Kjære familie og venner

Well, we decided to take our prep day on Wednesday this past week instead of Monday, so that we could visit some museums which, for some reason, are not open on Mondays. We bought a city pass for 270 kroner and then headed out to hit as many of them as we could. In all we visited 4 museums: the Kon Tiki museum, the Fram museum, the Viking Ship museum, and a Technology museum. They were all pretty cool. 

The Kon Tiki was the name of a raft that 5 college students built according to ancient South American customs. They then left from Peru and headed west on the Pacific ocean eventually drifting to one of the Pacific islands. They did this to prove that people from ancient South America could have left on one of their water craft and populated the islands in the Pacific. Most people thought they were crazy and that they would starve to death before they got there, or that they wouldn't drift in the right direction at all, but after 101 days of open ocean they made it there. Pretty interesting, and it's cool because in the Book of Mormon it talks about a group of people left from the mainland population and embarked out on the ocean. It doesn't say where they ended up or anything like that, but many people have theorized that they went to the Pacific islands. Kon Tiki proved that it was possible =)

The Fram was the name of a ship that was specially built to travel all the ways to the North pole and all the ways to the South pole. It did, in fact, make it. They had the original ship in the museum that you could go on board and see how the men on the ship lived. So that was a pretty cool museum too. The Viking Ship museum has three ancient viking ships which have been excavated in Norway. Kinda straightforward, but it made for a nice picture, which I sent home =P 

Then, the technology museum was the coolest of all. It was kinda like the science museum I went to in Trondheim, except bigger. There was a bunch of things you could do there, a lot of hands on science stuff. I dunno, I just like to go to those kinds of museums, I could spend all day there haha. They have those balls with the electricity in them that you can touch and the little bolt of lightning goes towards your hand. Just cool stuff like that...

But anyways, that was P day. I promise I did some work this week too haha.

I decided to revive my member plan that I used when I was in Bergen and to expand on it a little bit. I was looking at some of the investigators in my district and I realized that almost all of the investigators in all of the areas being taught right now have come from referrals. So I decided that it's probably a good place to focus on. I typed up the plan and showed it to our bishop yesterday and he said he liked it. We're basically going to start visiting members and teaching them the missionary lessons. It will help us to get to know the members a bit and get some feedback on our teaching and language skills. The members can see how we tend to teach investigators and offer suggestions on what other members we could visit and stuff like that. By starting with just a few families in the ward, we will hopefully end up meeting with a lot of the members, both active and less active. It'll give us lots of opportunities to ask about people to teach. So I'm pretty excited about that, we should have a busy week.

We did have 3 people in church yesterday. One of them was a friend to the guy who the sister missionaries baptized on Saturday. He came to the baptism and I talked to him afterwards and invited him to church. I dunno how interested he actually was, but he came to church at least and I was able to give him a Book of Mormon. Another one is a Hungarian guy who has been coming to church for a while. We're working with some missionaries in Hungary to help us teach him, because he doesn't speak any English or Norwegian. The third one was a norwegian girl named Benedicte. She was a foreign exchange student in Las Vegas...actually in my trainer, Elder Davis' ward. Elder Davis' parents were here this weekend to pick him up and take him home, and they brought her with them to church. She hadn't been to church in Norway before, but she had visited the church a lot with her host family in Las Vegas. So hopefully we're going to start teaching her this week. We invited her to a YSA activity tonight, we'll see if she comes =)

That's pretty much what we're doing right now. The weather is treating us pretty nicely right now, it's pretty stable between 65-70 degrees. Sometimes it rains, but we get plenty of sun too, so that's good. It's going to start cooling down by the end of this month though. Heading into my second winter...I've heard rumors it's gonna be a nasty one haha. Should be exciting. It also means that vacation season is almost over. People have started coming home and we had a lot of people in church yesterday. The most I've seen since I've been here. I think school starts in about 2 weeks so that's when things will really start rolling again....at least until winter hits haha.

