November 28, 2011

Kjære familie og venner

I had someone tell me last night that my Facebook has been blown up by Happy Birthdays. I dunno whether to be happy or insulted....did that many people not realize I've been gone from Facebook for 8 months!? Haha no worries, I'll thank everyone in 15 months =p

So yeah. I'm 20. I was thinking about that the other day. This physical body I'm walking around in has been running for 20 years now. Does anyone realize how LONG that is!? 20 years ago, the FIRST Bush was President, and Apple computers looked closer to something from an old James Bond movie rather than the iPads we've got now. I mean jeez, imagine a 20 year old apple (the fruit) or a 20 year old computer. No one wants those!

That's alright. I had a mini pre mid life crisis haha. All the parents and grandparents reading this right now are patting me on the head and saying "That's ok sonny, give it another 20 years" It is a nice feeling to not be a teenager anymore though, I have to say. I've been telling people I'm "almost 20" for 6 months now haha.

So this week has been insane! I got old, my companion got better, a reporter got a ton of pictures of me, and we all got a ton of new people to teach. I think I'll explain each of those in turn. ;)

So yes, Elder Bird is now better. I'm actually sending this email to him too, so here's his shout out haha. He finally got off his deathbed on Thursday and went out with the AP's that day. He still gets tired quicker, but he's not coughing anymore so that's good. There's a Norwegian saying that I absolutely love. "Han er frisk som en fisk" which means, "He's a fresh as a fish" Isn't that a great image!? Anyways, the two of us finally getting together worked out really well, and in combination with the Assistants, we were able to add a bunch of people to our teaching pool.

That just reminded me. I have a huge announcement for those who have been following the epic saga of Ane Rebeka. She set a baptismal date with us! She is the one who has the family who is not fond of the church. She has really taken off the last few weeks, especially since she attended Jan and Kent's baptism. She finally decided she's going to tell her family she'll get baptized. So February 11th is the date to circle on your calenders. I'm way stoked for this one. I just hope that the Lord lets me stay in Bergen for one more transfer, cause that's halfway through the next one.

The reporter. Some crazy guy with a camera got it into his head that my life is interesting and that he wanted to follow me around and take pictures of it. Haha not so bad, but we have had a freelance reporter who is doing a project on the lifestyle of mormon missionaries and Elder Perry, the district leader, and I were obligatorily volunteered to be the ones in the spotlight. It's been kinda interesting, but he's been in on a couple of lessons that we've taught to people this week, and it's been funny how his chair slowly comes closer to the table during the course of each lesson. By the end, he's usually listening intently. In fact, he's actually been in on every single lesson that we teach as missionaries, and he's talking about coming to a baptismal service this weekend. For not being an investigator, he's sure showing a lot of progress haha.

New people to teach. Ah yes. Well actually, as far as new progressing investigators, there's only two. Ane Rebeka (who wasn't really progressing, but still positive) and a guy named Thomas. He's pretty cool and he came to church yesterday. Luckily, Bergen has an awesome YSA program which just sucks people in. So he's been pretty positive with the teaches we've had with him since Friday, but it'll be fun to see him try and resist the hugs from Pilar (RM from Peru), the chillaxity of Arju (RM from England), or the straightforward honesty of Renata (another YSA I threw in here to make the sentence sound complete.)

Elder Perry and I had an awesome teach with Marie while on splits on Wednesday. We taught her the Plan of Salvation and she agreed with everything we taught! Unfortunately, I don't think she realized that by agreeing with us she was going against the things that her church actually teaches, but I didn't know how to tell her without offending her. So Pilar, who used to be Catholic, has used her secret weapon of hugs and Facebook to pull her in and she's planning on talking to her about stuff. It's a little different, less threatening maybe, coming from someone other than a missionary.

Helene also met with us again and she completely understood the authority issue, which is what we missed with her last time. She didn't understand how our church was any different and so we had to explain our belief that the authority to baptize and administer other sacred ordinances was lost after the apostles, and was brought back with Joseph Smith. Proof of that being an answer of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. It clicked with her, and she had no problems setting another appointment with us to hear more. She didn't want to come to church, but she did invite us to her church service, and I was definitely down. It wasn't the first Pentecostal service I had been to, but this one was aimed more at university aged students and it started out exactly like a rock concert haha. They had a nice message at the end as well. It's always fun to see how other churches work from the inside.

