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.