn't believe we spoke it. Then in english he kept telling us how much he didn't like us telling him what to do. During this all he was doing a really high HEHEHEHE and punching our arms really lightly. THat conversation didn't last long. IT was funny though. THen later in contacting some guys dressed as pirates stopped us and asked what we were doing. So we told him about what missionaries do. ANd they invited us to their pirate party which is tonight! So we'll see. haha. :)
But so everything is going great here! Life is great. I am pretty excited to keep going here in moss. SOunds like you guys are doing great for you guys though! Glad tanners feeling better. I can't believe jacob ran that much. THat's crazy. I wouldn't make it. haha Way to go jacob. Tanners face still looks fuzzy. haha. SOunds like it was a good week though. Hope you guys have a happy canada day tomorrow and a good 4th of July on friday! I'm jealous. SOunds like fun. But you're right being on a mission in norway is pretty cool too. :)Studying is the best. I love personal study in the mornings. It is the best way to start the day and you learn so much! We've been focusing a lot on the uses of the book of mormon here the last couple weeks. So I have learned a lot about how important it really is. ANd how literally everything hinges off of the book of mormon for our investigators. And then just spiritual confirmation. Im trying to be able to be more in tune with the spirit lately though. I want to be able to understand and act on every prompting! SO thats probably a lot of what i'll study this week. But Ya. I hope you guys have a great week! Love you! THanks for your prayers!
Love Elder NEwey
6/23/14
Hey Guys! Happy birthday dad!!!!! A couple days late. I thought of you on friday.
THis week was good we met with *** again-. HE wasn't able to come to church unfortunately. He has to wait for a work permit so he can get a job and pay for his own apartment. It could take months though.. SO we'll see how that goes. Laws or culture here? I dunno... Traffic rules are way different. THey take some getting used to when biking around. It's not real different than america besides the language. There are definitely some differences. Mostly when it comes to religion and talking with people about religion. haha
That talk is a way good talk. IT just explains our church from the bible haha. We've been trying to bank a little earlier so there isn't a game going on. SO far we've been alright. Its been a pretty good week. WE found out *** is still in town so we got an appointment with her for tomorrow. Hopefully that still works out. We will still be meeting with ****. and ***. We have a couple less actives we are trying to work with. We are still working with trying to get the members to do some missionary work as well. IT's working with the starting just with prayer. Our list of people to pray for is growing quite a bit. I'm getting pretty excited about it. The mmk is cool. Hes pretty good to work with . We are trying to get to all the ward council peoples homes. I know who all but one of them are now. SO that's pretty good. I need to figure out who the sunday school president is. Bu I think that's it. WE are having lots of good stuff happening. We had a lady from the congo who came to church yesterday. Unfortunately her english and norwegian aren't fantastic. But she speaks french. Luckily we have a couple members that can speak french. SO that is nice. She said she would come back next week. SO thats good. WE have a lot of exciting things planned. WE started a norwegian class. We had one guy who was interested in learning more about the book of mormon so that was good. We have a lot of good stuff going on here. :)
Wow all tanners friends are getting married? Is he the last one? ha Sometime in the future? haha Thats good. IT's kinda crazy how many people come out with out a testimony. If they don't figure it out fast, its pretty rough for them. But there isn't too much that can build your testimony than a mission. Not that I would recommend it that way. Missions are definitely made to build us up. There's a lot that it can do. It's pretty awesome.
Happy birthday to grandpa newey! Hope jacob doesn't have too much in the ragnar. That sounds like fun. I hope the filer house goes through this time. That will be awesome to have gone!
Courage is something i've been wanting to work on a lot. I love president monsons talk. I Was reading in the book of mosiah the other day. I read chapter 2. Its awesome. king benjamin is amazing. I was thinking in church how cool it would be to be able to hear him speak in person. I think that would be one of the first points in time that i would choose to be a part of. It's pretty cool. But I love how he talks about how we owe so much to god. We can never catch up to him. I found this last time I read it, but this time i noticed a little more about how we could get as close as possible to repaying him. Its pretty amazing. In vs 34 he says "render unto him all that you have and are." I realized its not just giving up what we have, but also giving unto god who we are. This can mean a lot of things. One is that we all have our own personalities that were given to us by God. We should not waste them. We were given them to make us individual. Who we are. We should improve on those things. Our personalities and our abilities should be used to serve others. I think that is one way we can render to god what we are. WHo we are has something that could help someone specifically to find the gospel or even just a friend. ANother way I took it was that sometimes we have to give up something that we think is a part of us to become something better. Like one of the speakers in conference said I don't remember which, it talked about the man who needed to repent but he said he couldn't change, its just the way he is. SOmetimes we have to give up who we think we are and put it into the lords hands so he can give you something much better. It can be hard. It is worth it though. It hit me pretty hard, giving to god all that we are. Its interesting. WE should use all our God given gifts, and in reading mosiah two you can see that all we have comes from god, to serve and help others. I thought it was pretty cool. I love that scripture. ANyway. Hope you guys have a fantastic week! I love you all!
