It requires so much faith and trust.

Hellloooo hellooo my best friends!

Happy happy birthday, Dallin!! I hope you had a wonderful day. Your cupcakes were genius and I'm so glad you got my card. I sure love you and I miss you so much!

This week has been ridiculous. Like. Ridiculously hard. But that's what missionary work is, right? I've cried and cried and cried, and prayed like crazy. If nothing else comes from being in this place, my testimony of God and Jesus Christ is being strengthened. I have prayed my heart out that I can do this, and I know that God answers prayers. It requires so much faith and trust.

First of all, I read a talk this week called, "His Grace is Sufficient" by Brad Wilcox. READ IT READ IT READ IT. Everyone please read it. I know that Jesus Christ lives and that He is the Savior of the world. I love Him.

Next... my comp and I got to travel to Hemmnesberg this week to visit some less active members. The bus rides that we take always have breath-taking scenery and we were just driving along and there were 2 big moose close to the side of the road! There are always signs to watch for moose crossings, but now I understand why. I wish I had my camera ready, but we went by them really fast. So the members in Hemmnesberg.... basically we met a crazy man. He's about 70 and he was really kind on the phone and he even came and picked us up from the bus stop. We got to his house and he had this really young wife that was so sweet to us. I was a little confused at first... but we figured out the situation and realized she is his wife. After we got to know them a little better, we asked if we could share a message and he agreed. I had barely started to talk about faith when he took out his bible and said he had been preparing for us to come. He started to go off in Norwegian and thank goodness I didn't understand all of it, but he told us that only 2 people on the earth understand the bible and that the God of the Old Testament is actually Satan. He was kinda shaking cause he was trying so hard to convince us. We mostly just listened and let him yell and then, I did the only thing I know how to do, and quietly bore witness that I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God, the church is true, and God is the same today and forever. I learned lots of things and walked away laughing cause he was so crazy, but mostly I just remember the calm, inner peace that I had the whole time he told us what he believed. My testimony and conviction of the truthfullness of our gosepl was strengthened and I could feel the Holy Ghost protecting me. I am so grateful for our knowledge.

We also cleaned out our little branch meeting place this week. It definitely shows that elders have been here for the past 10 years cause it needed some woman help real bad. Haha we spent lots of hours organizing and cleaning and it felt good to do mindless work. I liked it very much. I have so much respect for that little building where we have the opportunity to take the sacrament each week. I have never been more grateful for the sacrament and the strong spirit that is there. I am so grateful for our faithful branch president who is the only one that comes who has the priesthood to be able to bless and administer it for us.

The rest of our investigators are doing pretty good! We will meet with Mirella tonight and talk more with her about the Plan of Salvation and heaven. She is still on track to be baptized. Vikrossy went on vacation and may be gone for a long time which means his baptismal date will probably be moved back. We have been fasting for him and I know that God is aware of him. Somehow it will all work out. He needs God's love too.

We also went to Nesna on Saturday again and visited with Eyob and his cute family. Eyob is so wonderful. He's very respectful of everything we say even if he doesn't agree with it. He likes to have written proof of stuff that we tell him so he's making Bible scholars out of us, basically. We need to help him better understand that the Holy Ghost testifies, not written evidence. I am so grateful for his kindness and desire to learn more. He always tells us with his pretty African accent, "I want to know about the nature of Jesus Christ." I love to talk about it with him.

Um... try something this week. Make waffles, and then find really good, rich cheese slices and some yummy jam and eat them with the waffles. I crave it every day. Also see "Despicable Me 2", mmk?

I gave a talk på Norsk on Sunday. I wasn't that scared considering there were only four people there and one of them was my companion and it went well as far as I know! Haha who knows what I actually said or if they could even understand me. But that's okay. I tried and I know that the spirit was there so it was good.

I know that this church is God's church! I testify of Jesus Christ and I know that God lives. The world is scary, but it doesn't matter when you have the light of the gospel. I know I say this a lot, but cling to it. Give your whole heart to it and you will be safe and happy and have that inner peace that we desire as human beings.

I love you I love you I love you. Thank you for your prayers and letters and love. I promise I do the same for you.

