Kære Familie, 18 June 2017
We taught the institute lesson this week to all the YSA’s as we kicked-off summer institute. We watched the Worldwide Devotional with Elder Kim B. Clark about Joseph Smith. One of the messages from his talk was that God knows each one of us—He knows us by name, just like He knew Joseph. “Thou art Joseph, and thou wast chosen to do the work of the Lord.” I asked each of the YSA to insert their names in place of Joseph’s. We can do the same. Heavenly Father knows us; He knows our challenges, our weaknesses, our sorrows, our sins. He knows our joys and successes and He sees the big picture. He knows our potential. He is a personal Heavenly Father. The more we recognize the seemingly insignificant ways He is involved in our lives, the greater our understanding will be of His infinite love for us. It is often easy to recognize the big things, but His hand is everywhere and I honor Him with gratitude and reverence. It is His love for me, that helps me work through my weakness and overcome my shortcomings. I am grateful for His patience as I am not always a speedy learner. I hope you also experience and recognize His love in your lives. If not, re-connect yourself. It is the same for Christ—He stands at the door and knocks, but we must open it and let Him into our lives.
We took our Modul 3 test on Tuesday. Although we still do a lot of listening exercises and discussions in Danish, the test at this level was on reading for understanding, writing and grammar. I spent time on Monday preparing for the test by doing some practice writing exercises. I had one of the YSA correct my writing after FHE. It turned out to be very helpful. For the test, we had to write two different texts—one was a job application (15 minutes) and the other was an email to a friend (30 minutes). The last one also had a minimum word expectation of 90 words. I never worry about that. We have plenty of time to write. We are not able to use electronic devices, but we can use a dictionary. My philosophy in the writing assignments is to keep it simple. I also try to vary my sentence structure to show my understanding of the grammar. The rest of the test was reading and answering questions. We got the results on Friday. It is a fairly lenient pass rate—you just have to get 66% on the reading tests. I don’t know how the writing is evaluated. If you pass, you go on to the next level; if you don’t, you repeat the same level. No big deal, either way. On Friday, our teacher gave the class an assignment and then took us out one by one to discuss our results. Everyone in the class passed except one girl. I felt bad for her—she was struggling to hold back the tears. It wouldn’t have been so bad if a few others hadn’t passed, but she was the only one. I wanted to tell her that although I passed the test, I will never feel like I passed until I can speak and understand Danish.
We went to an amazing fireside tonight. It was at the same home where we had Christmas Eve dinner last year—Henrik and Suzanne Bryder. They have a big and well-landscaped backyard. There are so many flowering hanging baskets, and pots with flowers, and other yard décor (frog theme). They have a lily pad pond as well as a nice patio where we ate dinner. It was a nice mixture of American and Danish landscape. We had dinner and then we gathered into a small room that Sister Bryder uses as her music studio to hear a piano concert. There were 25 of us in a very small room, plus a baby grand piano. The concert was fabulous. Sister Bryder is a very gifted pianist. She played everything from baroque religious music to “Fur Elise,” to a modern piece about the sea, to a nice arrangement of “I Need Thee Every Hour.” Most of the pieces were memorized. In between numbers, she talked a little about her music, what it means to her, how she got started. I was seated right next to the piano and enjoyed watching her fingers and technique. Her music is her business as well.
We are still working on getting the apartment fixed up for the Holbæk sisters. So, one afternoon this week, we went shopping at the hardware store to find a shower curtain rod that was L-shaped. While there, I picked up some bedding plants for our little garden. When we got home, we spent the next couple of hours working in the garden. It needed weeding and cultivating. I worked on that while Dad weeded and cleared out the dead leaves in our shrubs. The weather was nice and it felt good to be outdoors. I know it sounds crazy, but I miss working in my garden. It is a great stress-reliever for me. Now I enjoy the fruits of my labors whenever I look out the window. Who would have thought that my garden could bring me such joy?
I did a lot of food preparation again this week—we had left-over sandwiches for Monday night snacks and I did homemade pizzas for dinner on Thursday. Traditionally we don’t have dinners during the summer on Thursdays, but I think there are still a lot of YSA who want food, as evidenced by the 27 YSA who showed up to eat this week, including two young men who just graduated from Seminary. Our stake meeting was cancelled this week so we didn’t get a chance to discuss it. We have rescheduled it for this Wednesday, so maybe we can revisit the policy. The idea behind the no-dinners in the summer is that there are fewer YSA who attend because of vacations, etc. so it is hard to plan. I’m pretty sure if we have dinners, it will be up to me. And I’m pretty sure if we have dinners, the YSA will come.
