Sunrise in Copenhagen
Dad in front of the Holbaek Fjord
In front of the art museum in Holbaek
Ceilings in Frederiksberg Slot
Thanksgiving dinner
Kære Familie, Sunday,
November 27, 2016
For the
Grandchildren:
Last Sunday,
grandma and I spoke in Sacrament meeting in a ward in a city named
Slagelse. It is about an hour’s drive
west of Copenhagen and is near the coastline.
We still had to speak in English and some members translated our talks
into Danish for the few older people who do not speak English. Most of the members understood the talks in
both languages! Sometimes people in the
audience would help the translator with a Danish word when they could not think
of it. They would just shout it out. We
both bore very short testimonies in Danish as part of our talks. I think maybe some wanted those translated as
well because our Danish is so bad, but most members seemed to understand.
After
church, we had an experience that I think you will like. It was cold and rainy outside and the wind
was blowing quite hard. We had to meet 4
sister missionaries at their apartment but we have our little car so it was
easy for us to drive 10 minutes to their apartment. The sister missionaries were on bikes
however. It took them much longer than
us to get there and I felt so bad for them on their bikes, in dresses, with the
rain coming down. We tried waiting
outside for a little while for them, but it was too cold so we got back in the
car and turned the heater on. When they arrived,
they had hoods and gloves on but we could tell how cold they were. Their cheeks were all pink. The neat thing is that they were so
happy! They said that the cold and rain
was just part of the experience and they are happy to be serving Heavenly
Father as missionaries. I was so proud
of them. I would like to give them our
car for a day or two, but I think we are too old to ride bikes all day. They try so hard to be obedient and obey all
the rules and they work very hard every day.
Our mission president thinks that we have one of the most obedient
missions in the whole church. He is
always talking about how faithful his missionaries are and how well prepared
they are to work hard. We are so happy to be here in Denmark as part of this mission. We try to work hard every day as well and
many times we don’t get home until late at night because we are working with
the young adults.
These 4
sister missionaries are all in one apartment.
They are all in the same bedroom that has two bunkbeds. They don’t have very much space and very
little privacy. The apartment only has
one very small bathroom, so they have to take turns to take showers and brush
their teeth. You know that girls are
slower than boys to shower because they have to fix their hair every
morning. I think this must be hard on
them but they are always happy.
Another
apartment in Lynby had problems with the water pipes into the apartment
building. The city shut the water off
for 2 weeks and they put 2 outhouses outside in the courtyard. These sisters live on the 3rd
floor and there were many apartments that had to share these 2 outhouses. I think there must have been lines at times
waiting for their turn and it was cold outside.
Serving missions can be hard, but it is a lot of fun most of the time as
we teach about the Gospel.
Now my
letter.
I almost made myself sick
over last weekend with my Danish homework assignment. We were supposed to be prepared to talk
Monday morning about our eating habits in front of the class for 1-2
minutes. It was a pretty easy assignment
and should have been no big deal, but for some reason I was really uptight
about it. I had to write out my little
speech and tried to memorize it because my memory just doesn’t retain what it
used to. Of course, everything turned
out fine. We ended up just speaking 1 on
1 with the person sitting next to us (mom and I usually pair with someone else)
and only 1 volunteer presented to the entire class. I need to learn to tone it down in my worry
and preparation. We have been learning
nouns and we have yellow sticky notes all over the apartment with the names of
different things.
This has been another week
for some apartment inspections and repairs.
Monday we helped the Rodøvre sisters and Søborg sisters. Tuesday, we started the day
by driving to Birkarød and picking up Elders Thompkins and Thurman, and then
driving to Helsingør, with the purpose of starting to close the apartment. Wednesday, we had an apartment
inspection in Amager at 10:00 and then one in Roskilde at 12:30. Amager is next door to us but Roskilde is a 35-minute
drive to the west. We then drove 30 minutes further west to drop off some
personal items to Elder Evans in Holbaek. We then toured a bit on the way home,
taking a longer country route back to Roskilde, and then on home. The countryside in Denmark, as we have
commented I think, is beautiful farmland.
Even though it is winter here now, it is still green with a winter crop
that they put in. We also see rolling hills, seacoasts, lots of old cathedral
steeple, quaint small villages, stands of trees, etc. It makes for pleasant
drives and we very much enjoy these diversions from city life that come with
our apartment inspections.