Love,

Søster Pyne

(From email to Mom, in case anyone else is worrying about her eating enough :) and whether she got word about the Leadership meeting last night)

I miss you guys like crazy. Thank you very very much for the pictures and the notes from the leadership training thing. I didn't even know it existed, actually. We don't hear about anything in this place cause we're pretty isolated. I really hope that we'll hear more about it cause it sounds incredible!

Oh to answer your questions-- we have plenty of money for food, so I'm good. Thank you so much for your concern and kindness. You and dad are the best supports ever. For breakfast I eat normal stuff. Oatmeal, cheerios, eggs, you know. Bananas and peanut butter. No green smoothies though, darn it, so I've adopted your steamed spinach with lemon and butter to still get my nutrition. Haha it's quite good! Also I cook it with chicken and peppers a lot too. Um... lunch we come back to our apartment and they have this really good chicken lunch meat that I make open-faced sandwiches or let's see.... I eat left-overs from the night before. It's like normal America food. You're not silly for asking this stuff! Food is super important, duh! My comp told me I'm a good cook! It's cause I learned it all from you. Literally. So thank you. Also, we made this whole-grain bread and it's yummy and simple. I think I'll do it more often cause it's cheaper and I enjoyed making it. I miss Jeannie's bread recipe though. I couldn't make it here cause I can't convert any measuring things. Oh Europe. 

We had a miracle day on Friday.

Greetings from the land where the sun never sets! Literally.

On Sunday night I get all antsy to email you guys and overwhelmed with all the stuff I have to tell you! I keep a little notebook with a list of stuff that I add to through the week and by the end it's huge! I'm sorry that these emails end up so huge.

So. My comp and I get to run along the fjord in the mornings. Well. When I beg and plead and convince her that we should run. She's nice and usually is fine with it. The quiet mornings and dirt road that we run on by the water helps me feel like I can do this for another day. I'm grateful for that exercise time.

We went to Trondheim again this week! Since being in Norway I have flown 5 times and I've only been here for 2.5 weeks! The planes are so little, but our favorite part is that they bring these little dark chocolates to you during the flight. Only in Europe, of course. It's probably to try and make up for the tiny plane that shakes and makes lots of noise. It's a miracle to me that we make it where we need to every time. We had conference all day and then that night we got rolle kebabs with the other sisters that are in Trondheim. Kebabs are like burritos kinda with lamb and lettuce and cucumbers and peppers and this yummy sauce all wrapped in a delicious pita thing. We ate them by the river and it was so lovely! Lamb is good. I don't think I could eat it every day though. It's a little sausagey. It was great to be with other missionaries again!'

This week we spent time with a couple members. Bonnie is one of them and she has three little kids and a baby that I want to hold so bad! I believe in being obedient though, so I try to make my motherly instincts go away. Haha her house had a water issue so she's been living in her garage. She was so kind and cooked us waffles and told us about the branch and area a little since she served a mission here too! I can't remember if I told you about her, but she's American and then she moved back here and married a Norwegian. We are grateful for her English and her kindness.

We also visited with Andreas. He is the funniest person to me. He's very kind and very enthusiastic. He helped me practice contacting because I'm terrified of it. We were standing in our driveway and he would walk down it and I would walk up it and stop him and try to tell him about the gospel in Norwegian. He kept making fun of me and telling me to try again, but he was also very encouraging and nice about my attempted Norsk. I'm so grateful for nice people! The world needs more of them. Pray for me to be able to contact and not want to pee my pants, please. :)

We went to Nesna on Saturday to try and visit a member. We don't have a phone number for her, so we were just hoping that she would be home. It's about an hour and a half away and you ride a bus up and up and up on top of the mountains and then you go back down. The ride was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Oh my goodness. I have no words to describe it and pictures of course don't do it justice, but I hope that everyone can see it someday. Nesna is a baby town and we got of the bus with no idea where to go. There are sheep everywhere. Miraculously we found her house, a grocery store with a bathroom because I was going to pee my skirt, and a new investigator! The member wasn't home, but we called a man named Eyob that the missionaries had met with before and he was so kind. He invited us to his home and his sweet wife made us lunch with barely any notice that we were coming. Eyob is from Africa and he has four adorable little kids. We had a really good conversation with him about the Book of Mormon and the nature of Jesus Christ and we are going to visit him again next week! My love for people from Africa is growing so much. Ah. I love them.

