Week 43

Heisann Familie!

Jeg håper at alt går bra med dere! Det er så hyggelig til å lese brevene fra dere! Det gleder meg! Jeg tror at jeg skal ta dette på Norsk idag... Nei. Dere ville drepe meg. Så skal jeg ta det på engelsk...


Hey Family!


I hope everything is going well for you all! I love and miss you tons and tons. :) You are so wonderful!


Norway is fabulous- I love it here so very much! The weather isn't too shabby. The sun comes up every single day, but it doesn't quite feel like it is putting off warmth yet. However, it isn't really cold outside. I mean there is ice and snow on the ground, but it snow and rains... so that means it is not that cold. :) I haven't fallen as of late... knock on wood! Ha ha! Healthy and oh so happy! :)


This week has been really great... I don't remember much of what has happened. It seems like just yesterday was P-Day. Man time flies! We have met with some really cool people. Namely this guy named Per Christian. He actually was a former investigator that we randomly picked up again. He is Norwegian and Christian and when we taught him this week, he was really interested in finding the truth. He showed us this video that he found on the internet about Christ's teachings and how screwed up religion is today. We then taught him about the apostasy and how churches twist God's word don't want the revelation that God would willingly give them if they were worthy of it. We then invited him to be baptized and he said he would if he found an answer. We are meeting with him tomorrow to set a date! :) Ha ha! So exciting. We are also meeting with a woman named Cecilia who is also Norwegian and searching. She has such a sweet little girl who she brought with her the last time we met. She said that she is looking for a church to raise her kids in. We are totally going to help her find it! :) As for Marita, our baptismal date, everything is looking great! She is so prepared and she doesn't even know it. She has been taught everything necessary, but we continue to meet with her to resolve any concerns she might have and keep the Spirit strong in her life. I love that girl so much!


So the people here are incredible! I love this city. :) My heart feels like it is going to explode when I start to think about how much love I feel! For example, we meet with this less active lady named Birget and she is so sweet! I love her to pieces. She thinks we are her grandchildren and so she always spoils us with gifts! I had the opportunity to sing in the branch choir yesterday- that was so fun! For practice, we did all of these funny stretches and warm ups- I think I am going to share them with the Shadow Canyon ward one day! Ha ha! I am just having so much fun! The gospel is true and it changes lives. I am so grateful for the fact the our Heavenly Father wants us to learn and grow, but to have joy while doing it!  We are so blessed!


I hope you all have a great week! I love you so very much. I pray for you everyday. :)


Vi Snakkes!!


♥- Søster Jessica Taylor

Week 42

Hi Family!

It is me once again! How are you all doing? It is always awesome hearing from you all every Monday. :) I love you all so much!


Well I feel really bad, but I have about 30 minutes to email you today. It's like being back at the MTC! No, today Sister Campbell and I are going to visit Mali and Daniel (The brother and Sister- he was just baptized) and they are going to teach us how to knit cool authentic Norwegian scarves, mittens, hats,etc! We are so excited to go, but our bus comes soon so we have to be ready to go!


This week has been very interesting! We have been doing a lot of finding, and sadly, with not much success. We are trying to work really hard and be really obedient so that we can be worthy of the Lord's help. On Thursday, we had zone conference with President... I love that man! He is so amazing and always gives us such motivation. This Conference, he put a lot of emphasis on our teaches on the street. We worked on them a ton and that night, when we went out on the street, we had tons of success! We taught 5 people in about an hour! That is incredible!!! :)


We had a really cool experience his week- we went to go visit a referral from a member out in the middle of nowhere. She lived in this apartment building so we had to find her name on the doorbell thingy so that she could let us in. Well, when she called down to see who it was, she told us that she wasn't interested in what we had to say and hung up. So we decided to push random buttons and talk to people until our bus came back. We got one person to let us in, but it didn't turn out... As we were walking out of the building, we saw an older woman who had a ton of groceries and she was trying to carry them through the snow. We ran to help her and carried it up to the 9th floor. We were able to give her the Book of Mormon and tell her a little about it. It was a really cool experience! :) We went to visit another referral on the other side of town... it didn't work out either, but we were able to knock on some other doors and then we found this giant snow man that we took pictures with (I'll send them next week!) So much fun!! :)


So I had a really hard day on Saturday- Brit (the woman who received her answer that the church was true) dropped us. She heard about the word of wisdom and doesn't want to give up coffee.... I was so torn apart! I knew she has her agency, but man! She was willing to give up the greatest joy she could ever find for a cup of nasty black stuff in the morning! It was horrible and I felt like a piece of my heart was ripped out... Oh well... We are continuing to pray for her that coffee will start tasting really nasty. :)


I was able to teach relief society again yesterday, and it went so much better than the last time! Yahoo the church is true! Ha ha! I taught about Joseph Smith from the teachings of George Albert Smith and it turned out awesome- and it was in Norwegian! Woot!! I really just think that whenever you teach about the Restoration, and truth of any kind, the Spirit is super strong. I truly know Joseph Smith was a prophet of God!


Please tell Sully thanks for the referral. We will be calling her this week! I am so excited to meet her! :) 


Well Family, I hope you know that I love you all so very much! Sorry for the lack of personal emails... Do letters count? :) I love you tons and miss you bunches. You are the best!


Vi Skrives!
♥- Søster Jessica Taylor

Week 41

Hi Family!!!

