Vi er ikke Jehovahs Vitner!

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Title: Vi er ikke Jehovahs Vitner!
 
So, Yul says that my blog posts are not entertaining enough. I was going to send some pictures to put in a slideshow that could help him be entertained but I forgot my camera. So you'll just have to suffer bud, haha.
 
The title of my blog translates to "We are not Jehovah's Witnesses!" It comes from a story one of our teachers told us about his mission. He and his companion were out knocking on doors once and they kept having the door slammed in their faces before they could say a word. Halfway down the street, the person who answered saw the two of them in their suits and nametags and went to slam the door. Our teacher, in frustration, just yelled in Norwegian as the door was closing: "We are not Jehovah's Witnesses!" The person stopped the door, and opened it back up. He said, "Oh sorry, we just get tired of hearing from them sometimes. Who are you?" They told them they were missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and they were able to teach a lesson to him. I thought that was a really funny story and when we were practicing door contacts later that day, our teacher decided he was going to slam the door on us. He did, and I said, "Vi er ikke Jehovahs Vitner!" He was laughing so hard we had to take a break after that. I dunno, maybe you just had to be there haha. It's hard to make something seem funny in an email ha
 
So General Conference was this past weekend, how cool was that!? Pretty darned cool. I had never before in my life been excited for Conference, but things are a little bit different when you're a missionary. It's really good to hear the voice of a prophet, especially when you know that the things he's saying are exactly what Heavenly Father wants us to hear.
 
My companion and I have been called as Zone Leaders. That basically means that we are responsible for a group of about 20 or so missionaries here in the MTC, whom we go to church with on Sundays and stuff, called a zone. It's a pretty big responsibility, so on top of our studies we've got that goin on. So pretty much, we're really busy. Ha not much else to say than that.
 
We had an English Fast last Friday. 100% Norwegian for 24 hours. It went really really well. The best part was, I don't think we talked any less then we usually do haha. We'll be doing that again this upcoming Friday, and next week we'll probably extend it to two or three days with no English.
 
On that same note, we taught a lesson in Norwegian on Monday. Also went really well. We taught two people, one who was a Norwegian transfer student here in the United States and one who was a returned missionary from Norway. They volunteer to come in once a week and act as investigators, I think I've explained before. But they said our improvement in Norwegian has been amazing. They usually use words like "amazing, incredible, astonishing" when they describe our progress. It's pretty great to go once a week and have our heads expanded hahaha. But I'm being humble, so we've still got a ways to go.
 
We had an awesome speaker come this past Sunday to the MTC. His name is Vai Sikahema (and I totally butchered that spelling) and he's a former BYU and NFL player. He played on the Philadelphia Eagles back in the 90's and now he works as a sports newscaster for NBC in Philly. He came to talk to us about the many opportunities he's had in his jobs to share the gospel with other people. He also told us a little bit about his mission and one of the people he baptized was there with him. It was really interesting to hear the conversion story from the perspective of the investigator, to hear how he felt and why he had a desire to be baptized. I think sometimes we make the mistake of thinking of investigators as people we just want to get baptized. But we need to think of them as people with real problems and real needs. Everyone needs the message of the restoration of the fullness of Christ's church in their lives, even if they don't realize it at the time. Once they start to listen, they'll receive that witness that it's true and they realize the huge amount of happiness it will bring them. It applies to everyone, even someone who thinks they have everything.
 
I just want to add in here a little note to Megan. Mainly cause the letters take a while to get from here to England. But I just wanna let you know that I got your letter and it made me super happy. My companion and the two sister missionaries in my district are rooting for ya :)
 
Till next week!
Elder Sessions