Roskilde Cathedral
built around 1170
Houses the remains of many Danish monarchy as well as some of the famous bishops.
Dear Family, Sunday, July 3, 2016
The
Danish language is tough. I would
give me a failing grade so far. My
brain has a hard time remembering anything.
Even the pronunciation of common words is difficult because after I
memorize the sound, I get confused the next time I want to use the word – is it
like this or like that? Part of the
problem is that it is so easy to speak English.
Whether in church, the store, buying tickets or with the YSA everyone
speaks English well and they seem delighted to have a chance to speak it. I certainly am picking up a few more words
and recognizing them in some sentences, but I really can’t pray or bear a simple
testimony yet. Scared to speak? Yes!
Scared to make mistakes! I
studied testimony phrases this morning since it is Fast Sunday and I thought I
might have a chance to bear my testimony.
With the help of Google Translator and our MTC helps, I came up with a
paragraph or two of more than primary grade phrases. But when it came to being in Church, I could
not remember them. Meaning that at this
point, I need to have the testimony written out so I can read it. It would be way too much effort to speak from
the heart and try to translate on my feet what I would like to say, and then
there is my 62 year old memory that is having a hard time getting things to
stick.
A
few words about our first temple ordinance experience. They threw us right into working after our 9:15
preparation meeting with just a quick tour before the 10:00 session began,
which was in English. I officiated with
Jean. It went well. I wasn’t even sure what buttons they used or
what I should do if something went wrong.
Thank goodness the buttons are the same and it was almost uneventful. They don’t have a waiting chapel so the
patrons come directly to the only ordinance room. As they were closing the doors after seating
everyone, I sort of waved to them to wait – because we didn’t have a witness
couple! They had overlooked that little detail.
So the coordinator just asked two people to be witnesses – they were not
married to each other. The Houston
temple would never do that. If they
don’t have a married couple on the session, then they send in two ordinance
workers to be witnesses. Also one other kind of funny thing on my part that
happened about 9:50. I was looking over the altar and noticed that there wasn’t
a prayer roll or a pointer to use at the veil.
I went the temple Matron who was in the hall outside the room to ask
about that. She smiled and said I would
find those in the Terrestrial room – I had forgotten that they change
rooms. I am sure mom was thinking “duh,
and they are going to let him lead this session?” So through the early part of the session, I
was really nervous that when I led the company from the creation room to the
Terrestrial room that I wouldn’t be able to find it! Our tour was so quick that I am still
confused over the layout of the temple. I
knew we had to go up some stairs and make a turn down a hall, but then I
couldn’t remember where we went after that.
It all turned out fine with no need to worry. And mom said my prayer for the prayer circle
was very nice. After the session, they have a 30-minute
lunch break it seems if the temple is not busy.
We did not bring any food with us however. Then I was thrown into initiatory. 2 on
1. The patron was another ordinance
worker. We did a mixed language session
with me using English and the other worker using Danish. I had both language
cards in the booths and tried to follow along with the Danish but he spoke so
fast and seemed to just skip many words in each sentence, that it was very hard
to get much out of the Danish words. The
English came back pretty quickly but with the 2 languages, I would get confused
once in a while if I was not really concentrating on what was coming next. We did 14 names and I think I had at least
the English down well by the end. I
don’t think I will ever learn the Danish to say it like they do.
Thursday, we had our first Institute experience. We had to be at the CUV at 3:00 to open it up
for Brother Andersen as he loaned his keys to the BYU exchanges students. Institute starts at 7:00. We walked from the apartment to save the
parking cost (20-25 min walk), which is very expensive until after 6:00
pm. We were weighed down with bags with
a small dinner and a pan of brownies and it started to rain really hard on
us. We both had umbrellas but with the
wind and our arms full it was sort of tough and we got a little wet. It was not
a time to get lost, but of course I managed that. I was positive I knew the way and was headed
directly there, but mom was sure I was taking a wrong turn at one point. So
picture us huddled together under umbrellas, weighed down trying to figure out
the GPS on mom’s phone which does not have very good map, both positive we knew
which way to go (not the same direction) and of course talking very sweetly to
each other. Mom eventually convinced
stubborn me that she was right and we got there 8 minutes late. I was leading us in an angle away from the
center. Brother Andersen was waiting on us and trying to call to see where we
were. We had a small dinner of chicken
salad with Brother Anderson at about 6:00.
He continues to impress. The
class started with 10 Danish students but at 7:30, 9 BYU living abroad students
came in. This was their first day in
Denmark and they will be here for 4 weeks and then 2 in Norway. Bro Anderson switched the lesson to English
for them and it is amazing how effortlessly everyone can switch languages. He based the lesson on Elder Renlund's talk
from general conference on lessening the distance between us and the Lord. The more distance there is, the more
dependent we are instead of being independent. “As we draw closer to God, the
enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ will come into our lives.” He had
the students identify and then explain the 9 basic gospel doctrines, most of
which are found in the talk.
Sarah (YSA leader) found out it was my birthday Wednesday
and she made a traditional Danish b-day cake for me and then everyone sang
their country b-day song that uses pretend instruments. After Institute, the youth talked, ate and
some watched the first period of a World Cup soccer game. It looked like a long night, but they decided
not to watch the 2nd period.
2 goals were scored, one by each team, and it actually was pretty
exciting at times. The goals were
exceptional plays. We got home at about 10:30.
Well, that’s it for this week. We are loving the experiences but are frustrated that miracles are not
raining down on us every day. It is nice to finally have our own apartment so
we are not sharing living space and can be more of ourselves. We miss all of you. Hugs and kisses to each.
