The week we went HAM (Hyped Asker Missionaries)

Hei hei! Hvordan gàr det? Det går kjempe bra med meg, og jeg gleder meg til å fortelle dere om hva vi har gjort i det sist.

It has been a crazy week with lots of ups and downs but overall it has been a fantastic week! Last Monday we were able to receive a new investigator. We were so pumped! We had been trying to get in contact with this lady seeing as she had been taught the Joseph Smith story, set up a baptismal date, and just seemed very positive. We had tried and tried to get in contact with her without any luck. So after we received a text from our Monday night appointment saying she needed to cancel, I felt the prompting that we needed to try and contact this lady again. We drove out to her house, said a quick prayer, and knocked on her door. She opened the door and quickly invited us in. Miracle! We sat and talked with her for an hour and it was just amazing. We set up a return appointment and headed home where we drop to our knees and thanked our Father in Heaven that we could meet this lady and have such a spiritually uplifting experience together. It was a really amazing experience and a big testimony builder.

The next day was a day full of meetings and learning how we can be better Missionaries. We ended our day with a family from the church and did a little family home evening together. We were also able to get another new investigator since the family had invited a friend of theirs who we had already been taught a lesson to.  So in the past two days we had gotten two new investigators and we were so excited. Then on Wednesday Søster Petersen had to leave us and go attend another meeting in Oslo, so it was just Søster Love and I for the day. We only had one dinner appointmentand the rest of our day was open. 

We woke up early and went and dropped Søster Petersen off at the train station and then headed back to the apartment to do our studies. We decided that it would be awesome if we could get 1 or maybe even 2 new investigators before Søster Petersen finished her meeting in Oslo and we had to go pick her up.  We decided we were going to go H A M and be the best Missionaries we could possibly be. We decided to read a Jeffrey R Holland talk for companionship study to get us pumped up. We then multitasked during the language study and memorize the Norwegian birthday song as we organized our storage closet. While going through our storage closet we actually found a few names and phone numbers of people who had been in contact with the missionaries in 2008 through 2013 (which sadly probably does mean that no one had cleaned out that closet since 2013). We put those in our binder with all our other names and numbers, quickly talked to our landlord, and headed on our way to start off the best day ever. 

Our first stop was to a member in the ward who had been sick. We dropped off soup, soda, and a card and did our best to just uplift her in anyway we could. The plan after that was to go park our car at the church and then talk to people around the area but it looked like it was about to rain so we decided to call all of those people who we had found in the storage closet. We were doing pretty well and calling every number we had. We ended up getting two new investigators by the time the elder showed up to the church and we were all so pumped. We decided to just continue to call people since we were having such great success and ended up with four new investigators by the time we had to leave for our dinner appointment. We had also made a previous school to hand out five Books of Mormon that day but haven't been able to hit the streets all day and then all of a sudden while we were on our way to our dinner appointment I spotted a lady walking on the sidewalk and felt the prompting that we need to talk to her. He pulled off to the side of the road, hopped out of the car and started talking to this lady. By the end of our conversation she was walking away with a Book of Mormon in hand. We eventually made it to our dinner appointment and had a wonderful time there and then it was time to go and pick Søster Petersen up at the Mission home. We got there and got to share the news of our wonderful day with Søster Petersen, President Hill and his wife it was awesome!   All in all we had a fantastic day and were able to get four new investigators and seven other people who wanted us to call back. It was a miracle and don't you worry we definitely said a thank you prayer. We are just so blessed. I just wanted to end with my testimony.

I know this church is true and I am so grateful for this opportunity that I have to bring it to the people of Norway and to get to be a part of the every day miracles, I know that our Father in Heaven loves us and cares for us as well as his son Jesus Christ, and both are there to help us when we need it. They are just One prayer away. I hope you all have a fantastic week and that you all come to know and feel of the love of our Father in Heaven has for each and everyone of us. I love you all and hope to hear from you all next week.

