Called as Temple Workers

 Tivoli, an amusement park in the middle of Copenhagen

Buxtons, us, Brookes

(Both pictures were taken after 10pm!)

 A bus of graduating high school students. We have seen many of these all around town. It is a tradition to celebrate their graduation by riding in the back of these trucks and creating quite a ruckus--honking horns, yelling.  The people on the street yell and wave back. They are drinking beer to celebrate, so that loosens their inhibitions somewhat. It goes on all day and night--for several days. We were glad when the rain kind of quelled the noise late Friday night, but we heard one drive by while we were in church. They all wear those caps which means they have graduated. A young man even wore it to church. 

We were called as ordinance workers this week. This will be in addition to our missionary duties with the YSA's.  

Hej min Familie,                                                                                                                                  Monday, June 27, 2016

It may be a bit of a cop out for this week, but it is 4:00 in the afternoon and we need to get to a UV (YSA) FHE activity pretty soon.  So instead of the normal letter, I am editing my weekly journal. The only mission I have experienced is knocking on doors for 8-9 hours a day.  I am not about to do that again!  So we are finding that our days of sort of empty to start off with but the evenings are filling up.   

Monday 

We met with Brother Jens Andersen, the national seminary and institute director for the church.  He was an inspiring man.  Former stake president and mission president here in Denmark and now a temple sealer and his present job with the youth.  He coordinates all of the S&I programs and teaches a couple of classes a week at least. The stake has a YSA coordinating council and he sits on that council as well.  We will also meet with them.  He gave us an overview of what has been happening and the role he would like us to play.  We will open the YSA center on Thursdays at 3:00 to get ready for the weekly dinner and institute class.  We close it up after everyone leaves for the night.  We also host the weekly FHE on Monday nights which should be planned and carried on by the youth. The center is available for whatever else we need it for, including missionary discussions with the local elders. 

Our first FHE was interesting.  This week is exam week for the university and so the numbers were lower than normal.  We had 9 youth plus 2 missionaries.  After a spiritual thought, we divided into 3 teams and played lyp synch.  We happily joined in but thankfully mom has some musical talent and one of the elders knew the words of the Disney songs, etc.  Great youth. 

Tuesday

Today was the first day we did not have something scheduled or planned.  It will take some time I think to identify and line up rescuing visits we can make.  We worked in the apartment until after lunch on language and technical computer issues.  We also took our first walking trip to find a dry cleaners and do some food shopping.  We had an address, our Garmin but we still got confused over the streets.    

At six we went to a member's home for dinner.  Knudsen's have been feeding the senior missionaries for 30 years on the 3rd Tuesday of the month.  They also feed the local missionaries once of month.  There were 17 missionaries there.  That is a lot to feed.  We each put 100 kroners in a dish to offset the cost.  We were able to meet the temple missionaries, 3 couples, as well as the temple presidency, the 2 Family Search camera missionaries and the office couple.  It was nice to be all together for 90 minutes.  

I thought I was over jet lag since I have slept well that last 2 nights.  However, tonight I could not fall asleep and then was up before 5:00 am. It may take a bit longer to adjust. 

Wednesday

A slow day with no YSA activities planned.  We emailed all of the bishops / branch presidents and the YSA parents and representatives to introduce ourselves and try to get invited to any ward YSA meetings, ward council meetings or activities.  We heard back from a couple welcoming us to Denmark but not any invites to any meetings yet.  

Thursday

Today was our first District Meeting. The meeting was well done and interesting.  The 2 AP’s apparently are in this district as well as 3 companionships; no sisters.  They repeated in Danish D&C 4 and the Mission Purpose from PMG, had training and discussion on the Plan of Salvation, Repentance and Tad Callister’s BYU Devotional talk titled Our Identity and Our Destiny.  It is really good on our potential to become as God is now.

