Monday, October 22, 2012

A Great Friend!


A Great Friend!

Well this week has been exciting, from picking baptismal spots to having a baptism. Yeap that is right this week we had a baptism... Her name is Christine Sikveland and she is AWSOME! It has been an interesting road teaching Christine, because we never really looked at her as an investigator... We always saw her as a great friend... I guess some missionaries look at people and merely see them as a statistic or as an investigator.  For me I always have looked at people I have met as friends... and found the things that I love about them. I can say that is was not hard to find the love for Christine She has a heart of gold and is by far one of the nicest people I have met on my mission. So I would like to share how we met Christine  Well here in Ålesund we have a double apartment.  One side of our house contains a 60 inch TV and a kitchen with two sofas, so we often have youth activities here at the apartment... Ålesund does not have very many members we have about 8 people in church every week and only 5 youth. We try to do as much as possible with the youth here because that is what seems to matter the most! For those of you who remember Sara from the Goat Story, she had invited some of her friends over to our alternate apartment for tacos and a movie night, that we hold each week. This is where we met Christine. She is a very shy girl and she just moved up here to Ålesund from Stavanger area to come to art school. She is an amazing artist!  Elder Perry and I are not the pushy bunch of missionaries. We like to give people their space. We try not to attack everyone with the gospel, mainly because that's how everyone perceives us, just wanting to convert everyone we see! Although sometimes that may be our desire because we know how much this message can help people. Through out my mission I have found the people that I have gotten to know and love have been the people that it really means something to me to share the gospel with them. It is such a great feeling to share this message with the ones you love and care about rather than sharing it with people who you don't really know... So as time went on we kept talking to Christine and realized just how great of a person she was!  What a fantastic friend she had become!  We neglected to try and teach her for the fear that we would loose her as a friend. It came to the point where we could no longer take it and told her! "Hey look Christine you are a great friend and we don't mean to scare you away with this but what we do as missionaries can really help you in your life, and we really want to share this message with you because we care!" Well she just smiled  and replied "Ok sure."  As we took the time to share the gospel with her our friendship grew stronger. I have no doubt in my mind she is going to do great things in her life! She will be a fantastic member of this church.

In Addition: If you click on any of Christine's names throughout my blog it will take you directly to her blog where she has also written about the Baptism, and has added additional pictures!

I Hope you all enjoy the Pictures!


Before Going out into the cold

Making sure water doesn't go up the nose
Walking down...
This is the place!
Norway!


Umm its Cold!


But Really its cold! do we have too?

Ok Fine! lets do this! :) 
She was laughing at me because i could barley even talk
because it was so cold!

Haha Ta Den!
The Branch! 








2 comments:

  1. This is awesome! She looks like a very nice girl and must be delighted to have the knowledge of the gospel in her life now. You are looking good, Elder Strange.

    Robin Olsen

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice! :)

    At least you didn't forget the words, right? ;)

    ReplyDelete