First Letter From The Field!!

Here is the first, unedited(sorry for the lack of punctuation!) letter from Soster Fox from Norway (it is soooo Carrie!!):

Guess what....... I AM IN NORWAY!!!!! Wow, these last few days have been so crazy.......OK, to begin..... the flights sucked...... they were so long and my ears were exploded a few times. not fun. but it was ok, i got here safely. we went from the airport to the mission home. president paulson and his wife are sooooo nice!! we had so much fun. we got our bedding, basically just spent a lot of time in meetings about just a lot of general stuff. we had a big dinner with the oslo missionaries at the mission home. lots of Norwegian food. not too bad, interesting though. nothing that has made me want to barf so far.... but i have had some weird stuff. then we got our mission assignments. i am in STAVANGER!!! stavanger is the most south that you can go in norway. so søster adams and i stayed the night at the hotel. it was fun but i have never been so exhausted in my entire life. seriously. i was dead. but the next morning, søster adams and i totally overslept it was so funny. luckily they weren't coming to get us until 10, so no one knew. then, after figuring out the luggage situation, mine was overweight, but no surprise there..... we went to the train station where we met all the missionaries because it was move day. we were the first to get there, and we were sitting there and all of the sudden this girl comes running up to me and is like SISTER FOX!!!! it was crazy, her name is carrie forsyth, and i am her replacement. she is the reason that i came early. she was supposed to go back to school but turns out she met a guy here in stavanger and now they are getting married and she is living here. it was funny, she was like, yeah, you will find someone too..wow.... but yeah, after that, i got on another plane to stavanger and here i am. my companions name is sister bjerga. she is a native Norwegian and she lived here in stavanger until she was 12. she is very nice but wow. she is a different kid. for example- this morning during companion study she decided it would be a great idea to sing that song by the beatles from eccleasiastes 3.... you know the one, there is a season, turn turn turn. then she got on the phone and called our district leader and told him that she thought it would be a good idea if we all sang it in sacrament meeting or something. not joking. she is crazy. its so funny because half the time she is seriously off in lala land. you can just watch her and she starts talking up to the sky. sooooo funny! ... she is always asking me to help her know what to say and do, especially with the youth and elders. funny stuff because i don't speak the language. but yeah, that is a whole other situation. here in stavanger, they only speak a stavanger dialect. let me tell you about how much that sucks. i don't understand a word that is being said. even the basics like i, you, me, her, are all different. they were all amazed that a greenie was sent to stavanger. so yeah, i guess i will toughen up pretty soon here. the people here are soooooo nice though. i have had several people call me and tell me how excited they were that i was here. so cute. and the youth are amazing..... love them! i am already good friends with several of them. they love that i am from seattle, they all know where that is because of gray's anatomy. funny stuff. most people speak english which is a good thing, but still hard because i always try to speak norwegien with them and so then they go off and i have no clue what is going on. so yeah, that is my story. this weekend was mission conference, where all the southern norwegiens get together. it was so fun!!! we were with the youth the whole time, and we made kites and flew them at the beach. and we played a ton of games and basically just hung out with the youth. it was sooooooooo much fun! it is so different here in norway though. there is not a family in the branch here that doesn't have at least a youth or someone in their family that is inactive. the sisters main focus is keeping people active and supporting the ward. we do have a few investigators though. the best one is phillip, he is an elvis impersonator. seriously..... so funny and so cool! but yeah, we are also teaching a guy from nigeria named peter. he is way nice too. so anyways.... i am doing really good. it is really hard though, i hate not being able to speak this language. it is seriously the hardest thing ever. i hate being scared to make phone calls. ahhhhh sometimes it is hard to stay positive. but i am doing my best. and i am so tired too.... the jetlag is starting to wear off, but not completely. so hopefully that will stop soon. so yeah..... that is my story.

So you heard it all, first hand from Soster Fox!! Keep hanging in there Carrie....we are all praying for you to learn the language!!