Heavenly Father is blessing us with crazy miracles.

Hey guys!

I officially learned how to knit this week and I'm obsessed! Everyone knits here. I think it's the cutest thing because it's just a part of their culture. They are so cool! I got some alpaka yarn and some knitting needles and it calms me right on down before I got to sleep at night. Haha.

Sara told us she had a friend that wanted to meet us this week! Her name is Nadia and she had been reading about different religions and came across "the Mormons" and wanted to know more and Sara said, "Actually, I know some! Come and meet them!" We told her a little bit more and plan to meet with her again this next week. It's amazing the difference it makes when people invite their friends to learn more. I know that's how the Lord's work is going to speed forward.

Sara didn't come to church yesterday and we were really worried. She sent a text that said, "I'm not coming today, I'll explain later." But then right before sacrament started she sent another one that said, "I'm coming. Save me a seat." She told us that she decided to see if she wanted to come to church to see us or if she really wanted to come and she said she slept through the first meetings and then woke up and said, "I have to go to church." She told us she was really sad that she missed young womens too. I was so happy to hear that! We're helping her apply to BYU this week too. Good things are happening!

Remember Heidi from the restaraunt? We met her this week and showed her "Because of Him" at the church. She got tears in her eyes and told us all about what she believes. Everything she believes in is doctrine. We were talking about how the Holy Ghost confirms the truth and how you can have a belief in God because of it and she stopped and said, "No. I don't believe God is there. I know that God is there. And I'm so excited to meet Him." It was a really neat lesson. I love those ones.

Saturday night we visited Torild. She brought pizza, we brought apple cake, and we taught her the most significant message in the world. She got tears in her eyes as we explained Joseph Smith's experience and said, "Oh if there was a prophet today I would listen to him." I just grinned and told her there is and he's talking to us next weekend. Come and see!! 

I'm loving teaching all these girls right now. It's refreshing and Heavenly Father is blessing us with crazy miracles. I know that He knows me and what I need.

I love you! Think of good questions and get answers from conference!

Love,

Søster Pyne

Hey hey! I got some things to tell you from the 3724.

We have been trying to spend time with lots of different members so they feel comfortable with us and we aren't just "another missionary" to them. So... what we're really trying to do is win over their hearts. Haha but this week we had family home evening with this cute little Norwegian family. We put pieces of paper on the floor that said different parts of the Plan of Salvation and then had them stand on them as a family and then take turns hopping to the next one. When they got to the Celestial Kingdom we gave them cookies and told them to enjoy them with their family. I hope that's what the Celestial Kingdom is like. :) Then we talked about how their friends don't know about this plan and their little seven-year-old said, "I need to give a Book of Mormon to my teacher." And his parents asked him who had told him to do that and he said, "No one. I just need to do it." So we told him we would get him one at the activity on Thursday and he walked in the church that night and went straight to Sister Olsen and said, "Where's the book?" We were so proud of him! We are going to help these Norwegian members understand the importance of doing missionary work through the example of their children and youth. 

On Tuesday night we got to visit another family in the ward that lives on a little island called Sandøya. It's right by the ocean. We drove and then took a ferry across the water. I LOVE BOATS. Their view was incredible and they fed us fresh fish and told us their conversion stories. The wife is Finnish and the husband is Norwegian and they both have very individual and personal conversion stories. Heavenly Father loves His children and He prepares them for years and years. The husband didn't even believe in God and was a rough sea man living on boats and then he fell and broke his back and a man in the hospital gave him a little New Testament. He put it away and didn't think anything of it until lots of years later when he heard a voice that said, "Read that book." He didn't do it, and it told him again a different time. It's so amazing to me how that works. It was dark when we took the ferry back to our car and the stars were out and I could smell the ocean and we were the only people on it so we stood by the edge and took it all in. It made my heart so happy to have the ocean and a boat and the stars all in one place.

ferrrryyyy

Thursday night at the ward activity the Bishop came up to me and said, "I have a friend here named Torill. We're going to go in my office and teach her. I don't know exactly how this is going to go." Haha I was so scared! But we watched "Mountains to Climb" and then talked about how our message is to help with anything and everything in life. She told us that she had had a dream where the sentence, "God has a plan for you" kept going through her mind. Then she said, "But I don't know what that plan is!" Sister Olsen told her that the night before she had prayed to be led to someone that was prepared and tears rolled down Torill's cheeks. We testified to her that she has a loving Heavenly Father and she said she felt so relieved and calm. It was one of the most powerful lessons I have been a part of on my mission. 

