Botanical gardens
Jensens on the left, Buxtons on the right
Standing in front of the 5th largest meteorite found on the earth. It was found in Greenland and brought to Denmark. Originally, it weighed about 20 tons. Now it is less because they cut it in half so they could study it.
Geology Museum
FHE Tzatziti activity
Jonas, recently baptized, and Miranda the volleyball player from U of U
Kære Familie Sunday,
February 5, 2017
We mentioned in last week’s
letters that we had the Halls with us for 2 nights again. The Halls walked with us to
FHE last Monday. I don't think they
liked our fast pace in walking but we felt late and had to hurry - though we
always walk fast going over and slower coming home. We are younger than the other couples in
Copenhagen and in better shape, so we tend to wear them out or have to slow
down to their paces. We did not have the
food assignment as one of the YSA included refreshments as part of her
activity. She had a nutritionist coming,
who never showed up, so that created an awkward space at the beginning. They talked about the Word of Wisdom but
stretching it out was hard for them. I was a little embarrassed that Elder Hall
felt the need to jump in and he took over for about 10 min and somehow with his
Danish, turned it into a discussion of the Tree of Life and our spiritual and
temporal bodies that we need to care for.
I am not sure if they appreciated that or not but it did cover for a
lesson.
The activity was a team
competition in pairs to make Tzatziki - a Greek dip, eaten on bread. It is made
from yogurt, cucumbers, garlic, dill and olive oil. Victoria had ingredients
and utensils on the table but the food hidden by a cloth. Without a recipe,
they had 10 minutes to make the best dip. After 5 min, she changed the rules so
each person could only use 1 hand, so the partners had to really work together--one to hold the bowl the other to mix, etc. 3
judges rated the best result. They had a lot of fun with it and they all
seemed to know basically how to approach it. They didn’t hesitate in grabbing
food and starting to slap it together. I have never heard of the stuff.
As an interesting side note
on senior couples, we had our interview with the President on Wednesday. He mentioned that he is having a bit of
trouble with senior missionaries taking over District Meetings and other
meetings with the full-time missionaries, and they are resenting it a bit. Hence, he is sending out a letter telling
senior couples that they are no longer to attend the weekly District Meetings. He wanted us to know that the letter does not
apply to us and we are welcome and encouraged to continue to attend our
meeting. Our elders and sisters like
us! He knows that we will handle
ourselves appropriately and let them make mistakes and learn without jumping in
all the time. Good point to keep in mind
though. It is tempting to contribute
more at times, but generally we take a very low-key approach and just add to
the discussion when we are invited to.
Tuesday, after class we were
free until the Halls were due back between 2 and 3:00. They came in about 3:00 and flopped down to
chat until they went to dinner at the Jensen's from 5:00 until 9:00. We then
talked some more until about 10:30. I was talked out for this visit. They commented that the talk at the Jensen's
was all mission-oriented, the 2 men served in Denmark at the same time. That may
have been a bit boring for the wives.
They seemed to be relieved to talk to us some more. We covered many topics including YSA's not
getting married and about the poor example of our generation, their parents,
not setting good marriage examples for them. There are a lot of marriages
messed up and they had some good stories about their siblings and friends. I don’t know that we know as many sad
stories.
One of our fellow language
students, Ash from India, asked me Friday if we could loan him an English Bible
to read. He is studying world
philosophies and wants to compare some of the major religious texts. He was raised Hindu and has a copy of the
Koran. I told him sure (have to figure
out how to get my hands on one he can have) and then asked if he would also
like a copy of our Book of Mormon and gave him just a little background on how
it is similar to the Bible as a Christian scripture. He was very willing to accept one. Then we spent both breaks talking about
religions in the world, in Denmark and about his religious background. It was interesting and maybe this will
develop into a missionary opportunity.
It is easy to prejudge our class and say that none of them are searching
for something more. Marina has been very
outspoken about being an agnostic at best, though she attended catholic schools
in Spain and her grandmother is very disappointed that she has no interest in
religion. They didn’t speak for 3 months
when she told her that she would not go to mass any longer and would never be married
in the church. They are on better
footings now but it is a sore point. I
guess grandma lost her daughter and now is losing the granddaughter as well. Most of the others have live-in
relationships, etc. but we will see. I
think there are 2 others that are married with kids. I would like to make a
gift of a BofM to everyone in the class but I am sure that would violate a rule
of the school in some way. On this generational thing with religion, there does
seem to be a bit of a phenomenon in Denmark at least, where the young
generation now is rebelling against their parents by going back to
religion. Hence, the relative success in
reaching the 15 – 25 year olds, whereas the older people do not have any
interest in religion.