It was funny, I actually celebrated Thanksgiving more here than I did at home. Well, it may have actually even out....no football game =( but I did get two full Thanksgiving dinners! The institute dinner for the YSA's was a turkey dinner, and then we had dinner with a member on Thursday for legit Thanksgiving.

This email turned out to be very long. But we had a ton of stuff going on this week, and I felt like I hadn't written a lot in a while. So if you've made it to this point without falling asleep, I congratulate you =)

Til next week!

Elder Sessions

November 21, 2011

Kjære familie og venner,

Elder Bird and I have had a tough week, to say the least haha. I'm feeling 100% better, but he's still got pneumonia. He has the antibiotics for it, but the doctor said they would take about a week to kick in, and that's proving true. It's been interesting having to tie a lasso around my new missionary and keep him in bed, rather than the other way around. I told him I'd much rather he took too many days off than too few, but that's proving easier for me to say than him to do. I can honestly say that I sympathize, though haha.

We do have a couple of people that we're teaching however! I managed to keep pretty good contact with them while I was sick, and I got out this weekend to meet with them while I was on splits. One of them is a girl named Marie. She is the sister of a recent convert of about 8 months. It was kind of random, I just met her on the street a few weeks ago and she said that her brother was a member. I didn't even know he had a sister! So that was cool. Elder Bird and I taught her on his first day in Norway, and we've got another appointment with her on Wednesday afternoon, so hopefully he'll be feeling well enough to go out by then.

Another girl we're teaching is named Helene. I set an appointment for Saturday with her about 2 weeks ago. So I finally met her and totally screwed up the teach haha. I felt like we should change the lesson we were going to teach her, and it ended up being that the Preach my Gospel lesson was exactly what she needed to hear. Those prophets and apostles really knew what they were doing when they put that thing together haha. I had to fight for a return appointment, but we did get it for next weekend. This time, we'll be sticking to Preach my Gospel =P

That's pretty much all we've got going on right now. It's really just going to come down to finding more people to teach at this point. Kent, who was baptized two weeks ago, is another person we'll be meeting with this week. We had an appointment with him, but then I got sick so we missed it. Being sick really throws things off, but we're getting back on track....I think haha.

Fun fact, I actually saw Elder Bird before both of us were on our missions. I went to a concert in Las Vegas last year while I was at BYU-Idaho. Turns out that Elder Bird was actually at the exact same concert, and at some point he got it in his head to climb the light pole in the center of the concert. Everyone there at the concert saw him up there including myself, and it was definitely one of those memorable moments. So as I was telling Elder Bird about this concert (since he is from Las Vegas), he says "Yeah, do you remember a guy climbing up a light pole at that concert? Yeah, that was me." So that was pretty cool haha. I told him he's not allowed to climb the light poles in Norway though.

That's all I've got this week. Maybe I'll write something interesting next time ;)

Elder Sessions

November 14,2011

Kjære Familie og Venner,

Well everyone's heard about how I'm sick. President Johansen put me on mandatory bed rest since Saturday night. It's helped a little bit, but I'm still quite a ways from being back to normal. I figure it will be at least another couple of days of bed rest before I can get back to work.

I did discover how expensive and unhelpful the Norwegian health system tends to be. The doctor completely disregarded everything I told him about this illness, which I have had several times before and finished the visit by doing a test "just to make sure it really is the virus you say it is." Needless to say, the medicines he gave me aren't much help, but hopefully the bed rest will be enough to help me relax.

Well, I did get to sort of be a trainer for about 3 days before I was put on bed rest haha. Elder Bird is a way hard worker, and I'm excited to get back out on the streets with him. I still try to do companionship studies with him in the morning, so that we don't get too far behind on the 12 week program. It's going really well, and I'm learning a lot as well. He is from Las Vegas, so he'll be my second companion from Vegas =)

I got a little bored yesterday just sitting around the apartment, so I made a sign to hang on the front door, which I then took a picture of. I'll send that picture along with this email.