We've spent a lot of time with Sara again this week. I'm going to miss her so much. This morning she called us and said, "Can you guys come over tomorrow and help me look at BYU's website? I want to apply." WHAT? YES! We got to eat dinner with her family twice this past week. Her dad is an incredible cook-- we ate fresh salmon one night and then last night it was fresh lamb and mushrooms that he literally said, "I went to the forrest earlier today and picked them." It was incredible! Although her dad and two brothers are Atheist, we talked about families around the dinner table and I can see that these are the beginnings of the Lord starting to weave the Gospel into their lives. Sara told us last night that she wants to discuss baptism again at our meeting on Friday. She's coming. :)

All week I've been trying to study desires and how the desires of our hearts work with God's will. I feel like I don't understand that very well at all. I was reading in the Old Testament this morning and I was thinking about how neat it is that in God's plan, ultimately we receive our greatest desires. We act in accordance to the things that we want most. That's why Heavenly Father looks on our hearts because our actions may not always portray what other people think our desires are even though we may be trying our best to act in accordance with what we desire most. Also keeping your heart soft means experiencing pain because your heart is vulnerable. But that is the only way we can grow in understanding of each other, the Gospel, and ourselves. It's how our relationships with each other and Heavenly Father become something bigger. 

I know that Jesus Christ lives and I know that the Gospel is true. I've thought a lot about what my greatest desire is-- and it's what everyone else's greatest desire is too-- to be a sealed family in the Celestial Kingdom. All the little details before that are taken care of through living the Gospel. 

check out this pup! he's a norwegian fox and
his name is "Nasty" haha
except you don't say it like that in Norwegian

You guys mean the world to me. I love you. We're gonna make it. 

Love,

Søster Pyne

He is there, still in charge of this work.

Are you tired of reading these things yet? Haha only a few more.

We had another good week. Heavenly Father sent us to a sweet Indian woman who wants children more than anything and has been struggling to have them, a Cuban salsa dancer that has a strong belief in God but doesn't know what to do with it, a little waitress (at a restaurant with the best yellow curry in the world!) that asked us for OUR phone number and can't wait to talk more about the Gospel, and a broken woman who is rebuilding her life after 30 years and is so ready to accept the help of the Atonement. He works in mysterious ways, but in ways that show me that He is there, still in charge of this work.

Sara fasted for the first time yesterday and came to a fireside at the Bishop's after church. We talked about eternal families in young womens and she wrote on a piece of paper that her greatest desire is to have a family that has the Holy Ghost. It's coming. She has been such a blessing to teach. I love her. 

This week I've learned more about the unconditional part of Heavenly Father's love. I know that He loves us. I'm learning more about how to give it to Him. Who knew giving it to Him could be so hard sometimes? 

We're these little missionaries that can finally keep a conversation in Norwegian and have enough courage to stick our hands out in the middle of walking paths and say, "Hey. We have the answer to life." Heavenly Father uses us just how He needs us. I'm grateful to be here. 

I love you!

Love,

Søster Pyne

This weekend was such a sacred experience.

all my comps at the conference. i LOVE these girls!

Mine kjære venner,

This weekend was such a sacred experience. I'm so grateful to be a missionary.

