"The Hope of God's light"/Split City Part 2

Parental warning: *This week contains high levels of pure awesomeinium*

I'll just go for it...👍

Progress:

So our friend J* is back on the map. Me and Eder Perkins stopped by him on splits just to tell him we would give him a pause from visits because he wasn't progressing, but we ended up showing him the Mormon message "The Hope of God's Light" and it really clicked inside for him that he should change. (I would really encourage you all to watch it:) 

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2014-07-006-the-hope-of-gods-light?lang=eng

But he wanted to change so we made a plan to help him stop smoking. We said God will help him one step at a time like the video mentions. At the end of that meeting his whole countanance had changed! Wayy cool. And he has called us around 10 times to tell us he has smoked so he is pretty accountable. But every time he answers, he says he is doing well! (He has never said that in the past.:) So little things are changing.

Our friend Guliano is on date for baptism except he hasn't really talked to us since then so hopefully everything is going well. 

Splits (Tuesday through Wednesday):

So Elder Gardiner came up for splits for two days and it was way sick! We always talked about how we would do missionary work in the MTC (he was my MTC companion) SO it was super awesome to do actual work together and show our stuff haha. And man... we showed it alright. We did two two hour knocking sessions and had a super great time! Here is a little overview of it:

The first session we taught a very nice Mother of one who has recently seperated from her husband about the plan of salvation. Way solid lesson! It is amazing how the plan of salvation can answer all those hard questions!

We were being worked on after that to convert to Islam by a very nice family from Syria. They invited us in and gave us pastry and juice and we had a great discussion on our beliefs. Super great:)

The second go around, we found a wayyyyy awesome student from the university. She is super nice and was super open! We taught on the doorstep for about 40 minutes and she sincerely wants to know for herself if God is there. We were not really able to come in or get her number because she had a boyfriend over and  had on some mindless video game and he isn't the most religous of people I guess....yet;)

We found a guy from Iceland and I was going to try my newfound Icelandic skills (I have been learning some Icelandic) but he just looked at us funny and said he wasn't interested.... haha

More Splits:

Me and Elder Perkins (another member of the Nordjylland zone :) ) Were on splits Thursday-Friday and  He is a stud:) The sky decided to shed tears of joy because winter is over, so we got April edition showers all day. But regardless, we found some great people:)

Other fun things:

I "borrowed" the APs rootbeer extract so we made rootbeer.

Some guy on the Gå gade came up to Me and Elder Amos and the Other Århus elders on pday and said, "hey kids, you want to buy some weed" and then kept walking hahahaha. We all died laughing in the middle of the crowded street haha.

I've been given more pastry this week than ever before haha. That's how life is here sometimes (don't take that as a complaint;))

Well here comes your spiritual thought:

“Men will be held accountable for the things which they have and not for the things they have not. … All the light and intelligence communicated to them from their beneficent creator, whether it is much or little, by the same they in justice will be judged, and … they are required to yield obedience and improve upon that and that only which is given, for man is not to live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”

—Joseph Smith

It is our decision to act according to the knowledge of things we learn in life. So shortly said... DO great things in order to make them great. It is not enough to just sit and think of things that could be good. We need to actually do something in order to make it a good thing.

Have a great week:)

--

Ældste  Jeppson

ps. Spring here is wonderful:)

A troll statue

Another large church 

Rooter with Elder Magleby

Elder Gardner and I trying to contain greatness all in one photo...unfortunately it didn't work :) 

The rare swiss missionary in the wild...Elder Ziegler

Sister Orr (the STL), Elder Amos (my companion), Elder Gardner (Emeritus comp) and I

A kebab the length of my forearm..... I completed the challenge

Coming back from Bible study: Sister Baggily and Sister Ogaard

Editors not *Elder Perkins looks nothing like that haha

My headquarters

My duck friends I am training to come back at 5 every day: Carlos and Roberta 

Splits city

Well... i procrastinated this one til the end so I'll go quick haha. This week pretty much only exists in the books at this point:)

First and foremost:

Well last night capped off my entire week and here is why. I recieved a call from the odense first ward Elders and they told me that Caroline has a baptismal date!  Basically, some stuff changed quickly (all good things, all good things) and she has a date set for the 14th of May:) They told me that she said she is ready to have both feet in the church and is super stoked! And I might just be right behind her on the stoke chart. But man I am so greatful to see finally how the Lord's plan panned out. It is super neat to have all of my anxiety and worries and other things subside because of the confirmation that the Lord had his hand in guiding the whole thing just as he has always promised. 

