October 15, 2012

Kjære familie og venner

I've got my conference notes this time! So I'll write a couple of highlights from my notes in here. But first, a little update on our week. I was on splits with Elder Godfrey, one of the zone leaders here in Oslo on Wednesday. We went out pretty much all day and talked to people on the streets. Found a ton of new potentials, so that was exciting. One of them, named Nikolai came to church yesterday. He's a 21 year old Norwegian who said he was looking for a church to go to. Things went extremely well for him yesterday and I think he was really enjoying church. Unfortunately, someone came into the church and stole a bunch of things from the coat rack, including our investigator's iPod. So, he wasn't too happy about that one. Neither was I. But, hopefully, we're gonna be able to meet with him again. He had a good experience at church until that point, so I hope that he isn't going to completely be turned off by it.

Our 19 year old less active kid came to Institute on Friday. He even invited his twin brother to come with. So that was really good as well. We also met with another less active guy named Jonny who asked us to teach him the missionary lessons. It went really well and he told us about his inactive friend who he wants us to try and meet with. We're gonna meet with Jonny again this week and find out more about his friend.

Conference notes:
"The 'treasures of heaven' are meaningful time spent with family and friends, and the blessings of the Gospel in our lives"

"Life is not a race it's a journey. Enjoy the moment! We live for life, not just to wait to die."

"Regrets can be avoided tomorrow by living the Gospel and following Christ's example today."

"Deep personal conversion and strong family relationships help to protect us from the temptations we face every day."

"Ridicule is the Adversary's sad excuse for a motivation to sin"

"Pay attention to your spiritual gifts. Develop them. Help others do the same"

"See men as they can become, not as they are"

"The Church and the Gospel are there to help us have the strength to overcome our trials, which we all inevitably will have. Why would we withdraw from it when we face a trial of faith? Don't be surprised when you are backed up to a wall of faith and asked to make your stand. That is how we grow in faith"

"God's promises are always calculated to bless us"

"The crowning appearance of our love for God is always through obedience and loyalty"

"Faith means not always seeing the end from the beginning and remembering that God can"

"There are added blessings to be received when we combine the works of doing our own family history with the work done in the temple. Doing both is good. Doing both together is better"

"It is important to know for ourselves that the Gospel is true AND be true to the Gospel."

And I've got a ton more. Some of those quotes are direct quotes from the conference, but most of them are just things I wrote down as people were speaking. There's about 10 pages all together in my book. The thing about General Conference is it can be different for everybody. For me, there was a lot about personal conversion and raising a family (I call those "heavenly hint hints"). For someone else they probably learned different things. That's what happens when you have prophets and apostles receiving revelation for us ;)

Have a good week everyone!

Elder Sessions