Arranged Marriage

This week was pretty swell! More and more good things keep on happening and it seems like I am still trying to be grateful for all the good things i haven't finished showing gratitude for yet! haha its funny how that works... One thing I'm thankful for is that the Lord loves us and is mindful of each and every one of us. Happy Thanksgiving you people :)

Well I'll cut to the highlights cuz some cool african guys were here to clean the carpets in the church so we had to wait to email...  so comin at you quick:

Progress:

J* is the man! This guy has incredibly strong faith! We talk alot with him about our faith starting as a mustard seed so to speak but this guy's seed is on steroids or something because he sends us spiritual thoughts haha its great:) I'd venture to day that he is every missionaries dream and that I am thankful that he is a part of mine. Here are some cool J* moments were Elder Beck and I look at each other and just smile real big:

We met with him twice this week and in one of the appointments we were talking about commandments and why God gives them to us. We explained how God doesn't give a commandment without a blessing attached, one that is ultimately designed for our ultimate happiness (Quote cred shoutout to Brother Zufelt). Well it worked because he had done his "extra reading" and said he saw that it is part of the word of wisdom to not use tobacco. After discussing it he goes... "well, looks like I smoked my last cigarette this afternoon. If I am going to stop, it is now. The gospel is more imortant to me than a cigarette." Right about then cue my African friends from the New convenant Bible study to walk in choir style and sing some songs of praise haha. I was way stoked to say the least! He is a truly inspiring man and it is just so neat to see how much the Lord has prepared him up to this point!

Another J* moment is one of the texts he sent to us. He sends us the most positve texts allllll the time. He loves asking questions and giving his insights from what he read so it is kinda like watching the play by play of a football game on ESPN or something except for J*s conversion process. Way coo stuff. But anyway he goes "Hey i just wanted to say how much i loved church...."(then he said a bunch of neat stuff about it).Then he told us that we are always welcome to stay with him once we go home (even J* is getting trunky for us...) and said he wants a picture with us so that he can always remember this time in his life. We told that he is also welcome to come and stay if they visit America and then there was silence from his end for about 2 minutes and then he goes, "We just decided to save some money I used for cigarettes and stuff to come and visit you in america sometime with our kids!" and stuff like that. That is the kid of stoke level he is on and it is really fun to see as well as inspiring. 

Needless to say, J is doing well:)

Our boy K* surprised us in a really good way on Saturday. We are starting to meet with him a lot more often and he is progressing really well. We had given him a chapter to read in the Book of Mormon about Baptism and so we came in and sat down and he goes "hold on i need some water..." then as he walks in the room again he says, "hey so i read about baptism and stuff like that... like can i get baptized and stuff?." I loved hearing that from his mouth because K* is a really real guy and doesn't bush dance at all. What solidified that he had thought about it a lot was the fact that he had written out the entire chapter by hand. He told us that he did it because he had a lot of downtime one night and really wanted to understand it better. So that was way sweet! We re-read the chapter with him and now he is working towards the 14th of January to be baptized! Another cool related to the word of wisdom is that K* goes "so i can smoke cigarettes and S*** like that right?... okay i'll try and stop" He is funny guy:D We've been helping him out too with his living situation because he has friends that are pretty buck wild with drugs and stuff and are kind of shady dudes that use K*. He doesn't have a lot so a member hooked us up with some money to buy him a bit of food and he got way stoked! We also dropped by some apple pie for him in the post thansgiving givingness aka we were too full.

Thanksgiving:

We saved thansgiving in the last hours haha. We had to drive back from Århus from a zone training and I was feeling pretty sick like the energy zapped kinda sick so i sacked out in the car and we called an audible and went to the grocery store and bought a rotisserie chicken to toss in the oven while elder beck was on dinner roll duty and i got the apple pie and other stuff. It turned out to be wayyy great actually! I don't know if i've ever had/made a better apple pie. I think i used some magic ingredients or something but im thankful for thanksgiving:)

Fun random other stuff:

On splits i taught a family that has recently moved from the Congo and can really only speak Swahili. The 12 yr old kid can speak decent danish so he was our translator... basically all i got out of them was that the 14 year old daughter is in love with me and that the mom says I am welcome back anytime....yikes well im greatful that splits are only 24 hours haha.

