Dead Discovering Danes

Dropped

Well we got dropped. Desværre. Not by anyone that was our investigators luckily, but we got dropped twice by a meeting with one of our recent (I say recent very lightly, he was baptized a year ago) converts. He hasn’t looked at my texts or anything, which is really strange for him. So I’m not completely sure what’s happened to him, but we will continue to try to meet up with him. He’s pretty young, and very busy, so I’m assuming he broke his phone and is pretty super busy! But it turned out fine that he dropped us because I had some time to practice my music that I’ll be performing on the first.

Driving, Dreadful Dane

We had choir and floorball right after he dropped us, which was great. Choir is always fun, especially with Lise-Lotte. She chooses a bunch of english songs and she doesn’t really know how to speak english, it’s kinda funny hearing them pronounce things for the first time. I don’t really know how to correct them nicely, so I just sing it the “right way” (maybe I’m wrong who knows) and then they usually follow. We also got a ride from a super nice guy in the ward, the second counselor, to floorball. Turns out he’s not so nice when it comes to floorball. I was playing and he started ramming us into corners, and I’m pretty sure he was out to get me. It’s always a great time to play with them, and it’s really great when new friends that we haven’t met. Being in this branch shows me how important members are in missionary work. Missionaries are simply the vessel that the Lord works through to find new friends, and to teach lessons, but apart from that, members can help in so many more ways because they live normal lives and have normal contact with so many people. Often times, it is really hard to create such deep and lasting relationships in such a short time, but with members, it really is possible.

Dinner

We have had so many dinner appointments lately it’s fantastic. I’ve never spent so little on buying all my food for each week. I’m so appreciative that we have an awesome mission leader that feeds us a bunch and an awesome branch with a ton of loving people. We have this sweet old lady (she’s 89!) and she makes us æbleskiver/boller every week, and this week she made us a bunch of really yummy food. She’s basically my danish grandma. It’s really funny, we will go over to her house and she will help us with our danish by reading the little liahona with us, it’s great.

Dragging

We have been walking all week because my companions bike is broken… still. So that’s been fun. Hopefully we get it fixed this week!

Dead

We went to a viking graveyard (hence the title), and I thought of that scene from Frozen with all the rocks. If we stayed there any longer, I’m pretty sure the rocks would’ve rolled out and started criticizing my hair and calling me a fixer upper or something. But it was a great break from the normal missionary grind, and it was good to actually see other missionaries for once! In Frederikshavn, it’s so isolated that we never get to see any missionaries. 3 weeks into our transfer was the first time we saw other missionaries… so this was a great change.

Directions

We have a new missionary handbook and I can like it much more than the one before. It feels much more like the higher law compared to Moses’ law of the old handbook. There are less do nots, and more up to the mission president or missionary’s discretion. And we can go swimming!? (this is not confirmed, but it doesn’t say anything about not doing it…) Nothing super huge changed, other than how we can do splits - which is a little frustrating for our mission because we have a HUGE push for splits right now, but we will figure it out.

Done

I’m done! I’m completely done with the New Testament. And let me tell you, if you haven’t fully read the New Testament, it’s a must. I’ve found sooooooo many good things in there I can’t explain. Revelations is crazy weird, but it’s really interesting when you really dive into it. What I did to make my reading something a little bit more than just reading is I wrote a little paragraph for each chapter in it. It helped me to retain what I just read, but also ask a TON of questions. I think about half of it is just questions… I love it because now I can go back through it, and study each individual question. I highly encourage you to at least do this for one book. I know it’s long, but Alma is a fantastic book to try this out on, there’s so many powerful scriptures in there. But through all my reading of the New Testament, I have found that God invites us to simply choose for ourselves. Will we choose good or evil? If you’re ever thinking about choosing evil, go ahead and read the Book of Revelation, that’ll scare that desire right out of you.

Dem

The family that we are working with told us that we can’t set a date with them, that they have a desire to be baptized, but they don’t want to be pressured. I definitely respect that, and hope that they make the decision quickly, because sadly, but Satan only needs a little bit of time. Time is a very valuable thing to both God and Satan, it’s how either we can help God further his work to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, or be broken down by Satan. I know they will be fantastic members, and I have a huge hope and faith that they will be baptized. 

Diving Deep Down

I already talked a little bit about my method to dig a little deeper when studying scriptures, but I want to go a little bit more in depth about my experience with it. As I read on a consistent schedule, the times that were tough, discouraging, sad, or whatever they may have been at the time, were lifted away from me. It sounds weird and crazy, but it is nonetheless completely true. I found scriptures at the exact time and place I needed them. I promise you, with all my heart, that the same can happen for you. There is extreme power in starting from the start and going to the end. If you do it diligently, I promise there will be so many answers to your prayers and blessings that will come from daily scripture study.

Challenge: Dive in, even try it out on the Pearl of Great Price. Try reading at least one chapter and writing a summary/spiritual promptings/questions in a journal. It doesn’t have to be incredibly long for each one, but try it out and watch the blessings and answers come rolling in!

Word of the Week: desværre - too bad, unfortunately, regrettably

Scripture: Revelation 22:8-9 “And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things. Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am they fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.” He saw, and heard, he listened to what the angel had told him.

Pictures: Lots of viking graves, a picture of me standing there awkwardly, weird things elders do, yeah
I hope you all have a fantastic week! I love you all!

Med kærlig hilsen,

Ældste Salisbury