This Week Went Really Great!

Beautiful view of the Fjord

September 19, 2016

Hello Everyone!

This week went really great! The missionaries from Narvik came down for splits for a couple days, so it was a ton of fun having them over.

Other than that we didn't have anything too out of the ordinary happen. Although, I did give a talk in church yesterday, so that went really well.

I'd known about giving the talk for several weeks, and this last week I was still struggling to decide what I wanted to share. I think that's definitely a hard thing, when you don't know what to talk about. So after struggling with that for most of the week, and after a lot of time reading different talks and things, it finally all started coming together.

In the end I decided to hold a talk on how we can be strengthened in the Gospel. It never has been easy for people to follow God, not because God all of a sudden abandons you when you need Him and try to follow Him, because it is the opposite of that. God DEFINITELY supports us when we turn to Him and follow Him. But it is hard to follow Christ because it isn't popular. It goes against the grain, against the norms of society, it goes against the world's philosophies and ideas and ideals. There are definitely things that go together between the world's moral code and God's, with things such as loving one another, forgiving others, and the importance of families being a support for one another (the list goes on). But there are other things which doesn't seem to be so popular of opinions for religious people. All over the world, religious people are being criticized for their beliefs because it doesn't fit the social norm. It isn't particularly easy for young people in the church, but it is SOOO worth it!

In my talk I talked about different things that everyone needs (adapted from President Hinckley and Pres Uchtdorf):

1) A friend

2) A responsibility

3) Nourishment by the word of God

4) Keep the commandments

5) Trust in the Lord

Those things will help keep us on the right path, and also strengthen us in continuing forward.

I hope that we continue in our faith of God and keep trying to be strengthened by God. We also need to try to support and help others be strengthened in their faith of God.

I hope you all have a great week! Take care everyone!

Sincerely,

Elder Mickelson

Sunset with some boats