Happy Easter Everyone!!!

Telemark Zone (Our Largest Zone)

April 17, 2017

Happy Easter everyone!!!

I hope you all had a great vacation and weekend and stuff! Something that is pretty cool here is that in Norway, people celebrate Easter week. So everything from Palm Sunday, to Good Friday and Easter. Even today, being Monday, is the second day of Easter. So, it's different celebrating more than just one day for Easter. I think it's pretty great!

It was quite an eventful week! That's for sure! We helped a member in the ward paint his house, and it's looking pretty good if I do say so myself haha! It was real fun though. I got a bunch of paint on my jeans so we'll see how well it goes trying to get it off. It'll be an adventure nonetheless.

A ton of people from the ward got together to play soccer over Easter break and we went and played with them. There was a couple dozen there. Proper sized teams. Us Americans suck at playing soccer. Luckily, because of my time in Sandvika and here in Drammen, I've gotten better. I'm not completely hopeless. Just somewhat of a lost cause. But no, we did alright haha! (Still lost though, but just barely).

Speaking of soccer, one afternoon we spent the evening with a family, and after dinner us and their kids all headed out to this little soccer field and played soccer. It was a blast, but we still lost to their kids. I'm not that great after all. Oh well.

No weekly email would quite be the same without the train update. Well, the trains are still running, and I'm still catching them. This week I went on splits to Tønsberg. And it was a lot of fun. I was with Elder Rogers again and it was a blast seeing him again. We got to go help an older couple with some yard work too. I can thank my mom for teaching me how to clean out flowerbeds! :) Thanks mom!

We spent Easter yesterday over at the mission home with the mission president and his wife, along with some other senior couples and a bunch of other missionaries. We had a nice dinner (the food was amazing) and we sang a ton of songs together. A really nice way to spend Easter afternoon!

Elder Mickelson is playing the piano

Well we are headed out soon to go climb Norway's biggest ski jump, so that'll be fun!

Hope you all have a great week! Happy 2nd day of Easter!

Sincerely,

Elder Justin Mickelson

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for

his friends." John 15:13

Elder Decker with our super small shopping cart :)

Elder Mickelson and Elder Mitchell spent the morning 

teaching the missionaries how to keep their “line in the water.”

There are wonderful large windows around the top of the Drammen Chapel. They let in lots of light 🙂 We were happy to have a visitor Eivind Top join us for the day!

A Million Things We Did

Elder Briggs and I on splits.

March 27, 2017

Hello Everyone!

Wow. I can't ever quite get through a week and look back without there being a million things we did. But, I guess I can start at the beginning. A long time ago (last week)... In a church building not sofar away... we were bored one p-day. So we decided to play some

basketball. But to our disappointment, there was no basketball. So we snagged the closest thing to it, an indoor soccer ball. And that's all fine and dandy... until you start kicking the ball in a feeble attempt at getting it into the basketball hoop. It looks so easy in movies! They kick the ball. The ball goes in. IT DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT!!! Well it does, but not that easy. Maybe if you were like Ronaldo or some other professional soccer player with mad skills. But a few average Americans have ZERO chance at it. So in the course of an hour, Elder Mitchell managed to tear his pants (doing this in church clothes was a bad idea in the first place). He reached out his foot a little too far to get the ball... and RIIIIIIIIP..... Just grateful it was his pants and not like his leg or something. Anyways, the sister missionaries walk in to see what we are doing, and the ball bounced over to me (my back is facing the hoop) and I kick it backwards. AND IT WENT IN!!!! It was the most epic thing ever!!!! An hour of kicking it over and over and over again, finally payed off. Too bad it wasn't on video....

Us trying to get a tan #reallywhitearms (I'm on the right, but it

doesn't look like me at all because of the angle the picture was

taken)

Another fun story. Driving around Drammen is a lot of fun. Quite enjoyable. You see trucks, and four-wheelers here. And this last week,

Dusk one evening

a bunch of people have pulled their Harley-Davidsons out of their

garages and are riding them around. But in the course of all of that,

every once in awhile someone would flash their lights at us. It only

takes a couple times to realize that it's probably your headlight out.

So sure enough, we check it out, and yes, the headlight was out. No

problem, we'll take care of that. Just a few days later, we're driving and it's dusk or dark or something, and we go, "I don't know if we have any headlights. i can't tell a difference between the burned out side and the side with the light." Sure enough, we now have TWO burned out headlights.

Story continues with the decision to change it ourselves. I've changed a headlight before. So what if it was only once. How hard could it be? And the rest of us had all changed a headlight once. What's the worst that could happen? (No, nothing too bad) Anyways, we pop the hood, and start looking inside. Yup. The engine was still there. Yup, that's the huge casing for the headlights... Now, how does someone get into that......? After fiddling around with it, and some dirty arms later, we EVENTUALLY got the lights out. It was a lot harder than we anticipated. Then came putting the replacements in. It was hard getting them out, but they like click into place, but it's at such an awkward angle and so cramped with the little car. Ya, what we assumed could take a few minutes took a couple hours........ Hey, bonding moments. hahah

Viking burial mound

We went on splits with the Sandvika Elders this week. I went with

Elder Briggs who started his mission here. It was way fun for him to

be back in Drammen, seeing the sights, talking to old friends, etc.