Speaking of Africa, VIKROSSY HAS A BAPTISMAL DATE!!! We had a miracle day on Friday. There will be a pic shortly to explain our excitement. But. We got back from Trondheim on Friday morning and then we met with Vikrossy later that day. He has a baptismal date for July 6. He is so ready and so open to the spirit. He lives far away from the church and we've been working our hearts out to find him a ride, but so far nothing is working. Please pray for that too. We noticed that a dude in the library was kinda watching us and kinda listening. We were teaching about the Plan of Salvation. So we walked out and he still kinda followed us so we decided to talk to him to figure out if he was creepin or actually interested. He was! He asked us about life after death and we are meeting with him tomorrow. Again, the Lord just put things in our laps and showed us that through our faith and if it is His will, we can have miracles every day. We write at least one miracle every day and usually there are more.

Yesterday I taught my first Sunday school lesson in Norwegian. Um... I'm really grateful for Søster Morris. But it was frustrating for us and we didn't feel like it went as well as it should have. Church is really hard for me sometimes because it's so little and needs so much strenght. The spirit is always there though and I'm grateful for the sacrament. 

After church, we needed a tender mercy. So. Of course, our sweet landlords (they tell us to call them grandma and grandpa) took us to a thing called Stennesdagen. We had no idea where we were going cause they're really hard to understand, but it ended up being these old little houses and a celebration of Norwegian culture. There were lots of people and good food and music and really cool things to see! Mom, you would die at the cuteness of these houses. My pictures don't show very much, but at least you can see some it. And I ate reindeer. It was kinda like a rolle kebab only with reindeer meat. It was actually really good! Kinda beefish and I definitely couldn't eat it every day, but I liked it. And then we got home made ice cream. Our landlords were the sweetest and paid for all of it for us. I wanted to cry. The Lord always has tender mercies for us.

We met with Qrt afterward and had a really good lesson with him. He is one of the most peaceful people I have ever met and he just needs help recognizing that what he already believes in is the same things that we are telling him. He is so spiritually in tune and understands the importance of serving others to be happy. Ah. I can't wait to see what happens with him. I've never wanted people to have happiness like I have as a missionary.

We went to Mirella's for dinner and got fat from all the delicious Cuban food again. She invited us over again for tonight. She is so kind and really desires to follow Christ. We are having a hard time helping her to understand how simple everything is and that she doesn't have to be perfect to be baptized. I pray for guidance every time we teach her and to just let the Holy Ghost speak to her in a way that she can understand. I love her.

This gospel is true and we are BLESSED to have the knowledge that we do. Oh my we are blessed. I know that through repeating the steps of faith, repentance, baptism (through the sacrament), and following the Holy Ghost to endure to the end that we can have eternal life! It is a promise from our Heavenly Father. Keep going and recognize the incredible blessings that we have. I love you so much and I pray for you every day. Thank you SO much for your words and your love and support.

Love, Søster M. Pyne

I want everyone to have the blessings we have!

My Sweet Family,

Oh my I miss you so much. Last night I was reading in my book about how you all told me advice for family night the Monday before I left and it made me cry. I’m so grateful for you guys! So many people here have no family or they don’t care about their family and I don’t understand. I love how close we are and know that we will always be close. Take care of each other and be kind. Also, traveling always makes me appreciate Utah more. The world (ha, since I’ve been like 3 places) is awesome to see, but I think Utah is best!

My companion is Sister Morris. She’s very good at understanding the language which is so important because I understand nothing. It’s weird because with French I feel like I could understand but couldn’t speak. It opposite with Norsk and it’s so frustrating. Most of the time I just smile and nod and sometimes I say “kan du snakker pa Engelsk, var so snill?” That means, “can you speak English, please?” Most of the time they laugh and say yes. I’m spoiled that most people speak English also. A lot of them will speak Norwegian until they hear your American accent and then they automatically switch to English. Probably too painful for them to hear.

