Oh what an experience it is to be a missionary. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

I only took one picture this week and I have no idea how...
 but this road is classic welcome to Norway. It's a fairytale over here.

Oh my goodness, guys! I love emailing you every week. Sister Robbins and I get way too excited to open our emails. It makes me feel so motivated and like I can do the next week. 

Sister Robbins and I found out we're going to be in Bergen for the next 8 weeks together. I think Heavenly Father wants to make sure we get these people baptized. But we had told Anders we might be leaving and he was so worried. He sent us the best text ever that said, "I pray every day for you guys and that you can be here in Bergen a little longer. I want you guys to be here when I get baptized." It was the hilight of the week! So we texted him Sunday morning when we found out and he was so excited. We told him that he has 8 weeks. Haha so let's get this man baptized! His cute little family is just waiting for all the blessings.

We had a pretty rough start to the week, but by the weekend it was much better. A kid randomly called us and told us he had read a little bit of the Book of Mormon and asked if we had time to meet. What? That hardly ever happens here. So we met him in the city, AND he brought a friend, and we answered all of his extremely good questions for an hour and half. He had read a ton of things and knew a lot. I guess he met missionaries sometime last year on the street and they just happened to give him a Book of Mormon. We don't usually just give them out unless we meet with people, so the whole thing was just a miracle. We were so grateful.

A couple minutes before we met with him, we were walking around the pond in the city talking to people and we talked to this nice man from China. He's here working for Stat Oil as an engineer and he said he likes physical evidence, but by the end of the conversation he said, "Well, if there is a God and He loves me, and there's a way to find Him, I want to know!" We said, "Come to church tomorrow!" And he did! We gave him a Book of Mormon in Chinese and he flipped through it all of sacrament meeting. I love how the Lord is providing a way even for His children in China that can't have missionaries come to them right now. 

Among other things, we attended a wedding, went and visited the brand new baby again, and helped with a baptism for a little girl in the ward this weekend, so we lived at the church, but it was really good. Weddings and babies made me feel weird. I'm glad I'm a missionary right now. Haha. 

Thank you for your prayers and your words and your love. It's the only way I'm doing any of this right now! I love you guys so much. Oh what an experience it is to be a missionary. I wouldn't trade it for the world. Keep praying for these people! I know that your prayers are answered and they help so much! 

Love,

Søster Pyne

May 17th was quite the celebration here!

I love you guys!!

May 17th was quite the celebration here! The sun was shining and the weather was beautiful. People are so funny. EVERYONE gets really dressed up-- the women were their bonads and the men wear a suit or their men bonads if they have one and they all walk in these chaotic lines that they call a parade and blow horns and drink beer and eat hot dogs. It was really fun to be in the city and watch people. We had a great day. We went to the city in the morning with all the missionaries and watched the parades and then we watched Joseph, King of Egypt in Norwegian and it felt so good but so weird to just sit on a couch and watch a movie in pants. Then we went to the church and had a barbeque with the missionaries and played whiffle ball just so we could add our American swing to things. 

my favorite bonad

The bonads were my favorite part, of course. They are so beautiful! All of them are so different because they are from different 
places of Norway. You wear the bonad that

is specific to where your family is from. My most favorite were these
 cream ones with flowers all over them. They were gorgeous! I was creepy and asked a random lady if I could take a picture with her just so I could show you her bonad. She told me it was the bonad for Bergen but they stopped making the cream colored ones. They say Bergen is the best place to be for the 17th of May so I lucked out!

Laila, the cute less active girl we have been working with had her baby! We got to go and visit her in the hospital and I almost died. I wanted to hold her baby so bad. But... I looked at her a lot. She's beautiful. We talked to Laila about the stripling warriors and how the little baby she was holding was a blank canvas. We told her how much our moms mean to us because they taught us to trust in God and how she has a responsibility to do the same. I am so grateful for you, mom! 

We have been meeting with Else Marie pretty regularly. She is so funny. She likes to eat and she likes to tell us all about her life but she is so sweet too. She wants to see a baptism before she gets baptized so there is a little girl in the ward getting baptized this Saturday that she is going to watch. We are planning on June 21st for Else. She told us she has heard a voice twice now that has said, "If you get baptized you will have more power in your life." Um... listen to it, lady! We testified to her over and over again that this is the truth and she needs to follow the Spirit. 

I was reading the "Teachings of Joseph Fielding Smith" last night and I love this quote. I had to translate it to English, so it's not exact, but he said, "Who among the Latter-Day Saints seeks for a place in the Telestial Kingdom? Who among the Latter-Day Saints seeks for a place in the Terrestrial Kingdom? We should not want anyting to do with these kingdoms. It is not the purpose for those who were baptized in the church nor should it be, to live in such a way to not find a place in the Celestial Kingdom. For baptism itself is the way to this kingdom. Baptism has two purposes. First and foremost to be cleansed from sin, and following, to enter the Kingdom of God, not the Telestial Kingdom, not the Terrestrial Kingdomm, but it is the entrance to the Celestial Kingdom where God lives. That is what baptism is for. That is what the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands is for. To prepare us so we can, with obedience, continue on and on keeping the Lord's commandments, until we dwell in the Celestial Kingdom." I love that so much! If you're going to get baptized, you better expect to live with God. 

After we taught Else Marie last week she came to a relief soceity activity with us. They were doing like a culture 17th of May night and we ate this stuff called rømmegrøt. It's basically warm sour cream with sugar and cinnamon and butter in it. It sounds awful, but I actually really like it. They eat it for 17th of May every year. Else seemed to really like the activity and the members were really good about helping her feel welcome. 

hiking this morning. love my Norway mountains!

