So I spent last week in Portugal. It felt like a dream at first and then slowly became my reality again as if I was waking up from being a normal person and slowly becoming that 19 year old missionary who used to live in there. I went through the same thing again as my reality changed when I flew home (it was about 24 hours of travel, I am still messed up) and sat down at dinner with my family. Once again I had to wake up from my other dream to the reality of being in America again. My week felt like a year. A year of an emotional roller coaster.
It made me realize that loving someone is such a risk. And in this case I am not talking at all about romantic love though there is certainly risk in that. No I am just talking about getting to know someone and just loving them as a person. It was such a roller coaster because I had been gone and out of contact with so many of these people for three years and some of their lives had gone in a good direction and some of them hadn't. When someone that you love makes bad choices, or just has bad luck, you really feel their pain, literally. Of course on the other hand when good things happen to people that you love and they make good choices (a lot of the time these two things go hand in hand) you are so happy for them!
When you go away from people that you are close to for awhile and then come back the change is so obvious that it is either a cause for joy or a huge slap in the face. These same changes and decisions are made in the lives of those we love all the time but they are so gradual sometimes they don't hit us with as much effect.
But hey life is hard sometimes. I know that. I have my ups and downs as well and forgiveness and peace through Christ is always there. Wrong choices aren't the end of the road. Sometimes they are the way people find the road in the first place. I think that the lord expects us to fall down and that that is just part of life. My dad always says "The only real tragedy is unrepented sin." So if we repent it is not a tragedy at all right?
The thing that bothers me is when people seem to bar the way back to the lord because the road is to hard. There are a few reasons that people leave the church. As I listened to stories of people I knew I noticed a couple of reoccuring patterns: they were offended, or they sinned and repentance is a process that is too hard to begin. The thing that really bugged me maybe more than anything else was when people experienced these things and then tried to figure out a way to deny their testimonies of the truth so they didn't have to live it any more. These people have had spiritual experiences, confirmations, and have read and understood by the spirit the truthfulness of The Book of Mormon. They can't live with themselves knowing that they are willfully rebelling against god. So instead of humbling themselves and repenting they look for reasons to discredit the prophet Joseph Smith, The Book of Mormon, or their church leaders so they can so they don't have to feel guilty about continuing to do what they are doing. When someone I love gets to this point, it is truly breaks my heart. Yet even these were good learning experiences of how to keep myself into falling into satans traps and I hope I can use it to help others avoid the same pitfalls.
And yet on the other end of the spectrum, loving someone can be so rewarding. A man I baptized named Alvaro has gone to the temple, helped his friends to accept the gospel, visits less active, and prays humbly for the day when his wife will join the church so he can be sealed. It was such a wonderful experience seeing the change in him. Two years ago he looked to me for help and advice on how to live his life, when we met three years later as brothers in Christ I felt like it was who should look to him.
All in all Portugal hasn't changed much. It's hot in the summer time, the pastries are wonderful, and there are some of the best and most faithful people I have ever known. Despite the heartache one experiences because of really loving someone, the joy that one can experience is certainly worth the risk. I hope that in 3 years if I went back I would find my friends that are happy, still happy. I also hope I would find those that have strayed from the path returned. Most of you will not read or understand this, (cause its in english) but I love you. And continuing to love you is a risk I am willing to take.
dimanche 14 août 2011
lundi 1 août 2011
From France to Portugal, from making memories to reliving old ones.
I am typing this blog on a portuguese computer which means it will probably take me twice is long and be half as clear. It has been an exciting and eventful couple of weeks and with all the thoughts and emotions that are swimming through my head I find it hard to find where to start.
The last little bit of my program in Paris was wonderful. It is interesting how you come to things like that as strangers and leave as friends. I don´t know how it works with other people but I feel like I always connect with people the most when our time together is drawing to an end. Whether it was wards in college, high school, my mission or programs like this the friendships that you have really blossom towards the end and you often have the thought, why wasn´t I getting to know this amazing person earlier when had time. Why is it now that we are discovering that we could be best friends? Thats life I guess ( at least it seems to be for me) and I came to really love all the kids and teachers that I associated with toward the end of the group.
