Got a few pictures this time! All from the baptism this weekend. More on that later. The first picture is all of the missionaries with both of the brothers, as well as their younger brother who jumped in at the last second. The next is Elder Perry and Elder Argyle with Jan, who they taught. The third is Elder Spencer and I with Kent, who we taught. And the last one is a picture of the whole family together, minus the member sister who is in the states.
So yes. The baptism. It was freakin awesome. The branch is really on board with the brothers and they are way excited, which is good to see. They were baptized on Saturday, and on Sunday they were both confirmed and ordained as priests. Jan was actually ordained first, and the branch president surprised everyone by letting him stand in on the ordination of his brother Kent. It really was a great family story, the less active mom and dad were both at the baptism, and the Dad sang a song for the musical number. We even got permission to skype Victoria, the sister, in from Utah. She was baptized 3 years ago, and she was way bummed that she would be in the states for the baptism, so we set up a laptop so that she could watch it too.
It was crazy to see the change with the brothers in such a short amount of time. A little over a month ago, we hadn't even started teaching them yet and they had been standoffish with the church pretty much their whole lives. Now they are ordained priests in the church, and they are way gung ho about everything and they really are excited about working on their testimonies and faith. We ate dinner with the family last night, and none of them could stop smiling.
Kent invited one of his friends to the baptism, and he looked like he enjoyed it. I didn't get a chance to talk to him on Saturday - things were kinda crazy - but he'll be at an activity tonight, so I look forward to talking to him about what he thought.
Well, on Friday Elder Perry and I got on a plane to Oslo for a training meeting. They just recently released a new 12 week program for trainers and new missionaries, and so they have a training meeting for new trainers just before the transfer starts to introduce the program. It involves a structured companionship and language study schedule, and a couple of other cool things. I've been going over it for the past couple of days and it looks amazing. I'm way stoked to start training on Wednesday. BTdubs, the new elder's name is Elder Bird. I'm not sure where he's from, but I'll find that out in a couple of days =p
Elder Bird and I will have our work cut out for us. We managed to get a couple of appointments for this next week, with some new people, but for the most part after this baptism, we'll be starting from scratch. I don't want to spend a ton of time contacting with him, so hopefully we'll be able to find some new investigators quick so we can get on with teaching them.
I saw an old friend in Oslo on Friday. Elder Bekker was also at the training meeting, and it was the first time in six months that I had seen him...since we were companions in the MTC. I've talked to him on the phone a couple of times, but that was the first time I've seen him in person since May. He'll be getting a new missionary too, so that was pretty exciting. I found out that Sister Fredrickson, also from my MTC district, is moving here to Bergen. So my entire MTC group is going to have served in Bergen within the first 8 months of our missions. Fun Fact =)
That's pretty much all we've got going on right now. We won't be fishing today. Unfortunately. The other night though, we did eat the fruits of our labor, and that was very satisfying. Norwegian grocery stores have a great supply of fish sauces and gravies, and we chowed down like our lives depended on it. Oh man, I'm gonna miss the fish when it comes time to go back home.
Busy week behind us, and we've got another busy one ahead. Sånn er livet =)
Elder Sessions.
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