Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Transferred!

hei famile!
guess what!? I got transferred!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am in the California of Norway! KRISTIANSAND! It is the southest area for missionaries, and it is just a sisters area!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is actually a senior couple here too, but no elders! And the senior companion in our companionship is Søster Johnson, she was in the MTC with me - in the other district! WAY cool that were together! :)


There are 3 companionships that are like this now, 2 of us greenies together, and were one of them! :) So I found out on Friday morning and left last night, by myself, on a train! It was a little scary, because I was alone and had my whole life in 3 heavy suitcases, but it all worked out!


Søster johnsons last companion is actually on her way HOME now! Crazy huh!? Well I am SO excited to be here!!!!! Kristiansand is where everyone wants to go, i heard :) It is green and the dialect is pretty! And what makes this cool too is that I am still in the same district! They closed an area, that used to be in K-sands district, so now were in stavangers district! So we will travel to Stavanager for Zone Leader Training...oh and Zone Conference is combined with the North Zone next month...and so were all meeting up north in trondheim!!! Im way excited!!!! :)


This week in Stavanger was way cool! We met with a girl, Mina`s friend, named veronica, who we ahve wanted to meet with for a while now! We actually taught her 2 lessons!!! And so now shes an investigator! The work is just going to take off now, because we also got a man to church that walked up to us at the busstop!!!


I am really going to miss stavanger. Last night before I took off, 5 yw came to the train station to see me off.


Annett, the one that i sent a pic of me and her to and said az would love her, made cookies for me and gave them to me :) And Mina Steffonson told us yesterday at the train station that she is starting her papers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She started them yesterday after I left :) She is 22 and had gone on contacting splits with us. I just love her so much and I am SO glad she is going!


It was soooo sad to say goodbye to those yw yesteday, then to the elders, and to my companions.


Ughhh i just cried and cried. okay, not sobbing, but it was really sad. Ingrid, Mina, Trina, Lin, and Annett came. And Minas, trinas, and lins mom was waiting in the car becasue she couldnt park it so i went ou thtere and said goodbye to her. ther efamily, minus mina, had gotten home from the ward temple trip a few hours earlier and still came to say goodbye. I LOVE that family! Anita, there mom, was totallly like my mom here. When we all come to visit norway we are going to come to stavanger and you will all just love them. Anyways, although it was SO sad to leave, I am SUPER glad to be in Kristiansand! Elder Torjeson, our district leader, is actually from here and I love his dialect! and I can understand him easier than people from stavanger . So Im really excited :)


It sounds lik eyou are all doing great! I pray for you all all of the time and I am so thankful to have you all as my family.


Let me think if there is anything else...OH! Su, a new convert as of a little more than a year ago, is so sweet! She gave the other sisters things for there birthdays, but berfore i left, she gave me earrings for my birthday haha and she gave us all matching pins. She is the one from berma! Ah i just love Stavager. But even though I have only been in Kristiansand for a few hours, i think im goin gto love it! The apartment is SUPER cute and modern! (NOTHING LIKE THE STAVANGER ONE haha) And there is only 2 of us :) Ill send pictures next week, i havent taken any yet! But also, there is a Center here in sentrum! Which is SO GOOD! And our apartment is super central. Unlike stavanger. Im just gonna love it here :)


Anyways, i love you all so much! I hope you are all doin ggreat!!!!!!!!!
BTW, here is my new address!!!!


Festningsgata 47 #210
4612 Kristiansand
Norway



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Wednesday, July 24, 2013




Hei familie!
So this week was just full of miracles! This week could potentially be my last week in Stavanger, but we will see :) transfers are next monday!!! Super crazy!


