12/1/14

Hey guys!

This has been a good week. two weeks ago we actually called it the agents of satan week, and last week was agents of God week. IT was fantastic.  Lots of good things happened.  But anyway.  Sounds like you guys had a good thanksgiving and a good week!  You guys were lacking in pies! 15 isn't that many.. I think we had about that many.... ANd Norway doesn't celebrate thanksgiving. haha.  Thanksgiving was fantastic though.  We were invited to have thanksgiving with a few american families and the ysa. Last sunday though we told the lady in charge of it that we had several investigators that we could invite that would love it.  She thought it was a great idea. She didn't realize how many we were planning on though. My companion got invite happy and invited pretty much all of our investigators.  SO around tuesday or wednesday we called her and told her how many we were planning on.  She got really stressed.  So after many phone calls and apologies and discussions, we decided to have two separate dinners. The american families could have theirs and the missionaries and the ysa would have their own. So the american families one ended up with only about 11 people.  Ours was huge.  We only had about two days to prepare for it. So wednesday we gave out assignments and figured out how everything should be.  THen thursday, we spent literally all day cooking food and setting up tables and getting ready for it.  I made an apple pie, a berry pie and a peach crisp.  The couple missionaries, elder and sister b helped a ton. She did the turkeys and dressing and elder b drove us around to get ingredients and stuff.  THen the actual night came and we had everything finished about 530 and the dinner started at 6.  SO it was perfect.  Then everyone started showing up.  We knew we had invited a lot of people but we weren't sure who all would come.  We ended up having about 15 or so ysa, the 10 missionaries, and then we had a little more than 20 nonmembers.  :D It was fantastic. I heard several times that it was the best missionary activity in forever.  We were pretty happy with it.  Almost all the investigators we invited came, and lots of them brought friends, so we got several referalls and lots of good food and it was awesome.  We had plenty of food. It was awesome.  I'll send some pictures but they're not great.  It was pretty awesome though. Elder w called president and told him what was going on and asked if we had permission to stay out til 10 to play games and get to know them all more. We got permission so it was just awesome.  It was an awesome thanksgiving.  I definitely stuffed myself. President was really impressed with it.  SO that was thursday.  Friday was kinda a day of miracles.  WE did some service for a member for a while in the morning, then we got a random call from a member asking for a blessing. So we went and did that, and they gave us a whole bunch of meat. so we have more food! ha Then we walked out and even though we were almost late to a dinner appointment, we felt like walking around the building for some reason.  We walked around the corner and kind of just stopped. We were like what are we doing here? we have an appointment.... Then some guy we've never seen before walked up to us and started talking to us like he knew who we were. We asked him if he was a member and he said yes and that hed been baptized for 2 years.  When we found out his name, we realized it was an inactive we tried getting ahold of a while ago. We had a good talk with him and he said he would come to church, and he told us why he went inactive. It was pretty much a straight miracle. IT was awesome.  He didn't actually end up in  church but we know he's for sure in town now and how to contact him. So that was good.  Then we went to a dinner with the stake patriarch who has an inactive son living with them. It was good to talk with them.  Then on the way back to the church for sport, we got a text from one of the sisters saying that *** came to sport.....  We hurried as much as we could to sport and saw that he really did come! After saying he would never step foot in the church again. It was a miracle.  ITs awesome, cuz he sees the ward members and the missionaries all over the place and talks with them like normal.  I think me and elder w are the only ones who haven't run into him.  Its kinda nuts. I think theres a real chance of him coming back. As of now he still hasn't taken his name off. So that is really positive. We are going to contact his bishop in the states for sure to get that ward on him when he goes home in a couple weeks.  SO friday was basically straight miracles.  I loved it.  This week was really good.  We had lots of little things go well and it was really good.  Miracles really do happen! Thats for sure. Satan can attack but we attack back and we win! Its awesome! :) I love being on this team.  Anyway.  You guys are a lot colder than here is i think.... It barely gets to 0 degrees C here ever.  Usually a little over that.  The snow only lasted a couple days. Now the rain just keeps coming. So that makes it cold.  But I am definitely happy! Cant wait to get your package! Hopefully there aren't any problems with that.  I hope I don't have to pay anything for it.  I know sometimes you do and sometimes you dont. We'll see.  But any way love you guys! Thanks for your prayers and your support and all you do!

Love

Eldste Newey