Sister Van Orden Goes to Denmark: WEEK 58, August 31, 2015: Mini-Missionaries, no longer a STL, NEW AREA

Danish Word of the Week: Esbjerg (ES-byair) The new city I serve in!

I got transferred! This time around was really unexpected! I feel like I wasn't in Gladsaxe for very long at all! It was hard for me to leave because I felt like I wasn't done with all of the things I wanted to do. But, I'm excited to work in Esbjerg. My new companion is Sister Noorda-we were actually in the same mission prep class at BYU! Small world. :) I'm not a Sister Training Leader anymore-after 5 transfers of doing that, it will be good to be able to put all of my energy into working in my own area. Let's go!

But, my last week in Gladsaxe FLEW by-like always. The highlight was definitely having our mini-missionaries come and live with us for a day! The stake put together a program where youth could spend 24 hours living and working with the missionaries. It was a blast. It was also crazy because most companionships got one, maybe two mini missionaries. Søster Reed and I got three! So we went on splits with them. I was with Riza and Irene, Søster Reed was with Lærke. We all went to an eating appointment with our ward mission leader, me and my companions went and taught one of our friends about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith-I was so impressed with how good they were at teaching, asking good questions, and sharing their personal experiences. It was awesome! They are only 14 and 16 years old! They stayed the night in our apartment. Waking up at 6:30 was rough for them. Personal study for an hour was even rougher...they were pretty wiped out for the rest of the day. We ended the 'mini-mission experience' with meeting back up with all of the other stake mini-missionaries (and regular missionaries), and going all together to a baptism. It was a really fun/exhausting day. The whole time I was just thinking of the Nacho Libre line, 'So, now you geet a liddle taste of what I dooooo.'

Sunday-my last day in the area-was awesome!! A member in the ward brought a friend to church-and the friend LOVED it. She cried during sacrament meeting because she felt the spirit so strongly. One of our less-active friends came to church as well, and it was amazing to see how excited the ward was to see him there! A member of the bishopric came running down from the stand after sacrament meeting and gave him a huge hug. His parents were really grateful to Søster Reed and I for inviting him. It was cute-every time I looked over at his dad, he would give me a thumbs up and smile really big. It'll be exciting to see what happens with both of them in the future! The Gladsaxe ward is fantastic. I am going to miss so many of those families.

Sister Reed and I started our transfer together by fasting to know how we could help the ward share the gospel with their friends-and it turns out that we didn't have to do much helping. :) One of the members is putting together a huge 'Meet the Mormons' movie night for her apartment complex-she is praying and having us pray every single night that it will be inspiring for someone who comes. Multiple families have had amazing missionary experiences lately, and they are starting to get more and more willing to invite their friends to 'come and see' why their faith means so much to them. Fasting works! I just know that this ward is going to do great things.

I hope you all had a great week! I love you so much!