10 September

Kjære familie og venner 

Our last P-day was pretty fun. We went out to an island in the middle of the fjord and had a little bbq. There were these cool ruins on the island which we got to go climbing through...it was an old 12th century monastery. As we were eating our lunch, a fox decided to come join us. It literally came to within 5 feet of our little eating circle. I took some pretty cool pictures of the island, the ruins, and the fox so I'll send those on. There's also a picture of me in a skate shop by the name of Session. I thought it was cool that the store was obviously named after me, so I took a picture with a couple of the hoodies bearing my name which they sell there. Birthday present, parents? =)

Well, Renaldo moved to Tromsø this week. Things were going all up and down this week with him haha. First he lost his job, which really was a good thing cause it meant he could come to church...and he recognized that as well. So we were pretty stoked about that. A couple of days later though, he comes to meet us at the institute center with a train ticket up to Northern Norway. He said he wanted to move up there to find a job. Luckily, we have missionaries in that city so we gave him the number for those missionaries and he was able to get in contact with them before he left Oslo. He was up on our mission website with a baptismal date for a couple of weeks in Tromsø already. So that was a little bittersweet.

Other than that, we did get to visit a less active guy named Jonathan on Saturday. He is from Mexico and he was baptized here in Oslo last year. He hasn't been able to come to church only because of his 3 year old son who has leukemia. It's kind of a tough situation. But he's an awesome guy and the best part is that he has a 9 year old daughter and a girlfriend, both of which are not baptized. We talked with them a bit when we visited and we're going to go back sometime this week to see if we can teach at least the daughter. It'd be fantastic if the girlfriend was interested as well...especially since she is a Norwegian and we always love teaching those =P

This is the last full week of the transfer. We'll have our transfers call next Monday morning. Don't have a clue what is gonna happen there...I'm pretty sure I'm going to stay here in Oslo. But we'll see =)

Good luck with school everyone...I'll be back in two semesters!

Elder Sessions

3 September

Kjære familie og venner

I was filling out a Preach my Gospel survey from Church headquarters just now and one of the first questions was: "Choose the number of months you have been on your mission", then there was a slider with the number of months increasing from left to right. It took way too long to slide that thing over to 18 months. Can you believe that? I hit 18 months yesterday...

My parents always told me there was a time when I would have to start studying to get good grades in school. They told me this when I finished elementary school, middle school, and even high school. It's a point of extreme pride on my part that I have continuously proved them wrong. One part of my life where I cannot avoid studying though is definitely the Gospel. I can sleep through my DNA class and still get an A, but I can't sleep through personal scripture study and still apply the principles of the Gospel to myself. Luckily, I've discovered I really really really like studying and learning. It's awesome. So maybe I'll apply it to school when I get back, but the look of chagrin on my college professors' faces when they wake me up to hand me another "A" exam may be far too satisfying for me to miss out on ;) One thing is for sure though, I'll definitely have to show a lot more diligence in school from here on out. I got pretty darn lazy up there in Rexburg my last semester. 

Well, Renaldo got caught up at work again yesterday so he wasn't able to come to church. Which means we're going to have to move his baptismal date back. We haven't told him this yet....he'll be way bummed. We invited him to watch a baptismal service we had just this past Saturday and he thought he was the one getting baptized. So that was a little awkward. We sorted it out though and I was really glad he was willing to do it haha. We gotta finish teaching him and he's gotta be able to come to church first. 

He's really the only one we're meeting with consistently right now. It's been kinda frustrating in the search for new investigators the last couple of weeks. Not that I'm frustrated by it, it's just been a frustrating situation. There's a difference =) I have been feeling pretty worn out though, so I'm grateful for the P-day today haha. I'll get about 6 or 7 hours of relaxation before we gotta get back out there again. We cherish those hours.

One thing that has been really fun this transfer has been being a district leader here in Oslo. I haven't talked about it too much, but once I week I'm giving a district meeting presentation to a group of 12 missionaries. It's been a lot of fun, and the mission theme for August has been our missionary purpose. This past week, we talked about our personal covenants with God. It's something I've thought a lot about lately, and I'm grateful to have a nice platform to kind of get my thoughts out once a week. Our missionary purpose is to "invite others to come unto Christ by helping receive the restored Gospel..." Despite the use of the word "others" in that purpose, my basic point was that we cannot invite others to come unto Christ, without getting ourselves on the path first. That's something we have done by being baptized and confirmed by priesthood authority to enter into that sacred covenant with God. 

We cannot teach the Gospel without the Spirit with us. How sensible is it then that our baptismal covenant is our key to having the Spirit as our companion? As stated in the sacrament prayers we hear each week in church, if we (1) take upon us the name of Christ, (2) always remember Him [aka allow the Atonement to be a part of our daily lives], and (3) keep His commandments, we are then promised that we will always have His Spirit to be with us. Maybe it's cause I'm a dirty "Spirit-less" heathen, but sometimes I think missionaries aren't selfish enough. We think too much about solving this problem or that with our investigators, without remembering that we ALSO need to make and keep that covenant with God, in order to have the Spirit present in inviting others to do the same. If we focus on our covenants and "getting the Spirit", everything else in our lives will fall into place, because we have the assurance that God is with us every step of the way.