Today for pday elder beck and I both found a pair of ecco shoes (very nice danish brand) for 50 kroner each! They are literally brand new :D That is the equivalent of 7 US dollars so guess what... im still thankful for secondhand stores. We are still way hyped about that.

Also, today we were walking and we came across a cool Christmas village market thing (they are starting to come out) and we me a really awesome lady from Bosnia. She must be in her 60's but we got talking with her and she really liked us because we werent from denmark either so she felt the connection. She was selling something i wont mention because we ended up buying a lot of them from her. (dont worry, it isnt illegal... theyre just gifts to the fam) She got way stoked and we got talking for a little while. She gave us a bunch of free Bosnian christmas cake and told me that i remind her a lot of her Grandson who lives here in Skive. She asked how old I was and I told her im 19 and then she got this light in her eyes and said "hey I have a granddaughter that is 19!" and I could see her wheels start to turn. Throughout us being there trying to figure out which of which we wanted to buy, she kept dropping little hints haha. Then guess what... while we are getting it all sorted out with payments and stuff guess who walks up? The Granddaughter and a friend. Well, long story short I got my marriage arranged right then and there haha. I mean... This lady is really really cool so good for the guy who gets her as grandma in law but im tryin to serve a mish hahaha so ellers tak. Man i busted up real hard though because it was the classic grandma-grandchild embarrasment factor and i really felt for this girl but ill tell you what... watching a sweet old lady tell off her granddaughter in both danish and Bosnian at the same time to marry me was one of the funniest things ive seen for a while hahaha.

Missions though...

Spiritual thought:

There is a quote i love that goes "Strangers are just friends youve never met yet." -- anonymous

wouldnt that be something if we all could internalize that one? Thought id share it cuz it helped me see from a new angle :)

Check out this video!! : https://www.mormon.org/christmas/light-the-world

The church has just released a new initiative to the whole world! Yes that means you! It is actually a way way cool idea. For everyone who has had the chocolate christmas calendar where you eat a chocolate a day until christmas... it is kinda like that! It is all about doing one thing every day that will #LighttheWorld. Basically it helps us focus on the meaning of christmas more. You can print out a paper with all of the days and the ideas behind them. Check out the video and pass it on! Id challenge you to share it to at least one other person in your life and join in! 

Not to advertise or anything... ;) but really though i got to cheat and look at all the days a couple days before the release and it is really inspiring! I promise this will make this one a memorable christmas! 

Hipster photoshoots over det hele!

Stars, Stockings and sweets,

-- 

Ældste  j

Add caption Post service with Elder reed (holding eggs) Elder Halling and Elder Beck #seatwarmers

J*s house! What a place.

Thanksgiving of Champions

Shout out to Teagan the member... again

postin up post J*

I saw a gnarwal... they're real

Elder Beck playing hymns ;) (nah but he actually is)

My xmas decorations

The Fjord Haven

I'm tired.... is anyone else tired?

my best popeye impression (pretty close right?!)

Elder Beck getting crazy 

Point and shoot 

Yea...the water actually was cold

National graphic where you at

Kings of the Slice

Kayak

Concussion via bush, Miracles via God

This week was most excellent! Holy smokes it was a fun ride into the 4 pm Danish sunset for us even though it wasn't the smoothest of sailing for (one of) us... no worries though. I'm okay now ;)

Progress:

Another Miracle Story:

I am just going to cut straight to the punchline of this week because it was the highlight and Iam stoked to tell it:) So we recieved a referral from the randers Elders for a couple who a just moved into our area. They had been taught once, by the randers elders themselves, and wanted to continue. The man focus was teaching our new friend J* because his wife was already a member, but she was just a little less active or something. Anyways, the are a way cool couple in their 30's and the got married last Christmas time and are expecting twin girls. So we were pretty stoked to meet them. Well, they live an hour away up on the northwest coastline so we made the drive Wednesday when we found some time and visited them. I gotta say, it was in the top tier of the best lessons of my mission (I feel like I have said that a lot recently haha oh well) and J* is one inspiring guy. he has had some things in his past like the rest of us and wants to make it right... like the rest of us. :) We taught about the Atonement and The Plan of Happiness pretty in depth in regards to faith and it was incredible to watch the converting power of the gospel work inside him as we taught. Man, it was so neat to be a part of that. He said that he really began looking to be a better man and there have been two times when he specifically knew there was something different that he could feel (the spirit) :). He said one was when he married his wife and hugged her and the other was when he shook elder francis's hand (one of the Randers Elders). He said he felt a warmth, something different; kinda like a rope of power is how he described it. At the end of the lesson he after I offered the closing prayer he said " Do you guys feel like a warm, swelling sensation? It feels really good." We said yes and that he was feeling the spirit. 

