A Week Worth Its Weight

This week was probably one of the most eventful weeks of my whole life! Here are some reasons why:

1) Caroline was baptized!! It finally happened and it was so awesome. *fist pump* She was so happy and cheerful and all the synonyms of those words haha. It is amazing to see how the gospel of Jesus Christ can change people. The atonement is truly an enabling power! It was a sweet experience for me because I got to sit by my boy Vo Long and translate for him because a majority of her baptism was in English because she wanted it to be. So it was a plain neat thing to be with two people I have had the opportunity to help come unto Christ in some way. Vo long is still telling the same stories about how the Pitchers (my trainers fam) are awesome and how they gave him a picture of Christ (that still sits unwrapped because he says it won't be a gift anymore if it is unwrapped haha) and how I used to come over every Tuesday and be with him. It is neat to think that was 10ish months ago. So it will be awesome to see where Caroline goes with the gospel in her life:)

2) Right after the baptism we had dinner at the church with all the young single adults and they all hung out and celebrated Caroline and stuff. There were missionaries there because 4 of us helped teach her and obviously we have companions haha. But afterwards when we all had to go back to the Odense 2 elders apartment, Caroline came with us because she wanted to give out a Book of Mormon. She had tags on from some of the missionaries who have helped teach her and she took a Book of Mormon and then her and my previous comp elder Erickson contacted a 17 year old kid and taught a lesson and gave that Book of Mormon out! So sick:) Such a great night to be back in Odense

3) Elder Eaves and I were together this entire week on splits because our companions got to go to Bornholm (the Danish island on the other side of Sweden) and be a part of a huge social gathering from all over Europe. So we held down all of Århus while both them and the sisters took off to KBH and Bornholm. It was such a fun experience:) Not one single thing was normal about the week and it was kind of like trying to juggle water but we somehow managed to hold it all down. I'll give some bits and pieces of why...

-we got burned by people we were supposed to meet with 6 different times this week and a bunch of other people that were potentially able to meet all decided to not answer at all haha.

- a Romanian guy (so he says) got our number somehow and asked if he could get a Bible from us. So we met him at the church and he basically just argued with us for 15 minutes. We think he was just being a complete waste of time because his "arguments" were complete insanity haha. We are both still confused to this day who that guy was...

-there was a giant music festival going on called Northside and we live really close to where it went down. The bike path behind our apartment turned into the road leading to the festival. That means that people set up booths and stuff and gave out free alcohol and had other things you could do on the way to the concert. So what im trying to say is, i have never seen more drunk people than I did during those 3 days... it was absolute chaos haha. One guy came and yelled in my face "the only way to Heaven is to use a hang glider." I asked, well have you tried it yet? and he got way mad and left.

4) oh yea.... i hit my year mark this week:) Haha it was weird. It didn't really feel that different to be honest. We were on splits with the Randers elders (Elder gardner and Magleby) so that was way fun! Me and Elder Gardner tye dyed shirts in lieu of our year mark instead of the burning of a white shirt so that was fun haha. If anything I feel a lot older but it is satisfying to look back and see how much I actually did in a year... which is nuts. But no worries I got a whole year left... right? am i right? (this is where Elder Millward shakes his head and sighs because he goes home next week haha). I'll make the best of it though:)

Oh yea!! I almost forgot... So after the baptism on Tuesday, we went back to the apartment and had a chili pepper eating challenge. Basically we had some of the worlds hottest peppers all in the same place and we were aiming to eat them somehow. So we all popped them in (after getting hyped of course) and we had to go without anything for two minutes. The place went nuts when we hit two minutes and I took a video from the corner of the room, so i recorded 20 minutes of quality entertainment. You watch as manliness and feelings of courage leave and we all go into our own versions of survival mode to try and beat these peppers with yogurt and milk and spoonfuls of sugar and tortillas to alleviate the pain. It was THE single hottest thing ive have EVER eaten period. Immediately, Elder Erickson threw up, Elder Jensen (the one i trained) got violent hiccups, Elder Gudmonson touched his eye (game over) and felt a rush of heat in my ears. Elder eaves mostly just hung out the window haha. I ended up hurling 7 times so that was rough haha.

But hey, good memories for life:)

Spiritual thought:

Read "In the Strength of the Lord" by David A. Bednar. https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2004/10/in-the-strength-of-the-lord?lang=eng

It is a talk my dad sent me about the enabling power of the atonement and it changed quite a few things in my perspective. It will definitely change yours too if you give it a read.

Here is a quote from Dante that I think is awesome, "the arrow seen before comes less rudely"

ill bet if you take 30 seconds to share your testimony with someone this week, youll see something good come of it. Give it a go.

Be good or be good at it! have a good one:)

VH,

Ældste j

Pics from the Dåb :)

This picture was sent to me from Trine Kreiberg of Brandon and her son during Caroline's Baptism. It was wonderful for us to see and share in the joy of the day!

the carolina reaper, two naga jolokia peppers, two scotch bonnet habenaros imported from Mexico, and two yellow habenaros ( I ate the third from the right...that little guy was a doozy)

The Pepper crew from left to right (Myself, Elder Eaves, Elder Jensen (my mission son), Elder Hager, Elder Gudmonson, Elder Ericson (past comp), and Elder Reed (in Chair)