A big old Heisann to the family and friends back home!

On Monday I went ice skating with my fantastic district. We had a district meeting on the ice. Topic: Learn to skate. (Side topic: How can we relate skating to the gospel? I have no idea, that's why I'm asking you!) Just kidding. We really did spend last Monday up in Arendal (the city of Frozen and frozen ice rinks as well) where the district went ice skating and I, Søster Blankmeyer, also attempted. There wasn't even a wall around the rink for me to hold on to so our District leader, Elder McEntire, along with everyone else in the district decided to help me out. I finally started to figure things out and I am definitely no pro yet but maybe one day. I think we may have began my ice skating career though. Then after a drink of Dr. Pepper we took the bus back to Kristiansand. 

This week as far as missionary work goes was a bit slow seeing as we couldn't contact for like half of the week. We did go caroling though and that was a blast getting to spread the Christmas cheer here in Norway. 

We spent Christmas eve here with a member family and then Christmas day with another member in the ward. We had lots of presents to open bright and early Christmas morning and it was a wonderful Christmas. 

I just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and remind you all how much I love you all. I am so grateful for the endless support I have received from you all. It really means a lot. I am very grateful for the Christmas season and for this time we have to remember Jesus Christ and his birth and how much of a gift it is for us here on the Earth. I have been able to have a wonderful Christmas experience here in Norway sharing that knowledge with others. 

I love you all and hope you all continue to have a wonderful Christmas and holiday season and know I'm sending my love from Norway! 

Klem,

Søster Blankmeyer

Arendal

delicious eats

Birthday cake from Congers

A little Christmas Fest and A Surprise Party too!

Birthday packages from America

when serving in Arendal you need a Frozen pillowcase

personalized 2017 calendar with some favorite pictures 

The beautiful Arendal

Well it really has been quite the week. On Wednesday, we met up with a girl from Ålesund who's been living in Kristiansand for the last little bit. She is a Jehovah's Witness and just wanted to know more about what we believe in. It was actually a way cool experience and it was a blast to get to hear the Ålesund dialect again and talk about the wonderful city. Shortly after her appointment we went to go teach our two investigators who are 9  and 11 and always has such fun questions for us to answer. It was a fun teach.  We read together from the Book of Mormon story book that my parents used to read with me when I was little. It brought back some good childhood memories which is always fun (especially on your birthday week). Speaking of birthday week, I might as well move onto that part of the week since that was the most exciting for me.

On Friday we had planned to attend the young single adult Christmas party with our district. It was going to be such a blast. For dinner we were going to have Risgrøtand and for dessert we were going to have Riscrem. I was to play piano for everyone while they sang Christmas carols and we were to have a white elephant gift exchange and do some Christmas service as well. It was going to be such a fun time. Søster Davis and I had gone to a bruktbutikk (basically like a garage sale but in an actual store) that morning to find some good white elephant gifts for the gift exchange. We were able to find some good gifts and we were way pumped for the Christmas party. We went and taught a few people throughout the day ending with teaching one of our new investigators at the center right before the party was about to start. We finished our teach with him and then it was finally time for the party to begin. They brought out the Risgrøtand and we had a wonderful dinner and then it was time for caroling. I went over to the piano as they started to distribute the salmebøker (hymnbooks). I began to play and everyone began to sing and it was just delightful. After I had finished playing all the Christmas songs the YSA leaders came up and asked me to play the happy birthday song. I quickly delegated that responsibility to our district leader Eldste McIntyre who is very talented when it comes to piano. It was one of the YSA's birthday that day so I figured we would all just sing to him and that would be that. The YSA girl leading brought me over to where she was standing and we started to sing. We got to the part where you just usually insert the name of the person who's birthday it is and turns out this birthday song was also for me. Surprise! Søster T came out with a birthday cake with one massive candle for myself and the YSA guy to blow out together. It was awesome. A surprise birthday party in Norway. Can't get much better than that. We proceeded to eat Riscrem and then do some service, have our gift exchange, and just chill. It was perfect. We got to hang out as a district, members, recent convert, even nonmembers and we all spread Christmas cheer with each other.#Blessed

Saturday was a day full of weekly planning, misssionary work, baking sugar cookies and finishing up my talk. We decided to make my grandma's sugar cookies for the kids in primary at church for Christmas. That took up sometime after lunch to make and bake those. It was way fun though and those homemade cookies remind me a lot of home. It was fantastic. After making the cookies we went and finished my talk and made some nametags and a Merry Christmas card to go with the cookies for the kids. At the end of the day we went and picked up Søster Davis Christmas packages and my birthday package. I was so excited to open it up but had just enough willpower to wait until the morning of my birthday. My gifts were perfect. It was such a good start to the day. I finished the finishing touches on my talk and then we were off to church. Church was absolutely perfect. I gave my talk and then I was stress free the rest of the day. We went and delivered the cookies to the kids in primary and the primary president had them all sing Happy Birthday to me. It was the cutest thing. After church we hung out at a members house and then I was able to talk to a bunch of my friends I've made here in Norway. It really was a special birthday. One I'll never forget. Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes and all the cards and gifts. I love you all so much and hope you have a wonderful week.