Med Vennlig Hilsen,
Søster Blankmeyer 

Shakira's Arrival in Asker

Hei Hei! Jeg håper at dere er klar for en fantastisk blogidag. Vi begynner med volleyball. Last P day we had a killer sand volleyball game as a district for Eldste Rial's last P day in Norway. It was such a blast and we worked hard and rewarded ourselves with slushes afterwards. Thank goodness for companions who aren't afraid of bees and will fill up your slushy for you when a million bees are swarming around the slushy machine. It was delicious! Tuesday we met up with a 92-year-old lady in the ward who's been the first to question us about our love lives and whether or not we have found ourselves Norwegian boys to marry of course after our missions. Pretty funny conversation to have, but no worries we left her with a spiritual thought and we were on our way. We had planned on hitting the streets for the rest of the day when we got a call from the mission office that they needed us to go and get our car washed and send the pictures so that they could start the process of selling it so that someday soon we can get our new car! What exciting news! We headed off to the nearest car wash, found ourselves some Dr Pepper in the gas station, and enjoyed the universal car wash experience.

it was consumed before i could get a picture

We took some sick pictures of our blueberry of a car and got them sent off to the mission office. The next day was also quite the adventure as we met with one of our new investigators in the city center and continue to be interrupted by Norwegian wasps and bees. We moved all around the city center to avoid those bad boys but they just kept coming. Finally we found a spot and were able to tell this new investigator the story of Joseph Smith without distraction. We then had the chance to teach another one of our investigators with the elders, Elder Sanchez and his brand-new companion straight from America Elder Applegate. It was actually a super solid lesson and the spirit was there so strong as we talked about faith and works. We can't wait to meet with him again. Now comes the most hectic day of them all Thursday we had our district meeting in the morning and then had headed up to start some weekly planning before our dinner appointment late that night. We started calling our investigators and members and trying to set up appointments for the upcoming week when we called one of the ladies in the ward and she broke down to us and told us she had just received news that she had cancer. We dropped everything and told her we were on our way over we had some chocolate and a plethora of church movies and decided we would just try and help her get her mind off of things and just try to help in anyway that we could.  We ended up getting stuck in traffic on the way to her house and we're frantically trying to call our dinner appointment since we knew we would be late after visiting this member. We were able to eat chocolate watch a movie and uplift this member as best we could. By the time we had finished all of that, we were already a half an hour late to our dinner appointment and what else we were stuck in traffic yet again. We continued to try and call our dinner appointment but we could not get a hold of her and things were just all sorts of hectic. Finally we arrive to our dinner appointment and hour late and we felt terrible, but all ended up working out. This member who fed us dinner is very awesome and so funny and agreed to feed us every Thursday. She had invited a nonmember friend who is actually very positive about the church and we were able to teach her the Joseph Smith story as well. We ended up having a blast and some how everyone started calling me sister Shakira and we just laughed and had a great time tonight. We were away pumped to go eat with them again this coming Thursday and can't wait for even more laughs and good times together. Friday was a day of service I even mowed my first lawn, fun! We spent the entire day serving and spreading the gospel as we go. It was awesome! I just love serving the people here in Asker and this opportunity that we have as missionaries to spread the gospel with those we serve I would encourage you all to share your testimony with those around you by doing an act of service. I know by doing so others will reward your kindness and feel Christ love for them through you and that is the best feeling in the world I love you all and hope you all have a fantastic weekend and I can't wait to talk to you all soon!

love,
Søster Blankmeyer

We made a delicious breakfast for dinner.

Hei hei alle sammen! Hvordan går det?  I hope all is well and that you all have had a wonderful week. Things have kind of been a roller coaster over here for us.  However, I'd say overall it was a good week. After finishing emailing last week, we headed over to a dinner appointment which would be the first of many. I absolutely love that Family and they are especially awesome because both of the parents attended BYU.  They have raised their children to love BYU as well. Crazy how even in Norway you can find Norwegian BYU fans! It's awesome and our dinner with them was definitely one of the highlights of the week. 

last pic with Søster Hess my friend from the MTC

The next day we had another amazing district meeting about how the Bible and the book of Mormon support each other. It was a way fun and interesting discussion.  I am more pumped than ever before to dive into my scriptures studies and continue to learn. Lately, I've been reading in a book entitled Jesus the Christ. It kind of expands on the teachings and life of Jesus Christ using examples from The Book of Mormon and the Bible and I've absolutely loved it! I love learning and growing and especially learning about my Savior, Jesus Christ. I have seen my relationship with my Father in Heaven and his son, Jesus Christ grow as I study and learn about them and try my best to emulate their perfect example. I saw this in practice this week, as I'll talk about later on, but just being able to learn and grow and try to be like Jesus (as the primary song teaches us) has blessed my life in so many ways. 