The temple was good today. It seems like awhile since I have had a full
session due to my illnesses and the YSA dinner we had at the first of the
month. I was a patron on the first session, the veil coordinator on the 2nd,
and led the 3rd session in English. The veil coordinator assignment was
new. I worked with the shift coordinator
to learn how they set up the veils and decide how many and which brothers to
use. It is a little different than what we did in Houston but no better or
worse, I think. I like the pocket card
that Houston used for this purpose but the half sheet of paper here works fine
and does account for the many different languages that might be required on a
veil. In Houston of course, we only generally worried about English and
Spanish.
The challenge President
O'Bryant gave the mission on Wednesday in our zone training was to each read
the entire BofM by next transfer, which is 6 weeks or 42 days. I started immediately on Wednesday, just
assuming that 3 chapters a day would get me there. I planned on reading at
lunch every day. On Thursday night, I actually counted the chapters and
realized that I need to read 6 chapters a day. Yikes, I was 6 chapters behind
already. Reading 3 chapters a day I
think is doable by catching a chapter here and there, but 6 chapters takes some
concentrated effort and will require that I set some time aside from other
things (maybe just my political blog reading!).
Now, I am on track for the 5 days so far and am enjoying the extra
reading. There is a different feeling
over just reading a chapter a day. Already,
the story flows better and I am falling in love with its deep teachings about
Christ all over again. I think this will
be a blessing to me and the mission and will be the shortest time frame within
which I have read the entire book.
For our P-day, we made plans
to join the Buxtons and Jensens at the Botanical Gardens at 12:00 so we had
the morning to exercise and study. Mom
is teaching the YSA SS class on Sunday, so we tackled that together for our
companion study and ended up spending close to 90 min reading background
material and watching a couple of videos on the Book of Mormon. It is a good topic and timely since we just
started this new challenge to increase our focus on the book throughout the
mission.
We walked the 1.9 km to the
Gardens which are next to Rosenborg Castle.
It was about 34 degrees with a light misting at times so it felt pretty
cold. The gardens are of course not
planted now, but they have several greenhouses with lots of plants. They were
kind of fun to wander through and they were warm inside! We then checked out the Geology Museum which
is on the premises as well. The entrance
fee was only 40 kr each, so we decided to check it out. We probably spent 90 minutes there reading about
meteors and different kinds of rocks. We
then walked back checking out restaurants as we were all tired of walking and
were hungry. We took a long way home for
some reason and probably walked twice what we needed to. We finally stopped at a Chinese restaurant
and had a good buffet meal. We got home
at 6:30. It was a much longer day than we expected. Thinking back on it, we looked at plants and
rocks, none of which really interests either of us. It was rather a waste of a
day, other than we enjoy the company of our friends.
We had a zone training
meeting on Wednesday. This one was
excellent. The basis of it was a 2 hour video recording sent to all the
missions of the world. It featured the Executive Missionary Council chaired by
Elder Oaks, with Elder Bednar, Elder Anderson, Sister Oscarson, Bishop Waddell
and the 2 Seventy who are directors of the missionary department. It is not
often that you get this kind of direct discussion of missionary work. I will share just a few highlights that I think
might be interesting. They may
especially help Jared in his calling as he works with the missionaries and
realizes that they have likely just received this message as well.
There
are 70,854 missionaries serving now. (I
was surprised that the # has dropped that much from the mid to high 80k)
We
teach repentance and baptize converts – this is our purpose.
Missionaries
teach the Doctrine of Christ, which is:
Repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy
Ghost and enduring to the end.
2 Nephi 31, 3 Nephi 11 and 27. Sum it up
from a scriptural foundation.
Teaching
commandments will be a great blessing to them.
As they realize that their conduct is not acceptable to God, they will
ask for baptism so that they can be clean.
We
have a tendency to treat repentance lightly.
It is essential. It means change.
"Say nothing but repentance unto this
generation."
