Lesson from Norway #2
How to be friendly
One of the fellows in the ward here is from the States, and came back to Norway after his mission to work and go to school. He said, "Norwegians are actually really nice. They just don't have any social skills." I'm not entirely sure how accurate that is, but he has a point. Norwegians have very open hearts. It's so amazing to me. (I'm also amazed by how many of them smoke, but that's not my point.) I never realized before how not-open we are in America.
I didn't exactly have a place to live when I came. It was exciting. I got in touch with my Norwegian teacher from BYU and asked if I could stay with her family for a couple days until I found a place. She talked to her family and set everything up for me to stay on their couch for a few days. They came and picked me up from the central station, which was a significant distance from their house and driving in Norway is pretty exciting business. They posted on three different church-related facebook pages asking if anyone had a place I could stay. The next day they took me to the main part of Oslo, showed me around, helped me get a bus pass and told me which buses and metros to take to get where I needed to go. They fed me for a week and helped me not feel so homesick. And they didn't even really know me! They knew I was one of their daughter's students, but that was it! But they opened their home and their hearts in a way that I'm not sure I've ever experienced before.
The church is really small here. I really like being where it is small because I love how tight-knit the people are. They all know each other really well and are very supportive of each other. I also think it's a lot easier for me to integrate myself and make friends when it is smaller. I spent 8 months in my amazing BYU ward before I made friends beyond my roommates (granted, at least half of those 8 months was spent convincing myself that I didn't need/want people around). Now, I don't have life-long, best-buddy friends here, but they have welcomed me with open arms. My second Sunday in the ward half of the girls I had met the previous week came up to me and gave me a hug, and the same proportion of guys waved at me or acknowledged my existence in some manner. A number of people came up to me and asked how my first week had gone. And they had only met me once!
A few weeks ago there was a big YSA conference for all of Scandinavia, and there were a few stragglers from England, Australia, the States, etc. My friend from BYU got to go, and I was really intrigued by what she told me. As she met these people, they would tell her, "Oh yeah, if you ever come to Iceland/Denmark/England/etc. just let me know and I can give you a place to stay and show you around!" They open their homes to these people they just met and hardly know! They mean it though - it is totally sincere and you know that if you visited their country without telling them they would absolutely flip.
This is not normal.
This isn't a mindset you find everyday. I know a few people from home who are like this, but not to this degree and not in these numbers.
I want to be like this.
I want to have this quality of "yeah, I don't really know you, but we don't need to be BFFs for me to be able to open my heart and share a piece of myself with you." I've gotten kind of selfish, and that's okay to a point. I think that's kind of what college is for. We're making decisions that shape our future, so they really kind of need to be decisions we are happy with. But it's really easy to take it a little too far, and I think I might have done just that. I hold myself back and I try to stay aloof. I don't share my heart with people unless I "know them well enough". This might be slightly irrelevant, but if something costs money, I'm even tighter with it.
I think I could stand to loosed up a little bit. I don't need to give all my stuff away, but I need to share myself. And I'm going to. I'm going to be Norwegian and have an open heart. I can do that.
One of the fellows in the ward here is from the States, and came back to Norway after his mission to work and go to school. He said, "Norwegians are actually really nice. They just don't have any social skills." I'm not entirely sure how accurate that is, but he has a point. Norwegians have very open hearts. It's so amazing to me. (I'm also amazed by how many of them smoke, but that's not my point.) I never realized before how not-open we are in America.
I didn't exactly have a place to live when I came. It was exciting. I got in touch with my Norwegian teacher from BYU and asked if I could stay with her family for a couple days until I found a place. She talked to her family and set everything up for me to stay on their couch for a few days. They came and picked me up from the central station, which was a significant distance from their house and driving in Norway is pretty exciting business. They posted on three different church-related facebook pages asking if anyone had a place I could stay. The next day they took me to the main part of Oslo, showed me around, helped me get a bus pass and told me which buses and metros to take to get where I needed to go. They fed me for a week and helped me not feel so homesick. And they didn't even really know me! They knew I was one of their daughter's students, but that was it! But they opened their home and their hearts in a way that I'm not sure I've ever experienced before.
The church is really small here. I really like being where it is small because I love how tight-knit the people are. They all know each other really well and are very supportive of each other. I also think it's a lot easier for me to integrate myself and make friends when it is smaller. I spent 8 months in my amazing BYU ward before I made friends beyond my roommates (granted, at least half of those 8 months was spent convincing myself that I didn't need/want people around). Now, I don't have life-long, best-buddy friends here, but they have welcomed me with open arms. My second Sunday in the ward half of the girls I had met the previous week came up to me and gave me a hug, and the same proportion of guys waved at me or acknowledged my existence in some manner. A number of people came up to me and asked how my first week had gone. And they had only met me once!
A few weeks ago there was a big YSA conference for all of Scandinavia, and there were a few stragglers from England, Australia, the States, etc. My friend from BYU got to go, and I was really intrigued by what she told me. As she met these people, they would tell her, "Oh yeah, if you ever come to Iceland/Denmark/England/etc. just let me know and I can give you a place to stay and show you around!" They open their homes to these people they just met and hardly know! They mean it though - it is totally sincere and you know that if you visited their country without telling them they would absolutely flip.
This is not normal.
This isn't a mindset you find everyday. I know a few people from home who are like this, but not to this degree and not in these numbers.
I want to be like this.
I want to have this quality of "yeah, I don't really know you, but we don't need to be BFFs for me to be able to open my heart and share a piece of myself with you." I've gotten kind of selfish, and that's okay to a point. I think that's kind of what college is for. We're making decisions that shape our future, so they really kind of need to be decisions we are happy with. But it's really easy to take it a little too far, and I think I might have done just that. I hold myself back and I try to stay aloof. I don't share my heart with people unless I "know them well enough". This might be slightly irrelevant, but if something costs money, I'm even tighter with it.
I think I could stand to loosed up a little bit. I don't need to give all my stuff away, but I need to share myself. And I'm going to. I'm going to be Norwegian and have an open heart. I can do that.
Comments
Post a Comment