A Cooked Goose for Everyone

Well i hope you all had a stellar Christmas!! It was a very slammed week of awesome for me and I have been trying to get over a cherry sour sugar high since Friday haha. But let me tell you about it :) 

Monday:

So Monday we had an essentials p-day and I already kinda mentioned last Monday last time but what I didn't mention is that we went to go do the living Christmas card to a Hungarian guy named Zscholt. We showed up at his kinda run down building and sang to him and he ended up loving it so much that he took us down to the basement where his other hungarian friend named Garbor lives. So we sang to Garbor in the pretty dark basement because it took the glitchy motion sensor light 7 minutes to turn on. So that was a equally fun part because it kinda turned into a strobe light in a dark basement in Denmark, eating chocolate with 2 Hungarians and 5 people I have only know for a max of 3 months.....

Thats a mission for ya haha. :)

Tuesday:

So we did two service projects on Tuesday. 

   1) Was with the lady *J who has sanitation issues. Well first off her boyfriend *J took us to help lift a Christmas tree back up that had fallen down which only took a total of one person to do. We had 6 to do service..... so then he said we should come have an orange soda and play darts because we worked so hard. We reminded him that all we did was lift up a tree. He said that was a lot of work.... He is kind of a funky dude. So after we finally got him to take us back to *J to do the real project, we found out that it was basically a snipe hunt.

What she wanted us to do was to find a shoe that her diseased rug of a dog took and hid in the woods somewhere. So me and Elder Howe volunteered to look in the woods while the onthers searched her house. We found some fun breakable garbage to throw at rocks (which we might have done.....) but no shoe hahaha. But she fed us Christmas ham and stuff after we realized we would probably not find it.

   2) We helped a family in our ward move into their house. They fed us dinner too haha.

Wednesday:

 On Wednesday we had a combined Christmas district meeting special with the second ward missionaries. Afterwards we did a little gift exchange with just our district:) 

After that we went and spent the rest of the day with a member and he showed us how to make marzipan stuff and we ate risengrød and æbelskivers.

Pretty typical of a Danish December 23rd.

Thursday:

We went to the zoo:) I'll let the pictures show the experience haha.

After that we went to Guds tjeneste, which is basically the Christmas church session that most Danes go to (most of them for the only time that year). But it was only like 40 minutes and there were musical numbers and talks and stuff. And *C came!!  That was a blessing for sure:)

So the 24th of December is the day that Christmas is celebrated. We went to the Jensens in our ward for basically the afternoon and the rest of the night. So we ate a classic meal of flæskesteg, duck, white potatoes, brown potatoes, red cabbage, and some other stuff. After that we had risalamande and i found the whole almond so i got the almond gift! haha

After dinner and dessert, that is when the families sing songs and dance around the tree:) Super fun stuff! Then all presents are opened on the 24th night. So we had to stay for that because you do NOT leave until they are done haha. But they gave us some gifts too so that was awesome:)

After we got home, we said "when in Rome" and opened all of our gifts too:) Everyone who sent me gifts... You are the greatest!! 

Even though I was away from home and I didn't get a ton of gifts or stuff like that, it is probably going to be one of the most memorable Christmases so far because of how different it was. ¤ Elders in a little apartment with a paper tree and christmas lights, all away from their families for the same reason. I loved it:)

Friday:

For Christmas day we woke up at 5:15am to get ready so we could ride out to a family to use their ipads to Skype our families. The dad answered the door, let us in, and went back to bed haha. It was a super neat thing to skype! It was kinda just like a living email haha it was awesome:)

After skyped we kinda just sat there on their couches for a while and played with the Jensens guitar and ended up finally just telling them over text to have a Merry Christmas and enjoy the rest of their sleep:) haha

 We got back from skyping around 10 so that was when we started studies and stuff. We were inside for a while and then we went out to contact haha. No one wanted anything to with us haha. So the Turpins (our senior missionary couple) invited us to come eat with them because we didn't have a place on fridayhaha. But yea that was basically our day:)

Saturday:

On Saturday we went to go do service for a member in the ward. It was dumping rain and the ground was up to our ankles in mud haha. We chopped wood and hauled it into the basement for him. Super fun service. Then they fed us a ton of hot dogs haha it was kinda gross. Then we came back and did language study and got ready again so we could go to another eating appointment with the Grabes. They are an awesome family too:)

Sunday:

Church, weekly planning, and another eating appointment. Thats about it:)

But yea thats about it! haha. Thats as much as i have time to put on there so i hope it all makes sense.

