Our outing with the Halls and Jensons to see Amalienborg Palace. We took this picture on our way home in Nyhavn. We were standing in front of the fence along the canal where people ‘lock their love.’
Kære familie, 15
October 2017
We have had a busy week but it has been a great week. We were spiritually filled at Zone Conference
on Tuesday and I received some wonderful remembrances for my birthday on
Thursday. That was the best birthday present
of all. (And second best is the present
Clayton gave by sweating a couple of hours in my yard and pulling weeds!?!) Our YSA pulled together a birthday cake,
decorations, and flowers which came as a complete surprise, because I didn’t
think anyone knew it was my birthday.
They didn’t know, but moved quickly to pull something off when Dad secretly
mentioned that it was my birthday at the start of institute. (He just intended for them to sing.) Two girls immediately were dispatched to get
a cake, candles, and Danish flags—the symbol for fødselsdag (birthday)
celebrations—all unbeknownst to me. I
guess they threw the lagkage (layered cake) together during their institute lesson and they arranged with their teacher to
end a few minutes early so they could decorate the main institute room. We teach the English lesson in the small
institute office so I had no clue what was happening. When I came into the main room, I saw all the
decorations and was presented with my cake.
They sang Happy Birthday to me in English and Danish, and I had to blow
out some candles (not 63 of them, thank goodness). I didn’t have to make dinner that night,
but I had to eat it—curry, meatballs and rice!
I had made my favorite cookies for dessert which were needed in addition
to the cake for the 35 YSA who attended that night. I got some excellent mint chocolate candies
and a beautiful bouquet of flowers. They
are very good to me.
Tonight, we attended a special meeting with Elder Russell M.
Ballard for all adults in the European area.
It was broadcasted from a chapel in Frankfurt, Germany. Elders L. Whitney Clayton, Gary B. Sabin, and
Massimo De Feo also spoke to us along with brief testimonies from their
wives. It seemed this meeting was put
together in a short amount of time, because no one seemed to know about it
until today. But there was a beautiful flyer in the foyer
of the church announcing it, so I thought maybe I was the only one who didn’t
know about it. We were in a different
ward last week and I don’t think it was mentioned there—but things get lost in
translation…. Elders De Feo and Sabin
serve in our area presidency as counselors.
Elder Ballard said he wanted to speak plainly to the people in Europe
and his theme was apathy. He said that
we are too busy sometimes to sit and feel the gospel of Jesus Christ. We need quiet time to ponder and pray. At the same time, he encouraged the people in
the European nations to be engaged in the work of the gospel, missionary work,
and building the kingdom. He asked us
how much we love the Lord and then said the greatest way we can express our
love and gratitude to Him is to help share the gospel. God will put people in our pathway. He told us to not let our congregations
decline. It sounds like there is a
concern that the church is shrinking in Europe, not growing. Judging from the 100 or so people (20 of which were full-time missionaries) who showed up tonight to hear Elder Ballard, apathy is alive and well in
Denmark. Are we complacent in the way we
serve in the church and in the way we live the gospel? I see so many strong members here who serve
valiantly—our stake presidency is wonderful!
I see many of our YSA who go the extra mile to serve in their
callings. But I also see those who won’t
accept callings or whose attendance in church is sporadic. It is not much different than most
wards. But unlike Houston, TX where we
are creating wards and stakes every few years, the wards in Denmark are not
growing. A lot of the converts come from
non-Danish people who may not stay in Denmark.
Some of the new members who were baptized in the last year are not
active. How do we guard against
apathy? We keep doing the things we
should—righteous habits—and we teach our children the gospel so we can have a
stronger generation to replace us. Elder Ballard also told us to smile and be
happy. He cautioned us to not let the
focus be on the things we have to do, i.e. ‘I have to teach another lesson this
week.’ We should just step in and do it
cheerfully.
We had a baked potato bar for lunch at Zone Conference. Sister O’Bryant did the hard part by
providing the toppings. All the senior
missionaries had to do was bake potatoes.
And everyone loved it so I think we should do it more often. We baked 75 large potatoes for 45
missionaries—there was plenty of food! I
can tell the missionaries love Zone Conference.