"His atoning sacrifice is unto all
those who have a broken heart and contrite spirit, and unto none else can
…"
Extend
commitments to act. Accepting these commitments leads to change, which is
repentance.
Change
is manifest in their reading, attendance at church, and a willingness to accept
commandments that they did not live before.
The spirit will be manifest in them as they begin making these changes.
Following up on commitments is essential to helping them make the real change
that is needed in their lives.
We
can bring the truth unto their hearts, but we can't push it in. We deliver the message, create a spiritual
atmosphere, and invite them through commitments to accept the message and let
it into their hearts. The Holy Ghost
is the teacher.
Nothing
happens with an investigator until you ask them to act in some way. We must invite them to turn to the Savior,
to come to know him better, to love the scriptures, to accept the fact of a
modern prophet, to recognize and accept modern day revelation, to recognize
that they can pray and receive answers to their prayers, and that it is
important to attend church every week.
Remember
to promise blessings every step of the way.
This week we have another
stake correlation meeting and we need to start another round of apartment
inspections. That will keep us
busy.
Love, Dad
Kære Familie, 5
February, 2017
We received a challenge from the mission president to read the Book of
Mormon by our next Zone Training Meeting—6 weeks from now. As I am reading, I really admire Haley’s goal
to complete the Book of Mormon in one month.
I remember when President Hinckley asked us to read the Book of Mormon
by the end of the year—but I think we had 5 months to do it. But however you do it, do it you must! I have really enjoyed studying the Institute
Cornerstone manual, The Teachings and the Doctrines of the Book of Mormon. Each lesson teaches important truths that are
found in the Book of Mormon. President
Benson said, “The
Lord Himself has stated that the Book of Mormon contains the ‘fulness of the
gospel of Jesus Christ’ (D&C
20:9).
That does not mean it contains every teaching, every doctrine ever revealed.
Rather, it means that in the Book of Mormon we will find the fulness of those
doctrines required for our salvation. And they are taught plainly and simply.” We can learn so much from the Book of Mormon
and the blessings promised to those who read it are great. We would, indeed, be foolish not to.
We had a
nice visit from the Halls, but we spend a lot of time visiting—not productive,
but nice. They are all alone
on Bornholm—they have a set of missionaries and they have the ward members, but
it isn’t the same as talking with people our own age with similar experiences. There really is a bond between senior
couples. We saw it when our parents went
on a mission, and we are experiencing it now.
They are experiencing a little success with missionary work. They invited a store clerk to join with their
ward Christmas social. She has attended
several functions since then, including church and a dinner at the Hall’s
apartment. They are a great example to
us that we need to open our mouths more.
So, we did just that this week. Both Dad and I had an opportunity to discuss religion with fellow
classmates in our language class. I was
talking to an atheist (former Catholic from Spain), and Dad talked to our
Indian friend. I mostly explained our
beliefs—she asked me if we were a protestant church so I was able to explain
that we are Christians, but we are not protestant. She kept asking me if we believe in the
Virgin Mary. I told her we did, but that
we didn’t worship her like they do in the Catholic church. “But do you believe that Joseph is Jesus’
father?” she asked. Again, I assured
her that God was Christ’s father and that Mary certainly was his mother. I don’t think she understood why we didn’t
worship Mary (the Virgin Mary) if that was how we believed. She went to church when she was a young girl
with her grandmother, but her parents were never active. She finally quit altogether. She said most of her friends also don’t
believe, but they won’t admit it until after they are married. They want a church wedding and it would be hypocritical
to do so if you were not a believing Catholic.
We saved
our language homework to do on Monday, but between cleaning the house for the Hall’s visit, a trip to the grocery store for FHE supplies, writing letters and
visiting, we did no language. We were
very unprepared for Tuesday. I used to
make sure I did my homework on Saturday when we had class on Monday. Now that we don’t have class until Tuesday, I
take the whole weekend off—not a good plan.
We also missed our lesson on Wednesday due to Zone Training. Hence, we spent a lot of time Tuesday
afternoon and Thursday morning playing catch-up. I really like the focus in our class right
now. We are learning about history, real
people and events, and Danish culture. Of
course, we are still learning grammar, pronunciation, etc., but our readings
are more interesting. For example, we
learned that 57% of Danes use cars as their preferred mode of
transportation. Only 17% use
bicycles. This surprised us because
there are so many bikes in Copenhagen.