For FHE, two of the YSA with
some dance backgrounds gave some dance instruction. There were about 20 people who
participated. We danced a bit
ourselves. They worked on a choregraphed
sort of line dance but with a partner.
It was fun. One of the YSA
prepared the refreshments this time and it was nice to have a break from that
as well.
We see two
possible romances developing with 4 of our YSA kids. 3 of them are returned missionaries and the 4th
is the YM who was baptized in the Spring of this year. I think he can go to the temple in February. It is sort of fun to see them pair off and
holding hands, putting arms around each other, etc. It is all pretty low key but I wonder if
there is gossip or discussion by the others.
We don’t really hear about it and it all seems to be accepted. One of the young ladies was going out with
our Committee Chairman when we arrived.
We have talked about Sarah and Jonathan.
She took it pretty hard when they broke up and did not attend as
regularly for a while. Now she is back
all of the time with her new best friend.
I am happy for her and hope this works out for them. It must be a bit hard with her strong family
background and her missionary background to be seriously dating with a new
member. He is very impressive however
and is her equal in many ways. He does a
lot a family research and then is in the temple a couple times a month doing
baptisms for family members. I was able
to baptize him Friday night for several of his family. There is a strange side to this as well …
these are 4 of our favorites and I would hate for them to not be with us in our
YSA activities. We would miss them!
David Borcuti (the Romanian)
came again to Institute and I sat in on a lesson on Tithing and the Word of Wisdom
with him at 5:00. He still is committed
for baptism on Dec 3rd, but it seems to me to be too quick for him. He certainly wants to be more righteous in
his life, is searching for something and wants to be baptized because he
realizes it will bring him closer to God. He also thinks the BofM is a book of
scripture with good things in it, but when questioned a bit deeper, he has not
prayed about it or had a spiritual witness. I think it is more intellectual
with him. Later, he also asked the
missionaries if he could pay 5% tithing to his current church and 5% to
ours. He also wants to attend both
churches but he feels a stronger connection to his present church because it is
in English and a lot of Romanians attend there.
He is lacking an understanding that there is only one true church on the
earth with all the priesthood keys.
Perhaps he can still get there by the 3rd, but in his case I
don’t see the harm in slowing it down a bit.
Both sister missionaries teaching
him are fairly new – a new trainer who came out a week after we did and a new
missionary. I thought their teaching was
a little too superficial and quick on each topic. I am used to the old flipchart memorized
discussions however and I need to brush up on what PMG goes into on the
commandments. I tried to put myself into
the place of someone hearing this for the first time, and I am not sure I would
have gotten what they were committing me to do. Hannah Andersen, another YSA,
was sitting in on the discussion as well, and when we talked about the WofW and
David expressed concerns about his one real issue which is tea, she was quick
to say that herbal tea is ok and she has a cup every day. That lessened some of
his anxiety about it. Though technically correct I think, it always makes me
nervous when members try to carve out exceptions for their favorite
beverage. They also never opened the
scriptures to read Section 89 and to me that is pretty important to put it all
in context. It was also interesting on
tithing. They had him read Malachi
3. He uses his own Bible which must be a
New English translations or something, the wording was interesting and it
seemed a little less forceful on the “you have robbed me” phrases. They also
read the King James version as well. He asked the question whether he could pay
tithing with his time donated to the church as he has more time than money and
he wanted to know where in the BofM it says that tithing has to be paid in
money. They glossed over these questions
and moved on which sort of disappointed me.
I unfortunately, wasn’t prepared to throw in some scriptures but I did
have an opportunity to bear testimony to tithing and fast offerings and I was
grateful to have that experience.
Our temple workers were very
scarce on Friday. We had the presidency
and the coordinator plus 2 missionaries in prayer meeting. 2 other male workers came a bit later. The sisters had similar numbers. With those numbers, we are very limited in
what we can do beyond the endowment sessions.
We must choose between Initiatory and sealings. I don't think we did any
Initiatories this time. We also had a
family come for the baptistry at 6:30 so I was one of the workers to staff
that. I did the baptizing in the font
and baptized a German brother and also Rasmus Svestrop, our YSA, who brought
his family names. I also did some of the
confirmations. Our 3 endowments sessions
had about 5 or 6 on each one, some of which were temple workers. It seems like the focus on the temple declines
through the rest of the year. Elder
Larsen said that last year was like this.