But lets see what I want to start with. So last monday, once pday was over, we decided to go contacting instead of to FHE with the YSA. I told mom the first story, but i'll shorten it for you all, so that i have time to send pictures, etc. But we were talking to a man, who wasnt that intersted, and a little african walked up to us and asked if we were mormon, and then flat out said, "can i have your book?" Were going to hopefully meet with him this week! haha! He had talked to missionaries in trondheim, so thats cool! So that is what started our miracles! We wanted 2 appointments, and that is exactly what SIster mourik and i got, before even walking around the pond once! hmm...either two apps or 2 numbers...i dont remember exactly what the goal was, but we got it! :) (didnt get all of the apps to really happen, because they didnt all show up, but we still made the appointments with them) but Then Sister Clark and I talked to two 25ish year old men, and they ended up meeting with us this week! Holy cow it was crazy! :)


So then the next day sister mourik, sister clark and I were wating for a bus. We didnt know this at the time, but we were actually waiting for the wrong bus. But that makes this story that much more cool! We were waiting and all of a sudden this man walks up to us and asks if we remember him, we said yes (i didnt really...kinda recognized...but i thought he was actually someone else kanskje haha) But he started talking about how he showed up to the appointment and no one was there, becuase he had the wrong time and day! But something happened with his phone so we couldnt get in contact. So we rescheduled and ended up meetin with him on saturday! He is man from kazachstan who speaks english and russian. He decided that it was time for him to figure out if God is real, etc. So were meeting with him again this coming saturday! :) WAY cool! So, we also took some girls in the ward out contacting, one of them is 22 and LOVED it! Funny story. We started talking to a man on the bench and he was just in love with Mina. He was saying in broken norwegian, "So..if I liked you (poingin to mina)........or you. (pointing to me...tyring to not make it obvious that he liked mina) could we get married, since you are mormon and i am islam?" HAHA! It was so funny. I tried calling him on saturday to remind him to come to church annnndddd he hung up on me. Haha, oh well :\ Hes just not completely prepared!


So also this week, we got kebabed (what they call it if someone doesnt show up, because missionaries would go get a kebab when it happened haha) by someone. We were on our way home and i saw a man sitting somewhat close to our house. So i contacted him, and he said we could jsut teach him right then! We taught him the first lesson right there, sitting on the ground\grass and got an annen appointment with him! We met with him again, saturday morning at his house. It was all smoky in there, but what a sweet guy. Hes probably in his 60s, lives alone, and is from Iran or something like that. He has lived in norway since the 70s? But he told us he doesnt want to join any religion. Were still going to work with him though :) I guess lots of people say they just want to learn and then end up getting baptized, so well see how it goes! He was going through cigarette withdrawals or something during our lesson though, cuz he was chewing on his finger. Poor guy.
But that was a miracle, because our goal was to get one teach that day, and that person kebabed us, but we still got a teach!!!!!!!!! :) The Lord is so aware of us!


Sister Mourika nd I also talked to some people...super awkward about the Law of Chastity, but we were supposed to meet with them and they didnt come, and then we called again and they are having problems (bf and gf) so were still gonna try to meet with the guy, Magne this week. Also, a man that kebabed us a few weeks ago, called us and told us the reason he didnt come was because he didnt have minutes on his phone to cancel. but still wanted to meet! So we met like....40 minutes later at the libraray! and we got a soft baptismal commitment out of him! (if he knows its true he will be baptized) SO COOL! He said, Nei Takk to get baptized at a specific date at this point, but ill let you know what happens with him :)
So then I got to go to a party! haha
well, a member, who hasnt been coming to church often invited us to her bday party, and then kinda made us feel bad if we didnt come, so i went with the senior couple (splits with sister haugen) and the two other sisters went an app we had, that didnt end up working out. But guess what?? it was a PHILIPPINO PARTY! SO I had delicious philippino food! haha! :) I could not be sent to the phillipines, i would get so fat!!!!!!! But it was cool!


My langauge is coming along, i just LOVE norwegian and Norway is my favorite place!
Anyways, like...no one was at church on sunday because it was a stake temple trip (ward maybe?) in sweden. So it was pretty small :) Anyways, I should go so that I can send pics and stuff. But I love you all so much!!!!!!!!
Have a gerat week! I pray for you all all the time :)
Love, Søster Chapman :)






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Sunday, July 7, 2013

a little late ... but last week's letter & pics! tons of pics!

Hei!!!!