They enjoy the comradery of getting together, sharing experiences, and
just chilling. We were spiritually fed
with nearly four hours of training, but then they have a chance to
socialize. Usually the President does
interviews, but this time he didn’t. We
have another Zone Conference in a few weeks—before the next transfer—so he will
do the interviews then. Elder Sabin is
visiting the mission the first week in November, so that is why we are having
another zone conference. We also all received our flu shots after Zone
Conference. Hopefully we will stay
healthy this winter.
I really enjoyed President O’Bryant’s training for Zone
Conference. He spoke for more than an
hour—his message was uplifting, encouraging, but also direct when he needed to
be. He and Sister O’Bryant had just returned from
a mission president’s training in Portugal with Elder Holland and others. He shared some insights from that training,
including that the leaders of the world are slowly warming up to the
gospel. The gospel is even beginning to
spread in China. He said that the most
abused gift is the gift of the Holy Ghost.
We all want to get to heaven so we can be with God and Christ, but we
can walk with a member of the Godhead now.
We should recognize this gift and be worthy to receive His
companionship. He talked about obedience
in the mission field and referenced the tragedy in Las Vegas. He remembers some missionaries in California,
where he lived, who took ‘time out’ from missionary work to attend various
music concerts. He thought what if
missionaries in Las Vegas had disobeyed mission rules and went to the music
concert in Las Vegas that night. But
none did and all the missionaries were safe.
There is safety in obedience.
He spent most of his training on the need to preach
repentance as part of the conversion process.
There is a misconception that if we get people to pray and know that the
Book of Mormon is true, they will be baptized.
We skip the important step of repentance. We read several scriptures which say, ‘Say
nothing but repentance unto this generation.’ (D & C 6:9) You can’t have
faith without repentance—faith alone will not keep you active in the
church. (The reverse is also true: You can’t have repentance without
faith.) A change of heart only comes
through repentance. President Packer
said, “It is what we become more than
what we do that will exalt us.” He outlined four things that repentance is or
is not:
1. Repentance
is not a one-time event
2. It is
conditional, meaning that the plan of salvation hinges on this principle. “Therefore, according to justice, the plan of
redemption could not be brought about, only on conditions of repentance of men
in this probationary state, yea, this preparatory state; for except it were for
these conditions, mercy could not take effect except it should destroy the work
of justice. Now the work of justice could not be destroyed; if so, God would
cease to be God.” (Alma 42:13) We rarely
hold people accountable for what they do, but God does. Justice demands it.
3. It is a
fundamental change of heart. A change of
behavior is not repenting. The only way
to fully repent is using the atonement.
Missionaries should teach their investigators how to recognize the Holy
Ghost as He prompts them towards Godly Sorrow.
4. Repentance
is a cleansing agent and is a life-long process as we partake of the sacrament
each week. See Moroni 6:4, 8
I wondered if all missionaries receive similar training—I’m
sure they do. It is so important that
new members of the church really understand this principle—it is important for
all of us to understand this principle.
I think it is the difference between those who are baptized because they
are converted to the missionaries, or they like the sociality of the members of
the church, or they like reading the Book of Mormon. A changed heart—a repentant heart—will humble
us, help us understand our reliance on Christ and His Atonement, and help us
recognize the Holy Ghost and the need we have for His companionship in our
life.
Our institute class changes weekly. We were hoping that our Chinese friend would
come back so we had thoughts about how we could direct our discussion toward
his understanding. But he didn’t
come. Instead we had a new
YSA—Forest. He comes from Lithuania and
has been studying in Denmark (Jylland) for five years. He joined the church about five months ago,
and has now moved to Copenhagen to further his studies. He is a very nice young man, so I hope we will
see him often. We also had Miranda
(ex-volleyball player from the states) who is an RM, and two of our Danish
YSA. The YSA committee decided to have a
couple of Danes attend our class each week so that there would be more unity
with the English-speaking YSA. I think
this is so insightful—I didn’t even think of it. But they are thinking about being inclusive
instead of being divisive. There are
natural divisions with language and culture and countries, but they are also
all YSA’s and members of God’s family.
So, we ended up having a great discussion with four students. It looks like we will have a different class
every week. We will prepare for anything
and everything and then let the spirit direct our discussion according to the
needs of the class. It is actually a fun
way to teach.