But when you get away from the city, it is pretty much like anyplace in
the U.S. You need a car to get from A to
B. Still, 57% is a low percentage, I
think. Also, today 96% of their children
(ages 3-5) go to daycare. In the 1970’s
that number was only 50%. I wonder what
it is in the U.S. That says something
about our culture, in general. 79% of
the people in Denmark are members of the Danish State Church (Evangelical
Lutheran church). But that number is not
representative of how many people are religious. They also pride themselves in that they are
the only Scandinavian country where you can go to the doctor for free. But they don’t like to mention how difficult
it is to get an appointment to see your primary physician, and that the
receptionist determines if you are sick enough to warrant a visit. The dental care is free for children, but not
for adults.
I had the
opportunity to prepare two lessons this week.
Because the stake had a General Priesthood meeting on Thursday night, I
was asked to teach institute. We always
do 2 lessons each week. This week we
studied ‘Seek Ye for the Kingdom of God’ and “Prayer and Revelation.” It really helped my preparation that we had
already been studying these chapters. I
only had 14 girls in the class. We had
some good discussion on both topics. I
especially like the promise that when we put the Kingdom of God first in our
lives, everything else falls into their proper place or drops out of our lives. The YSA men were encouraged to attend the
Priesthood meeting—and our teacher, who is also male, was there as well. I walked to the center alone and walked
home. I got home about 10 minutes after
Dad—about 9:40—pretty early for a Thursday night. I did all the clean-up by myself. I missed Dad’s help and his company. I think it is amazing that I am not scared to
walk around Copenhagen alone at night.
Of course, I kept to the major streets which were still full of tourists
and night life. I know I would not feel safe
doing the same thing in Houston.
The other
lesson I prepared was for Sunday School.
We were asked last week to teach the YSA class. I was told to do lesson 4—that seemed fine as
we had lesson 3 last week. Dad taught
the last time, so I said I would do it this time. I had it all planned, with a short video,
discussion groups, etc., but when I walked into church this morning, I was
overwhelmed with the thought that I had prepared the wrong lesson. For some reason I started thinking that there
were 5 weeks in January, and if you don’t count the first week when we didn’t
have Sunday School class, we should be on the 5th lesson today. I voiced my concern out-loud to Dad in the
foyer, as we were the only ones there. But then one of the missionaries came out of
the clerk’s office. I guess he heard me
because he said that he had been asked to teach the YSA Sunday School class and
he was preparing Lesson 5. We had been
asked by different people, which was the reason for the confusion. I backed down and said he should teach it. Now we are
on the right lesson (still one behind the rest of the world), and I have the
benefit of all that preparation. It is
never wasted. I thought the missionary
did a great job and it was a good experience for him.
One thing
I took away from our Zone Training was the purpose of missionary work—to teach
repentance and to baptize converts. We
are not trying to baptize people; we
want to baptize people who are converted to the gospel. We teach repentance because that is the way
to come to Christ. When we repent, our
hearts are changed and ‘because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has
wrought a mighty change in
us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil,
but to do good continually.’ The first step in conversion is faith which
draws people to repentance (‘faith unto repentance”). The change that comes after repentance gives
us the desire and strength to keep the commandments. People change to be a morally-minded
person. Missionaries continue to teach
prayer, church attendance, the need for the sacrament and all these things lead
them to Christ. Baptism is not an event,
but is part of the process of coming to Christ.
Thus, they become converted—and this is when they are baptized.
One other
thought is that missionaries are to establish the church. They do that through leading people to Christ
and baptism. But they also do that as
they rescue the less actives. Probably
the biggest way they establish the church, however, is when they return
home. When missionaries continue doing
the things they did on their mission, who marry, have families and participate
in the church, they are establishing the church. Multi-generational families are the backbone
of the church. Missionaries who stay
faithful are establishing the church. As
I see these young missionaries return home, my hope is that they will continue
to be the great missionaries they have been.
They have a wonderful foundation that hard work and obedience can bring
happiness. I read their parting
testimonies (as I publish them in The
Banner) and I know they are strong.
I hope you
all have a great week. We received our
2017 calendar this week and have enjoyed looking at the pictures. We LOVE
pictures! The grandchildren are growing
and changing. Give them all a hug from
us.
Kærlig
hilsen,
Mom
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