Anders is coming! He's not getting baptized on the 24th, but he's getting there. He told us on Monday, "I'm starting to believe that what you guys are saying is true." I just love him. He keeps coming to church with his little family and reading the scriptures we text him every day. We're just really trying to help him understand the concept of prayer and how important it is to sincerely pray personally to God. Pray for him to understand prayer. He'll get it!

We went on splits with the other sisters this week and Sister Robbins met this lady from New York on the street. She said her son had talked with missionaries a lot a couple years ago but he "dropped out" because the missionaries started "really recruiting" him. Hahahaha that's what we do people... come join the army of Zion! She gave her her address though so we went and visited them this week. The son was sick so he happened to be home. I think he's about my age, but we talked to him and his mom for a minute and they told us we can come back this week. A FAMILY!! I'm really excited. I'm also really nervous about messing things up so pray for us to be able to follow the Spirit and that they can have open hearts. We're just seeing miracles over here!

I am so grateful for Heavenly Father and I am so grateful for your love. These experiences are things that you can't get anywhere else. What a blessing it is to be a missionary. I'll talk to you next week!

these are our snails that we collected

Love,

Søster Pyne

Oh! I forgot to tell you! We went on a road trip with the other Sisters this week to visit a member. It takes about an hour and a half to drive there but you have to drive the car on a ferry to get to their island! It was so much fun and really scary too. I can't believe I'm doing things like that. Norwegians are not bothered by nature at all. They just find a way to work around it.

1. don't play soccer with the elders 2. don't do drugs 3. always be a good member missionary

just smelling the flowers

Happy Monday!

I've learned some things this week.

1. don't play soccer with the elders

2. don't do drugs

3. always be a good member missionary

waiting for the bybane after sitting in the hospital 
until 10:30. look at how light it is outside!

On Friday night we have a sports night and all of our investigators and less actives and the missionaries play sports together. The elders have this incredible investigator and she came to play soccer with us on Friday. One of the elders accidentally elbowed her in the nose and she ended up on the ground crying. She was so afraid that it was broken and that it needed to get reset so it would heal right. One of the members had a car and the elders asked us to go with her since they weren't allowed to be in the car with them, so we went to the hospital. We sat in the hospital until 10:30 at night but we got to know her a lot better and she told us all about how much it means to her to have good friends in the church. She was really scared about everything and I asked her if she wanted to say a prayer with us. She really wanted us to pray and she was a lot calmer after. How cool that I get to do things like sitting in the hospital in Norway with a stranger and teach them how powerful and real prayer is! She was a lot calmer afterward and everything went fine. She even came to church yesterday with her black eye! 

Bergen is drug city... I never feel scared, but there are crazy people everywhere. We were walking through the park with Laila, our cute less active girl, and we found a bench to sit down on. These two ladies came walking toward us but they were looking in the bushes and looking at us weird and I couldn't figure out what was going on. Then one of them told us there was a man in the bushes that they thought might be dead. We looked and he looked like a zombie all curled up with garbage all around him. It made me so sad! The lady started to go under the bushes to see if he was alive and he started to move a little. He sat up with garbage stuck to his face and starting spitting a bunch. She came back out a little scared, but then went back in to ask if he needed help. He said no, but I was so impressed with the lady's courage and willingness to help someone that was really scary. She still saw him as a person. It made me think about what Christ would have done. I am grateful that there are still good people in the world. And also that I won't live in Bergen forever.

i'm obsessed with this tree. it looks like 
the tree of life and i think it's so pretty!

Yesterday was a really good Sunday. A couple members bore their testimonies about doing missionary work and how important it is for them to work with us. I can't emphasize it enough! It's all one work-- we're just called to do it full time and every else should help whenever they can and with whatever they can. Especially with inviting friends to hear about the gospel. I challenge all of you to do it. There's only good that can come from it and there is nothing more fulfilling. 

Anyway... we also had a really good spiritual week! We got to meet with Anders and his family on Wednesday night! I love them so much. We talked about the Plan of Salvation and watched "Because of Him." He's really afraid of what happens after this life and we had a powerful discussion about how if you have faith in Jesus Christ and believe that He was resurrected then you don't have to be afraid about what will happen. We had Mina help us draw the Plan of Salvation and bear her testimony to her dad about how they can be together as a family. It's always so neat to be there with them. We're going over again tonight to make a baptismal calendar and talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They have been such a blessing for me.

We also met with Else Marie a couple times. She is so funny. She always likes to have food when we meet so we made her tuna fish sandwiches and hot chocolate and she enjoyed herself very much, I think. Haha. We explained baptism and the priesthood in depth and she said, "Oh! That makes a lot more sense now and baptism doesn't sound like such a scary thing. Maybe I need to start coming to church more and see a baptism. But if that's what Jesus wants me to do, then I'll do it." She still won't let us set a date with her, but it's coming! She's the sweetest lady.

that's Anne, from Oslo who came to visit me!

 lunch with Anne.

I got to see one of my member friends from Oslo! 

She came to Bergen and took us to lunch. It made me miss Oslo a lot but it also made me so grateful for the friendships I have made here. They are what are most valuable to me and what I will bring home with me. I love these people for their goodness and desire to do what is right. 

I think that's all? Except for that I'LL SEE YOU IN A FEW DAYS!!! I can't wait. This is a big deal, people. It's going to be so fun! I love you forever. 

Love,

Søster Pyne