Pictures from our Zone Conference this week:
Zone Conference with Elder and Sister Paul Johnson of the seventy and a counselor in our area presidency.
(He used to be the Commissioner of Education, and has a PhD in Education)
If there is food involved, we are somewhere close by
Pictures from Dad's Outing:
Egeskov Slot near Odense
Egeskov Slot near Odense
Storebaelt or Great Belt Bridge
Valdemars Slot in Svendborg
Swan Lake
Opera house
Kære Familie Sunday,
October 30, 2016
It is actually 6:00 am on
Monday morning. I was too tired last
night to type and mom must have been as well as she joined me on the couch at
about 10:30. It was a long Sunday and not the way we prefer to spend the
Sabbath. We went to the Center at 3:30
and mom was in the kitchen on her feet until 10:00. Her feet were aching by then.
We changed to daylight
savings time today. I think a week
before you do? So the time difference
between us is only 6 hours this week. It will make it a little lighter
when we go out to run in the morning but will be noticeably darker earlier at
night. I expect it to be dark just after
5:00 tonight. We will see.
Last night we finally held
our Family History fireside. It has been postponed twice. This is the first fireside
replacing the YSA sacrament meeting. We had
a dinner at the center at 6:00 (break the fast) and had the fireside from 7:00
to 8:00. We were the speakers on family history work. We wanted to set a good spirit and establish
an emphasis on all kinds of temple and family history work for future
activities. We also wanted to introduce
the family history Facebook Tag Game that Brother Lemon used successfully in
Norway with their YSA. We haven’t been able to coordinate the game with the temple
committee (if that is still functional) to set up a bulletin board, the
Facebook group, etc. so that it is all ready for a kick off, but we will try to
get it going in any case.
The dinner and fireside
seemed to go very well. We were afraid
we would have a small turnout but they kept coming and we had about 22 come out
and participate. That is better than our
recent institute classes. Brother
Ringheim (HC) came and ate and we had 2 young ladies from Zurich here for the
weekend who heard about it in church and decided to come as well. Also 2 RM’s who had taken off for an
open-ended lark in Spain (we have talked about them previously I think) are
both home from Spain and they came as well, so we had some new faces.
I talked until 7:40 (probably
a bit too long) and Mom filled up the last 20 minutes so we used the hour allotted
to us. It was interesting to us and
seemed to be to them as well. Not as
many as I would have thought, have been involved in any sort of family history work
so there is a lot of opportunity. For
example, I only saw about 3 hands when we talked about indexing. Some commented that their grandmothers have
done all of the work and have tied a line or two back to Adam and Eve. Afterwards, there were a few questions and I
sat down with Martin Fredberg and looked to see if we could find him or any of
his family in Family Search. He wasn't
of course, since he was just baptized, but we found his family name in the USA
and Odense but not Copenhagen. It will
be interesting for him I think to get this started and see if any of these
people are related to him. I asked him
to get his login information this week so he could start on his family booklet.
We will help him with that.
Saturday I went with mom and
traveled to Odense for the two-stake women's conference. Sister Buxton rode with us. We left at 9:00 and arrived in Odense at
11:00. The ride was pleasant both ways
with beautiful green fields of winter wheat and Raps (for rapsolie oil). The skies were very blue and it was a
beautiful day, though it was very windy and a little cold. A jacket was all
that was needed for warmth however. We
especially felt the wind going across the bridge to the island of Fyn.
I met up Elders Yates and
Forslund and we toured the area until 2:30 when the conference ended. We headed
to Svendborg, which is a harbor town about 30 minutes south of Odense. On the way, we stopped and saw two different
slots. Both were closed for the winter season but we were able to see them from
a distance and take a couple of pictures.