One of my favorite and perhaps most thoughtful things that I enjoyed doing the last week was visiting the graves of Chopin and Jim Morrison. They are buried in a huuuuuuge cemetery. I thought that I could walk in and see it and walk out but it took me an hour to find the graves. They are not really in centered and honored spots as one would think. Chopins grave is small and tucked away. I felt a certain spirit standing in front of his grave. Part of it was gratitude for all the beautiful music that he wrote and part of it was the thought of the possibility of redemption and ressurection for a man that I have come to know well through various biographies as well as his music. Jim Morrisons grave had a very different feel. It was covered in beer bottles and that famous picture of him with his is shirt off and crazy curly hair covering it- There was a couple that I swear was high next to the grave sight with their eyes closed listening to some of his crazy poetry. I thought it interesting that Chopin died because modern medicine hadn´t advanced enough to save him. Jim Morrison died because modern medicine had perhaps advanced too far. It made me think of all of the responsibility that comes with wonderful advancements such as the internet, travel, the press, and lots of other things. My favorite moment in the graveyard was standing next to a man and his family. The wife looked at Chopin's grave and said 'This guy Chopin might have even more fans than Jim Morrison.' And the husband replied, 'No way that that is true. Some piano guy? Over Jim Morrison? Yea right.' And experiences like that make me understand why people might hate americans.
The last week we had lots of concerts and I got to play in a few of the pieces scheduled. My favorite was a Mendlesohn piano trio in D minor with a killer killer killer piano part. Whenever anybody commented after they always included that I played 'a lot of notes,' which certainly described it. The choir that our group performed sounded beautiful. We sand songs by Byrd, Josquin, Palestrina, Rachmaninoff and others that I can't remember the name of because their not as famous. The composers in the program also really stepped up and it was great hearing a lot of original material. The missionary experiences that we had with all these great people were fantastic as well. I love talking to intelligent good people about the truthfulness of the gospel. It feels sooooo good.
So Saturday afternoon it was bye bye France and hello Portugal. I hopped on a plane to porto and then hopped on a train up to Guimaraes the first place that I served as a missionary. I am staying with Alcino a friend from when I served here who is now the branch president and has a new little baby boy. It is great to see people that you love doing well. He and his family have treated me like a king while I have been here. I got to go to church on Sunday and see all of my old friends. One special moment was when I got to stand in the priesthood circle and bless one of my old friends new little baby boy. Got to fill that primary up! Of course with all of the progression that many of my friends here have made some have digressed and it is heart breaking. I do love being here though. I was in this city for six months and when I walk around I can almost see a big awkward greeny from America walking around with his fellow red head trainer elder christiansen. I can see in retrospect the growth that I had and the love that developed for these people as I did my best to serve them. Being in a place that you know, loved, and grew in after so much time makes one think about the responsibility to continue to grow.
On a lighter note I was so excited to eat a francesinha that the second I got off the plane I found a restaurant and had one. A francesinha is a portuguese sandwhich drenched in sauce and surrounded by french fries with an egg on top that one can only find here. After eating that one the first night, I have been fed Francesinhas the next two nights as well. I have been here for three days and eaten three francesinhas and i am not even tired of them. They are that good haha.
Tomorrow I am off to Braga another city that I served in and love to visit other friends. Joseph Fielding Mckonkie, Elder Bruce R's son, is serving a mission there and taught a fireside sunday night. I drove out with some friends to see him and it was crazy how much he looked and sounded like his dad when he taught.
It is really hard to describe in words what I am feeling here. When you learn to love a place and leave, it is sometimes shocking when you come back both how much as changed, and how much hasn 't really changed at all. Many of the people that I left here are doing the same thing they were doing when I left, for some this is good and for some not so good. And yet others have experienced new joys like having a baby or horrible ones like going through a divorce. When you are living out these major changes and they happen gradually it doesnt come as quite a shock as when you see them all at once in their beauty or in their harsh reality. It makes one think...... Where do I want to be in three years? What do I need to keep consistent and what do I need to change?
I realize that this is a more serious blog than my previous one on how french people smell. But hey I can be serious. But if you got bored with my deep thoughts, don't worry I will think of something ridiculous to blog about soon.
Ryan
The last little bit of my program in Paris was wonderful. It is interesting how you come to things like that as strangers and leave as friends. I don´t know how it works with other people but I feel like I always connect with people the most when our time together is drawing to an end. Whether it was wards in college, high school, my mission or programs like this the friendships that you have really blossom towards the end and you often have the thought, why wasn´t I getting to know this amazing person earlier when had time. Why is it now that we are discovering that we could be best friends? Thats life I guess ( at least it seems to be for me) and I came to really love all the kids and teachers that I associated with toward the end of the group.