Anyways, we were out knocking on some doors, this older lady comes to

the window. Yes, she talked to us through the window, didn't open the

door OR the window. So it sounds a bit weird, and you can't quite hear

perfectly. To make a long story short, she couldn't hear too well, and when she asked why were were there. I told here, "Vi kommer fra kirkenvår" (we come from our church) and because of the window and not being able to hear too well, she thought I said "vi kommer fra kirkegården"

Viking well which by legend appeared

suddenly and sick/disabled

people went to it afterwards.

(We come from the cemetery). This poor lady, jaw dropped, hand on the

chest, distressed, was like "nei, kirkegården" (no, the cemetery!...)

Poor lady, thought we were there having some terribly tragic news....

Luckily, I clarified, and said it even louder so she could hear more

clearly what I said. But yes, it was a hilarious experience!

As a side note to the week, I saw the world's largest ski jump out in

Vikersund outside of Norway. The world record is held there for the

farthest jump which is over 200 meters. It was cool to see.

Hope you all have a great week! Take care!

Sincerely,

Elder Justin Mickelson

“God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” 
(2 Timothy 1:7)

This Was A Great Week!

Set up for the world cup of sprint cross country skiing here in Drammen (the race went around the state church and through the city)

March 13, 2017

Hello Everyone!!!

This was a great week! We had a lot of stuff happened this week.

We started out with helping out a member move into his new house. It was really great. It even ended perfectly with a little barbecue! We had some hot dogs which were delicious. Anytime you put cheese or pepperoni in a hot dog, it suddenly gets a million times better.

Almost without fail, I take a train ride somewhere around the fjord for splits. This week, the lucky city was Oslo! After buying myself a skolebrød and a strawberry milk, I stepped on the eastbound train headed for the capital!

Elder Mitchell (not the one here in Drammen) picked me up and we headed back to the apartment. It was loads of fun talking with people there, talked with a really cool guy from northern Norway, and even met some of the members in Oslo. It was really enjoyable. Oslo is a great city, with tons of things happening ALL of the time. Basically just full of life. I guess, what can you expect from the largest city in Norway?

In the course of the week, Elder Nelson also got to take a driving course with one of the local traffic school in preparation for taking his driving test soon. So hopefully, he'll soon be getting the plastic card with all of the privileges of getting to drive in Norway!

There's a couple members that I knew really well in one of my earlier cities I was in. Anyways, they had moved here to Drammen recently, and we got to drive out to their home and have dinner with them. And yes, they're just as funny as when I first met them. They live way out in the middle of nowhere essentially, but that's ok, it has a nice small town feel to the place.

So we were out knocking on some doors, talking to people and stuff, and the sweetest older lady answered the door. She comments on how she'd love to have us come in and share our message with her, but she says, "but I'm sorry. I've just been really sick lately". She goes on to say how she doesn't think she has much time left to live (really depressing to hear by the way). At this point, I kid you not, I could've sworn she was like 75 or 80, and she says she thinks she'll die soon because she's 96!!! Ok, I don't know what it is, but Norwegians have this odd ability to live basically forever. They just keep on cross country skiing when they're 80 years old like it's nobody else's business. It's just really impressive.

Well yes, I had a wonderful week, and I hope the rest of you all do too. Take care! Have a great week!

Sincerely,

Elder Justin Mickelson

Opera house in Oslo

I'm Back In The Saddle Again!

One of my best games of bowling. A whopping 118!!! Yay for me! I also beat the 
high score at their little arcade thing at the bowling alley. Bumped it up to 111! from like 
80 or something like that up even more! Felt so proud of myself! haha

March 6, 2017

Hello Everyone!

Well, as the title suggests. I'm back in the saddle again! (Song reference anyone?) Actually, I'm still impressed I remember any music lyrics. So good for me I guess. Well, this week was a crazy awesome one, I got to go back to a land of fairy tales and the city that I know and love all so well. Sandvika! I'll talk more about that later, but it was loads of fun and got to see a ton of people I know.

This week, we went to a family's home for dinner, and then we were invited to stay with them for family home evening. They have the most adorable little kids and they're just such a blast. Anyways, it was the funnest little activity we played for it. It basically ended up being scripture charades. Now just imagine playing charades with a few little kids. It's REALLY animated and TONS of fun! I don't know, I might have almost gotten more into it than they did, but I guess that's what happens when you never really grow up huh? (It's a joke, I've kinda grown up. At least I like to think I know what I'm doing and think I'm responsible haha).

