Kære Familie Sunday, December 11, 2016
For the Grandchildren:
One of our young adult sisters was baptized this week and another young man almost was. It has been interesting to see the changes that have taken place in these two-young people. Both are about 20 or less and will be the only members in their families, so this is a big change in their lifestyles for them. One of the things I have noticed is the light and happiness that comes into their faces and eyes as they gain testimonies of the truth of the gospel. There are physical changes that are noticeable. Elina’s face was almost glowing on Saturday as she was baptized. She seems so happy to have finally made the decision to join the church and follow Jesus and be baptized as he commanded us to be. Her mom, dad and sister attended the baptism to support her and see what this church is like that she is joining. They are not happy that she is leaving their family church but at least they came to see her. The young man‘s name is Jonas. He was supposed to be baptized on Saturday but he got scared in the morning. The font was filled with water, food was prepared, people were at the church, but he didn’t want to go through with it. He just needs a little more time. I think he will be baptized this week but we will see. Another interesting thing that happened Friday night, was that the faucet in the baptismal font would not work for some reason. The missionaries had to fill the font from the kitchen using buckets and water pitchers. It took them a couple of hours so it was a good thing that someone noticed this. The font was finally full just as the meeting started. It would have been sad if everyone had had to wait for the water. The baptism on Saturday was in a different building so they did not have the same problem!
The rest of the story of the week:
We have a new teacher in our language classes on Mondays for the next 3 weeks. The other teacher will still be there on Thursday and Fridays. It is actually nice to have different teachers as their styles are very different and it helps to get focus on different things. For instance, I learned to say engelsk (English) close to right for the first time as she helped us say it right by syllables. She is also very energetic. She speaks a lot in Danish to us but makes sure we are understanding.
Hannah Andersen, one of our YSA, asked me for a blessing on Monday. I gave her one a few weeks ago, as well. She came to the Center early at 5:30 to talk to us for a bit. I am glad they feel like they can come to us for advice and blessings.
Two of our other young adults got engaged on Thursday night instead of coming to Institute – probably a good choice. Success! They are graduating from the YSA program. They are Rasmus and Sarah. We are very happy for them. Sarah is a life-long member and a returned missionary (temple square). Rasmus will be a member a year in March and will be going to the temple. The marriage will be some time after that. They can’t marry their “friends” in the stake as they are like brothers and sisters, so I guess a new member of the church is a good catch! Sarah is the one who was dating our YSA chairman, Jonathan, when we arrived. They broke up about the time of Festinord and it was really hard on Sarah for a while to have to see him all of the time in our meetings. It didn’t seem to bother him at all. I am happy she got another chance when Rasmus decided that he would begin dating her. He is very smart I think to recognize a good woman who will be a great companion for him. Maybe we will have another marriage if Hannah and Mark continue to see each other. Both of them are returned missionaries from my French speaking mission.
The FHE activity Monday was planned by 2 of the YSA’s and consisted of making paper ornaments to decorate the center. The numbers started out with just a few at 7:00 but by the end we had 16 with us and the assistants. Everyone seemed to have a good time and participate. The refreshments were just clementine's and left over muffins from last night's stake musical fireside.
We also got a text to announce that Jonas (don’t know his last name) is getting baptized this Saturday at noon. That is a surprise as he did not seem to be that far along to me. He has come a few times to the Center but is very quiet and doesn't hardly talk, so it seemed like he was progressing very slowly. I had no idea he had had more than a lesson or two. He attends church in Frederiksberg so we haven't seen him on Sundays.
Tuesday, we had a completely free day with no commitments scheduled. I therefore stayed in most of the day and worked on the devotional slide show.
