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

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Søster Blankmeyer