Klem

,
Søster Blankmeyer 

Christmas Conference, Travel Nightmare, STL Splits and Good Times

P-day emails at the library

Hei hei everyone! Before I get into our crazy week, I would like to take this time to wish a very special person a Happy Birthday! That's right, it's Bert's (a.k.a. mom's) Birthday on Wednesday. Happy Birthday Mom! I hope you have a wonderful birthday and know how much I love and miss you. I really got the best mom ever and I'm so grateful for her and everything she has done for me and continues to do for me. She's truly great and you all should wish her a Happy Birthday if you get the chance. I know me and all my Norwegian peeps will be wishing her a happy birthday from Norway! 

Speaking of Norway it's been quite the crazy week for this missionary in Kristiansand Norway. This past P-day as most of you know, due to the many rushed emails and lame blog post, we had to head to Oslo via train for our Christmas conference. Last P-day definitely kicked off the crazy week with last-minute packing that morning to quickly emailing to doing some quick service for a member to running all of our errands with just enough time to catch our 4:00 o'clock train to Oslo. Once on the train, everything was smooth sailing until all of a sudden we were in downtown Oslo, the biggest city in Norway, not 100% sure where exactly we needed to go. After being pointed in the right direction we found the Institute center which was full of helping hands (Elders) who quickly grabbed our luggage and got us to our apartment in Oslo safely. We had a decent amount of sleep that night and woke up pumped the next morning for our Christmas conference. 

Instead of doing the usual 4 different conferences, President decided to do two and bring half of the mission to one and half of the mission to the other. The first conference was the one I would be attending that Tuesday in Oslo. It would be all the missionaries from the west down and all the missionaries from the Telemark zone, so my current zone and the zone I just recently moved out of. Basically I was pumped because I would get to see all of my old friends and still be able to hang out with my new friends. It really was the best of both worlds. Well eventually the conference started with Pres. Hill talking to us for an hour about how we can improve as a missionary during this holiday season and next year as well. He had some great words for us as president Hill is truly an inspired man and I know, at least for me, I am excited to improve and be the best missionary I can be after listening to his wonderful talk.

After President Hill we were blessed to hear from Sister Hill who focused on how we can use music in our missionary work especially during the holiday season. It was a beautiful talk and a really cool perspective and one of the many ways we can do missionary work here in Norway. She closed her talk by having the members in my old district perform a musical number. They saying "Come unto Jesus" and it was just perfect. Music really is a blessing we have been given from our Father in Heaven and I'm excited to share the good music from the church with the people in Kristiansand. I love music and really enjoyed Sister Hills talk about using it more in our missionary efforts. I'm excited!

After Sister Hill it was time for The assistants to the president to talk to us for a little bit. They had created a compilation film of a bunch of the missionaries opening up the call letter before coming to Norway. It was way cool to see and brought us all back to the time we all opened up our letters and found out that we were going to be missionaries in Norway and the excitement and fear that came with that. We all wanted to be the best missionaries we could be and the assistants focused on how we all at one point had that desire and how we can keep that flame burning and ultimately be the best missionary we can be here in Norway. It was actually a really awesome presentation that got us all pumped to be great missionaries all over again. After the assistants, we were able to listen to all five missionaries who are headed back home this week bear their testimony's and then we had a delicious lunch. After lunch we had a talent show which was AWESOME! We had some really talented people perform and then we had a lot of funny skits about missionary life in Norway. Our district performed our own version of "Give Said the Little Stream" and it was pretty great. After the talent show we had another special presentation made by the assistance with everyone's baby/ toddler/ embarrassing photos included. I was a little nervous, but shouts out to my awesome parents for submitting some pretty stellar photos. Afterwards, President and Sister Hill left us with some words and then we got to chat for an hour or two before we all had to catch our trains and planes back to our areas. 

