Holy cow. Crazy week. I have like no time but want to write soooo much!
We got a call from President while we were on the train to Esbjerg (where the other missionaries in our district live). He told us that Elder Read will be leaving to go up to Aalborg and that the other three of us in the apartment are going to stay together as a trio.
This is my fifth trio over the course of my mission -_-
The real sad thing though is that the reason Elder Read had to transfer is because my good friend Elder Ludlow has had some serious health problems and has to go back to the states for a while to get checked up on and possibly undergo steroid treatment. No fun. But now we're smashing our two areas down here into one and wondering what the heck we're going to do with a trio instead of two sets of missionaries to help the branch out. So that's happening.
Also we all got to hop on a super long train and head over to Copenhagen on Saturday! Elder David A. Bednar came to our mission conference and talked to us. He's incredible. He looked out at us and told us so many things and I can't really convey it all... Basically he said that the keys that are held within the quorum of the twelve NEVER go anywhere by coincidence. With only fifteen people that hold them every second is needed every day for the world to use them. He asked us when we thought we would ever again be in a room in a group as small as our mission for a Q&A session with an apostle. Before anyone could answer he said ''Never. It will never happen again in your life.'' O_O Talk about pressure! I raised my hand again and again and only got an opportunity towards the very end. I can't really explain the answer or the question over email... but just know that it was way interesting to talk to an apostle of the lord and have him look straight at me to answer. Basically he didn't really answer my question directly, but the whole idea of his session and the message he brought and the ideas he had allowed me to answer my own question.
Elder Bednars whole deal was that in the church we have a lot of false traditions and that we have really become complacent in the way we deal with each other and with learning. We need to actually DO something to learn and not just listen. Teaching shouldn't be talking at someone, it should be talking WITH someone to allow the spirit to teach. He is such a real person, he got up and asked how we were doing to start off. We mumbled something back and he goes ''That was weak! No, that was worse that sad, that was pathetic! How are you doing???'' All with a big grin on his face like he knew that he was scaring the living garbage out of us and that nobody had expected him to joke with us for the opening line. We yelled good back to him and he just says ''Well you don't start off well but you catch on quick, that's good. Now who's ready to get to work?''. Ha he was great! He made us feel a lot more at ease.
Well I'd love to talk about that meeting forever... but know that instead of trying to teach to get the approval of those around us or to play ''guess what's in my head'' to show off knowledge or force people to participate and drag answers out that our learning is much much much better if we are demonstrating faith by doing things to teach ourselves. That we need to tell others what we learned and ask what they learned, and that being real with each other is just so much better! I have a lot of thoughts about it all but no time to write.
On the way to the conference we had to leave around 3 o'clock, and we missed dinner. Now I've been told not to miss any meals ever after my stomach fiasco a few months ago. So that was bad. But then it got worse when the apartment we got to was completely out of food and we had no time in the morning to eat because we had to bolt to the conference and almost were late as it was. I was sitting through the whole time just like shaking with hunger almost. It'd been almost a whole day and I had been commanded by a doctor and by president never to let that happen. I said a silent prayer in my heart that I'd find a way to get some food so that I wouldn't risk messing up my digestive system again, but after the conference they didn't feed us like we'd expected! Then to make it worse my companion left his whole splits bag in the apartment we'd stayed overnight in and we had to take an hour trip out of the way to go get it. Well we were walking down the street after the bus and my prayer was answered in a way interesting way - a lady walks up to me and asks me to stop. I look at her and she asked me if I wanted any bananas... Wait what?? I asked her if she was offering me bananas... she said yes and told me to come over by her car. There were three massive crates of bananas sitting there and she said they'd had some sort of hunger drive and that they had no way to transport the last three crates. She gave me one of the crates for free and I walked away with about 200 free bananas :D Talk about a weird answer to a desperate prayer, I mean I think I'm convinced God has a sense of humor. Never have I been offered hundreds of free bananas on the street before until last Saturday... ja tak =)
Well wish me luck! We've made some progress here but it's just going to be interesting working in a trio again. It makes contacting weirder but I guess there are some advantages as well. We found a way awesome guy who has a girlfriend that is a member here. He wants to learn about his fiancés church and said they'd probably come together! How awesome is that? He's a way nice guy and we're gonna paint their new apartment
soon.
No time to incorporate these into the story...
Picture with these weird huge ''white men'' that watch the sea to help ships come safely in off the coast of Esbjerg, big port city. They're weird :)
Elder Redd and ''Ali Babba'' a weird camel game we played at lunch.
Love you all, stay safe!
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