Do you believe in Thor?

Here we go - if you don’t read any of my emails, this should be the first one you read, cuz you’re in for a crazy treat. It has been a roller coaster! It has been so AWESOME here and I love it!!! Let’s get righttttt into it

Soooo we have a super long flight here, like 10-12 hours or something crazy like that, it was pretty good, nice and chill. I slept the entire way… which was a bad idea, but nonetheless it was a nice and easy plane ride. So we get off the plane, and of course, they lost our luggage. We are in a foreign place, everythings different around us, we can barely read the signs, so what else can we throw at them? I think Delta has something against us, but luckily they made it nice and easy, and they spoke broken english so it was easy enough to figure it out.

We get out of the baggage claim area, and our præsident is waiting for us! It was great meeting him for the first time, he was super happy to see us, and I probably looked so confused (they were recording it all and Im pretty sure I had the dumbest look on my face hahah), but yeah he’s a super super nice man! We all gave him a hug, we did quick introductions, and then we were off again. That day we went to the mission office, got our paperwork and stuff done, ate some lunch… PIZZA, it was pretty danish pizza too, like kartofler and stuff on it. It was fantastic, we got some danishes, mmmm, good. So then we go to Nyhavn and see that stereotypical København picture of the multi colored houses, Ill try to attach it to this email. Then we got to go the church with the original Kristus in it! It was beautiful. It’s stunning to stand before such a glorious creation that now is used so widely in our church. Like I’m pretty sure most people have a picture or a sculpture of the Kristus in their house in America, and that came from Denmark! It was stunning, I was a little to frazzled and confused and everything to super super feel the Spirit, but it definitely had that feeling of a temple inside. That was a super spiritual moment, but I think my favorite part of the København tour was the temple visit. The temple is GORGEOUS. The pictures don’t even do it justice. There is a really pretty fountain next to it with a little temple grounds and it’s beautiful. We met one of the temple workers and he told us a story about why we don’t go to the færoe islands anymore! Someone died! Great thing to hear on your first day, but he told us why that was important for his conversion. He said that knowing himself, he probably would’ve ignored the missionaries, but because they gave him a book a while back, and just let it sit in his house, he opened it eventually and decided to read it. He understood the truthfulness of it, by himself. Which I believe goes to show how powerful the Book of Mormon really is. Missionaries are helpful - but the book speaks for itself. It can answer all our questions, all our desires, all our concerns, and is one of the best ways to become converted. I’ve found it to be true, and this man found it to be true. It’s all in Moroni 10:3-5, read it, pray about it, ask the Lord if it is true, and you will know that it’s true.

After our tour, we went to the President’s house, had a really amazing dinner that was super super godt. It tasted heavenly. It was a traditional danish meal, basically it was bacon wrapped chicken with potatoes, so good. But the president told me something I really needed to hear, which was be patient. Mainly it was be patient with myself, because the language is very hard. I thought I knew Dansk, but boy was I wrong - more to come on that though.

So the next day, we go to the nearest church building and have a little meeting with all the new people, at around 10:00 we meet all of the trainers, but we don’t know who our trainer is yet. I found at that my trainer is Ældste Kofford --- cool story about him, so in the airport we were flying to San Fran and while we were in the airport we met his brother who said that, and I quote, “He’ll probably train one of you”, and lo and behold, it happened. So yeah, we are companions, and he’s a fantastic trainer. He’s really good at danish. But what I really love about him is how patient he has been with me, these past few days have been crazy tough because I’ve just been super tired (jetlag and all that jazz), but literally he’s the best. I fell asleep once during a personal study, and he let me sleep, and cooked me dinner. He’s just an awesome guy and I’m super super grateful for him.

So we meet our trainers and then we get to know our areas, so my area is called Frederikshavn (trust me you’re pronouncing it wrong, unless you’re danish-or know it hahah), and it is a great little town at the very very top of Denmark. Like way top. Like we are all alone at the top of Denmark. Our district consists of two other people. It’s super small hahah. But I love it! The people are great (sometimes hahha), the branch is AMAZING (all the time), and the place is beautiful (I feel like I needed parentheses ... parallel structure). But in order to get to the top of Denmark, we had to take a 7 hour train ride! So that was fun… I dropped my binder on one of the train transfers from Århus to Ålborg… and yeah… that was great. Some danish eldery lady was trying to help me, (cuz you know, I had a fifty pound luggage in one hand and a thirty pound carry on in the other) and she’s sitting there talking to me in danish and I just kinda stood there and looked at her. It was pretty great. We get to the apartment… eventually, and just kinda hygge. My comp makes me dinner, like a true bro, and I’m off to a terrible nights sleep!