So this week we gave ourselves 2 hours to email because last week was just too short! But oh my goodness. I have such a list to write to you all!!!
This week was THE hardest week of my mission. And I know why. haha Its because i thought of myselft the entire week. I am the biggest most annoying problem of overthinking, and it just went on steroids. I started thinking, ah my family would think down on me if they knew i thought this, or im such a bad person, or oh no is something wrong with me!? And it was honestly just EATING at me! Satan was just KILLING me this week. I dont think i have ever cried more in a week. I fasted twice, and pretty much never stopped praying...well this was part of last week too. Anyways, Satan just knows exactly where to push my buttons! But last night we watched the missionary broadcast - speaking of, they're going to start having missionaries use facebook now and get ipads in some places..cool huh?! - but after the broadcast I was talking to one of our zone leaders named elder burt. He had been having a hard week\couple days too. So we were just talking and he said the exact thing that i needed to hear, adding on to the exact thing that i needed to hear in the conference. In the broadcast one of the apostles said that the greatest most powerful teacher is the mother. Which relates back to my Patriarchal Blessing, how reading the scriptures will help me be a good mother, and so much more about being a mom. And then Elder Burt said something like this, "When we're going through trials we need to step back and look at why were on our missions. And then step back even farther and look at why we are on earth." It hit me right then. I am here on earth so that I can have my own family, and live with them forever. My children are on the other side of the veil cheering me on and crying when im sad and being my guardian angels. Satan tries to blur our purpose. He tries to make us focus on one silly little thing that doesnt matter. But when we step out of the corner of the picture and see the whole thing, Satan has no power. He cant tell us that our purpose is different. Anyways, still trying to get over this overthinking problem. But that is something that really touched me.


I also came to know the Atonement better this week. It is so insane how the Lord works, I had been praying for charity, humility, patience, a deeper love for the scriptures, and more sincere prayer. And guess what I got? Those exact things from this past week! I have never jumped into the scriptures so much, or begged Heavenly Father so much. I have never had so much patience with a trial. I know without a shadow of a doubt that the Lord gives us the things that we are asking for. He will do it in a way that will break us til we are almost at rock bottom, and then will build us back up as better people. It is also so interesting how the Lord puts other people in our lives to answer our prayers. Actually, Elder Burt told me that I said something that he needed to hear too. And we were just talking...not trying to really help eachother, but just discussing. This week I have recieved answers to my prayers through my companions and others and I love that. Also, I came to realize that I wasnt even using the Atonement properly. I was asking for Heavenly Father to take away this problem. Then I realized, I need to ask him to give me the strentgth to overcome this. In Mosiah 25 (?) it talks om the burdens were lighter on the shoulders, and then on the morrow it was taken away. We need to pray for the strength to overcome things. We cant just be acted upon, we need to act.


Last week was cool!!! We had the Midnight Sun thing where we got to stay out til midnight! Well we couldnt the actual night of it because it was sunday but we got to the night before, saturday. We went to a members house, the steffonsons - who i love SO MUCH! And we got permission to watch tangled. So we did and ate candy and played games!!! Ahhh it was so fun!! Then the next day, we went to a ward bbq thing at a beach to celebrate it. we didnt stay the whole time but it was fun :)


We also hiked Preikestolen last week!!!!


AHHHHH!


You will all LOVE that hike when you all come here! it was hard, but the coolest thing ever! Im going to send lots of pictures, cant wait for you to see them! :)


Oh, also last last week I fell of my bunk bed. hahahahaa


I was getting down one morning, half asleep and i tripped off my ladder, tried catching myself with my other foot on the couch, slipped, tried catching myself with my hand, and then hit my head HARD on the hard part of the couch. Anyways, my hand was wrapped for a couple days and my head kinda hurt like a headache in that area at times. But i was ok! haha my hand was bruised, but I know that there were angels there that helped me not get as hurt! My comp Sister Clark describes it as in tangled when flynn rider falls out of the cabnet right on his face..hahaha yeah that was me! I was honestly so out of it, because it was like....630ish and i just laid there, stradling the arm with my head on the couch saying, "sister mourik i hit my head, i hit my head sister mourik, ahhh i hit my head." hahahahhaa anyways, im good now! (:



We also went to the HIlls, an american couple, for dinner last week! SHe dated zach buchanon ahahhahaa anyways, they made our choice of something were missing and guess what we had!? CHICKEN POT PIE! haha and salad and fruit! super deilig! heres a hilarious joke for you all that we told there:
I was like, "why did the monkey fall out of the tree?"
"because its dead!"
and brother hill was like "why did the squirrel fall out of the tree?"
"because it was stapled to the monkey!" HAHAHAHAHA! sorry if you dont think thats funny. I almost died it was so hilarious though! hahahahaha
Another thing that was super funny. I was sitting int he back of the bus by someone i didnt know and my comps found seats together so were sitting togethre. we were about to get off the bus when this old guy started talking to them saying, "Praise the Lord" and stuff like that. He was talking really loud and was drunk kanske??? maybe? haha and so i was just sitting there almost bursting out in laughter because he had his arms around the chair around sister mourik! hahahahaha so then they get off and he sees me coming. He looks at my badge and says, "Jesu Kristi?!" and starts saying the same kind of stuff to me! really loud on the bus!!! hahaha so then he continues to talk to me and asked where im from so i get off the bus with him and hes talking to me and my comps. then he screams "praise the lord! praise Jesus Christ!" again and then STARTS BOWING TO US!!!!! HAHAHAHAHA! I almost died laughing!!!! We left like right after that and had to sit on a bench and laugh for a minute or two. ahhh man it was SO funny! The day that we went to the hills for dinner, earlier in the day sister clark had us all contact alone. So i went up to this older guy and ended up getting his number and an appointment with him! I couldnt understand lots of what he said, but anyways got the app with him! so later before we go into the hills, sister clark is talking to him on the phone and i guess he started going off on how impressed he was with me, that he knew i couldnt understand him very well, but that he was so impressed that i was on the street speaking norwegian doing this! hahah and he said that he would meet with us but if he didnt like the gospel he would take me out for lunch! hahahaha sister clark was just on the phone saying, "yeah, shes a good example." it was funny haha
Oh! also last week a recent convert, su from berma, made us sushi! so we sat on the harbor and at it...ahh it was yummy :) anyways, now that ive written a novel haha OH! wait! last last week we met with a less active named juni. the day berfore we met with her or something, our plans were messed up or something so we went through our area book calling people. We foudn a girl named mai, her sister was a memnb3er but she wasnt so we called. WE got ahold of her, but she said oh yeah, heres my sister! so we made an app with juni. when we were meeting with her she told us a story, that sister clark hd to tell us later cuz we didnt exaclty understand during it hahaha, but she had been talking with her sister about how she wanted to start to go to churhc again...baptist, muslim, or mormon. or something like that. and after she said that, the phone ringed. and guess who it was? US! Everyhting is so inspired by the Lord. Not sure if it was exactly when they were talking, but soon after we called her. Ah, we love Juni.


I am loving it more and more every day here in stavanger. IT is just BREATHTAKING here! Everyday i feel like I thikn about how much brookie would love to live here. our family would fit in perfectly! In a little mustard house with flowers by the windows, just walking to sentrum and buying our delicous food from the grocery store, and eating a chocolate bar on the way home. hahaha i miss you all so much! Just so you know mom, this week I read your letters SO much! ugh this week was hard. anyways, I love you all so much! Life is amazing!


Oh one more thing, sister pace, one of the sister training leaders who travels to see us and go on splits came and that was a great experience! anywhooo, i pray for you all daily, actually like...everytime a pray which is a lot! haha
OH! wait! also, i got sick last last week too. My stomach was just all gross so I had to lay down and sleep for a little :\ my companions made me! haha anyways, im good now. I love you all so much!


Jeg vet at Gud er her for hver av oss. Han elsker oss. Jeg vet at vi kan bo med hver andre igjen, for evig! Og jeg er skjempe takknemlig for det. Vi er her på jorden slik at vi kan komme nærmer til Kristus og bli som Ham. Og jeg er veldig takknemlig at jeg er en misjoner i Norge. jeg er glad i menneskene her!
Jeg elsker doker!
Love, Søster Chapman



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