August 21,2016: Martin's baptism, Zone Conference, Elder Eaves' Conversion story

 We went to a city called Slagelse. Then we drove over to the coast to see the bridge to the island Fyn—Storebæltsbroen—the 3rd longest suspension bridge in the world. We didn’t cross the bridge because the toll would be too much but we took a picture and drove along the coast for a little bit.

Mom eating "Danish Dessert"!

Another outing was to Hundested—the place we went the first Saturday we arrived in Denmark. We went yesterday after the baptism by train again, which makes for a leisurely ride through the countryside. I am happy to leave the driving to someone else. We enjoyed the visit with the 3 other senior missionary couples. We went to see a sand sculpture exhibit—very interesting.

Kære Familie, August 21, 2016

Yesterday we saw our first Young Adult baptism here in Denmark. I have mentioned Martin Fredberg before—someone who has associated with our group of Young Adults for some time (over a year) and has been coming more regularly to church. Our YSA’s encircle him with their friendship and love, as demonstrated by the support they showed yesterday at the baptism and today at the confirmation. Martin attended institute this week and was the ‘group presenter’ after the instructor had divided everyone into groups to discuss a famous woman in the scriptures. He has a good understanding of the gospel and always participates in discussions. I am very hopeful that he will continue in his progress and maybe his mother (who attended the baptism) will want to know more as well. One of our YSA’s had that happen a few years ago when she joined the church at 18. (I thought she had been a member a long time.) Her mother followed her into the waters of baptism just 6 months after her own baptism. So we will see. We spoke to Martin’s mother and told her what a fine young man he is. I’m sure she could feel the love and support her son has in the church. She was there again today to see him receive the Holy Ghost. One of the YSA’s did that blessing.

We spent a busy week between apartment inspections and Zone conference. On Monday, we went to the big warehouse store again (like Costco) to get the rest of the food for Zone Conference. I made homemade fudge sauce and bought bananas and strawberries for our treat one night. The meal for Zone conference (about 45 people) was a baked potato bar, salad, frikadeller (meatballs), and brownie sundaes. One of the local grocery stores made the baked potatoes and the frikadeller, which I picked up about noon on the day of Zone Conference. My part was having the ‘fixings’ for the potato bar, the salad, and the dessert. The mission president’s wife made ranch dressing (because she has ranch packets--a favorite treat for the missionaries) for the salad. Zone Conference started at 9 a.m.; we took a zone picture; I left to pick up the food; lunch was served about 2 p.m; we didn’t get back to our apartment until after 5. It was good to be with a few of the other senior missionaries, who were so helpful with set up and clean up.

We saw a video clip from some training given to the mission presidents. Elder Neil L. Andersen said that many believe there are areas of the world more difficult for missionary work. Some joke that for every baptism in Scandinavia, there are many, many more in Mexico or Polynesian islands. But he said we must not think that way. The Lord has prepared people in all lands to join the church. He quoted Jeremiah 3:14, “and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion.” That is what is happening here. We saw it today with Martin. So it comes—slowly, but it is still the future of the church in Europe.

The president also gave a great discourse about Alma, the younger, as a missionary. He used Alma 5 to point out the kind of thoughtful questions Alma directed to the people while he was teaching. It was enlightening to look at these chapters in Alma as a model for good missionary work—not just for the doctrine and the story.

On Friday we had an Institute Kick-off. We had a planning meeting for this in early July, but some of those plans didn’t quite come to fruition despite are efforts. We are learning that the YSA leaders have their way of doing things which may or may not be what their stake leaders suggest. Still the evening went well. We wanted to focus on the up-coming young adults so we invited all the 17-year-olds in the stake to come. We had 8 of these young people and may of our YSA’s as well. We fed over 30 people, so everyone thought it was a success. One of the YSA’s planned the food—lasagna. It is very different from our traditional Italian lasagna. There were lasagna noodles and a meat sauce, but no cheese layer. Instead they used a Mornay sauce—which is a cheese sauce made with Gruyère cheese. I brought left-over salad from Zone Conference (had to add some more lettuce and tomatoes), made Ranch dressing, and brought left over ice cream (because no one had planned dessert). Everything got eaten so I would say it was a success. After dinner, the youth broke into small groups to play games. There was a table playing a rip-roaring Uno game, another playing spade, another playing a 7 Wonders game, and another one I didn’t recognize—kind of a Settlers of Catan game—all in Danish. One young man went home to get a play station soccer game which a few played on the TV. This activity was held at the institute center. Everyone seemed to have a good time. Most of the YSA’s left by 10, but one group held out to 11. They were all at the baptism the next morning at 10 a.m. It was a late night for us as we stayed to clean up, vacuum, etc. Most of the clean-up was done—the YSA’s really are good to help.

Med kærlighed, Mom

Kære Familie, Sunday, August, 21, 2016

We had the office elders and 2 sisters to dinner tonight. That is always fun to see them interact with each other and with us. It is a little different than feeding them at home because we all wear the badge! We feel part of their work. Elder Eaves is a convert of 3 years from Beaumont, TX. Mom asked him to tell his conversion story over dinner and it was quite entertaining. There are many lessons in it for all of us. I think you might enjoy picking out some lessons for your family. I have inserted a few hints! Here is what I remember from what he said.

