"And at last I see the light!" 🎵☀️

 Heia alle sammen!

Guess what! We saw the sun for the first time in weeks!! Woot woot!! The dark times weren't terrible, they were actually really cool to experience, but I think by the end Søster Cox and I were ready to see the sun again:). And just like that we had a great start to the week!

- Harstad! So we got to take a little road trip to Harstad/Narvik for a visa appointment and the drive was absolutely beautiful. Did I take pictures? Not really, because any time I tried, they looked terrible on my phone and it wasn't even worth it so it just became one of those things I had to embrace and remember. We stayed at a cute member's house who was not home so it kind of felt like an air bnb haha:). But the visa appointment was a success and right before we got back to Bodø we saw the northern lights:).

- Exchanges! The Tromsø sisters, Søster Beck and Søster Kmetz, came down to Bodø for exchanges and it was so fun! I was with Søster Beck and oh my goodness that sister is incredible! We were out talking to people on the street and she ended up talking to this guy and explaining the whole restoration and Book of Mormon and then proceeded to give him the book, woot woot!

- Crazy miracle! So Søster Cox and I are on the bus trying to talk to people and as we are heading back to the city, this girl comes and sits in front of me. At first I thought that it would be way too awkward to get up and go talk to her. But then Søster Cox and I have been experimenting with the idea of 20 seconds of courage. So right then, I decided to get up and I moved seats and started talking to her. Turns out she was from the US living in Bodø! She is half Norwegian and can speak Norweigan fluently. So crazy! We both got so excited and she asked for my number to meet up later, woot woot! 

To kind of continue the thoughts behind that miracle, I really was about to just not go and talk to her and sit for the rest of the ride. I think more and more about if I hadn't and what also helped me have the courage to get up and move. In the scriptures there are many instances of when people take 20 seconds of courage to have faith in the Lord (Ester, stripling warriors, Nephi, Joseph Smith, etc.). Did they know what would happen? Nope! But the courage and confidence that comes from faith in the Lord always outweighs the fear of what could be. It may not always be in the situation of talking to a random person, but it could look like reaching out to a family member or friend, forgiving someone, saying sorry, etc. Christ is the ultimate example of how we can take 20 seconds of courage to share His light. His whole life was 20 seconds of courage on repeat and He did it all for us:). And as we try to follow His example, we will see His light more prominently in our lives.

Glad i dere! 

Hope you have a great week!

Kia Kaha and just keep swimming:)

- Søster Twede

Northern Lights

Ferry ride to Harstad

The sun!!!!!!

"Speed I am speed" 🚘

Heia alle sammen! 

Ok, not a lot of time this week, so this is going to be a speed run of an update!

1. Another trip to Oslo! We had a meeting there which went really well and I got to see some of the other missionaries, which is always a party! I got to see Søster Washburn, my old comp and Søster Richards who was also in my mtc group:). 

2. Exchanges with Trondheim sisters! Oh my goodness, it was so fun! We had Søster Nartker and Søster Harmer here in Bodø and it was awesome! It was fun to catch up with them and see how they were doing and how things are in Trondheim:). Søster Harmer and I got to go around talking to people which was so fun, because she has improved so much with Norwegian:).

3. Door knocking on Sunday went a little crazy with a guy trying to bible bash us a little. But, we felt a lot better after a lady's dog was so cute and sweet when we knocked on her door. She wasn't interested, but was just super nice and let us pet her dog:).

This week I read a scripture in 2 Nephi 1 and it was verse 23. Lehi is telling Laman and Lemuel to take off the chains and put on the armour of God instead. It made me think that the armour of God may not be any lighter. Both the chains and armour are heavy, but the difference is that the armour strengthens and protects. It may not always be easy to stand as a witness of God, but nevertheless, it is strengthening and by doing so, He will always protect us:).

Glad i dere! Hope you all have a great week!

Kia Kaha and just keep swimming:)

- Søster Twede

"Are we there yet?" - "We'll get there when we get there!" 🚙⛴️

 Heia alle sammen!

Another cold week has now passed and now we get to head into another one, yay! Right when I think I'm getting used to the cold, the loving wind of Bodø just decided to blow a little harder and I go back to square one, but it's all super fun:). Anyways, here's another week!