So the next day, my first whole day in Denmark, we gotta go out and contact right? So we go out and we meet this sick couple, they believe in THOR! They had little necklaces that were Thor hammers and everything, it was sick. It’s called asetroene or something like that here, and it was super cool, however they didn’t super believe in them, but they believed more in praying. They believed in the psychology behind praying, that it gave them comfort, so we have an appointment with them this week and I’m super excited to see where it goes! We also met this german dude that gave us his email, but I don’t think he was that interested. But we got to mulige venner, which was rare apparently. We then went did some study, had some lunch, dinner, and then we went banke på døre which was pretty nerveracking, but he let me take it slow. We didn’t really get anyone, but there was one person that was super nice, and she had an amazing house for the street she was living on, but she also had a great family… I reallly want to go back there and see if she’d like to know more maybe about eternal families. But the best thing that happened that day… I was inside an older families house, they were really sweet… we got in because we said we liked their photo of Frederikshavn, and they asked how old we were. My comp said tyve (twenty) and I said otte! (eight) Hahaha, I’m eight years old now I guess. That was super embarrassing but hey, it started some conversation right? I love it haha.

So dinner, I’m kind of running around in thoughts and everything, so excuse me if this is a jumbled mess hahah, but we went over to an eating appointment with Familien Toft, they were fantastic. A super loud family, but lovely. They were super kind to me, and they really understood my struggles with Danish (trust me, I know nothing it’s hilarious to just watch me stare aimlessly into their souls as they try to speak to me, it’s sooooo tough… but “DET KOMMER”) But they had a really sweet family, we ate dinner, talked a bit, we talked about their work and made some jokes, their youngest kid ran up the stairs naked (hahaha), they fed us a TON of food, and icecream and just really welcomed us in. I loved it. I felt like family. You could tell they had the Spirit in their house because it was just wholesome fun. But sadly, our time ran short (and I had the thought prepared… darn haha), and we had to leave to go over to Ålborg that night, so we had to catch a train in literally 20 minutes. It was crazyyyyy, especially just being my first day, but they were super nice and gave us a ride to our house and the train station because we biked there.

The next day we go to Ålborg and I am on splits with the Elders there because my comp had to go to some training. We went out contacting for 4 hours! It was great. We met some homies that were just smoking and drinking in a park, they called us over “Er du mormoner??” we go over, talk to them for like an hour and a half about faith, idealism, materialism, clearing up south park episodes all kinds of stuff. It was great, and they eventually switched to English so we could speak to them easier (because all of us were relatively new), and it was a really great conversation. It was actually the first time I gave out a Book of Mormon too, I gave it to them, they denied it, but then they realized we had like 30 of them and they took it. I really hope it goes well! I will keep y’all updated. I get back from contacting, we chill, I may or may not have fallen asleep during personal study… and “training” (it was just us watching an episode of the distrikt, it was a sleep trap). We go out again, contact more, have some fun talking with Ældste Leland and Ældste Brown (honestly we have the coolest distrikt) and then my comp came back and picked me up.

The next day we went to district meeting… in the same area… it was great to keep going back there. We have a great meeting about HYPE. YOU GOTTA KEEP THE WORK HYPPEEEEDDDDD. My comp said that we gotta do as the scriptures say and “rejoice exceedingly”, also known as STAYING HYPPEEEEDD. It was a great lesson. Especially since at times, not knowing the language can be a bit discouraging, so I’m trying to keep it hypeeeeeed. We went to pizza pasta place for lunch, and then I forgot what I did the rest of the day but I’m sure it was hyggeligt, but I’m running out of time so I gotta move fast. 

Sunday was wild. Like if you want to know that you’re in a different country, go to church. Holy cow, I did not understand a thing that was happening, not gonna lie I struggling a bit with it. I had to give a little talk about my testimony and what the church meant to me, and everyone said it was great, but I felt like a little child bearing my testimony up there, but the sad thing is is that a little child could probably bear one better hahahaha, nahhh, I’m not sure. I felt like I did okay, but it was tough. I did that and then just couldn’t understand anything else that they were saying the entire day. The BEST part of the day however was just being there with familien Blankenstein, they are the GREATEST family ever. They are not members, they’re all investigators, but they literally have said that their hearts belong to the church. They are the sweetest family and have the best kids. I tried to talk with the kids, and it was a bit frustrating, for them and me cuz the language barrier is pretty tough. But they were super sweet, and willing to work with me. So instead of speaking the language, I just created cool handshakes with all of them, it was sooo much fun. They are the coolest kids, and one of their sons is into music. So we played around on the piano and sang some cool music (thankfully english). It was a great time.

I want to leave a short thought with you all, just because I don’t know if this whole thing is even understandable because I’m out of time and can’t read over it, but I want to talk about the Sacrament. For my non-LDS friends, this is where we partake of bread and water and it renews our covenants with the Lord, it allows us to be forgiven and helps us become clean. Now we often times think that repentance is a bad thing, but in Danish the word for convert and repent are the same. I think it’s really important to remember that conversion and repentance are both processes. We can’t instantly become perfect, but we can eventually become perfect. We also have the word “nyde”, which means to enjoy, but it also means to partake. We nyde the sacrament. We should enjoy it fully. Because we only get to partake of the sacrament once each week, it should be on of the joyous times of our week because it is truly a renewal of ourselves.

I love you all and I hope you are all doing great. I have a challenge for you: email me recordings of you saying “Frederikshavn” 

Talk to you all next week, sorry I didn’t get to talk to/respond to a lot of you!

Med kærlig hilsen,
Ældste Salisbury