Well that was really something and that was just Wednesday! We came back again Sunday to teach him again:) It was way neat because we had him read the chapters in Mosiah about Alma the Younger's conversion story and he had some way powerful experiences while he read those. He sent us a bunch of texts between wednesday and sunday and told us how much it is changing his life and how thankful he is for Jesus Christ and the Atonement and a bunch of other really neat things. So last night, we taught about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We talked about what Jesus and how he has commanded him to follow us and so on. It was way neat because he said that he knows that smoking and drinking is something God has commanded us not to do and so he was asking a bunch about the "little rules" as he called them. We taught the principle behind commandments and he goes "yea its cool because ive actually just been cutting back on cigarettes and so I can see where God is coming from with those"... all of his comments and questions were that of one who is becoming deeply converted. We read a lot out of 2 31 and 32, which he had also read between Wednesday and Sunday, and when we started to talk about baptism he told us that he really felt the spirit when he read about those scriptures and said he knows its the right path for him because it is From God and leads to God. So when we invited him to be baptized I would have thought based off the smile that came to his face that we had just told him we write him a check for one billion dollars or something. I will never forget how happy it made him that we had invited him to be baptized and to follow Christ. He was so stoked!! His wife was sitting next to him with a just beaming:) It is truly amazing to see the light that has come into both of them by trying to follow Jesus Christ. Elder Beck and I are still on a spiritual high right now:)

So that was big time and it was amazing to piece together how the Lord has prepared J* and his wife for this, how he has prepared us for this, and how he continues to prepare the way for us. It was wonderful to hear Jimmi close with a simple, sincere prayer and then in the same breath say, "oh yea we need to bless this cake, can you do that?" He really gets it:) Oh yea... and right after we left he texted the randers elders and said "hey can you believe it!? I am getting baptized on the 27th of December!" man is he stoked!

On another good note, our boy K* is actually progressing pretty positively haha which is a curveball considering how we found him but I'm not going to question it. WE met with him twice this week and then we met him at his apartment yesterday and walked with him to church. he really enjoyed it! he said it was hard to sit still so long but that he really just enjoyed the feel. his danish is the best since he grew up mostly in bermuda but he got the gist of it. Way great stuff!

We have a handful of other pretty cool investigations that are still in the beginning stages with learning about the gospel but it is going really stellar here in Skive:)

Story time:

Well i guess i should explain the whole concussion thing in the title. Long story short, i got one. But im pretty sure its is 98% gone by now so thats good, right?! 

 15 minutes before teaching J* (yes, before Jimmi) on Wednesday, we had some odd time and so as we were driving we saw a really neat lookout point on the top of the hill. So we decided we would look out from there for 10 or so minutes since we had just been driving for a while. No harm in that right? Well the thing is is that it had been raining decently hard and the grass on the lookout hill was really wet, kinda like how a slip-n-slide gets... that kind of wet. The hill was probably 50 feet pr more so it was a decent sized hill. Fun ironic foreshadowing for ya... On the way up i brushed by the only thing on the hill on the left side and said "ow, hey elder beck... dont touch this bush." He said okay and we didn't think further than that about it. We got to the top, looked around, took some pics, and then came the descent. (which is actually the climax of this story). Well, once again, i thought it would be a good idea to run down a wet hill. And the last time i tried that up in Federikshavn when i was chasing sheep (not to hurt them) i slipped and fell in sheep poop. Well i had a pretty clear flashback of that experience at the knuckle of the hill before gravity took me. as i fell, i almost caught myself a dug in my heel but wet grass prevailed and i got launched forward. Its funny how slow time goes when something nuts is happening. Anyhow, about halfway down the left side of that hill, i met Mr. thornbush. It would seem like it could do that much besides poke you right? WRONG. That think had a deceivingly solid and stout trunk on it! But yea... you can imagine slip-n-sliding into a small tree with thorns on it at high speed head first would hurt... well i couldnt actually tell you because that tree knocked my lights out and i blacked out for the remainder of the slide. Elder beck said i did a graceful frontflip off a ledge and landed on my feet and then just walked on over to the car. So he thought i was all good and then just laughed himself silly as we drove to J* After the fact, i remembered how hard i hit that tree (on the back of my hear, luckily) and it is a miracle my noggin stayed in one piece haha. So we taught that incredible lesson and then as i drove the hour home (yes, I drove... ;)) i started getting a decent headache and i kinda was out of it. Elder Beck started listing off what it was like when he got a concussion and it matched perfectly to what i was experiencing. I didnt say anything because i didnt want to have to stay in the next day or anything. When we got home though, i was pretty out of it and Elder Beck finally called me out on it. I talked to Sister O'Bryant and stuff so no worries, im A-okay. It is just a minor concussion and only took me a day to recover. 