We received a call sometime during the day to see if we were available to join Sister McDonald and Jones to teach David Borcuti about the Atonement. We met them at the stake center at 7:00. The discussion went well but his baptism date has been left open as he wants to learn more. He still seems very sincere and seems to be accepting and trying everything that he is asked to do. The sisters turned to us a couple of times to see if we could explain a principle about the atonement. I was grateful to receive some promptings about things to teach. Wednesday morning, our scripture study was on 2 Nephi 9 and in hindsight, I think we could have just read that whole chapter together and maybe have drawn some pictures on the board, like I tried to do, to illustrate the whole purpose of the atonement. It is a beautiful chapter with very clear explanations. We also read Alma 7 in the discussion to emphasize another purpose to the Atonement that sometimes is overlooked: the Savior can succor us in our trials as well as our sins. David seemed to have some issues with getting over family experiences that still affect him and I hope this helped his understanding.
On Wednesday, we met the sisters, Baggaley and Baird at 4:30 for a discussion with an older gentleman named Anders. They are teaching him in English, as he likes to practice and has children in Australia and England. He is homebound and has Parkinson’s disease which is affecting his memory. He is 60-65 ish. He was very nice to visit with us, we taught about prayer, but it is hard to see him progressing very far. I think he just really enjoys the company and it must be fascinating to have two pretty young women visit him. He is religiously minded so that is a good thing. I don't think he will be able to remember much from day to day as his short-term memory seems most affected by his illness.
Thursday, we had an end of the semester oral language test with our teacher, one on one. The language tests were quite stressful - unneeded but hard for me not to have anxiety feelings. I was able to sleep well Wednesday night and felt pretty prepared but still it was nerve wracking. I rehearsed before going to bed and then did wake up a little before the alarm and went over them again. We had to prepare 3 short dialogues of 1 - 2 minutes each about things we have talked about in class. I chose Family, Apartment and Lifestyle. The teacher then randomly chose one of the 3 and we had to talk to her about the topic. We could use a few key words on note cards if we needed them but no sentences were allowed on the cards. She then asked us questions which we had to answer about the dialogue to see how well we were understanding her as well. She selected my lifestyle topic , which was the one I was 2nd most comfortable with, family being my first choice. She also showed us a random picture and we had to ask her questions about it. I think we had to have at least 5 "yes / no questions" and 5 other questions. The whole test was supposed to be about 10 minutes. She said I did well, but I felt I stumbled around a bit and I'm sure I did not concentrate on the accent and flow of speech enough. It was a big relief to have this little thing over with.
Eline, our 20-year-old YSA who has been around for over a year, was baptized on Friday night. The baptism went really well and the chapel was full for it. She had a lot of support with members from 2 wards and many YSA. Her parents both attended and a sister. I think they were favorably impressed by the love and friendship that was obviously there for Eline. The program went 90 minutes and dragged out a bit with 3 speakers, 2 of them who went very long. She was baptized by the father of Daniel, her boyfriend. Both Jonas and David attended, which was very nice. Jonas seemed all set for his baptism tomorrow.
Saturday, we also had Jonas' baptism at noon. As we arrived at the chapel, Sister MacArthur was on the phone with Jonas. He got cold feet overnight and was backing out of the baptism today. They talked for a while, but it was eventually canceled. He still wants to be baptized but just felt like it was too soon for it. We later saw President O’Bryant at the ward social for Gladsaxe and he had a couple of phone calls about the baptism. Jonas had another change of heart and wanted to be baptized that night. He was successfully pushed off until the next day when the Frederiksberg ward could rally around him. However today, it was pushed off again until the weekend. That will give him a week to make sure all his questions and fears are addressed. Jonas was in church so that is a good thing. He seemed fine and I hope everyone avoided any awkward conversations with him about his baptism not happening. Some ward members had put some effort into refreshments for it yesterday, so that was the thing that was most disappointing perhaps. It seems likely they will try to schedule it again for next Saturday.
The large slide show in Movie Maker is finished! I spent additional time on both Friday and Saturday nights working on it, until 1:30 and 1:00 am. It was painstaking but I learned a lot about the process so next year should take about half as much time. I made a lot of mistakes in the order I did things so that I had to repeat some tasks again. The final product looks pretty good.
