Just give up

This week has been amazing. It's been quite the blur, but so so much fun. Im super happy where I am and what I'm doing. And no matter how many times we get rejected for being missionaries... It still makes me smile every time hahah. This is the Lord's work, it's hard, but it's very rewarding. We've had a bunch of miracles because of the Lord this week and it's been quite the experience.

The Title
No not you, just me! I gotta give up, ang? My mission præsident told me to give up! Give up on learning the language, give up on tracking progress, just give up! And honestly I don't think I could've received any better advice. I care too much about my personal progress when I think about learning the language, I don't focus on why I'm learning the language. But when I changed my perspective, that the Lord will help me out with it, it's been so much better. I've seen the blessings roll in. It's been so much easier to relax a little about the language. I was blown away when he told me to just give up, in fact, I laughed at him when he said it, but then I realized he was legit serious (but he knew it sounded crazy too hahah). So it's weird to say that my mission president told me to give up... And it worked, but it makes sense. I've found that maybe not giving up, but focusing on the real reason you're doing something is the best way.

Sunday
Often we think: I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna track what I'm doing. Etc... But we dont think, what does doing this become? What does becoming make me be? We talked about this in Elders quorum, with things like reading the Book of Mormon, we are told to read the book every night, so we try our best to do it. I know I've seen myself fall into the trap of "I'm reading this because we are told to, so I'm just gonna read it to check the box" but we don't think what does this help me become? Where will this lead? When you read the Book of Mormon it always brings us closer to God. But this took me a while to understand, back when I was around 16 I hadn't read the book of mormon (by the way its NEVER to late to read it, ever) and I was just reading it to complete it. That's good right? Complete the book of mormon, get the content out, get to know the characters. There's nothing wrong with that. But it setup a bad habit for me where I would just read, and I knew what I was reading, but I didn't ponder about it. So now I've been trying to break that habit, and I invite you to join me. I've been reading 1-3 chapters a day, and after each reading session I write a little about the chapter. Sometimes it's not even about the chapter, but what the spirit impressed upon me. Writing that down has got me out of the checkbox mode and into the pondering becoming mode. It's definitely a process, but it helps a lot for me, so tell me how it goes!

Store Is
In simple translation, this means "big ice cream", but there is so so much more to this. I first have to take you back to earlier in the week, we had district council, our zone leaders set a goal that every district this week would get 2 new friends for each companionship in their district. Lemme tell you something, we have it easy right? We only have two companionship so that means we have 4 new friends (friends are people that are interested in the church). Super nemt, ang? Nej, its tough! We have a very interesting area, and our area is known for being a little slow because either tourists come there or the people just don't want anything to do with it. Anyways, we talk to president, ask him if we can go to Skagen he says "yes, of course, but if you get your goal of 4 I'll get you store is" now of course we are going to go hard for this goal, because we want that yummmmmy Danish ice cream. Now we get to the end of the week, we were traveling earlier in the week so we didn't have a ton of time to go out and find people, but we still had to get femten timer ang?

The First Two
So we go out and find, it gets to be the end of the day, no one, until we knock on one of the last doors of our penultimate apartment building, it's a really sweet mother and daughter, the mother can't speak Danish so the daughter had to translate. Originally the daughter said they weren't interested, so we started walking away. And then she told her mother what we were talking about and she's like "Jesus mennesker?? Kom ind kom ind! Du er rigtig godt, rigtig godt!" (Jesus people, come in come in, you are really good, really good!!!). We talked with them, they gave us bubbly water, gave them a pamphlet, prayed with them, and they invited us to eat with them next week! So that was two new friends, super exciting, so we got our goal for that week. But Ålborg was struggling a bit. So we either had to find two more, or they needed to.

The Next
Now luckily, and I don't attribute any luck to it, we were praying hard for more miracles —so miraculously, we come to the next apartment building and talk to this guy from Poland. At first, he only speaks English and switching over from Danish to English is crazy hard. So I'm just stumbling over my words trying to do the usual stuff, but he stops me and says just come in hahaha. He's the coolest guy, and we are gonna get him a book of mormon in polish. So that's 3 right? We are making this suppppeeeer easy for Ålborg.

