Miracles make Horchata sweeter.

I don't even know where to begin with this one....

Skive is pure gold. Period. This week has been one of the most jam-packed weeks of successes and miracles of the mission. I will start out by saying that my goal coming into this area was to take Elder Ballards advice of "we must wear ourselves out in the service of the Lord," and really applying it. I really saw the blessings this week of forgetting myself and going to work and I had the thought run through my head during testimony meeting in church yesterday of "hey kid, you're starting to get it." The Lord really does fulfill his promises... he is not just joking around haha. It really helps I have a beast comp too. Elder Beck is a really straight arrow and it has helped a lot to have his example around. We really hit the ground running and got just SO much done haha I am still running off of last weeks stoke.

I guess I will stop talking and tell you about it:

Tuesday:

(i gotta give a play-by-play/day-by-day rundown for ya)

We kicked it off on Tuesday and had some cool experiences. One thing we did was set up a big family history banner on the Gå Gade and do some family history contacting which was way cool. We had a lot of great conversations and referred a lot of people to our family history center in the church (we have a lady here who is a wizard at it). Besides that though we hit the streets and knocked some doors and were able to teach a lot of people but no one took to it on this day.

Side note: I was told a lot before I came out from returned missionaries from that a lot of doors they knocked in the winter would open up and the house owner would be naked... Well it happened. Europe is a lot more down for that i guess but i was bummed because i had made it so far without having that experience haha.... Elder Beck laughed a lot at me because he didn't see the grandma doing ærobics naked through the window too. Just a snippet from my week (sorry if that weirds you out haha.)

Wednesday:

The miracles started Wednesday and kept going from there. We did a bunch more finding today because, well, thats what you do to build an area haha. But miracle one was that we found a guy named Robin from Spain who didn't speak either Danish or English really... so i went off in brokenish Spanish and did a full door contact! Man i felt like a pro! (take that South American missionaries haha). But for real it was a neat experience to be able to use that talent, as rusty as it is haha. Super neat.

Miracle two:

So we were knocking and I saw a window that was the ground level floor of a apartment building and from the window came a bunch of way trippy colorful lights. It was like someone was holding a rave or something inside their house haha. It lit up the street real bright and it made me think of a video that Elder Lee and i always talked about that we had seen on youtube about guys making fun of people who did trippy drugs. So I wanted to see what was behind that door for the glory of the story... (dont freak out moms everywhere... we are experts at knocking doors). The problem was that the building was locked, so i rang on a random door and a nice man from Somalia let us in. We decided to just knock the whole building and were suprised to find someone there haha. I had thought we would just knock the one door but I am glad we did the whole thing because we found a way nice old lady who is super interested and taught a man and righted his view on Mormons. Great stuff! I am way way stoked for the lady because she seemed to accept everything and wanted to hear more:) So that was the miracle brought to you by who we have now coined "Mr. LSD" and "acid guy" haha.

If youre wondering, that guy did answer and we talked with him and he said he didn't agree with the churches he knows because they aren't complete and that he is waiting on a new church. We told him our message and he asked us to come back. hahaha what?? It was crazy how much trippy drugs he had taken haha he was gonzo but i thought it was way cool he became a potential investigator. I think the Lord definitely has a sense of humor sometimes:)

Thursday:

This is where big miracle number one happens. After dinner time we prayed to find an area where the Lord wanted us to knock so that we could find someone that is prepared. Elder Beck was really feeling this tiny town 10 kilometers outside of Skive so we prayed about it and felt pretty good about it. i also felt like we should visit one road in the city before we went out there. Well come to find out that the road i felt we should go to was an industrial one and had no houses. So we punched in the address of the town and took off out there. About halfway, the GPS wigged out and told us to go down some cow road so we had to reorient ourselves and reenter the address. By this time we had spent a lot of time being lost in the small farm road area so when we got the road i had randomly put in for the city, we decided this was where we were supposed to be and took off to go knock for the 20 minutes we had left for our finding time. On house lucky number three, we met K*. She was super happy to see us and said that she need some inspiration but that her kid was asleep. She asked if we could set up an appointment on Sunday so we did. We said goodbye, feeling pretty stoked at this point, and started to walk to the car. She called out for us to come back and so we turned around and went to see what she wanted. She asked if we had something she could read to prepare for the lesson and so we gave her a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and then said goodbye once again.