Hope you guys like the pictures. I had fun taking them =)

Elder Sessions

6 August 2012

Kjære familie og venner

We have been getting plenty of teaches throughout the week, but just not really much to show for it. We've pretty much decided we need to not focus so much on talking to people on the street, without at the same time working with the ward here to find less active members or part member families to find people to teach. So that will be something we're going to try spending a bit more time on this week...I've set up an appointment with the bishop next Sunday to get his ideas and input on who we could visit. Hopefully we'll be able to find some interested investigators out of that.

Yesterday we were waiting at a subway station for our "T-bane" to take us to an appointment. To my left, there was a man kind of leaning on the wall staring at us with this goofy grin on his face. This went on for about 5 minutes. I glanced over at him probably about 7 times, just to let him know I saw him and his stare. Finally, I guess he got tired of this little game of cat-and-mouse and told me he had a question:

"Is God good?"

Yep, I believe He is.

"Is He All-mighty?"

Yup, I sure think so.

"Then, why are there so many suffering children and so many evil things in this world?"...he said this with a triumphant smile as if he had caught me, and I had never thought of this particular question before.

At that moment, our T-bane arrived, so I didn't have a chance to answer his question.  As I walked away from him he shouted at me that I needed to think long and hard about the life-changing question he had just asked me. So I'll just answer it here =)

This answer comes in two parts:

1) To assume that just because God is good and all-powerful that He would force all people and all things in this world to always be good is foolish and denies everything we know through common sense and experience of what life is really like here.

and, 2) Beyond the fact that much of the evil in this world is a product of our own human stupidity and greed, the evil things that remain are not going to disappear with a clench of God's mighty fist....it just doesn't work that way.

I understand why this man didn't understand that. His conception of God is an Almighty Power in some corner of the universe who created all things and tells us lowly humans through His commandments written on stone tablets that unless we meet His mighty expectations, He's gonna let us burn in an endless @#!*% for all eternity. That certainly does not sound like a good God, yet that is the impression that many atheists get of the mass of misunderstanding of God and who He is in the world today.

God is an Almighty Power in some corner of the universe who created all things. But He is also our Father in Heaven. Just like our father here on Earth, he wants the best for us...meaning he wants us to learn and grow and become the person that we have the potential of being. He can see that potential in a way that we cannot, and sometimes, that means we have to go through trials and tribulations in this life. Our earthly parents cannot protect and shield us from any and all evil or hurt that could possibly cross our path, without stunting our growth and development. We learn through adversity. We know that. God knows that. So sometimes, yes, he allows us to suffer, because He has an understanding of the fact that it really will be for our good. We only have to look at the bigger picture that He is trying to give us.

The most important thing God has given us is our free agency. That means, for better or for worse, we can choose for ourselves what we want to do. If God came down to stop every murder, rape, robbery, accident, or burnt piece of toast, we would never learn the consequences of those evils...especially burnt toast.

The fact that evil exists in this world does not mean that God isn't there. It just means there is "opposition in all things" (2 Nephi 2:something). Evil in our lives works to highlight the good. We recognize the good things because of the evil, NOT in spite of it. For me, the existence of evil only strengthens the fact that there must be some source of good out there to combat it. Though the man in the subway station would like to focus only on the evil things in the world, he cannot overlook the fact that there are many good things which are out there as well....that has to come from somewhere right? It would be really inconsistent to say that the good things in this world are only a result of our own human efforts while at the same time saying that Evil is a result of God's negligence or inability to stop it. 

I wish I would have had the opportunity to explain this to the man. But there will always be others =) I'm just glad I've been able to figure out for myself...well, it probably had to take some divine intervention for that one actually haha.

It's been cool serving with a long lost cousin. It seems like every week one of us gets an email explaining more about this or that relative. There's a lot about the Lillywhite side of my family that I just didn't know.

That's been my week folks! We're actually taking a normal working day today so that we can spend Wednesday visiting a bunch of museums in the Oslo area...all of the museums are closed on Mondays. So I'll have some good pictures to send back next week. 

Have a good week!