Another important thing to remember for everyone is also that taking the name of Christ on us, remembering him (daily!), and "keeping" his commandments, are descriptions of a process rather than an event. No one is going to "keep" the commandments. Ever. Cause we aren't perfect, remember? But that isn't what "keeping the commandments" means. God doesn't need us to keep His commandments. It's for us. By living the Gospel and doing our best to follow Christ's example, we put ourselves in a position to be worthy of having His Spirit as our companion. That is what cleanses us and helps us improve. And that's really what it's all about.

Til next week!

Elder Sessions

20 August

Kjære familie og venner

Well this week was a busy week. We had a dinner appointment with members pretty much every day, and we were able to get to know a pretty good number. So that was good. We also got lots of names of families and less actives to go and visit. We ate dinner with the bishop and his family yesterday, and that went extremely well. He gave us a list of about 10 names to visit. We're also going to help his 20 year old son move this week...his son has been less active for about 3 years, so that will be a good opportunity for us to get to know him. So from one busy week to the next we go, haha.

There was this way cool guy from Nicaragua who came to our language class this past week. We've been teaching a Norwegian class of about 30-40 people twice a week. It's been pretty successful in getting people to come out to our institute center in the city and it's pretty well known in the community. The employment agency for Norway, called NAV, has started to advertise our class to immigrants moving to Oslo. So yeah, it's pretty intense. But anyways, this Nicaraguan guy hears about the class and shows up on the day we had planned to show the Joseph Smith movie after class. I invited him to stay and he was like "Man, I'm christian, of course I'll stay!" Haha he's a way cool dude and we've started teaching him about the church. There's a slight language barrier, but there are plenty of Spanish members here in Oslo to help us out on teaches. I'm hoping we can commit him to a baptismal date sometime this week.

I went on visit to Fredrikstad this past week to do a couple of baptismal interviews there. After checking on familysearch.org, I found out that I have a lot of Norwegian ancestors from that area of Norway, so I convinced my temporary companion to drive through the village they lived in on our way back to Oslo. So that was pretty cool to see that, it was just a bunch of farmland and stuff. The village is called Onsøy, Østfold, Norway. I didn't have my camera, but if I get back there at some point, I'll have to snap some pictures.

I meant to say this last week, since it happened yesterday...but Happy Birthday to Mom! I won't say how old she is, but I just know it's twice as much as me! =) Crazy thought just hit me...if I was my mom 20 years ago, I'd be pregnant with ME right now. Nuts man....then my sister is turning 17 next Sunday. So that's cool. I'll probably freak in about 3 months when I hit 21, but I'm not gonna think about it too much right now.

So yeah. It's raining right now and we had planned on grilling some stuff in a park for P-day. So Mother Nature just rained all over that idea. Eh...we'll prolly do it anyways haha.

Have a good week!

Elder Sessions

26 August

Kjære familie og venner

Well we had a pretty good week this week. I'm pretty sure I talked about Renaldo last week, the man from Nicaragua who came to our language class. Well we met with him pretty much every night last week, as per his own request haha. We set a baptismal date with him for the 15th of September. He would definitely be able to make that if it weren't for his job. He works Saturday night-Sunday morning and so he isn't able to come to church. Which is kind of a problem for him getting baptized. He likes everything we've talked with him about though, and he brought a friend with him to the center on Friday. So we're just hoping and praying for a change in his work situation. He's not exactly in a position to ask for a change of hours or anything like that. So we need a miracle.

We're continuing to work with the members, especially the families with inactive youth, who were referred to us by the bishop. We haven't had too much progress with it just yet, but the families have at least reacted positively to the idea of us, someday, coming to get to know their kids. We're hoping to gain their trust so we can change that "someday" to "today"...but that's a work in progress. 

This upcoming Sunday is my year and a half mark on the mission. We have transfers in about 3 weeks and after that I'm only going to hear my name read two more times during moves call. It really is insane how quickly time moves on our missions. March still seems forever and a day away, but it'll be here before I blink. 

Elder Godfrey, one of the zone leaders here in Oslo, and I had a pretty cool experience yesterday after church. A man who was visiting the church for the first time asked the bishop for a priesthood blessing and Elder Godfrey and I were asked to participate. Another member actually said the blessing, while Elder Godfrey and I stood in, but it was the most powerful priesthood blessing I've been a part of. As we stood there with our hands on this man's head, you could literally feel the power of the priesthood in the room. It was pretty legit. Hope it helped him, haha.

Well that's all folks! Fun fact: "et folk" in norwegian means "a people" Go figure.

Elder Sessions