Tonight we needed to be at the UV center even though Institute was canceled because it is Sandt Hans Day (St John’s Day, first night of summer and night they burn the witches in bon fires).  We walked there, about 20 minutes on a direct route, and stayed from 6:00 to about 8:30.  No one showed up but we worked on our talks for Sunday night in the UV Sacrament meeting. To close the night out, we watched the C&I broadcast to teachers that was aired live while we were in the MTC.  It is about a new focus for teachers of this age group centered on Doctrinal Mastery instead of just scripture mastery.  It sounds pretty neat with a focus on teaching on a higher plane to answer questions and teach how to find answers rather than just have questions that raise doubts.  I also polished shoes and repaired some ties with needle and thread. 

Friday

We went to the 10:00 session on the temple, our first time to visit the Copenhagen temple.  It is beautiful inside but is small.  It has 1 endowment room seating 40 people and they can run a session every 2 hours because they move to a different Terrestrial room.  The Celestial room is also very small.  The did the session in English, which is quite common for this session on Fridays. The last session of every day is also usually in English.  Only the B film is translated into Danish.  The local people enjoy either one it seems without any language difficulties. 

The Temple is a rebuilt meeting house.  It looks quite different on the outside from a normal temple but the inside is built out to excellent standards.  The murals in the creation room are of local Danish landscapes featuring water and deer scenes. 

Afterwards, Pres Williams met with us and called us to be Temple Ordinance workers and set us apart.  That is special that we get to work in the temple again.  We will start out to see if the Friday morning session fits in with our YSA work.  The prep meeting starts at 9:15 am and we should get out at 2:30. In his blessing, I was promised that this work would be a joy to us and that I would learn to love the people and that language would not be a hindrance to our work or the enjoyment of the experience. 

Saturday

Our first P-day after a week of work.  The Buxton's and Brooke's planned some outings and invited us to go along.  The sisters went shopping and walking on their own outing and the brothers drove an hour + to Stevnsfort to visit the old NATO Naval Base that is built into the limestone cliffs.  It guards one of 3 straits connecting the Atlantic Ocean with the Baltic Sea and the naval ports the Soviet Union had during the Cold Ward. The idea was to keep the Soviet fleet bottled up in the Baltic Sea and to protect that part of the coast from Soviet invasion.  The fort was built in the early 1950's and was de-commissioned in 2000.  It is now a museum that takes guided tours.  We left at 11:00 and did not return until about 6:00 so it was a long day.  It was interesting, even though I did not understand the tour guide, but we had a self-guided recorded tour commentary to listen to.  It was also a good chance to see some Danish countryside, eat a Pølser (hot dog) and get to know these great senior missionaries a bit more.  They are good company to be with. 

The Brooks go home in 7 weeks and they have a "bucket list" of things they want to see and do on P-days.  We will have to see how many we join in on.  They have been here 22 months doing their Family Search record preservation mission. 

Sunday

Sunday's are proving to be our busiest day.  We started by attending another ward Sacrament meeting at 10:00, The Gladsaxe I ward.  They translated for us and we had a chance to meet a couple of YSA's and the father of the YSA parents.  They have a ward Facebook page and have plans to get some things started but not much is happening at the moment. The sister is visiting home in the Philippines. 

We then attended our own block schedule.  Priesthood was interesting because the brother requested to teach in English.  Only 1 HP needed translation to Danish so the bishop moved over to help him.  Every question however was answered in Danish, which the teacher seemed to understand perfectly, I ended up not understanding at least 1/2 the lesson even though the instruction was in English. 

We dashed home for an hour dinner and then walked the 25 min to the UV center for the monthly UV Sacrament meeting.  It was preceded by a 5:30, almost 90 minute, UV stake committee meeting headed up the 2 UV committee chairpeople.  

