Week 37

Hei,

Hope everyone is well. This week started off with a lot of things that were pretty frustrating, in terms of cancelled lessons, people not replying, people being no longer interested, etc. Classic missionary struggles I guess, but doesn't make it not frustrating. We had some highs in the latter half of the week though that made the week a lot better. If I think back to my first week in this area, it is actually crazy how much more we are teaching lessons and how much busier we have been; we've been extremely fortunate and blessed. 

As I said, towards the beginning of the week there were some frustrating things that happened. I would say that the most frustrating of those was with our friend Florin and our friend Joel. Florin is our friend who previously read 160 pages in the Book of Mormon in one week. Since then he hasn't been able to meet, and when we asked him if he could meet this week he basically just said he doesn't know if this is the right time for him as he has way too much to do. With Joel--last Sunday we texted him if he wanted to watch church on zoom (he had the week before). He didn't end up replying until 8 that night, and just said he was sorry he didn't see the message until then. But then he also left the groupchat..and unadded us on Facebook. So the whole week we didn't have any contact with him. Later in the week we remembered that we had gotten his phone number when we first met with him, so we gave him a call. When he answered we were just asking him how he was doing and stuff and he was giving us really short answers, and then just said he was going to get back to us in 10 minutes. A few hours later he sent us a text saying that he was sorry he removed us on facebook, that his parents told him to stay away from us because our religion is a cult. Both of these things that happened with both of these guys are just average stuff that happens as a missionary, which Cole made sure to tell me when we talked this week😂, but it just hurt extra bad because we don't really have a lot of other people we are teaching, and both of them seemed like they had a lot of potential. 

On the other hand though, we had some pretty good highs of the week. On Thursday we had a lesson with our friend from Houston, who is the one that had all the really absurd questions about Mormonism the first time we met with him. That first meeting was good, but we weren't really sure how interested he actually was, so we were looking forward to figuring that out in this lesson. He had had a pretty bad week, and he kinda just opened up to us about a lot of his problems and asked how God could help him to gain more confidence in himself and help his problems. We talked to him about prayer and repentance, and read a few verses in Enos (about prayer and repentance) which he really really enjoyed. At the end of the lesson he just looked up at us and said, "Can we keep meeting like this", to which we of course gladly replied yes. He kept saying how much he needed the meetup and how great it was for him, and also asked to give us a hug at the end. Looking forward to continuing to teach him. 

The other main high from the week was a meetup we had with this kid from Congo who we found on Facebook. He said he was 18 but looked more like 15 lol. He speaks no English and his Norwegian is very subpar, but he was super nice when we first met him. We were trying to ask him questions about his own personal faith, and he couldn't really explain anything in Norwegian. He finally just asked us "when we thrive", which was not the correct way to ask it at all lol, but he was meaning when we had church, and when I told him Sunday at 11 he just instantly said he would be there. On Sunday about 15 minutes before the meeting started he just texted me the address to the church for some reason, so I just asked him if he was almost there and he just said soon. He unfortunately didn't end up coming, but he texted me later that he ended up coming but couldn't find it (our meeting place is on the 3rd floor of a business building), and his phone was out of data so he couldn't text. Which was unfortunate, but I still thought it was really cool he tried to come considering how little we talked about. The next day I already asked him if he was able to meet. He replied he had school, I asked if he could after school, he said what time, I said 4, and then he just said "yes" lol. He ended up coming, and we actually called my best friend Manase who many of you know, and he tried to help us with the translation. Unfortunately Manase and this kid each speak 1 of the 2 main languages spoken in the Congo, but not the same one. We still tried to explain some stuff, mostly the Book of Mormon, and when we asked him his thoughts on it he just said that he likes God and he likes Jesus so it was good😂. It's going to be a little bit difficult to teach him considering the language barrier but I already got a lot of love for him and I'm excited to spend some more time with him. Also today when I texted him that we were able to find a Book of Mormon in Swahili for him, he just texted back, "serious"😂. 