After district meeting we headed to another dinner appointment with another amazing family. We had invited this family to invite a friend over as well and leave it up to those amazing Norwegian members we showed up and they came through. One of the daughters in the family had invited one of her guy friends over for dinner.  He even participated in our lesson afterwards. It was way cool to see the members here participate in missionary work and I would invite you all to have the missionaries over and invite a friend who you think would benefit from the message. After that dinner appointment we headed over to our relief society presidents house and got terribly lost along the way. I think we were driving around Norway for over an hour just trying to find her house. We eventually found it and were able to talk with her about how we can be a better help as missionaries in the ward. We even had a wonderful gospel discussion afterwards. 

Wednesday was quite the fun day for us sisters here in Asker. Our mission president and his wife decided that enough was enough after visiting the Elders in Narvik.  (their apartment was being held together by duct tape and string with only two working lightbulbs) They decided to give all us missionaries an extra P day to clean out and organize our apartments. That ended up taking all of Wednesday for us and I didn't even think our apartment was that bad. We started cleaning though and it was like night and day. We scrub the walls and you could see a line where we had scrubbed versus where we had not scrubbed. By the end of the day though we had a spotless apartment and we're very proud of all the hard work we had put into it. 

the dirty wall..you can see where we cleaned it. 

The next day we got to go and visit another amazing member in the ward and let me tell you, the elders and my fellow sisters and I could not stop laughing. This member was cracking us up. She is such a hoot! She's also a very sweet and very spiritual lady but she knows how to have a good time and loves to laugh as well. She is now one of my favorite members in the ward and I hope we get to visit her again sometime soon. 

After this point in the week all is going fine and dandy, and then we decided to give one of our investigators a call. This is where learning and trying to emulate Christ comes in handy. This specific investigator had gotten onto YouTube and had found some pretty hard-core anti-Mormon material and was not afraid to tell us we were wrong. He had become scared of the Mormon church, and rightfully so as the creators of this anti-Mormon material make us out to be something very frightening and something we are definitely not! It ended up being a very hard phone call and we were all in tears after all was said and done.  I mean, we get rejected and told we are stupid almost every day on the street. But this was about an hour long phone call of just slam after slam from someone who we had grown a relationship with and at one point even considered a miracle story. When we first met him, he was so prepared. He wanted to learn more about God and Jesus Christ.  He was honestly searching for the truth but Satan works in mysterious ways and knew exactly how to get to him. Although it was really tough to hear someone tell me that what I believed in was wrong, it only strengthened my testimony in what I believe. I hope I was able to emulate Christ in that moment as I just tried to show love and just try to do as the Savior would in that situation. Yes it was tough, but we get the opportunity to take that experience and learn and grow and try to be better next time. 

To end on a more happy note, Søster Pederson, Søster Love and I will all be together again for another six weeks and have the chance to make some more fun memories. We had an amazing Sunday and we were able to end the week with a fireside from a BYU professor. He blew us away with all of his knowledge. I am so thankful for all the good and all of the hard experiences I have had thus far on my mission and for all of the chances I have had to learn and grow and try to be better and follow my savior. I love you all and hope you all have a wonderful week.

Love Søster Blankmeyer 
PS Big shout out to my wonderful grandparents, grandma Carol and grandpa Dick for the outstanding cards! They are beyond perfect and I am way pumped to use them!

Rain or shine!

All right friends and family, I'm just going to take this opportunity to apologize for last weeks blog post and emails. I felt really bad that I wasn't able to provide some quality reading. But I'm hoping this weeks entry will make up for that.   First and foremost I'd love to introduce you all to Søster Love, my one and only "daughter" out here in the mission field.

Søster Love is from Eagle Mountain, Utah and is an avid fan of Kraft macaroni and cheese. I believe I may have mentioned this last week but her mom was born and raised in Drammen and so she grew up speaking Norwegian with her mother. She even lived in Drammen herself when she was younger. Søster Love loves to have fun and loves to laugh and yet is still very spiritual and an outstanding missionary. She makes being a trainer pretty easy and I just love Søster Love, as well as all of my companions that I have had the chance to serve with out here in Norway. I have come to love each and every sister I have met and I am grateful for all of my fellow missionaries here in Norway. They have become my family away from home and have helped me to really enjoy serving care in Norway. So shout out to them. Speaking of shout outs, I just wanted to take this time to send a big thank you home to my family for sending me such an amazing package. Søster Love is grateful for the macaroni and cheese that was included. Anyways thanks a ton and I love you all so much! 