For thanksgiving, I am greatful for a Hard head. :D

Spiritual thought:

After reading a bit in some of the gospels in the New testament I thought alot about Giving. It was mostly sparked from Luke 6. it says "Give, and it shall be given unto you...For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again."

I thought a lot back to when Elder Bennett and i were chilling on busses and what not and talking and we came to the topic of giving freely and trusting that God would have our backs. We talked alot about if we have it in us if we were in a situation where we could give to someone in need. I heard a story about how President Monson would sometimes come back home through the airport in just his socks, having given away his shoes. And he did that often. The principle behind it all that I have learned is not necessarily we need to distribute all of our wardrobe out or that sort of thing, but that we are willing to give as Christ would give. So in light of the upcoming Christmas season, i thought id invite you to do the same. Think about the things truly matter to you and think of how you can also share the love of Christ by giving. Giving service, giving gifts, giving hugs, giving good vibes, giving love... There is much we can give!

One of my favorite Elder Holland Quotes is "I'm am not my brother's keeper, but I am my brother's brother and because I have been given much I too must give." 

Have a good one!

-- 

Ældste  j

​PS: our car got hit by a bus two days ago.

PPS: haha sorry if that gave you a heart attack. It was going probably 5 miles an hour and we were sleeping when it happened. It messed up the car though​... bummer.

a couple of videos:
https://youtu.be/e1fcG_vpWBw
https://youtu.be/JPEOUg-NBOw

Some scenery

#kodak moment hahaha

The picture I got injured for hahaha

Post Concussion (some exaggeration added)

The apple pie night...

Our car *sniff*

Thorn in my hood, lights in my eyes 

The Spiritual GPS

This great vibes from last week rolled over and shared some of the love with this week! We have been having a real great time here in Skive so far. The Lord is really mindful of his children here and it is something else to be tools in the Lords hands to make ends meet and see the love He has for us. Elder Beck and I have decided after some consideration that Skive is where Men are made. We have seen so much change in ourselves and it is something about this area that just changes those who try their best to give themselves to the Lord in the short time here. (And its neat because I have only been here 2 weeks!)

Anyhow I will get crackin:

Progress:

Our friend H* is doing real well. She has a pretty strong desire to strengthen her faith in Christ and be strengthed by her faith in Christ. We have been taking it a bit slower but she is really progressing and it is cool to see the small changes in her. Her dad is real fun to have in the lessons. He is prettty old and speaks really slowly and with a strong Jysk accent. It is always just the most interesting thing to be at those lessons because the interactions between everyone at the lesson is just strange. they also have an atheist friend who doesnt care to get out of the chair she is wedged in so she just lazers you with her eyes while we listen to carl read some verses out loud for us. I don't know if ive ever wanted to laugh out loud more during a lesson but its cool because the lessons work out to be great in the end. 

We have played phone tag with our friend K* so more on her next week. 