That's about all that's going on with me right now. Thanks for all the prayers and support. I'll be back on my feet in no time =)

Love,

Elder Sessions

November 7, 2011

Kjære familie og venner,

Got a few pictures this time! All from the baptism this weekend. More on that later. The first picture is all of the missionaries with both of the brothers, as well as their younger brother who jumped in at the last second.   The next is Elder Perry and Elder Argyle with Jan, who they taught.   The third is Elder Spencer and I with Kent, who we taught.  And the last one is a picture of the whole family together, minus the member sister who is in the states.

So yes. The baptism. It was freakin awesome. The branch is really on board with the brothers and they are way excited, which is good to see. They were baptized on Saturday, and on Sunday they were both confirmed and ordained as priests. Jan was actually ordained first, and the branch president surprised everyone by letting him stand in on the ordination of his brother Kent. It really was a great family story, the less active mom and dad were both at the baptism, and the Dad sang a song for the musical number. We even got permission to skype Victoria, the sister, in from Utah. She was baptized 3 years ago, and she was way bummed that she would be in the states for the baptism, so we set up a laptop so that she could watch it too.

It was crazy to see the change with the brothers in such a short amount of time. A little over a month ago, we hadn't even started teaching them yet and they had been standoffish with the church pretty much their whole lives. Now they are ordained priests in the church, and they are way gung ho about everything and they really are excited about working on their testimonies and faith. We ate dinner with the family last night, and none of them could stop smiling.

Kent invited one of his friends to the baptism, and he looked like he enjoyed it. I didn't get a chance to talk to him on Saturday - things were kinda crazy - but he'll be at an activity tonight, so I look forward to talking to him about what he thought. 

Well, on Friday Elder Perry and I got on a plane to Oslo for a training meeting. They just recently released a new 12 week program for trainers and new missionaries, and so they have a training meeting for new trainers just before the transfer starts to introduce the program. It involves a structured companionship and language study schedule, and a couple of other cool things. I've been going over it for the past couple of days and it looks amazing. I'm way stoked to start training on Wednesday. BTdubs, the new elder's name is Elder Bird. I'm not sure where he's from, but I'll find that out in a couple of days =p

Elder Bird and I will have our work cut out for us. We managed to get a couple of appointments for this next week, with some new people, but for the most part after this baptism, we'll be starting from scratch. I don't want to spend a ton of time contacting with him, so hopefully we'll be able to find some new investigators quick so we can get on with teaching them.

I saw an old friend in Oslo on Friday. Elder Bekker was also at the training meeting, and it was the first time in six months that I had seen him...since we were companions in the MTC. I've talked to him on the phone a couple of times, but that was the first time I've seen him in person since May. He'll be getting a new missionary too, so that was pretty exciting. I found out that Sister Fredrickson, also from my MTC district, is moving here to Bergen. So my entire MTC group is going to have served in Bergen within the first 8 months of our missions. Fun Fact =)

That's pretty much all we've got going on right now. We won't be fishing today. Unfortunately. The other night though, we did eat the fruits of our labor, and that was very satisfying. Norwegian grocery stores have a great supply of fish sauces and gravies, and we chowed down like our lives depended on it. Oh man, I'm gonna miss the fish when it comes time to go back home.

Busy week behind us, and we've got another busy one ahead. Sånn er livet =)

Elder Sessions.

October 30, 2011

Kjære familie og venner,

Elder Spencer didn't go fishing with us. I went on splits with the other elders last week for P-Day. And actually, we did it again this week, and went fishing with one of their investigators. His name is Jan Åge, and he's fished his entire life. No exaggeration, he caught a fish nearly every time he cast out the line. By the end of the day, the three of us had caught 2 fish, and he was working on number 8. 

We had a Halloween party the other night for the YSA's. Our district performed a couple of line dances to the surprise of every one else there haha. We managed to find some extra time during the week to practice them and it turned out pretty well. I had someone record the first dance, but the file size limit on this email system won't let me send it. I did, however, win the prize for the best costume. I can send a picture of that. It's my dead missionary costume haha, and the man standing there with me is George, who had been baptized earlier that day.

