Monday, January 23, 2012

Nordlys!! (Northern Lights!!)

yeah it's cold here sometimes!
Hallo alle!!

Where to begin? I have so many awesome things that happened this past week!!

First off, thank you Sorce family and Aunt Barbara for the cards :). Thank you Aunt Janae, Dru & fam, Mr. Cunningham, Carissa (God knows how to bless us in the very most bestest way indeed :D), and anyone else I happened to forget for the emails! Mom, thank you for the two packages: the voice recorder has improved my Norsk DRASTICALLY within just a few days!! And yes, I realize I very much DO have an accent.Oi. I cannot express how happy I am to have a voice recorder!! Rocky Mountain Chocolate is the third best thing you could have sent me!(first being your apple pie, and second being your homemade bread :P). I love you all so much! -my birthday has been absolutely astonishingly extraordinarily fabulous!!
NOT! (family tradition button)
And it also turns out since I was born at 5:19 pm on January 23rd, that makes my birthday in Norway actually the 24th at 2:19 am! Oh technicalities :P

Yesterday we saw the Northern Lights for the first time!! Oh they were fabulous! Hopefully you all can see the pictures I took! Very green here in Norway - and beautiful!! Streaks of color splashed across the sky.
Nordlys!
Nordlys in the graveyard!!
It's a huge blessing to all of us who have been in the dark for so long! I am expecting we'll see the sun for the first time this week after 11 awesome weeks of no sun :). haha!
Sliding down the streets all day really 
makes our legs sore!

OK story time! This past week, we have recognized just how securely Elder Farnsworth and I are in God's hands. Precarious-looking at times, yet still extremely well taken care of :). Specialized Training was held in Trondheim this past week - and usually our flight is just a hop, skip and a jump down to Trondheim. Once we landed, Elder Farnsworth and I booked it out of the plane and walked into the airport looking for the airport bus. "Hmm, this place looks rather different than usual." We thought. "Maybe because it was a small plane, we landed a little ways off from the bigger planes." after 10 minutes of walking around . . . . OH NO. We sprint back into the airport and ask the security "Unnskyld, hvor er vi??" (Excue me, where are we?) "Brønnøysund." Ahhh!!! We book it through security, and most gratefully for some providential reason, our plane was still there, 15 minutes later. Of course, we walked in, faces bright bright red, and the flight attendant greeted us most kindly "Velkommen tilbake!" Hahaha. I immediately turned to Elder Farnsworth: "the moment the plane lands, we run from this plane immediately." Oi it was incredibly embarrassing!! But then! On our way back I really really really wanted a Sesam's kebab (one of the best kebabs in Norway). With 1 hour, 10 minutes to get to the airport (and a 45 minute bus ride TO the airport), we popped into the Sesam's kebab stand. "Sju minutter" (7 minutes) I thought the man said. After waiting there for what felt like a really long time . . . and watching 3 airport busses go by . . . I realized he actually said "Sjue minutter" (20 minutes). GAH. The moment we got those kebabs, we ran to the bus stop and the first airport bus totally blew right past us. Didn't even slow down! We're totally going to miss our flight! The very next bus we wave down like madmen, and snarf down the kebab back in the bus. We ran through security (shoes off and on and all!), Elder Farnsworth ran through the Trondheim airport with stockinged feet! And as we ran to our gate, the last person checked their ticket to go on the plane. We made it not a minute too early, neither a minute too late. Oh my goodness. Far too much stress for one day - yet how wonderful it was that we made it :).

Another great story this past week was this wonderful woman who, when we shared Joseph Smith's story, responded "Yeah! And what did Joseph Smith ask Jesus??" "And then what did Jesus say??" "Oh that's so exciting! I simply MUST read the Book of Mormon!" She is nothing less than a gift from God. Really, she is so willing to learn, it's wonderful! Sadly though, we didn't have a Swedish Book of Mormon with us. We ordered one immediately, and we'll see how that goes!!
We made a rockin' pizza with our investigator!

A fantastic piece of news this week is that we're getting a new apartment on the first of February!! No more cigarette smoke, holes in roofs, frequent power outages, breath-seeing in our apartment, ice cold shower floors, or loud neighbors! Woohoo! We'll still be in sentrum, very close to the city, so it'll be amazing!! We cannot adequately express how grateful we are for a new, absolutely fabulous apartment (which we checked out this past week!). It is such a gift!!

Dad, just so you know, you would thrive in a couples' mission! Seeing what the couple missionaries do here in Norway, I can totally see you doing the same. And I know you would love it too! I really look forward to serving when I'm old!

Other than that, I need to go celebrate with some people! I love each and every one of you. I am so grateful for the relationships that I have - they are simply gifts from my loving Father in Heaven.

Take care! Til next week!
-Eldste Bryce Thomas Johnson


Farnsworth and I eat and work out like KINGS!!
Comment by Mom Johnson- This picture looks disgusting.  I am not sure why Elder Johnson thinks this is food for a king. I think that is broccoli on the left and purple brains on the right. ;-)

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