There’s a lady in the branch named Bonnie and her little kids picked some weed flowers for us. I put them in a vase (spaghetti sauce bottle) on the counter. They make me happy. Bonnie, by the way, served a mission in this town and she was the last sister missionary here until us. I guess she married a Norwegian dude and now she has 4 kids and lives in this tiny place. I have to make friends with her. Plus, she’s American, so she speaks English! That’s really nice.

Sister Oldham and I got to sit next to each other on the flight over, such a tender mercy!  And we sat next to this kid going to Germany to study. He was from somewhere in the south and he had lots of questions for us! It was great! We gave him an “I’m a Mormon” card with our email addresses and told him we could be European pen pals. I really hope he emails us.

The next morning is when I met Elder and Sister Thurgood (Valarie Diehl’s parents). They were so so sweet! Oh, forgot! The first 2 things President said to me when I met him were 1. I know you from the Ensign! 2. You have a dinner appointment tomorrow night with a lady who knows you. What? I was so confused. My whole mission knows about me because of your article, mom.

So, I can’t believe I forgot to tell you this in the email, but Sherri, the lady I used to visit teach has an aunt or cousin or something, and she has a daughter who lives here in Norway. She is inactive kinda because she came to Europe for school, met a Norwegian man, got engaged…So she has been super against missionaries coming. Partly because she knows her husband would be very open to it. 

But her mom was going to be in town visiting her in Norway (she even extended her visit to make sure she was here when I was) and she said her daughter was ok with us coming because she knew me! So COOL! So they let us come! Me and my companion and the 2 Oslo sisters that were actually assigned to the area. So we had an awesome dinner and gave them a Family Proclamation to the World and her husband said we could come anytime.

They have the most beautiful little girl. I want them to be sealed! So Sister Evans called me yesterday and said they had been reading her (the little girl) the Proclamation and she said it was her ‘favorite book’. I’ve been praying for them. Please pray too! It’s amazing how the Lord can use you as an instrument. I wish I was still there to love them and be with them. Sister Pitts is in Oslo though and she’ll be awesome for them.

Um…church on Sunday was the weirdest thing ever. The branch is teensy. The President doesn’t speak English, and there was an investigator (5 year investigator) there from Cuba who speaks Spanishy Norsk, and a dude that was high and an old grandma. Luckily they have a little keyboard. It was testimony meeting so we all bore our testimonies and I played the piano. Then the Branch President told my companion, “okay, teach Sunday School.” Poor woman. Haha, she did great! And then church was over. And I was confused and overwhelmed. My companion and I decided we will prepare a “relief societyish” meeting each Sunday for Sunday School. And musical numbers and talks. They need our strength and our love! The Branch President is so tired and worn down. You can tell. I want so badly to give them everything I have. To help them understand God loves them!

There are men with strollers everywhere! I love it. I guess the women are more the career type. I don’t really know why, but I think it’s really cute. And the strollers are very European-looking, of course. All Norwegians in general are either really nice or really rude. And in this tiny town most of them know who we are already so when they know we’re going to talk to them they get this terrified look in their eyes. I think it’s so funny! We have salvation for you, people! We’re not scary!

Oh, another friend. So our first day here we found this kebab place (that’s like a lamb meet gyro and ask me if I liked it. Nei.) But the dude that made them for us is from Iran and he is married to a Russian lady and they have a baby. And she loves him so much! So we went and talked to them for a while and she asked for our phone number so she could make us “something special”. She’s lonely. I want to be her friend so badly too. I want everyone to have the blessings we have! Hopefully she will actually call us.

There was a sweet member named Rannveig that brought us dinner the other night. She doesn’t come ot church very often because her husband hates it. I am worried about her. I hope she is able to come soon.

Also, we just hung out with Helena. She is so so shy and timid and only 18 we found out today! But she is incredible. I think she likes how she feels when she is with us. She’s beautiful. We have another appointment for a lesson on Saturday.  My heart aches for her to know she is a daughter of God. I pray that she will feel God’s love every day. I was so impressed with how she walked around with the 2 of us and the whole city stared. But she didn’t care. And she hugged us! It’s hard for her to be outgoing. I love her.

Oh my. So much stuff and never enough time. Your emails gave me so much sgtrength and reminded me who I am and what I’m doing. They were exactly what I needed. I had to skim most of them, but I’ll read them again. Thank you for your support and love.