Elder Sessions

Kjære familie og venner

Well another week down in Oslo. We spent a lot of time out on the streets trying to find people to teach. Our biggest problem is it is vacation season in Norway. Vacations are huge in Norway, the country literally shuts down. It's not as bad in Oslo as it is in smaller areas, but there are still entire stores which are closed for the summer because all of their employees are on vacation. Most people who are still around are either currently on vacation, meaning they are not from here, or about to leave on vacation, meaning we can't meet with them for another few weeks. So we've met a couple of cool people who are gone for a month haha. The investigators who are left over from the previous elders here turned out to be not as positive as they sounded. It's been a week of canceled appointments and people not showing up. 

Fortunately, Oslo is an alright city for that to happen in. Just cause there are definitely more fish in the sea. 

Elder Lillywhite and I did a little checking on familysearch.org. Turns out we're definitely cousins. There are two Lillywhite brothers who were with their families in Nauvoo when the Mormons started heading west. Elder Lillywhite is descended from one brother, Benjamin, and I'm descended from the other, Joseph. Incidentally, Joseph's son married into the Romney family...the sister of Mitt Romney's ancestor. So that is how Mitt Romney and I have the same something-great grandfather. But anyways, yes there is definitely a family connection between me and Elder Lillywhite.

President Evans came and spent studies with us one morning this week. That was pretty cool, he also went contacting with us afterwards. He's a much more by-the-book kind of guy than President Johansen was and there are definitely some changes about to happen. The district leaders in the mission have a meeting with him this Thursday, so I'm sure we'll hear all about it there.

That's really it for exciting news this week. We don't have any real positive investigators who are worth mentioning, so check back next week =) We went on a hike later today. Pictures are attached.

Elder Sessions

Kjære familie og venner

Despite living in the largest and, quite possibly, coolest city in Norway, I have yet to take any pictures. Well, at least not on my camera. We did take a trip to a Catholic church here in the city (Fjord)and took some cool pictures there (one of the members in Oslo here cleans the church, so he has a master key to all the secret passageways and stuff =P)...see below.

I'm sending some pictures from our P-day last week in Trondheim though. We went to a science museum. One of them is a picture of Elder Peterson and I playing this little mind game they had there. You attach this band to your head which has a couple of electrodes on it. They read your brain waves and you can either compete to relax the most or think the hardest. Depending on who has the most/least active brain waves, the little ball on the middle of the table moves back and forth. You literally move the ball with your mind. It was pretty legit. I'm pretty sure I lost that one though haha. There's another picture from the museum and then a picture of us at a member's house my last night in Trondheim. Elvis Presley was on the tv in the background and the lady sitting next to us was going nuts dancing along to the music. It was hilarious and one of the sisters managed to snap a picture of it.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was interviewed by another Trondheim newspaper. The article was supposed to be about love, in relation to the 1 year anniversary of the shooting rampage on 22 July 2011. The reporter made it sound like she was going to interview multiple people around the city to get everyone's viewpoint, but the article was just released in the newspaper on Saturday with the headline, "Gode Gud: Eldste Sessions (20) er omreisende i kjærlighet" I haven't seen the article since it was only a Trondheim newspaper and I'm in Oslo, but apparently there's a picture of me staring dreamily up into the sky. I don't remember that picture being taken haha. The reporter was supposed to email me a copy of the article, but she never did. So I've asked Elder Peterson to see if he can get me a copy of it, since he's still in Trondheim. 

Anyways...Oslo. Fantastic city. For a big urban area, it really is beautiful. Like I said, I haven't had the chance to take any pictures yet since we've been so busy. Elder Lillywhite and I are both new in Oslo this transfer, so we've got a lot of investigators to meet and a ginormous city to get lost in. And we have definitely done a lot of that. It's cool though because we can literally walk anywhere in the city and have people to talk to. So since neither of us are familiar with the city at all, we tend to get lost somewhat on purpose, and then walk around until we see something familiar. Along the way, there's lots of people to talk to about God, haha.

I'll be honest, I'm not too sure who we are teaching right now haha. The previous missionaries left the area in somewhat of a mess, so I'm still trying to get everything sorted out. We did have two people in church yesterday, so they're gonna be our first victims this week ;) Either way, it's gonna be busy the next few days meeting with all of these people. There were 10 investigators on the progress record when I got here, which is the most I have ever seen. Problem is, I don't know how updated that was, because I know for a fact at least two of those people on the list are no longer being taught. So it's a little bit of a headache, but we'll get it figured out soon haha.