All right, onto the missionary work for the week. To start things off, I was able to have the wonderful experience of a Norwegian driving lesson. I am currently in the process of obtaining my Norwegian drivers license.   So, wow! My little brother Erik is back home learning to drive, I'm over here in Norway doing the same thing. Pretty funny. Hopefully we both end up passing our tests. Lykke til! (Good luck!)  After my driving lesson, we headed to district meeting where we focused on the Book of Mormon. It was probably my most favorite district meeting yet. I just love the Book of Mormon so much and just have such a strong testimony on the power of the Book of Mormon. I would invite you all to take just five minutes of your day and sit and read from the Book of Mormon. I know that by doing so you will come to learn more about our Father in Heaven and his son Jesus Christ. There is no greater substitute in accomplishing that then by Reading the Book of Mormon. Also, that's why I am here in Norway to help these people come closer to God and Jesus Christ. The majority of our week was spent out on the streets talking to the people of Norway! On Saturdays some people from the church as well as some of the investigators come together with the missionaries and play soccer for a couple hours.

Ready to play soccer!

This past Saturday we woke up to pouring down rain. We had invited a lot of people we had met on the street to come and play so we were hoping the rain would let up. The time came to play and the rain was still pouring but we called the elders and the game was still on. We went and played soccer for two hours in the cold, rain and one of our investigators even showed up! We had the rest of our Saturday open for going out on the street and we had planned some fun activities for missionary work. We were going to go out and talk to people in the center for an hour, then we were going to go to the beach nearby and play the ukulele for people.  After that our plan was to have Søster Petersen play her violin near the shopping center while Søster Love and I talk to the people.  Then we were going to take an object lesson to the street and have people try it out. We were so beyond pumped to hit the streets and yet the rain was still pouring down.  But that didn't stop us!  We spent the whole day on the streets in what we came to find out was the biggest storm in Norway in the past 30 years. We got a lot of glares a lot of "nei takks", and actually a lot of "I'm sorry I've got to play my Pokémon GO" or whatever. It was not a necessarily easy day, but we ended that day by teaching a man on the street about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Missionary work is not always easy. Sometimes we get told we are stupid, sometimes we have to brave through some meals, and sometimes we get put below Pokémon Go and yet we brave it rain or shine because we know how important this work is and that what we are really offering these people of Norway and the world really. Missionary work is not always easy but it is always worth it. We now have two girls with baptismal dates and all of our investigators are taking big steps forward to their Father in Heaven. We are also blessed! 

To end the post for this week I thought I'd share some of the highlights of the week. First off, I hit my five month mark! We have dinner appointments this week which was a blessing since we kind of ran out of food at home. We were able to help one of our investigators who is going through a hard time right now. We got to paint a house!!! That was so fun! My favorite service project thus far!

We made a homemade pizza which turned into a big cheese ball but still turned out being delicious. Søster Love and I found out we had a mutual love for a song called, "Good Friends" on Lds.org.  I recommend it! It's a great song. We also will be performing a song and sacrament meeting next weekend it was way fun to practice and even get to hear else Sanchez play piano with Søster Petersen on her violin. Man I'm just loving serving here in Asker. I miss you all back home and hope all is going well. Keep up the great work and I can't wait to talk to you all next week.

Medvennlighilsen, 

Soster Blankmeyer

Zone leaders and Søster Trainers leadership meeting

Søster Hill and 2 companionships

16 Weeks and Training!

companion fun!!

Alright friends and family! We decided to go on one of the amazing Norwegian hikes that Norway is famous for. However, we ended up taking a lot of our PDay doing that so this will be a very short and probably pretty lame blog post this week... so I'm sorry for that! Like the title says, I am now officially a trainer! Søster Petersen and I will be helping to train Søster Love . We will show her the ropes on how to be a missionary in Norway! We are so pumped! Søster Love used to live here in Drammen, Norway for a bit when she was younger seeing as her mother is a native Norwegian. She grew up speaking Norwegian and so she was only in the MTC for a short 3 weeks before they sent her out to Norway and eventually to Asker with Søster Petersen and I. It's been a really amazing experience being a trainer and even though I've been a trainer for about 3 or 4 days now I can already tell how much of a difference it has made in me as a missionary. Having the responsibility of helping and serving my companions and especially Søster Love has not only been a real privilege but a good testimony builder as well. I have been trying my best to be the best missionary and best companion that I can be and work on myself this past week so that I can be the best trainer I can be. It's really an honor to be trusted so much to be a new missionary's guide to the mission life. Søster Love is absolutely fantastic (as is Søster Petersen) and although I'm sure she could do this all on her own, I'm honored to be one of the missionaries that gets to help her begin this journey.

district

Last night we got home from one of our dinner appointments at President's house and we began to work on the 12 week program that all new missionaries and their trainers are supposed to go through during the first 12 weeks in the land and Søster Petersen and I got to bear our testimonies on how the mission can change you if you let it. I have already seen the change that I have gone through and I am so glad to be able to allow myself to progress. There is nothing better than letting the Lord work with you and help you to be a better person. Okay the library is about to close so I guess this is it as far as this blog post goes but just know that I love you all and pray for you all back home and I promise to write a better post next week! Keep up the great work and enjoy the journey!

