One night at 9:30, we noticed several people gathered around a chimney that is outside our apartment. Some guy, most likely drunk, had decided to climb to the top of this chimney—no longer in use, but was used when these buildings were an old porcelain factory. He was just sitting on the top dangling his legs. There is a kind of ladder on the opposite side. Soon emergency vehicles were coming. I guess the guy decided he had had enough adventure for one night, so he started climbing down. He was half way down before the fire department had the ‘bounce house’ in place. He let go and fell when he was almost down—less than two stories up. Pretty scary.
Summer home for Frederik VI in the early 1800s. Today it is a police academy. When you enter the doors of the castle, you enter into a courtyard.
Elephant bridge in Carlsberg
Statue commemorating the school that was bombed in Denmark during WWII. It's a 1 mile walk from our apartment.
Kære
Familie, July
24, 2016
We have had a wonderful week. The Senior Conference we attended this week was a very nice a spiritual uplift, both in associating with great people and in the instruction we received. The temple session was also great as we had a session just for us. (The temple normally doesn’t have a session until 5:30 on Wednesday.) We provided the temple workers for that session. Another couple officiated the session. Dad and I, plus another couple were taken through the veil first and then we assisted the others through the veil. Dad had it easier because he can work the other side of the veil in his temple robes. I had to quickly remove mine and come back in. We have the opportunity to go to the temple at least once a week, but other couples who serve outside Copenhagen don’t have that opportunity. So it was especially nice for them. Over and over I realize how fortunate we are to be serving where we are serving. Other areas may be more picturesque, but we are close to the temple, close to other missionary couples, and close to sites of the city.
On
Wednesday, the president and his wife shared training from their mission
presidents’ conference. We watched a
talk by President Uchtdorf. One of the
things I took away from his talk was that the fruit of missionary work is seen in
the life of the missionary many years after.
And so I ask my children who have served missions, “Is that true of
you?” I believe it is. The president also referenced a talk by Neal
A. Maxwell ("Swallowed Up in the Will of the
Father") which I would highly recommend. Elder Maxwell tells us that what separates
the terrestrial (‘honorable’ but not ‘valiant’) from the celestial are sins of
omission. Good talk for self-reflection.
We
were also trained on how to best influence the younger missionaries with whom
we interact. Most of all the president
stressed that we are to be examples of what a good marriage is. (He is constantly reminding us of this.) Many of the missionaries have not seen a good
example in their own homes, or they come from divorced or inactive
families. Many youth, because of these
examples in their lives, are reluctant to marry or may even fear it. It hurts that our generation may have been
the cause of the trend we see in today’s young people of putting off
marriage. We had a lesson at Institute this week on
Elder Holland’s Oct. 2015 talk “Behold Thy Mother.” A young adult taught the lesson. She asked the class to think of ways they can
show appreciation to their mothers or give back in some way. One young man (25 years old and recently
graduated from college) said, “I can get married and give her
grandchildren.” We all laughed, but how
true that is! I’m glad he recognizes
that. Another young man gave the closing
prayer and asked that they would all meet their spouses at Festinord. So I guess it is on their minds.
A couple of other things
we need to do for missionaries:
·
Help them see the vision of the great service they can
perform.
·
Help them to see that obedience brings blessings; exact
obedience brings miracles
·
Help them understand that they are here to serve, not to be
served. (We are not to be their moms and
dads)
·
Encourage them to improve ‘finding’, to certify in family
history, to study PMG
·
Let them do the teaching when we go with them to
appointments—we need to be the member missionaries.
·
Encourage them to find joy in the work, not joy from the
work.
Our
FHE on Monday kind of fell apart during the afternoon. We were studying and we got one text message
after another: Can you bring the
refreshments? Can you do the spiritual
thought? Can you come up with an
activity? (Hence those frantic messages
to all of you for the name of the game--“Game of Things.”) It turns out there
are a lot of clues for that game on the internet. So we made up a list, cut up paper and were
ready. I picked up some frozen tarts on
the way to institute which I cooked (couldn’t find ice cream bars???). I gave a thought about Joseph Smith in
anticipation of our investigator being there.
The missionaries who are teaching him said that is something he still
has questions about. But, alas, the
investigator wasn’t there. Still, we had
a good discussion of D & C 135:3. We
didn’t play “The Game of Things” because another young man came up with a
game. He gave two people a scenario
where they had to have a conversation using 5 words each. Their individual team had to guess which were
the 5 words at the end of the conversation.