I hope you all have a wonderful week. I enjoyed the BYU devotional this week on
‘Putting Off the Natural Man and Becoming Saints.” Good stuff.
We pray for you and hope that you will find some quiet time to fully
drink of the gospel.
Med kærlighed,
Mom
Kære Familie Sunday,
October 15, 2017
Go Astros. What excitement! I appreciate the detail that Jared provides
and that coupled with a few videos from ESPN this afternoon made for some
fun. There were some great
highlights. I wonder how the grandkid
boys are reacting to all of this? Do
they realize that history may be in the making?
Are you having game nights with everyone getting together?
Only 7
YSA came out for FHE. We had a missionary
activity put on by our Missionary Committee that consisted of preparing for an
Open House in the Center on Friday night. The idea was to make signs, posters
and identify questions with answers from the BofM that could be drawn out of a
bowl by visitors. The turnout was a huge
disappointment that our usual numbers did not come. This was the fewest number wise that we have
seen in quite a while. Morten told us
this is common whenever they have a missionary related activity. We have not really seen that yet, at least
not in such a stark contrast to other activities. As a consequence, we did not accomplish as
much work as the committee had planned and some more work needed to be done
during the week. To finish up this line
of thought, I will jump ahead to Friday night.
The city has a culture night once a year, where the museums and other
public buildings are open until midnight. Some of them have free admittance but
for others you pay one low fee and then the busses and museums are all free
with the pass.
On
Friday, we arrived at the Center early and mom cleaned the kitchen and prepared
to make crepes (pandekager) while I vacuumed and helped to decorate our big
room for the various presentations. The
missionary committee had planned 5 different stations for people to stop
at. They did a wonderful job preparing
and seemed to think of everything. Our Open House went from 6:00 to 10:00,
which was an early quitting time. We had
about 5-7 YSA prepared to talk to guests and we (mostly mom) were in the
kitchen making the crepes. Quite a few
YSA's dropped in, some with their families, and enjoyed the crepes. Johnsons and Jensens also came by after
seeing some of the other open houses. We
did not have non-members dropping by and that was a big disappointment,
especially to Rebecca Stewart, who had the original idea to be part of Culture
Night and spearheaded it. No one else
seemed to care (they were having fun eating and hanging out) but she had faith
and really wanted to talk to some interested non-members. About 9, 4 students dropped in who looked to
be in their later 20's; 2 boys and 2 girls.
They stayed at least 20 minutes and had conversations with David
Ronnenberg, Martin Fredberg and Rebecca.
They gave them BofM's and it looked like good contacts even though they
did not get or did not ask for a referral for the missionaries. A funny thing was that one question for David
was about polygamy. They said that Mitt
Romney has 3 wives. They learned that or
maybe other "facts" about Mormons from watching the TV show
Southpark. It goes to show how important
little things can be to people watching or listening to media.
We
started cleaning up shortly after 10:00 and left to come home around 11:00 when
Rebecca was ready to leave. She seemed a little down, so we tried to compliment
her and tell how well she did planning the event, using her committee, and
overseeing the success they had. It
really was a nice effort.
I
have commented before about how much I admire and like President Olsen, 1st
counselor in our stake presidency. We
had our monthly DVI meeting this week again. The Council Presidency was well
prepared and they were looking ahead to New Year 's Eve and next year's
calendar. Gismo was conducting and
presented 2 plans for a YSA event on New Year's. One was a “crazy one” she did not think would
be approved. It involved renting a beach
house with a swimming pool in South Jylland on Sunday following church, having
some spiritual activities until midnight and then starting a party that would
continue through most of Monday. Pres
Olsen was only concerned that they would be plenty of sleeping space to
separate men and women and that we
would be there the whole time to chaperone.
He then suggested they consider starting on Saturday, including a dance
and having their own sacrament service on Sunday. He would find someone to preside and be there
for that. The cost of the event did not
seem to matter much but I am sure it will depend on the type of beach house
they can find at this late date. The
other, more traditional option, was just to get together in Copenhagen for a
Sunday fireside, no sleepover and then some Monday activities. It looks like we will try to make the first crazy
option work so we can look forward to some excitement (????) on New Year’s Eve
and Day, but we will miss the traditional get together by the senior missionaries.