Vi snakkes! =)

Eldste Sessions

16 July 2012

Kjære familie og venner

Well, I'm headed out of Trondheim....to Oslo! They've cut down the number of districts in the Oslo zone down from three to two and I'm going to be a district leader in Oslo. So once a week I'll have the fantastic opportunity to conduct a district meeting with a group of 14 missionaries. Keep in mind, there's only about 55 missionaries in all of Norway haha. It'll be fun though, I'm way excited for it. I've heard nothing but good things about Oslo, and I've actually been there on exchanges a couple of times...seems like a really fun city. It'll be the biggest area I've served in, as far as the city and the ward.

My new companion's name is Elder Lillywhite. We're probably related somehow, considering my grandmother's name is Lillywhite. You know those Mormons...pretty much everyone is connected somehow. He went into the MTC as I left, so he's only two months "younger" than me. I've never really served around him yet, so it'll be fun. The number of potential companions I could "get to know" on my mission is increasingly smaller, but luckily he still fits into that category. Elder Bekker is continuing as Assistant and they're a part of my new district so it'll be cool to hang out with him again on P-days.

Fun fact: I am now a "grandfather" =) My greenie, Elder Bird, aka my "son", is training this transfer. Which means, I'm getting a grandson haha. What's really ironic, is he's from England. I don't think he's from the same area of England that I lived in and I don't recognize the name, Elder Leighton, but it's cool nonetheless. 

That's about all the cool things that happened with transfers this time around. Elder Knudson is coming into Trondheim as a zone leader with Elder Peterson, so this will be the third time that Elder Knudson takes over my area. He came in to Bergen when I left to Trondheim, and then when I moved from the Trondheim District Leader area to the zone leader area, he moved to Trondheim as the new district leader. He's been up north this transfer in Alta, but now he is coming back to take my place again. I'm not really sure how that keeps happening, haha.

I've talked with the elders in Oslo whose area Elder Lillywhite and I are taking over and it sounds like they've got a pretty solid area set up. They had 7 investigators in church last week. So that's exciting. I'm guessing in a big city like Oslo, though, you'd pretty much always have someone to teach. It'll definitely be a little different from the areas I've served in before, although Bergen was a pretty nice sized city.

But honestly, I think it's just easier to send it to the mission office. That way, no matter where I'm living, I'll get it.

Vi snakkes!

Eldste Sessions

Kjære familie og venner!

We had a pretty solid week this week. Jan Peder came to church again and we're going to meet with him on Wednesday. I was giving a talk in church so I didn't get a chance to talk to him too much after sacrament meeting. He said he had some questions, and he hadn't read the chapter we gave him in the Book of Mormon, but he promised to do it by Wednesday. So that'll be good.

Hard to believe from my point of view, but we just had zone conference last week.  It went pretty well. President Evans doesn't have the zone leaders do a presentation at zone conferences, so it was kind of nice to not have to plan anything. Well I say that, but we actually ended up doing more this time around than usual. The missionary couple took a trip to the temple last week, so Elder Peterson and I were basically in charge of the food and all the other practical stuff that they usually do for conferences. It wasn't too hard, although a little time-consuming. I gained a new respect for people who make food for large groups of people. The enchiladas turned out pretty decent though.

Kathleen also came to church and we met with her afterwards. It went ok, although she basically has her own beliefs that she wants to stick to. She's still interested in meeting with us though, mainly I think, so she can have someone to answer her questions about what he believe. Which is what we are here for, pretty much. She's is going on vacation until the end of the month, so we won't meet with her again for a while.

Our moves call is next Sunday morning. So it's time once again to find out my fate at 6:45am. I've been in Trondheim for a while, so if I had to guess, I'd say I'd probably leave. But missionaries have stayed in areas for 8 months or more before, so that is definitely a possibility as well. It would be nice to start somewhere fresh in a new area though.

