"How did this haaaapppeeeen??"

Hey Everyone!
 
First I want to talk about the title of the blog this week. There is a story behind it haha. Sister Fredrickson, who is one of the sisters in my district also going to Norway, was telling us a story during a break between classes last week. She has some very interesting mannerisms and at one point during the story she expressed her feelings by yelling at the top of her lungs, "How did this haaaaappeeeeeennn??", obviously with the emphasis on the word "happen." It was hilarious, just thought I'd share haha. The Danish missionaries next door get a kick out of hearing the various outbursts that come from our room each day.
 
So, as far as the Norwegian goes, it's pretty awesome. It's amazing that I can already speak more and better Norwegian after three weeks then I can Spanish after two years of high school classes. Our teachers have said that when we get to Norway, people will be amazed to find out that we will have only been speaking the language for two months at that point. Military linguist specialists have sat in on missionary language classes to try and figure out how we learn so quickly. They honestly can't understand it. Our teachers are BYU students who don't even have degrees yet. There's nothing special about the method they use to teach us. It's the gift of tounges. There's no way I could learn Norwegian this fast on my own. We are already having full conversations and teaching parts of the lessons in Norwegian.
 
When we came into the MTC three weeks ago, there was a district of English speaking missionaries that came in with us at the same time, in our zone. English speaking missionaries are only here for three weeks so they have already left for the mission field. It's insane how quickly time has gone by. I joked to Elder Bekker, my companion, that we only have two more sets of English missionaries to go through before we head out. So I guess we are counting our time left in Utah by how many English missionaries come through here. 1/3 of the way there!
 
Last week, we had Elder Maynes from the Quorum of the Seventy come to speak to us. He talked about the importance of having the guidance of the Holy Ghost when we are teaching. It isn't the words that we say to the investigators, but the Spirit that they feel as we speak that matters. The Spirit will always testify of the truthfulness of things. Our purpose as missionaries is to "invite others to come unto Christ by helping them recieve the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ..." Ultimately, we are not the ones who help the people make the changes in their lives. They have to make that decision for themselves, and it's through the feelings and the promptings from the Spirit that they decide to make those changes. That's the beauty of free agency.
 
I hope everything is going great for everyone at home. I've got less then six weeks left here in Utah, then it's off to Norway. I play a lot of four square during our assigned gym time, which is great. Brings back some awesome elementary school memories. By the end of my 8 1/2 weeks here, I'll be a beast at it haha. It's a lot of fun.
 
Just a quick shout out to whoever in my family has some information about our ancestors from Norway. I'd like to learn a little bit about our Norwegian origins and whether or not we still have some distant cousins there. It'd be really cool to have the opportunity to find them while I'm in Norway.
 
Just a clue, if you're reading this then that means I gave you my blog address before I left and I want to hear from you, so feel free to write me at the Utah address on my blog! We have an entire day once a week dedicated to things like writing letters, so I promise you'll get at least some sort of a reply. :)

Til next week!!

Title: å...ø...æ...I gotta learn how to pronounce those. Ha

I have even less time to type this then last week. So it'll be even shorter. Sorry haha.
Two weeks have passed and I'm still not fluent! Haha we're getting there! I'm kidding, but the other day we had a conversation in Norwegian in the lunchroom in order to not be overheard by the other people around us. It was pretty cool to be talking without anyone else being able to understand us.
 
I don't think I've talked about my teachers yet. We have two of them and they are both just recently returned from Norway as missionaries. They're pretty awesome and they like us too. We got one of them to admit that we're his favorite district yesterday....he might have been kidding though haha. It does make it easier spending so much time in a classroom, if you enjoy the teachers.
 
I have actually taken to writing in my journal. It was never something I did alot of before my mission. But there's so many things that happen during the day here and so many things I learn that I have to write it all down. Man! I wish I had enough time to tell you all about everything like that. I can spend more time talking about stuff in letters, so write me and I'd love to tell you more.
 
I thought the hardest thing about coming on a mission would be giving up TV and music. But honestly, I haven't thought much about it at all. We don't hear much about the outside world. We didn't find out about the Japan earthquake until three days afterwards. But we're so focused on something way more important then TV and world news. I feel for the Japanese people and we have been praying for them here.
 
I'm out of time so I'll write more next week. Love you all!

Jeremy met up with Grandma and Grandpa Hanson, Grandma Lillywhite and  Aunt Tiffany at an In-and-Out Burger after his flight landed

t Tiffany at an In

The First Week

So I arrived at the MTC last Wednesday and immediately I was almost dragged out of the car and thrown into the next building where they gave me my missionary materials. It wasn't really that violent, but for a new missionary it almost feels that way haha. We're really limited on time for emails so I'll make this kinda short, but once I get into Norway, we aren't limited as much on time so I'll be able to write a tiny bit more.

 

By the end of our first night, they already had us learning to teach people and we had learned the basics of the Norwegian language. After one week, me and my companion (his name is Elder Bekker) can already have simple conversations, pray, and contact/make appointments with people in Norwegian. It's insane how quickly they are teaching us, but more so how quickly we are learning.

