Our activity for FHE this week was building towers from potatoes, marshmallows and spaghetti noodles.
Picture from the Zone Training Meeting
Kære Familie, October
2, 2016
I have really enjoyed all the
sessions of conference. I am anxious to
hear your feelings and impressions of the talks. For once, you are ahead of us and will have listened
to all of conference before we have. We
are going to the watch the final Sunday afternoon session for FHE
tomorrow. Like Lindsey, I have enjoyed
the talks on the basics of the gospel.
There is no need for new, eye-opening doctrine. The simple truths of the gospel are the
best—prayer, Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, faith, repentance, priesthood,
missionary work, and . . . yes, home teaching.
I loved President Uchtdorf’s talk on Alma and Amulek—there were many
lessons to be learned from both of these ancient Book of Mormon heroes. The simple truths of the gospel are the
foundation of my faith. Our mission
president’s training last Friday centered around the worlds attack’s on the
Book of Mormon, on Joseph Smith and on other things in the church which the
world tries to refute through logic and facts.
He pointed out the ‘holes’ in the evidence cited by supposed
intellectuals. I will let Dad talk more
about that, but for me that discussion is not necessary. I can dismiss the ‘logic’ and the so-called
‘facts’ because my soul does not lie. My testimony is deep in my soul.
I know with my heart that the church is true, that Joseph Smith is a
prophet, and that the Book of Mormon is true.
I don’t feel I am not an intellectual as I truly love ideas, math
problems, and history. But when it comes
to my testimony, I don’t need an intellectual witness—a spiritual one is all I
need—that and the legacy and sacrifice of those who have gone before.
After our luncheon, we cleaned
up and went to a member’s home where the young adults were meeting to watch
conference. They had an upstairs family
room with a projector and large screen where 17 of us gathered. They had had a dinner before which we missed
because of our missionary meal. It was
nice to be with them. They all seem to
want to watch conference in English and several of them commented on the
music. Almost all of them take
notes. It took one young man an hour and
45 minutes to get there by bus and walking.
Another young woman took a train for about 30 minutes and then biked
another 25 minutes. We had an easy
20-minute drive from the stake center. I
am impressed with their dedication and desire to be together—and maybe a ‘free’
meal?
We talked about the divine roles
of men and women in institute this week.
We spent most of the time on the first lesson--fathers, but I read both
lessons before the actual class, so I felt I was well taught. Dad spent Thursday in the mission office as
we were asked to ‘cover’ for the office couple again. (Their son and wife are in town.) I decided that there was no reason for us
both to go, so I stayed home and prepared dinner for institute.[1] I listened to the ‘additional reading’ talks
while I worked in the kitchen. I really
like when Sister Hinckley said to her husband, “You have always given me wings
to fly and I have loved you for it.” I
hope all the women in our family can say that.
Two videos from the lesson are worth watching, although you may have
seen them before: Jane
Clayson Johnson and mothers. This lesson (and Jared’s little story from
last week) made me think about my role as a mother. Although I have never regretted choosing
motherhood over a career, there have been times in my life when I have
questioned my self-worth. (I think the mothers reading this can relate.) What difference am I making? What contribution to the world? I had nothing to add to the conversation at
Dad’s work dinners while the other women talked about their careers. When you mention that you are a stay-at-home
mom with five children, that doesn’t exactly bring accolades and compliments
from the world, quite the opposite sometimes.
But it is interesting now I have observed ‘retirement’, I have another
perspective. Those careers do end sometime, but my role as wife, mother and
grandmother continues throughout this life and into the eternities. Those years of mothering (whether right or
wrong) continually prepare me for the eternities. I am grateful for the blessing of
motherhood.
We were invited to the Stake
President’s home for dinner on Tuesday.
He lives about 30 minutes outside of Copenhagen—kind of like where we
live outside of Houston. The homes we
have been in are pretty plain on the outside, but they are nice on the inside
with large living spaces. I don’t know about
bedroom space. The stake president had a
nice well-kept backyard. There really
was not much of a front yard, which is also typical. We had a delicious Danish dinner. They have 4 children, 3 of whom are married
and 1 son who is 17 and still lives at home.
I know that sounds strange, but most youth leave home as soon as they
can because the government gives them a living allowance. I’m not sure how old the young men are when
they go on a mission, but I suspect it is older than 18. Most youth finish their formal education at 15. Then they take a year off to travel or pursue
some other interest. One young woman is
going to a dance school, which is not funded by government monies. This young man (and several other LDS young
people we know) spent a year in the states as an exchange student. He lived with an LDS family in Kansas, attended
seminary, went to 11th grade in high school, but didn’t worry about
grades, because it doesn’t matter anyway.
