President Uchtdorf comes to Norway

Wow! What a wonderful week this has been for den Norske mision.  Just a few days ago, President Uchtdorf, an apostle of the Lord, came to Norway. How amazing is that? However, I thought I'd end this blog post with the highlights of that night and just start out by saying happy late National grandparents day. I have been blessed with some of the best grandparents out there and I'm so lucky that they just love and support me in anything I do, so thank you for that. Sending a big klech (hug) your way. 

I also would like to take a second to remember and to thank all those mighty men and women who serve the United States of America. They truly are our heroes. The week began here in Asker with a lovely meeting with one of our new investigators.  We headed over to her house to share a little message with her, and to our surprise, she had made eple kake (apple cake) with the amazing Norwegian ice cream. What a wonderful lady she was, not just because she treated us to cake and ice cream (although it was delicious) but because she helped us to feel welcome in her home and my favorite part, she love to laugh I felt like I could be myself around her and man whatshe just laughed and laughed. It was so much fun, and she is very positive when it comes to the Gospel. By the end of our meeting with her, she was asking us if we had more we could teach her. So cool! To make a long story short, her mother was a member of the church while she was growing up and so she remembers having the missionaries over and the friendship that the missionaries had with her mother. Her mom just recently passed away and now she is curious about the church that brought her mom such joy. She is a literally so awesome. She already does some of the things that active members of the church do because she has seen her mother do it. She was telling us all about her food storage and how she thinks that it's so smart I just can't stress enough how awesome this lady is and she makes a solid apple cake.  

reunited

We were also able to meet with one of our progressing investigators earlier this week and had a fantastic lesson. She really felt the spirit and even came to church yesterday to support us with our musical number. She's just so great and I'm so blessed to have this opportunity to meet all of these wonderful people here in Norway speaking of wonderful people, this past Thursday was our zone conference which, for those of you who don't know, that is when all of the missionaries in the surrounding areas get together for a big meeting. I was able to see two of the sisters from my MTC group and a bunch of other fantastic missionaries serving here in Norway. Together we were able to learn how we can be better Missionaries and how we can serve the people of Norway to the best of our abilities. It ended up being a really great conference and along with the good food and good company, I was able to personally learn and grow. I really am thankful that we can continue to learn and grow here in this life and try to be that best we can be and follow Jesus Christ and his example. I am also so thankful for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I am thankful that President Uchtdorf could come and visit the Saints here in Norway and I'm thankful that I could serve here and be a part of that wonderful experience. I'd love to share with you all some of the notes I took during that conference. It was also good that it was hard to narrow it down, so I have a list of 24 bullet points of some of my favorite things that were said. I figured I could just share those and then give my thoughts on them so here we go.


• Now I tell you that you can make every correct decision in this life if you learn how to listen to the Holy Ghost (Sister Uchtdorf)

• gratitude is one of the things we need to cultivate. 

• being grateful in every circumstance will bring many blessings

• The gospel is something to be shared. Stand up in confidence

•  Be humbly confident and share what we believe. We don't force this on anybody but we don't hold back either

• There is room for improvement. There's room for growth

• We need love for God and fellow man.

• We help each other. We grow... We strengthen each other.

• The gospel is not just our Sunday service. It is our life.

• Living and showing who we are, there is great strength in that

• Boy you have a lot of things to be grateful for. Just continue on and do it joyfully. 

• The future will come all too quickly. 

• Just be grateful for all you have and all you have going for you. 

• With the limited time you have, use it for the maximum good. 

•  Use what you have to the best of your ability and don't compare yourself. 

• Continue on and trust the Lord.

• Keep the Commandments and trust The Lord. That's what you can do. That's the short answer. Don't falter from that.

• The core of the gospel is the Savior and His sacrifice for us.

• Share the gospel and when necessary use words.

• That's what I believe. That's who I am

• The gospel is not something you put on Sunday; the gospel is us

• The core of the gospel is the same all over the world

• It is only with the heart that one can see clearly, what is essential is invisible to the eye

• It is heart to heart that makes the difference.

• Do we really believe? Do we believe what we know and do we act on what we believe?

• Let us not be afraid to share this message of hope of greatness, of gladness.

• As we love Him, we will love our fellow man. It is true

Wow what a powerful experience that was to be part of that conference. President Uchtdorf is an incredible man and truly is an apostle of the Lord. I think one of my favorite quotes from this particular conference was when he said, "continue on and trust the Lord. "As I was reflecting back on this week and thinking about that quote it dawned on me how much the Lord has helped me this past week and honestly my whole life. I'd like to end with an experience that exemplifies this quote. Yesterday night my companions and I decided to go banking or go door to door by truck to try and find one of our investigators we had lost contact with. All we knew about where she lived was the city she lived in and so we looked at a map and prayed for some guidance as to which street she might live on. After that prayer, there were two street names that stuck out to us and so we put on one in our GPS and headed that direction to go knock on some doors and hopefully find our investigator. We started knocking. 15 minutes and no luck 30 minutes and no luck. After about an hour we were starting to lose hope and yet we just kept on walking eventually we pass this girl walking down the street and I decided to stop her and ask her what brought her hope in this life. We started a pretty good conversation and began to tell her what we believed and also explained our job as missionaries. We asked if she would be interested in meeting with us again and she said yes. We grabbed her number and continued our service. We weren't able to find our investigator that night that because we continued on and trusted in the Lord, he was able to lead us to another person in need of this glad message. 

I am so thankful for all of my many blessings and for all of the wonderful experiences I have had in my life thus far. And thankful for a beautiful sand volleyball courts. I'm thankful that my district will play sand volleyball with me and take fun photos to I'm not so thankful for the massive spiders in our apartment but I'm thankful that sister Petersen can kill them for us and that we are getting a new place. I am thankful for all my fellow missionaries and how wonderful they are. And thankful for fellow Americans living in Norway who hook us up with syrup and other American foods. And thankful for packages and my new BYU T-shirt from Soster Petersen's mom Leslie, I am thankful for all of you and all you do! 

Until next time,

Søster Blankmeyer