Love, Dad
Kære Familie, July
3, 2016
We have moved into our own apartment. The apartment became available on Friday,
July 1st. After the mission
office did a ‘walk through’ and signed the lease agreement, it was ready for
us. We visited the apartment after the
temple with Elder Buxton (office couple).
It is a very nice place—small, but in many ways roomier than our last
place. We will be here only temporarily
until the Brookes go home and then we will move back to that apartment. It has a living room as well as a family
room/dining room. The bedroom is very
small—only room for a bed, but when we turned the bed a different direction and
pushed it towards the wall, we were able to fit a small dress in it as
well. There is a 36-40-inch television,
two small couches--one in each living area, a book shelf and a dresser. The closets are outside the bedroom in the
living room, but they look like large cupboard doors. The kitchen is small and is between the two
living areas. The bathroom is small, but
has a washer and dryer in it. The floors
are wood and there are a lot of windows—very light. Dad doesn’t think it has much artificial
light (no overhead lighting), but I think it is just fine. It will be our home for 2 months. The one big downside is that we don’t have
internet. We hope to get that fixed next
week. We can’t order internet ourselves
because we are not ‘legal.’ It may take
4-5 more months before we get our CPR number.
But the mission office will get us a hot spot, and we will pay
them.
Our walk-through on Friday gave us an idea of things we
needed to buy. We spent Saturday buying the needed items and moving. There is a storage unit in the parking garage
(yes, we have underground parking) for each apartment. We can store our suitcases there as well as
the things we don’t want in the apartment.
We were exhausted when we finally went to bed Saturday night, but it was nice to be in
our own place.
You are probably asking why we didn’t move on Friday—well
that is because we had tickets to a symphony concert at Tivoli. Again, our senior missionary friends had
planned an outing and asked us if we wanted to join them. We went to hear the Tivoli Copenhagen
Philharmonic Orchestra with 70 musicians.
It was a special program:
Spielberg and Williams—the music of John Williams. Williams teamed up with Spielberg in the
1970’s to create scores for such films as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Hook, E.T.,
Jaws, Schindlers List, War of the Worlds, among others. The program included clips from the various
movies while the symphony played the music.
It was excellent—very enjoyable.
We had our first day in the temple on Friday. We had very little training—a quick tour of
the temple after prayer meeting (which was in Danish). The temple is small and the tour took about
15 minutes. The temple president showed
us around. There are 4 floors: The main floor has the recommend desk, temple
office and first endowment room. This
room has beautiful murals painted on the wall.
We move from that room to the Terrestial room during the session, which
is on the next floor. The Celestial room
is also located on this floor, as well as sealing rooms. The large sealing room is about the size of
the Houston Temple. The smaller sealing
room (only one additional sealing room) is much larger than the small sealing
rooms in the Houston Temple. There are two floors below the entry floor—the
dressing rooms and small kitchen area on the next level, and the basement
houses the baptistery. There are also
beautiful murals on the baptistery walls.
It is a very lovely baptism area.
We officiated the first session—we were just pointed in the
right direction and told to go for it.
They did tell Dad which veil to demonstrate on, and how many should be
in the prayer circle. It all went very
smoothly—we had 10 patrons on the session.
I spent the next few hours doing sealings while Dad did initiatory. I was Søster ‘Shortlive’ during the sealings,
with the sealer joking that he hoped I wouldn’t have a short life. It was all in Danish, but I did get to the
point where I started to recognize a few phrases. I did my part in Danish as well: “Ja.” We love our work in the temple.
Our FHE on Monday was a BBQ in the park—located on one of
the canals. There was a roped-off area
for swimming, but it was too cold for me.
This week has been a lot different, temperature wise—67-73 during the
day and in the 50’s at night. It has
also rained a lot—but very sporadically.
(One morning, I got quite wet walking in the rain.) There was a huge turn-out, 25-30 kids. We met many that we had not seen before. Everyone was to bring their own dinner and
they had one-time-use grills to cook on.
We did hamburgers, but YSA’s brought hot dogs, chicken, and fish. We are so American! I made potato salad. This outing necessitated a trip to the
grocery store. I go shopping every other
day! We hung around for a couple of
hours, but then our parking meter ran out so we started to head out. Just then the rain came. So we quickly helped pack everything up. The rain really squelched the party. As we were running to our car (no umbrella),
I got a call from one of the YSA’s asking if we could open the UV Center so
that some of them to come and watch a movie.
We said sure, and headed that way.
That is our job—open the center so the youth can congregate in wholesome
activities. They watched ‘The Good
Dinosaur.’ We closed up the center about
11 p.m. that night.
On Tuesday we had a unge voksne social in Roskilde, a city
about 30 minutes from Copenhagen (but with traffic it took us longer). We were told that there was a must-see church
there, so we left a few hours early so we could stop in the see the
church. It is called the Roskilde
Cathedral and houses the remains for many Danish Monarchy as well as some of
the famous Bishops. I know that sounds
morbid, but it is really interesting to see the sepulchers of these ancient
monarchs--some are very elaborate. The
church was first built around 1170 (although other churches were built on the
same spot as early as 985). The church
includes a lot of chapels which are really just rooms added to the sides of the
church. Each chapel houses a monarchal family, usually
4-15 coffins or monuments/sepulchers. We
enjoyed reading about the various royal families and their contributions to
Denmark.
Our social was at the home of the UV advisors. There were four prospective YSA’s and 5 YSA,
including a young woman who had just returned last week from her mission in
France. Dinner was do-it-yourself
kabobs, which we grilled, and s’mores for dessert. They don’t have graham crackers over here so
they taste a little different. It was a
nice evening, but unless we are talking one-on-one in English, we feel a little
out of it because all conversation is in Danish. We are slowly getting to know everyone.
Hope everyone has a great week! Happy 4th of July!
Med kærlighed,
Mom
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