November 17, 2014
Another week in Norge..... what the heck? Sometimes in our
apartment we talk about we have no concept of time and besides the hour-to-hour
activities in everyday, time doesn't matter. That to me is super cool. :)
It was our first 1/2 week as a trio this week! I was a little
nervous at first, but it has been really great. I really need Søster Neilson in
my life. She has the biggest heart. So because we are combining two areas for
these two weeks, we were pretty busy this week, which is just the way I like
it! This week: I made a few phone calls in Norwegian (super hard and a little
scary for me because there is no body language involved so I can't guess what
they are saying from any gestures!), drove a car and accidentally ran a red
light... or a few (Hey, in my defense, the stoplights here are different that in
America!), had to eat a raw onion, Visited this crazy lady in our ward with the
other greenie, played a super strange game at game night called munchkin, got a
bruise from playing a hockey-type game on Saturday at our sport activity,
listened to stake conference, taught several Africans, and learned a lot about
the kind of missionary I want to become.
But real quick going back to the onion thing.Every once in a
while, our Zone will get together and have a Zone Leader Training- so a little
conference that is lead by our Zone leaders. And let me preface this by saying
that Elder Shanklin and Childs are... out of the box thinkers. They had us do
an activity to demonstrate the importance of updating our area books. We split
up into 3 teams and were each assigned a grocery bag. The goal of the activity
was to be the team that finished eating all of the contents in the grocery bag.
So one team member would run up, grab the first thing out of the bag, unwrap it
(everything was wrapped up in tin foil so you couldn't tell what it was), eat
the whole thing, and then tag the next person in your team to go and pick and
eat something else. Doesn't sound too bad, right? Yeah except for some of the
things in each grocery bag included a cold hot dog, half an onion, half a
lemon, 3 rice cakes (aka Styrofoam). Some people got lucky and unwrapped things
like candy, chocolate, and fruit. I went first and got the rice cakes which
just in case you are wondering, are super hard to eat and swallow super fast! and
everyone else in our team went. After everyone had gone in our team, there was
one item left in the bag. the onion. So I was like, "hey team, lets do
this together and all take a little piece!" only half the team came and
helped..... but that's alright!
The funniest thing out of the whole thing is that the debriefing
of the activity was simply "area books are like the game we just played.
You never know what you are going to get. Sometimes you get to a new area book
and everything is updated and awesome, it's like unwrapping chocolate. And
other times it's super bad and disorganized, and is like unwrapping something
not so pleasant, like an onion or lemon." Was lingering onion breath for
the rest of the day required for me to have learned this lesson? Probably
not.... but I guess I give those guys props for being creative and
entertaining. :)
On a more spiritual note, we went over to teach out investigator
J this week about commandments. is friend C that is usually there to
help translate for him was out of town, so the language barrier was thick.
However, He was still able to know and understand what we were teaching and he
bore a beautiful simple testimony of the commandments and God's and in his own
life. I am so thankful that in all I do as a missionary, the spirit is the main
language that is heard and felt. I am so thankful for this Gospel and for the
knowledge that I have and the opportunity I have to be sharing it.
Jeg er så glad i dere!
-Søster Williams
ps I am so lucky to have friends serving here with me in Norway!
The picture is of me and Elder Witbeck from my home stake.
My good friend Synne. She lived with my cousins for a year as a foreign exchange student!
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