Real quick i have to quotes from a talk by elder Jeffery r. Holland called "The inconvenient Messiah"

"Cherish your spiritual burdens because God will converse with you through them and will use you to do his work if you carry them well."

"If for a while the harder you try, the harder it gets, take heart. So it has been with the best people who ever lived."

Those are pretty dang awesome:)

Well that all! I wish i could take the time to tell everyone of you Merry Christmas individually but unfortunately time does not allow. Have a great week!

Dont make goals you wont keep;)

MKH;

Ældste Jeppson

Our Hungarian Boy Zscholt that we caroled to.

Pizza socks and Christmas Trees.

The bounty of our district Christmas exchange

Marzipan candy making :) #lochness

The Jackalope:)

"Please Let Pelican bite hand"

The Lion in its wild glory

Cody Maverik everybody.. (from Surfs Up if you haven't seen the best movie ever!)

Cooked duck and flaeskesteg.  Traditional Danish Christmas meal.

Us getting ready to dance around the tree. 

The Crew with our gifts from familien Jensen

The Crew getting ready to open some gifts

Some of my bounty (shout out to the Callisters and Lebarons:) 

Cherry Sours #Whatelseisthereislife:))))))

Christmas day in the streets in Odense:) 

The crew ft. Mustaches

1/2 Cup of Awesome

This week turned out golden brown and we enjoyed finishing it :) I hope you all have had a dejligt week because of Christmas! I gotta get down to it so coming at you quick with the week-- we turn the time over to the highlight reel:

Progress:

So C* was still on vacation so we didn't really have the chance to talk with her. But she is back in town and i just barely texted her 2 minutes ago so if she answers by the time I'm finishing this email then maybe this will be the first time you all get a live email haha. But we stand optimistic.

So with M*, yea well.... he dropped us. He is somewhat of an eternal investigator but hopefully missionaries are able to teach him when he is actually open to it. But yea that was a bummer.

We have had to pull back a little because as Americans we don't understand how sacred time is for Danes around Christmas and we don't want to be asking them to meet if they could possibly get upset for disturbing their Christmas time. So we are mostly doing the living Chrismas card and delivering cookies and stuff to past investigators and less actives. Equally fun work though:)

Contacting:

But hey you know what isn't a bummer... we had two nights of wayyyyyy awesome contacting! They were on fire:) The first night we talked with a guy named A*. We had a great friendly conversation and he invited us to go watch him sing in some Arabic cafe somewhere. So he was way positive:) But unfortunately we misheard the name of the road it was on and couldn't find it and then Elder Jensen had a flat..... again. So we missed it:(

But after that contact, we contacted two girls that were happy to talk! (that is always so nice... happy humans:) ) But one wasn't super interested but the other was so we just focused on her haha. She said she was interested but didn't really want to meet yet... But what she didn't know was that my testimony and a marked scripture were in there so she knows I'm for real on this. So she will hopefully call if she really reads it.

The next night, me and Elder Howe were on mini splits. We were contacting on the way to get kebabs for dinner with the other two, when we saw a drunk guy and those are always the best conversations if you need some humor in your night:) He said, "oh i know you guys, you guys can't be out here on Tuesdays. only Saturdays. not even allowed. Come back in five hours" 

So Elder Howe (who has a killer sense of humor) started helping this guy relize that Saturday was in fact, not after Tuesday haha. But he followed that up with an Book of Mormon offer. And then the weirdest thing happened... this guy went from fairly wasted to sober. At least his mind but we talked to him for an hour! It was super cool:) He basically asked questions that led to almost every lesson being taught in a summary so we might as well have just given him a preach my gospel too:) But we got his number and he said he wants to meet and talk some time! We even invited him to baptism haha and he wasn't really sure what to think but we can always ask again later...

Then we met this guy named S*. Way stylish dude with a sharp mind. We just walked up to him and asked if he wanted a Christmas present. He asked what it was and so we showed him the Book of Mormon and talked a little about it. He asked a bunch of tough questions on a lot of stuff but we answered them and he kinda just took it all in. In the end, he said "I gotta go, but I don't think I'm ready to believe the word of God yet" 

That was an interesting phrase....