Wack
So the next day we call them up, pray with them (I can't stop telling you in these emails, PRAYER WORKS!!!) and we pray that we can complete our goal to continue doing the Lord's work. We'll we go out and just go knocking for 2 hours, we have the WEIRDEST experiences. One girl answers the door, all she does is just shakes her head. Doesn't say anything except nej, it was just really awkward hahah. A few people answer the door in nothing... Some just look out the door, see our tags and then slam the door, great stuff hahaha. But then we get to the bottom, and this is where we really needed a miracle because time was running out. After two hours of nothing, we meet this woman. She answers the door and then runs away, leaving it just a little cracked open. We are wonderin what the wack she was doing and she comes back and just invites us in hahaha. Now this story is wack so brace yourself. We get in, she has a sit down, her uncle is there (he's really old, speaks nordjylansk and I can't understand a thing he says, not to mention anything he says doesn't make sense even as is, as my companion tells me hahaha). We hygge for a little and then we start talking about why we are here. And like this girl is just so so so very interested in the Gospel. Like... Almost too much. We mentioned the native Americans and she went nuts, smiling and doing this weird gasping thing that people do in Denmark (I'll probably talk about it more some other time, it basically means you agree with them or are saying ya, think on the terms of "mmmmhmmm" but weirder), and she just stares at us really really intensely, not to mention the occasional unsettling wink here and there. So we finish the lesson, she asks us to meet up again, we pray with them and yeah, we found our new friend for the week. But that's not the worst part of the story, during the entire time, the old man was trying to talk to me. So I was trying to listen to their lesson, and trying to contribute but the old man just kept talking to me and I didn't want to be rude. I don't think he ever understood that I was new to the land hahah, but oh well. It was quite the experience nonetheless!

Skagen (skayn)
Now since we got our goal for our district, in a very weird way, but nonetheless miraculous way, we weren't gonna just let President get away with not giving us ice cream, so attached you will see the wonderful picture of store is, and let me tell you. American ice cream is nothing near Danish ice cream. It's delicious and creamy. Think the marshmallow syrup stuff, but thicker with more flavor. Mmmm. But we go to Skagen, and just have the time of our lives. It was amazing. Skagen is the very very top of Denmark, it's also where the two seas combine, so there's this part where just the currents are going against each other and it's AMAZING. like probably one of the coolest and best days I've had, especially on the mission. I got to hang out with my district which was great, and it's also amazing because one of the Elders, Elder Leland, is also a music nerd, and so we just geek out over Erik Whitacre. He's also just a really sick guy, he loves to make music, draw and animate and so I'm telling him that we just got to start a game company with each other hahaha. He's awesome and it was great to spend the whole day with him.

Spiritual Thought
Today it's pretty simple, I've been thinking about Alma's staple. What did he say that he repeated again and again that stuck with me. I talked about this a while ago, but a quick refresher: every book is written by a different author, often times I just read it as the Book of Mormon right? But once I really look at it, they all have their own writing style, so Nephi uses murmuring alot for example. So in Alma, I've noticed this phrase "enter in to the Lord's rest." Now me being the analytical person I am, I thought that this could mean a few different things, or rather I had a few thoughts about the verses. It could maybe mean all, one or none. Alma 16:17 "That they might not be hardened against the word, that they might not be unbelieving, and go on to destruction, but that they might receive the word with joy, and as a branch be grafted into the true vine, that they might enter into the rest of the Lord their God." 1. It means that we can enter into exaltation by upholding his word and being brought into the vine of the Lord. 2. The Lord's rest is Salvation, but think about it. We have normal earthly rest, and that's always the best right? Sleep is good, relaxation is good. But think about the Lord's rest and how amazing that would be. I think that's one way to explain exaltation, is finally being able to receive that rest that we long after. After he suffered for all our sins, completing the sacrifice necessary to be perfect himself, he rose again. 3. I think it's also important to note that if we enter into the Lord's rest, we let him take our burdens that our load may become light. 4. Maybe a stretch, but I thought about it as entering into The rest of the Lord, as in accepting the more of his teachings and coming to a further understanding of them.
Ive found that really digging in to the staples of the scriptures really helps me to understand their power and how to help others understand them. Obviously I wouldn't go into this with someone that is new to the church, but I perhaps could go off of my own study to explain it in a more simple way, or in other ways that make more sense directly to them. I've come to realize quickly that everyone has their own way of learning and coming to know the truth of the gospel. And that as missionaries, we have to be open minded to all the many perspectives that others have in order to be teachers. So again, I invite you all to really dig into the scriptures, ponder them, write about them, share them. And if you want to play along with my "staple" game, try reading one of the books completely, looking for repeated phrases. There's no right or wrong answer! Let me know what you think the staples of each book are! :)

I hope you have a wonderful week. I really want to know how all of your summers went! Send some pictures to me please! I love you all a bunch!!!

Med kærlig hilsen,
Ældste Salisbury