We woke up super early on Saturday morning to take the train to Oslo. Did I tell you that Sara just so happened to be in Oslo the same time Elder Bednar was coming so she got to come?? And she just so happened to be scheduled to take the same train as us even though it left at 6:30 in the morning. So we rode the train there with her. It was all a miracle! We had a sisters conference all day Saturdayat the mission home. It was fantastic. I got to see all of my girls that I haven't seen in so long including Sister Frampton!! We cried when we saw each other. Haha I love that woman. We talked about good things and ate good food and loved being with each other for the whole day. It was in preparation for the new group of 11 sisters coming next transfer because everyone will be training but it was also the last time my whole group of 17 sisters will be together because some of them are extending. It was a really good day. 

my 17 girls and the last time we'll all be together as missionaries

Sunday morning we went to stake conference with Elder Bednar and both stakes in Norway and all the 

missionaries. The building was packed and the Spirit was so strong. I got to see so many of the people that I love so much from my whole mission and my face hurt from smiling so much. Sara was really nervous and a little overhwhelmed, but she came by herself and sat with us. I was so impressed. When Elder Bednar got up to speak he said, "I would like to do something a little different today. I would like to speak to those of who are not members of our faith about why our church is called what it is."  I looked at Sister Hartley and we both had tears in our eyes. Sara immediately felt comfortable and at home instead of like an outsider. Then Elder Bednar did the coolest thing ever. He taught the first lesson in the most beautiful way I have ever heard. It was flawless. And then he talked about every single one of Sara's concerns. Alchohol, social norms, families. It was unbelievable. Afterward she was so happy. Elder Bednar was so personable and hilarious! 

I didn't expect him to be like that because he is a doctrinal giant. But he was so human too. He told us, "Now you're thinking oh great, Elder Bednar is going to preach to us about how we need to do missionary work. I'm not. Just live the gospel. And you'll be weird. And people will ask you why you're weird. And you'll tell them." He said very clearly very many times that missionary work is the biproduct of conversion and if you're not doing missionary work then you aren't truly converted. And then he said, "I invoke the blessing on you that the influence through you to this country will shine and your fear will be cast away and you will never hesitate to share the reason of hope that is in you." It was SO powerful.

all the Bergen girls and Anisha

After that we ran to the trikk to go to the church in Oslo so we could have our own personal missonary conference with Elder Bednar. We were so spoiled. We started by talking about things we had learned from the way he taught the first lesson. And he would ask follow up questions to individuals after they shared what they learned. He created this environment where all we were doing was learning from the Spirit and he did it through asking inspired questions. It was ridiculous. And then he said, "Okay. Who has questions for me? This is probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity so take advantage." And people started asking him really good questions. I had thought of what I might ask him, but I didn't feel like any of them were quite right. What I didn't realize was that I had a bunch of things in my heart that I wanted to know but hadn't conciously thought about very much. As the meeting went on and more questions were asked I got so many answers to things I have been thinking about for a long time. I think they were more confirmations and reassurances. By the end I was so exhausted. I felt like the Nephites when Christ visited them and told them to go rest for a while but they begged Him for more. 

I think the biggest reassurance I got was about God's love. Someone asked the question, "I know that God's love is there, but what do I do with it?" He answered it through a personal experience. He said he was at a Q and A mission conference and a girl on the front row looked super grumpy the whole time. After the conference he asked the President what was wrong with the girl and told him that he felt like she had a question still that she didn't get to him. Elder Bednar told the President to have her at another member meeting that was going to be later in the week and to have her sit near the front so she could ask her question. She ended up being late to the meeting and was heading toward the back when someone randomly grabbed her and her companion and told them to sit on the very front row. So there she was, right in front of Elder Bednar and when he opened it up for questions she said, "How do I know it's the Holy Ghost?" Elder Bednar told us, "Now I have no idea why I said this because I had never answered this question like this before. But I told her when it's something you don't want to do you know it's the Holy Ghost." When he got back to Salt Lake he had gotten an email from the girl's uncle that said that Elder Bednar was the hero of their family because the girl had been wanting to leave her mission early but she had decided to stay because of his answer. When the girl got home from her mission she went to see Elder Bednar to tell him she had completed her mission and tell him more of the story. She had decided to go home and told her mission President. They tried to schedule tickets but for some reason couldn't get any available flights for a week, so she had to wait a week. And then Elder Bednar was coming the next week so her President told her she might as well stay. So she was at that conference and had been struggling to know if she was even supposed to be there. And then Elder Bednar answered her question like that and she stayed. 

