Bars and Birthday Parties

This week has been packed full of both awkward and spiritual experiences! First, the spiritual: 

- We had our second lesson with the Somalisk Familie. We taught them about the restoration and prayed with them. There is a little bit of a language barrier because their Norwegian is limited and they speak very little English. But we are looking for things to share with them in Samali about the gospel since we don't have any pamphlets or books of Mormon in that language. Their kids are all so cute and have taught us a few words in Samali. 

- We got four appointments with numbers this past Thursday while contacting! One of them was a lady from Ukraine that was really interested in getting  book of mormon. She said that she is even going to bring her son to our appointment! We had recieved a referral from Trondheim a couple of days earlier saying that they met this lady from Ålesund that was interested in meeting. It was the same lady! There are truly no coincidences!

- On the same day while kontakting, we met two members of Elia's Familie. Elia is a member of the Branch here in Ålesund. We had met his dad the day before on the street and got his number. After meeting Elia's sister and then his brother, we knew that Heavenly Father was telling us that we need to visit his family and teach them the gospel. We then saw his sister, Miriam, again and she invited us over! We have an appointment with them on Friday! 

Now for our crazy, awkward experiences that ALL happened on the same day:

- Søster Pond and I were contacting and we saw three men outside of a bar wearing flannel shirts and cowboy hats. We started talking to them and told them that we were missionaries. They said that they weren't interested but they introduced us to their other buddies. They all just laughed at us and invited us to drink with them. We of course said no but thank you, and then left. One of the guys was filming us on his phone. I am pretty sure that we are on YouTube somewhere. 

- Later that day, we went over to our investigators house for a teaching appointment and we sat down in her living room. There was a lot of food and chairs everywhere and Søster Pond and I exchanged confused glances. More people kept on coming and it turns out we were at a birthday party! We talked to a couple of people, Søster Pond and I taught the first lesson to two different girls and got their numbers so we could keep teaching them, and got out of there. Haha the Lord works in mysterious ways. It was actually a really cool experience, because we felt the spirit so strongly when we prayed before we walked up to her house. We were definetly there for a reason, just hopefully our next appointment won't involve birthday cake and several teenagers. ;)

I am so exctied for this next week and for the many experiences to come! Thank you for all of your prayers and support! Vi snakkes!

Love, Søster Starkie

P Day Adventures: 

Beautiful Norway in Valderoy