Christmas is in the air over here. The lights look very festive but it seems like Christ is missing from most decorations. It is a very commercial holiday. We are beginning to think a bit about how we will celebrate Christmas and New Years. They will be low key. We will likely have a senior couples get together on Christmas Eve, missionaries in our apartment on Christmas and maybe on New Years day. We will try to see if any missionaries are not going to members’ homes and invite them over. It seems like the members take care of most of the missionaries in the evenings. It is a hard to proselyte on those days and the president has said they cannot leave their apartments after 6:00 pm, unless they are with members and have rides so they are not on bikes or public transportation. We will miss our chimes and all of you and our family traditions.
That is all for this week I think.
Love, Dad
Kære Familie, December 11, 2016
Whenever we visit one on one with the young missionaries,
the question inevitably comes up, “What do you do with your time, besides
Monday and Thursday night.” We get this
so often, we are beginning to think that the missionaries believe we are not
carrying our weight. Such was the case
last night at the ward Christmas party. Because we still don’t know very many people
(and can’t converse in Danish), we ended up sitting with one of the
missionaries—an elder who just got transferred to our ward. I
guess to pass the time, he asked us the
question. So then we proceeded to
justify how we spend our time. It is
actually pretty funny. I think we are
busy all the time. This weekend has
been a bit short on sleep, so I know we aren’t sleeping our mission away. Every week is different; it doesn’t even
remotely resemble a typical missionary schedule. This week we filled in the ‘extra’ time with
cleaning out an apartment, attending two missionary discussions, attending a
baptism, running errands for our Christmas Concert missionaries, giving a blessing
to one of the YSA’s, working on the mission newsletter, and finishing the
Christmas slideshow. That is on top of
FHE, shopping and preparing dinner for Institute, our temple service, and
language classes. I know I also spent at
least an hour surfing the internet for dinner ideas for institute. This is the hardest part of cooking. I believe if someone gave me a schedule of
menus for each week, I would be much happier and less stressed. Somehow though, the dinners always turn out,
but I worry a lot. We are also at the beck and call of the mission
office—thus we have learned to be ‘minute men’ and very flexible.
I did not feel very prepared for my language ‘test.’ I thought I would have time on Wednesday to
practice on the ride up or back from Helsingør, but it was not to be. I rehearsed in my mind, but it is not as
effective as practicing out loud. I took
the teacher literally when she said we could only have a few words written on a
card. I found out that most people put
complete phrases. I thought the idea was
that we were to talk about something we know (like our eating habits, our
apartment, our lifestyle, etc.) and demonstrate our knowledge of the language, not
have a memorized speech. It actually
went okay—the teacher stopped me before I had finished describing things about
our apartment. I guess I had talked
enough. (She only wanted 1-2
minutes). Then she had some follow-up
questions, the first of which I didn’t understand. I think I was so relieved that the
presentation was over, I lost my focus.
I looked confused, but she just rephrased the question and I was able to
answer. I am my own worst critic, and
although the teacher said I was doing fine, I felt that it was not good
enough. My expectations were much higher
for learning the language. Jared said to
give it 5 months—well it has been 6 months and I still can’t speak Danish. I can read it some and I can write it a
little, but I struggle with speaking (especially pronunciation) and understanding
when a Dane speaks to me. (I did order
something from the bakery in Danish the other day, and the clerk must have
understood me, because she got me the item, without asking me to repeat
myself.) I know the biggest problem is
that we don’t speak Danish at home. We
always resort to English. Some of the
YSA are good at talking to us in Danish—simple, slow sentences. That really helps. No one wants to admit weakness in
anything—but this certainly is mine. I
have been humbled over and over again. I
was reminded in our Sunday School lesson that this challenge is a learning
opportunity to strengthen my faith.
Ether 12:27: “And if men come
unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men
weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all
men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before
me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto
them.”
Our lesson in RS was also a good one for me. I like the ‘no less serviceable’ characters
in the Book of Mormon—Omner, Himni, Sam, Teancum, Abish—all those people who
did not receive the limelight, but had an important role to play in building
the kingdom. Many of us will not have ‘limelight’
callings in the church, but we are no less serviceable. I remember in my younger life, being released
as YW president after only serving 9 months.
