WEEK 64, October 11, 2015: America according to the average Dane & Why don't people put on pants before answering the door?!

Me & a really big door

Danish Word of the Week: Personlighed (per-SONE-lee-hill) PERSONALITY

Funny things Danes have said about America:

1. The average American doesn't know how to cook. The only Americans who know how to make food are the people who own all of the fast food restaurants we eat at.

2. There are 3 states. New York, California, and Texas. There is also strange island called Utah inhabited by Mormons, but only a few people have heard of it.

3. We all have guns and shoot things on a daily basis. Ees for fun.

4. We're all good at ice skating. Not sure where that one came from.

5. One Direction is the essence of American music.

6. American salads are more fattening than Danish pastries.

We were walking home at like 8.50 pm. A car drove past and pulled over in front of us. A man got out of the passenger side and handed us two daisies, and then got back in the car and drove away without saying anything. Thank you kind stranger  ... ignore how awful my hair looks; it was rainy.

We had a really fun ward party on Saturday to get ready for Ward Conference. Bishop asked each of the groups-Relief Society, Primary, Young Women's, and the Missionaries to provide 10 minutes of entertainment. We and the Elders wrote a skit about the MTC and all of our struggles there, and it ended up being way funny. A man in the ward came up to me afterwards and told me how great it was to see the missionaries having fun. Then he went off on this thing about how having fun is a big part of being Christian. We're supposed to lift each other up and love one another-so that can also translate into getting together and doing fun things and making good memories. 'Men are that they might have joy.' 

The Bishop gave a really good talk the next day in sacrament meeting and used that ward party as an analogy. All of the members contributed something: decorations, food, entertainment, talents, time-not because they had to, but because they wanted to make the party a good experience for everyone else, and they had something they knew they could contribute. As a result, it was a huge success and everyone came away feeling uplifted-not thinking about all that they had sacrificed to get there. That's how our membership in Christ's church should feel! Latter Day Saints are really good at analogies, I've noticed. 

I need to go off on a little rant for a second.  WHY DO PEOPLE ANSWER THE DOOR IN THEIR UNDERWEAR?! What is their thought process? They're sitting there in their apartment, minding their own business, and then a knock comes at the door. WHY is their first thought not, 'Oh, someone's here, I'd better go put some pants on.' NO. They just hop right up and open the door NAKED. Do they really just not think about it, or do they do it on purpose? I'm starting to feel like it's on purpose. This has become a daily occurrence, and I am just mystified. These are grown up adult fully functioning people. Do they show up to work with no pants on? I don't understand.

Anyways. I hope you all have a wonderful week! Thanks for being so great. We find out about transfers this week-I feel like I'm probably staying but you never know. :)

Love you!

 

The Esbjerg/Sønderborg District

cute lil Danmark

One of the amazing cathedrals you can find all over the country. This one is in a town called Ribe, the oldest town in Denmark.

WEEK 63, October 5, 2015: Meet some of Amanda's Danish friends, Rock Ban Name from Conference, Living Prophets, and TWO MORE TRANSFERS?!

Danish Word of the Week: Mennesker (MEN-esk-eh) PEOPLE

Winning Conference Rock Band Name: Sin Sick World

 [Note from Jill, Amanda's mom:  Years ago, Alec (Amanda's dad) started a contest to help keep the kids interested and listening to conference: Listen for catch phrases that could double as names for rock bands.  Amulon & the Wicked Priests, Nattering Na-bombs, etc.  Over the years, many have been recorded in our family journal.  Sin Sick World is Amanda's entry from October's Gen Conf.]

I just want to tell you about some of my friends this week.

George's Baptism

GEORGE: His baptism was so sweet! He has gained such a big place in the hearts of the members in Horsens. Him and his mother both. I'm so grateful that I got to be there. George is one of the smartest people I have ever met. Not just academically; he has a lot of wisdom. He's been through a lot, and I have never met anyone so young who knows the Savior so personally. George taught me that faith and gratitude for the Savior really can carry us peacefully through any trial.