That's kind of the extent of what happened this week. We did get an appointment with a younger guy named Bill for tomorrow, but I've never met him since we got him as a referral from other missionaries. So we'll see how that goes.

Have a good week everyone! We're off to a science museum =)

Elder Sessions

2 Jul 12

Kjære familie og venner

Well, another week down. I feel like I had a ton of things yesterday that I wanted to write home about, but now I'm drawing a blank. 

Our new mission president, President Evans, arrived on Friday. Saturday, Elder Peterson and I flew into Oslo for zone leader council with him. He and his wife are fantastic. The way we have come to describe it is that President Johansen was our favorite football coach/motivator and the Evans are the parents. They're extremely nice and, despite the jetlag, they seemed really excited to get to work. They are flying into Trondheim tonight for our zone conference tomorrow.

Jan Peder came to church yesterday. Afterwards, we taught him for about an hour or so. He likes everything we've showed him and he likes the fact that we believe in prophets and apostles today. He likes the Book of Mormon and says he feels it agrees with his Christian beliefs from the Bible. He understands everything we teach him extremely well, better and quicker than most people I have taught. Because of that though, he understands kind of the gravity of what we are saying. He realizes that we believe there is literally a prophet on the earth who receives revelation from God. At this point, he says he can't bring himself to believe that. We told him that's ok, God's gonna be the one to do that haha. He said himself he is a little apprehensive about praying to receive an answer, mainly I think, because he knows what it would mean if it were true. He's grown up his whole life in the Norwegian State church, so I think it comes down to a fear of change for him. We told him to not worry about anything else except trying to find the truth for himself through honest study and prayer. He said he could do that. This Wednesday, we're going to show him a talk by President Monson from this past General conference, so he can hear the prophet for himself. He wasn't ready to set a date for baptism yet, but I'm hoping we can do that soon. 

Lars has asked for a break from meeting with us while he's involved with his work. So I don't know if we'll be able to meet with him again, but he did tell Fernanda that he liked everything he heard from us, and liked coming to church, he just needed some time to settle down a bit. Kathleen has been traveling or something so we haven't been able to get an appointment with her.

There was indeed an article in this past Ensign about Young Single Adult centers in Europe. The centers in Norway were a big feature in that article, including the center in Trondheim. I'm actually sitting in that center at this very moment writing this email and I skyped my family from that room just a month-ish ago. Our previous mission president was quoted in the article as well as one of the couple missionaries who used to serve here in Trondheim. I've met two of the three members who were quoted in that article from the Oslo ward. In all of the bigger cities in Norway we have a YSA center, so missionaries here use the centers quite a bit for teaching investigators and getting involved in the YSA activities, since we teach alot of people that age anyways. Bergen had a YSA center, which is where I spent a lot of my time while I was there. The Trondheim center isn't as big, but they still have weekly activities and things which we occasionally go to. The Oslo center is definitely the biggest and it becomes a central hub for missionaries flying in and out of Oslo during transfers. I've attached the article to the email for those who want to check it out.

Speaking of transfers, we've got less than two weeks until our moves call, where we find out who's gonna go where. I haven't heard anything about if I'll be staying here in Trondheim or going, but I will say it's extremely unusual for missionaries to stay in an area for more than 6 months, which is how long I have been here. So we'll see, but I probably won't hear anything for a couple more weeks. I'll be sure to send any address changes along in an email when I get them.

Oh yeah, I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I was interviewed by another newspaper a couple of weeks ago haha. A reporter and a photographer came knocking on the church door when we were eating lunch one day and asked if they could ask us a couple of question for an article they were writing. This time it was an article about love, in conjuction with the 1 year anniversary of the shooting rampage on 22 July here in Norway last year. It will come out here in Trondheim on the 21st of July and I've asked the reporter to send me a PDF copy over email when it's ready. So I'll send that along home, hopefully with a translation. I've gotta start charging people for these interviews and hire a publicist or something....well I dunno how kindly my mission president would look upon that little money making scheme actually...

Yep, I think that's about it for this week. I got a fantastic email from my grandmother this week, it's always good to hear from that side of the world. Maybe they could come on that mission to Norway ;)

Talk to ya'll soon!

Elder Sessions