Welcome to the Ring
Mor vs. Køsters
In the first corner, we have Mor! *vietnamese people and anyone who has ever served in Svendborg goes wild* A middle-aged, vietnamese woman who, after being hit in the head, has gone a little bit off the deep-end. She believes that God is a woman and a man… at the same time. She is a member of our church but also believes in the trinity (how this works - I’m not quite sure).
In the second corner we have the Køsters! They are a really outstanding senior couple who have dedicated pretty much their lives to the church. Very faithful members, who are all about cleanliness. Don’t let them inside, because they will destroy even the cleanest people. Got mold? Got kalk? Got one, yes, just one, unclean dish? This will be a quick match for you… They are infamous for taking our perfectly good couch and replacing it because it had a super miniscule, almost unnoticeable to the natural eye, rip in it. Toilet not clean enough? Don’t worry Søster Køster will get down there, basically put her hand in the toilet, and clean it for you. Pretty scary.
If this doesn’t look like a good match, you’re wrong. This is a fight to the death. No one will be standing after this fight. *The day begins with Ældste Leland and I breaking our backs to clear out the Svendborg apartment. It’s hard work, but we’ve pretty much cleared out the entire thing by 2PM with the Køster’s help. We finish up, and head over to our good friend Mor’s house. The week before, Mor told us of her awesome powers, strengths, and revelations. Summed up, she can see through walls, see spirits, astral project (her spirit comes out of her body, and if she isn’t careful it will leave forever, kinda like in Marvel with Dr. Strange), receive revelations such as God is a woman and a man because in the bible it never mentions the bride until the end or that Jesus, God and the Holy Ghost are one person. (Just to be sure for my nonmember friends, we believe that Jesus, God and the Holy Ghost are all separate beings, but are one in purpose).
The match begins fantastically, we eat some pretty okay food, have a good chat about Denmark’s wars - hyggeligt. But of course, Mor has to bring up some doctrine. In the first corner we have a punch by Mor claiming all things are created by God, even evil, and that we must love them because they are all God’s children. (remember this is us trying to understand her vietnamese danish, no l’s, s’s, r’s, etc…) Now Søster Køster was not having this statement, in the other corner the Køsters are claiming that God did not create evil, that we must love everyone, but it is based on agency, which God gave us, that evil is created. Well this was quite frankly too big of a problem for us to really get involved in, especially knowing that we could never win against the unbeatable Mor, but looking at the match, we quickly realized that the Køsters were relentless also.
This goes on for about 45 minutes.
Ældste Køster, my companion and me are just trying to keep ourselves from laughing. We just sat there and ate fruit and cake until we couldn’t fit anymore in. Finally, we said that we had to leave (of course interrupting their heated, and continuing to heat, conversation… argument…). With that, we were out the door, but not before Mor gave Ældste Køster a tie and Søster Køster a jacket that made her look like she was a gang member.
Ahhh. Memories made.
Splits
Well we had splits the day after. We went down to pick up Ældste Cook and leave Ældste Leland in Fredericia. Splits went great, had nice, fun splits, and we woke up the next day and had to be outside of the house pretty early to make sure we got Ældste Cook on the train. Well…. Sad to say, but that didn’t happen. They told us the train will be arriving at 9:30, so we should be there around 9:15. Turns out the train arrived at 8:55! Ooops. Cook was very upset, it was no fun. Not a big deal, Leland just got off and Ældste Hogge went to Copenhagen by himself, it all worked out. But then Ældste Hogge told us the wrong time again of when he would be coming back, so we wasted pretty much the whole day waiting in the train station… fun stuff, but sometimes that’s how it goes I guess.
Første Syn
We had a really great challenge by one of the sisters in our mission where she said we should go out and share the first vision with 3 people, 1 of which had to be a person we didn’t know before. We went out and met this really awesome guy named Anton. He said the day before he got drunk and believed that it was God’s way of saying to not do that again. He was a very very humble person, we shared the First Vision with him and you could see in his eyes and demeanor that it meant a lot to him. He sadly didn’t give us his number or any contact method, but he said he would call us after he prayed about it. In the least, we perhaps helped someone from getting so drunk that they make a very bad decision. It was humbling for me however, as I told him the story of the first vision, I felt the Spirit so strongly. I have never seen how powerful the first vision is when told to someone who hasn’t heard it before (or who has even). His attitude and personality completely changed and you could tell it was something he wanted and needed to hear.
Later that day, we had the opportunity to visit a really awesome members’ house. We gave another thought about the first vision, and I am so very thankful that we have the continuous restoration of the church today. It is amazing to see the changes and moves that the Lord has prepared for his children. Times are hastening, it’s becoming harder and harder to believe, to keep commandments, to avoid temptations, but the Lord is giving us the necessary tools and advice to avoid falling into one of Satan’s many traps.
I think one thing that has helped me the most understand this continuous restoration is reading Saints. It is a powerful and entertaining book about how the church came to be. From there, you can see that Joseph did not have a perfect idea for what the church should look like, it came step by step. “Since he started translating the Book of Mormon, Joseph had learned much about his future role in God’s work. In its pages, he recognized basic teaching he had learned from the Bible as well as new truths and insights about Jesus Christ and His gospel. He also uncovered passages about the latter days that prophesied of a chosen seer named Joseph, who would bring forth the Lord’s word and restore lost knowledge and covenants.” (Saints) God had a plan for Joseph from the start, but Joseph didn’t know his plan until he slowly received it bit by bit, which I can imagine takes a lot of patience and long-suffering.
I have seen that exact method in my life many times. God has a recurring pattern of giving us just a little vision of our plan, but only he can see the full potential which we possess. It takes patience and the Holy Ghost to be with us in order to follow his plan, but it is so worth it in the end. I’ve seen this multiple times on my mission, where it feels like there isn’t a plan, there isn’t a goal, but every time I decide to trust in the Lord and follow him, it turns out it was something I needed to learn later on down the road. I’m so thankful for a God that prepares a way for us.
Scripture: 1 Nephi 3:7 “7 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.”
Challenge: Read Saints! It’s a great book, and a FANTASTIC way to prepare for this general conference. I’ve learned so much about the trials and prosecution they went through trying to establish this church. Saints is also a free book, you can start reading here: https://www.
Word of the Week: støvsuge - vacuum
Pictures: splits with a member, a really old antique shop from the 1600's, a really awkward photo of me in the really old antique shop looking like an extremely weird tourist/missionary, RIP Perry
I hope you all had a fantastic week and I hope this week will be even better. I miss and love you all!
Med kærlig hilsen,
Ældste Salisbury
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