What's good,
Hope you are all doing well. Bit of a long email...sorry
Wednesday was probably one of the most unenjoyable experience so far on my mission. Basically, when you come to Norway as a missionary, it is a pretty long and annoying process to get your drivers license. After waiting for a lot of processing of documentation, you eventually trade in your American license, permanently, and then are given a temporary license. Which that is where I'm at right now. After you get your temporary license, you finally can get your license. You just have to do one practice drive, and then take your driving test. Wednesday was my practice. I won't go too much into depth, but I was basically just told that my driving skills were not where they needed to be, and he wouldn't schedule my driving test because of it. Which, I would consider myself a pretty solid driver. I got really unlucky and it dumped snow the day before (which is not common in Stavanger), so that just made everything more difficult. Norway has some slight differences in the way you drive here, so I would have been perfectly fine if he just corrected the things I needed to change in a polite way--that is what a practice should be for. But he was pretty demeaning the whole time. It was pretty infuriating and affected my mood for some time. I am able to do the practice again, so I *should* be able to re-do that and get my license, just pretty frustrating.
That night we had a lesson with Grzegorz again (polish guy who needs translation in our lessons), and retaught him the Restoration because the first time we taught it Piotr (member) was not there to translate for us. It went alright. It is just hard to know how much is being understood because we obviously have no idea what is being said in the translation. Grzegorz has expressed to us that he wants to get baptized, but he thinks he is not yet ready, multiple times. When the lesson was coming to the close, my companion invited him to be baptized, which completely caught me off guard. I'm not upset that he made that decision, because he very well could have been guided by the spirit to do that, but it is just frustrating that we aren't on the same page at all. Grzegorz once again told us that he doesn't feel quite ready, and said he wants to go to a LDS church in Poland before he makes that decision, and he has a trip planned later this month. So still good progression with him.
We had a really good lesson with our friend Enoch on Friday. For anyone who remembers, we visited a family of 6 from Congo a few weeks ago, one of which is a 16 year old boy. We are co-teaching the family with the sisters, so we all went over together. When we got there just the mom was sitting there, and we asked if Enoch was going to be joining us. She said she didn't know, and we got the impression he wasn't home. For some reason she wanted us to call him, so we did, and he answered even though we'd never texted or called him before. When he answered, we said it was the missionaries, that we were at his house, and asked if he was going to be home soon. He sounded surprised, and after pausing for a minute he said he would be. It was a pretty vague reply. But then a few minutes later after some yelling from the mom and her finally going upstairs, he came walking down the stairs haha. We taught him on one side of the room while the sisters taught the mom on the other. The lesson went really well. We were able to just talk about sports and life for a long time. When transitioning over to the gospel stuff, you'd expect him to get a little less enthusiastic, but he got even more into it. He already has such a strong testimony of Jesus. When teaching doctrine specific to our church, we would start by asking him his thoughts on whatever principle we were teaching, and every time he replied something like, "I haven't thought about that much before, but it would make sense that it would be _____", and then would go on to literally say exactly what we ourselves teach and believe. It was really cool and I'm excited to see where he goes.
On Sunday after church, we had our first really organized lesson with Sven Erling. He is the one who started as an uninterested self-referall that wanted to talk about the Bible, and then told us last week that he feels like he's been guided to our church. After staying for both hours of church, he had a lot of questions that we ourselves overlook as things that are normal for us. He started just by asking questions for like 15 minutes, and by the tone of his voice, I think that's what he thought "the lessons" meant haha. We then taught him the Plan of Salvation, which is a pretty complex lesson but he was really curious the whole time, and overall receptive. It has been crazy how much different he has been since we met him and since he has started his journey with us. The first time we met him, he would barely look us in the eye, was very quiet and serious, and would only give very short answers to our questions. This week he showed up to church in a full suit (he came in jeans and cowboy boots last week(which there is no issue with)), was talking and greeting everyone, and was just smiling almost the whole time. He brought his Book of Mormon to our Bible study this week, and literally told us he has been reading two pages from the Book of Mormon, and two pages from the Bible each night, which we did not even ask him to do. He, in a very short time, has been a really strong example to me that the Lord prepares people.
Other things that we did this week:
-Had another lesson in all Spanish with our friend Helard. I was almost falling asleep the whole time. Based off what my companion says he is doing great though.
-Went and helped a guy that hasn't been taught in a long time clean his new apartment as well as move some furniture around. Me and my companion watched a kids show in Norwegian with his daughter while he was on the phone lol.
-Helped a lady in the ward move. Literally lifted probably the heaviest dresser I have ever felt in my entire life. IKEA is huge here I don't know why they don't stick to the light IKEA furniture😂.
As I have had some struggles with my current companion, unity has been on my mind a lot recently. While thinking about it, I have realized the irony in my struggles to unify with my companion as someone who feels very strongly in the unity of all people despite differences of race, nationality, ethnicity, political views, sexuality, age, gender, social class....and the list goes on. Why is it difficult for me to practice what I try to preach? It has made me take a step back and ponder on the unity of smaller realtionships (my companionship, my district/zone/mission, my family, my friends) rather than the unity of an entire global church or human race. It can't get any more cliche, but I have been able to try and relate and learn from scripture stories. All throughout the Book of Mormon you have groups of people growing in unity or turning away from each other. I know it's something that is said a lot (for reason), but I really think we can learn by looking at these people in the Book of Mormon or other scripture. I personally was reading in 4 Nephi this week, and I think it is one of the best examples of a unified group of people in all of scripture. Literally the entire chapter repeats again and again how unified they are, but verses 2 and 3 set it up well:
"2 the people were all converted unto the Lord, upon all the face of the land, both Nephites and Lamanites, and there were no contentions and disputations among them, and every man did deal justly one with another. 3 And they had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift."
As they were ALL converted to Christ, contention lessened, and unity increased. As the chapter goes along, there are numerous specific effects that came as a result: peace (verse 4), all manner of miracles (5), prosper (7), blessed (11), no contention..mighty miracles (13), happi[ness] (16). I think if we were all personally promised these blessings we wouldn't hesitate to try and have increased unity in our relationships. It is motivating to read, but it is still unclear how to attain that unity. I really really love verses 15-17 as they describe why these people had unity, and the results of it.
15 ...there was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people. 16 And there were no envyings, nor strifes, nor tumults, nor whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor any manner of lasciviousness; and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God. 17 There were no robbers, nor murderers, neither were there Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites; but they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God.
That which which allowed them to be "in one, in the children or Christ" was their love for God, which dwelled in hearts. They didn't just love God, but it was something engrained in their hearts. And as a result, they are described as happier than anyone God has ever created--which I think is the very thing all of us yearn for. It makes me sad to see the world--and even my family--grow apart in the difficulties of life, rather than remembering to love God, and in turn love each other. In the last 7 weeks, I have personally experienced the difficulty in uniting despite differences or circumstances, but I'm reassured by what's said in these verses, that as I strive to love God, contention can decrease as happiness increases.
Sorry that was such a long email. I really appreciate if you read the whole thing :).
Lyric:
"Join together in unity, we're one big family!"
-West Angeles Church of God in Christ Angelic Choir
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