Translation: I love you all.
Texas Translation: Love y'all.
That's crazy to think I am pretty much fluent in three languages now. Norwegian, English and the most celestial language of Texan(;
This week has been something else. It's actually gone by pretty slowly but that doesn't mean we haven't seen many miracles along the way. Going around and talking to all the people around Ålesund has been such a testimony builder for me. I love talking to the people around here and learning something from every single one of them. We end up talking to people from Poland, Thailand, Lithuania, Congo, Italy, etc. Pretty much we get to talk to a ton of people from all over the world and not only am I learning Norwegian but I'm also picking up some Swahili and Italian on the side. I love to hear their stories and who God is to them personally. Since we have about two active members in Ålesund, you could say that the majority of the people we stop on the street aren't LDS, but some of them have such strong testimonies in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I've learned so much from all of their experiences and it helps to strengthen my testimony as well.
 |
| Our investigator from the Congo. He is teaching me Swahili. |
This week I read my absolute favorite General Conference talk entitled "Safety for the Soul" by Jeffrey R. Holland. For those of you who have not had the chance to read it, I would invite you to take a second and read it. It is such a powerful testimony given to us from an apostle of God on the Book of Mormon. As missionaries we get to go around and talk to all those different people I mentioned earlier about this amazing book. Sometimes the people are prepared to listen while other times they aren't so open to it. This week while out street contacting, Søster Ralphs and one of our recent converts Alida stopped a man and his girlfriend and began to talk about this amazing book and what joy it has brought to their lives. He proceeded to lecture them for 45 minutes out in the freezing cold that they were dumb and that the Book of Mormon was not God's word. In a challenging situation like this, our recent convert Alida did an amazing thing. She began to bear testimony of the Book of Mormon and how she came to know of it's truthfulness for herself. Sometimes people are not always kind but that does not mean that we can just stay in our apartment and stay quiet. What a powerful example Alida was to us all that day. Simply bearing your testimony on the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon invites the Spirit and people's hearts begin to be softened. At the end of the 45 minutes, he had agreed to read the Book of Mormon.
Something that one of my fellow missionaries included in his weekly email that I really loved was focused on time. We were given this time on Earth to prepare to meet God. We have our lifetime here on this Earth and then we have an eternity to think about it. What we do with our time really matters. I hope and pray that we all will take this time we have been given seriously. I would encourage all of you to first gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon for yourself and then when you are converted, go out and strengthen your brethren and sisters.
I am so thankful for this opportunity to be a full time missionary. I know that life is not always easy and sometimes we are thrown challenges that we think we can't endure, but I know through Christ we can do hard things. I know this because the Book of Mormon has taught me who I am and who I can become. I hope to echo that of Jeffrey R. Holland when he said, "I want it absolutely clear when I stand before the judgment bar of God that I declared to the world... that the Book of Mormon is true." Thank you all for your prayers and the love I have felt from each and every one of you.
Stor klem,
Søster Blankmeyer
 |
| Alida's cat she is so soft and reminds me of my cat Molly. |
 |
| Cheeto Tree |
No comments:
Post a Comment