My district headed back to the train station expecting to take our four hour long train ride back to Kristiansand and when we promptly found out our tickets had not been purchased, so we missed that train and had to stay another night in Oslo with Søster Geddes and Søster Hutchings (from my MTC group) It was a blast but we were definitely on a lack of sleep the next morning when we were supposed to be catching another train, we had some issues with the code they had given us and so we missed that train as well. We were beginning to think we would just have to stay in Oslo forever. We called the APs and they told us to book the next train ride and don't miss it this time. We finally got back to Kristiansand totally sleep deprived with enough time to get a good nights sleep before the STL's came. Søster Petersen came to Kristiansand and her companion Søster Jones and we had a blast. We tried another purely Norwegian meal called a Kompe which is basically a potato with meat in the middle. It was quite the adventure and a blast to get to do missionary work with Søster Petersen again. Anyways, it was a crazy sleep deprived week but still a blast. It was a great week to be a missionary in the Norway, Olso mission. 

Kompe- Potatoes with meat in the middle

Soster Peteren and and I having Kompe

I hope you all have a fun filled week this week and I just want to wish my mom another happy birthday! I love and miss you all and hope you all spread Christmas cheer this week. Keep up the great work everyone!

Med vennlig Hilsen,
Søster Blankmeyer 

HALFWAY

halfway mark

Søster Davis and Søster Blankmeyer

Well here we are the good old nine-month mark. I am now halfway done with my mission and it's a little bittersweet. I have truly grown to love this beautiful country and the chance I have to serve the people in it. Norwegian is finally starting to make sense and things are looking up. I know I sometimes talk about or even focus on the challenging part of missionary work, but I really do love it and I am somewhat sad that it's halfway over. I am not the same person I was nine months ago and I have truly changed for the better. I have been able to learn so many valuable lessons out here and I truly would not change this experience for anything in the world. As we all know, it has not been an easy ride but it truly has been worth it. 

I think one of my absolute favorite lessons I have learned in these past nine months is that my Father in Heaven is really there. He really listens. He wants to help and most importantly he wants to have a relationship with me. He wants me to come to him for help or if I've had a bad day or even if I've had a great day. He wants me for ME and he really and truly loves me and I know it. I have come to learn of this knowledge these past nine months as I've had to really rely on Him. I love him too. It's something I'll take with me when I return home. Something I will hopefully never forget. I really have been able to learn that so personally and so lovingly and it's been a joy to share that knowledge with the Norwegian people this past nine months and I can't wait to share it more and more here in Norway and throughout my life. I'm so grateful to know that my Heavenly Father loves me and to feel that love in my daily life has been the best.

A close second though is being able to feel the love that Heavenly Father has for his children here in Norway. Tears filled my eyes just thinking about the tremendous love I have been able to feel for these Norwegians which I know is just a small sliver that my Father in Heaven has decided to share with me as one of his servants. It's indescribable. I truly felt how it feels to mourn with those who mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort. I've also been able to feel the joy that comes from someone who chooses to change their life and coming to Christ. It really is the best and I am so beyond blessed to have this opportunity and to see the many miracles along the way. 

I really had a wonderful nine-month mark today full of many miracles as well. This morning we had planned to have district meeting and Søster Davis and I went a little early so I could finish up the "pep reps" pretty soon everyone was there and we were about to start when a man walked in asking if we can help him. Come to find out that he is trying to do family history and not only that, but he's found out through family history that a lot of his family are Mormons. Edste Hadley, Stevens and I proceed to help him and answer all of his questions for the next hour. By the end of it all he says he will come back and we invited him to church. What a way to start off the day. A real nine-month miracle. 

We then had a wonderful district meeting and district lunch and planned our talent for the talent show. Shortly after all of that, we had our second nine month miracle. We had decided earlier that morning that we would try and deliver the banana bread to Magnus again and we had a little extra time before dinner and institute so we thought it would be a perfect time to try again. We walked all the way over to the bank and reach the side with the open door. We decided to just take a peek on the other side where his studio was and see if the lights were on. Sure enough they were. We decided we would try and call him first just in case he was in a lesson or something. We called, nothing. So we decided we would just go for it then. We navigated our way through the old bank and finally found his studio where we heard guitar playing. We were a bit nervous that he was in a lesson but we decided we needed to do it so he knocked on the door. Out came Magness dressed for a Christmas concert with guitar in hand. We were able to talk with him for a bit and he was nothing but smiles. He is a super sweet, super chill guy. Way cool. 