One scenario was meeting at the salon where the hairdresser accidently
turns her client’s hair blue. Another
one (which the two AP missionaries did) was sitting in the public restroom
where one needed to ask the other for toilet paper—it was all in Danish so we
didn’t get the implications behind this scene, but everyone had a good
laugh. The others were in English
because the Danish words were too hard. We
don’t mind helping out with any of these activities, and it really isn’t hard
for us to do (except activities?) but we also don’t want the youth to give away
the responsibility that they are so capable of doing.
The
young adults are definitely warming up to us—always thanking us for our
service—and appreciate our efforts. We
see them in random places—when we come out of the temple, or at the church when
we have our district meeting and they always greet us warmly. We know their names and always stop to greet
them and visit with them. These are
great young people. We have also built a
relationship with the BYU exchange students, especially one who has continued
to attend FHE and Institute each week.
We will see them at Festinord as well.
There is a group of YSA from Iceland who came to Copenhagen this week to
attend the temple and then go on to Festinord.
One of these youth came to FHE and Institute this week and was on our
temple session Friday morning. So we
have gotten to know him as well. He is a
semi-pro soccer player—trained with the Iceland team—but chose to go on a
mission rather than pursue a soccer career.
He showed us a video on his phone of the welcome the Iceland team
received when they came home for the world games. He said that there is roughly 350,000 people
in Iceland. 150,000 people were there to
greet the team at the city hall square—pretty impressive.
The
one thing I will miss about our apartment when we move back to the other one is
the beautiful Frederiksberg Gardens. I
love my peaceful walks through the gardens a few mornings each week. (Of course when we go back to the other
apartment we will walk around the lakes again, so that is nice as well.) Just
south of the garden, across the street from the zoo, is another
park—Søndermarken. On Saturday we
explored there with another missionary couple.
Underneath this park are cisterns which we visited. The cisterns used to be an old water
reservoir built in 1856. It was
instrumental in improving the water supply in Copenhagen. Previous to this, the water was not good to
drink. There was a cholera epidemic that
wiped out 4,800 people. The cisterns
were used until 1981. Now they are part
of the national museum. We couldn’t take
pictures, but it was just three large cavernous rooms. The temperature was considerable cooler than
outside and you literally felt like you were in a cave. Because of the seeping water from on top of
the cisterns, it has become a dripstone ‘cave.’
You could see where stalactites were forming (from the decomposition of
the concrete roof), some several feet long.
The park was full of people because it was a warm day—high 70’s. We are now actually experiencing summer
weather—so different from a week ago. (We
haven’t had any rain for several days now, whereas last week it rained almost
every day.) There were families
picnicking and having birthday parties, and some who were just laying out in
bikinis to get tan. We walked from there
to a part of the city called Carlsberg where the beer dynasty created by J.C.
Jacobson was built. This is the same
entrepreneur who funded the restoration of the Frederiksberg Castle which
houses the Carl Bloch paintings. The
most interesting thing about this area was the elephant bridge—see pictures. It is always interesting to see the old
buildings and the statues on the building.
We walked over to a small park which had zip lines and a high ropes
course. Something to do when the
grandchildren come for a visit???? Too
scary for grandma, ha ha. We walked back
to Frederiksberg gardens and took a row boat ride along the canals in the
park. A very pleasant morning.
Well I
wanted to share a few thoughts from a BYU-I talk by Yohan Delton. Dad probably referenced it in his last
letter, but if you haven’t listened, I’ve included the link. Here are my favorite quotes that he says
about ‘enmity,’
“Enmity,
you see, is a wedge that we sometimes place between people. Enmity is strongest
when we choose to hate. Enmity is the end of goodwill towards others.
Now,
if the father of deception wants to strike at the plan of salvation and engage
his plan of misery using misplaced enmity, what will he do? I believe the
answer is simple. He will have us turn nasty on each other. He will nurture
hatred in our hearts.”
Brother Delton quotes Elder M. Russell
Ballard who taught: “…that the family is the main target of evil's attack
and must therefore be the main point of our protection and defense. As I said
once before, when you stop and think about it from a diabolically tactical
point of view, fighting the family makes sense to Satan. When he wants to
disrupt the work of the Lord, he doesn't poison the world's peanut butter
supply, thus bringing the Church's missionary system to its collective knees.