 

So on a typical day in the MTC, we wake up usually between 6 and 630 and we are either in class, doing service, or in the gym by 7:00 am. We have a variety of classes throughout the day, all in one classroom, and it usually adds up to about 6-8, sometimes more, hours of classroom time per day. So it's a lot haha. But it goes pretty quickly surprisingly. The food is hit and miss most days, and the showers have mood swings like no other, but other then that they treat us pretty well hahaha.

 

The best part about being here is the firesides and devotionals. Last night, we had a devotional where one of the Second Quorom of the Seventy and his wife spoke to us. My district, which is my and my companion and two sister missionaries who are going to Norway with us, sang in the choir. Fun Fact: they are making a documentary on the MTC which will air in between sessions of conference next month and they were there filming us last night. So there's a good chance you may see me on TV! haha awesome. But the devotional was great, and they give us an hour afterwards to sit as a district and talk about things that stuck out to us during the message. Which is awesome, cause it allows us to learn so much about things we may have missed but others picked up on.

 

That's the key I think with missionary work. We go in pairs everywhere, and while it was a little odd at first to have someone going with you literally EVERYWHERE, it's so nice to have someone to back you up when you are speaking with people and to fill in the holes which I invariably leave all over the place.

 

So I have about 4 minutes left to finish this, so I'll just say that I've got a grand total of ONE letter so far! What's the dealio! haha just kidding...sorta =p But don't forget that my address is here on the blog and if you're reading this, then YES I want to hear from you. And I promise I'll try my very hardest to reply to each and every letter that gets to me.

 

So I'm off to do some laundry. Love you all and miss you and watch for next Wednesday when you can receive more words of wisdom ;)

 

Eldste Sessions.

MTC Address

I've updated the address for where I'll be for the next two months.

MTC Address: (From March until May 2011)

Elder Jeremy David Sessions

MTC Mailbox #139

NOR-OSL 0503

2005 N 900 E

Provo, UT 84604-1793

I won't get my Norwegian address until I move into my apartment/whatever I end up living in once I get there =p

So how's this gonna work?

Well, I would like to officially open my missionary blog! I've been sitting here working on this dumb thing for about an hour and a half now; getting the template set right and setting up all the little settings and such for the blog. I figured after all the work I put in, I might as well make my first post on here.

So to answer the question in the post's title, I've got this whole thing planned out haha. Once I leave for Provo on March 2nd, I'll hand control of this blog over to my sister Sami, who will be in charge of posting on it for me while I'm gone, since I cannot get on it while I'm serving a mission. Normally, we missionaries like to give our mother's control of the blog (I think it gives them something to do while we're gone =p), but I feel that somehow my blog is better left to someone who actually uses the internet daily. Plus, let's not kid ourselves, Mrs. Sessions is a bit of a forgetful person. Love you, Mom!

So pretty much, I will send a weekly email (hopefully) to my family, since they are the only ones I'm allowed to email, and Sami will copy the portion I want posted on the blog and put it on here for me. Obviously, this is not going to be my HIGHEST priority over there, so I may not always have time to write something for the blog every week, but if I have time, I will definitely try.

What I'm going to include in here is just kind of what's been going on with me over there. I'm absolutely sure I'm going to have some amazing experiences with the people in Norway, and it'll be nice to share those experiences with my friends and family back home. Hopefully, I can give ya'll a sense of what I'm doing over there and share some good thoughts and insights about my experiences in Norway. Occasionally, I'll send some pictures for Sami to post as well.

So that's kinda the plan for this shindig. I hope that this blog gets read by at least one person while I'm gone, because then I'll have accomplished what I wanted to do with it. My mailing address is to the side of the blog so write me! Sami will keep those updated as I move around the country as well. I'd would love to hear from everyone, even if I don't have time to reply right away. I'll try my best to answer the letters I get.

I did want to talk a little bit about what I did just this past Saturday. My parents and I drove (actually I drove, since I got my permit that morning....scary stuff) over to the Washington D.C. temple and I went through and received my endowments for the first time. For any of my friends who aren't LDS that are reading this, it's kind of a big deal for members of our Church. Basically, I spent about three hours in the temple learning about my relationship with God, and it was a lot to take in. There's so many things you learn when you receive your endowments. It's been three days and I still find myself processing the things I saw, heard, and felt while I was there. To be able to spend time in the temple, I literally felt as though Heavenly Father was there with me the whole time, teaching me things. Well, He's one heck of a teacher, let me tell ya. When I left the temple, I honestly felt different from when I went in. You know that clean, minty feeling you get in your mouth right after you brush your teeth? I had that all over. It was amazing, I felt like nothing in the world could hurt me. I can't wait until I can go again and experience those feelings another time.

Well that's about it, I might post some more before I leave in March, so you can get it straight from the camel's mouth I guess, haha. By the way, I hope you like the background image! That's what I'll get to look at in Norway for the next two years =)