The guy on the trippy drugs is now our friend and investigator! :) He is way cool and actually comes from Bermuda! He told us that he has had a rough life and currently is not in the best state but he wants to learn about our message! It was a pretty laid back lesson... hes takes a bit longer to process things so we just explained why we come out and then set up another appointment with him to explain the message. He is pretty legit. Cool side note... he was an alcoholic and then one day just decided to stop and he hasnt had a drink in 7 years now! Pretty amazing. So we will help him off the trippy drugs too haha. Thats probably why it is hard to process things haha.

We stopped by a guy called P* who was a past investigator. He let us right in and we began to talk and he told us that his wife had recently passed and I could tell he was still pretty sad about that. We asked if he talked about Gods plan for us  with the missionaries and he cvouldnt really remember so we went through it. He was really quiet the whole time as we talked except for a question here or there. He began to dicuss it with us and we decided that we would come back tomorrow and teach him the whole thing more in depth:) Pretty cool guy! He is pretty loving.

We are still working on getting in contact with all the other people that would like to meet and we recently went through our records and called people and found a lot of past investigators that what to meet again. So we are in the building process still but it is neat to already see the results!

 A cool story:

We went out to stop by a bunch of people in Viborg and we typed in a address into the GPS and well... it wigged out again. Im pretty sure when Heavenly Father wants us to pay attetion to the GPS he just messes with Alicia (that the GPS's name, she speaks Spanish to us haha) So after a dirt tractor path and some wild right turns, we came to a farm house. We thought... well this is not an apartment complex but knocked anyways. An old farmer and his wife answered and we ended up getting directions to the road we needed to go. Long story short, we showed up and the guy wasn't there. But as we pulled out of the complex, we saw a lonely figure walking in the dark up to the complex and as the lights shined on him i knew it was the guy we were looking for (after the fact, elder beck told me he had the same epiphany). I almost rolled down the window and called out to him to ask hiim his name but i doubted and pulled my hand away. So we started to go to another address and I just got a tight feeling in my chest... by this point youd think I would mention it and say "Hey Elder Beck, that was probably the guy because now i feel like its wrong to go on to the next one"... right?? wrong. Well we go to the next house 15 minutes away, and Alicia stopped telling us where to go, but eventually we found our way to the next complex and lo and behold, that apartment was empty. Empty! Sometimes i wonder how people can get messages through my head sometimes... anyhow, Elder Beck mentioned that we could say a prayer to figure it out and through the duration of that minute of prayer, i figured Heavenly Father had made it pretty loud and clear what he wanted us to do haha. Elder Beck said he felt the same so we went back and hey... It was him :) We ended up teaching him a bit and he is really really humble. Humble heart, humble means, humble everything. Life is the best for him and really all he has got is his faith. We set up another lesson with him after a brief 20 minute talk and then left. IT was a really neat and humbling experience for me. The biggest themes were 1) don't doubt the faith youve got and 2)just do the job the first time (the voice of my dear mother telling me to get back in the bathroom and finish cleaning the toilet the right way made its way into my head haha.) I am glad the Lord gave us the chance to help our brother P* because otherwise we would have missed a big opportunity to serve someone. You bet I was kicking myself a bit for taking my hand off the window-roller-downer button but we all have perfect vision in hindsight. 

Fun and stuff:

We had a district activity out at a soccergolf course in the middle of nowhere haha. There was not even people working there, like you had to just put your money in an envelope in a box. Who won? yours truly ;) I still got it!

We went to go teach our Syrian family Danish but their kids were pretty stressed and burnt out from learning it in school the previous day... so we we went outside and played soccer with them haha. that was a great experience:) 4 kids ages 10 and under running around yelling for the ball in Danish and the yelling at each other in their cute Arabic voices when they got upset. It reminded me alot of home when i played with the sibs because someone would get knocked over or not get the ball passed to them and then get upset and go inside and tell dad haha. Good times with young humans:) 

​I got a package that contained stuff to make banana cream pies. Those are the most underestimated desserts! #thanksfam

An Inspirational thought​:

Satchel Paige says: "Smile well and often, it makes people wonder what you've been up to."

​

​*drops mic*

​--

​

Ældste  j

Soccer golf with the crew

 Elder Beck doing work (i am too... don't worry)

Sunrises and sunsets

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

The Church

Elder Beck and I

Skive

Skive Sunrise :)

Horchata!

Aliens haha

It is Cold! 

the gå gade

Morning runs...also cold