I spent my unexpected free evening this week (when our stake meeting canceled) working on the next issue of “The Banner.” It will include pictures and testimonies from 20 missionaries. We also have 14 missionaries arriving in July. It will be a big issue. I asked several of the missionaries to start sending me their testimonies and pictures now. I don’t want to be doing this one at the last minute.
Med kærlighed, Mom
Kære Familie Sunday, June 18, 2017
On Monday, we spent most of the day working on cramming for the language test on module 3. I was trying to control my stress level but it was pretty high beneath the surface. The test was not oral so I was not that worried about it. The reading comprehension should also have been ok and I expected to get a near perfect score. The stress comes from the time pressure where we have 5 or 10 minutes to complete an assignment. I hate the pressure of the clock ticking. The writing portion will also be hard as we cannot use Google Translator but only a dictionary or a verb list. I have developed bad habits with Google. I struggle with writing and getting the small words and spelling correct. Our study approach was different – Mom practiced writing and I tried to review adverbs, adjectives and verbs. It likely showed in the results.
We got the results back on Friday. We both did OK and will move on to level 4. It was difficult and awkward as we each left class for a few minutes to meet with the teacher and get our results. Anna Mette told me that I did well on the reading part of the test. I missed 3 out of 21 questions. But on the writing part of the test, she told me my work was not up to my usual standard and was a little sub-par. The difference was that we could only use a dictionary and I am pretty dependent on Google Translator to at least check my work or often to help compose sentences. I am sure that was the main difference. I did not think to ask her whether what she noted was spelling, grammar or sentence structure. That would help me know where I need to put more effort. My goal is therefore, to work harder on our writing assignments and try to do more initially on my own and only use Google to check my work.
FHE was a Pictionary activity. They also did an activity where they had even numbers in an inner and outer circle that faced each other. Each person had a piece of paper and had 30 seconds to sketch the person they were facing. After 30 seconds, the outer circle rotated clockwise one person (leaving the paper behind) and a new 30 seconds of drawing began so that at each stage the drawing of the people was enhanced by each contributor. The idea is that you only have time to scan the picture, compare it to the person you are facing and add a feature or two very quickly before moving on. They were both fun activities. We had around 20 there by the end of the night.
I had a spare hour on Wednesday and so washed my bike, pumped up the tires, adjusted the seat and took my first 2 rides around the neighborhood. It was fun. I stayed on the side streets so I didn’t have to fight the bike traffic and the traffic lights. It is like riding a horse – nothing to it. I don’t know how much I will use the bike but hopefully it will be useful to have around. The YSA are committed to having a biking activity and they promised to loan Mom a bike. We will see if that materializes over the summer. It sounds novel to us but biking is their means of transportation, so probably a boring activity. The last 2 weeks, I have noticed one of the older sisters at church. She has to be in her 70’s at least. She comes out of church, puts on her Helmut, hitches up her dress and jumps on her bike to go home from church. She is really a darling! I also love to see the little kids sitting between the handle bars on a kid seat, or an adult sitting in a kiddie basket in the front of a bike.
Thursday, we got a call from the Søborg sisters around lunch time. They had a window blind that was stuck closed because the pull string pulled loose from the blind. The apartment owner was dropping by the next morning to look at the apartment so they wanted it fixed immediately. We dropped everything and ran over, not very confident that I could fix a blind. It took about 30 minutes but I was able to get it working again. Meanwhile they pulled out a suitcase with a broken zipper. Mom looked at that. She was able to get the zipper back together again and then did some hand sewing to hopefully keep it from pulling off its track again. We are miracle workers with small things.
We taught a combined lesson in English for Institute as the other teachers were not available. We decided we would watch the Worldwide Devotional for YSA with Elder Kim B. Clark. We thought it might be a repeat for some of them, but it turned out that none of them had seen it yet. That was a disappointment that they would not have found the time to watch it on their own when the Church goes to such lengths to make it available to bless them. We stopped the video about 4 times after each of the major sections or points and had a discussion of what they heard and how they could apply it to themselves. This was our 3rd time watching it and I still heard several new things. I think the lesson went well. We got a text message on Friday from Gismo Borup that was priceless. "Thanks for yesterday you two!!! Elder Shurtliff when you talked - it's the most I have felt the spirit in the center for a long time!! Thanks for your companionship! You two are golden! Love you."
Brother Andersen teaches some marvelous, spirit filled lessons, so I am surprised by her comment and maybe a little saddened that she is not listening or feeling as much as she should be on some weeks. Nevertheless, it was a nice complement.