we love the fields of Skien at sunset

His whole point of the story was that God loves us one by one. He said, "So let me tell you something about the love of God. He sends the 15 of us, His representatives, around the world. But not for conferences, not to give talks, but to find the one. And on that trip, that girl was the one. Will God send an Apostle half way across the world for one? Yes. He will. That is always the way He works." He told us to find the 6 times in the Book of Mormon that it says "one by one" and read them in context and really study them. I loved it because I get overwhelmed by all the people I need to love. But it's done one by one and singular, personal realtionships are what matter most. God's love is individual and personal and He will go to every end to help us feel His love. 

I'm just touching the surface with all the things I learned but it was an incredible weekend! I brought Sister Oslen back to Skien with me last night and we collapsed in our beds. I'm excited to be with her though. She's a really cute girl with an amazing story. 

I know that we have living Apostles today. I felt like I was getting taught by the Savior Himself at some points yesterday. I know that Heavenly Father loves us and it's not a conditional love. It's real. This Gospel is the best thing that could happen to any of us!

Be happy and enjoy your week. I'm coming to you in a few!

Love,

Søster Pyne

Our whoooolllle mission

#stayininskien

Hei hei alle sammen!

Skien rocked it this week. Well, Heavenly Father rocked it. He's been blessing us with so many good miracles. Twice this week I've stood there and tried to comprehend what just happened. God is there! He really is!

Sister Hartley is leaving me, we're sad about that, but we knew it would probably happen. I'll be in Skien for my last transfer with Sister Olsen. I knew I'd probably be getting a new companion and I secretly wished it would be Sister Olsen. I guess Heavenly Father hears secret wishes too! It's going to be good.

Monday night we drove all around trying to find this less-active lady's house. The address was this weird old farm house and a barn and we weren't sure where to knock. So we knocked on everything! But then a different lady that Sister Hartley had met on the street a long time ago answered the door and she let us come in. We thought she wasn't a member for a minute, but then she started talking about church things and we realized she was a different less-active lady! She needed us to come and Heavenly Father sent us right to her door. It was the weirdest way of finding her, but it was a miracle. 

Tuesday night we ate dinner with Ragnhild, an amazing lady in the ward that served a mission and then raised 8 kids by herself after her husband died, and she had Floris (the kid from Germany that I talked about a couple weeks ago) there to eat dinner with us. We talked to him about finding God in His life and creating a personal relationship with him. He is skeptical, but he's interested. It will be interesting to see where it goes with him. As we were leaving we mentioned that we were going to knock on some doors and Ragnhild said, "Can I make a suggestion?" (Um... never happens in Norway... YES please) and she said, "You know the blue and yellow houses in the center of Skotfoss? I feel like there is someone there that is ready." The blue and yellow houses are really confusing apartment-type things and we had no idea which doors to knock on and who lived where. We knocked on a door, a lady answered and then told us no and shut the door. We knocked on another one that we weren't really sure if it was the front door. No answer. Then we knocked on another one that was kinda propped open and no one answered so we decided to poke our heads in and see if it was a house or apartment building. We knocked on the door inside too but no one answered and we just kinda stood there confused for a second. Now that I think about it I don't really know what we were doing. But we turned around to leave and a girl was coming out of the second door we had knocked on. We went over to her and she had this little smile on her face like she wasn't surprised we were there. I asked her what she believed and she said, "I don't know." Then I asked if she had heard about the church and she said, "Yeah. I lived with a Mormon family in Sweden for a year." And I said, "Great, when can we meet?" She said she had time any day. It was one of those moments where you don't really understand what is happening, you just know God is in charge. We met with her on Thursday and she told us a little more about her life. She has a lot of hard things going on right now and she's going to Spain for a couple weeks, but we're going to keep contact with her. I called Ragnhild after and told her what happened and she was so excited. That's how you do member-missionary work! 