It truly was a miracle that we got that opportunity and remembered to say a prayer of thanks afterwards. We then went to Institute where Rolf taught another amazing lesson on parenting and families. It was just incredible yet again. It did make me miss my parents and family and the never ending love they show towards me.  But I know what I'm doing is the right thing and I really am happy to be doing it. I am happy to be only nine months away from seeing my family again but I know I will miss my brothers and sisters here in Norway. This mission has been the best decision of my life and I'm so grateful that I chose to come and was worthy to do so. I would like to finish with my mission scripture in Alma 29:9   I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy.

Klem,
Søster Blankmeyer

Strength and Service

Thanksgiving meal

Potato cakes

This week truly has been all over the place.  On Monday night we had an appointment that canceled on us. Tuesday we had three appointments and they all canceled on us as well so instead we just had a member who we had invited to come on a lesson with us. Wednesday was just one of those rough days in general, but we were able to go and visit a member who had two adorable kittens. (Talk about tender mercies)  Thursday we were finally able to teach one of our investigators and then we made potato cakes with our Relief Society for Thanksgiving dinner that night. Friday we did some weekly planning for this upcoming week.  Saturday we were able to have a Thanksgiving feast with all the missionaries, young single adults, members and even non-members. It was absolutely fantastic we were also able to go to church and had a wonderful church meeting and then for a ward missionary meeting afterwards as well. We also were able to have some Thanksgiving left-overs for dinner which was great. All in all you could say we had our fair share of good days and bad days this week but we continue to soldier on. Whenever an appointment would cancel we would go and hit the streets and talk to as many people as we could to try and find someone who was ready to come closer to their Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  

We were actually able to have a lot of really cool conversations with the people and our question of the week that we asked most of the people we taught was, "what is something you are thankful for?" We got a lot of really good answers which led to some good conversations. Now that I think back on the week I can truly see that God knows us, knows our situation, knows our desires and that he wants to bless us. In our missionary meeting on Sunday I was asked to give the spiritual thought. I've been given a weeks notice and I really thought long and hard about what I wanted to share, or rather what my Heavenly Father wanted me to share. I was reading Sunday morning in the book that my grandparents had just recently sent me and I knew that was exactly what I needed to share. It talked about how in life's many changes and checklist we can become discouraged or frustrated.  But that through creativity and compassion we can find hope and joy. It talked about instead of focusing on what we have not done we should focus on what we have accomplished and who we really are. It led to a great discussion amongst us missionaries and our ward mission leader.

It got us talking about what success really is and how through it we all need to stay positive and happy and just keep going and doing our part. I mention this because I have been able to really see the blessings that have come this past week from doing my part. Like I mentioned earlier, we had our fair share of good days and bad days this week and it would have been really easy on those bad days to give up but instead we kept going and although we may not have achieved the success we were going for the Lord blessed us along the way and I can't tell you all enough how truly grateful I am for that. How grateful I am to have this knowledge of my Heavenly Father knows and loves me and wants to bless me. I'm grateful for this opportunity I have to share and serve here in Norway and to serve the people around me.  Service really is a wonderful thing. 

Every Christmas season our church puts out a video and comes up with a certain Christmas initiative for us. Now that Thanksgiving is over, the church has put out the video and the focus this year is on service. It really is wonderful. I think it's especially fitting because we have just had our focus on Thanksgiving and everything we are thankful for and all the many blessings we have been given in our lives and now for Christmas we get to focus on service and paying it forward and being that blessing in someone else's life and while doing so, sharing the light of Christ that we all have been given. I believe that as we do this, as we serve our fellow brothers and sisters, that the Lord will want to bless us even more. The church's initiative is focus on service and they have invited us, starting December 1, to do an act of service each day leading up to Christmas. I know its the missionaries in our area that are excited to take on the challenge and to do our best to serve with all her heart, might, mind, and strength. This Christmas we will be giving the gift of service which Is truly one of the best gifts. It doesn't require a lot of money, it doesn't even have to be extraordinary act of service just an act of service that you yourself can give is perfect. The church has a website dedicated to this cause and I would encourage you all to visit it at Mormon.org and to watch the video and just check out the website. It has a lot of great ideas on how to serve in a variety of different ways. 

I am once again so very thankful for you all and for the love and support you show me. That's a great act of service right there! I'm thankful for this time of year we get to focus on Thanksgiving, service, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I know that service has impacted my life in a variety of different ways and I'm so thankful that we get to focus on it a bit more this year and I hope you all are thankful and ready to serve as well. I love you all so very much and håper at dere har en kjempe fin uke og husk til å tjene andre!

Klem,
Søster Blankmeyer 

PS thank you grandma and grandpa Blankmeyer and aunt Teri for the wonderful Thanksgiving cards!