Jeg elsker dere! (means you all)

Soster M. Pyne

We are seeing miracles here in Mo i Rana, people! Miracles.

My dear dear people!

I am so grateful for this email time every week. I need it so much and I am so blessed to have so many wonderful emails to read. Thank you thank you thank you. They truly strengthen me and help me to do it again for another week.

So.. last week was rough when it came to finding somewhere to email, you know? We ended up at the library and there is a 30 minute limit to use the computer, so I typed as fast as I could and then we had to go. I was so frustrated and cried all the way back to our apartment. But. There was a man from Congo named Vikrossy sitting in the corner of the library. He came up to us and said, "Are you Catholic?" And we told him no, but we were Christian and he asked if we had church he could come to. Uh.. YEAH!!! We made an appointment with him and taught him this last week. We introduced the Book of Mormon and he just quietly listened and smiled at us. He speaks English, so of course I loved that, but I also loved how the Lord literally plopped him in our laps. We are seeing miracles here in Mo i Rana, people! Miracles.

We've been praying all week that the computers would work for us today in the little internet cafe where they didn't work last time. And of course they work today! Thank goodness. I know that the Lord answers prayers. My sweet companion knows how important email time is to me so she is letting me spend lots of time here.

We went to Trondheim this week for zone conference. This country is crazy. Everyone just flies everywhere all the time. We got on a baby plane for about 50 minutes and flew to such a beautiful city! Oh my gosh. It was breath-taking. I am so grateful to be here in Norway. We stayed with the sisters there for the night and then had a very good, motivating conference with all of the Northern missions and President. He told us that when Cortez invaded Mexico, he made his men burn the boats they had come in as they ran into the city so there was no going back. President said, "Burn the boats as we go foward. This isn't business as usual." We have 26 baptisms this year for the whole mission and the goal is 100. We'll get there. I can just feel it. Pray for us.

We rode in a taxi thing to the airport and the lady that rode with us paid for us! Just because. We didn't even really talk to her. Such a tender mercy. Norwegians are either extremely kind, or extremely rude. Haha we were "banking" aka knocking (and you pronounce it like a snobby British person) the other day and we found a really cool dude with a bunch of piercings and tats that agreed to meet with us again! His name is Kurt but he spells it Qrt for fun. But we also found a lady that told us, "Just keep on walking!" And at another house a girl answered the door and she was kinda interested in talking to us. Her mom came out to throw something away and then looked at us, pushed her daughter out of the way, and shut the door in our faces. Haha I thought it was so funny! That's fine, lady. It's your salvation, not mine. And.... then of course there is the sweet old lady, Eleanor. We visited her the other day, she's been a member for a long time and she knows her stuff but she's going a little crazy. She cleaned out her fridge and gave us all of her unwanted food. It was really nice of her! But she just talks and talks and talks. I was doing my best to look like I understood (even though I didn't) and she looked at me all of the sudden and said, "Du forstår ingenting" which means " you understand nothing." Yes, that would be me, Eleanor. Søster Morris and I say it to each other all the time now.

When we make eye contanct with people we have major power here. Most of them look really terrified and then if we talk to them, we have to be prepared to do CPR cause they think they're going to die. Haha good thing I'm certified. There are people who are ready for this though and we are going to find them!

It's a miracle everytime we get where we are trying to go in this place. We almost missed our flight back to Mo i Rana from zone conference but we ran through the airport, got a bunch of weird looks, and made it! The Lord loves His missionaries and watches out for them always. Also. This week we rode the bus kinda ignorantly to find two different investigators houses and we found them flawlessly!

We found out that we have bikes this week! They are in this cellar thing under our apartment and you could kill someone under there so it's not enjoyable to get them out, but I like to ride them. We are very grateful for them too cause everything is so spread out here cause it's a little place. This town is so broken. It has the highest suicide rate in the country and you can see in people's faces that they need relief. My heart hurts because I want so badly to help them know that they have a Savior! Most of the time people just tell us that they don't believe in God. I get so discouraged sometimes. I am so grateful for my testimony, for the testimonies of those that I love, and for our knowledge of the gospel. I know that it is true more than I have ever known! Hold fast to it. It is what makes life happy.

