Selfoss week 1
On tuesday we taught Jóhanna, our friend on baptismal date, about the gospel of Jesus Christ! One of the members named Vala came. She's an amazing teacher! You can tell that she not only believes and knows the gospel, but lives it too. That evening we went knocking and ran into someone who was pretty impolite. It was a frustrating experience, but we stayed polite. It's alright though, he would've had a different perspective if he's studied both sides of the different issues he was annoyed with, he would understand more.
On wednesday we made a fire training on how to begin teaching.
Thursday we drove to Reykjavík for district council. Gave our awesome training, then got some pizza with the other missionaries. It was nice to not be all alone like it is in Akureyri. After that we drove back to Selfoss and tried to visit a bunch of potentials, but nobody was home. All in all we drove about 5 hours that day, but it's alright because Jesus left the 99 to get the one, and we tried to do the same.
Friday we taught a lesson to a venezuelan family. Melissa, the only spanish member here was a legend and came to it too. Except the apartment where it was at is new, so google maps was innacurate and she spent an hour trying to find it, then we went and met her at the store and lead her to the apartment. We felt so bad though because the family was super tired and we were there later than expected.
Saturday we had another lesson with a venezuelan family and melissa came again! It was awesome, the family said that they had a testimony of Joseph smith, which is amazing!
Sunday was church! I got to meet all of the members, and they're pretty legendary. The spirit was super strong. Jóhanna came to church, and they fellowshipped her so well! I was translating to english, and it was a train wreck. I was trying to read the talk, listen to the speaker, translate, and find scriptures all at once and it was a wreck. It's good though because I had started to feel like I had learned enough that language study wasn't critical, so the extra humility has restoked my enthusiasm! For fifth sunday we sang some sneak peek hymns that haven't been translated into Icelandic except for now in the new hymn book. The church's icelandic translator is in this branch, so he has special privileges. They were some of my favorite songs, such as where can I turn for peace, come thou fount of every blessing, and more! The train wreck talk was really good though. The member talked about what the gospel gives us, focusing on hope. You can see it in people's eyes when they have no hope. It is severely depressing in my opinion to believe that there's nothing after this life. To believe that no matter what we do or what happens, my existence would end at my death, which is inevitably coming someday. But with the gospel, we can hope for a better world, better versions of ourselves, and a better place after we die. The gospel and Jesus Christ give us that hope.
I've been listening to BYU speeches over the week and they're pretty great. One of my favorite quotes is 'Humility isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking less about yourself' or in other words, it's not putting myself down, it's caring about others more, how I can help them, and not my own needs or wants all of the time. It was pretty great. Elder Carr quoted someone last week saying 'A lot more good would be done in the world if nobody cared who got credit for it' and it's a pretty genuine quote! I've been trying to think less of myself and more about helping others and it definitly adds joy to my life.
I've set some goals to read and finish more books, right now they're all gospel related, but it's really great! I haven't had reading as a hobby since 8th grade.
með elsku,
Öldung Rasmussen
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