Now combine that with the left handed jab of Guiliano texting us and telling us he has found out the Book of Mormon is true, and you got a knockout of a week. It was enough to make me willing rise from my bed at the morning hour of 6 and make my body sore all over because why sleep when you can be stoked on life?

Now who is ready for me to ramble?

Tuesday: 

We got the opportunity to go to Copenhagen (as you outlanders call it ;) ) and go on splits with the AP's. It was a super solid time! Me and elder Curtis were together and it was great. He is from Alpine Utah actually so all you Alpine poeples can tag each other in your social media and make connections now:)

-We had one of the better contacting sessions of my mission under the full bright spring sun. We ended up finding a very,VERY talkative British guy who is now a solid investigator:)

-Bought a toilet seat- (don't ask why)

- other sweet mish stuff.

Wednesday: See tuesday. We were still on splits:)

Thursday: 

We were back in our area again but on splits with the Ålborg Elders, Elder Murphy and Elder Williams. I went with Elder Williams and had a fantastisk good time. We ended up teaching J*, our friend with every problem under the sun. We found him drunk on a crate and pretty adamate to do nothing with his life. We talked a while and finally said a prayer because there was nothing we could say to encourage him, so why not invite the spirit? It worked and he immediately and determinedly said he would quit his problems and change and come to church. So that was a mini miracle!

Also we found a girl named A*. And holy smokes..... she was super super positive! She was somewhere between atheist and believing (in her own words) and wasn't really sure about religion. We had a great talk for half an hour and we invited her to try praying to God to find out for herself if the things she said were true. I really could see the slow and subtle change in her as we talked. It never ceases to amaze me how the gospel is truth that everyone has heard before in this life, And it is a beauty to watch it dawn on people.:)

Friday:

See above. My thoughts got all mixed so that goes for both days.

Saturday:

We played some sport with our investigator S*. :)

Sunday:

Elder Millward, Elder Amos, and I all sang an acapella arrangement of "Nearer my God to Thee" that we had put together that morning and it seemed to make people happy haha. 

That leads into the spiritual thought:

Do not put off until tomorrow, that which can be done today. 

Basically like the scriptures say, don't be idle haha:) Its a different thought but it is gospel truth nevertheless.

Well thats it! My fingers all cramped so I can't type anymore. Have a great week!

MKH,

Ældste Jeppson

-- 

The view from our back porch

Me and Elder Williams on splits trying to make an unblurry pic happen

Elder Amos the camera thief 

Me and Elder Amos on 3 different statues :)

More of the city

On a bus in the city

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

The OG crew reunites once again (minus Elder Gerber :( ) 

Missionary Apartment 

Some of the city life

Old Danish style house

The Arhus Clan

A small castle 

Elder Bishop

Elder Millward in the flesh

Some scenery at deer park

Deer don't like  people from Washington :) 

Deer whispering expert, Elder Millward

Deer

His first deer experience haha - Elder Amos

Arhus coastline

One of our frequently used bus routes

Me and my Perigrin falcon

Our boy Guliano :) 

Coming back from Bible study with the Sisters

The Centrum area of Arhus

*Read this in a Bane voice* :)

Davs alle sammen! Hope you were able to recover from have your minds blown by general conference haha. I am going to jump right into it because we are going to go feed deer at a deer feeding park in Aarhus so here it comes:

Progress:

We met with this guy named J who is on baptismal date twice this week. He has had a rough life as an alcoholic and has a major smoking problem but he has a strong testimony and really wats to stop and join the church. Its funny how i got to know him because Elder amos had to go to the bathroom really bad so me and J chilled out in the living room. He is about 60 years old and loves bob marley, and I happened to have my uke with me (it was for something else but J called and asked for a blessing so we came over to him instead). He asked me if i know any Bob and i said yea haha. He pulled out some bongos with rasta colors and then we jammed together to a song or two. Haha it really picked up his spirits. (not the alcohol ;)) )  

We also met with a guy named R* He happens to be from the same county as Elder Amos in England. He is pretty positive and we had a great discussion on Charity.