love Elder NEwey
6/16/14
Hey Guys!
Big wards are pretty different. I say big ward haha. I guess 150 ish isn't that big... For Norway its pretty big. I don't know how i feel about it. I like it. But at the same time, I loved skien because they were way involved with the missionaries. The bishop here is pretty cool. He's not real involved with us. I've only talked to him a couple times outside of the time we ate dinner with them. SO its just getting used to it i guess. It'd be hard there to get to know the missionaries in utah i think. TO be over multiple wards. Especially when the ward is fully functioning and don't really need help from the missionaries at least... SO they think!!! I hope to help them with missionary work. In priesthood yesterday they talked about magnifying our call. And I thought about how the call of every member is to do missionary work. We have to magnify that call. One thing they talked about was how the spirit is vital in magnifying your call. You have to allow the spirit to guide to do that which is best in your call. So i am even more set on my plan to help the members. They all have to have friends who are outside of the church. Somebody they just know at least. And when we visit members we kind of remind them how the gospel has helped them in their lives, and then ask if theres people they can pray for. And that we can pray for too. Also so we get a name so we can follow up with up with how its going. Its a process I took from skien. Pray to know who you should help first if you don't think of anybody at first. Then pray for them and for opportunities to share the gospel. But you have to be looking for these opportunities as well. And act on them. Then we after a couple follow ups ask them if they can invite them to an activity or to church or even just dinner or activity night with the family. (with prayer included of course) and then ask them to invite them to meet with the missionaries. We are just getting this started and we are trying to start with the ward council and then onward. It is awesome. We have a couple names that we have gotten already. Its a big ward so i think it is very possible to get a big list. Our prayers every night will be getting very long. :) I hope so at least. It would help so much! Especially since here in norway they don't like talking about religion for the most part with random kids in suits on the street. But it's ok. Because missionary work still works! Bu i feel like it could go up so much more with the members help. But yeah thats my speil that i have been giving my comp for a while now haha.
Anyway sounds like you guys had a good week. I hope you and dad had fun. Its sounds pretty exciting. Are you sure you wouldn't want to go to that? (olympic Park) It sounds like fun ha. Good luck with school though mom! SOunds like you're all super busy this summer. That's good though. Don't want to get used to not doing anything. That's never good. Way to add your mark to the van jacob! I feel like that van is very personalized by us haha. At least mine didn't damage the car that i hit... haha This week was pretty good. We taught **. Hes an investigator that has been meeting with the missionaries for a while. HE comes to church pretty much every week. He really wants to get baptized. He knows it's true. HE just has to get some paper work back from the government so he can find a new living situation... Then he can be baptized! So We keep praying for that. We visited a couple members this week and got started on the plan for member work. THat's pretty exciting. The members here for the most part are super nice and helpful. So i am excited to get to know all of them. That will be nice. I've got quite a few down though!! WE taught another investigator named ***. Hes awesome. Hes a JW. But he doesn't follow all their rules. Like he's not that scared of us, so i don't think hes passed the class, and he meets with us by himself. And he doesn't argue and try and prove his church right without listening to our side first. It's pretty cool teaching him. This week we gave him the talk called the blueprint of christs church by elder callister. Its super solid and just shows our church doctrines from out of the bible. We used a cup tower thing to Demonstrate it. It stumped him on a couple things. So hopefully he will actually pray to know if its true. I hope so. Its cool seeing the spirit work in people though! SO powerful! Even when they don't believe in the spirit its still there! WE tried some banking and kontakting this week a lot. I learned that the world cup is going on after a few people told me i should be watching the cup not disturbing everyone else when they're watching the cup! So that was fun. But it was a good week everything is going awesome! *** went back to bergen again... So hopefully she goes to the missionaries there. But i am doing great! Love you guys hope you have a fantastic week!
Love Eldste Blake NEwey
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)