Dinner with the Buxtons and O'Bryants.
fleskesteg, frikadeller and the sovs
brune kartofler
lagkage
Kære familie,
Thank you for
the well wishes for our anniversary. We
had originally planned to spend the day by taking a train to the tip of the
island and working our way down the coast.
We wanted to do this before spring when the trees ‘leafed out’ and
blocked the view of the coastline. But
it wasn’t meant to be on Saturday. For
one thing, it was rainy and cloudy for most of the day, but the real reason is
because we were invited to the mission president’s home for dinner. We weren’t just invited to dinner, but the women were invited to come learn how to make the dinner. The men joined us in time to eat it. We made a traditional Danish fare of
fleskesteg, brune kartofler, sovs (gravy), frikadeller, and lagkage for
dessert. Sister Buxton and I were the
sous chefs while Sister O’Bryant tutored us.
She makes this meal once a transfer as the first dinner for the
in-coming missionaries. It seems like a lot of work, but her
husband helps and if she has too big a group of arriving missionaries, she asks
a sister in the ward to come help. The
lagkage was the first thing—it consists of 3 layers of thin cake (purchased
ready-made), a vanilla pudding-type filling for each layer, marzipan for the
top layer, fruit and chocolate. We put
bananas on top of the first layer and strawberries on top of the second layer
and also to decorate the top of the cake.
The final layer is the marzipan
which is soft, almost cookie-dough consistency.
We rolled it out like a pie crust and laid it over the whole cake. Whipped cream always accompanies a Danish
dessert, which was used to ‘stick on’ the chocolates and strawberries, and
hide/decorate the edge of the cake. It
is very tasty, but I’m not sure it would replace strawberry shortcake.
The
fleskesteg is a pork roast with the rind still attached. The pork is roasted in a pan with a little
water in the bottom. There really is
nothing special about the roast except for the rind (pig skin). When the roast was done, the rind still was
not. So, we took the roast out of the oven
and cut the rind (and fat) off. We
placed the rind back in a hot oven (500˚) over a ‘tent’ made of tin foil. It probably took another 20 minutes before
the rind ‘popped’ or crackled. I can’t
bring myself to eat it, but everyone else seemed to enjoy it. It is very crispy and salty. You cannot cut it with a knife—it is finger
food and requires some good chomping.
The frikadeller and the sovs (pronounced
almost like ‘sauce’) are pretty straight forward. The frikadeller is like making meatballs and
the sovs is made from the pork roast drippings and water used in baking. You need to add pork bouillon to give it
flavor. The difference is you also add
whipping cream after you have thickened the gravy and lots and lots of kulør
(Kitchen bouquet). I was in charge of making the brune kartofler
(brown potatoes), while Sister Buxton kept an eye on the pig skin, and Sister
O’Bryant made the frikadeller. It
required constant attention and stirring at the right temperature on the stove. I browned some sugar, added butter which
melted and then added small, previously cooked and skinned potatoes (from a
bottle). Then I stirred the potatoes,
getting them evenly coated with the sugar mixture. It took about 15-20 minutes at this point to
get them completely coated and done.
Our vegetable was rødkål—which is pickled red cabbage. It was a nice meal, but I am not ready to
switch to Danish food.
We finished our second text book in our language class. I am sure we have made progress—after all we
have completed two workbooks. Our
pronunciation has to be better, right?
Our grammar, vocabulary, writing and reading skills are definitely
better. But our speaking and listening
skills?...well I just want them to match those other skills and I don’t think
they do. Our teacher speaks to us
entirely in Danish, unless she receives universal blank stares. She asks us questions in Danish and we try to
respond in kind, but often it lapses to English. We can just think better in English. I
feel really lazy when I do this because English is my first language and for
the rest of the class, English is a second language. But we try and hopefully are getting better. We get exercises where we are paired with
another class member looking at the same picture but with 15 differences, i.e. dark
pants/light pants, pig tails/pony tail,
empty hand/hand with cup, etc. Without
looking at our partner’s picture, we must describe our picture to see if we can
find the differences—all in Danish, of course.
Or we read a fairytale together in class then we each compose 10
questions to ask another classmate—and then answer them. We do a lot of group work like that. I have enjoyed the fairytale unit, but I have
especially enjoyed learning more about the culture and lifestyle in
Denmark. If nothing else, these Danish
classes are expanding my understanding of our environment. But one thing I definitely know is that the
‘gift of tongues’ is real and the young missionaries have it—I don’t. I am still amazed at how well they speak
Danish in just 6 weeks. Anyone who has
had to learn a foreign language on a mission understands that this gift comes
from God. There is no other
explanation. So if they never learn
anything else on their mission, their testimony should remain firm by this one
thing. They have experienced first-hand
a miracle in their lives. On the other
hand, I still have a testimony of the gospel, even though I have not
experienced the gift of tongues myself.