   As a senior in high school he was attracted to a very pretty girl who was Mormon. Everyone knew who the Mormon kids were (a good thing) but they had a reputation of being a bit above everyone else and the non-Mormon boys knew that the Mormon girls would not date them (a bit of a bad thing). There were 20 to 30 Mormons in every grade level in his High School. He pursued her anyway and as they became friends he found that he wanted to act like he lived her standards so that she would want to be around him. The trouble with that was that he had to actually live the standards in order to act like he did. Slowly over a little time, he changed his standards so that he was no longer partying with his old friends. He spent quite a bit of time with her family and was really impressed with their family togetherness and the way they interacted and had fun with each other. One time he asked her about her Mormon beliefs and what they were all about, and she only said, "Oh, they are not for everyone." (a bad thing). Another time with her mom present, he asked what the Book of Mormon was all about. He assumed it was the Mormon rule book and he wanted to know what other rules he might have to live. Mom responded, that the daughter would tell him all about it. Daughter said that she had never read it. Mom said, "sure you have. Explain it to him." They went outside and daughter said, "I don't know why she said that, I have never read it." so they never discussed it (a bad thing). 

   Through most of a year of dating, they never really talked about the church though it was the thing that attracted him to her (plus a pretty face.) Another time, 2 missionaries 'just happened' to be there when he came over for dinner. He felt a little pressure that they would try to get him to go on a mission (not sure why he jumped to this conclusion) so he persuaded daughter to take him in the other room where she played the piano for him until the missionaries left. (bad thing). He eventually went off to school to Sam Houston State in Huntsville, TX. He was a year ahead of her in school. While there, he self-referred himself from an internet site where he looked up the Book of Mormon and found he could get a free copy, important to him as he had little money. It said 2 representatives would bring it to him. He thought that was pretty cool that they would deliver it to him. They called him the very next day and arranged to meet in a couple of days at the institute center, which just happened to be across the street from his dorm. He passed it every day and did not know what it was. 

  For the first lesson, they talked about the Restoration, Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. He thought that was all pretty cool and it made lots of sense to him. Very shortly, he had a baptismal date for about one month from the date of the first lesson. His parents drove up to the baptismal service and were very happy for him. They were non-denominational Christians and just thought it was great that he was embracing his faith. He told his friend, the daughter, about his baptism. She broke up with him very shortly after that because she wanted to date another non-member young man she had met at school (a bad thing). This was hard on him as he felt cut off suddenly from friends and his anchor to the church. He spent a hard year in Huntsville struggling to stay active without any friends. The institute program had less than 10 people in it and he never connected to them. 

  After that he returned to Beaumont where new church friends swallowed him up and helped him through the transition. 3 years later he is in Denmark and has completed 18 months of his mission. Pretty neat story I think. Too bad he made himself so ready and opportunities were missed to share the gospel with him. We were apt at dinner to be pretty hard on the girl friend who could have done so much to share the gospel. In the end though, we gave her a lot of grace. She did live her standards and could have migrated easily to his. She was not tempted to do that. (I pointed out that would have been a Grease Musical type of an ending.) She is not unlike many of us, who want to talk to friends about the gospel but freeze up when the opportunity is in front of us.

The week has been great and we have been very busy. We have done 5 apartment inspections now and find they can take a lot of time, not so much the inspections as the follow up we want to do to make some corrections. We both feel like there are little things we can do to make their time in the apartments a little more comfortable. They leave the apartments at 11:00 to begin their day so they have quite a bit of time in the morning as they study, plan and have an hour of language study. We have found things like a freezer that is leaking water on the floor, light bulbs that are burned out, a desk chair that will collapse if you put pressure on the back, old cooking pots and pans that are gross, no pans to bake bread or a cake, very old dish towels, no bathroom rug, wood floors that don’t have any rugs, (winters are cold here!), etc. Some of these don’t sound so serious but they are small comfort type of things. The missionaries are not expected to pay those expenses themselves with the money that is allotted to them as the mission has a separate budget to keep apartments outfitted. Hence, we tend to run to the stores after a visit and buy some of these things for them. Some of the more expensive things need office clearance but we got that this weekend for most of these improvements. There are also 2 apartments that don’t have showers or bathtubs. The bathrooms have a shower head on the wall that sprays into the small bathroom and the drain is in the floor. Obviously, everything gets wet when you shower, toilet, sink, walls, floor, etc. They move the toilet paper before they shower so it does not get wet. I think this is awful and that the mission should get them new apartments. 

Here are a few notes from Zone Conference:

• Single most important thing we can do, be excellent missionaries every time around members. It takes 5 min to lose trust and maybe 18 months to rebuild it. 
• Elder Sabin: the Lord has dispatched angels that have been at the sides of our missionaries. All we have to do is completely submit. The promise is that they will continue to assist in the work. 
• Feelings of entitlement are not founded. The members do not owe us anything. 
• There is more that we can lay on the altar of sacrifice. The Lord will bless us as we do.
• Finding new investigators, demands that we have great faith that the Lord has prepared people to hear the message. 
• The happiest missionaries are those who have found a true love for the people and for Denmark. Happy is not a moment, it is a collection of the experiences we have every day; satisfaction with the effort we have expended. 

Our meme FHE activity on Monday was one of the best yet. They really got into it and they all created a meme and several did two. A few stayed around until 10:00 working on them. We had 18 come out, which is our best attendance and they brought laptops ready to go to work. These youth are really great and they are learning great leadership skills.

You might like to know that our mission president has been having some heart palpitations. He flew home Saturday with his wife and will undergo surgery on Tuesday by a heart specialist. They will use a laser to seal off / repair some weak area in his heart. He is expected to have a couple of weeks of recuperation and should return about September 6th. A mission cannot be without a president, so a member of the 70 came last Sunday and set apart our mission finance secretary, Elder Buxton (one of our traveling companions) to be the interim mission president. He is pretty nervous about it. We are praying for his quick and sure recovery. The stresses of a mission have brought back some issues that he had before with his heart but that he thought were all behind him. He said he received a very sweet blessing from Elder Sabin as he came last week to make the temporary changes.

That’s all for this week. It is past bed time as we have to get up very early. Have a great week.

Love, Dad.