Sacrament meeting in the UV center had about 17 youth from the closer in wards in the stake.  Bro Ringheim presided and a 26 yr old YSA conducted.  It reminded me of the 1830 first sacrament mtg that Joseph Smith held - small room, 2 sacrament trays, 20 people, great spirit.  Two recently returned missionaries spoke and then mom and I had 10 minutes each.  They called on Wednesday and asked if we would fill in for the main speaker who had to bow out.  The mtg ended at 8:15 and then the youth visited until about 9:30. We got home at 10:00 pm.  We are starting to learn more and more of them but it is hard to put names and faces together after a week of not seeing them.  It will come.  They are all great and most of these active kids are returned missionaries.  They have a lot on the ball, except for not getting married.  It is a temptation to just match the boys and girls together and tell them to just make it work!

Still not much we can do during our day time hours.  We have requested lists of YSA's and focus names to visit but that will take a while it seems.  In the meantime, we will visit the family history center on Tuesday mornings to learn more so we can better teach the workshop. 

We love you all and really look forward to the Facetime and your news.  It seems like the world has closed in around us.  I have not paid any attention to what is happening in sports or the stock market, other than I know Britain’s exit from the EU has caused prices to drop dramatically.  I have not heard anyone talk about it over here and I cannot yet read the newspaper headlines.  The Danes seem very proud of their country.  The SS teacher commented on how blessed they are to live here. Mom learned this week that this is the best country where the disparity between the rich and the poor is the least (because the tax the rich at 60%.  Tax on purchases seems to be 25%, though I don’t know yet if it varies by what you are buying.  On cars it is 100%.  Can you believe that?   Still don’t know why they incent the kids to leave home at 18.  That just seems to be accepted as a good practice to help the kids mature.  

We are starting to feel a bit comfortable in both driving and walking in this area as long as we are on the familiar path.  We can get to the UV center the temple, the mission office and possibly our ward house.  I think it will take 1 more week with the Garmin to find it for sure. 

Love, Dad

Kære Familie,                                                                                                                                                  June 27, 2016

Missionary work has taken many forms for us this week.  There are times that I feel almost guilty that we are not working 24-7.  But that is probably unreasonable for anyone.  We have busy days and a lot of downtime, but we are using that to get familiar with the city so that we don’t stress about the simple things like grocery shopping and doing laundry.  We are becoming more familiar with our surroundings and learning the nuances of driving in a foreign country.  When we visited Jared, we were amazed at the ease he was able to get around—there is so much more to driving than in the states.  You can’t turn right on a red light; you have to yield to the bicycles and pedestrians who both have their own lane; the lanes are much narrower; there are a lot of one-way streets so even if the GPS tells you to turn right, there may be a ‘no right turn’ sign so you can’t.  The streets were not laid out by Brigham Young (or anyone with sense) so that if you miss your street, you can’t just take the next one and go around the block because it may not go through, or it may wind away from where you want to go, or you might not be able to turn right.  Luckily, I am not afraid of driving here.  The other senior sister missionaries I know don’t (won’t) drive.  Two of them don’t have a car and use the bus/train transportation.  The other one always lets her husband drive.  On Saturday the four male senior missionaries went for an outing and so the four of us sister missionaries were on foot.  We walked all over—showing me different stores.  We came home for lunch and then went out again.  We walked to a ‘walking street’ –Strøget, which is filled with all kinds of shops and tourist traps.  It was a hot day for Denmark—over 80˚ and a lot more humid than it has been.  (I know it is nothing like Houston—but hey, I can complain a little).  So when we got back to the apartment, the ladies wanted to go grocery shopping (we shop nearly every day) but didn’t want to go walking so far, plus carrying groceries home didn’t sound fun.  Our car was left home, so I suggested we drive.  They were all surprised that I wanted to do it.  We worried a bit about parking, but decided to take our chances.  We found a spot to park which was not much bigger than my car.  It only took me two attempts to parallel park (I haven’t done that in years) in such a tight space.  On the first attempt, my wheels were in the bicycle lane so I had to do it again.  There are no real curbs so it is hard to know how close you are.  Anyway, it seems I am the brave one.  I told them it was a necessity as Dad’s eyes are not good at night so I would have to drive anyway if we are to go places. 

