Elder Dallin Childs: November 17

I am sitting here at the computer to write about this week, and to be honest I can't even remember when it started. Last Monday.... that seems like a really long time ago. What happened? Well, I am assuming we had Pday... let's see. Every Monday night we have an appointment with a member in the ward. We go to their house and eat dinner, and they usually invite a non-member or less-active friend. They are really cool. So we went there this week and had dinner together with a girl named Marita who is in the process of coming back to church right now, and she is really cool. Adrian, the husband, had told me beforehand what we were going to be eating, so I had been looking forward to it the whole day. We had open-faced sandwiches, but we made them ourselves. They set a giant bowl of shrimp on the table, heads and all, and we peeled a ton, put mayonnaise on bread, and piled a bunch of shrimp on top, and it was delicious. Pretty messy but really so good. So that was fun.

On Tuesday we had the whole zone in Trondheim again for a ZLT, and it turned out to be a big success. We talked a lot about the area book and about teaching and saw some huge miracles throughout the zone as a direct result of missionaries being more diligent with the area book. So that was cool.

We also went to Bodø in the middle of the week, and that was fun. For all of you who are complaining that it isn't even cold in Norway and it isn't fair, you should go to Bodø, because it is freezing, and the wind never stops blowing. So I had a cold 24 hours. I got to see my good friend Elder Brink and work with him while I was there as well. Here is a personal message to Sister Brink: Elder Brink is doing great, he looks healthy, and he is alive--You have nothing to worry about. :) It was good to see those elders again, and we did some good work. Between stake conference in the weekend and everything else that happened this week, we really didn't have time to do much of anything in our own area, but we somehow managed to have a great week again. The Lord sure does bless us.

At Stake Conference there was a visiting area authority from Germany, and he gave a really good talk about joy. It is such an interesting topic, because we are all looking for joy, but no one seems to have it. I feel like we spend most of our time talking about our problems and the things that go wrong in the world. Sometimes I get to church and hear the different conversations people are having, and imagine myself being an investigator in our church. I think one of my first thoughts would be, "If I join this church, am I also going to start having all these problems? I haven't even heard of problems like these before!" I think that we should spend more time talking about the joy of the Savior and His atonement, and less time worrying about the things that aren't exactly perfect. I am convinced that one of the reasons God sent us to the earth was to convince us that it is possible to feel joy no matter what our circumstances are. We can have joy because we know that we are saved through Jesus Christ. I love that. That is why I am out here, and I am not going to let anything get in the way as I work on allowing the joy of the Savior to always dwell in my heart. I am so grateful for Him and that we can always know that no matter what, he will be there for us in our heart aches and trials.

Game night with the homies. That's the typical Friday night for ya.

The super solid dinner we made the other night. A member bought us a ton of chicken breasts, which are suuuuper expensive in Norway, so we made up a batter and deep fat fried it and made wok. It was delicious :) #asianskillz