Elder Clark’s talk was excellent on Joseph Smith as a young adult, his experiences and trials and how he grew through major uncertainty to become a prophet of God. The 3 main points that we emphasized were: Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his plan for us; Repentance, becoming the person our Father wants us to be and being willing to let ourselves change; and the Power of the Book of Mormon to bring us to Christ. Some new video footage is shown as part of the talk (new for us at least) so if you haven’t watched it yet, I highly recommend it. I want to find the entire video he used.
We put in a whole shift at the temple and it was nice to be there after missing last week with our Graduation Ceremony. I did back to back Initiatory shifts and then led the last session. It is hard to do initiatory back to back because each session is about an hour and 20 minutes, enough time to do about 25 names. I had a veil in between and enough time to eat a snack, so there is a break but it is just a long time standing and repeating the same ordinance over and over. The 2nd time, I was in anointing almost the entire time and that is harder than moving between stations every 5 names or so. With the time change the temple made 3 weeks ago, the 7:30 pm time slot on Friday nights for the last session does not seem to be working out very well. It is much less attended than when it started at 6:30. Culturally, it just seems to be too late to start a session or perhaps it is just that new habits need to form over time. It is still light now at 10:00 when we get out of the temple, so it is not a darkness thing at this time of the year. We had 2 men and 4 women on the session (including the temple president) and it was not until about 10 minutes before it started that we knew we would even hold it when the male and 2 female patrons came. It was like that 2 weeks ago and I heard that last week they canceled the last session even though they had a few patrons because they did not have enough male temple workers to man the veils. Several of our temple workers go home before the last session because it is too long for their health to stay that long in the temple (1:30 until 10:00). We are missed when we are not there. Next week, we will only be able to do the first session with our Sankt Hans festival YSA activity (the bonfire where they burn witches) on Friday night.
Saturday was a very busy and hard day, in the sense that we had a lot to do and it took much longer than we thought it would. We started by meeting the office elders at the Valby Apt at 9:30 am. They brought the van with the seats out. We loaded a sofa, love seat, chest of drawers and a rug into the van and then they drove that to the Holbæk Apt, above a 45-min drive. We drove our car. The sisters were not home but left a key for us.
We made the following improvements or repairs to the apartment: Replaced a fluorescent bulb above the sink, replaced a light bulb above the stove, replaced the broken oven handle with the parts that Elder Bryner ordered, replaced the CO2 alarm, installed a new shower rod that is curved and will give them enough room for a smallish shower but will protect the wood sill on the window and keep water from spraying all over the bathroom. Mom brought her sewing machine and made some custom-fit blackout curtains for the trapezoid shaped window in the bedroom and hung it with Velcro tape. I put in a ceiling hook so the curtains can be drawn back in the daytime. We didn't leave their apartment until about 3:15 and had to make one trip to a hardware store for parts.
We then drove the van to Slagelse and arrived around 4:00. The elders there carried up the love seat to replace an older one they have that is cabin type furniture with cushions. They also kept the end table from Holbæk.
We then rushed to the sister’s apartment to fix a hinge on a clothes cabinet and replace a ceiling light. I needed some bolts, nuts and washers for the hinge and we hurried to another store which closes at 5:00. Most other stores closed at 4:00. We got there at 4:50 and so had one shot to buy the right parts. The bolts I bought were the right diameter but they were too short. Fortunately, Mom rummaged in a shoe box the apartment has and found 2 bolts of different lengths but they were the same size as the nuts I bought, so I was able to make the repair. In doing so, I noticed another cabinet has a door completely off (the door is behind the bed). This is cheap IKEA furniture of particle board and the screws just pull out of the wood after time. The only way I can see to repair them, is to replace the screw with bolts and washers that go all the way through the door. It is not as pretty but is functional. I will try to fix that door on our next apartment inspection visit. We thought that was our To Do List for the day, but the sisters had left us a note saying the kitchen sink drain pipes were leaking. I don't know if that was the reason why, but the sink area was piled with 2-3 days of dirty dishes. The overall apartment was very messy. I was able to tighten the pipes and I think correct the leak and mom decided to do a service (enabling poor housekeeping?) and wash the dishes. In doing so, we tried to use the dishwasher they have (very few apartments have one). It started leaking water all over the floor and we had a bigger mess to clean up, including baling the dish washer of water. While mom was washing dishes, I made the mistake (?) of checking the drain in the bathroom sink. It has a push-type drain that I had to fix several months ago when it got stuck in the closed position. Sure enough, when I pushed it in, it became stuck and I could not free it. Hence, I ended up undoing all the piping from the sink resulting in the black, gooey, stinky mess to clean out of all the pipes. I successfully freed the stopper, but then hard a hard time getting it all assembled back together again. We ended up not finishing these tasks until about 7:00.
