May 29 - Sandvika

Hey Everyone!

Thanks for your love and support. Spring has come and it is sunny and green here in Norway. I'm grateful to be here in this beautiful land.

I'm short on time. We went on another hike this morning and  did some service for a member family. They are moving and fixing up their new house and it needs to be done this week so there is a lot of work to do.

It was a really good week! We had several good experiences visiting members, teaching investigators and finding people! One was with our investigator --. He is from Bolivia and way cool. It had been a while since we got contact with him so it was good to meet him again. We reviewed the restoration to make sure he got it all and then gave him a Book of Mormon in Spanish. He told us he would read the whole thing from cover to cover and pray about it. He has a strong faith in God and Jesus Christ. He is positive to our message. he told us that he has visited a bunch of different christian churches but doesn't affiliate with any of them. We gave him a tour of our church building and he was impressed. We explained that we would answer the questions "where did we come from, why are we here and where are we going" next time and he began to quote jeramiah explaining that of course we come from somewhere because we must have lived with god. Let's just say I'm looking forward to meeting with him again!

We also got to visit several wonderful members. Our ward mission leader (who is from sweden and speaks swedish to us haha) had us over and they made duck and it was way good! We also visited an older woman in a rest home with the sisters. She is so sweet and strong. She would just talk openly about her testimony of the gospel to the workers while we were there. We also got to visit a family, where the mom was a missionary when my Grandparents were at Temple square. She showed us a picture when she was going home and Grandpa and Grandma Witt were in the picture. She also had her plaque of release with Grandpa's signature. It was cool. On Sunday we had a ward dinner after church and a lot of people came and participated.

We met this week with two new guys we met on the street. They come from Iran and wanted to learn about our message and and for us to tell them everything and give them books to read and stuff. They spoke pretty good norwegian but there was a little langague barrier. They are way nice and said they are coming to church on sunday.

We also got invited to a bible study this week. It was an international baptist group and it was a good experience. They were really friendly and I thought it was good to build some relationships with them. We talked about prayer and the Pastor had good insight. I don't think we will continue going though because it was more of a sermon than a discussion study group.

My thought for this week is inspired by the recent devotional for young adults. "thou art Joseph" by Elder Kim B. Clark. His message was informative and insightful. Joseph Smith is the Prophet of the Restoration. I know that to be true. It was cool to learn about Joseph's experience as a young adult. Just like us, Joseph had to go through an experience of growth, faith and repentance, and a change of heart. And just like Joseph, we are children of a Heavenly Father, with glorious potential. Just replace, your name in the phrase "Thou art-------" . The Lord knows you. He knows your struggles, he knows your potential, he knows your strengths, and he has a work for you to do! He asks us to repent, which means to turn to him with all our heart and we can be a force for good in the world, in our families, in the Lord's church, and for ourselves.

Have a great week!

Elder Witt