As Usual, But Still Worth Noting, I'm Doing Great!

View from above the morning's fog

February 20, 2017

Hello Everyone!

Baked goods in the store (Bakevarer)

As usual, but still worth noting, I'm doing great. This week came and went and who knows where it flew off to. But anyways, I'm chilling here on the computer with a Jurassic World Band-Aid on my knee. I was hoping for a Hello Kitty one, but I can't complain. Anyways, I totally fell on the ice... twice... while running this morning. Scraped it up more than I would like, but oh well. Needless to say, the ice was VERY slick this morning. We had run down to this ice skating rink (in the summer it's a soccer field I think), and back. WAAAAY too much uphill, but such is life.

Epic P-Day Ping Pong

(yes, we put two tables together)

We kicked off the week with an epic game of ping pong as a district. We all got together and played ping pong in the church (there's totally just a couple tables chilling there, so we used them). Proudly, I can say I won a lot, but practically at the expense of being dizzy. We started playing to where you had to spin in a circle every time you hit the ball. It made it REALLY hard. I'm surprised I didn't fall over.

We (Elder Mitchell and I) also bought ourselves a couple train tickets, and hopped on the next train headed down to Tønsberg to be a part of their district meeting. That was really great getting to be with all of the missionaries down there. Elder Mitchell and I parted ways for the next day, he stayed in Tønsberg, and Elder Rogers (one of the missionaries in Tønsberg) came with me back to Drammen for splits.

Elder Rogers and I on splits

Splits was way fun. We spent some good time doing a bit of everything, and walked A TON uphill. I've only been to Bergen once, but it felt like I was ALWAYS walking uphill. That's what it seemed like when he was here in Drammen this last week haha. But it was way fun and it was really enjoyable. We even remembered to get a splits selfie!

A blurry picture of me (all bundled up for the cold)

Wednesday night, we were headed back into town and we got a text if we could start the seminary class before the teacher got there a few minutes later. So we said yes and went. It was really great because we had a chance to teach a little bit and share our experiences a bit at the beginning. One thing I'm very impressed while I've been in Norway is the youth within the church. They are just so awesome. They're an example to me of deciding what your standards are and living them. It was just so prevalent while we were there that evening. They'd talk about different things during the lesson, and I was just blown away by how incredible they are. For them, it seems to just click. So it was a great time.

So I do not know why, but now all of a sudden, I seem to be coming across more people with animal mounts chilling in their living rooms. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind, it just throws me off because I haven't seen too many here in Norway. But we were talking to this lady at her door, and Elder Nelson asks what was on the wall behind her. I was off to the

An emu (imagine a small ostrich)

side so I couldn't see, but I moved a little, and there was this GIANT moose head right at the back of the entryway. I've seen quite a few moose, but this head was like one of the largest I've ever seen! just chilling on the back wall. Anyways, it led to a fun little discussion, but it was just so shocking, just because I haven't seen too many while I've been here. There's a start for everything I guess.

Well I hope you all had a great week! Take care everyone!

Sincerely,

Elder Mickelson

"Seek forgiveness from those you have wronged. Forgive those who have wronged you. Forgive yourself." —C. Scott Grow

Headed over the bridge in the city (Those were some giant flags)

Me inside the Blueberry (our Opel Corsa)