7 January 2013

Kjære familie og venner

Well, I've moved again. Haha it seems like every time I get settled into a new apartment, I end up moving. This time it was closer into the city. The apartment we were in was moldy and run down. It was also a little far outside of the city without a car. So now we live in a pretty nice place right in sentrum. It sounds like our new apartment with probably go to the sisters once there are sisters in Kristiansand, but that will be after I leave anyways, so it's all good =)

We had two investigators in church yesterday so that was pretty cool. One was Nancy, and the other is a lady named Nicole. Nicole is engaged and lives with a less active member here in Kristiansand. We went to go visit them this past week and invited them both to church. Nicole has been taught many times before by the missionaries, but she's had a tough time understanding a couple different things and it seems as though missionaries have just been beating a dead horse with her. So we're going to take a different approach haha. We decided actually to focus on her fiance. Get him active and coming to church and then we hope to work with Nicole a little bit down the road. She can't get baptized until after they are married since they live together anyways. Nicole is way supportive though, in helping John George (her fiance). She basically told him that he was going to be active in the Church, and I don't think he had a choice in the matter haha.

We met with Nancy this week and she came to church so that was good. The biggest problem with her is she is so dang shy. It's really hard to teach her and know what she is understanding and where she is at because she won't ask questions. She says she understands it and that she doesn't have any questions, but we know she does haha. I had a conversation with her this morning about a bunch of different things. Mainly, she doesn't understand why we say it is so important that Christ has a church on the earth. She is just as fine with the Norwegian state church as she is with ours. It all really goes back to the first missionary lesson, which is on the Restoration. If investigators don't understand that Christ had a church with a specific organization and a specific doctrine and a specific authority that was lost after the death of the Apostles, then they won't understand the need to a Restoration of those very things. 99% of investigators' concerns go back to the first lesson. I would say all of them, but I'll say 99% just in case someone ever thinks of an exception. But I can't think of any.

So we're going to have to rehash the first lesson again with her. I wasn't there when it was taught the first time so I don't know exactly how that went. It probably went about how our lesson with her went this week. It seemed to go well, but she just has questions and thoughts that don't get expressed. We'll see how that goes =)

Other than that, we've been busy this weekend getting packed up and cleaning out the old apartment, moving stuff to the new apartment, etc. Luckily, the new apartment came furnished so that makes things a bit easier.

Til next week!

Elder Sessions

PS, there's also pictures of our district ping pong tournament on new years eve. i came 3rd....out of 4 people haha.

New Address:

Festningsgate 47, #210

4612 Kristiansand

31 December 2012

Kjære familie og venner

Don't worry, I'm not going apostate. I was joking when I said that I didn't care cause I only have two months left. Now is no different than 10 months ago for me.

Christmas was great. Spent some time with a couple different families in the area and ate a lot of great food. I've realized that our family Christmas traditions are very Norwegian in a lot of ways. I don't know if that's intentional or if it's just kind of stuck in the family over time...but I didn't realize it until I came to Norway.

Mission Conference was good. Everyone kept asking how it felt to be the oldest missionaries in the mission...dunno why, it didn't feel very different than being the youngest haha. It was the last conference for me and Elder Bekker, so we gave our "burniemonies" at the very end...basically our final conference testimony. It was tougher than I thought it would be, and I'm glad it's over with now.

We're still having a tough time meeting with some of our investigators regularly. They live so far out and they've all been busy with family stuff over Christmas, so that's been a little frustrating. But I hope that we can meet with some of them this week. Dag was in England this weekend, but he said he wanted to come to church when he gets back, so hopefully that will happen this upcoming Sunday. 

Happy New Year everyone!
Elder Sessions

24 December 2012

God Jul Alle Sammen!

We got a skikkelig winter storm in here this weekend! Seriously, most snow I've ever seen in my life. I'll send a couple pictures along for visual proof, but we had a bush in our backyard that was completely covered with snow. Ridiculous.

This morning, we had planned to take a nice relaxing P-day at the institute center in the city, write some emails, play some ping-pong and get ready for our dinner appointment tonight. Unfortunately, our car got stuck in the snow. After two hours of trying to dig it out, putting sticks under the wheels for traction and all kinds of stuff, we tried calling for help from some members in the area, but no one could get out to us. I finally sat down in the snow in frustration. 

Here we were in the middle of no-mans land on Christmas Eve, with our wheels spinning in a 6 inch deep hole and nothing we did to dig or push was getting the car to budge. At some point I think one of the two of us said some sort of prayer. Out of nowhere a foreign guy comes running up to our car and says, "Folk kommer. Bare vent."

I didn't quite believe him at first but suddenly there were 5 people around our car, pushing and digging and screaming Arabic at each other. It was quite the sight. I don't know if they appreciated the "God Jul" we shouted in thanks as we left, but I learned a pretty good lesson I think...around Christmas, God will give everyone a chance to serve...even those who don't celebrate it. 

Merry Christmas everyone!

Elder Sessions

17 December 2012

Kjære familie og venner!

 Got some more pictures from this week! A couple from our drive from 
 Kristiansand to Stavanger for a training meeting. A picture of the 
 gingerbread house my companion and I made the other night, and a 
 picture of our car in the middle of the snowstorm this weekend. 
 Finally a picture of my apartment after we cleaned it this morning =P

 I got a request for the lowdown on my companion haha. He's from Oregon.
 He's 26, the oldest of 3 kids I think. He sent his mission papers in 
 one week before his 26th birthday, which is the deadline. He worked in 
 steel construction before his mission and he's probably going to go 
 back to school when he gets home to get his degree. Kristiansand is his first area.
 He just got here about 3 months ago. He was trained by my greenie, 
 Elder Bird, which makes him my "grandson" haha. Cool kid. named Elder Donahue.
 Dunno, let me know if I missed anything =)

 We had a pretty good meeting with Dag this past week. Taught the Plan 
 of Salvation. We invited him to church but he wasn't able to come, so 
 we've just got to get an appointment to hopefully meet with him again this week.
 It went well with him though, and we had a member with us, so that was 
 good. We didn't meet with Nancy or Adam this week. Nancy is gonna come 
 to FHE tonight. Adam wants us to come visit the first week of January.

 Starting on Friday night, we have dinner appointments with members all 
 the ways until New Year's Eve. Well, minus the days we'll be in Oslo 
 for Mission Conference. We're going to spend Christmas Eve and morning 
 here in Kristiansand, and then we're going to drive about an hour away 
 to Evje and spend the rest of the day with the branch president's 
 family there. Play some games, eat some food, skype our families and 
 just be lazy =P

 I'll send out an email next Monday. Christmas Eve. So stoked =)

Merry Christmas everyone!

Elder Sessions