One of my favorite and perhaps most thoughtful things that I enjoyed doing the last week was visiting the graves of Chopin and Jim Morrison. They are buried in a huuuuuuge cemetery. I thought that I could walk in and see it and walk out but it took me an hour to find the graves. They are not really in centered and honored spots as one would think. Chopins grave is small and tucked away. I felt a certain spirit standing in front of his grave. Part of it was gratitude for all the beautiful music that he wrote and part of it was the thought of the possibility of redemption and ressurection for a man that I have come to know well through various biographies as well as his music. Jim Morrisons grave had a very different feel. It was covered in beer bottles and that famous picture of him with his is shirt off and crazy curly hair covering it- There was a couple that I swear was high next to the grave sight with their eyes closed listening to some of his crazy poetry. I thought it interesting that Chopin died because modern medicine hadn´t advanced enough to save him. Jim Morrison died because modern medicine had perhaps advanced too far. It made me think of all of the responsibility that comes with wonderful advancements such as the internet, travel, the press, and lots of other things. My favorite moment in the graveyard was standing next to a man and his family. The wife looked at Chopin's grave and said 'This guy Chopin might have even more fans than Jim Morrison.' And the husband replied, 'No way that that is true. Some piano guy? Over Jim Morrison? Yea right.' And experiences like that make me understand why people might hate americans.
The last week we had lots of concerts and I got to play in a few of the pieces scheduled. My favorite was a Mendlesohn piano trio in D minor with a killer killer killer piano part. Whenever anybody commented after they always included that I played 'a lot of notes,' which certainly described it. The choir that our group performed sounded beautiful. We sand songs by Byrd, Josquin, Palestrina, Rachmaninoff and others that I can't remember the name of because their not as famous. The composers in the program also really stepped up and it was great hearing a lot of original material. The missionary experiences that we had with all these great people were fantastic as well. I love talking to intelligent good people about the truthfulness of the gospel. It feels sooooo good.
So Saturday afternoon it was bye bye France and hello Portugal. I hopped on a plane to porto and then hopped on a train up to Guimaraes the first place that I served as a missionary. I am staying with Alcino a friend from when I served here who is now the branch president and has a new little baby boy. It is great to see people that you love doing well. He and his family have treated me like a king while I have been here. I got to go to church on Sunday and see all of my old friends. One special moment was when I got to stand in the priesthood circle and bless one of my old friends new little baby boy. Got to fill that primary up! Of course with all of the progression that many of my friends here have made some have digressed and it is heart breaking. I do love being here though. I was in this city for six months and when I walk around I can almost see a big awkward greeny from America walking around with his fellow red head trainer elder christiansen. I can see in retrospect the growth that I had and the love that developed for these people as I did my best to serve them. Being in a place that you know, loved, and grew in after so much time makes one think about the responsibility to continue to grow.
On a lighter note I was so excited to eat a francesinha that the second I got off the plane I found a restaurant and had one. A francesinha is a portuguese sandwhich drenched in sauce and surrounded by french fries with an egg on top that one can only find here. After eating that one the first night, I have been fed Francesinhas the next two nights as well. I have been here for three days and eaten three francesinhas and i am not even tired of them. They are that good haha.
Tomorrow I am off to Braga another city that I served in and love to visit other friends. Joseph Fielding Mckonkie, Elder Bruce R's son, is serving a mission there and taught a fireside sunday night. I drove out with some friends to see him and it was crazy how much he looked and sounded like his dad when he taught.
It is really hard to describe in words what I am feeling here. When you learn to love a place and leave, it is sometimes shocking when you come back both how much as changed, and how much hasn 't really changed at all. Many of the people that I left here are doing the same thing they were doing when I left, for some this is good and for some not so good. And yet others have experienced new joys like having a baby or horrible ones like going through a divorce. When you are living out these major changes and they happen gradually it doesnt come as quite a shock as when you see them all at once in their beauty or in their harsh reality. It makes one think...... Where do I want to be in three years? What do I need to keep consistent and what do I need to change?
I realize that this is a more serious blog than my previous one on how french people smell. But hey I can be serious. But if you got bored with my deep thoughts, don't worry I will think of something ridiculous to blog about soon.
Ryan
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