Hei, hope everyone is hanging in. Pretty crazy week for me.
So firstly, I got news this week that I am leaving Stavanger and am heading to a city in the north of Norway called Tromsø. I basically already knew that I was leaving Stavanger as I was there for almost 6 months, but it definitely was still disappointing. I can't really describe how much I love Stavanger and how grateful I am for the time and the relationships I built there. With that being said, I am excited as well. My new companion is an Elder I was in the MTC with, and we got along really well. This entire last 6 weeks I joked and said that I was going up to Tromsø with Elder Woolley, and then it actually happened so I'm pretty excited. I'll include a picture of the map, but I am moving from one of the most southern areas to the second most north area in the mission, so it's going to be a pretty drastic change. Should be good though.
This week was mostly filled with appointments to say bye to people. It is probably the most lessons I've had in a week on my mission for that reason so it was a really busy but good week. After Sven's baptism I was expecting the work in Stavanger to slow down drastically, but it somehow just continue to pick up. Which makes it even harder to leave but I'm still really happy for all that is going on there right now.
Some of the more random appointments that stood out from the week:
-On Wednesday we delievered a Book of Mormon to someone who requested one online. We met him at a University, and he showed up in a giant Coke truck. We didn't have any time, so we were planning on just giving it to him and then leaving, but he asked if we had 5 minutes. So we walked inside and then he opened up and the vending machines and handed us sodas and a bunch of candy bars. Disappointed I won't get to meet with him again haha.
-Had a lunch with Idar (who we taught for a long time but are no longer teaching anymore). It was honestly just good to just talk with him without trying so hard to help him understand what we're teaching as we did in the past. I was reminded of some of those frustrations when we started talking about religion for a bit. But overall it was really nice to get lunch with him and I'm super grateful for the relationship I was able to build with him while I was here.
-Friday afternoon we had a lesson with this really interesting dude we are currently teaching (the one who brought shrooms to one of our activities if anyone remembers that lol). He is actually very receptive to everything we teach. But this week he told me that soda companies, as well as saft (basically water flavoring) companies are of the devil, and told me I need to stop drinking it hahaha.
Since Franklin agreed to get baptized, it seems his schedule has gotten even more busy than it was before, of course. After struggling to have much of any contact with him all week, he finally called us back like past 10pm on Friday night, and we were able to get him to agree to come an hour early to our soccer activity the next morning. We thought it would be a good idea to teach him about the commandments we follow (Word of Wisdom, Tithing, Chastity, etc) considering he is getting baptized and hasn't learned about them yet. He amazes me everytime we meet with him. When we were telling him about these things, he kept saying that they sounded hard but we need to sacrifice good things to get better things, and that he is willing to sacrifice anything to God at this point because of what he has felt being involved with the church.
Well, fast forward to Tuesday, we had another lesson with him, even though it was Pday, mostly just so that I could say bye to him before I left. We sat down, and he instantly just told us that he actually does smoke, and wondered if he needed to stop that before his baptism. This sounds like it would be a really disappointing thing for us to hear, but based on how the rest of the conversation went, we ended up just being super impressed with him. Because he said he mostly uses smoking when he gets super stressed, he has already scheduled counseling sessions twice a week as an attempt at a solution. During our conversation he told us that his mom raised him that if he was going to do something, to do it 100% and to do it the right way, so that's why he wanted to tell us an work through it. Literally so crazy. In addition to that, he told us that he already was having a conversation with some random people in the library that were asking him what he was doing this weekend about the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ's church...before he's even baptized!! And on top of all of that, he is already in 3 Nephi in the Book of Mormon (pg 427) and he literally started reading a week ago. Insane. I should (hopefully) be able to come back for the baptism which I'm very grateful for if I can.
The other main highlight of the week was on Saturday, when we took Rafael (who was baptized in January) to lunch for a combo of his birthday and my departure. Over my time in Stavanger, I probably grew closest to Rafael more than anyone else. It was a great lunch and great to talk to him. We also finished the post-baptismal lessons that day as well, which was a nice ending to my time with him as I was one of the 2 missionaries that first met him. I don't have any doubt that I'll be in contact with him still, but it's still going to be really sad to not be able to see him so often.
With how powerfully Franklin was talking about sacrifice this week, I was thinking a lot about what that really means. Sacrifice was also our mission focus for the last 6 weeks as well so it was something the whole mission had already been discussing and thinking about a lot. I like the short definition in the general handbook of the law of sacrifice, "Obey the law of sacrifice, which means sacrificing to support the Lord's work and repenting with a broken heart and contrite spirit". I think if you combine the two elements in that definition, sacrifice essentially comes down to humbling yourself before God and submitting to His will. It's the least we can do after Christ has made the ultimate sacrifice for us, right? "10 For it is expedient that there should be a great and last sacrifice; yea, not a sacrifice of man, neither of beast, neither of any manner of fowl; for it shall not be a human sacrifice; but it must be an infinite and eternal sacrifice". Christ's sacrifice truly is "infinite and eternal", and for that reason we should sacrifice all we can to "support the Lord's work" as the general handbook put it. Franklin mentioned that as he has read the Book of Mormon he has seen countless examples of sacrifice, which has given him motivation himself. We talk about it so often in the church, but Lehi literally left, and sacrificed, everything he had to follow the command of the Lord. I honestly doubt there are many of us that would do the same. But I also don't think that is something that the Lord would ask many, if any, of us to do today either. With that being said, I think it's important to think of anything we can possibly sacrifice to the Lord. I think it's so easy to think we have already sacrificed so much to be members of Christ's church--because we have! All who are members have already sacrificed the things Franklin is sacrificing right now. But one thing that's been clear to me as I've studied is that sacrifice is not a one time event, and it's really not even measured by the magnitude or amount of things we have sacrificed. As Elder Uchtdorf put it, "Jesus taught that our offering may be large or it may be small, but either way, it must be our heartfelt all." I really like Elder Uchtdorf's simple definition of sacrifice as well, "To sacrifice means to give something up in favor of something more valuable." Whether it be smoking like Franklin, or 10 minutes in our day to sit down and pray or study the scriptures, each of us has something we can sacrifice. President Kimball told us that as we do so, we can come to know the Lord, "Through sacrifice and service one comes to know the Lord". When Franklin told us that he wants to sacrifice anything he can for God and His church, I was reminded that we really all do have more we can sacrifice, and great reason to do so.
Lyric:
"God Son died for us all
So for mine, I'm running through a wall"
-JID
Pics: Franklin is the one in the beanie, Rafael the short one 🙂
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