20
Hello all you wonderful adorable and loved human beings of the world,
How goes it?
Eller hvordan går det?
Today is my 20th birthday and holy moly.
Just holy moly.
This is a crazy life. LIFE is a beautiful thing and I can hardly express how I feel about it. I NEVER imagined at age 20 being a missionary. EVER. And it really just keeps blowing my mind. I am in Norway, and I am a missionary. And I am no longer a teenager. And ahhhhhhhh.
Where the flip did time go?
Although I am out here on a mission on my birthday, I have seriously felt SO loved by everyone around me. And these people were complete STRANGERS 5 weeks ago. I am SO beyond grateful for all of the missionaries and for sister and president Hill who called me to wish me a happy birthday, for the members we visited today who went over and beyond in making me feel SO loved, and
my family and friends who sent me cute little birthday messages via email.
And to just add the icing on the cake, our investigator
PRAYED OUT LOUD
He has said that NO one will ever nor has ever made him do that.
AND BAM
Miracles. The Spirit was SO strong you guys.
This has honestly been one of the greatest birthdays in all history.
*end of rant..*
The Canny's hung up a cute lil birthday banner for me and we celebrated with Norwegian pancakes!
The Forsberg's made me an adorable little traditional Norwegian birthday cake, and we didn't have any candles in the house, so what's the next best thing? A GIANT FIREWORK. hahah And in Norway you only really hang up the Norwegian flag on special occations, and the 17th of May. AH they are the cutest things.
Now let's get down to business
This past week I had the opportunity to go to a thing our mission does for new missionaries after their first 5 weeks in the land, called interim training. We got to meet in Oslo with the good ol' MTC crew and their trainers. We had the opportunity to learn more about missionary work and about our mission in particular. We even got to watch The Best Two Years which just about killed me with how accurate some of the moments in that movie are, now being on a mission. We also learned about family history and the importance of temple work, and we got remotivated to be the greatest missionaries that we can be! Seriously, I left feeling SO pumped to be a missionary! I am so excited to work hard and be commited to this mission.
One day while meeting with an adorable family this past week, their babies picked us a bouquet of flowers and I just about died from the sweetness. The people of Norway are INCREDIBLE. I am not even kidding when I say that they are SO kind and SO sweet and SO polite and SO perfect. Like forreal they have been raised right here. haha
Yesterday we walked home in the pouring rain, and I will tell you what. Moss is BEAUTIFUL in the rain. Well all of Norway is, but especially Moss.
I just want to conclude by sharing my favorite talk from this past general conference called
Where Are the Keys and Authority of the Priesthood? by Elder Stevenson
This talk seriously hit home for me. I felt the spirit so strong listening to his words on the restoration and the beautiful truth that we really do have the FULL gospel of Jesus Christ.
Love you all so very much,
Hope you can come to understand how much you REALLY are loved by our Heavenly Father
Through prayer, I know you can and will. Just give it a try sometime.
Love always,
Søster Hutchings