We are teaching about 4-5 others but i cant really remember them off the top of my head because it is the second week and I still haven't met them all.

Bible Study:

So we do some thing every Wednesday night that is one of the biggest projects in Denmark mission culture. It is a group of about 30 christians (all african) that belong to the New Covenant church and they have a bible study every wednesday night. Missionaries met them a year ago and got invited and we have been a part of it ever since. Apparently, the preacher (named Apostle ) has slowly converted and is on the point of meeting with us formally. Well all of these people love him and have a strong faith.... so if he finds out for himself the church is true, he will be able to be a pro member missionary;)

An experience I had with it was with a guy named Joshua. He is a super cool guy who comes from Africa but has lived here almost his entire life. He said that when I walked in, he felt a spiritual connection to me and felt like he should talk to me. Well that blew me away haha. So we had a sweet gospel discussion... and now i have a new homie:)

You never know what will happen and when on the Lord's time...

(Not) bible Bash:

So we meet with two jehovahs witnesses that actually are fairly interested in what we have to say. Our format for our meetings is just to discuss doctrine, but it is funny because you can feel the ulterior motives of both parties in the air. It is actually almost comical sometime haha. But we discuss beliefs that is supposed to be all but then sometimes they will start to argue why they are right and then we show them in the bible where it says that it isnt the entire truth.  Our intention isnt to bash at all, because they are actually pretty close in beliefs on a lot of things. So that is another fun thing to look forward to each week:)

Other stuff.

We had to help an old drunk lady back home because she had fallen and had smashed her face on her rolling luggage bag thing and was bleeding quite extensively. It was only a small cut luckily so i was able to stauch it pretty fast with the bike cloth i had, but she got a nice fat shiner. We came back the next day to check up on her and she was totally fine except for the bruise on her eye and small cut on her forhead. I think instead on putting a bandaid on it she just drank more but good thing she is okay haha.

Kids... don't drink haha. Youll fall and hit your heads and two strapping, young, hypothetical lads wont be around to save you all the time . ;)

Two days of this week were spent at Mission Leadership Conference in København, and a whole lot of train rides.  We went over to Sjælland on Thursday and got to presidents home at 8 and then ate some snacks and hung out until bed time. Then we woke up and Sister O'bryant had made a way bomb breakfast for us all before we had our meeting it was super great!!

Misc:

So I live in a four man apartment with Elder Bishop and Elder Millward, and my comp Elder Amos. It is pretty crazy sometimes. I would say we spend all the focus we can on studies so we don't get distracted, because the rest of the day can turn into a party sometimes haha. 

There is a fun competition going on right now because Elder Amos and Elder Millward are going home in two transfers. They both want to lose weight and look good going home, but because its a house full of jokesters, everyone buys each other food and pastries and stuff haha. Overall though, everything about these guys is great and they are super solid missionaries and super fun too.

Spiritual thought:

Here are some mind bomb quotes I got out of conference:

If life were truly fair, we would not stand blameless before God -Dale G. renlund

If Charity is the true love of Christ, then pride is a true characteristic of Satan -Dieter F Uchtdorf

The sheep is worthy of a divine rescue because the shepard loves you -Dieter F Uchtdorf

The great thing about the gospel is that we get credit for trying, even if we dont succeed -Jeffery R. Holland

If we give our love to God and do our best to live the gospel, then our tomorrows will be magnificent because He loves us -Jeffery r. holland

You can see who the power hitters were:))

--

Ældste  Jeppson

*Pictures from Mission blog- http://cop-den-mission.blogspot.com