(I wrote this Wednesday but am not able to send until I have access to a computer)
Hope everyone is doing well. Some things that happened to me this week:
We were extremely extremely blessed to have a member dinner every day except Saturday last week. So a few of those were some of my favorite parts of my week.
On Wednesday we actually had 2, which were probably my favorite 2 of the week. The first was with a family in the ward, the Steffensen's. I had talked to some of them a little bit at church, but it was really good to get to know all of them better. They are super cool people, which I've come to realize about a majority of the members here. And also they had a really cute dog lol. The second that day was with a non-member guy named Anthony. He is from Maryland, where he played college baseball and football, which is how we were connected with him because my companion is also a college football commit for those who don't remember. He married a Norwegian lady and has lived in Norway for about 10 years. I'm not sure if we will end up teaching him, but it just shows how nice of a person he was; he told us that he wanted to have us over because he remembers how lonely it feels to be in a new country without any family. We were there for a while, and it was just really good to talk about sports and other things in the US.
On Thursday we got in a little fender bender (I was not driving 😃), which wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but the guy we hit was really dishonest and was trying to get way more out of it than actually happened. All that was on our car were scuff marks, but he was trying to claim that these two dents were somehow from it. He ended up being very uncooperative and made us go over to his house on Saturday to fill out the paperwork that is required after an accident in Norway, where he was pretty hostile and uncooperative once again. My companion was pretty stressed about the whole situation, but I was not really bothered it was just annoying. Thankfully we hopefully shouldn't have to deal with that guy again.
Friday we helped David (the scottish guy in the ward that I talked about last week) with some cleaning in one of the houses that he owns and has deeply renovated. The more time I spend around him the more I like him, he is such an awesome guy. Him and his wife own 5 houses around Norway, all for the purpose to pay for a senior mission after they retire, which is crazy commitment and pretty cool.
Yesterday for Pday we went to a "troll forest", which was just a regular forest I don't know why they called it that. But also there were some Nazi bunkers from WWII that you can walk through, which was pretty cool. After that we went to an oil museum here in Stavanger (oil is a giant industry in Norway) which probably sound lame but it was actually better than I expected.
When I was thinking about what I could write about this week, diligence came to mind. I feel like I have been bad the last week in being diligent. It has reminded me that just because you are on a mission does not mean you don't have to make a constant decision to be diligent in your discipleship. When diligence came to mind, I wanted to look more into what diligence really meant, especially in God's eyes. I searched the index on the gospel library app for every scripture in the BOM or D&C that used diligent/diligence/diligently. These are all the ones that include a promised blessing:
-he who diligently seeks shall find, (1 Ne. 10:19)
-man should be diligent, that thereby he might win prize, (Mosiah 4:27)
-men are granted portion of mysteries according to diligence they give God, (Alma 12:9)
-because of diligence in nourishing word, ye may pluck fruit, (Alma 32:42–43)
-if ye will serve God with all diligence of mind, he will deliver you, (Mosiah 7:33)
-Nephites enjoy peace and prosperity
because of diligence they give unto word of God, (Alma 49:30)
-he who is diligent in keeping commandments will be blessed unto eternal life, (D&C 18:8)
-person who gains more knowledge and intelligence through diligence has advantage in world to come, (D&C 130:19)
All of those are great promises that make me want to strive to be more diligent. I listened to a conference talk this week that is now one of my new favorites, "Act in All Diligence" by Henry B. Eyring. It was technically given at a priesthood session in conference, but I recommend it to everyone if you have time. In the talk, he talks about how it's often difficult for us to be diligent; frequently, we finish a task and we feel that we've done what we need to. What President Eyring says in reply to this is really inspiring to me, "When I find myself drawn away from my priesthood duties by other interests and when my body begs for rest, I give to myself this rallying cry: "Remember Him." The Lord is our perfect example of diligence in [priesthood] service." As studying this week, I realized this truly is the key to remaining diligent. Anytime we feel unmotivated or distracted by worldly things, we can remember Him. I also love President Eyrings promise on what we can receive if we persevere in diligence: "He knew the trials we would face. By faithful service and through His Atonement, we can come to want what He wants and be what we must be to bless those we serve for Him. As we serve Him long enough and with diligence, we will be changed. We can become ever more like Him." The end goal in our lives is ultimately to be more like Christ, so why would we not try and be diligent. I challenge all of you guys to be more diligent in an area of your life this week, whether that be as a sibling, as a parent, in your professional life, etc. And I hope that we can all in turn be more Christlike.
Lyric:
"...sometimes I got God, but other times, other times, we feel like we wanna let our guards down, that's not how to survive never ending cycle of life" -Saba
-Eldste Winegar
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