WEEK 60; September 14, 2015: George & his mother are getting baptized! Release date is January 12th!

Danish Word of the Week: Omvendelse (om-ven-ell-seh) This means both repentance and conversion. It also means, to turn around.

Remember this story?

'We ran into one of our former investigators and he wants to meet again! He actually never stopped wanting to meet, but he lives with his brother in law and the brother in law was the one who told us never to come back. This investigator uses a walker or a wheelchair to get around, so he's pretty dependent on his brother in law getting him to where he needs to go-like church. But we offered to come pick him up and walk him to church, and he was like-I would love that! It was really exciting and a total miracle that we ran into him when his brother in law wasn't around. We could finally have an honest conversation with him!'

George and his mother decided to get baptized on October 3rd! I can't even describe how happy I am right now. George is a huge part of my heart. After months of sister missionaries pushing him to church in his wheelchair, service, lessons, prayers, fasting, more prayers-he came to the sisters and told them that he was ready to be baptized. And not just him, his mother was touched by the love and service that all of the missionaries and members have shown her son, and she decided to get baptized with him.

This is really, really short this week-sorry-but know that I love all of you and pray for you every day. Have a wonderful week!

Points of interest included in letter to Mom:

1) I don't need anything right now. I finally have everything back from losing my wallet twice in a row, so we're good there :)

2) My release date is January 12th. You should be getting travel plans when I have 3 months left...so like next month. Oh gosh. That's weird to think about. But don't panic if you don't get them right on time, the office gets behind sometimes and they are in the process of training two new senior couples right now, so they will most definitely be behind :)

Love you!

WEEK 59(!), September 7, 2015: Running barefoot in the rain; Activity is the genius of this church; you get what you put in - and MORE!

Danish Word of the Week: navngivning (NOUN-gee-neeng) Baby Blessing

Hey family! Ella's baby blessing sounds like an amazing experience. Her dress was so cute!! I liked that it matched Emma's skirt. :) I'm glad that everyone got to be a part of it!

This week was a blur of names and faces-gotta love the first week in a new area. :) We also got rained on more than I ever have in my LIFE-which by now is really saying something. The other day, we were in an appointment at a member family's house-they live right across the street from the train station. We saw the train we were supposed to catch pull up through their window-and had to run barefoot across the street in the pouring rain to catch it. Our lives are so frantic. It's hilarious.

I've been thinking a lot recently about a President Hinckley quote- 'Activity is the genius of this church.' I love that in Jesus Christ's church, every single member is a part of building and strengthening it. An investigator was talking to me one time about family history-He asked why we think that it's OUR responsibility here on earth to figure all of that out. We probably make millions of mistakes, it takes forever- wouldn't it be way more efficient if we just let God do it? There's a bunch of different answers to that question, but I know that one of them is because if we 'just let God do it,' we here on the earth would never have a chance to catch the vision of His work. God gives us opportunities to be involved so that we can have a living, burning excitement for the work he is doing. That doesn't just apply to family history work. It applies to missionary work, any kind of calling, family relationships-it's no secret that this whole thing would go a lot more smoothly if Heavenly Father would just do it himself. But that's not the point. Jesus Christ is the master teacher-master teachers give their students opportunities to try it out themselves, learn from their own mistakes, practice, and improve. I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father has given me so many opportunities to serve. We really do gain so much more than we ever sacrifice.

For example, we were out contacting the other day with a woman who got baptized one month ago. She had never done ANYTHING like contacting before, and at first she was way nervous. Understandable. Eventually we had a couple of good conversations, and then she started getting braver and braver with stopping people on the street. At the end of our contacting time, she took us by a cafe she hangs out at a lot. She knew almost every person in there, and she went up to each table one by one and invited them to come hear more about this church she had just joined. After we left, she expressed how exciting it was to share her new faith with her friends-she felt so good! She was so happy! Those 1 1/2 hours she sacrificed to come out with us did so much to strengthen her new testimony. Activity is the genius of this church-and of God's work.

I hope you all are finding joy and learning lots through being actively involved. You get out what you put in, and more. I love you all so much! I love the gospel, I love the church, and I love my Savior. I'm grateful that I'm not expected to be perfect, and that through Jesus Christ's Atonement, I can be a little bit better every day.

Keep being wonderful! Take care of each other!

WEEK 58, August 31, 2015: Mini-Missionaries, no longer a STL, NEW AREA - clear across the country!

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! 

 

Our birthday lagkage (lau-kay) “layer cake” made by a member in the Ward. 

There are princesses on it

Our mini-missionaries

Bishop's family with the Missionaries