We were both starved at that point (Mom had only 2 cookies for lunch while I had brought cheese, ham and an apple) so we decided to have dinner in Slagelse before heading home. We found a nice restaurant in the center of town with an outdoor plaza and had a very good meal of salmon and steak as we sat outside relaxing like Danes. It was cool as the sun went down so I got us some sweatshirts from the van. We got home at 9:15, unloaded some of the old furniture in our Genbrug and met the elders to swap vehicles at the Nitivej chapel at about 9:40. They were kind of enough to meet us (their apartment overlooks the parking lot) so that we could finish the day and get our car back for Sunday.
Love to all, Dad.
FHE was a Pictionary activity. They also did an activity where they had even numbers in an inner and outer circle that faced each other. Each person had a piece of paper and had 30 seconds to sketch the person they were facing. After 30 seconds, the outer circle rotated clockwise one person (leaving the paper behind) and a new 30 seconds of drawing began so that at each stage the drawing of the people was enhanced by each contributor. The idea is that you only have time to scan the picture, compare it to the person you are facing and add a feature or two very quickly before moving on. They were both fun activities. We had around 20 there by the end of the night.
I had a spare hour on Wednesday and so washed my bike, pumped up the tires, adjusted the seat and took my first 2 rides around the neighborhood. It was fun. I stayed on the side streets so I didn’t have to fight the bike traffic and the traffic lights. It is like riding a horse – nothing to it. I don’t know how much I will use the bike but hopefully it will be useful to have around. The YSA are committed to having a biking activity and they promised to loan Mom a bike. We will see if that materializes over the summer. It sounds novel to us but biking is their means of transportation, so probably a boring activity. The last 2 weeks, I have noticed one of the older sisters at church. She has to be in her 70’s at least. She comes out of church, puts on her Helmut, hitches up her dress and jumps on her bike to go home from church. She is really a darling! I also love to see the little kids sitting between the handle bars on a kid seat, or an adult sitting in a kiddie basket in the front of a bike.
Thursday, we got a call from the Søborg sisters around lunch time. They had a window blind that was stuck closed because the pull string pulled loose from the blind. The apartment owner was dropping by the next morning to look at the apartment so they wanted it fixed immediately. We dropped everything and ran over, not very confident that I could fix a blind. It took about 30 minutes but I was able to get it working again. Meanwhile they pulled out a suitcase with a broken zipper. Mom looked at that. She was able to get the zipper back together again and then did some hand sewing to hopefully keep it from pulling off its track again. We are miracle workers with small things.
We taught a combined lesson in English for Institute as the other teachers were not available. We decided we would watch the Worldwide Devotional for YSA with Elder Kim B. Clark. We thought it might be a repeat for some of them, but it turned out that none of them had seen it yet. That was a disappointment that they would not have found the time to watch it on their own when the Church goes to such lengths to make it available to bless them. We stopped the video about 4 times after each of the major sections or points and had a discussion of what they heard and how they could apply it to themselves. This was our 3rd time watching it and I still heard several new things. I think the lesson went well. We got a text message on Friday from Gismo Borup that was priceless. "Thanks for yesterday you two!!! Elder Shurtliff when you talked - it's the most I have felt the spirit in the center for a long time!! Thanks for your companionship! You two are golden! Love you."
Brother Andersen teaches some marvelous, spirit filled lessons, so I am surprised by her comment and maybe a little saddened that she is not listening or feeling as much as she should be on some weeks. Nevertheless, it was a nice complement.
Elder Clark’s talk was excellent on Joseph Smith as a young adult, his experiences and trials and how he grew through major uncertainty to become a prophet of God. The 3 main points that we emphasized were: Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his plan for us; Repentance, becoming the person our Father wants us to be and being willing to let ourselves change; and the Power of the Book of Mormon to bring us to Christ. Some new video footage is shown as part of the talk (new for us at least) so if you haven’t watched it yet, I highly recommend it. I want to find the entire video he used.