If we are not doing official church business, we try to walk.  But we even decided it was better to walk to the institute center which is about a 25-minute walk.  We met the CES director on Monday and parking was over $10 on the street.  It is cheaper after 6 p.m. and we learned it is free on Sundays.  In the town of Frederiksberg where we live, parking is free for the first 2 hours.  (That is where we did our grocery shopping.  Every car has a sticker clock on the windshield with a moveable hand.  You move the hand to show that time you park the car.  That way the meter police know whether to ticket you or not.  If you forget, you will get a ticket.)  Walking is okay because everyone does it, but the paths that are cobblestone are particularly hard on your feet if you are not wearing the right shoes.  I learned that after we wandered around for a while (obviously lost) looking for the dry cleaners for Dad’s suit pants.  We did find it finally and actually hadn’t made too many wrong turns but it always seems to take a long time when you don’t know where you are going. 

One way of getting around is by bicycle.  Dad is seriously thinking about getting bikes.  It would be great for now, but I don’t see us biking in the dark.  It would be great exercise, but I would worry about keeping up with the host of Danes who choose that method of transportation—you know my biking skills are lacking somewhat.  It really is incredible to walk by a movie theater or other attraction on a Sunday evening and see the hundreds of bicycles parked outside.  Our Temple President’s wife bikes all over.  She came by bicycle to the missionary dinner at the Knudsens’s.  Her husband rode the bus along with other senior missionaries, so she came by herself.  She is older than I am.  She and her husband served as mission presidents here (about 7-8 years ago) and are just finishing up their third year with the temple.  I guess she is used to it.  She does her grocery shopping by bike, even if she has to make two trips.   Another couple (the male missionary) comes home after ‘work’ (photographing records for Family Search) and rides his bicycle to just explore and unwind.  He might go out of the city quite far and then takes the train home—yes, there are certain cars on the train reserved for bicycles.  

While we walking home on Saturday from one of our shopping trips, we walked along the lakes by our apartment.  I saw a family of swans—the parents were being very protective of the cygnets.  It reminded me of the story of “The Ugly Duckling” by none other than Danish Hans Christen Anderson.  It was the perfect opening for my talk.  I talked about knowing who we are and how that makes a difference in how we live our lives.  If we feel we don’t belong, aren’t pretty enough, smart enough, or clever enough, then we become discouraged and allow Satan to influence our destiny.  But when we understand that we have divine parentage and a celestial destiny, we can have the courage to do things even when we don’t quite fit in.  The key is looking into the water and seeing our reflection as God sees us—He ‘looketh on the heart” and created ‘noble and great ones” and He “saw these souls that they were good.”  I have always felt my Dad knew who he was, even before he joined the church.  Something within helped him see that he was capable of doing anything he wanted.  If he wanted to learn to do something, he would study and teach himself.  I remember him telling me that once on a date, he was embarrassed because he didn’t know how to dance.  The other kids ‘pecked’ at him (ugly duckling) and made fun of him.  Instead of never going to a dance again, he was determined to learn how.   He contributed all his earnings from his after school work to the household, but at this time, he would keep out $5 so he could take dance lessons.  He not only learned to dance, he learned very well and did ballroom dancing floor shows in college.   All his woodworking was self-taught, as well as his art work (other than a few classes in high school).  He may not have been great in the eyes of the world, but he is my hero.  He always knew who he was and lived a life worthy of his divine nature. 

Elder Gerrit W. Gong spoke to the graduates at BYU-Hawaii and said, “No matter a person’s quest, it is important to remember one’s true, divine identity.”  Then he told the students to keep learning wherever they are and whatever they do with the goal to bless their families, the church and the community.  We always need to have goals; we always need to learn; and we always need to remember who we are (and whose we are).  With that, we can go forward to help others, and bless many lives as well as our own. 

Have a great week.

Med kærlighed, Mom