WEEK 57; August 24, 2015: A Week in the Life of Amanda May Van Orden - Missionary Extrodinaire!

WEEK 57; August 24, 2015

Danish Word of the Week: Evangeliet (ee-van-gay-lee-el) The Gospel

I'm just going to give you a walk-through of the highlights of this week. Ready?

Mandag-

• Met with a less active woman and her daughter and had a great talk with them about the Atonement from Elder Hollands talk about the Brothers who try to climb a mountain without ropes. https://www.lds.org/ensign/2015/05/sunday-morning-session/where-justice-love-and-mercy-meet?lang=eng  They want to come to church, but it's hard because the dad isn't super happy for the church.
• Our new investigator from Nepal made us Nepalese food-they eat with their hands. It was messy but SO GOOD.
• Walked home because Sister Reed's bike had a flat...we were like 30 minutes late. It's fine. :)

Tirsdag-

• Met with our OTHER Nepalese friends and taught them about Jesus Christ's life using pictures. (language barrier + no Christian background = Use the Gospel Art Book)
• Ate SISTER REED'S BIRTHDAY DINNER with the Bishop's family. Their kids are HILARIOUS. We always laugh so hard when we're over there. We all have secret handshakes and everything. Besties.
• Shared a spiritual thought with them about setting a date to when they can introduce a friend to the missionaries. The spirit was really strong, and the mom said that she had someone in mind that they wanted to share the gospel with! Go members! Alma 31:34-35

Onsdag-

• MY BIRTHDAY
• Mission Conference-this was so fun! It was awesome to have all of the missionaries together and to hear from the Area Presidency. We had an MTC District reunion at lunch.
• Birthday Dinner with The Bloch-Johansens. (Alexander's family – Danish young man who lived with Briscoes)

Torsdag-

• Leadership Mission Conference-mini mission conference with the Zone Leaders/Sister Training Leaders. They fed us pizza.
• Splits with Sister Moseley! (one of my MTC Companions!) A less active member in our ward had a fire in her kitchen, so we went and helped her clean that up, and then another less active member needed help in her garden...which literally looks like a jungle, so we helped with that too.
• We also went knocking and talked to several people without pants on. It's funny how that doesn't even faze me anymore.

Fredag-

• Splits in Slagelse! (Sister Reed and I were feeling pretty exhausted by this point)
• We helped paint a door, taught a woman about the temple, ate dinner with a member family, learned a magic trick, and contacted a referral. Good day.

Lørdag-

•  Baptism in Slagelse-this is a miracle story-the ward in Slagelse had a 40 day fast for missionary work. Every day for 40 days, a different family/person in the ward would be fasting for the missionaries. After that was over, the Elders fasted, and that Sunday, a man (who was neighbors with a member) came to church and said that he wanted to be baptized. So...this was his baptism, three weeks later. Miracles happen!
• Back in our area: The city had a huge party with concerts and booths and all kinds of things-picture New West Fest in Fort Collins. The church had a booth about the Family History Center in Copenhagen, and Sister Reed and I got recruited to go stand out on the street and talk to everyone about it. We found a lot of people who were really interested, and got way good tan lines.
• Instead of eating dinner, we took a nap. We literally just came home and died on the couch for an hour.
• We went out knocking on a street that we prayed about, and found a lady who wants us to come back and teach her! She was the very last door we knocked before going home.

Søndag-

• Met with our new ward mission leader-he rocks. We're so excited.
• Went to a less active member's house and tried to wake him up for church, but he was not having it. His sister even yelled in his ear and then came back out and was like, 'I can't come in contact with him. Sorry sisters.' haha. next week. :)
• Church. Always a highlight. My mission has helped me love the sacrament so much.
• Ding dong ditched some birthday rolls to a less-active woman in the ward who has the same birthday week as us.
• Finally had a little bit of time for weekly planning.
• Found a frog. 

So...yes. This week was nuts! So much happened and I am still trying to process everything that was talked about at mission conference. I love my mission! I love you all! Congrats to Dad for making it in to the choir!! That will be so much fun! And say hi to Alice for me! And Millie. Don't forget about Millie. And I guess Dia as well :)

Have a great week, fam!  Love you!