I have definitely seen it in these young missionaries.
I worked all week preparing a talk
on gratitude. Then with the change in
our ward Bishopric, we got reassigned to the Amager Branch. Their meeting is only 1 hour—10 minutes
shorter. Their block is only 2 ½ hours—shaving
off 10 minutes from each meeting. I
figured that was the 10 minutes I would have had to speak. So Dad got our allotted time and I enjoyed
the meeting in the congregation. I
brought my notes with me just in case the other speaker didn’t show up—but she
did. I learned a lot in my
preparation—so it is never wasted. I
centered my talk around Alma 34:38: “And now,
my beloved brethren, I desire… that ye humble yourselves even to the dust,
and worship God, in whatsoever place ye may be in, in spirit and in
truth; and that ye live
in thanksgiving daily, for the many mercies and blessings
which he doth bestow upon you.” What a
marvelous way to live. Could this be one
way to live after the manner of happiness
which Nephi describes? I ran across a talk
by Joseph B. Wirthlin, "Live in Thanksgiving Daily," who shared some great insights: “Those
who live in thanksgiving daily are usually among the happiest people in the
world. And they make others happy around
them.” “Gratitude turns a meal
into a feast and drudgery into delight. It softens our grief and heightens our
pleasure. It turns the simple and common into the memorable and transcendent. It forges bonds of love and fosters loyalty
and admiration.”
Elder Quentin L. Cook’s article in
this month’s Ensign, “The Gospel and the Good Life” also talks about the
importance of gratitude. He quoted a
friend and Harvard Professor, Roger B. Porter, who said: “If you
choose to embrace gratitude as a central element of your life, it will serve
you well. It will help you resist the temptation to succumb to pride and to
fall into a sense of entitlement. It will help you to see the good and to
acknowledge the positive. It will help you to put in context the bumps in the
road and the adversity you will from time to time encounter. It will help you
focus attention on those less fortunate than you whose lives you can bless.” Then this morning I was reading about Nephi
being tied up while they were crossing the ocean to America. He certainly had hit a bump in the road, as he had many times before, but what did he
do? He praised God—he was grateful. “Nevertheless, I did look unto my God,
and I did praise him all the day long; and I did not murmur against
the Lord because of mine afflictions.” (1 Nephi 18:16) I think we all hit bumps in the road and adversity from time to time. Can we put them in the right context? We can if we live in thanksgiving daily.
Our institute lesson was on Preparing for the Final Day of
Judgment. We have been teaching for
about a month now and I am really enjoying the study and the challenge. The challenge is how to present our lesson to
a new convert and a returned missionary at the same time. We had four students in class this week—the
two I mentioned, plus the young woman with a bit of anxiety, who feels more
comfortable in a smaller setting, plus a young man who prefers to speak and
communicate in English. I was surprised
how he opened up and asked questions, volunteered to read, and participated
throughout. When he is with the Danish
group, he plays on his phone the whole time, showing little or no interest in
the lesson. So I guess we are meeting a
need. The CES director spoke with us
before our lesson and told us that we need to teach at the most basic
level—assuming that the students really don’t have a deep grasp of the
gospel. He reminded us that missionaries
teach the gospel for 2 years—but they are also teaching at a basic level to
investigators. We began our lesson by asking the YSA’s what
they needed to do today so that when they wake up in the spirit world they can
truthfully say, “I could not better my mortal life, were I to live it over
again” (Brigham Young). And how might people who do not understand
the purpose of their mortal lives and do not believe in life after death live
differently from people who do understand these things? We had one of the girls draw the Plan of
Salvation on the board and pointed out that our lesson specifically focused on
the part of the plan between death and judgment. The discussion generated a lot of questions
about spirit world, spirit prison, outer darkness, and procrastination. I don’t think they would have felt free to
ask these questions in the Danish class.
We turned the questions back to the class, getting their insights, using
the Book of Mormon to explain, as well as quotes from the General Authorities. What fun it is to study the gospel. I hope our class goes home and continues to
question, seek and find answers.
I hope everyone has a great week—back to school, back to
routines, back to work! We love
you. I called my mom on her
birthday. We had a pleasant
conversation; I love
my mom. When I talk with her, I feel so
far away. But it was the same in
Houston. I am grateful for her.
Kærlig hilsen,
Mom
Kære Familie Sunday,
March 19, 2017
Thank you for the well wishes and compliments on our
Anniversary. We
really did not have much time alone. Our dinner with the O’Bryant’s and
Buxton’s was very nice however and was a great way to be with some dear
friends.
