Fancy Fun Food

Welcome to this week folks. I've noticed my language skills English wise going down and down as I write my emails, and most of the time I'm too lazy to correct them. Enjoy.

Face

So I got a haircut on monday. Just a normal usual haircut. After he was done with my hair, he grabbed some gel or something and put a little bit of it in my hair and then got it a little bit on my forehead and I was like “oops, must’ve just messed up a little bit or something” which then he begins to spread the entire gel like substance down the rest of my face, beginning to give me a face massage. Kinda weird. Foreign people are fun.

Fed

We were over to the family's house that we are working with and shared a weird combination of a spiritual thought and a lesson. Well, I was a little irritated not gonna lie, not really during the lesson, but I tried before the lesson to get my companion to work with me to make a lesson plan and he just didn't want to make a plan or do anything. So I sat there writing out an idea and shared it with him and he basically said let's wing it, made a plan of what we need to talk about with the parents and what with the kids... Two minutes before they knocked on our doors to pick us up. Well, we get to the appointment and the conversation goes well because you could pick any topic with this family and they could talk for hours (for Pete's sake, they're members). But our original idea, and why the dad asked us over in the first place, was to teach their child that wants to get baptized. We did barely any of that, and when I tried to take it that direction, my comp didn't follow. 1. I'm still really new to Danish so it's hard to communicate every point 2. That was pretty much the first lesson I've ever really taught (or had a part in teaching) so I can't just wing it. Not to rant, but to be quite frank, it could've gone much much better. I'm always looking for advice, if you have any, all is welcome (especially if you have been a primary teacher, teaching the ages of 9-12) :) it just goes to show how important planning is, and often times, it gets skipped over. Not always does it have to go as planned, but it is better to have a plan and a goal so that we can teach them specifically to their needs and not go too off topic. I think this can apply to everything. Plan out how much time it will take to do homework (or how much time it will take to procrastinate it and do it ;) or plan out how you're going to study the scriptures. Plan out a date, plan out an event, it can't just be thrown together last minute. God has a plan for us also, and we should commit to have him involved in each of our plans.

Fortæl

We went to districtsråd (council) in Aalborg and later had a great interview with President. The zone leaders came to our council and told us about how to have genuine interactions with people when asking the weird questions that we ask. It was pretty good, basically showing us that we had to be genuinely interested in what they are talking about. With my interview with President, a very inspired leader, I talked to him about how I've been doing this transfer. I told him about my companion, and trust me I've been having a fun time with my companion for sure. He's a great fun guy, but I didn’t come here to have fun. Being the somewhat junior companion, I can't really set the pace of what we do, but what we do is not enough in my opinion. I've been feeling pretty guilty about it all, and trying to put in more effort to get him out the door, but usually it doesn't work super well. Well of course president knew what to say, I'm honestly so glad to have him. He told me it's like Tetris. You have a different piece every new companionship, and every time you have to fit it in to your own personality. Sometimes it can be that super simple four piece block or other times it can be those weird ones, that you have no clue where to put at all. He said me being the junior companion, it will be hard, but one day I'll have my own area and my own trainee or junior companion, and I can set the pace. It honestly helped me take away a lot of the guilt that I was feeling (not that I was doing anything wrong, just kinda feeling guilty because we weren't out close to what my trainer and I were out). Now it's just a matter of "how hard do I push to get out the door?" I've noticed in my life, my biggest enemy sometimes is myself. I see it all the time today, we believe that we aren't good enough, that we aren't strong enough, we don't do this right, and then we get down on ourselves and get shoved down into a pit of despair. Sometimes it's true that we could do this and this better, sometimes it's because the situation, but whatever it is, as my president says it, it is "the bells of hell" and we shouldn't listen to them. Never think that you aren't worthy to communicate with our Heavenly Father through prayer. He will always listen. He wants us to keep trying better, to keep going, but not to get destroyed and into that pit of despair. That is Satan who wants us to be down and not try. Satan is the discourager, while Jesus Christ is our Advocate. He wants us to progress whereas Satan will do anything in his power to shove us down. Never be stagnant, always progress.

Full

Wow did we have a full day on Wednesday. We met with Ella, my Danish grandma, and we made æbleskiver! They were pretty burnt because my companion and no clue how to make them (and Ella had the pan on super hot with oil in the pan) but since I had practice before (thank you Brother Stewart!) and I turned it down just a little, and turned them pretty quickly, and they actually turned out the best hahah. Practice makes perfect, ikke? So im gonna find an æbleskiver (translates to apple slices, Danes don't even know why) pan at a genbrug or something. Then we went and got an actual Danish burger, it was a lot of food. My companion and I felt like we're were going to throw up after, but it was pretty dang good. (picture hopefully attached) After that we went to choir, had a good time singing in Danish where no one matches their vowels (hey you choir kids, if you want to have an extreme challenge, tell Mr. Kane to sing a Danish song). Then we went to floorball and that is always great.