We have literally seen miracles. I know I keep saying that, but it's true! We have 6 new investigators this week. That doesn't happen. Especially here. But we do!! Ahhhhh it makes me so happy. One of them, we met just last night. We were at another investigator, Mirella's, house for dinner. She's from Cuba and makes super good food and we had been fasting all day so it was excellent. But she said she had a friend coming. We didn't really understand cause she speaks Spanishy Norsk, but he showed up at exactly the right time. He prayed with us, read 2 Nephi 31 with us, and then testified to Mirella why she needs to follow Christ and be baptized. What? He got all excited about the Book of Mormon and pulled out his notebook and started copying verses. We told him he could have one for free and he said, "When can you meet tomorrow?" We're meeting him tonight. Pray for his heart to accept what we teach him. He also complimented my Norwegian and said that I'm very smart which was so sweet because I'm definitely struggling in that area... I pray every day to be abe to understand.
We've been having a hard time getting Helena to pray. She came to church yesterday and told us that she prayed and that she felt so much peace! Another miracle. I am so grateful because she needs love so badly.

Oh and then Romine. She is from Iran but she read the Old Testament and decided to become Christian because it doesn't mention Muhammed anywhere. She's very educated and very sweet. She had us over for lunch on Saturday. I was so grateful for her kindness. We really hope that she accepts the teachings of the Book of Mormon fully. Please pray for her so she can have more happiness in her life! She has a cute little family that needs it too!

Um... also. Oh man. So much to tell you. We met Andreas this week. He's a less active member and he is 19. He is incredible! He has had a really rough life and he said one day he was recording in the studio (he's an awesome musician) and he said, "God told me to put my guitar down and go out on the street." So he did, and there were the elders! He has so much faith and he wants to come contacting with us which would be much appreciated. He really wants to move to America too so he likes to speak English and he said he's help me with my Norwegian! I have a video of him playing guitar for us, but I think it's too big to email. Ah. Maybe I'll send a mem card home again. I just want you guys to see everything!

I read a quote from President Monson this morning during personal study in the conference Ensign. He said, *Young men (of course young women too), I hope you appreciate the sacrifices which your parents so willingly make in order for you to serve. Their labors will sustain you, their faith encourage you, their prayers uphold you. A mission is a family affair. Though the expanse of continents or oceans my separate, hearts are as one." I feel you guys so close. I know that our hearts are as one and I cannot express my gratitude enough. You are incredible. We are doing hard things and our hearts are stretching so much. It's miserable sometimes. But I know that blessings flow when we do what the Lord needs and I am grateful to wear His tag. I know that His plan for us is the only plan! My how blessed we are. Have a wonderful week and find peace and comfort through our Savior, Jesus Christ. Of course I'm praying for you.

Love,

Søster Pyne

Also sorry there will be a thousand emails with pictures. I don't want to take them in less quality on my camera so they just have to be huge. But the baby plane that we rode on and the double decker on that we took from Houston to London and then beautiful Trondheim and Søster Morris made me kjøtt kaker! Also, mom, the pic of the little house is so you can squeal at how cute it is with me. I creepily took it and then we knocked on the door and I'm pretty sure the lady saw me take it cause she didn't want to talk to us. Oh well. Haha you have to come! You would die. I die every day wanting to show you stuff. Also. There are pics of my apartment!

We're right under the arctic circle and the sun never goes down.

My people.

I am in a strange land with like 20 minutes to type this bad boy so here we go... also I have no idea how to use this keyboard so please excuse the awful grammar.

It felt so wonderful to read everything from you! Thank you thank you thank you. I just sat here and sobbed. I needed all of it so much. We have all the time we need on pday to email, but we could not find computers anywhere so we are at the library and there is a 30 minute time limit. I am booking it.'