- We met up with a lady this week that had met with missionaries before and that was awesome! We ended up giving her a Book of Mormon and explaining more about where it comes from. She was super cute and bubbly which made it super fun and now we are hoping to start teaching her more from the Book of Mormon:).

- We were out door knocking this week and had not the most fortunate time haha:). This guy who looked like the old guy from Monster House answered, didn't even say a word, but just slammed the door. We think he may have just had a bad day:). Not long after, I slipped while walking on ice haha:). Don't ask why I didn't have my spikes on because I have no idea and no good excuse soooo we live and we learn:).

- We attempted to drive to Narvik this week for Søster Cox's visa appointment and well...we missed the ferry that we did not realize we had to take. Tell you what, there was a lot of laughing in the car once we were pulling up to the ferry and the road just ended 😅. On the bright side, we saw lots of pretty scenery and also had some time to plan out things for the next transfer on the way home:).

This week was probably one of my favorite Sundays in church. Because we have just a small branch here in Bodø, we usually just have one speaker each Sunday. Usually, they try to fill the whole hour, but this time they just let it end early which ended up being 30 min early. As we sang the last hymn, I realized that there is really only one big reason of why we go to church: to take the sacrament. I knew that before, but this week, with the simplicity of the meeting, it helped me realize the importance of it. I'm not saying that we should forgo everything else at church because they are still good to have, but I'm just saying--do we really remember the real reason of why we have church in the first place?  Elder Oaks one said, "The cleansing power of our Savior’s Atonement is renewed for us as we partake of the sacrament." The Sacrament is not a casual piece of bread and a cup of water, but a simple representation of the Savior's power taking part in our life. As the prayer says, "let us always remember Him" as we prepare for and take the sacrament. 

Glad i dere! Have a great week!

Kia Kaha and just keep swimming :)

- Søster Twede

"Born and cold and winter air and mountain rain combining!" ❄️⛏️

 Hei alle sammen!

The amount of times I have had to shovel snow and scrape ice this week has been incredible! It was really fun when we one day had to not only scrape the windshield on the outside, but also on the inside haha. But, the first song in "Frozen" just kept playing in my mind every time 😅. 

- Happy New Year's! 🎉🥳🎉 We celebrated by watching a firework show at 6 pm and then visited our cute old lady neighbor 😊 and went to bed at 11:20 because we got too tired to stay up for another 40 minutes 😅. But that sleep felt amazing so it all worked out!

- Got to visit an inactive member this week that actually kind of went preacher mode on us haha. We kind of got stuck there to the point where we had to have the elders call us to give us an excuse to leave haha:). On the bright side, the member is very passionate about her faith so there could be worse things 😁.

- One of the days this week we realized that we needed to grab some groceries so we stopped by the store. After we got done and were walking back to the church we passed by this guy that we just thought we should talk with. Mind you, at this point, I have a box of rice and bags of frozen veggies in my hands and Søster Cox is holding a bag of yogurt haha:). The guy was super cool though! He ended up being Christian and we were able to invite him to church! Despite the awkward beginning we were able to have a good conversation with him :).

In the spirit of the new year, there is a talk that a sister in the zone told us about. It's by Elder Holland and it's one of his BYU speeches. It talks about not New Year's resolutions, but how we can have better faith in the future and what the Lord has in store for us. He uses the story of Lot's wife and how it wasn't necessarily the act of looking back that made her turn into salt, but the fact that she looked back with the desire to go back. She didn't have the faith that the Lord could provide an even better future than the past. He says, "we remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives." I had never really thought about it before and I just love how he explained how faith is about us learning from the past, doing all we can today, and having hope for even better things in the future. So whether 2024 was a great year or relatively terrible, have faith that the future will be better because Christ made it so.

Godt nyttår! Glad i dere! Have a great week!

Kia Kaha and just keep swimming:)

- Søster Twede

We got LOTS of snow!

Happy New Year!

My glasses got a little foggy

We got safety vests!

Had to get a picture of the flag

Walk out the door and this is what we see one morning.