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.