I am surprised that the temple workers just do not show up and it seems
like the coordinator does not know they are not coming. The 3 couples here as temple missionaries
(Larsens, Mordews, and Andersens) are the backbone of the temple workers at
this time of the year. 2 of them were
missing today however, so that compounded our problem.
Mom woke up Saturday with the
idea of taking a tour of the Frederiksberg Slot, which is only open to the
public on the last Saturday of the month.
We called and Jensen's agreed to go with us. We left at 10:15 to walk there. The temperature was about 44 degrees and it
felt cold but not bad except when the wind was blowing on us. The walk was about 35 minutes and the slot is
right by our old apartment where the Jensens now live.
The 90-minute tour was very
good and was conducted by one of the military students. We had a tour in English for 11 of us. He shared a lot of little stories about the
history of the slot and the king's family who lived there. It was built around the 1700's. The slot is
built on a hill and may be the highest point in the city. We therefore had an excellent view of the
city from the rooftop veranda. On a
clear day one can see to Sweden on the East and Roskilde's Dom Kirke on the
West. Yesterday was gray and overcast
and we could not see beyond Copenhagen.
Denmark's army has about
7,000 soldiers. Our guide has done 3
tours of duty in Afghanistan. The Navy
and Air Force each have around 3,500 members.
Under the NATO pact, each country is supposed to spend 2% of their gross
national product on military spending.
For the past few years, as Obama has cut our military spending, other
countries in NATO have apparently done the same. He said that their spending on the military
is now only about 1.17% and with Trump winning in the US, he thinks they will
need to increase it back towards the 2%.
He viewed that as a good thing because he is career military and has
felt the pain of budget cuts and the lack of numbers for the commitments the
country has made, hence his 3 tours to Afghanistan.
The slot was quite nice,
though getting run down in some areas.
It has been used as the training center for military officers for the
past few decades. The best part were the
stucco ceilings and ceiling paintings. It
makes for a very glamorous school. They were very beautiful and equal to any
others we have seen in Denmark.
Love, Dad
Kære Familie, November
27, 2016
It sounds like you all had a very nice break for
Thanksgiving (even though I know how much work went into preparing the
food.) We missed you but I feel so
blessed that I have such a wonderful family and I could just imagine the good
times you shared—whether you were with family or friends. Truly it is what I want most for my family—to
find happiness with others—to make memories, to relax a little and recharge
your batteries. I hope all that
happened. There is a word for that in
Denmark—hyggeligt. It is an adjective
that doesn’t translate exactly but it is a feeling of coziness, happiness, good
times. In RS today we talked a little
bit about the Christmas Initiative—“Light the World.” One of the sisters said that light is very
important in Denmark because there are more hours of darkness during the
winters than daylight. They have to
create light and they do that with candles.
Homes are full of candles; stores have many on display for
purchase. The candlelight creates
hyggeligt—a warm cozy atmosphere. Just
like light is important in a dark winter, the Light of Christ is so needed in a
dark world. When we feel His Light and
when we share His Light, it is hyggeligt.
Hyggeligt is what you experienced on Thanksgiving.
I have
thought a lot about Jared’s friend this week.
My heart breaks as he told of his downward spiral away from faith. The sad thing is that I
think Jared’s friend has not only lost faith in God, but he has lost faith in
love; he has lost faith in life. I am reminded that even the elect will be
deceived.[1] So none of us is safe. Satan is always there ready to lead us with a
flaxen cord until he can bind us up with his strong cords forever.[2] As we were reading in 2 Nephi 4 today, I
recognized that even Nephi realized that he was susceptible to sin and
temptation. He was sorrowful because of
the flesh and his soul grieved because of his iniquities.[3] But he remembered the blessings he had
received, the love God showed him, the knowledge he had received, the visions
he had seen. And he asked “Why should I
yield to sin, because of my flesh? Yea,
why should I give way to temptations, that the evil one have place in my heart
to destroy my peace and afflict my soul? ..... Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more
for the enemy of my soul…. O Lord…Wilt thou make me that I may shake at the
appearance of sin?[4] He recognizes that he has trusted in God and
will trust in him forever. “I will not
put my trust in the arm of flesh; for I know that cursed is he that putteth his
trust in the arm of flesh.”[5]
Nephi is also the prophet who tells us that we must always press forward,
feasting on the word of Christ, and endure to the end.[6]
These
things are so important if we are to safeguard our testimonies.
