Chillin' With My Gnomies in Norway: God Jul 2015…Week 68

Dear Family and Friends that are Family,

Well, this is the week... Christmas week! I am so excited to be spending another year in Norway! What a beautiful country to be for Christmas. We have absolutely NO snow.... very sad. It is rather warm actually. There is a member who keeps telling me about the ozone layer... she is really worried about it but I am okay with it! I miss warm Christmases :) How is everyone doing back at home? How is the weather? How is the beach? Haha :) All is well here is little Skien. I love this sweet little town. There are very few people here and they just keep leaving as Christmas comes closer. It’s a little rough but we are keeping the hope! :)

This week really was so special...

We had a really fun FHE last Monday with the young adults where we made American cinnamon rolls and played a couple of games. It was really nice to be all together and have a good time. We are having a big Christmas party tonight with the young adults thrown by the missionaries ;) hahaha it will be very fun... and very American!

We visited some really sweet less actives this week and had the opportunity to share the message of Jesus Christ. It was very special and I am so grateful for Christmas and the time we get to put aside and remember Him! #asaviorisborn christmas.mormon.org I love Christmas and I know that the Savior is the gift we should be excited to get!

On Saturday we had this huge mission Christmas Conference! It was so fun! We got together and learned about Christ and how we can better share the message of Him! We also learned about the Antonement which is always beautiful and humbling. It was nice to be with all of these missionaries I have come to love and be close with. I love this mission so much. I also love our senior couples...what amazing people! I look up to them! The Oslo Norway missionaries are spoiled when it comes to the leadership in this mission. What amazing leaders we have! I love my mission President and his wife with my whole heart! They really are the mom and dad of this mission. What amazing people! We also had a cute talent show from all of the missionaries and there were some amazing performances! My companion for example, recited the Living Christ in Norwegian! It was epic! :) Some sang while others recited poetry. After that we had a little music concert the Hills put together. We would watch The Mormon tabernacle choir perform something and then they would talk about the meaning behind it. It was so beautiful and spiritual! Perfect way to bring on the Spirit of Christmas! :)

Yesterday was a very special day. It was the last advent before Christmas and a start to our amazing week! We had a wonderful time in church and had a beautiful musical program which we were asked to sing last minute! It was so fun to get up there with my companion and our awesome Elders and sing from our hearts! We all had different parts in the song and it sounded really good actually! (I mean I think it did at least!) After church we went to a less actives house and had Christmas porridge! It was SO good! Its like a warm rice pudding sort of but not really hahaha... you add butter and cinnamon sugar... deilig!(Yummy!) It was so koselig (cozy) and wonderful to be there. Afterward we headed to a members’ house for dinner. We helped them set the table while we listened to Christmas music and ate by candle light. That is very normal in Norway to eat by candle light. I will miss that a lot. After we ate and were about to share our spiritual thought, another member family walked through the front door so we had a spiritual thought with a bunch of kids and their parents! We had a big bowl filled with water and asked them what they thought would happen if we set an orange in the water... some said it would float which it did! BUT when you take the peel off or the protection, it sinks. We shared the story about how Peter could walk on the water to Jesus Christ but when he took his eyes off Christ he began to sink! We took it back to Christmas and how important it is to keep our focus on Christ!

After that we went to visit a less active with her mom. Her daughter lives at her school which is on a ranch and she has this huge beautiful horse! We sat in her room for a while and just had a lot of laughs and talked about life and family and Norway! After that we went to go feed her horse and that was so fun! She was showing us all the tricks her horse can do and guess what... her horse can kiss on demand! It’s awesome! I will send a picture of it :) While we were walking back to the car to drive back down the hill, I looked up in the sky and BOOM! NORTHERN LIGHTS!!! That does NOT happen very often in this part of Norway! Its very common up North but NOT here in Skien! It was beautiful! I just stood there in awe as this huge spot light from heaven danced on the night sky! What a world we live in! I love it :)

I love you my dear family and friends! Have a Merry MERRY CHRISTmas! MUAH!

Gud vær med deg til vi sees igjen!

-Søster Neilson