We flew forever to Norway and I was exhausted. We got to the mission home on Tuesday night and it was crazy. We had to take all 21 people and their luggage on the trains of the city and then we were a suitcase parade up the streets. It was ridiculous. But I don't know what else President could have done, so it was fine. We slept there that night and then the next day I met my trainer, Sister Morris. She has been in the country less than 3 months but she's a master at the language and I am SO grateful. Oh my I'm grateful because I don't understand anything anyone says. I can speak some, but I can't understand at all and it's really frustrating to me. I've been praying for the gift of tongues. Pray with me please! So anyway. We got on a plane on Wednesday and flew clear up North to Mo i Rana (you pronounce it like moo). Um... we flew on these teeny planes and we even got off in the wrong city and had to run to get back on the plane before it took off again. It was really scary, but the Lord is with us always, so we were safe! There haven't been missionaries here in 10 years so we're basically opening the area as a 3 monther and a greenie. Insane and really terrifying. I read this scripture the other day in Alma 30 verse 22 that says and it bordered upon the land which they called desolation, it being so far Northward. Uh yeah.. that would be us. We're right under the arctic circle and the sun never goes down. Even in the middle of the night. I'm really grateful we're here in the summer not the winter. Basically, it's like a European Fillmore. Hahah there are about 9 branch members and on Sunday there were 7 total there. 2 were the branch prez and his wife and 2 were us the missionaries. We have some work to do and we're trying really hard but it's really difficult. The area book had no progressing investigators and lots of the members are inactive so basically our job is to strengthen people wherever we go.

We have one investigator! Her name is Helena. She's about my age and she lives with her boyfriend and his family here. She needs the gospel SO badly. She just needs to know of her worth. We taught her on Friday and we are going to hang out with her in a little while. We're trying to develop that friendship and trust. Please pray for her! She's our only investigator as of now so we're working on it... pray for that too!

Everyone here is so green smoothie or granolaish. Basically I love it so much. They all have this beautiful perfect skin and blue eyes and they don't wear any makeup ever. They're gorgeous people. I just stare all the time. My apartment is really cute! It's exactly what you would picture an apartment in Norway to be. I'll try to send pictures at the end of this email. Our landlords aren't members, but they greeted us nicely! Norwegian men don't wear shirts in the summer so the landlord is old and he has a big belly but he was really nice. And the lady told us to call her bestemor which means grandma. Maybs we'll convert them too!

Ahhh I have so much to tell you and no time! I'll definitely be writing you a big handwritten letter to tell you the rest and I'll send it as soon as I can. Here's my new address before I forget.

Søster Mikelle Pyne

Sørlandsveien 71

8624 Mo i Rana

Norway

We have the best blankets in the world. They're called dinas and they are like down comforters and then we have the cutest um... I forgot what they're called but they're those sheet things that go over them you know. They're so cute and I love them. It was finally cooler last night to actually use it. Oh yeah. That's the other thing. Mo i Rana has been so hot. Today it's finally raining and thank goodness! I'm so grateful for it. Ah I have to go. I love you all so much. Watch for hand written. I think it takes about a week. I know that God lives and that Jesus Christ loves us. I miss
you so much but I will see you soon! Be happy and feel my love for you!

Love,

Mikelle

Med Vennlig Hilsen, Elder and Sister Thurgood

Dear Brother and Sister Pyne,

We are Elder and Sister Thurgood, Valarie Diehl’s parents who are serving here in Oslo.

We were able to greet your daughter on Wednesday when she came to the Center for the Orientation

from the office couple, Elder and Sister Johansen and President and Sister Evans. She is such a delightful young woman. The whole group was amazing. They were tired, happy, sad, excited, scared, and a,whole mixture of emotions but ready to begin this long awaited for adventure. The enthusiasm was so fun to see. We loved finally meeting your daughter. She is with an awesome companion. Sorry we didn’t get a picture of them together, she came later and there was a lot going on at the time. They will work very well together. Here are a few pictures of her day here at the Center before she went to her new area. You can be very proud of your daughter. She is ready to go and serve the Lord. Her

testimony shows in her eyes and smile. We showed her some pictures of Katherine on her mission. It

was very fun to have this connection.

We hope this gives you a glimpse of what your sweet daughter has experienced so far in Norway. It is good to have them all here. She will be a great help to the work of the Lord. We are grateful for good Dad's and Mom's that teach their children so well. We will let you know if we see her again.

Med Vennlig Hilsen, 

Elder and Sister Thurgood

Valarie Diehl's Dad and Mom