Jan and Kent, the two brothers who we have been teaching, decided to postpone their baptism until this Saturday, because their mom was out of town last weekend. The bright side is, it gives us an extra week to get them ready, and to advertise the baptism. I told Elder Passey, our district leader that I wanted to knock out the back wall of the baptismal room and into the nursery, in order to make room for the people who will be attending the baptism. That's my goal anyway. I think it's pretty realistic....at least, having that number of people there. I don't know if President Johansen would be too happy with me if I knocked out a wall in a chapel.

I got a call from President Johansen last night. He told me, officially, that I'll be training next transfer. I've got a training meeting in Oslo on Friday. They're gonna train us how to be trainers. I'm pretty excited, on top of the fact that I can get a decent kebab while I'm there in Oslo. We don't have any good kebab shops here in Bergen. After that though, transfers is a week from tomorrow. It's crazy how fast the last 9 weeks has gone. 

President Johansen also did tell me that Elder Spencer and I have gotta work like crazy to find some people to teach this week. We've been having a lot of trouble recently, getting anyone new to stick. It will be much better for the new missionary coming here, if he doesn't have to spend the entire day contacting. I remember how much I disliked it when I was a new missionary, so I'd like to avoid it as much as I can, in favor of teaching lessons at appointments. That requires new investigators, however, something we have been in short supply of here recently.

I spoke with a man the other day, who told me that I didn't know the Bible as well as he did, and that I needed to read it more to be saved. I took that as a bit of advice, and did a study on the subject which we were discussing. He asked me whether or not I thought God allows bad things to happen to us here on Earth. I told him I did. He didn't like that much. He felt that God loves us, and that he would never allow bad things to happen, that it comes purely from the adversary. It raised a huge question in my mind, until I read this scripture, the next day:

"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."

That was 1 Corinthians 10:13. It says that God doesn't suffer us to be tempted above that we are able, which means that he has at least some sort of control on the amount of temptations we suffer. That doesn't mean that God is the source of our temptations. As we know from the story of Jesus Christ being tempted in the wilderness, Satan is the source of temptation. But God allows us to face that opposition, in a way that would be most beneficial to our learning and experience. He prepares a way for us to escape, so that we can bear the temptation or trial, and not only bear it, but learn from it.  

A great scripture from the Book of Mormon talks more about it.  "11 For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.12 Wherefore, it must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God. 13 And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away." (2 Nephi 2:11-13)

That is why we have trials, and temptations, and hard times in life, and accidents, and death, and all manner of horrible nasty things that this "unfair life" subjects us to. It's not because God doesn't love us, or because Satan is more powerful than God. It's because God does love us, and he knows what we can and cannot tolerate, even better than we know ourselves. He is more powerful than the adversary, but allows us to face opposition in order for us to appreciate our blessings, and even our hardships for the things we learn from them. 

It's something I have experienced, that in the hardest times in my life or on my mission, that is when I learn the most. We don't learn much of anything when everything is going great. What have we to learn from lollipops, fairies, and grassy meadows? It's the mountains we climb, which give us the great view, but only after we've sweated over the steep incline. I'm grateful that my Heavenly Father loves us enough to test us, so that we can grow.

Til next week!

Elder Sessions.

October 25, 2011

Kjære familie og venner,

Sorry, the email is a day late. We had a proverbial circus here yesterday, and I read all the emails, but I haven't had time to reply to any until now. 

Couple of cool stuff this week. Mainly having to do with fish. First of all, I tasted whale! Norway, Japan, and Iceland are the only countries in the world where it is legal to serve whale. I guess I got lucky, cause whale actually tastes amazing. I'd have to describe it as a rubbery beef jerky. Sounds strange, but it's way good. Unfortunately, it's also pretty expensive so I won't get it too often.

Secondly, the reason why we were so busy yesterday was because me and two other elders from our district went out fishing by a member's home. Norway is, of course, known for its fish, so I was pretty stoked. We managed to catch one fish each, but only Elder Argyle's was worth keeping. Mine was pretty small haha, and Elder Perry's we used for bait to catch Elder Argyle's fish. His turned out to be pretty big by my standards, but the Norwegians we showed it to just laughed at us and patted us nicely on the heads. Apparently, if the fish isn't bigger than you, it isn't worth keeping. Whatevs, it'll still taste great when we eat it haha.