What are the chances of that happening?! (the answer is 100% with the guidance of the spirit). That was such a faith building experience for me:) My thoughts driving home were "man, I am glad to be a missionary right now. The Lord is crossing our paths with thouse who need the gospel".... and thats just the first half of K's story....

Friday

We worked in Viborg (a big city about 30 minutes away) for all of Friday and did some good work. We had a lesson planeed for an older member who lives there to help him understand some stuff form the Book of Mormon and then his daughter showed up who is an investigator that recently dropped her baptismal date. Well we didn't quite set another one but we ended up teaching her the whole time and she willing to give it another go. So we hope to have a good lesson with her next week. Yet another neat instance where the Lord crossed our paths with others:)

We also met with a less active who is from Iceland originally and went for a walk around Viborg and talked with him. Good stuff:)

Saturday:

The highlight of today was that we were able to teach this great Syrian family Danish:) The father already speaks it pretty well so we taught his kids most of the time. He has 2 girls and 2 boys all under 8 and they are a trip haha. I read stories to the 4 year old most of the time and helped her learn the animals in Danish which was way fun becasue it was like trying to get Stella to listen and learn all over again. In the end, her four year old willpower beat me out and i let her color haha. They are way great!!

Sunday:

I got to meet the ward today:) It is quite the unique congregation here haha. So far all the people i met were all over 60 years old and the organist is blind but still is a champ at playing all the songs she has memorizes (which is actually quite an arsenal) they are all fantastic faithful saints and it is like a branch full of grandmas and grandpas haha. Way awesome!.

Well now that I have let you sit on the cliff hanger, I will tell you the other half of K's story (so far). She called us right after church and said that she had read the pamphlet through and had seen the part in the back that says come and worship with us where you can write down info of the church address and such (which we neglected... our bad:) ) But she called and asked if there is a place we meet and we told her it just ended but that she was welcome to come and have a tour of it and we could just meet in the building instead. It was way clutch because the branch president and his wife were still in the building so they showed he around and talked to her for a bit which was neat:) Then we had a wayyy WAY bomb lesson with her. The spirit was so strong it was incredible! She is probably one of the most spiritually searching people I have met on my mission. She told us her life story basically and we taught her the first two lesson because she fired question after question after question. It was probably more questions than all the people in the last week I have talked to combined have asked. She is so prepared it makes me stoked just thinking about it, she is read. as Elder Beck told the story of the First Vision and Joseph Smith, She commented during it that she had the shivers while he was telling it. I will tell you what, I am thankful for the opportunity that I've been able to experience something I have heard about my whole life growing up in regards to missions. Those who truly are willing to sincerely listen to the message of the restored gospel will always be able to feel the truth of the message.

Basically, it was one of the best lessons I have ever taught and trying to put it in words diminishes the feeling of that experience:) Just incredible. I will tell you what... if you want to know more about what we experienced, try it out. The Lord promised the same spiritual conformations to those who sincerely try it. The gospel works wonderfully!

Odds and ends:

I learned how to make Horchata, which we have drank avidly after every day to top off the success of the day. Life is sweet(er) with horchata:)

Elder Beck is a beast athlete and kicks my trash every morning we go for a run haha. He is whupping me back into shape so I am pretty stoked. I heard a quote "Take care of your body. Its the only place youve got to live." For some reason that has becaome my motivation to follow Elder Beck out the door into the cold and run haha.

The car is a great addition to my life:) #heatedseats. I remember when Elder Jensen (my trainee) and I were back in Odense last winter we used to play this game called "things stateside missionaries say" to keep our spirits up as we rode our bikes through the frozen sleet . "Hey Elder, could you turn up the heater? It is cold." (thats me now muwahaha)

Spiritual thought:

Here is something shared in a lesson that really hit me as i shared it:

There is a story of a grandfather, a holy man, who, caring for his grandson, sent him out to play. Shortly the boy returned sobbing as if his heart would break. He explained, “I was playing hide-and-seek with my friends. I went and hid and waited but no one came for me. They all ran away.” The Grandfather embraced him and said, “Now you know how God feels. He hides and no one comes for him.”

In our lives, how often are we looking for God? think about that...

Have a great week! Enjoy the coming winter season! 7 weeks to christmas!!

Ældste j