Elder Mitchell and I caught a train (Again, I feel like every week I'm taking a train somewhere, oh well, it's great!) to Sandvika for their district meeting. It was wonderful seeing them all and being a part of their meeting. Afterwards, we decided to go to this restaurant called Egon's and get their all you can eat pizza. Boy was I stuffed after eating! I think in total, the six of us downed like 3 or 4 pizzas. I know I had like 7 or 8 pieces. I guess that's what happens when you have like a bunch of younger americans, and you tell them that they can eat AS MUCH AS THEY WANT. At that point you don't just eat until you're not hungry, you eat until you're stuffed. Plus, I wanted my money's worth out of it. Restaurant's aren't too cheap in Norway! haha

A few days later I went back to Sandvika on splits. So I was with Elder Hansen. We had loads of fun! I had already gone on splits with him a couple months ago back when he was in Tønsberg, so it was a lot of fun getting to be with him again.

Being there was great. We even met one guy that had been baptized while I was serving in Sandvika, so it was wonderful getting to see him again.

I even had a chance to meet with our awesome landlords there. It had been a while since I'd seen them, so it was a blast to catch up with them and see how they were doing. They're awesome so we had a lot of fun.

Right before I came back to Drammen, we had all played soccer together. So it was us, a bunch of people from the ward, and a few other friends there. I got to see several of the youth, and reminisce on good times and try to school them in soccer. Sadly, I still get beat. I guess that's what happens when you don't grow up playing soccer a ton. Oh well, but it was great!

Well I hope you all have a wonderful week! Take care!

Sincerely,

Elder Mickelson

"Sometimes we can learn, study, and know, and sometimes we have to believe, trust, and hope." —M. Russell Ballard

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)

Wow, 7-Weeks Have Come And Gone!

January 30, 2017

Hi Everyone!

Wow. 7 weeks have come and gone! The transfer is nearly over and it feels like I just moved here!

This week was pretty jam-packed. We had a crazy week with two different splits, a world-wide missionary broadcast with several changes to the standard missionary schedule, and we even had time for a waffle stand!

Last Tuesday, Elder Johnson and I were on splits together. Since we already are in the same apartment it was no problem. It was pretty great, we had visited some different people that day and went out talking to people. It was tons of fun. He really enjoyed it, especially because he hadn't been on splits before on his mission (he's been in Norway for only a few months).

There was a world-wide missionary broadcast this week too. Some adjustments had been made helping us be more effective. Changes were made allowing the previously more standard morning schedule to become flexible. For example, studies could be put wherever we wanted in the day to best fit daily/local needs. So it was made a lot more flexible, leaving it up to us to decide when to do everything. (Plus, we get an extra half hour to get ready for the day!)

I went on splits with Elder Applegate too this week. He's serving in Sandvika, and he came here to Drammen for a day. He's an awesome guy, it was great having him here for the day. He was also here for some of the Waffle Stand that we had put up.

We set up a giant tent, with some tables set up, and handed out free waffles all day! It was pretty great. We got to talk with a TON of people. I'd say it was quite a success. I had done one similar in Bodø, so it was quite fun to go for it Round #2.

So as for moves this week, I'll be getting Elder Nelson and saying bye to Elder Hoopes this week. AND! Elder Mitchell will be coming to Drammen too! I was with him in Fredrikstad so it's going to be a blast!

I hope you all have a great week! Take care!

Sincerely,

Elder Mickelson

I was given a challenge by a little girl in the ward to write down every day a reason why I believe in God. So #1, I believe in God because I can feel His love for me.

Have a great week everyone!

I Hope You All Had A Great Week, Because I Sure Did!

Elder Hoopes (my current companion) and I

January 9, 2017

Hello Everyone!!!

I hope you all had a great week, because I sure did!

There's the saying that when it rains, it pours. I'm saying that when it snows, it dumps. It finally snowed here in Drammen. From what people have been saying, there hasn't been snow since November! So many people were happy that it finally snowed so that can go hit the ski slopes and others to head off to the woods and cross country ski. As long as it stays snow and doesn't turn into slush, I'm happy! So great so far!

This week we we went to President and Sister Hill's home for dinner. A bunch of missionaries from around the area were invited over for a late New Year's dinner and to play some Minute-To-Win-It games. The games ranged from trying to move an Oreo from your forehead to your mouth, a balancing/stretching game to get as low to the ground as possible (I found out I was flexible enough to kiss the ground), and eating as many dry crackers as possible in a minute (I managed 4 and a half). It was so much fun and really enjoyable!

We were also able to help out with the young men's activity this week too. We helped out with their family history activity. It was real fun helping them look through really old church books. Often, you can hardly read what was written because it was in hardcore cursive. Still really enjoyable!

We took a train up to Sandvika, one of my old areas, to go visit their district meeting. It was real fun just to be back visiting the old area and see it all again. We had a lot of fun, and afterwards we grabbed a quick bite at the pizza place there which had an ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET!!! I got my fair share of pizza for sure!

Well I hope you all have a great week! Take care!

Sincerely,

Elder Mickelson

"True happiness is not made in getting something. True happiness is becoming something." -Marvin J. Ashton

At new missionary training