How are you all doing? I absolutely love hearing from you all- it makes me so happy. :)

Well, the weather has been really mild this last week. It has been snowing and so that means that is really isn't that cold. In fact, on Saturday, it started to rain which means it is really not cold! Ha ha! All the ice has melted and the land is covered in slush. I have cut back to only wearing one coat out or else I just get too warm. So don't worry about me being too cold. :) It feels like spring is in the air, but it's totally not! Ha ha! The sun is up longer and longer everyday and that is really great- I never realized how much I love sunlight! :)

This week has been a week of miracles! So many amazing things have happened and I am so grateful!!! :) Here is one: On Tuesday, we went over to visit a less active woman named Birget. She is hilarious! I love her so much. The last time we were over at her house, we taught her about the plan of Salvation because she had lost her sister recently. I drew some little pictures of the plan to help explain it when we teach and Birget loved them so much so I promised to make her a copy of them. So on Tuesday, we planned to give her the copies and then talk about the gospel of Jesus Christ. When we got there, she had her neighbors over for a visit. It was a mother and her 9 year old daughter. They were just over chatting with Birget. Well, when I got out the pictures of God's plan to give to Birget, the little girl's eyes lit up. We asked her if she would like to learn about God's plan and she said yes. We then began telling her all about how she is God's child, how much He loves her, and then about the amazing plan that He has for her. We taught it so simply and clearly so that this little girl could understand. Birget was able to help and the mother listened to it all. The Spirit was soooooo strong! I was so incredibly grateful that we were able to share the sweet message of the plan of happiness with them. It is so perfect and every little bit of it is just oozing with evidence of God's love. It was while we were in that teach that I knew I was an instrument in the God's hands. It felt so good!!! :) Here is another: We found this girl on the street named Sabina. She didn't really have a belief in anything at the moment, but was previously Jehovah Witness. We were able to teach her about the restoration sitting on a bench outside a store. We gave her the Book of Mormon and we will be able to meet with her later this week. Maybe it doesn't sound too exciting, but this girl was prepared. She was asking us all the right questions and she was searching for truth, so Heavenly Father lead us to that part of town at that time so that we could find her and help her out. Man does He love His children!!! :)

Yesterday was Mariell's baptism and can I just tell you... It was AMAZING! That was one of the coolest experiences yet! It was a lot of work getting it all put together and I had to re-arrange a lot about 2 minutes before it started, but the Spirit was so strong in that meeting! Her father is not a member, but he stayed for the baptism and all 3 hours of church. I spoke to the Branch President afterward and he said that he couldn't feel the Spirit there, then something is wrong... Ha ha! Sister Campbell and I waited in the dressing room while the baptism took place and watched. Sister Campbell cried and I just about jumped for joy! When Mariell came out of the font, I wrapped her up in a towel and gave her a big hug- I hugged a perfect person! :) Yesterday was Norway's Mother's Day, so I asked her mom to bear her testimony. It was so sweet! Words can't express how wonderful that baptism was... I love this Spirit!!! :)

Well that's about it folks! I'll attach some pictures for you all. The bowling pictures were from a few weeks ago. A member took all of the missionaries bowling. It was so much fun! The one with the guy in white- that is Daniel- the member's brother who was atheist and was baptized. Then the rest were of Mariell's baptism. I think my eyes are closed... too late! :)

Have a great week everyone, and Happy Valentine's Day!!! Love and miss you all!

Vi Snakkes!

♥-Søster Jessica Taylor

Week 40 - 9 months

Hello Family!

How are you all doing? How is life? What is new? Oh man, you guys are wonderful! I love you so much!!!

THANK YOU so very much for the Valentine's Day package! Oh my goodness, I got it on Hump day and couldn't stop smiling. And those cute self portaits- I almost died! I hung them up on the wall (there wasn't much room) to see them all. :) They are so stinking cute! Where did you get the idea? I wore the jewelry to church and everyone liked my new bling. ;) The flamingo story was awesome! It is hanging on my wall and the candy and other stuff is wonderful! You are amazing!!! :)

So on Saturday, we woke up to a whole lot of snow. It looked like we were living in a snowglobe- the beauty of Trondheim! :) That means that the temperature isn't too low. No worries- I am 100% warm and happy. :)

This week has been kind of weird as far as the work goes. We are getting ready for Mariell's (9 year old) baptism on Sunday. That will be exciting! Marita has a date for the 7th of March and she is still trucking towards that. We are good friends. :) Brit (our referral who already knows the church is true) just got back form vacation and we are meeting with her in about an hour. Wish us luck! :) We are going to go for a baptismal date with her. we are thinking the 26th of February. Hopefully that works! We have faith that all will go well! But other than that, things are kind of slow. People don't like to talk when it is cold outside... That makes finding new investigators very difficult. Oh well, we get by. The people we do talk with are awesome... not always intersted, but still awesome! God has some pretty cool children. :) Training has been a lot of fun. Sister Campbell is improving a lot and we get aong well. We are lucky becasue we get to take an extra hour to study every morning and that helps a lot with becoming better missionaries. :)

My testimony of the Book of Mormon has been strengthened a lot the last few weeks. I know I have probably said it before, but I love that book! I have almost finished it again and I have challenged myself to see how many times I can read it in the next 9 months. I just love how powerful it is! We had a lady on the street tell us that we should share the Bible and not the Book of Mormon on the street. We asked her if she had ever read the Book of Mormon and she said that she would only read something she knew was true. Of course, I bore my testimony and told her that I knew that it is the word of God and that it strengthens our faith in Jesus Christ. She proceeded to tell me that I was wrong and that it wasn't true. Normally, I would've been upset that she told me that I was wrong, that was an insult to me, but this time, I upset because she insulted the word of God. She rejected His gift to us. It was so sad! I feel so grateful to be able to share it with others. I KNOW it is the Word of God. It means everything to me. It answers so many questions and gives us direction.

Well, I am so sorry that this is a lame email. I really am trying to do better! I love and miss you all tons and tons! Have a great week!

Vi snakkes!
- Søster Jessica Taylor