Freezing

Velkommen til Danmark, hvor solopgangen er klokken ni og solnedgangen er klokken femten. Basically what that meant is that we don't ever see the freaking sun. It's great. The mission gave out these things called happy lamps and they do the same thing as the sun or something, and you just burn your eyes out staring into them... Its supposed to help with your mood. Does it work? I don't know, it's probably more placebo effect than anything. It's also cold here. In Boise, it gets pretty cold but you can go out in it and play in the snow. Here it freezes your bone marrow. Maybe an exaggeration, but it's pretty cold here. Cold and dark are very annoying but hey I signed up for this and it's what I'm gonna do for the next few months.

Forstår du?

Danish has been going really well. The gift of tongues is real, and it works way better when I'm actually good at praying consistently for it. That proves to me that prayer works, and that if you don't pray, then you don't receive blessings of prayer. Funny how that works. But overall, I understand the people just fine, but when I talk I stumble like a toddler that knows what he wants to say but can't say it, then gets frustrated, and throws a fit. Luckily there's a lot less screaming and crying with me when I can't express myself, I have a trick (just switch to English ;) luckily I'm somewhere where they can understand English, or at least they say they can. But I hate speaking in English now, so I try not to do it unless absolutely necessary. I also dream in Danish, and sometimes think in Danish. It's kinda scary when my companion tells me that I was screaming "HVAD SIGER DU?" (what are you saying???) the whole night. But that's okay, I've woken up to him talking about some weird stuff in Danish too. I wonder if we talk to each other...?

Friendly Face

Splits were fun, we got back here in Frederikshavn around 1, went out on the gågade. Pretty much everyone said no. But we continued and then went knocking, we found this awesome guy named Henrik. He took a book of mormon and told us that we definitely should come back. I've always wondered... What if someone just started collecting our books, everytime we knocked on our door they asked for another one...? Anyways, I keep having to remind myself that people like Henrik and this really nice girl from Copenhagen I talked to a few days ago, exist. And that's completely why we do this work, to find that one person that will listen. A lot of times its dry, but I'd rather find one of God's lost sheep that has a desire to learn more than to not go out and find them. It gives me hope everytime we meet a really nice person.

Family

This is the most important section if you only read one section in my email, always skip to the last one. I can't explain how awesome it is to be teaching such a fantastic family right now and how much they have done to help me on my mission. A part of our lesson that we talked about with them was that they needed to hold a family home evening every week. This is something a little weird for me, because in my family we never really held a traditional family home evening. It was just me and my parents. It's kinda hard to preach something you've never really done, but I think back to it, and that's a complete lie. Sure I haven't "traditionally" done it that many times, but one thing I'm very very thankful for my wonderful parents is that they always made time to spend time with me somewhere in the week. Whether it was all of us all together, or just one of my parents and I spending time, we did it. And we did it quite often (except for when I was a young teenager obsessed with coding and gaming, gosh I was a brat, sorry mom and dad). But they always made time for me, and at that point it was my choice. I can't honestly thank them enough for it, and I really don't think they realize how much it's impacted me.

I've found that one becomes much more thankful when put into different situations, here in Denmark, they care a lot about the family, but at the same time they don't. A lot of kids (and I mean 13-16y/o) drink smoke and party. And their parents don't give them the time of day. I'm not saying that's the case with all parents here, but it's hard to go knocking and seeing their 14 y/o girl sitting there smoking a cigarette and their parents pretty much ignoring them. I don’t think this is a Danish issue (well the smoking and drinking is), but I think it’s an overall issue of how our society is being disconnected by technology. You all know that I love love love tech, but I also realize that it is completely a two edged sword. Saying thanks over text versus saying thanks in real life, or one step further with a thank you note, it really does mean a lot more. I think we as a society are unable to communicate our feelings as well as we should be able to, and that is something extremely important in a family setting. I am again so thankful for my parents for creating an environment where I could tell them anything and everything that was going on. I encourage you all to connect with your family, no matter how hard or bitter or anything the relationship has become. It is so important that we love our family and give them the attention and love they need. With President Nelson’s recent changes in the church, we have moved to a home centered learning style, a home centered church. It’s not a change to the church, the church has always been about that, however, now we have more resources to help us as families grow stronger together. I truly believe that it will be much harder to live in this world without a family connection. Families are together forever, and that means that we should do all we can to keep that bond, love, trust, and gladness that comes from families.

 

Challenge: It’s thanksgiving! Be thankful for someone, but skip doing the bare minimum text (unless that’s all you can do for that specific person), instead write them a hand written letter and give it to them, or maybe tell them in person how much you appreciate them. But most importantly, tell your family how much you love and appreciate all that they do for you.

Word of the Week: forhold - relationship (I like this word a lot, it’s probably not exactly translated this way, but the way I look at this word is for-hold which could mean “in order to keep”)

Scripture: Genesis 19:26 - “But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt” This is when Lot’s wife looks back at Sodom and Gamorrah, it is not because she simply looked back, but instead because she was longing to go back. She wanted to go back to the old wicked ways of living. Often times, after we sin, we look back and wish for it to happen again, but we must move on and be healed by Christ. The more that we look back, longing, the more salty we become. 

Pictures: Svend’s burger that he bought us 

 

So overall, I’ve had a pretty interesting week, pretty slow, but I’m learning a lot about myself which I am super grateful for. I hope you all have amazing weeks. I love you all!

Med kærlig hilsen,

Ældste Salisbury