Love,

Søster Blankmeyer

Kjaere alle sammen!  I’ve got much to report this week but first I want to give a nice shoutout to Sabrian Humas for the amazing postcards and letter!  I loved it and it was fun to receive my fist letter here in Asker.  Thanks again!  Alright well I wanted to start off with my highlight of the week which happened this past Tuesday.  Søster Petersen and I were able to be reunited with some old companions for a day, which we call splits. Søster Petersen got to work with Søster Smith who she had served with in Trondheim.  I got to be reunited with Søster Bender who was my trainer in Ålesund.  It was not only a way fun experience but also a very spiritual experience.  Both Søster Smith and Søster Bender will be returning back to the states at the end of this transfer and both are very amazing, seasoned missionaries.  We were able to learn a lot from the both of them and just reminisced on old times.  We started out the day with them the same way we start everyday out here in the mission, with studies.  WOW.  These girls have learned a thing or two from 18 months in Norway serving the Lord.  Their spiritual insights and comments made for an amazing discussion about the difference between the Holy Ghost and the Light of Christ (which we would be discussing later on during our district meeting).  I have really come to love those 3 hours every morning where we get to study personally as a companionship, and really dive into the deep discussions on gospel topics and the wonderful language of Norwegian.  I hope to continue to take time everyday to study in the scriptures or inspired text and come closer to my Savior.  After studies we headed to district meeting where we had another wonderful discussion.  We usually end our meetings by practicing a missionary skill and this time we were asked to pick a scripture and apply it to those we teach.  Søster Petersen and I got paired up with Eldste Sanchez and dang was that practically perfect.  He had picked a scripture and taught a principle that I, Søster Blankmeyer, really needed to hear.  Even though I was acting as someone else, the message that was taught really had an impact on me and I was able to ponder what he was saying and even used that message later on with an investigator.  I am so lucky to be in this district and be able to learn from my fellow missionaries.  Søster Bender and I were able to teach one of our new investigators on the power of prayer and that was a fun lesson.  It was fun to be able to teach with Søster Bender again, but this time I was the one leading out the lesson.  The lesson went great and the Spirit was definitely there as our investigator was able to feel te truth of what we were teaching and even began to cry.  I was so thankful for the comments and insights that Søster Bender brought to the lesson and I will never forget our last lesson together in Asker, Norway.  We ended up hitting the streets after our lesson and had planned to meet up at the church and switch companions so that I could have a chance to learn from Soster Smith and Søster Petersen could learn from Søster Bender.  We met up at the church and were planning on switching when a member invited us all over for dinner.  Needless to say, we all ended up heading to the members house together.  She had invited over a couple other members and so we were able to sit and talk and eat some delicious food.  It was very fun.  Søster Smith and I had to come up with a spiritual thought to share with these members before we headed home and quickly had splits review and took these lovely sosters to the train station.  I remembered a passage of scripture that I had read recently in the Book of Mormon on miracles being wrought by faith.  We decided to share that and it ended up being exactly what everyone present needed to hear.  It was actually way cool because the net day we got a text from one of the members thanking usfor the spiritual thought.  She said it really hit her.  Once again just the spirit working thourgh us missionaries.  We had a lot more amazing times this week but my favorite was getting to spend time with my trainer before she heads back home.  She was also very sweet and continued to compliment me on all the progress I had made since my first 6 weeks as a missionary.  That was sweet.  I just wanted to end this post with a simple testimony that I know this church is true.  I know that we have a loving Father in Heaven and that He wants nothgin but the best for us.  I am so grateful for the knowledge I have on my Father in Heaven and my Savior, Jesus Christ, and I hope to share that with all the people here in Norway and all around the world.  I love you all.

Love,

Søster Blankmeyer

The moon the other night

Mc Flurry for Søster Petersen's 6 month anniversary.

a members beautiful cat