Wow what a crazy week it has been here in Ålesund. This week has been full of ups and downs. I'll fill you all in on those and explain the title of this blog post, but first want to say thanks to all the love and prayers sent my way. They help me get through the downs and I know they help us to find those ups as well so thank you all so much!! Also apologize if this blog post is shorter this week, we leave for zone conference in Trondheim today so we don't have much email time before our flight.
Alright, let's start with the downs so that we can end on a high note. This week started with us being invited over to one of our investigator's houses for lunch. We met him and his sister outside the library and walked over to his house. We get there and start chatting it up and absolutely love this investigator and his sister. It was all fun and games until his friends showed up, and then it was even more fun and games until they figured out we were Mormon missionaries. One of our investigators friends has some serious issues with Christianity and so he proceeded to lecture us for a good hour about how incorrect we were. Our investigator's sister is a strong Christian and did a good job at putting him in his place. We just tried our best to answer any of his questions and not make it any more heated than it need be. Although it's no fun to be told by others that what you believe in is false and that what they believe in is the only truth, those kind of situations are actually a blessing as they help me have a stronger testimony in what I actually do believe. I left that house feeling more certain that this gospel is true.
Next unfortunate thing of the week. We went over to one of our recent converts houses to check up and see how everything was going. As soon as we sat down on the couch, the laptop was placed in front of us and a bunch of anti Mormon youtube videos were pulled up. We shut that down very quickly and tried our best to figure out why our convert would turn to youtube and watch all those terrible things about the church. Come to find out that this person had some pretty serious issues with some things in the church and also tried to convince us that we were wrong. Yet again we were devastated to hear this and have since met up with our convert again and discussed some of those issues. Although it's very unfortunate, we have become more grateful for our testimonies and this experience just helped us to strengthen them even more.
Alright now for the high points of the week. First and foremost, we have a BAPTISM on Saturday the 7th of May!! Our investigator Ben will be getting baptized! He is such an amazing investigator and I have nothing but nice things to say about him.
He has one of the strongest testimonies of the gospel and is just so Christlike. You always catch Ben with a smile on his face and a good attitude about him. This week he has taught us just as much as we have taught him. Ben calls himself a radio. As soon as you turn him on and get him talking he'll keep going until you turn him off. He's such a hoot! Really though, you can just see how much Ben loves his Father in Heaven and his Savior Jesus Christ. What a blessing he is here in Ålesund.
Another highlight, while we were out talking to people on the street, we noticed a ton of people out near the ships. We decided to head over that way and try and talk to some more people. As we were walking we decided to stop this older man that was walking alone. We started talking to him about the gospel and handed him one of our "I'm a Mormon" cards. He pulled out his wallet and right in one of his card slots was the exact same card that he had received from missionaries a while ago. He kept it in his wallet all these years. After we had wrapped up our conversation, we asked him if he knew why so many people were out and he said that they were all looking at the old ships. He points to a ship and tells us that it's a ship from 1920 and then says that it's his ship! He then gave us an exclusive tour of it! Way cool!!
Some other fun things from this week include Ben teaching us how to make African food,
also playing us one of his original songs. Let me tell you, he is one of the best guitar players I know! It's crazy how awesome he is and he promised us a free CD once his producer is finished with everything. We also were able to stroll through the old car show the other day and talk to some people.
We ended up seeing this one gorgeous Buick around Ålesund the rest of the day and are determined to talk to the owner as he has great taste in cars and may have great taste when it comes to religion as well. ALSO, we get to Skype home in 6 days!!!! So beyond pumped for that and I hope all my other mother figures have a great Mother's day as well. Last but not least, as we were out talking to people last night we ran into some American members from Arizona! What a blessing that was. I really love English and Americans. They were the sweetest people and were backpacking all across Europe and had some pretty awesome family history stories of ancestors they had in Norway way back when. They also sent my mother a picture of us which I'm sure was a highlight for her week as well(:
Alright last order of business. I promised to explain the title of the blog post and that's quite a funny story. A couple weeks ago during district meeting we challenged our elders to see how many people we could stop on the street and talk about the gospel with. Which explains why we were out talking to so many people. We were determined to win. (Just to clarify, we are not just worried about numbers. It's a fact that the more people you talk to the higher probability you have of one following through.) Anyways, we were like way behind this week as every time we stopped a person we would end up touring their boat or talking for long amounts of time (which I'm totally okay with). We really wanted to win though and so Saturday and Sunday we talked to as many people as would give us the time of day. We called our Elders that night to report our numbers for the week and here's how you know the Lord has a sense of humor, it ended in a tie. Ultimately we were all winners and had a very productive couple of weeks and got some investigators out of it.
also playing us one of his original songs. Let me tell you, he is one of the best guitar players I know! It's crazy how awesome he is and he promised us a free CD once his producer is finished with everything. We also were able to stroll through the old car show the other day and talk to some people.
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