Last week we had our little miracle with the 6 teaches in two hours. This week we wanted to focus more on getting some real progress with people, rather then getting a lot of teaches. Both things are important, but they need to come together. This week, we managed to get some real progress, but not so many teaches. Hopefully this next week, we can put it together and get both of them haha.
It was yesterday in church when I suddenly realized I can speak Norwegian! I have been a little apprehensive to talk with people, not so much because I'm afraid I'll say something wrong, but because I'm afraid I won't be able to understand what they say back! So that's been the challenge, but yesterday I had several very good conversations with the members, all in Norwegian. So I wouldn't say I'm completely fluent just yet, but I'm definitely functionally fluent.
I also had the "opportunity" to translate for someone during church yesterday. There is a member here who doesn't speak Norwegian, so we had another member translating for her. I guess he was having trouble with the translation, cause one minute I'm minding my own business trying to figure what the heck the person was saying for myself, and the next minute I'm being thrown into the chair next to this Filipino lady who was looking very expectantly at me for a translation. I think it went ok though, I managed to translate the gist of the talk into English. Definitely wasn't Gettysburg Address quality though.
We had a pretty cool teach with a guy named Patrick last night. We've been meeting with him for a couple of weeks now, but last night was only our third real lesson with him. He has a really erradic work schedule so it's hard to get appointments. Patrick has investigated a lot of churches, and so we're definitely not the first religion who's explained our beliefs to him. He's been around the block haha. But at a certain point during the lesson he stopped us and asked why we were talking to him. Why did we care so much that he came to know of the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? He said with the people he has met with before, he felt like as soon as they realized he's not the richest guy in the world, or the most clean cut (basically when they realized he didn't have much to contribute to their church), they didn't want to meet with him much anymore. At least, that was his perception. But he said "You guys are really persistent. You really want me to find out for myself, and you don't care one bit that I'm broke as the next bum. You do realize, I don't really have much to offer your church, right?"
I was really glad to be teaching someone with that perspective. Because it doesn't matter who we're teaching, or how much money they have. I didn't come to Norway to pick and choose who I think is "worthy" to hear this message. I came here to tell people about something I know is true. If it is true for me, it is true for everyone else, and applies to and can help everyone else. The most important thing is that we tell as many people as possible that Christ's church is back on the earth, exactly as it was in New Testament times, and let them decide for themselves whether or not they believe us.
This is what we told Patrick. I told him straight up. "Patrick, I'll be honest, I want you to be baptized. But, it's because I know this is true, and I want you to find out for yourself." I was a little scared how he'd take that, but he took it well and rolled with it. We had a great lesson after that with him and I think he'll start to get his answer about whether or not this is true. He's just got to ask the question through prayer. And that's all we ask people to try.
Til next week!
Elder Sessions
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