Elder Ballard
tells a story about one of his missionaries who came to him. I really liked the message.
“President,” he said, “I think I’m
losing my testimony.”
I couldn’t believe it. I asked him how that could be
possible.
“For the first time, I have read some anti-Mormon
literature,” he said. “I have some questions, and nobody will answer them for
me. I am confused, and I think I am losing my testimony.”
I asked him what his questions were, and he told me. They
were the standard anti-Church issues, but I wanted a little time to gather
materials so I could provide meaningful answers. So we set up an appointment 10
days later, at which time I told him I would answer every one of his questions.
As he started to leave, I stopped him.
“Elder, you’ve asked me several questions here today,” I
said. “Now I have one for you.”
“Yes, President?”
His eyes dropped. He looked at the floor for a while. Then he
looked at me. “It’s been a long time, President,” he confessed.
“All right,” I said. “You have given me my assignment. It’s
only fair that I give you yours. I want you to promise me that you will read in
the Book of Mormon for at least one hour every day between now and our next
appointment.” He agreed that he would do that.
Ten days later he returned to my office, and I was ready. I
pulled out my papers to start answering his questions, but he stopped me.
“President,” he said, “that isn’t going to be necessary.”
Then he explained: “I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I know Joseph
Smith is a
prophet of God.”
“Well, that’s great,” I said. “But you’re going to get
answers to your questions anyway. I worked a long time on this, so you just sit
there and listen.”
And so I answered all his questions and then asked, “Elder,
what have you learned from this?”
And he said, “Give the Lord equal time.”
May we engrave that thought on our minds and carry it with us
as we walk through this process of mortality. Let us give the Lord equal time.
Let us give Him His due share of our thoughts, our time, our talents, and our
attention. I know that we are all very busy. There are many demands for our
attention, and our time is limited by a wide variety of constraints. But as we
learn to manage our time, let us be sure that we give the Lord His portion.[7]
Many of our
youth were away this weekend at a YSA conference in Stockholm. It is a short conference—weekend only—and
much smaller than Festinord. It is
called Soul Night. There will probably
be about 350 YSA’s, mostly from Nordic countries. As a result, we thought we would have a
sparse SS class today—but it turned out to be a good-sized class. One young man stayed home because he was
invited to participate in a baby blessing today. This is a young man who joined the church last
March. We have been amazed at his
progress. He comes to church every week;
he blesses and passes the sacrament (we don’t have enough YM to do it); he
received the Melchizedek Priesthood at Stake Conference a few weeks ago; he
gave a Priesthood blessing a few days later to one of his friends; and today he
participated in a baby blessing. He
didn’t know he would be invited to be in the circle and when the father
motioned for him to join, I could tell that he really wasn’t sure what to
do. But he did great—just follow the
other brethren. Even though a baby
blessing may seem like a little thing, for this young man it is just one more
step, one more experience in the gospel.
I could really see how much it meant to him—I could feel it. For me, it is the
miracle of the gospel—it truly changes lives and brings joy.
We had our
primary program today. There was no
translation so we were on our own.[8] Several of the older children gave
talks. Although they speak very well,
their talks were simple and they read them so it was slower. We could understand a lot of it. So we just need to practice speaking with
children! There were only about 15
children, but they sang well and it was fun to hear the Danish version of the
songs I know so well. I often play the
piano in primary so I also get to hear the songs then.
We had a
long day on Tuesday. I threw dinner in
the crock-pot because I knew there would not be time to make anything later. We spent the morning cleaning out a
missionary apartment and the afternoon at Zone Training. I was surprised that the mission president
and his wife were not there because they spoke at the last one. But now I understand that it was the
exception to have them there. The AP’s
and Zone Leaders do all the training.