And finally, the big one, we were busy last night meeting with Kent and Jan, the two brothers who will be getting baptized on Saturday. We just found out that one of the other companionships here in Bergen is also going to be baptizing a man named George. So we'll be having a triple baptism in Bergen on Saturday. By South American standards, that's a weekly thing, but for Europe that's huge! So it's pretty exciting. I'll definitely have some pictures to send home next week.

Speaking of which, I've got some pictures I've been meaning to send home.

I'll describe them by the file number:

337/338: The view from our apartment =)

344: Elder Argyle and I got new ties!

Little Note From Sami: He looks so grown up in his mission wear doesn't he?  :)

346: "Old Bergen"

358: Elder Argyle and his fish

We've got a busy week ahead of us, so I'll get to it.

Vi snakkes!

Elder Sessions

October 17, 2011

Kjære Familie og Venner

I do know Elder Knudson. He is in my zone and I just met him at a zone conference last week. It's his first transfer here in Norway, he just got here from the MTC about 7 weeks ago. I didn't have a chance to talk to him too much, but he did sit right behind me for the whole conference. Crazy small world.

I did get the hoodies, but there weren't any shoes. We just got another package slip the other day, so if you sent them separately that may be what that is. The problem is, they moved the place where our packages get delivered to and it's about a kilometer or so out of the way. Kind of annoying, but in any case we have to walk over there sometime this week and pick that up.

It has started to get cold. I've started thinking in Celsius so I can only tell you it's been around 5 or 6 degrees during the day and then dropping below 0 overnight. That's about 45-50 degreesish Fahrenheit during the day. No snow yet, but snow isn't a huge feature of Bergen anyways. 

Norwegians attempt to celebrate Halloween haha. It's just starting to catch on, but apparently the kids have a tendency to dress up and try to get candy on the 30th and November 1st, hahaha. They'll get it eventually, I'm sure.

We didn't manage to find anyone really positive this week. Kent and his brother come to pretty much all of the church activities during the week, so we see them several times outside of teaches. They are doing pretty well though, and things seem to be moving forward towards their baptismal dates in 12 days. Apparently these brothers have a long history of investigating the church off and on for years. I spoke to a sister missionary who taught Kent about a year ago, and they never made any real progress with him. So it's really exciting to be around when he starts to make the decision to be baptized.

I did talk to a couple of chinese guys this week. That was really cool. It's amazing how little they know about religion and the outside world in general. They were extremely intelligent, and they knew quite a bit about history and those sorts of things, but as far as experiencing the world outside of China, they got nothin'. But it's made them extremely curious and a very humble people, and a lot of fun to talk to. Unfortunately, I don't know how much they understood of our message....there was a pretty huge language barrier. But their little eyes just about popped out of their heads when we showed them a chinese translation of the Book of Mormon. I don't think he had a clue what the book actually was, but he seemed excited just to read something in his own language. We'll invite them to some of the YSA activities this week, but I don't know how far we'll get in teaching them. But we'll see.

My district attended a funeral this past friday for the family member of someone we know. It's a part member family, so the funeral was held in a Norwegian State church. This was the second time I've attended the State church's services. It was a very nice ceremony, but a little sad. The grandmother at one point stood up and said, "I don't understand why this happened." The priest later stood up and tried to offer comfort. The grandmother again stood up afterwards and said, "I still don't understand why this happened." The priest herself said she didn't know why God allows bad things to happen. It was sad and frustrating to sit at the back of the church watching this grieving family's questions not be answered. We decided it wouldn't be tactful to mention the Plan of Salvation, but it certainly was tempting. The part of the family which are members later came up to us, and we were able to offer some comfort. It really made me appreciate the answers that the Gospel and the knowledge of God's plan bring to us. 

Oh and I almost forgot! I might have mentioned before about how we have been taking advantage of the sunny days by drawing the Plan of Salvation in chalk in the middle of Bergen. Well we did it again this week, and attracted the attention of the local Bergen newspaper. There was a man snapping about a million and a half pictures of us drawing and then he asked a couple of questions to another one of the missionaries. It was a nice surprise to see the branch president hold up the HUGE picture which was in the Saturday edition of the newspaper during Priesthood yesterday. There wasn't an article to go with the picture, but we did get a caption with a quick explanation and a quote from our missionary.

That's all folks!

Elder Sessions