Hi! Still Here :D

Hey all! 

Not a ton of exciting stuff this week, so you only get one picture. But it's a way cool one of the lake that I live on so enjoy :)

So this week hasn't been super interesting. I've been a bit under the weather so I've had to stay inside a bit but I've still forced myself to get outside for some lessons and at least a few stopby's each day. My parents inform me that I was called into jury duty back in the states so at least I got out of that right? 

I've had a lot of time to think and to read Jesus the Christ this week (amaaaaaazing book) and I'm just realizing how little I knew about the church before I left and the more I learn the more I realize that I don't know. To all you out there going on missions in the next bit of your life, READ! Get through the Book of Mormon at least once and I'd advice the four gospels as well. It pays to know what you are gonna go be talking about, and more important than reading these things is to get down on your knees and pray about it and make sure you actually believe it. Getting out into the field on borrowed faith will only take you so far. So... yeah. That's my speech for the day.

As another example of needing to read we had a lesson with our investigator Else at a member families home over dinner. Turns out the wife and Else actually knew each other from school! How cool is that? We were thinking that we were finally going to get an investigator to church here after an awesome lesson about the Plan of Salvation and why baptism is important but she ended up telling us that she was sick on Sunday. Blah. I don't know why it's been sooo hard to get people to turn up for church here! Granted we only have like 8 solid members that actually live in Silkeborg and our church building used to be part of a car dealership and is in an area of town under major construction, but people just are not willing to make the trip inside! Oh well. My job is to invite them, the rest is out of my hands :) 

Big thanks to my family, they are awesome and I want them to know that! I miss you all but I'm lucky to be where I am. 

Last thing. I know that the teachings of Jesus Christ are the way to get real happiness. That's the biggest thing I have learned serving among Danes who think they are ''The Happiest People on Earth'' no. They aren't. They are probably the most content because they don't have any problems, but the true happiness I've seen has only come after hard work. Salvation isn't easy people!

Love you all, and until next week, a big VI SES!

Shocking week!

Well our P-Day was interestingly spent at an electricity museum 

Thanks to our branch for that fun little trip. This first week with Elder Lawless has been way interesting to say the least. It started when he twisted of the end of his key in his bike lock. Long story short, we got permission from the police department to take their bolt cutters and a signed note stating we had permission to cut a lock and went into the middle of the busiest part of town and proceeded to steal Elder Lawless's bike back. Nobody even asked us what we were doing... Denmark man. Oh, we also had a second run-in with the authorities when we each got slapped with a 150 dollar ticket because our train ticket was invalid. I went to the ticket station and showed them that it was their own fault and got the tickets removed but it was interesting to say the least!

As far as missionary life goes this week not a lot of people have been home. I've been feeling very sick these last little bit, I've dropped almost 15 pounds and if any of you know me you know that I can't afford to drop that much weight! My body has just felt very out of whack and I don't know why so keep me in your prayers :) 

We did have one way good lesson though. We taught a Brazilian lady named Diana with a married couple that's on a mission in Denmark. Diana is awesome, she had high lighted different parts of Alma 32 (all the good ones we wanted to discuss!) and asked a lot of good questions. She really wants to help herself find faith and to help her two little kids have more faith than the Danes she sees around her. She didn't come to church (seems to be impossible in this area) but she told me and Elder Lawless that we were angels and that she felt as if she had exercised her faith. Expect good news! Also we found a way to keep teaching Else, the lady we have talked to about baptism. She is (hopefully) going to come over to a members house for dinner soon and have a lesson with us all after. She really likes talking to us and told me I speak Danish like I've been around high class people instead of street Danish which I guess is a good thing? Anyway she's really accepting and really interested as well, so those two are the main focus of our teaching. The married couples testimony to Diana of how the church has helped their family really impressed me, I think that is the biggest strength to my testimony is the affect the gospel has on all of the families I have seen in my life. So hat's off to all of you back home cause you're awesome :) The spirit was there at that lesson and I can only pray that Diana will find a way to get her husband to either listen as well or to accept her bringing her children to church.

This is us next to a replica of the atomic bomb, because science. I promise I'm not tiny, Elder Lawless is 6'5''

But hey, love you all and miss you a whole bunch. For reals. Keep being awesome. Hope I feel better, cause I don't feel all that good. So yeah.

Love ya!