We put in a whole shift at the temple and it was nice to be there after missing last week with our Graduation Ceremony. I did back to back Initiatory shifts and then led the last session. It is hard to do initiatory back to back because each session is about an hour and 20 minutes, enough time to do about 25 names. I had a veil in between and enough time to eat a snack, so there is a break but it is just a long time standing and repeating the same ordinance over and over. The 2nd time, I was in anointing almost the entire time and that is harder than moving between stations every 5 names or so. With the time change the temple made 3 weeks ago, the 7:30 pm time slot on Friday nights for the last session does not seem to be working out very well. It is much less attended than when it started at 6:30. Culturally, it just seems to be too late to start a session or perhaps it is just that new habits need to form over time. It is still light now at 10:00 when we get out of the temple, so it is not a darkness thing at this time of the year. We had 2 men and 4 women on the session (including the temple president) and it was not until about 10 minutes before it started that we knew we would even hold it when the male and 2 female patrons came. It was like that 2 weeks ago and I heard that last week they canceled the last session even though they had a few patrons because they did not have enough male temple workers to man the veils. Several of our temple workers go home before the last session because it is too long for their health to stay that long in the temple (1:30 until 10:00). We are missed when we are not there. Next week, we will only be able to do the first session with our Sankt Hans festival YSA activity (the bonfire where they burn witches) on Friday night.
Saturday was a very busy and hard day, in the sense that we had a lot to do and it took much longer than we thought it would. We started by meeting the office elders at the Valby Apt at 9:30 am. They brought the van with the seats out. We loaded a sofa, love seat, chest of drawers and a rug into the van and then they drove that to the Holbæk Apt, above a 45-min drive. We drove our car. The sisters were not home but left a key for us.
We made the following improvements or repairs to the apartment: Replaced a fluorescent bulb above the sink, replaced a light bulb above the stove, replaced the broken oven handle with the parts that Elder Bryner ordered, replaced the CO2 alarm, installed a new shower rod that is curved and will give them enough room for a smallish shower but will protect the wood sill on the window and keep water from spraying all over the bathroom. Mom brought her sewing machine and made some custom-fit blackout curtains for the trapezoid shaped window in the bedroom and hung it with Velcro tape. I put in a ceiling hook so the curtains can be drawn back in the daytime. We didn't leave their apartment until about 3:15 and had to make one trip to a hardware store for parts.
We then drove the van to Slagelse and arrived around 4:00. The elders there carried up the love seat to replace an older one they have that is cabin type furniture with cushions. They also kept the end table from Holbæk.
We then rushed to the sister’s apartment to fix a hinge on a clothes cabinet and replace a ceiling light. I needed some bolts, nuts and washers for the hinge and we hurried to another store which closes at 5:00. Most other stores closed at 4:00. We got there at 4:50 and so had one shot to buy the right parts. The bolts I bought were the right diameter but they were too short. Fortunately, Mom rummaged in a shoe box the apartment has and found 2 bolts of different lengths but they were the same size as the nuts I bought, so I was able to make the repair. In doing so, I noticed another cabinet has a door completely off (the door is behind the bed). This is cheap IKEA furniture of particle board and the screws just pull out of the wood after time. The only way I can see to repair them, is to replace the screw with bolts and washers that go all the way through the door. It is not as pretty but is functional. I will try to fix that door on our next apartment inspection visit. We thought that was our To Do List for the day, but the sisters had left us a note saying the kitchen sink drain pipes were leaking. I don't know if that was the reason why, but the sink area was piled with 2-3 days of dirty dishes. The overall apartment was very messy. I was able to tighten the pipes and I think correct the leak and mom decided to do a service (enabling poor housekeeping?) and wash the dishes. In doing so, we tried to use the dishwasher they have (very few apartments have one). It started leaking water all over the floor and we had a bigger mess to clean up, including baling the dish washer of water. While mom was washing dishes, I made the mistake (?) of checking the drain in the bathroom sink. It has a push-type drain that I had to fix several months ago when it got stuck in the closed position. Sure enough, when I pushed it in, it became stuck and I could not free it. Hence, I ended up undoing all the piping from the sink resulting in the black, gooey, stinky mess to clean out of all the pipes. I successfully freed the stopper, but then hard a hard time getting it all assembled back together again. We ended up not finishing these tasks until about 7:00.
We were both starved at that point (Mom had only 2 cookies for lunch while I had brought cheese, ham and an apple) so we decided to have dinner in Slagelse before heading home. We found a nice restaurant in the center of town with an outdoor plaza and had a very good meal of salmon and steak as we sat outside relaxing like Danes. It was cool as the sun went down so I got us some sweatshirts from the van. We got home at 9:15, unloaded some of the old furniture in our Genbrug and met the elders to swap vehicles at the Nitivej chapel at about 9:40. They were kind of enough to meet us (their apartment overlooks the parking lot) so that we could finish the day and get our car back for Sunday.
Love to all, Dad.
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