On the 15th day of the fourth month of the 2016th year of our Lord...

It was my birthday.... :) haha. Mange tak (many thanks) to all the birthday wishes that so kindly filled my inbox. You're all great and I always love to hear from you all.

This weeks schedule was packed to say the least. We did a ton of good work while still getting the other things done for the zone logistics wise. So we were pretty happy when Sunday night rolled around and we saw that we gotten all the main things done that we needed too,

such as:

Monday:

Spent some time feeding deer:)

Tuesday:

On Tuesday I went on splits with Elder Mllward. Pretty hard having to wake up in my own bed and eat my own food on splits ( we share an apartment with the other Århus elders haha:) ) But all jokin aside it was a great day! Elder Millward is a fantastic guy and is probably the funniest person I have ever met in my life. At least one of them... But he is also a solid missionary and is pretty deep. We did a lot of detective work trying to find some inactive members to invite them to a dinner thing at the church. We also taught a way great lesson to a super positive lady they teach. It was hard though because i had to go to the bathroom more than I ever have in my life but it was such a good lesson that I didnt' want to rush anything. So with all the power I had, we focused and had a great spiritual lesson. Then we proceeded to sneak into a local Folkekirke building to use the bathroom (they were holding a funeral but they didn't see us haha). We had a great time together:)

Wednesday:

This was probably the busiest day. We had to wake up early to meet the Sister training Leaders at the church so that we could coordinate how zone training would go down. Then we proceeded to give the zone training on using the tools we have to further the work. So we ended up having a great zone training/discussion as a zone.

After that we went striaght over to G*. He is a super sincere guy who is from Iraq but has grown up here since he was small lad. He is pretty much a dane haha. But he is super nice and is way open and basically already lives everything we have talked about with him and has a testimony of a ton already:) We had a great lesson and he agreed to be baptized so that was probably the highlight of my week for me:) Then his mom fed us lunch so yea... definitley the highlight.:)

We also went to bible study... man that is so great haha

Thursday:

Can't totally remember the details but basically, we taught a British guy, did some knocking, met with Jehovah's witnesses (which didn't go anywhere) and rode by a Syrian guy with short term memory loss who called me and Elder Amos "big flowers"..... no comments...

Friday:

It was a high quality day for sure. (not just because i aged a year) We didn't have a super eventful day but we got a lot done. We had to write up some district meeting prompts based off of the zone training we gave on Wednesday (which was an eventful day for sure) Then we came home and had lunch and stuff and did all of our weekly planning. The other elders did theirs too so it was a wonder how we actually did it focused haha. But then we did mini splits with them to cover two different lessons so me and elder Bishopp were together. We went to visit this guy named J* who has a lot of problems.... so we endend up turning on Motab again for him to calm down and fall to sleep to haha. Then on the way home I bought a cactus because it was on sale:) hahaha. I actually used it to contact some people and we ended up giving a Book of Mormon out and getting a potential out of it haha. I named it Kevin after the guy we met. Way quality stuff.

Saturday:

Think of a classic missionary day and that was Saturday:)

Sunday:

We taught in relief society (an organization for women) for the third hour of church haha. So first time for me and Elder Amos to attend that. We also Did some family history work with a less active member and did a bit of knocking.

Other:

Since we live in a four man apartment, I wrote a constitution that we all signed and agreed to live by. It basically functions as a fun way to make sure no food is "borrowed" from others and that the apartment stays clean. (that is my ulterior motive in any case haha). But we created a monetary system using candy (that we will attempt to use as JUST currency) to base a penalty system off of. So if you leave some dishes undone, you pay a price. If you take some food from a shelf that is not yours, penalty. It is a fun way to run an apartment where borrowing has run rampant and things get left out haha. So basically, just think back to your economics class where you handled fake assets or whatever and its like that.

I'm gonna win:)

Spiritual thought:

This one is a quote out of the wise words of Elder Millward:

"Missions are all about change if you let it. God will change you if you try. But it requires not 100% effort or even 110% effort. It means going to the edge and then off. Then, at that point, God will then catch you or teach you how to fly"

That was a deep insight that opened my mind a little more to how missions can benefit us. It also opened it to what else i need to change to keep finding edges to go off:)

So all you future missionaries... food for thought.

And Good luck for my Mom...

Hey mom you can do it! George hales once said, the greatest people rose to the top because of the strength they recieved out of the resistance they faced.

Face the resistence and find strength. One thing to remember is that input equals output. If you want a higher output, you must put in a bigger input. That means paying a price. But those that gave their best never regretted it so go for it :)

Youre going to do awesome! You got this:)

Keep it real and have a great week!

Ældste Jeppson