The presidency is also planning another Hyttetur over Easter Break before we
leave to come home. We sort of thought
we would miss that as it would happen after we left, based on the desire after
last years to hold it when it was a little warmer outside.
We
have tried a different approach on preparing our institute lesson this
week. I am sure it will seem obvious to
you but I have always been more mechanical with lessons and followed the manual
pretty closely. This week, instead of looking at the manual first and preparing
to follow the manual, we read the scripture chapters and the student manual to
get a good understanding of them. We
then discussed what principles our students would benefit from the most. We then looked at the teacher’s manual to see
what ideas it had about teaching those principles and are either using some of
those or our own ideas about teaching the principles. It takes a lot longer this way but it is a
way better way to study and personally grow from the investment of time. It will take some getting used to. My problem was that on Wednesday we had read
a whole bunch of interesting things and I had learned a lot, but I did not feel
anywhere near prepared to step into a class and teach anyone. I still needed to “prepare a lesson”. Mom of
course could have taught a great lesson right there. Teaching is certainly a talent that needs
development and practice and lots of time.
Just
another funny experience from this week.
Wednesday, we arranged a couple’s dinner because we have 2 birthdays
this week. Somehow, the group decided to
go to the Mexican restaurant that we have found that is quite good (if you like
Mexican). That of course is mom’s least
favorite food so it can’t “count” as her birthday dinner. At 4:45, Johnsons, Jensens and Halls arrived at
our place and we left for dinner in 2 cars.
We were going to walk but it was raining a bit so we opted to drive and
find parking. The idea was that we would eat early as we had our Stake DVI
meeting at 7:00. Johnson’s drove us and Halls were driving the 2nd car and were
supposed to follow us to the restaurant.
Instead they decided to go another way, ran into construction rerouting
(as Jensens are always on the bus and hence don't pay attention to the
construction going on around us) and did not arrive at the restaurant until
after 5:30. We had to leave at 6:20,
didn't leave until 6:30, and so our dinner was rushed. We left the others at the restaurant and walked
home to our car and then rushed to the stake center and got there just in time
for mom's opening prayer. I called them twice as we were waiting to see where
they were and if they needed directions.
I had to give them the address on the first call so they could put it in
their GPS. I could hear in the background
that there was some “strife” going on about where they were and where they
needed to go. Their explanation after
they arrived was that they had too many chiefs and not enough followers and so
instead of following us, they thought they knew a better route. The GPS did not
help that much because it kept taking them to streets that were one-way against
them due to the construction going on.
Mom
has an unusually good relationship with some of our girls. You know how she just worms her way into everyone’s
heart by her interest and compassion for them.
Saturday was a down day to catch our breath after a busy few weeks. We
relaxed in the apartment as we caught up computer stuff and took a long walk
together around our neighborhood (we are very close to a red-light district
next to the main train station. I don’t
like the feel of the area but we passed through it on the way to a nicer
place). At 8:15 pm, we got a text from
Gismo asking what we were doing and if we wanted to meet up for ice cream. We met Gismo and Lea at an ice cream parlor
at 9:00 on Amager that we have not seen before.
It was a 15-min drive for us and about that much for them on bikes. We stayed until about 10:30. They shooed us
out of the store at 10:15 and then we talked a bit more outside. The store doesn’t take cash after 9:00, which
is all the girls had, and so we bought the ice cream on our debit card. These
two are so into wanting a boyfriend and marriage that they like to discuss our
thoughts on match making and relationships and that was part of the
conversation. They are really fun and somehow,
they like to be with us (or mom and they tolerate me).
President
and Sister O’Bryant attended a mission presidents’ seminar where they were
taught for 3 days by Elder Holland. That
had to be a fantastic experience
When
we arrived at church today, we learned that we would have a special broadcast
at 6:00 with Elder Ballard. He was going
to speak to the parents in the European Area. This came up suddenly as no one
knew about it last week. He was in
Frankfurt Germany traveling with Elder L. Whitney Clayton and I guess decided
to pull all the saints in Europe together. They did not have an agenda but came
to speak as they were inspired. It was a
special broadcast for 90 minutes and I felt in a special way that an Apostle of
God was speaking to us.
Love
you all. I hope your week is as great as
ours will be. Dad.
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