Transfer Madness is Cooler Than Superbowl Madness

Sucks for the Broncos and everyone else watching the Superbowl! Good thing it's not a problem to me :)

 

So I got my new companion. Literally it was the craziest transfer ever, and it all happened this morning. Me and the trusty trio woke up and started the day off right by missing our bus! That led to us missing our train. That wasn't too bad, we jsut called their new areas and told them they'd be an hour late. We took a train to Skanderborg with a bike, 6 suitcases, a giant blue plastic bag, a backpack and a guitar. We had to switch trains but the lady that got on before us with her stroller took so long that we only managed to get half of Elder Nelsons stuff onto the train before the doors locked and the train took off leaving his two biggest suitcases sitting on the side of the tracks...  Not fun -_- After calming him down we both went back, got his stuff, shipped him out alone on his new train which left me stranded alone in a city that wasn't the city my new companion Elder Lawless was supposed to meet me at... he had to get off the train just to be told by some other missionaries that helped us out to keep going on the train and hopefully we'd find each other. We did. But after we did we didn't have enough time to cash his ticket before our train came so we hide to ride the whole way in fear that we'd get a fine for not having the right ticket, but we talked our way out of it. Great start to our new companionship.

 

I've only known Elder Lawless for like an hour or two, but he's from California and once broke a guys arm that was trying to mug him because Elder Lawless is 6'4'' and has had 12 years of martial arts. Guess you don't have to worry about my safety mom cause our companionship will win any fight ever. Anyways other than this crazy day today it's been a pretty good week. We managed to set a baptisimal date with one of our investigators! Her name is Else and we knocked into her. She said she was looking for a church and we said we had one. The rest is history! Haha she's way open, maybe a little too open... We need to explain that not EVERYTHING is true, I mean her Bible has the books from the Apografa (spelling?) in it. That was way fun to look at. But yeah she asked how someone becomes LDS and we said Dåb. After talking about it Elder Ludlow asked if that's something she's like to do. We agreed that after we meet with her some more and she learns more she'd set March 8th as a date for baptism! I'm way pumped to get her to church this next Sundayto meet all the members and to solidify it but I have high hopes for her. The only hard part is going to be teaching her now that we don't have a trio.

 

Losing the trio is going to be way hard.

 

Our area is way isolated in the middle of Jylland and so we have a difficult time getting an extra male to lessons with single women (we can't go in the house if it's just us 2 missionaries) and EVERYONE we teach is a single woman. Holy cow I didn't really realize it until I started planning for the week. It'll be a big challenge, but I think for the 3-4 investigators we have the highest hopes for (all women) we can get one of our members to come with. Wish us luck!

 

A couple days ago we did have a pretty good lesson with a man named Jens. Apparently he's died before O_O but he lives in a really sketchy place and I'll admit I kind of had really low hopes for the lesson. He let us in though after Elder Ludlow met him on the gågade caroling and his house was kind of humbling. I know it has nothing on the houses people visit in like the Phillipines of South America or Mozambique, but literally the whole thing was one small room, a bed, a small folding chair, and a fridge. Oh and some porn and ciggarettes, that part was unfortunate. But we started teaching him and he seemed open to the idea of prophets! After we gave him a Mormons Bog he said he couldn't cause he was in a bad financial spot. We explained that it was free and he still asked which one of us was paying for it. We told him our church printed the books and they gave them to us to give out for free. He seemed really impressed by that and told us that it meant a lot and he'd love to read it. My hopes are high! It was great to finally see somebody appreciate us giving them a Book of Mormon instead of looking disappointed they'd have to carry the book around before they could get rid of it. It's a life changing book people! But on the brightside our area is actually going really well right now other than the fact that nobody will come to church! Hellige ko! We have 3-4 people who have told us they'd like to come see our church and a couple others who said they'd see if they had time and all these crazy things keep coming up and stopping them! Blah!

 

But yeah, new transfer starts today, I think it will be a fun companionship and a successful one too.

 

Oh! I got to go to København (Copenhagen) this week. It was way fun, we stayed in a HOUSE that the Ballerup elders (all four of them) live in. 

It was way cool cause our apartment is a three room little bit of nothing that has the bathroom split in two so that one has the toilet and the other room has the shower... Don't ask me why. Denmark is weird.

To end on a positive note, I should hopefully be taking another trip back to my hometown of Odense where even the stoplights show their obsession with HC Andersen. Thomas is gonna get baptized down there on the last day of this month on the day I helped him decide! Fingers crossed he has the strength to keep his commitments and the will power to use those 8 hours of freedom he has a month to enter into the covenant of baptism!

Love you all, keep writing!