Sprog (language):

This week I've had to give more English prayers than ever so far on the mission. It is really fun because I basically just switch back and forth because my brain can't decide what I'm speaking:) So I'm starting to think my brain is actually learning things:)

Mission conference:

Friday was mission conference and i must say it was a good day:) We had a great conference followed by a Christmas meal:) So that was so far so good. Then Santa (Elder Mogensen who just finished his mission) came in with all the Christmas packages that the mission office has been holding hostage until it was time and gave us all the packages. We all sat there and opened letters and stuff and some packages and hung out and stuff.  Yea I got all of the presents!  We are waiting to open them though (all the wrapped ones haha) and Grandma and Grandpas! So I'm super excited for that:

So here is the best part, we had been told we would get to watch a movie and so we were all wondering what it would be. Well president was clever and put Johnny Lingo on during lunch a little bit so he could trick us about what we were watching. (But i was on to him, johnny lingo is only 25 minutes.... we had 2 hours:) )

So then when it was time, he suprised us all with "Inside Out"!! Ohhhh man..... that was wayyyy sweet:)) I didn't think a group of humans could be more excited... haha. For me it was probably the movie that has been actually emotionally moving to some degree haha. Maybe I'm getting soft but I don't care... ;)

I don't have a lot of time so I'll stop there. But I would encourage you all to read the poem "the Christmas guest"

http://flyanglersonline.com/lighterside/poetscreek/part152.php

President O'Bryant read it at mission conference and it was probably my favorite part:)

Well you all have a fantastic Christmas week!  

Leave carrots out for the reindeer:)

God Jul alle sammen!

Ældste Jeppson 

The OG MTC group back together- Elder Gardner, Elder Gerber, Elder Jeppson, Elder Ziegler

Tribute to all those born in the 90's

My celebration food after an unreal contacting sesh and to mark 6 whole months... crazy soup! 

The fruits of this tree

No Growth in the Comfort Zone

There is no growth in the comfort zone, and there is definitley no comfort in the growth zone. 

That was the theme of this week for me so i thought i pass it on to all you who aspire for change but can't find the insane courage to do something:) 

But here is the week in a nutshell:

Progress:

Man alive..... one thing that has grown exponentially this week for me is patience. I feel like the proverbial horse whose rider dangles a carrot in front of its face to make it walk. Meaning, C* is so close and so positive but she decided to go to Austria on a ski trip so we haven't met with her for 3 weeks now. So its kinda of hard now to gauge exactly what she needs because we haven't been hearing a lot from her. The reason why its frustrating is because I'll most likely transfer in three weeks and I'd like to set her up on date at least so she is progressing.

The funny thing about a mission is that externally, all it seems is that we as missionaries, strive to just "dunk" people under the water and that is the main goal. I mean, yea, thats part of it, but I've come to learn that the reason missionaries should be serving is to invite and help the people they grow to love through their service. So yea, I'd love to see her baptized very soon. But I would like more for her to actually come unto Christ, not just because it is appealing at the moment, but because it is something that she has tested and found a strong answer. So that's kind of why I'm so intent on meeting with her:)

But as for M*, don't exactly know what to do with him. He keeps going on vaycay and stuff as far as I know. Luckily for us he is home this week and just as happy as in previous times we've talked to him, so that are we happy for (haha that was hardcore danglish grammar. Sorry haha)

So there is an inactive guy named D* that we called. He hasn't been to church in years but we gave him a call. He said he would like to meet with us, but I was a little skeptical.  So we kinda of just wrote him down to call in the next week as a reminder and thought we would just worry about it then. But guess what, his parents (who don't really come to church) were in the grocery store on Monday and they invited us to æbleskivers:) (which by the way, are so bomb!)

They told us that D* had been at their house and told them the missionaries called and showed them the phone and was pretty pleased:) So that was really cool to see once again the hand of the Lord:) And on top of that, the parents came to church:)

Bet ya'll think i wouldn't mention Vo Long this time..... EHRRN. He is still the man! He just keeps getting cooler:) He is even participating in third hour with high preists group! way awesome.

This week we did more family history with him but he lost his membership ID number so we couldnt do a lot because it's hard to make him a family search account without his number. But guess what, he gave me a department of the army pamphlet replica of a English to Vietnamese dictionary. I dont know how he got it because the print is type write so im pretty sure it is a photo copy of the real thing with a copy of the cover.

but chúng tôi là những người lính mỹ :) haha

He is starting to teach me some.

