Hiking the cliffs
Cliffs
Lunch after the hike
Round Church
Inside the Østerlars Round Church
Ruins at Hammerhus
Dad looking out to sea from the ruins of Hammerhus (Anya and her dog Victor)
Kære familie,
We had a whirlwind of a week end because of our trip to
Bornholm. But it was a lot of fun and it
was nice to associate with the young adults living on Bornholm. Dad can fill you in on the details of the
trip, but I want to tell you about Anja Johansen. She is a remarkable young woman who will be
baptized at the end of this month. She
works in the local grocery store and that is where the Halls (senior couple on
Bornholm) met her. Her journey began
with an invitation to the ward Christmas social. The Halls continued to befriend her and had
her to dinner, and eventually introduced her to the missionaries. As she has learned the gospel, everything
makes sense to her. She absorbs it like
a sponge—word of wisdom, chastity, eternal life and the plan of
salvation—whatever. The missionaries
will teach her the principle of tithing this week. Her mother passed away in February. Elder Hall gave her a blessing before she
went home (to Jylland) to see her mom before she died. Anja’s life has been difficult—her mother was
an alcoholic and all the children, except her, have symptoms from fetal alcohol
syndrome. Anja is an identical twin,
which makes it all the more miraculous that she somehow escaped the symptoms
that affect the lives of her siblings.
They have emotional problems and are mentally slower. She was the only one of the siblings capable
of settling her mother’s affairs. She
decided to be baptized after an experience she had when dealing with all the
governmental red tape during the probate for her mother’s estate. It was overwhelming as she tried to make
sense of it. Finally, she broke down and
prayed—asking God for help. The very
next morning she received a call from a government advocacy estate lawyer who
called to see if she needed any help getting the affairs settled. She felt it was an immediate answer to her
prayer. That night, probably at the very
moment she was praying for help, the priesthood leaders in the stake were also
praying for her at Bishopric Council.
They knelt and prayed for each investigator by name who has a baptismal
date (or is very close). Anja was
included in that prayer.
I will share one more experience about Anja. A few weeks ago Sister Hall (who is the
Primary president/teacher/song leader for the one 11-year-old boy in Primary), showed
the chart of General Authorities from The
Friend to Anja. It was a brief
discussion about who leads the church, probably in connection with General
Conference. Then last Sunday at our
Stake Conference,
the stake president announced a special fireside with Elder Neil A. Andersen at
the end of the month here in Copenhagen.
Anja immediately turned to Sister Hall and said, “Isn’t that one of the
twelve apostles that we looked at?” I
think there are a great many of the current members of the church who wouldn’t
recognize Elder Andersen’s name, but Anja did.
It is exciting to see the light of the gospel that is already in her
eyes, to hear her sweet simple testimony when she talks about her journey in
the church so far, to feel her love for the gospel and her new friends in the
church, and to hear how grateful she is that she has found the church. She has expressed a desire to be baptized in
Copenhagen and so plans are being made to make that happen. She plans to come in a few days early, join
our YSA for an activity on Thursday night, attend the fireside with Elder
Andersen on Friday night, and be baptized on Saturday morning. We are excited for her and are also glad that
we will be able to attend.
On Monday, I was able help a young woman (Marie) who is
investigating the church. She needed a
ride home for an out-patient hospital procedure. The AP’s have been teaching her, and she also
has a couple of LDS girls as roommates.
The AP’s asked if we could help.
I didn’t see any reason for us both to go, so I went by myself. It was a simple enough service, but I was
the one who benefitted the most. It
sounded like she had a vein stripped in her leg—I thought that it was unusual
for someone so young. She mentioned that
when she was having the procedure, she was grateful for anesthetic and compared
it to Joseph Smith’s surgery with no anesthetic. I was surprised that she even knew that
story. Perhaps the missionaries told
her. She said she had received a couple
of blessings from the elders and expressed her feelings about the
blessings. She said that the elders just
seemed to know exactly what to say and she felt comforted each time. I dropped her off at the ‘Apotek’ (pharmacy)
so she could pick up her prescriptions before heading home. She said that the clerk had been pretty
snippy with her. It was obvious that
something was bothering the clerk. But
Marie had an impression during this encounter that she didn’t ever want to act
that way towards another, even if she personally was having a bad day. She said the more she studies about the
gospel, the more she has a desire to treat others with kindness, the way Christ
would. She said that she didn’t know if
she would join the church or not, but that her life is definitely
changing. I just smiled. She asked me if I could come pick her up
again later in the day and take her to the train station. She planned to go home to Ålborg to her mom’s
house so her mom could care for her while she healed. Again, it was a small service, and I was the
one who really benefitted from our drive to the train station.
