Elder Sessions' weekly letter

Kjære familie og venner,

Fernanda was contacted by Elder Bekker and his last companion on the street. She invited them back to her house and they began to teach her. I taught her once before transfers because we knew I would be with Elder Bekker. She's gone from being found on the street to inviting friends to church. She invited two of her friends to come to church yesterday and one of them came and liked it. So we'll be meeting with her this next week, and we're pretty excited for that.

Last week was Easter week, and I think I mentioned in my last email that all of Norway leaves Norway during Easter week. So the streets were pretty dead and all of our investigators were pretty much gone. But they'll be coming back this week, so hopefully we can meet with some of the people we contacted a couple of weeks ago.

I actually had a really cool personal study today so I decided I'll type up my journal entry in the email today:

I had a bit of revelation the other day on faith and I thought I would go a little bit more into it for studies today. I was on the bus from sentrum to the church and I just randomly opened the Book of Mormon I was holding. It opened to Ether chapter 3. I read in verses 11-12, which is right before the Lord reveals himself to the brother of Jared. Verse 11 says that the Lord asked him whether or not he would believe the words he should speak. When I read that I thought that this must have been the biggest "duh" question in the history of the world. You've just seen God's finger lighting up some stones and now the voice of God is coming to you out of a cloud asking if you're going to believe what He says. There had to be more to it than that.

First of all, I think the Lord was asking him more than just whether he would believe his words right then and there. He was asking whether the brother of Jared had the faith to allow whatever it was that this Voice out of a cloud was about to tell him, change his life. The brother of Jared had no idea what the Lord was about to say or show him, but he had to show that he had the faith to never forget or slip away from it for the rest of his life, without having heard it first. Imagine the faith it really must have taken for him to reply, "Yeah Lord, I know that thou speakest the truth, for thou art a God of truth and canst not lie."

A lot of people could look at that and call it blind faith. At one point, I always condemned blind faith as a mild to medium form of being brainwashed. But something I've realized is that there is no such thing as blind faith. Sure, we may make a decision based only on that which we feel or believe rather than that which we see, but isn't that the essence of any man's faith anyways? And what is that faith then built upon? Faith doesn't pop up out of nowhere; it is the sum of all our experiences with God. Those who have a sincere desire to find Him, will. Then, the seed of faith is planted for them and it will begin to grow. I don't know all of the experiences the brother of Jared must have had to reach that level of faith, but those experiences must have been pretty great. We "receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." (Ether 12:6)

Our faith can never be confirmed unless it is tested. Maybe that's why god doesn't answer our prayers immediately. Do we really believe that He is there and that He can answer our prayers? If we really believe that, we will pray and ask until he answers, no matter how long it takes. Luke 18:1-8 is a parable of the importuning widow. It tells of a widow who appeals to a judge for help in some legal matter. "Avenge me of my adversary," she says. This represents any appeal we could make to our Heavenly Father. The judge was a wicked man, "which feared not God, neither regarded man." He would not grant her appeal for a while, but she humbly and faithfully kept repeating her request. "...afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; Yet because this woman troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me." That, coming from a man who is described in the scriptures as unjust. And who is it we appeal to? Only the most just and merciful Being in this existence. If a wicked judge will answer the appeals of a faithful and humble widow, who believed only that her appeal could be answered, how much more will our Heavenly Father answer the prayers of those who show their faith through unending persistence?

This is something we teach our investigators when they pray to know if God is there or if the Book of Mormon is true. We can't just pray a couple of times, or even many times, and give up before we receive an answer. Just like the brother of Jared, the Lord is testing our faith and sincerity. Will we believe the words He says? More or less could be rewritten as: Do we want to believe the words He says? Having faith in God is hard sometimes because it requires us to act when we can't always see the concrete evidence we want. But that doesn't mean that evidence doesn't exist. As we show our faith in that God cannot lie and the He will only tell us to do that which is best, then will he answer our prayers. When God answers prayers, he does it with the confidence that that person will act on the answer he receives, whether that is being baptized, making some tough changes in our lives, or committing ourselves to a teaching or a church we have found difficult to accept our entire life.

I experienced this myself. I didn't believe in God, but I think that was mostly because I didn't want to. I knew that it would mean I was doing some things I shouldn't be, and I didn't want to give those up. But ever since the day I decided I really wanted to know, and did everything I could to find out, I have received many confirmations of the truth: that God does live and that He does lead his church on the earth today through his prophet and apostles, just as He has always done. It's our job, though, to find out for ourselves.