Other stuff:

So back to that eating appointment, they are way cool and are kind of controversial but it was so fun! They played christmas music blaring the whole time but it was all approved traditional stuff so we didn't really have a reason to tell them to turn it down.... i almost told them to turn it up when the beach boys christmas song came on ..... man i got a little trunky for that haha. But it was a super sweet time!

We went and did service again for a less active in our ward. Lets just say her little shack is the most unsanitary place to make food in and we have to share it with her, her whack boyfriend who is way funny, and her dog the size of texas. We blessed the food ( x 1000) because she used the eggbeater to scratch her head which really worried me. Elder Jensen was trying not to hurl when she pulled out the trout hahahahaha. I was dying laughing the whole time because he looked like he lost a good amount of dignity having to be there. Good stuff.

All you people who are involved in music, stick to it. I had to pull a piano solo out of no where for a song I've never played before becuase they needed some entertainment at a christmas party haha. So all the mothers out there, force your kids. haha. But yea, I'm way greatful for musical talents.

Spiritual foods:

Check out the talk by President Eyring called "Gifts of the Spirit for Hard Times". https://www.lds.org/ensign/2007/06/gifts-of-the-spirit-for-hard-times?lang=eng Quality talk. Super quality:) 

Also, this week I've found that in trying harder to give everyone the opportunity to hear the gospel, I have been way happier and felt way better about what im doing in Denmark. Especially because right now it feels like no one wants to talk because they are going all over the place to do Christmas stuff. But it was a way huge contrast when I focused on others more pointedly.

But hey, make the best of good things and make great things even greater.

Merry Christmas time and don't drink too much nog, that's my job.

God Jul!

Ældste Jeppson

**Title** (Yupp I couldn't think of anything)

Hopefully you all are getting your Christmas pants on because Denmark is pretty much already ready haha. But this week was a good week! It was a slower week as far as work but it was exactly as it was supposed to be this week:) 

But ill get to it:

Progress: 

So this week was slower because we are in a weird paradox. With C*, she came to our pizza night but that was all because she has had it pretty busy over the last week. She is still positive but we still haven't had a lesson with her! Man its frustrating sometimes but we are still way optimistic for her. Like I've said, the Book of Mormon will be the key for her to make the decision to commit to things.... because the Book of Mormon is the Key for everyone haha. So I hope to write this email next week and tell you how happy it made her:) 

WIth M*... He still definitely wants to meet.... but he is basically in Jylland all this month with his family for christmas so we might not get the chance to catch him when he is home.... we will see..

We have a couple investigators on the edge of meeting.... but they just need a push.

But on the bright side.... some of those random calls we made worked out! We have 3 potentials that could turn into friends so we are excited:)

Contacting:

We have done a whole lot of it the last week. Good stuff:) It was getting  kinda hard because people are in Christmas overdrive here, so we had to get creative to get people to stop thinking about trying to balance a new bike on top of their new fridge and listen to us (that didn't really happen.... but thats how it feels haha)

So we have done a lot of contacts that start as such:

"Hey we are some Americans and we want to know what Danish Christmas is like"

"hey, Whats your favorite christmas food?"

"Why is a danish christmas better than ours?" haha

But yea they actually will stop and talk but they don't really care much about the true meaning of Christmas..... just their new bike on top of their new fridge.

Sorry that I can't think of a ton right now.... i left my journal at the apartment so i cant really remember what is what in the past week haha. But i have never missed a day yet in it so if you're really dying to know what happened on Thursday then file a complaint to my email and I'll send you a video read a long ;) haha

**But you should all try reading or listening to the talk by Dieter F Uchtdorf "Be not afraid, Only Believe".  

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/10/be-not-afraid-only-believe?lang=eng 

Quality stuff:)   That is the talk of the week this week.

Also, the 5th chapter of Alma is a great personal inventory. Makes you really evaluate yourself:)

I hope you all enjoy the third to last week of the year that is 2015!

Keep it real! 

MKH,

Ældste Jeppson

Our legit Christmas tree (shoutout to the fam:)  

A Julemarked...A Christmas market/fair 

Christmas in the City

Sometimes....he is the only one who will listen :)  

Me and Elder Howe- New fighting techniques

Elder Howe, Elder Perkins, Elder Jensens (head haha), Elder Lee, Elder Murphy, Me, Elder Amos. We did this for the zone conference we had two weeks ago.