My daily schedule is not too exciting. We have studies in the morning and then lunch. We are out the door at one o'clock most days. From there we try to meet with investigators and members. When we do not have appointments with people we do what we can to arrange them and to find more people. We are out on the streets quite a lot trying to find people who will receive the gospel. We have an hour for dinner and then it is more of the same. Most of our appointments are in the evening. We are supposed to be back in our apartment by 9:00. We plan for the next day for a half hour and then have an hour before bed at 10:30. I do not think the schedule will change with the weather although the colder weather will be an added motivation to get appointments so we will not be able to be on the streets so much. We had stake conference this week and the stake presidency was reorganized. The area president presided at the meeting, and I got to meet him. He is from Portugal and is himself a convert.
I have really felt the influences on both sides trying to influence the work. There was one day in particular where I felt this contrast. We had had a rather hectic start to the day and went out contacting for a while after having a very small lunch. No one we talked to seemed to have any interest, and we just felt the adversary working on us. After that we had an appointment with a man who did not show up. The day had felt like a failure. After that we went to a members house and had dinner with him. He said that he had had a pretty rough day as well, but he was grateful to have us there with him and could feel himself being uplifted. After dinner he asked me to give him a blessing, which was a wonderful experience. We then went with him to institute and afterwards to visit a member who was very ill to give her a blessing. We also had a wonderful visit with her. At the end of the day, Elder Linge and I talked about the experience. We had had such highs and lows, but the truth was that the lows truly did not matter at the end of the day. No matter our difficulties I feel that we must always bear in mind that there is always a light, though it may be seem small, amidst the darkness of our lives. That light will always over take the darkness in the end.
Everything is on track for Goncalo to be baptized on Saturday, which is really exciting. We went over the baptismal questions with him yesterday, and it was really humbling for me to hear him express his testimony and knowledge of the truths of the gospel. I truly do feel like teaching Goncalo is one of the reasons I am in Oslo now because I do not think anyone else in the mission could have communicated with him nearly as much. I am so thankful for the tender mercies such as this that remind us that Heavenly Father is always watching over us. I am going to start studying Preach My Gospel in Spanish instead of English I think so that I can learn to communicate the gospel better in Spanish. Don't worry I will still work just as hard on Norwegian. The Norwegian word of the week is bekreftelsen, which means confirmation.
Love,
Elder Ankenman
No comments:
Post a Comment