Our institute class was on the principles taught in 3rd
Nephi—the Sermon on steps of the Land of Bountiful Temple. I have read the Beatitudes many times, and
the scriptures about being the salt of the earth, and letting our light shine,
etc. but it was good to take them one by one and extract the principle from
them. I especially enjoy getting the
class members’ insights and experiences with the principles and what they mean
for them. We only had three students and
one left after 15 minutes, but I always learn something from them. The challenge for all of us was to choose a
principle that we need or want to work on and do it. I asked two questions: What do I need to stop doing to develop more ___(principle)___? And what do I
need to start doing to develop more
___(principle)___? If we are
truly to develop Christ-like characteristics, we need to become like Christ. I like
this quote by Lynn G. Robbins: “Many of us create to do lists to remind us of things we want to accomplish. But
people rarely have to be lists.
Why? To do’s are activities or
events that can be checked off the list when done. To be, however, is never done. You can’t earn checkmarks
with to be’s. I can take my wife
out for a lovely evening this Friday, which is a to do. But being a good husband is not an event; it
needs to be part of my nature—my character, or who I am.” As we become like Christ,
we become one with the Father, just as He did.
And we submit our will to God, just as He did.
Our friend, Kennedy, was in attendance again. She is the
blind girl from Minnesota. Last week we
told her that we felt badly that she could not read the scriptures with
us. She said she would bring a device
this week so she could join in. It was
truly amazing. The device was a
‘keyboard’ which she attached to her phone.
She pulled up Gospel Library on her phone and found the scripture we
were reading, with the help of her keyboard.
Using her fingers, she could read as well (or better) than anyone else
in the room. She is really amazing. She takes the train to school and to
institute. She walks from the station
with another YSA, but on the way home he gets off the train one stop before she
does. So, she manages to find her own
way. We probably only have her for
another two weeks before she returns to the states. Her semester abroad is finished. She will do an internship in neuroscience in
Maryland this summer and then return to school in Iowa. I suppose we are always in awe when people
accomplish so much in their life despite handicaps. But she says it is all she has ever known, so
she doesn’t think about it. The YSA are
all good to talk to her and make her feel welcome, but often we find her
sitting alone. As the other YSA get up
and move around to different conversations, she can’t move around as
easily. She can detect conversations and
knows about where they are in the room, but that’s it. Someone has to come and sit by her in order
to visit with her. So, that’s what I did
until her fellow YSA was ready to walk to the train station.
I believe one of our greatest callings as YSA missionaries
is to watch out for ‘the one.’ So, it
may be a Kennedy, or someone who is there for the first time, or a newly-turned
18-year-old, or an investigator. We had
an investigator that night as well—Andreas.
He is a young man (18-19) who referred himself to the church. He took a religion class in school and
decided to find out about the Mormon church, so he just showed up to church one
Sunday. The missionaries have since been
teaching him. He is looking for a
religion, or a life-style that promotes families. I told him that I was so grateful I had the
church to help me with my own family—giving me values, direction, and
purpose. The Plan of Salvation gives me
spiritual understanding of life. Dad
ended up talking to Andreas for almost an hour after institute—talking about
himself and about the church. I hope it
makes a difference.
I am so glad that the women got to go to TOFW. I am grateful to the dads who stayed home
with the kids—that is true love. I hope
everyone has a good week. I love you all
so much! Good luck to Lindsey and
Derrick on their moving preparation.
Kærlig hilsen,
Mom
Kære Familie Sunday,
April 30, 2017
This was an unusual week with
several different events out of the ordinary.
It made it speed by and it was very interesting. On Monday, we had a 2-hour lunch with 11
senior missionaries at a cafe in Nyhavn, a colorful part of the city on the
canal. It features Smorbrød sandwiches,
open faced with different sorts of things on top. President and Sister O'Bryant came along and
I love talking to them. The restaurant
was very noisy however so it was hard to carry on conversations. The food was good but probably not worth the
price or the anticipation as we made reservations 3 weeks ago.
FHE was at Bishop Lindberg's
home as the FHE committee wants to be away from the Center once a month. We had 25 show up which was a great
turnout. Rebecca Stewart brought a
non-member friend, we had a new girl who just turned 18, and a less active girl
also came. Bishop Lindberg gave the
thought on the Atonement and then they had a chocolate Easter egg hunt. The eggs were hidden throughout the whole
house, 3 stories. We played in 2 teams each rolling a single dice. If you rolled a six, you got to look for eggs
until the next person on your team rolled a 6.