This year, after returning home, he attends gymnasium for secondary
education. This lasts anywhere from 2-4
years. Grades are important at this
level because they determine where you will be accepted for university
education. Some secondary education is
more vocationally oriented, where students receive training and do
apprenticeships. Most students go on to
this secondary education, but it is not compulsory. I suspect most youth go on their missions
after gymnasium and before college.
The stake president spent time
getting to know us and told us about he and his wife. They have been married 30 years—both went on
a mission to England. He then talked to
us about his expectations and concerns for the Young Adults in the stake. He gave us some specific names he would like
us to contact. Some of the things he
suggested we do, we are already doing, so I think he was pleased that we have
taken the initiative. I don’t feel quite
that confident in what we have done—identifying the lost sheep is not the same
as finding them and visiting them. The
stake president was surprised to learn that we have much the same problems in
the states with the YSA program as he does in Denmark. In fact, outside of YSA wards and branches, I
think our stake programs are definitely less organized than the one here in
Denmark. But then, because they don’t
have YSA wards here, the stake program should be better. I feel the stake presidency and high council
leadership are very supportive of the YSA program and are willing to help us as
missionaries in any way we need. As a
result of our visit with the stake president, we put our less than stellar Face
Book skills to use. We looked up some of
the name he gave us to 1. See their
picture (it was surprising how many of them we knew, but just hadn’t put a name
to the face) and 2. To see who their friends were so we could maybe work
through someone they know. I also had a
Face Book chat with a young man which I don’t think would have happened by
phone. He gave us some good information
about one of the lost sheep, but in the end didn’t want to help us make
contact. He is a great young man, but he
doesn’t attend YSA activities himself.
He came in the summer a few times and even taught an institute lesson,
but now seems to have lost interest. He
is typical of other YSA’s who feel they are too old—late 20’s—and don’t have a
connection with the younger group of newly returned missionaries and college
students. It is a challenge.
We didn’t do any sight-seeing this
week. We should have some pictures from
this weekend as we head to Bornholm. We
will leave Friday and return after church on Sunday; we're speaking at the Sacrament Meeting in the
branch there. Have a great week.
Kærlig
hilsen,
Mom
[1] I
put a roast in my crock pot over night and then drained the drippings, shredded
the meat and poured Sweet Baby Ray BBQ sauce on it (at $6 for an 18 oz. bottle)
and put it back in the crock pot. I
served that over baked potatoes. It was
a hit. I had a vegetable tray and rolls
with it, and cookies for dessert. We
served about 24 people, including 4 missionaries plus us. Still our biggest group yet.
Kære Familie Sunday,
October 2, 2016
We got approval to take and the schedule for language
classes this week. At first we were
disappointed and thought we would turn them down (maybe a little difficult
since we had to sign a contract. I am not sure what significance they place on
the contract, does it really mean that we gave our word of honor that we would
take this class? 50 hours of class
instruction. We didn’t even know what
days of the week we were committing to!)
But we have been having different thoughts as a couple of days have gone
by that perhaps this will be best. The
classes are Monday, Thursday and Friday from 8:45 to 12:15. Our biggest dilemma was our temple assignment
on Friday mornings. We don’t want to
give that up. I had to wait a day and
then called the language center to see if there wasn’t another schedule that
they are offering. There isn’t. This is the only one for our level that they
are offering unless we want to switch to afternoons or evenings. They don’t work because of our Monday and
Thursday night UV commitments. Even the afternoons would spill over into when
we are supposed to be at the center. Hence, what we have decided is to see if
we can work the Friday afternoon session at the temple. It starts at 1:45 for
prayer meeting and then goes to about 9:00 pm.
It is longer than the morning session and we don’t know whether they
really need us then as the temple missionary couples are there for the later
shift. We will ask to see if something can be worked out. We were also a little hesitant to commit to
Friday nights to the temple at first because we hope to have some Friday night
UV activities at times. They will likely
just be one or two times a quarter however, so we will just have to miss the
temple when we do that or get off a little early. Friday nights are also when the other senior
missionary couples sometimes do fun things (such as the Hamlet play we saw or
the symphony performance we attended) – a little sacrifice right? We didn’t come here to play but to wear
ourselves out in service! The temple is closed for maintenance this week and
next so we haven’t been able to talk to anyone at the temple about this
yet. We will call President Williams
this week and see what his thoughts are.
Hopefully, we can work something out so that it all fits. We will definitely be busier though and
hopefully, or at least our intention is, that our language skills will start
improving at a much faster pace.