The first was in the pattern of a cathedral and the second more like a
very large plantation home. Both had
large garden areas around them and the 2nd was on the sea, so it had its own
little harbor and was a picturesque setting complete with a fisherman on a
jetty. It was also set up with a spook
alley in one of the outhouses including part of the harbor with tents set up on
a dock. It looked interesting and was
evidence that Halloween is catching on as a holiday here in Denmark.
We had a Kebab for lunch, my
first since being here. Little shops
with kebabs are very popular here. I
found it a little too spicy and I don't care for the flavor they put in the
beef.
Mom found it very funny that we talked about hearing aids (little old men talking about their aches and
pains as they grow older / instead of our prowess on a basketball court,
etc.). We also talked about our mission
experiences since we last saw each other - that was at the senior conference in
July for the Forslund’s. We each are
settling in to our missions and see inspiration in our callings to our particular
cities and groups. They seem right and
natural - the right place to be for us - for each of the couples. Sister Forslund seems to have given up on
learning Danish as she came to some realization, that she was not going to get
very good despite whatever effort she put in.
This is some disappointment to her husband as she put in many hours in
the months preceding the MTC in trying to learn the language. I understand her feelings but am hopeful that
our language classes will help us get a bit further, faster. Both of these
other couples have the advantage of the husband speaking the language from his
previous Danish mission. To me, that seems like a huge advantage for a
non-speaking spouse – someone who can be a walking dictionary and help with
pronunciation and someone who can talk back to you when you say something in
Danish to them.
On Friday, I was surprised that I was
quite stressed all day about the temple and doing a veil again in Danish. I did not want to repeat last week's bad experience. It all turned out ok however in 2
regards. First, I reviewed the veil card
as soon as I arrived and found it felt much more comfortable. Even though I couldn't remember how to say
some words, the whole thing felt easier, I remembered the short sentences and
felt the accents and flow of the long sentences a bit better. (Getting the
accents right on syllables is very important in Danish as they won’t understand
you even if the word is right if you put the stress on the wrong
syllable.) I think I would have been
better at the veil, with some more help on the hard words. The 2nd thing is that I did not have a veil
assignment at all. We had more workers
today but maybe they also did not want to use me again? The sessions were fuller and we had a German
ward with us so the needs were Danish and German. There did not seem to be very many English
speakers. I did back to back Sealing Sessions
and then Initiatories for the 3rd hour.
After the temple at 9:00, the
stake had a reception for the outgoing temple presidency. The new one takes over on Monday, November
1st. The Williams leave to go home on
Tuesday (Holladay area in SLC). It will
be a little sad to see them gone. They
have been in Denmark as mission president for 3 years, then temple president
for 3 years and in between those calls they served as the 1st counselor in the
mission presidency in England (to President Walker) for 3 years. Something like 9 of the last 12 years, they
have been serving away from home and their family. They have been a big part of our experiences
so far. They arranged our outings to the
ballet, Swan Lake, and the Hamlet play in Krongborg Castle. Besides that, they have been such a welcoming
and friendly influence at the temple and in our ward. We felt out of place at the reception with a
very crowded room at the church and so we did not stay very long. We were both hungry as well.
The
Ottley’s are going home in about 2 weeks.
They have been FamilySearch camera-capture missionaries for 18 months
here in Copenhagen. This is another
couple who we will miss greatly. Elder
Ottley dropped by to show me his bike and I decided to buy it for $75. It is a nice bike with helmet, gloves,
lights, etc. He has a reference for the
lady he bought it from where I could maybe get Mom a used bike, though I don’t
know how practical or wise that is for her.
You can look forward to a future tale where I fall off the bike and
break an arm or a leg. I think it is
dangerous to ride in the traffic of Copenhagen.
Riding a bike in the bike lanes is like rush-hour freeway traffic in
Houston. The bikes dart in and out at near full speed and they just all assume
you are as experienced as they are. I
think if you are too slow, they will tinkle their bell at you and weave around
you. All the missionaries seem to have
bike accidents. (I had one in France as
a missionary.)
I
messed up our afternoon schedule on Tuesday.