I felt bad as his whole house was invaded by kids looking all over to
find hidden eggs. What we do for
entertainment! We left about 8:30 as it
seemed awkward for us to hang around in the home. I am always surprised at the lounging that
takes place after activities. This one
ended before 8:00 so it was early and it looked like lots of lounging was going
to happen. Instead of other games
getting started, they like to just sit and talk, or in this case lie on the
couches and talk. I am not sure whether
the Lindberg's appreciated this or not but they were great sports about
it. Of course, their son Christopher was
there as well as a niece who is like a daughter to them and they have known most
of these youths since they were little.
Wednesday, we went to the
newly closed Ordrup apartment to check it out and to retrieve a keyboard from
it that belongs to the Søborg apartment.
We dropped the keyboard off at the other apartment on the way home, our
timing was perfect as they just came in for study and dinner, and then got home
just in time to leave again for a dinner appointment. The dinner was at Elder and Sister
Warnsdorf's (They have just been released as local missionaries who did the
cars and immigration issues in the office).
They invited the Buxtons to come over as they leave and included the
other senior couples. We were there from
6:00 to 9:00 and walked both ways so it was a long dinner. It was very nice of them but it all seemed
too stretched out when we have so many other things that we would like to have
gotten done. The apartment is elegant
with all sorts of antiques and glassware, pictures, statues, etc. Little kids would give her nightmares in the
house. They have spent a lot of money
shopping the flea markets and Sister Warnsdorf loves the hunt and bargaining. We ate on a full set of Royal Copenhagen
porcelain dishes.
The 3 office elders came
Thursday morning with Elder Buxton and helped us shift furniture from the
upstairs apartment down to ours. The
Buxtons are going home May 9th and their apartment is being turned back to the
temple department which owns it and the Johnsons replacing them will go into
the smaller 1 bedroom apartment that the temple now uses for short-term stays
for temple missionaries. It is furnished
and our working assumption is that the temple will replace most of the
furniture that is in Buxton's as they upgrade it for temple use (the temple
department has more money than the missionary department it seems), plus the
mission purchased new couches just before we arrived. So, we swapped 2 couches, the kitchen table
and chairs down to ours along with the extra refrigerator and freezer that
Johnsons will not have room for. They
needed a good cleaning and defrosting so we worked until about 12:30 getting
everything cleaned and straightened up.
The new sofas are gray and they are newer and look much better than the
burgundy ones that we had. The table has
6 padded chairs and the top is in a little better shape than the one we had
plus the ends of ours were blocked with the table extensions so a person's legs
could not fit under them. All told, our
apartment is just a little bit nicer now than before. Also, when Buxtons leave next week, we are
going to bring their desk into our upstairs room so we will have side by side
desks. We will move our laptops off the kitchen table and do our studying
upstairs.
We had an escape to the
Island of Bornholm again this weekend.
Did we tell you we were doing that?
We had this idea to bring some YSA leadership to the Island to meet and
support their program. The stake agreed
to pay the expenses so we got permission from President O’Bryant to drive Jonathan
and Gismo with us. Normally, we are not
allowed to have non-missionaries in our car (We swapped cars with the Buxton’s
as theirs is bigger than our little car.)
We picked them up Friday at 2:00 and got a little worried when it took
us quite a while to get out of the city and onto the freeway. We made it however to the ferry at about 3:45
for our 4:20 sailing time. The sea was very calm going over and we did not have
any problems or sea nausea.
We arrived at the chapel at
about 6:10 and Sister Hall had prepared a very nice dinner of Lasagna, salad and
garlic bread for us, and mom had Congo Bars to go with some Ice Cream.
From Bornholm, we had Elder
and Sister Hall, Lisa and Matt Molenson, Anja Johansen and Elders Perkins and
Thorngren. Everyone seemed to enjoy the
congeniality that we had. A word about
the Molenson’s. They are the only active
family in the branch. The
youngest son, John is the
Primary and Sister Hall teaches him each week.
He is 11. Lisa is 20 and works on
the Island and is taking on-line classes in college. Susie is 15 and is half of the YW’s with
another girl (whose parents have health issues and don’t attend church). Mattis 23, was an assistant to the President here in Denmark. He finished his
mission in Dec 2015 and is attending BYU Idaho.
