Week 39: That They Might Have Joy

Happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers out there, including my own! And I guess to everyone else too; why not take a chance to celebrate something?

 

What else happened this week? We did a Elders Quorum activity with some of the guys in the ward where we knocked doors and left little pamphlets and magazines with people, Jehovah's Witness style. (People think we're Jehovah's Witness sometimes, and it's funny because a lot of people here really *hate* them.) And, we actually had some good contacts! We found one young family that really liked our lesson on the plan of salvation.

We had only two people at church this week, though it was a unique opportunity of service. One was an older lady who had broken her foot since we first taught her a couple months ago and who's now in a wheelchair. And the second was her daughter, who's blind and quite autistic. It was difficult and quite stressful for us (and I imagine the members as well) to help them get there, between the meetings, and back home again, but it was really good to see them there since they were saying they hadn't been to a church in a long time.

At the start of this week, a member asked us to teach his brother who just moved into our area and prepare him to be baptized this Sunday. We met him and he seemed pretty excited to be baptized on Sunday as well. But, by Thursday, we called him and he said he wasn't ready and didn't even want to come to church this Sunday. We found out the next day in a chance encounter with him on the bus that he had smoked, despite trying to stop, and that he wasn't ready to promise to keep the word of wisdom (nor law of chastity..). His brother was pretty mad at him for choosing cigarretes over Christ, but sadly and honestly, it's just sometimes not people's time yet.

We tried to make hotdogs and couldn't even manage to make an American classic right.

Favorite Hymn -- This week's hymn will come from a BYU Speech that I listened to from Elder Bednar and from a scripture that we've used a number of times during our lessons on the plan of salvation. 

First, 2 Nephi 2:25:

We use this scripture quite often to explain that "no, the fall wasn't only a bad thing, it was actually a good thing for humanity!" But, what is it really saying? The fall of Adam allowed men to exist, and men exist to have joy. Okay, that was actually pretty easy to explain, except this *joy*. What is joy? It couldn't possibly be some kind of wordly pleasure or happiness because that could've been satisfied quite well in the paradise that was the Garden of Eden. So what is it we can have now that we live in a fallen world?

Luckily, the Guide to the Scriptures helps a bit with a definition for joy:

(https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/gs/joy?lang=eng)

So, true joy can only come from Christ. We sacrifice everything we like here, and we'll be given better stuff in heaven, okay..    No! It doesn't work like that. This is joy for right now! 

So, what is this kind of joy? Well, for me, it's the joy of forgiveness. It's the joy of increased knowledge that I am a loved child of God. It's the hope given by an eternal perspective of things (level 2 faith!).

And the hymn I chose for this week -- Oh, How Great Is Our Joy #1033 -- tells of the true joy that comes from service and from sharing the joy we have with others! I'm always impressed by my companion and his response for why he's serving a mission when someone asks: it's because he felt the joy of forgiveness and wants to share it with everyone!! And that's why we're here, to share it.

I've felt His joy, and I hope to share His joy with others as well!

That's it for this week,

Till next time,

Elder Haroldsen

(No images this week because our internet currently can barely handle text)