They introduced the Christmas Initiative which the missionaries will use
extensively in their teaching during the coming weeks. There was one thing missing at the
conference—food. It would seem natural
that we would have a dinner after the training (it got over at 5 p.m.), but I
knew that nothing had been planned. Still
I thought that we would at least have snacks during the break—Sister O’Bryant
always makes cookies for the break during Zone Conference. But there was nothing during the break. I know I was hungry, so I could just imagine
what the missionaries were feeling. I
felt bad and wish I had realized what was happening before. We were the only adults at the training. One of the missionaries commented to us
before the training that they were hoping to have a Thanksgiving Dinner after
the training—that seemed logical. Anyway,
Dad and I left during the break and ran to the grocery store and picked up
cookies and clementines. When we got
back, the missionaries were already back to the training, so they didn’t eat
our treats until after it ended. There
are four zones in our mission. When we
have zone conference, we include 2 zones in each conference. Zone Training is done by zones, so there are
4 trainings across the mission. Perhaps
that is why they don’t do food—there are not enough missionaries. There were only 7 companionships plus the
AP’s and us—18 altogether.
We ran home
after the training, ate dinner, and then I left again to go back to the same
place we had Zone Training. It was our
RS Christmas activity. Dad didn’t want
to sit and wait for me, so that’s why I took him home. The two wards that meet in our building were
combined for this activity. They had
many things planned, including traditional Danish treats—æbleskiver (Danish pancakes), risalamande, (rice
almond-flavored pudding with cherry sauce), pebernødder and other Danish cookies. They use a lot of cardamom over here as a
flavoring in their desserts. We also had
wassail (they call it gløgg).
Other activities were making a Christmas jar to give away (filled with a
spice-mix to add to apple cider), stringing cranberries for a Christmas
ornament, and making a Christmas centerpiece—with candles, pine boughs and
ribbon. Then we played a White Elephant
present game. Everyone was supposed to
bring a gift—simple, inexpensive gifts.
There were lots of gifts, so either people brought more than one, or the
RS presidencies bought some. The gifts
were in the center of the table. There
were 6-8 cups with one die in them. We
passed the cups around, shaking the die.
When you rolled a 6, you got to pick a gift, but not open it. We kept going until all the gifts had been
taken. Some people had 3 or 4
gifts. The next round, we did it again,
only if you rolled a 6 you took a present from someone else. This round was timed, so after 5 minutes or
so, the game ended and we got to open our gifts. It was fun.
I got two gifts but gave them away to the two sister missionaries who
had to leave early to teach a discussion.
They taught the lesson at the church, so I was able find them when it
was over. I enjoyed being with the
sisters in our ward. When I visit with
people one-on-one, we talk in English.
Everything else is in Danish so I am at a loss, but I still enjoyed the
evening. Everyone is so nice. There is something about ‘belonging,’ about
unity—I guess it is called sisterhood.
We went to
an art museum for our Danish class on Thursday.
We have learned Danish colors and adjectives in preparation for an
assignment to describe a picture. We
worked in groups and could choose any painting to write about. We also had to tell another group about our
painting so we had to speak Danish as well as write it. It was a nice break from classwork. The art museum is quite nice and we enjoyed visiting
a section of Danish and other Nordic painters, as well as a European art
section—with paintings from 1300 to 1900’s.
We only spent about an hour in the museum with our class—and the whole
time we were concentrating on Danish, so we didn’t get to see much of the
museum. But Dad and I elected to stay a
little longer after the others left to see something besides the two paintings
we studied. One of our other classmates
joined us. It was obvious that our
classmate had little knowledge of Bible stories, as we had to explain some of
the religious paintings to her. She is
from India. There was one very large and
very dramatic painting of Solomon and the two women who came to him, each
claiming the live baby was her own. The
guard was holding the baby upside down and about to cut it in half. Our friend thought that was just horrible
until we explained the story and told her it had a happy ending.
Hope you all
have a great week. We love hearing about
everything you are doing.
Kærlig hilsen,
Mom
[1]
Joseph Smith-Matthew 1:9, 22
[2] 2
Nephi 26:22
[3] 2
Nephi 4:17
[4] 2
Nephi 4:27-31 I like the descriptive words Nephi uses, i.e. ‘that the evil one
have place in my heart to destroy my
peace.’ That is what Satan does—he
destroys peace. Also ‘droop in sin’ suggests sadness,
unhappiness, which is what sin brings into our lives.
[5] 2
Nephi 4:34
[6] 2
Nephi 31:20
[8]
The one who organizes translation said that they really didn’t think it was
worth it because half the time they couldn’t understand the children in order
to translate for us.?!?!?
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