I
finally made it to Norway!! And I am so excited to be here! President and Sister
Evans met us at the airport tuesday night and took us to their home and fed us
delicious food. I had my interview with President Evans and he asked me about
Preston and then had to tell me that he loves Napoleon Dynamite! haha, he's a
funny guy, but is also super inspiring and motivating. We all stayed in Oslo
with them tuesday and wednesday night before they sent us out to our areas. It
was a long 2 days because I wanted to get started so badly, but it was really
good, we had some meetings and practiced contacting and all that good stuff.
The first two things I loved about Norway is the heated bathroom floors!
(aweeesoome!) and the chocolate! (soo goood!). I'll have to send you some
because you just can't understand it until you try it. Also, it's beautiful
here! I'm in Oslo, so this is all I've seen, but it's such a pretty place. I
finally met my companion Sister Pace on thursday and she's AMAZING! We got
right to work and had 3 appointments and then did some street contacting- that
was a little nerve-wracking, but so cool to finally do it in real life after
practicing forever. I would just say "Hi, we're missionaries from the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Have you heard of the church? Have you heard
of Mormons?" And then they would start talking and I would have no idea what
they were saying and Sister Pace would take over while I just tried to
understand what they were talking about. But everyday she pushes me to add a
little more when we contact and in our lessons, and I can understand and say
more every time. Yesterday we were walking to the bus stop to go to church and
Sister Pace said, "Kay we're splitting up, you have to sit by someone and you
have to talk to them." I was thinking there is no way, and I told her that, but
she said I had to, so I sucked it up and said I would try. I sat across from a
girl my age-ish and told her I was new to norway and trying to learn norwegian
and asked her how to say scarf. I told her I liked hers and after we talked for
a minute she asked why I was in norway. So then of course I told her I was a
missionary and she said she would meet with us and gave me her number! Haha it
was pretty cool! But kind of terrifying!
We had 2 baptisms on saturday and it was the coolest way to start off my
mission. And we have more on the way! Missionary work is amazing and I love
finally being a part of it. It's finally for reals! real people! real baptisms!
It's amazing!
Jeg er glad i dere!!
Søster Knapp
Thanks for the pictures!! William is so cute! I'm excited to meet him in a year and a half! This week has been great, we have some really cool investigators and 2 that we're preparing for baptism April 6!
Last Monday we had some time to go contacting at the end of the day. We
were on our way back to our apartment with a few more minutes so we decided to
talk to one more person. The guy we stopped was
very religious and told us we were too young to be preaching the gospel,
and that women have no authority to be teaching. We do street contacting a lot
and sometimes crazy things happen. The other day
one of our appointments cancelled so we decided to go contacting for an
hour. It was really cold and had just started snowing and nobody wanted to
listen to us. Finally a man stopped and seemed interested,
he was like, "I know you, i talked to you before." We were like, " ya you
probably talked to some other missionaries." but he said, " no, it was you
guys." we'd never seen him before, but he seemed interested so we
tried to ask if we could exchange numbers and schedule an appointment, but
then he just started getting really close to Sister Pace and suddenly his hand
was in her face and it looked like he was going to grab
her nose. Just before he could grab it she smacked his hand out of her
face with her Mormons Bok. She said, "have a good day" and we both turned
around and walked the other way really fast. And we couldn't
stop laughing for at least 5 minutes.
Crazy stuff happens, we meet people that don't want to hear anything, and
people that don't like us, but it seems that whenever things start going bad it
means something great is going to happen.
Saturday we had a teach with a couple that they taught twice before I came,
but they weren't really accepting anything. They taught the plan of salvation
last time and the woman didn't like it because
she didn't want her body back. Even though it's going to be perfect! So
we planned to teach them the next lesson about the Gospel of Christ and it was
really hard to teach them. They just couldn't accept any of it and argued
with
everything we tried to teach. So we weren't really getting anywhere, which
was kind of frustrating, and the woman was sitting across from me smoking the
whole time. And blew all the smoke right in my face.
We really wanted to leave but they wouldn't stop talking, we finally told
them that we needed to leave for our next appointment and she was so sad. She
said it's so nice when we come and she loves talking to us.
Not true. She just likes disagreeing with us. We finally left and I was
so mad that we had wasted our time there, and told Sister Pace how mad I was and
she just laughed at me the whole time! and then said,
"Get used to it." haha. It's so sad though when people just refuse to
accept it. We have the truth and we just want to share it. But after that
lesson we met a couple people and got their numbers and then had
some awesome teaches. We had one with a woman who got dragged to the
catholic church by her parents when she was little and didn't like it, and has
never believed in God since. But she came to church on
Sunday with her little boy and they loved it. We had a lot of potential
investigators come to church this sunday and we're really excited to teach them
more. It seems like so many people don't want religion, but then
we meet people that are so ready and it's cool to see them learning it and
accepting the gospel. I love being a missionary!
Jeg er glad i
dere!
Søster Knapp
