There's No Bike Lanes On The Freeway

Haha yea I'll get to that.... But needless to say, it was a good week to be alive as a missionary in Denmark!! So here is the scuttlebutt (there is you english vocab for the week :) )

Progress!!:

Man sometimes you get so happy when things work out that you just really, truly cannot explain the feeling inside. It is like a firework made of everything that makes you happy goes off inside you and and then multiplies by infinity. That is not to say that big let downs can happen, because they do. One gets, at times, some disapointment, followed by a tinge of hurt and a quick dash of betrayal, followed by a bit of anger which drives one to resolve to do more... but the process sometimes cycles through again. But this, on the contrary, makes the sucess that much sweeter! Thus let me explain the rapture of our souls here in Odense (not sure where the poeticness of the ladder came from but im in some sort of literary mood haha.)

But C* finally nailed down a date on the 14th of november! She is doing way good and there isnt really any questions to in regards to her faith and her testimony. The main thing for her now is to leave the summer cottage in babylon and look to her primary residence in zion (see "remember Lots wife" by elder Jeffery R. Holland). Meaning, she needs to fully embrace the life centered on the gospel. Thats not to say she hasnt, but that is really the only potential obstacle because some of her friends from babylon are making it a little hard on her. But thats usually how it is with anyone who wants to change and actually commits to it. The rest cant seem to committ so they just sit back and try and bring them back to their level. Its sad the amount of peer pressure there is here sometimes as we contact and teach but thats how it goes. But we are super excited to prep with her for that date! To the best we can, we really want to make her feel comfortable so we have kind of given her some room to figure things out for herself. Which seemed to have been the best thing because she picked her own baptismal date:) Super awesome!!

Next we got K*. She is a cool story because she was the final contact of the former Elder Gifford as we made the last walk of nyborgvej together as companions out contacting. Now we got her info and stuff and i invited her to:

church..... didnt come

CUV (the young single adults activity)...... didnt come

A Pizza night at the church...... didnt come

So i basically thought she was following the footsteps of T* and I* and A*, who have all been SO positive and now have gone totally silent to us (this is probably where that bit of more poetic passion above stemmed from.... haha. But it does kinda hurt when that happens) But hey that is a real thing!)

Sorry for the sidetracking.... seems a bit radical but thats seems to be the only way to explain the growth on a mission:)

But back to the sucesses, so we totally scored an appointment with K* tonight and she was pretty happy to agree when i called! So there is blessing 2 from this week! All of this already offsets that negative stuff so dont worry im pretty happy;)

Blessing three came rather unexpectantly but it came nonetheless. We got a referal for a guy named N* who just moved from Slagelse and was contacted on the street there right before he moved. He wasnt really someone that youd think would go further with it because he said he is atheist or agnostic but we gave him a call and he didnt answer.... So we tried again two days later.... didnt answer. The last time he picked up and we talked and casually agreed to meet this week! Super random how casual it felt but the Lord prepares everyone at some point so hopefully that will go good!!

So yea we have been pretty busy:)

The Nougat Bit Challenge:

So i did something pretty dang crazy this week, and i dont recommend it because it is not for the faint of heart or stomach... But here is what it is:

So there is a cereal over her called nougat bits. These are the equivalent of a corn type cereal and come in squares a little bigger that a quarter. The middle of them are filled with nougat stuff that pretty much is just nutella. So take a box of them, empty them into a bowl big enough for a bag of popcorn (or two bags) and then add a whole liter of milk. The challenge is that you must eat it in less than an hour and that ytou have to hold it all down for thirty minutes after that. We did it as a district "lunch" hahaha. But guess who completed it in 38 minutes... this guy;) Elder Amos was the only other one to do it but he is an animal so he did it in 12 minutes (Absolutley the most amazing and disgusting thing to witness)

But in all..... 750 grams is 1.7 pounds

guess how much a liter weighs? 2.2 pounds

then add a peice of toast and a bowl of cereal and the rest of Elder Jensens first pastry buy ( i forgot we were doing the challenge so i ate breakfast....MISTAKE)

But i held it down and live to say..... I, completed the NOUGAT BIT CHALLENGE! 

One more fun story for ya:

Do you all remember Edith? The 91 year old lady who is infamous for very large amounts of food? Well we went back and i had round three with her food. The thing is this time, that she forgot to write on the eating calendar that the other elders were invited too and they couldnt come anyways because Elder Amos was sick. So i also had rounds 4, 5, and 6 there as well. She said "well looks like there is more for you!" in a very happy old danish lady sort of way. So we probably ate more than i ever have in my life!! Here is the damage:

10 white potatoes (a bit bigger than a golf ball)

10 brown potatoes (about golfball size)

7pieces of flæskesteg (basically just special cuts of pork)

Half of a vanilla creme cake (and i mean legit cream. Like if you thaw ice cream a little and whip it with milk... then put extra cream on top)

So yea it was the most full/in pain ive been in from food.... then to make things more fun, the fates decided to not smile upon us and let s get lost. I eventually found us a main road that had a sign pointing to the city.  I then said these words that were the climax of the night "Hey.... lets cut to that road."

Well.... "that road" was a freeway. And "that road" had cars flying by at high speed. And "that road" had about a half foot of extra space on the side of the road...

So we did what anyone would do... stop under the next bridge, climb it with our bikes up a steep concrete hill, hop some fences and take off on a dark forest trail that somehow spit us out at a place i knew. So we had a fun hour long adventure :)

Well thats as much as i got right now:) If you want to learn more about what my life is like, feel free to put some mission papers in! Because it is too hard to put in words how awesome and hard and fun missions are! 

But in the words of  L Tom Perry, "What is your mission? Discover it, and fufill it!"

So whatever your mission is right now, discovery it fully and then conquer it!

Ill close with a quote from the OG Elder Knudsen: "Courage is fear that has said its prayers"

Then ill take it further : "Insane Courage is the leap off the ledge after the prayer is done"

Have a great week! The Lord will qualify who he call so have the courage to do what is right amidst the wrong!

MKH,

Ældste Jeppson

Fun with the Pic Stick- They have Beautiful Autumn here! 

Found a huge nerd shop :) #actuallyprettylegit

The new Fam

Found a playground rockwall :)))))))

The Nougat Bit Challenge

The Champs!! 

Sister Landsvatter, Elder Jeppson, Elder Amos, Elder Jensen, Elder Howe, Sister Ackerman

A fun Danish Street

"The District"- (side note from Mom- as the kids were getting ready to leave for school i heard my email ding.  I checked and Brandon was online.  We got to send him a video hello from all of the kids and he sent us this picture back!  It was great to email back and forth for a minute!!  Made my week :)