He just came home for the summer to work and earn money to go back. There is an older unmarried brother who lives
and works in SLC. The mom is American
and dad is Danish. They were supposed to
live in the US after their marriage but that dream has never happened. Dad has some health issues, is the EQ
President but doesn’t come to church that often. I have not met him on our 2 visits here. The 3 children we have met seem cool, but
Lisa is a bit introverted and needs to get a life where there are people her
age. She is sort of stuck on
Bornholm. Elder Hall taught an Institute
lesson after dinner and then we visited for a little while before heading to
sleeping arrangements. Jonathan stayed
with the elders, Gismo with Anja and we were at the Halls.
Saturday, we met at the
chapel for the activities at about 10:00.
Susie Molensen joined us along with Anja's dog, Victor. We first drove to the Hammershus area and
hiked to 2 large lakes, and several finger lakes. There was also a lighthouse on the coast
overlooking the sea. It was a very
beautiful area with a nice hike in what they would call mountains. In reality,
it was just good hill country. We hiked
and talked and got back to the parking lot at about 1:00, when we had a picnic
lunch. Our next stop was Hammershus
where we hiked around the ruins of the castle.
We then went to Gud's Hjemme for some ice cream and a drive along the northwestern
shore of the island. The next stop was
at the largest of the Round Churches. We
spent an hour looking at the church and climbing up the tower. At one point, the 12 of us sat in 12 chairs
around the inner court of the church and sang, We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet. Elder Thorngren bore his testimony about
being in Denmark and serving a mission. That was a nice moment. He has been
here 1 week and his Danish was so impressive.
They truly do miracles in the MTC – which we missed out on! We could understand him however.
We then returned to the
chapel for a pizza dinner at about 6:00 followed by a birthday cake for Sister
Hall (a surprise) and then 3 different group games. We quit at 9:00 to straighten up the chapel
for Sunday and get home. It was a long
day and we were all either sunburned or windblown. The weather was predicted to
be 40 degrees and 40 - 50 % chance of rain.
It was cold to cool with the sun shining but the rain never came. I started out with my stocking cap but that
did not last long even though I kept my gloves on most of the day. It was really a very nice day for a picnic
and some hiking. You might recognize
some of the names of the sites from our previous trip to the Island. The only
new thing we saw were the lakes that we hiked to, so most of it was a repeat
but the company was lots of fun.
Church in Barhholm only
has a 2-hour block and they trade off the 2nd hour between a combined RS &
Prst one week and a SS class the next. I
wonder how much difference there is between the two meetings, other than a
different course of study?
Jonathan and Gismo were the 2
speakers and they also did a duet together for the rest song. Matt Molinsen translated for us, Sister Hall
and 2 visitors from Arizona. We had about 20 turn out for the meetings, which
included 10 visitors.
We taught a SS lesson for the
YSA. They don't normally have a separate
lesson. We had 8 in the class with Gismo
and Jonathan and the 2 missionaries and Susie joined us. Our lesson was from SS, The Law of
Consecration. It was a good lesson I
think for everyone as we concentrated on what we could each do to more fully
consecrate ourselves to building up the kingdom of God. Bornholm really needs
some new members. They have one other
YSA who was baptized last year but he was away for the weekend. That was too bad, as he would have benefited
from our fun weekend. There is another 70-year old sister who was recently
baptized as well, so they will have 3 recent baptisms including, Anja. We understand the last baptisms prior to that
were 7 years ago.
Sister Hall gave us a lunch
of pulled pork sandwiches and we left for the Ferry just before 2:00. We did not get back to the church until about
5:20 from the 2:30 ferry and drive. We
held an Institute Committee meeting that was supposed to start at 5:00 but just
had Morten and Lea in attendance representing the FHE and Social
committees. Those are the two that are
working the best because of their leadership.
Helene and Shantay prepared
the dinner and it was good. We fed about
26 and had 28 YSA in attendance for the fireside at which President Olsen and
Brother Ringheim (HC) both spoke. Mom noticed that they did not have any
dessert so she rushed home during the dinner and prepared some chocolate no
bake cookies (she is so amazing!) and we had a bag of popsicles in the new freezer
that the Buxtons gave us. They were all
consumed. We got home at about 10:00 and
were too tired to start letters after the long weekend.
I hope that diatribe of our
week wasn’t too boring. It is the best
part of missionary work, interesting activities, teaching, being with members,
helping an investigator, seeing our young adults bond with each other and
performing in their callings, etc. It is
all great. I was a little disappointed
in the YSA talks on the Atonement by 2 returned missionaries. They both read long stories of the EFY type
symbolic of Christ’s sacrifice for us. Good
stories perhaps for 14 year olds but not quite appropriate for a Sacrament
meeting. It would have been so much
better to teach from the scriptures and use parables if they wanted
stories. I think they were searching for
filler material since they had 20-minute talks.
Love, Dad.
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