We're down to 19 days left in the MTC! We're all super stoked. Our language and teaching is good enough now that we feel like we'd be ready if we left tomorrow. Luckily though, they're given us a couple of more weeks to prepare even more.
I got a letter from my aunt yesterday with some information about our ancestors in Norway. It wasn't a lot, and I had to take some liberties with the spelling (it obviously doesn't translate well from Norwegian to English), but I was able to locate the village where they were from. Luckily, it was on the map haha. One of the other sisters in my district here has family from Norway and it took her a couple of weeks to find the tiny village on the obscure island off the coast of Norway. It was a little easier than that for me. The village where my ancestors lived is a part of the Stavanger Branch. It isn't part of the Oslo stake in Norway, but it's one of the areas where missionaries serve so I hope I have the chance to go there at some point. The village where my ancestor was born is within our tracting area and it would be an easy thing to go there at some point.
My companion and I now have three progressing "investigators." Those are the ones that our teachers role play as someone they taught on their mission, and we have to contact them and teach them as though they were real investigators. We've had one guy that we've been teaching for about two weeks now, and I think we'll teach him tomorrow again. We had another, named Steiner, who we knocked on his door but he wasn't really interested. He did give us his brother's address though and when we went to visit his brother, Frederick, he let us in and we taught him. The lessons that we've taught have gone really well, and by the way, everything is done in Norwegian. We're still holding out hope that Steiner will let us in eventually, since he told us he'd be interested in talking with us....he just didn't want to be preached to.
So, Elder Bekker and I have been Zone Leaders for almost two weeks now. Sometimes, it's kind of a headache since we have to worry about 20 other missionaries beyond ourselves. But it's a great blessing too, since the missionaries look up to us for an example and come to us with questions and looking for advice. I've definitely learned a lot about being a leader, and just how much I DON'T know about doing that.
I think that's something that you learn a lot when you study the gospel. The more you study, the more you realize you have a lot to learn. Fortunately, the stuff that is really essential for all of us is SO simple, and the more you study, the easier it gets to understand the other stuff.
Don't take this the wrong way, but I honestly don't miss home too much. I thought it would be really hard to leave for two years, but while I think about my friends and family a lot, I know that it's important that I'm here now and that makes it easier. It did hit me the other day though just how long two years really is. I try not to think about that though. Gordon B. Hinckley's (one of our modern day prophets) father really knew what he was saying to him on his mission when he told him to "Lose yourself and get to work."
One of these days I'm going to have to remember to bring my camera with me to do emails so I can attach some pictures with it. I'll definitely do that when I get to Norway. All the pictures I've seen are absolutely beautiful, and I can't wait to see it for myself.
My mom will be happy to hear I've managed to stay healthy the whole time I've been here. A couple of other missionaries in our zone have gotten sick but I've got the immune system of....something with a really strong immune system haha. So I'm fine.
I hope everything is going great out there. I'm still amazed at how isolated we are here in the MTC, sometimes I forget we are in the middle of Utah. I miss everyone and just make sure after May 2nd you check the new address on my blog cause my MTC one won't be good anymore.
Love,
Elder Sessions
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