Basically the entire Ward at George's baptism

SARA (still changing her name): I talked about her a little while ago, she is the 17 year old in Horsens who is going to get baptized as soon as she turns 18 in a couple of months. She was also at George's baptism, and she sat by me and told me everything that had happened in her life since I left. She is completely changed! She LOVES the gospel; I almost started crying as she sat there and told me how much she has come to just love and understand repentance and the Savior and the commandments. She told me, 'I don't have a strong family, but because of the gospel I can create one for myself. I want to have an eternal family!' That's what it's all about!  Potential!  We can be happy right now if we decide to be! I will never stop being grateful for that rainy day when Sister Perkins and I decided to turn our bikes around and try knocking her neighborhood one more time-and finally found her and her mom. There really are people ready for the gospel.

MICHAEL: We had an amazing lesson with him about repentance. It turns out that of all of the things we teach in the church, this is what he relates to the most! He has already changed a bunch in his life, and now he's adding a gospel perspective to it. He came to conference on Sunday and told us that since our lesson, he had been praying for help and for strength with the things he's trying to change in his life, and he said that it's been helping him a lot. He's so wonderful!

Ahhh my travel itinerary just popped up in my inbox! WEIRD!!! This is not happening. HOW DO I ONLY HAVE TWO TRANSFERS LEFT. It's fine. I'm fine. Oh geez.

Anyways, last person...

SOFIE: We watched Conference with her. She's a member in our ward and possibly one of my favorite people ever. This woman is a wonder. She lost her leg from the knee down when she was younger, but she has not let that stop her from anything in life. She is a trained opera singer, voice teacher, directs the best choir in Esbjerg, THE MOST INCREDIBLE COOK and she teaches the missionaries her tricks so...hopefully some of that will rub off on me, and she can knit anything you ask her to. And she's brilliant. Talking to her about the church is mind blowing sometimes. It was way fun watching conference with her. She had a running commentary the entire time, especially when the MoTAB sang. We helped her make this cheese soup that is literally the best soup I've ever had in my life. In her words, 'It tastes like angels sing.'

I love General Conference. We still haven't watched the last session-we're going to get all caught up on that today. As I was listening, I just kept thinking of how grateful I am that we have a living prophet and apostles on the earth today. This has become one of my favorite scriptures about prophets:

Ephesians 4:11-15

11 And he (Christ) gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

 12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

 13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

 14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

 15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.

I love you all so much! Thanks for the great examples and great strength you are to me! Have a wonderful week!! Kiss Ella for me!

WEEK 62; September 28, 2015: Family History, Thomas Monson & C.S. Lewis are both worth quoting, and It's not the checklist that saves us.

Danish Word of the Week: LEGO (the toy) Legos are Danish! LEGO is an abbreviation for 'LEG GODT' (lie got) which roughly translated means, 'play good.'

Ok, before I get into this week, I have an assignment for the family. President O'Bryant is starting a huge push for missionary work through family history in Denmark. He actually called two sister missionaries to be full-time family history missionaries, and he's planning on calling more in the future. He really thinks (and I believe he's right), that if we do more to offer family history as a service, that we'll be able to connect with more people. Danes LOVE their family history, and the church has so much to offer in that aspect! It's awesome. So, President asked all of us to email home and ask for two things: 1) Faith promoting stories from our ancestors and 2) The history of our families in Denmark-where we come from, when we moved to America, WHY we moved to America...things like that. So basically, call Grandpa Van Orden. Tell him to pull out all the stops and email me everything! :) Thanks in advance!

Also, edit to last week-that quote about excuses is from Thomas S. Monson, not C.S. Lewis. I can't keep all of those wise people straight. :)

Anyways-this week was super good! We taught Michael about the Plan of Salvation and he was in church this week-he's doing great! We went on splits in Horsens and I got to see George-we went to a Danish class in the church together. His mom isn't getting baptized on Saturday because she has more of a language barrier, but things are still going really well with her! She's been Skyping the missionaries in Romania so she can get the lessons in her native language. But George IS getting baptized on Saturday! General Conference and my friend George's baptism. That's going to be a wonderful day.