Gismo Borup had asked us to come at 2:35 to give Hannah Ostergaard a
blessing at the Nitivej Chapel. (Hannah
lost her phone in a lake.). Late morning, I got a text from Leah Melsøe asking
if we could be with Gismo at her place at 3:15.
I just assumed that these 2 visits were the same and the time had been
moved back. I was wrong. At 3:00 we got
a call from Gismo asking if we were still coming. They had been waiting for us at the chapel
since 2:30. We rushed but we made Hannah late for work because of my
confusion.
So
Hannah wanted a blessing to help her get some direction in her life. She is feeling a bit overwhelmed and confused
about life at the moment. Similar to
Daniel Olsen, she is feeling like her prayers are not being answered or at
least not fast enough for her desires.
Maybe this is a fairly common problem with our young adults?
The
visit to Leah turned out to be to help her put a book shelf up in her
bedroom. She had the tools, screws, etc.
but was missing drill bits. It took
about 45 minutes and I was able to have her do most of the work with the
drill. We also fixed a handle on her
door which had the same problem as the sisters in Lynby - screws had stripped
out. She had a screw that would fit and
I found some small pieces of wood that could fill the old screw holes. She was very appreciative for our help.
At
5:15 we picked up the Rovn-Petersen's and went on a dinner ballet outing with 20
adults. We had dinner at a buffet
restaurant and then went to the theater to see the ballet Swan Lake. The theater
was very nice and elaborate, the music was exceptional and the dancing was very
professional, quite outstanding in fact.
I will never be a huge fan of ballet but it was a very nice night
out. One of our stake members danced as
one of the black swans. She is the one
who is torn about giving up dancing to be with her family more – she has 2
little children.
The
FHE activity Monday night was a missionary one, focused on role plays and then
going out in teams to place Books of Mormon in the area around the center. We invited the Copenhagen district to join
us and all 8 of them came. We had enough
youth that they went out in groups of 2 or 3 with a missionary. The role plays were about 30 minutes and the
street contacting was about the same, so it wasn't too long to get anyone
bored. They all seemed to enjoy it and though only a few books were given out,
they had some good conversations. We had
æbleskiver and hot chocolate for dessert.
Gismo
gave a short message and she had the Dr. Seuss book Green Eggs and Ham,
for which someone had written a new story about Mormons and church. "I do
not like your church, I do not like it Brother Lurch. I will not let you in my house, I will not
let you teach my spouse. I will not go with you by train, I will not let you
twist my brain." Or something like that.
It was really cute and of course ended up on a positive note where he
tried the church and liked it a lot!
Love you all. Dad.
Kære Familie, October 31,
2016
It is early Monday morning—I was just too tired to write
last night. It was an exhausting day as
I had been on my feet since 3:00 p.m. preparing dinner and presenting our
fireside. I should have changed into
more comfortable shoes. We drove the
car to the YSA center because we were loaded up with food and pumpkins. We unloaded in an illegal parking place
because there was nothing close by. Dad had
to park 3 blocks away from the center. So, we were loaded down as we walked to the car after the fireside. It is free parking on Sundays which is
nice. On Thursday, we also drove
because I had a crock pot full of stroganoff and a lot of other food. That night (and we weren’t there as long), it
cost us $10 to park. So, you can see why
we walk, especially when there is no parking close by. I made lasagna, mixed fresh vegetables, salad
and garlic bread (store-bought that was partially baked).
We went off daylight savings time Sunday morning, so that is
another reason why I was tired by 10:30 last night. It felt like 11:30. Unfortunately I stayed up late on Saturday
night working on the newsletter while I waited for my 7-up cake to bake, so I
didn’t use that ‘extra’ hour to sleep.
But I do enjoy the ‘falling back’ an hour more than the ‘springing
ahead.’ Dad enjoyed the extra hour to
sleep—I just used it to extend my day. I
tried making a Bundt cake in a spring foam pan.