I spoke in the Amager Branch today. There were maybe 25-30 people there. Mom sacrificed and “let” me have the whole
time allotted to us. It was rather
strange the way this came about. If things
work out, mom will speak next month and I will get a break. I talked about “living without regrets”. [built
around 3 Themes from dying patients – who wished they had: Spent more time with people they love; Lived
up to their potential; and Let themselves be happier.]
We are getting snow tonight and it is 2 degrees C. I would like to think this is the last snow
storm of the year, but who knows. There
are signs of Spring all over and when the sun is out, it feels warmer even though
the temperatures are still less than 50 degrees.
One thing that has
been bugging me this week is the amount of Graffiti in the city. I have noticed it a lot more recently. It is so sad that a beautiful city with such
old architecture is well marked up everywhere with Graffiti. It is not only on signs and billboards, but
also just on the walls of buildings. I
see some efforts to clean it off but I am sure it comes back again. I wonder how anyone can do some of the big
writing we see without getting caught as it would take quite some time to paint
such large designs or art work. I think
it is something the city should address with more strict protections and
punishments. It really harms the
otherwise beautiful architecture of the city.
The theme for FHE this month is food storage (physical and
spiritual preparation but the emphasis so far has been on the storage
side). One of the young ladies had the
activity for Monday and she organized a blind food testing game with 3 teams
which each had 20 different foods to taste.
The first person to guess right got 2 points for their team and the
others received 1 point if they could identify the food/taste. She had things like fruits, vegetables and
spices. My 3 chances were curry powder,
coconuts and raisins. The curry powder
was ghastly. Everyone seemed to like the
game and I think everyone participated.
The scores ended up being just 1 point apart after the 20 rounds so we
had a playoff round worth 2 points just for the winner. Any of the teams could have won that way. The
relationship to food storage is not very clear other than food was involved,
but it was fun and a good activity.
We had a teaching
appointment this week with the zone leaders to teach Savannah, who has a
baptismal date for the 5th of April. We met them in the parking lot ahead of
time to coordinate the lesson. They have
finished the discussions and are reviewing.
She is bi-polar and has other emotional problems but everyone feels she
is making a lot of progress. We talked
about her in our YSA Committee last Sunday and the bishopric counselor was very
positive about the advances she is making.
She also needs to stop smoking but he feels like that will come as she
comes out of her shell and is more comfortable around people. The discussion today was on tithing. She accepts the principle but has accumulated
some debt that will take her about 3-4 years to pay off. She is not working but is receiving gov't
payments for her support. The elders asked us
to share our experiences and testimony of faith and tithing and to help her
with ideas for being faithful to this commandment and not letting her debt be a
roadblock to her progress in the church.
Easy, huh?!?
The discussion
went well, but I don't think she is to the commitment stage yet. She listened willingly to our testimonies,
understood our examples of how and why God wants to bless us, listened as we
talked about stepping forward and putting her trust in God even when it doesn't
seem to make sense, etc., but she still seemed locked into the fact that if she
pays tithing she will have less to put towards her debts. She doesn't yet connect with the faith
element behind our obedience or accept that HF will keep his promise and open
the windows of heaven for her. We did get an update mid-week however that was
quite positive. Savannah reworked her
budget and has determined that she can pay her tithing. That is not quite the same as committing to
be faithful in face of the challenge but maybe it is close enough in her
case. They Lord may be blessing her even
before her obedience with the willingness to try. That is also exercising some faith.
At the temple
this week, I was a patron back to back on the first 2 sessions. It was nice to take some family file names
where the other ordinances were performed in 2012 and 2013. I felt like I was completing some work they
had been waiting 5 and 4 years for. I
hope the sealings are completed timely for them. It seemed like they had plenty of men today
as ordinance workers where I wasn't really needed but Jean was. I was surprised she could get away at 6:30
but they had the posts covered.
We left the
temple at 6:30 and went to a musical fireside at the stake. They did a nice job of performing music by Jenny
Phillips "Thy Faith Hath Saved You".
It had all been translated into Danish.
We did not understand very many of the words but it was still a nice
musical evening in any event. Several of
the YSA's sang solo's or sang as part of larger groups and Phillip and
Alexander Kjeldsen both accompanied many of the pieces. I was also impressed that Sister O'Bryant
accompanied 4 of the numbers. She must
have found some time to practice. She does have a piano in her home. I was disappointed in that Rasmus Sveistrup
was supposed to sing a solo but he had voice issues and wasn't able to sing. I
think he has one of the better male voices I have heard. We are impressed that this stake has about 3
of these concerts a year. Our Houston
stake is so dead culturally that this is very refreshing.
Love, Dad
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