Conference has been very good. I think mom is writing a lot
about that. One impression was that most people attended
conference at the church. We planned our
days around that and thought we would spend a lot of time there. For instance, last night the Saturday morning
session ended at 8:00 pm for us. We
assumed everyone would be hungry after that and would want to go to
dinner. So when I made some phone calls
and found out the other couples all passed, it felt a little strange. Then we found out none of them attended
conference at the church but all stayed home and watched it on the
internet. The attendance at the church
has been pretty sparse and has really only been the young missionaries with a
few others + us. One thing that was
good, was that the UV’s announced that they would meet together at a member’s
home for dinner today at 5:00 and then watch the Sunday morning session
together at 6:00. We didn’t do the
dinner with them because we had the missionary chili and hot dog plans at the
stake center, but when that was over we rushed over to the member’s home and
joined them for conference. There were
about 18 of them there in an upstairs media room. It seems like the dinner was good and then
they also had dessert as the session ended.
It gave us another opportunity to mingle with them. We didn’t stay long after that as we wanted
to get home to our letters. Most of them
though, it seems were going to stay around until 10:00 and watch the Sunday pm
session until midnight. That is too late
for us. Our FHE tomorrow night is planned around watching the Sunday pm session
at the center. So it will be interesting
to see how that works out if many of them stay up tonight to watch it.
Friday
morning, we had a zone training meeting.
They do this once a transfer and alternate between zone conference,
which includes 2 zones together and is run by the AP’s, and this zone training
which is just 1 zone and is run by the zone leaders. President and Sister O’Bryant both take time
to train in both settings, so I don’t totally get the differences. We are expected to be in the zone conferences
but the zone training is just optional for us.
In any case, we attended this one to see what it is like. They introduced a new mission goal which is
to speak only Danish from 9:00 to 21:00.
All calls between missionaries are to be in Danish and it Includes meal
times. New missionaries are somewhat
exempted but they are to get to that standard by the end of the first transfer,
or 6 weeks. They didn’t say how it
applied to the senior missionary couples, but you can imagine mom and I just
looked at each other and supposed that we will not be talking very much going
forward! The benefits are obvious:
Members
will notice the improvement the missionaries make in short order.
They
don't have to switch back and forth between languages while out among the
people.
Will
help them learn to think in the language.
They
will realize the words they need to learn or work on.
Their
speaking ability will grow by leaps as they concentrate more effort on it.
There
was also a caution: Don't limit themselves to grade school speaking, but strive
to elevate their vocabulary, grammar and idioms.
I
think this is very hard, but inspired. I
never did anything like this on my mission and my French never advanced all
that far. We always spoke English to
each other, though I know some companionships spoke French more than
others. In hindsight, it would have been
a great benefit to our ability to communicate effectively in our
discussions. This is an example of how
the bar is being raised, at least in our mission.
President and Sister O’Bryant concentrated their training
around Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon and not losing their testimonies once
their missions are over. It seems like
this is the Lord’s theme for the moment as General Conference had so many great
talks on these topics. We watched a video
called, A New Day for the Book of Mormon,
which I would recommend. It highlights the origins of the book
from both secular scholars, Mormon educators and Elder Holland and makes a
strong case for why it is the cornerstone of our religion. I found it interesting that many non-member
scholars are now saying that the historical significance of the BofM cannot be
ignored and cannot just be dismissed.
They are recognizing that it is something special, totally preaches of
Jesus Christ nearly on every page and builds faith in Christ in anyone who
reads it seriously (real intent). That
does not mean they accept it as true or doctrine but many do look on it with
new respect. He
did stress that though there are a lot of evidences in support of the BofM,
ultimately the only witness that really matters is a spiritual witness. He stated that the 1st test is
spiritual. It can cause us to change our
lives.
Similar
to his message to the UV’s in his talk in our Golden Days’ testimony meeting,
he then discussed the importance of the 2nd test. When we run across disturbing
information or question our testimonies in any way, we need to ask ourselves
these questions. If I follow this other path, where will I be
in another year? Will it bring me closer
to Christ? Will it strengthen or weaken
my faith?
That
is not what happens to those who leave the church. Each is further away from Christ.
It
is intellectually not honest to say that I am leaving the church because I have
discovered something new. In reality,
they just want to break some of the commandments or are too weak to be strictly
obedient. These blogs and questions give
them an easy way out; they do not need to admit that they are too weak to live
the gospel fully. They will move us away
from Jesus Christ. The BofM will bring
us closer to Christ than any other book.
Test the gospel by reading, living, and praying about the BofM. This is the 2nd test. We can each have another spiritual witness
and answer to prayers even though we probably have each had one when we first
gained our testimony of the church.
Love
to all. Dad
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