I checked on the internet about pan equivalents so I thought it would
work, but it didn’t work very well. The
outside got real crusty. It takes 1 ¼
hours to bake and it still wasn’t quite done, but I took it out anyway. It was good, but I won’t try it again until I
get a Bundt pan. Oh, the joys of
cooking. I keep trying to find new ideas
for desserts. On Thursday, I made the
oatmeal bar cookies with chocolate in the middle (no nuts). It was a huge hit. One of the young men said I could make those
cookies every week. I can find sweetened
condensed milk, but I can’t find graham crackers so I haven’t made magic
bars. Tonight, I am going to make caramel popcorn
balls to go with our Halloween pumpkin carving activity.
On Saturday, I went to the Århus and København
Stakes Women’s Conference. The
conference was held in Odense on the island of Fyn. There is a large bridge that crosses from Sjæland
to Fyn (we sent a picture of it before) which has a fee. So, the whole trip cost me $75 (bridge and
gas) plus 4 hours of driving time. Was it worth it? Yes. EI thoroughly enjoyed being together with others sisters. There is something about sisterhood that is
so uniting. Would you believe I actually
miss visiting teaching? Crazy, huh? I did get one of the senior missionary
sisters to come with me (she didn’t go last year) and she paid one of the
bridge fees otherwise it would have been over $100. Dad came with us as he arranged to meet with
the other senior missionary husbands who are serving on that side of
Denmark. The husband of the other sister
who came with me had work to do in the mission office so he didn’t come. The husbands went sightseeing, to lunch, and
just visited while the women were in the conference.
I know how the Spanish sisters feel when they come to our conferences,
because there I was with head phones to listen to the translation. You just don’t get everything. But it was still inspiring. We met in a school because the church
building in Odense would not have been large enough. The stake president commented on the large
turn-out and said if they had a conference for the High Priests, he thought
maybe 30 would come, and half of them would be the high council. The theme for the conference was “May You Be Blessed.” If you have time, watch the video link. They showed two other videos, but all of them
were not in English or had English subtitles (because the language spoken was not
in Danish or English). Here are some highlights of the talks:
·
Because the wind blows so hard in Denmark, many
of the trees grow asymmetrical. We are
like the tree—with challenges and trials that make our tree grow a bit
crooked. But as long as our roots
(Christ) are deeply planted, we can feel the joy of growing and developing as a
woman.
·
Faith and fear cannot exist in our heart at the
same time. When we have trials in our
life, we must choose between faith and fear, and that will make all the
difference. Satan puts doubts in our
hearts. He is the one who makes us feel
alone and that our faith is nothing.
Fear will leave us as empty husks of our own self.
·
A sister
found her ‘fairytale’ marriage not what she thought when her husband said he no
longer wanted to go to church anymore.
She was only 21 and had a young child.
This was not part of her plan.
She had grown up in the church and was always very faithful and
committed to it. She turned to the
scriptures to find out what was God’s plan for her. She read that God puts tension between
brother and brother, father and brother, so why not between spouses. She realized that she was still following
God’s plan for her, even if it was not her plan. She had been prepared her whole life for
these challenges. It has not been
easy. She said we must always be facing
towards our Heavenly Father, who is our light, and hold on to the iron
rod. Remember that we won’t get any
commandment but that the Lord will make a way for us to accomplish it. (Nephi 3:7)
When we are filled with doubts, our life becomes overshadowed and we
lose the light. But if we hold on to the
iron rod, we can get through those cloudy times. Find someone who can help us—don’t try to
walk alone. Keep going until we can see
the light again.
·
Another woman shared her story of a husband who
also left the church. She knew she had
to do something extra to keep her faith.
She read her scriptures every day, but she read them until the she felt
the spirit. Some days she read 10
minutes, others ½ hour, and some days over 1 hour. She didn’t stop until she felt the spirit and
had a good feeling in her heart. She
also prayed until she felt the love of God.