He doesn't send a plague of laryngitis to afflict the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
He doesn't legislate against green Jell-O and casseroles. When evil wants to
strike out and disrupt the essence of God's work, it attacks the family.”
He also quotes Christine
Gilbert, who gave a devotional address in January of this year titled "Happiness
in Family Life." She taught:
"Happiness in marriage comes when we are attuned to the needs of our
companion and serve our spouse in Christ-like ways."
Brother Delton
cautions us not to base our relationships around a model that is called the
social exchange theory. This is when the social exchange is transactional. You
give me this, I give you that. That theory would never work in our
relationship with the Lord: "If
ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving
you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do
according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I
say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be
unprofitable servants." Mosiah 2:21
We need to show that same kind of service and love to our spouses, our family.
“Love is not about
measuring what we give or get or what others give or get. Love is about serving
and loving, continually, infinitely, and selflessly, despite imperfections, and
because of imperceptions. Love is a person. It is not a technique, nor a book,
nor a ratio. It is infinite, and beyond count. Love is not about fairness. I do
not believe the Atonement was fair to the Lord; I think it was hugely to our
advantage that he performed the Atonement.”
We
love reading your letters and emails. We
love your insights into scripture and sharing your talk (Clayton). All these things give us such a lift. Hope you have a great week.
Med
kærlighed,
Mom
Kære Familie, Sunday,
July 24, 2016
Friday evening, the AP's called at 6:00 to see if we could join them for an 8:00 discussion with a single sister. We did not have any plans for a change so we joined in on our first missionary discussion since we have been here. This sister was ready to write them off as she is not interested in continuing further with the discussions. She wanted to say goodbye to Elder Rebber however as a friend, who goes home in 2 weeks. She has had all of the discussions it appears over a few sets of elders and had read some of the BofM and has adopted some of the standards and principles as her own. She just cannot see herself ever changing from the state religion. The visit was nice. They talked about baptism and had us bear our testimonies on the temple and how it has blessed us and our families. In the end however, she said she just was not going to change and so there was no point in continuing the visits. She was too busy to devote more time to it and as long as the queen was Lutheran and it was the official country religion, she feels like she owes it an allegiance. It is law here that the queen and king must follow the state religion. There was good news Saturday morning however. The AP's called early. The sister from last night, called them this morning and said she had had a change of heart overnight. Our visit perhaps helped a bit, at least she said she liked us and wanted us to come back with them for some more discussions. We will have to wait until after Festinord to see her but that was heart-warming news.
One of the interesting things we talked about tonight with
the AP's was about the state religion and how it all plays into the lives of
the people. They stated that religion is
becoming very unimportant to the people and that the priests do not help a
lot. Some of the priests do not believe
in God themselves, but because it is a good profession and pays very well, they
go into it as a job. In that sense, they act more like psychologists who can
help the people with personal problems, more like counselors. They are biblically educated, so they can
quote and lead people to scripture that might help them in a temporal sense but
not necessarily spiritually.
This reminded me immediately of Joseph Smith's story where
the Lord stated, "They draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts
are far from me. They teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a
form of godliness but they deny the power thereof." It seems to me that this is the end result of
the focus on secularism and maybe a foreshadow of where nations end up if they
allow religion to die off or for secularism to become more commonplace. Satan must rejoice with the results. It is manifest through a people that are very
content without religion and where temporal things take priority. Their hearts are hard and their ears are deaf
to the things of the spirit.
