Week 55

Heisann,

Hope everyone is doing well and had a good week. As I mentioned in my email last week, I just got moved to a new area called Molde after being in my previous area for 6 months. 

Molde is a lot different than any other area I have served in. The area was only opened up like 6 months ago, so there isn't a whole lot going on. Like my last area, there are less than 10 active members here which makes everything in general more difficult, but especially Sundays. My last area at least had someone who led the congregation and organized everything, but this area doesn't have that so most Sundays consist of one of me and my companion giving a talk and then playing a conference talk and that's about it. I was told before I came here that there were a lot of people being taught here, but now that I'm here it seems like a lot of the friends in the area have lost interest or became busy, which has been frustrating. So the area itself is a bit difficult. But outside of that, my companion is a very unique individual. I'm not sure how I can really describe him other than he is probably one of the most interesting and weird people I've met in my entire life. He comes from small town in Oregon of 2000 people, so his life experience has just been vastly different. He's only been here in Norway for 3 months and understandably doesn't have a great grasp on most things. Which he is not to blame for, but it led to some frustrating situations to say the least. 

I won't lie, this week felt extremely long and was withoutu a doubt one of the tougher weeks of my mission. But on Sunday we had an American tourist couple join our service, and she talked aboutu how she served in Croatia and basically taught no one her entire mission and just walked around the streets all day, so I'm trying to put things into perspective a bit and be grateful that we at least have some things happening. I won't go more into some of the frustrating moments this week because there's not really a point, but here's a few of the highlights of my week:

-There is a guy from Ukrain in this city that was baptized around 2 months ago. We randomly ran into him at the library my first day so I got to talk to him a little bit, but we then also went to his house later in the week. He is a super committed member which is always cool to see. He lives 4 hours away by bike from the church, and busses don't run on Sundays, so he literally was biking that much to church for a few weeks while he was in the processed of being baptized. A member drove him part of the way this week which was good, but it is super super cool to see his committment because I don't think I would bike 4 hours to come to church😃. When we went to his house and he made us steaks, which I think is the first time I've had a steak since I've been on my mission so that was nice. He's definitely a bit of an interesting guy but it was good to spend some time with him and he really appreciated us coming over.

-We drove 2 hours each way on Sunday to give the sacrament to a member who lives in a city we cover. She is a super outgoing and funny lady, which is unlike the typical Norwegian person you talk to on the street so it was refreshing. She also made us dinner, but was overall just good to talk with her. Definitely a highlight of the week.

-The main highlight of the week was a lesson that we had later in the week with a guy that my companion had met earlier in the week on the street. After my companion first met him he was telling me that this guy had said that it was sign from God that they met, but I honestly didn't think much of it because my companion is very enthusiastic about everything. Well as I said, later in the week we were able to meet up with him. At one point in the conversation I asked him if he would say that he had a personal relationship with God, to which he replied that he hasn't had one for a long time, but the last few weeks he'd been feeling a longing for God and asked God for a sign, which was right before my companion talked to him. I haven't had anyone say anything like that my entire mission so that was really cool. We taught him all about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration of the Church, and he seemed receptive to everything we told him, he honestly just seemed like he wanted to actually read the Book of Mormon and cared less about the explanation. After the lesson was over and he had already left, we saw him sitting on a bench already sitting and reading the Book of Mormon which was also cool to see. But it was honestly just nice to talk to him because he is a super normal and chill young guy. His mom is brazilian and his dad is Norwegian, super cool guy.

Two things that have been on my mind a lot lately are prayer and personal revelation. I feel like having good meaningful prayers and receiving revelations from them has always been something that's been difficult for me, whether that be because I fall asleep mid prayer or my thoughts just wander. Elder Holland described prayer in saying that, "our prayers are our sweetest hour..." That's definitely not how I would describe my prayers, so I've been striving to make my prayers match that description. Using prayer to receive personal revelation is also something that President Nelson has repeatedly told us is necessary today. Over 6 years ago, he challenged each of us when he said, "I urge you to stretch beyond your current spiritual ability to receive personal revelation..." When I heard that again this week, I felt as if that's an urge that I personally have not applied to my life, and something that I don't feel like many of us have. I think improving better personal revelation is something that is sometimes hard to have as a goal because it's not quite measurable like reading your scriptures every day. But, I like how President Nelson challenged everyone to "stretch beyond" where we're currently at, rather than giving a specific standard that all of us are expected to meet. I feel like personal revelation can be overcomplicated really easily, but I really like Nephi's simple explanation to Laman and Lemuel that prayer/revelation is simply a way for us to "inquir[e] of the Lord" when "we cannot understand" (1 Nephi 15:7-8).

"Speak to me, Lord Jesus

me need to hear from you"

-Kirk Franklin