We had a Zone Conference where President emphasized the importance of teaching repentance.  In one of his mission president conferences, the apostles said that retention in the church is being hindered because missionaries are focusing so much on baptism that they skip over teaching our friends how to truly repent. The biggest things I took away from it was that repentance is not just a 'one and done' process. It's a daily attitude. Repentance is change. Repentance is recognizing the gap between us and God and trying daily to close it. Also, repentance is meaningless if it's just a checklist. 1. recognize the sin. check. 2. feel bad. check. 3. pray for forgiveness. check. 4. don't do it again. check. All of these steps are important, but they don't mean anything if they don't bring us closer to the Savior. It's not the checklist that saves us, it's Jesus Christ. The 'check-list' are actions that we use to access the power of his Atonement. If we just go through the motions with them, then that power will be absent. It was really powerful and I learned a ton! We were all excited to go out and apply it in our teaching.

I am so excited for General Conference. I might be more excited for this than for Christmas. It will be so interesting to see who our new Apostles will be, and I just can't wait to hear what they all have to say!

I love you all! Thanks for being so wonderful-I hope you all have a great week!!

WEEK 61; September 21, 2015: C.S. Lewis: "Any excuse, no matter how valid, only weakens the character." Living Church, Living Testimony = Treat it like the living thing it is :)

Danish Phrase of the Week: 

ET STORT OG FORUNDERLIGT VÆRK 

(it stoart o for-UN-er-leet vairk) A Great and Marvelous Work

We're not really sure what this thing is, but it was neat.  All the stones had a different Zodiac symbol.  And this is my companion, Sister Noorda! 

 

Feeding the deer

The deer really liked Elder Dickson

 


We live right by the beach! 

Again, don't know what this is, but it's kinda cool.

Hey! This week was way exciting. Yesterday was Stake Conference and so I got to see a lot of people I knew from Horsens. George and his mom were there, and a couple other people I taught-it's good to see that they're still coming to church and meeting with missionaries! George is so excited for his baptism. 2 more weeks!

We also had an amazing miracle with a man named Michael. His girlfriend is a member of the church, and he's been to church with her a lot over the last few years. She went through a period of not being super active and they were living together, but last month she decided to start living the commandments and to be active in the church again. She moved into her own apartment and started bringing Michael with her to church. Over the last couple of weeks we've been over there a few times and he's been really positive about things! On our second visit, he told us that he had been reading the Book of Mormon every day since we had been there last. This last week, we felt like we should teach him about Joseph Smith's story and the restoration of the church. It went super well and the Spirit was really present. Michael told us about all of the good he's seen the church do in other people's lives, and how he wants that in his own life. He talked about the focus on families, the word of wisdom, and the light that he sees in the people who are close to God. He said that since he's been trying to make more time for God, he's felt more joy and appreciation for his life. We asked him if he wanted to be baptized and he said he would! We set a date for the 7th of November. We are so excited! This one feels like it's for real. Pray for Michael!

I've been thinking a lot about the future this week...not trunkiness :) just application of everything I've learned out here. I've really been praying to know what I need to do to stay active in the church for the rest of my life. I have taught a lot of less-active members on my mission, and I've actually been putting together a list of their reasons for leaving the church. There are many. This really worries me. As I was praying about this, two things came into my head. The first was a quote from C.S. Lewis: 'Any excuse, no matter how valid, only weakens the character.' I thought that sounded a little harsh, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it's true. When we make excuses, we justify a lack of effort and show a great lack of understanding and appreciation for what is being offered to us. Excuses do not make us stronger.

The second was from Doctrine and Covenants 1:30 (this church is) 'the only true and living church on the face of the whole earth.' That phrase-'living church'-really stuck out to me. I felt impressed that my testimony of the church needs to be living as well. If something is alive, it grows, it needs nourishment, it interacts with its surroundings, and it fights to survive. I know that this church is God's church, and I know that following Christ is the only way to true and lasting happiness. If I want to maintain and add upon that knowledge, then I need to treat my testimony like a living thing. I can't just rely on my mission experiences for the rest of my life. I need to be having spiritual experiences every day!

Anyways. That's what I've been thinking about recently. Thank you all for being so wonderful. Have a great week!

I'm guessing I'll be in Esbjerg for the next couple of months, so I think it's safe to send stuff here. My address is: 

Nørregade 128, st.th

6700 Esbjerg

Danmark