Then she felt she needed to bless the lives of others and share the love
of God—even to her husband.
·
President Monson on charity: “Charity is having
patience with someone who has let us down. It is resisting the impulse to
become offended easily. It is accepting weaknesses and shortcomings. It is
accepting people as they truly are. It is looking beyond physical appearances
to attributes that will not dim through time. It is resisting the impulse to
categorize others.” Do we have enough
love for that? President Monson also
said: “I have cried all night over
neglecting another’s need, but I have never regretted being a little too
kind.”
·
If we don’t give service to others, there is not
much purpose in life. Several sisters
talked about service projects in their Relief Societies. For example, our ward has been knitting
blankets and hats for NICU in hospitals.
I have made 7 hats so far. Another
ward had a clothing drive to donate warm clothing to those in need for the
winter ahead. Another sister talked about
helping refugees and had a man speak to us from Syria about his experience here
in Denmark. After 10 years, he has
learned the language, found employment, is now educated, and married with a
family. It made all the difference to have
someone care about him and take him in.
He no longer has the fear of being kicked out of his home and country,
or having to abandon all that he worked for.
Lunch was either a chicken and bacon sandwich or a smoked
salmon sandwich. Let’s just say that
they don’t quite taste like home, but it was fine. We had fruit and a brownie. The whole conference was only 3 ½ hours, but
very uplifting. I enjoyed visiting
during lunch with the other senior missionaries and a young woman and her
husband with 4 kids who are living in Denmark as ex-pats. Her husband has a job with wind
turbines. They are adjusting well but
are finding that they are not making as much money here as they hoped—it is so
expensive to live here. Her husband
usually bikes to work as they could only afford 1 car. She told us that if they had bought a new car
here, they would have paid 180% in taxes.
They bought a used car that still had high taxes—it cost more than the
sale of their two cars put together in the states. Their income tax is 52% of their income. And because of other fees, there is even more
money going to the government. ‘But,’ all
the Danes shout, ‘our medical is free and so is our education.’ They just don’t realize that they are paying
for it. Her children all attend Danish
schools and are somehow getting by. The
oldest child is old enough where his classmates speak English, so he is doing
okay. The younger ones are getting by
with a lot of help from the teachers, who all speak English. One day, as they are studying different cultures
and food in school, the mom was asked to bring an American dish for the class
to try. She brought Mac and Cheese. The kids were a little dubious to try it at
first. Most of them did and thought it
was spaghetti without the sauce. They
then proceeded to take out their liver-pate sandwiches from their lunch boxes
and eat away. Yes—very different
cultures. Our children would never eat
liver-pate in any form. Neither would
I.
I think Dad told you about our Temple President and his wife
leaving Denmark. We have grown to love
them, even in such a short time. The
matron’s parting testimony in preparation meeting hit home to me as she said
that they have done more for their grandchildren being on missions than they
could ever have done living at home. She
also said that the joy they have felt in church service far outweighs anything
they could have done in their retirement years.
They are an inspiration to all who know them. Sister Williams always hugs each ordinance
worker as we leave our preparation meeting and tells us how much she
appreciates us. She also greets people
as they come to the temple with a hug and seems to know everyone. She said that they got to know the leadership
when they served as mission president, and this time as temple president, they
got to know the members. She is always
happy and seems to never run out of energy, even when they serve 14 hours every
Friday in the temple. They are amazing
examples of dedicated service. But they
still know how to have a good time are the ‘life of the party.’ She doesn’t understand when Danish is spoken
and only speaks a little Danish even though she has been here 6 years. But it doesn’t stop her. She speaks anyway—she speaks Danglish, just
substituting English whenever she doesn’t know the Danish word. It is fun to listen to her comments in RS.
Well there is probably more to tell, but I’m out of
time. We have language class this
morning.
Hope you all have a great week.
Kærlig hilsen,
Mom
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