Dad had been called into the bishopric.
I don’t remember my calling after that (ward bulletin?), but I remember
feeling I was not very useful. But just
like our mission, I found other ways to serve, and hopefully contributed
something to someone. President Hunter
said, “Tens of thousands of unseen people make possible our opportunities and
happiness every day.” We need to tend
whatever plot of ground we have been given and do it the best we can. Hopefully then, we will hear the words, ‘Well
done, thou good and faithful servant.”
We had the missionaries over for dinner Sunday night. Elder Curnow will be transferred next week to
the island Fyn. Elder Curnow has become
a fixture in the office and we have not only gotten to know him well, but
depend on him. He is an excellent office
elder and seemed to blossom in his assignment.
He is very good at it. He was in
the office when we came and already had everything figured out. I believe he has been there 9 months. He is a whiz at the computer. Sister Buxton (office missionary) told me
that she often makes a to-do list for herself and leaves it on her desk. When she comes in the next morning, Elder
Curnow would often already have completed several tasks. He is a self-starter. He was instrumental in finding several new
apartments for the mission—not an easy task as they had to fit several criteria
like price, location, square footage (or kvadratmeters
as the Danish say). He was a good
source for me when I had questions about the mission newsletter. If he didn’t know, he would find out, but he
usually knew. He had his pulse on
everything in the office. Someone else
might see him as the typical nerd,
but we love and respect him and see him as a bright young man. He is always upbeat, helpful, and
assured. He doesn’t make you feel stupid
about your lack of computer finesse. In
fact he will build you up (as he is performing the computer task) and tell you
that it is a bit tricky and that he had trouble himself with it (which he
probably never did). I wanted to have
him to dinner one last time before he left.
I am always glad when we have the missionaries to dinner, even though it
is another big preparation for me (meaning that I plan dessert, rolls,
etc.) Why do I feel like I am always
cooking? Dad prepared a meal this week—a
recipe he found from a folder here in the apartment. He did a great job and it was very tasty.
The transfers this week seem to be harder than before. We have grown to love our little district and
zone. We have gotten to know them better
as we meet each week. We also have
inspected apartments twice now, so we have interactions with the missionaries
there as well. We have enjoyed teaching
with them, and several have come to the Institute center for FHE or Institute
when they have an investigator. There
were three missionaries who have been in our area for 3 or 4 transfers—they all
moved to the big island (Jylland). We
will miss them. But that is the way of
mission life. We will now get to know
new missionaries. We love their
dedication, their positive attitudes, their willingness to be obedient. I’m sure we see them at their best, and there
are times when I realize just how young they are—in the gospel as well as in
other ways. But they are learning many
lessons of life which will help them in the future.
Dad told you about the baptism on Friday night. It was a very nice service, although it was
long. The amazing thing was the member
support Eline received. There were over
100 people there. I doubt we will see
another convert baptism with that many people again. Eline is a very out-going person and has made
many friends in the church over the past year+ that she has been
investigating. She is intellectually
interested in religion, but has also felt the spirit and knows what a
difference it makes. She truly wanted to
be baptized. There were no missionaries
pressuring her to do it. We went to the
Frederiksberg Ward on Sunday to see her confirmed. Her baptism is the text-book example of how a
convert should come into the church (except that it took her over a year). But no missionaries were involved in the
service—they didn’t give prayers, baptize or confirm her, or give talks. One of the missionaries did accompany a group
of YSA women who performed a musical number.
Her boyfriend’s father baptized her; her boyfriend’s brother-in-law
confirmed her and members of the ward spoke, including our Bishop, a YSA who is
a new convert of 8 months himself, and her boyfriend’s mother. Eline is surrounded by a good support group
who can help her in her journey—her boyfriend’s family, the YSA’s, and many
members who know her. That is the way
converts should come into the church. It
was that way with Mary Keiser Petrakovitz.
I believe our family loved her into the church—and that love just
continues to grow.
Kærlig hilsen,
Mom
No comments:
Post a Comment