For anyone who remembers the guy that I found on facebook through talking about his dog a few weeks ago, we were finally able to get an appointment with him. Just like the last it was very interesting to say the least. When we walked up to what we thought was his house, he called us over to what looked like a shed beside the house, and that is where he lives. We walked in and it was just absolutely disgusting, trash and junk everywhere, smelling like smoke. Since we last saw him he purchased another puppy, so now he has one 8 month old puppy and one 12 week old puppy. Both were so cute and just being able to be around them was definitely a highlight of my week. We were pretty unsure how interested he even was, so pretty shortly after being in there we asked him if he had read at all in the Book of Mormon because we didn't want to waste any time. He surprisingly said he had--which if you had seen him and his living arrangements, you would be just as surprised as me, he is literally a slob--but he didn't remember anything he read. After sitting in silence for a second, he actually told us we could read through some together, doing our job for us haha. We read through the introduction together, and then after asked a bunch of questions. All the literally golden questions like: "What is different about your church compared to other churches" and "Why do we need the Book of Mormon and not just the Bible". I think he might have some mental slowness because we explained the answers, and then he kinda just sat there and then would ask the exact same question again. At that point we didn't think it was looking great, but then he went on to tell a 20 minute story about how he had experienced God and knew he was real, that happened some years ago, and he literally started crying when he was telling it. From there it went downhill though lol. Shortly after that he said he needed to grab something and then was totally tweaking out rummaging through stuff, and then finally just grabbed a pipe and asked if it was okay if he smoked it. A few minutes after that, we hear a knock at the door of the shed house, and he quickly sits up and just shuts all the windows and tries to see who it is. The person then just walks in the door, and he just starts screaming for her to leave and get out. This absolutely disgusting lady walks in. Her hair was filthy and knotted, and she literally smiled at us and her teeth all looked wrotted bruh. He yells and says he has visitors, and she was like, "yeah they are really young"😂. She then was just trying to be touchy with him and get all up on him, and he was just kicking her off, and then just said to us in English "this is my ex" lol. We took all of this as our sign to leave haha. I randomly ran into him on the street yesterday, and I just asked if everything worked out, and he just replied yeah and that he was able to throw her out😂. So so random.

I have been thinking about the concept and application of repentance a lot the last little bit. Explaining it in a very basic way to Daniel (houston guy) this week made me reflect a lot on what repentance really is. I feel like from an outside perspective, repentance is a really strange concept. Why did we need someone else to experience all of our pains in order for us to receive forgiveness for our sins? But at the same time, the gift of repentance--made possible through Christ's atonement--is the very center of God's entire plan for us and allows justice and mercy to coexist (Alma 42:15). I am far far from a full comprehension of the Savior's atonement or even of the full capacity of the gift of repentance, but this week especially I have felt extremely grateful for it as I have pondered on it more. One thing that stands out to me is the consistency of repentance being linked to joy in the scriptures. I don't doubt that each of us wants more joy in our life, so I then wonder why repentance often has a negative connotation and is something that we sometimes hesitate to do or procrastinate. I especially liked this scripture in relation to joy and repentance being connected, which was also in the Come Follow Me studies last week. 

Mosiah 4:2-3

...And they all cried aloud with one voice, saying: O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins, and our hearts may be purified; for we believe in Jesus Christ,... 3 And it came to pass that after they had spoken these words the Spirit of the Lord came upon them, and they were filled with joy, having received a remission of their sins, and having peace of conscience, because of the exceeding faith which they had in Jesus Christ who should come, according to the words which king Benjamin had spoken unto them

To me, that alone should be enough for each of us to begin repenting, or repenting more frequently. Why would we not want to be "filled with joy", or not be willing to do the things that allow that to happen? An additional thing that is powerful to me about repentance is just how merciful Jesus Christ really is, and how quickly God is to forgive. In the words of Nephi, we are all "wretched" in that we are always making mistakes, and can truly never come close to perfection, that is without Christ's atonement. Just like many other things I've mentioned, I think the extent of Christ's mercy is also really hard to comprehend. Anytime I have felt a calm sense of forgiveness, I am always humbled by God's mercy. I really really love this quote from President Eyring about Christ's atonement, "If you have felt the influence of the Holy Ghost today, you may take it as a sweet evidence that the Atonement is working in your life." As of late, each time I feel the spirit, or feel the sense of forgiveness I mentioned, this quote quickly comes to mind. It is hard for us to comprehend Christ's atonement, his mercy, or even the gift of repentance, but I love the reminder that each time we feel the Spirit, that is our "sweet evidence" of the reality of those things. 

Sorry for the longer email. Means things are actually happening which is good haha.

Lyric-

"When it's hard to keep your eyes on the road

And you feel your backs on the ropes

You gotta take the highs with the lows 

(the highs with the lows)"

-Chance the rapper