Week 34

What's good,

Things are slowly starting to pickup in my area, was definitely an above average week.

Last Wednesday we had a lesson with Grzegorz, the Polish dude that I talked about last week that randomly came to church when we were watching conference. We had it in his house, which is really rare for us here, especially for the first lesson. He is kinda a weird dude in terms of like his mannnerisms and the way he communicates with us. It honestly just always feels a little awkward with him, but like not in the sense that he is socially awkward, idk😂. But anyways, that combined with the language barrier makes him pretty hard to read in terms of how interested he is. We taught all about the Restoration, and he seemed generally receptive to all of it, but I'm not sure how much he got as any time we double checked to clarify if he understood a word, he did not understand it. He was also sipping a beer at 2 in the afternoon during our whole lesson lol.

All of Thursday and Friday we were traveling and at zone conference. Even though we are in the very north of the country, we are for some reason in the Oslo zone, which is not anywhere close to us. So we travel by plane down for zone conferences, which always makes for a good few days and just good to have a change of pace.

We had our branch conference over the weekend, which our mission president, as well as a set of missionaries from Oslo traveled up for. I served with one of them in my last area, so it was really good to have all of them up here. Our days have not been very busy since I have been here, so to have a couple of really busy days was a good change of pace. On Saturday we had a branch "party", dinner type thing. I really don't want to be negative at all, but man, some of the people in the branch here are very interesting. We had to go early to set up, and we were cutting up some very questionable fruit. The main dish was a modge podge of random vegetables with hot dogs, which I obviously did not take much of. Despite all the weird antics though, it was really really good to get a glimpse of what this branch could actually be. There were some members that came to the dinner as well as church the next day that have not come since I have been here, and even just a few extra people makes such a huge difference in a tiny branch like this. 

Another main highlight from the week was our friend Florin from Romania came to church. We had met with him last week andn give him an English Book of Mormon, as we didn't have a romanian one and couldn't get one until we went down to Oslo for zone conference. Well, he came to church as I said, and I was just asking him if he's had the chance to read yet. We did send him the romanian version electronically too. He said he had, and I asked him his thoughts. He told me he hadn't finished yet, but that it was interesting and he liked it. I asked him where he had read to, and he showed me on his phone, and he had already read to Words of Mormon, which is like 166 pages in...in one week. Pretty crazy. It made me so happy to see his smile and excitement when we handed him the Book of Mormon in his language and he began flipping through.

If you have read a decent amount of my emails, I'm sure you know that I really loved my last area. One thing that was awesome about it, was that we were teaching very often, especially compared to other areas here in Norway. Finding joy within missionary work has been a process for me throughout my whole mission, but teaching is one thing that I could/can for sure say is joyful for me. Being in my new area, we have taught less the whole time I've been here than what we would teach in one week in my last area, which has been an adjustment for sure. The joy that I get from teaching won't change, but it obviously is not a consistent source so it's been a process finding new ways to find joy within the work. As we were at zone conference last week, I had some conversations with some other missionaries on how they themselves find joy through the work. One of them is someone who has served in a tiny area (very minimal teaching) for a long time, yet even he said that actually teaching has been his greatest joy in the work. Which I obviously agreed with but didn't help me much. In my interview with my mission president, I asked the same question but framed in a way more referring to just life in general, and he answered by just saying that you have to find joy within, through, the effort and the work in life, that that is how it has been for him in his life. To be honest with you, that is not the answer I wanted to hear, but it has made me think about ways that I can do that. I think one thing that has been a huge joy for me over the last few weeks has been the sciptures, to an extent that I haven't ever experienced before. I read a verse this week that relates really well to my conversation with my mission president, as well as studying the scriptures.

Alma 33:23 And now, my brethren, I desire that ye shall plant this word in your hearts, and as it beginneth to swell even so nourish it by your faith. And behold, it will become a tree, springing up in you unto everlasting life. And then may God grant unto you that your burdens may be light, through the joy of his Son. And even all this can ye do if ye will. Amen.

It's pretty simple, but I thought this verse was really powerful in pointing out that even with our burdens in life, we can have joy, through Jesus Christ. And this verse points out that that comes after we "plant" and "nourish" God's word. I can definitely say that as I have taken additional time to study the scriptures the last few weeks, I have found more joy within the scriptures, but also just overall. I honestly think that despite the work being a lot different and not being able to teach much, that these last few weeks have been some of the most joyful thus far (which I think is for a number of reasons, but the scriptures being one of them). Going away from a missionary perspective, when I read this verse this week I thought a lot about many of my family members. The last year has been super difficult for many people in my extended family, with "burdens" that don't seem very fair. But once again, I love this verse in that it is "through the joy" of Jesus Christ that our burdens can be light, and that we can have joy despite our circumstances. What it doesn't say is that our burdens will go away, but they will be light. Which, a light burden is still a burden. But the assurance that, within any burden, we can find joy through Christ, gives me a lot of comfort. 

Lyric- "But some find happiness while others find sorrow" -Gang Starr