Another discussion we had earlier in the week was on the
effects of socialism and the high taxes they have here. The people pay between
40 and 60% in taxes and there is some grumbling but we heard that in a recent
poll, the majority of the people would pay 2% more in taxes if it were
dedicated to parks, recreation or more social programs. They really like their social network and are
very proud of the fact that it is a leading country in terms of the lack of
disparity in incomes. I think that means
they have a very large middle class and not much in the way of poor or wealthy
classes. We were told that the people
know they might do better economically personally in America, but they would
rather have their system of safety, security and pensions rather than the
potential but risk of doing better. It
has led to a very complacent society where there is not much incentive for
pushing upwards. The Danes think of it
as contentment and they are supposedly one of the happiest countries in the
world. By law, they only can work 37 hours
a week. A burger flipper at McDonald's
makes the equivalent of $27 an hour. And
of course they get 6 weeks of paid vacation and a lot of them seem to take 4
weeks together in July. Not all
bad. We have talked to some of the YSA’s
about attending school at BYU, especially those who have served mission in the
US and know our lifestyle. There are
some that do, but the colleges here are free and are pretty good so it is not
easy for them to give up a free education even with the advantages that BYU might
offer. In my view, one of those
advantages is a pool of potential marriage partners. There choices are pretty limited if they only
can look within their stake. There are
maybe 40 – 50 active in our stake and a few less in the other Denmark
stake. Consequently, you can see the
importance of a larger stage for YSA activities where they can meet other good
members of the church. I think I have
commented that there seems to be a lot of marriages with a spouse from another
country, including several from the USA.
This week we are off to Sweden for a YSA conference near
Stockholm called Festinord, where 840 youth are coming from all over the world,
but mostly Scandinavian countries. It
runs Monday through Saturday. We are
really looking forward to seeing how such a big event is handled. This year is the 50th anniversary
of this event and it has grown a bit every year. This is a record turnout for the
anniversary. We are leaving early in the
morning for the 8-hour drive with the Yates, who were in the MTC with us. We have a hostel we are staying in and will
report what that is like. We have a
private bedroom with 2 single beds and a shared bathroom – not sure how many
rooms share it – I hope it is just one other one. We do
not know our duties yet, but we will pitch in and help wherever they need us
with the usual food lines, setting and taking down chairs, chaperoning,
etc. The kids recognize this as a lot of
fun but also as a “meat market” where they search for a potential spouse. This was illustrated to us Thursday at
Institute where in the opening prayer, the young man prayed that they would
each be able to find a future spouse at Festinord. How is that for pressure!
On Monday, we went to the language class for probably the
last time with our senior conference and then Festinord the rest of this week
and next. It was not remarkable and
after an hour they headed on another walking tour to a clothing store. Before that, Marion talked a bit and handed
out some worksheets on shopping. I will
use them as conversations with mom but the class actually never went through
them together.
The bad news is that the repair shop gave up on mom's
phone. They said the mother board is
probably corrupted and we will need to replace it. Unfortunately, it was bothersome but working
prior to trying to repair it and now we have nothing. She might have also lost some pictures and
her contacts, etc. The biggest loss will
be her Wi-Fi internet access, the camera and a podcast player for her
walks. I think we need to seek a
replacement but she is not interested in that at the moment. We will need to see how it develops and how
much she misses it.
Forslunds drove in our car with us to the Seniors' Conference and it was fun to catch up on their 4 weeks in Denmark. I would say they have had even more adventures than we have with a new mission apartment to set up and make clean, mold, internet service, etc. Their assignment seems even harder with 2 small branches they are supposed to help which are 45 minutes apart. Both are on the verge of being closed down due to lack of priesthood and members attending. We also had small conversations with Larsens, Yates and Sister Johnson who have assignments with YSA's similar to ours. It seems like we all have similar issues with down time and lots of youth who need to be activated and strengthened. If anything, we have the plum assignment here in Copenhagen where there are the greatest number of YSA's to call on. I am grateful for these wonderful youth that we have been serving with. We are also very blessed to have our weekly temple assignment. None of the non-Danish speakers seem to be doing any better with the language than we have. That is both encouraging and discouraging. Some seem to have given up and are settling in on English. That is not what we want to do. I need to spend more time on Duo Lingo and the MTC tools and we need to force ourselves to speak more to each other. It will help when we can actually take the local language courses after we have our CPR registrations.
We met with Elder Buxton this morning and he turned the
Banner newsletter over to us. This is a
mission newsletter prepared in Publisher every transfer, which is every 6
weeks. The next edition needs to be done
by about August 3rd. We need to start by
gathering 4 pictures and testimonies of the departing missionaries. It also includes a message from the mission
president and his wife. Mom will take
the lead on this I think as it is one of her talents. We see us getting more involved little by
little and I think we will eventually be fully engaged – not that we are not
now, it is just that we have some hours where we need to be creative or we
default to language study (which is a good thing.)
We will have some fun things to say about Festinord next week. We are leaving at 4:00 am to hit the road to
Sweden!
Love Dad.
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