July 26, 2018

Hi Mom,

To start off this week,  

On Tuesday, we had the chance to meet President and Sister Tew,  Oh my goodness they are amazing!  President Hill could speak Norwegian but not the way president Tew can.  I feel like I have 2 mission presidents now as sister Tew is taking a bigger role than what Sister Hill did. I miss the Hills as they were both amazing but let's do this.  We had a way fun district council and great interviews with them.  Then they spent 100 dollars on pizza for our little district.  This next year will be amazing!  They are here to kick butt!  After that we get a call from the branch president who lives in Alesund and that is one of my dream areas as it is known as the most beautiful places in Norway.  He just wants to talk and says being around the missionaries keeps him out of trouble.  Fun to get some soda with him and talk for a while!

Wednesday was the mission wide fast to help us find people.  Miracle of the day is that someone gave us their phone number.  It's a big deal to a norwegian missionary even though we will never see them again.  And I talked with this 20 year old guy who was methodist.  Had a really fun conversation about why we are here on earth.  Stumped him hard core when I asked how the Methodist church would answer the question.... he couldn't give me anything and got embarrassed and said he would call us so that he can meet and have a better answer.  Sadly he wont ever call im sure but it was fun to actually have a conversation with someone because it has been a long time since someone was willing to talk with us.  

Thursday was mission wide finding day.... to me this means a normal 4 hours of contacting on the streets and 4 hours of knocking on doors so it wasn't anything different but after the first 3 and a half hours and feeling like the only missionary on the streets, i decided to go back to the apartment and just randomly call 3 people from the area book from a year ago. first call(wrong number)  second call(number not in use)  Third call(straight to voicemail) but i decided to send a text to the last one and he actually responded and wants to meet this week.  I just started laughing at the fact that he gave us a day that would work.  We then went out and knocked on doors for hours on end, nobody was home and by I mean nobody, I mean that a total of 4 people answered the door after 3 hours of it. and then we came across a guy fixing his bike on his front porch, i tried to start talking to him and he instantly freaked out and started yelling at us in german.  I can't understand german but I know german when I hear it.  He then asked us for our papers and said we werent allowed to do this.  He then grabbed his wrench and was smacking it on the fence right in front of us just screaming.  He then told us that we cant knock on any of the houses on this street.  I thought it was fun and games to walk to the next house about 15 feet away and go knock on the door.  At this point he loses his mind on his porch and pulls out his phone looking like he is going to call the police. He ran inside right after that but I was kind of hoping the cops would show up because it is perfectly legal to do what we were doing.  We have to take a ferry back from where we were and while waiting it was fun to just watch these stupid chickens bury themselves in these holes.  Really fun as it was in Gamlebyen.  The oldest well kept city in all of Norway.  Look it up!

Friday was the Christmas day of the summer as every 6 months the mission has a cleaning day where all you do that day is clean your apartment.  I love having a perfectly clean apartment!

Come Saturday, the sisters up in Sarpsborg asked if we could come help with a service project. It has been over a month since I have done any service and I was so happy for it.  Mostly just painting this house and ripping down wall paper. I will never put wall paper in my house I have learned!

Sunday was awesome!  First of all the Indian lady's teaching is going very well.  I am still trying but she said she couldn't come to church this week, as we are holding the front doors open for the members coming in, she shows up with some members.  The Allmans.  What saints!!!! Sister Allman literally told her that she couldn't not come to church and that she was picking her up in the morning no matter what!  The Allman family is the greatest missionary help I have ever seen in Norway!  But the big news is that Sister Bingham, the relief society general president and Sister Cordon, the young women general president came to Fredrikstad ward and spoke.  Well the crazy part was that I was sister Cordons Translator for the second hour.  That was stressful, especially when they started reading from Sister cordons general conference talk.  Haha a ton of fun!  They are both amazing people!

I get to spend Tuesday and Wednesday with an elder named Eldste Ewell, he is a stud and it will be fun to just be with him and hit the work hard!

I hope you don't expect these kind of emails often, maybe a 3 times a year kind of thing.

Time honestly is going by really slow right now.  I am blessed to only experience 1 July in Norway because it is the worst. I am so excited for winter you don't even know!  In the winter I feel like I am actually serving in Norway.  with the heat and humidity, I want some fresh fruit and sketchy areas by the way it feels.  And even though it is dark all winter, it is so much fun.  And always having 2 feet of snow on the ground is a blast!

Love you, 

Eldste Egan

Caught in a Rain Storm 

Copper in Norway