Sara is still blowing my mind. We met with her on Tuesday and tried to set a date for baptism with her. She got really nervous and told us she isn't ready to set a date, but she told us that she has three concerns. 1. she wants a testimony 2. she wants her dad's approval 3. telling her friends that she can't drink anymore even though it's such a part of their culture. We talked about resolutions for them and then talked a little bit about how Satan knows that she is finding more and more truth each day and she needs to be aware that he is going to do everything he can to get her to go away from it. We talked about that talk from last conference about how the biggest dust cloud is right above the truth. I feel like Sara is 25 because she just gets it. She's been being prepared her whole life.

An hour after we met with her she called us crying and told us she tried talking to her friend about everything and her friend acted really weird and told her to stop meeting with us and that we were trying to control her. We said, "See? Satan wants to get you so bad!" We talked about how she was so hurt because the things she tried to tell her friend about mean something to her. She said, "I feel like it's true! I told my friend that I've been to so many churches and no one has answers and I'm finally getting answers!" I'm so impressed with her determination to find the truth even though she's alone in her family and her friend group.

it gets prettier and prettier every week, i swear!

Her dad drove her to church yesterday after having a conversation with her about how he would respect her decision to be baptized and would support her even though he is Atheist. And then she came to young womens and told us she had drunk some wine the night before at a birthday party but as she was doing it she thought, "This is dumb. Why do I need this?" The Spirit is working on her so much and her concerns are getting resolved because she's willing. She always tells us, "If I expect God to give me answers then I have to try. He's always there, but I'm over here and I have to move closer to Him." She's 17!  All of this happened this week so.... who knows what is going to happen next week. Please pray for her to be able to receive and recognize a clear answer that the Book of Mormon is true and Joseph Smith was a prophet. 

After our Ragnhild experience we decided to try it out with some other members too. On Thursday we went on splits with the sister training leaders so Sister Hartley and Sister Aasen went to visit a sweet less-active grandma. They told her the story with Ragnhild and then asked her where to go to knock. She told them the second floor of her apartment building and guess what?? They found someone! A couple from India that believes in Jesus Christ. We visited them last night again and they said they had been waiting all day for us. We're going to find them a Book of Mormon in their language and take it to them this week. 

Saturday we had a bunch of miracle lessons that we weren't planning on at all. One of them was Jofrid. We visited her and read from the Book of Mormon and then I asked her if we could do anything for her before we left and she said, "Yeah! Color my hair!" kinda jokingly and I said, "Ok! I can if you want me to!" So she let me color her hair. Haha it was exactly what we needed though to help her open up a little more. Service always opens the heart. 

This morning while I was studying I was thinking about the difference between testimony and conversion. I feel like my testimony is the strongest it's ever been. There is no doubt in my mind that the gospel is true. But it hasn't been like that the whole time. I have doubted everything as a missionary and really had to search and dig deep within myself. The Spirit will always testify and retestify when you invite it though. When we were on splits Sister Aasen said that her brother said, "You just cannot know the extent of the Lord's work alongside you in this vineyard... no matter what you feel about yourself, your companions, or your mission as you struggle through it, as long as you are not giving up and you are still struggling to do something good, or even if you are struggling but the Lord is doing you some good, you will look back on it and know without a doubt that it was good, and it was worth it. You will feel, as I feel, a sacredness about the people, and the places, and the things you did on your mission." I feel like that explains how I feel. It's all worth it. And the Lord works miracles in you and everyone around you. There's nothing like it. I know that it's true! There's a bigger plan. 

I love you very much!

Love,

Søster Pyne

this land we live in... these are from Sara's phone.
she took all of these herself.