Picture from the Jewish Museum—crazy architecture.
Afghanistan display of wrecked truck
Canon used in Danish warfare
Russian Frigate in the harbor
pictures of the Frigate
Dad with the captain
Weapons used in early Danish wars
Kære familie, 22 October 2017
We just returned from a pre-wedding open house for one of our YSA. This is wedding #5 among our YSA, although we can’t really count the first one because the wedding took place a month after we got here. It was nice to see Kasper Valgren again and meet his future wife (Orem native). They seem happy. He told us that we can count him as another success story for the YSA—he’s graduated.
Last Monday morning, I got up early to make a carrot cake for Sister Johnson’s birthday (office couple). She had made me a chocolate cake on my birthday, so I kind of felt like I should return the favor. She had mentioned more than once that the rule in the office is the person having a birthday needs to bring her own cake. She didn’t think that was quite fair. I finally picked up on the ‘hint’ and offered to make the cake. I asked her what kind she would like so that is why I made carrot cake. We took it over just before lunch, together with candles and a bouquet of flowers. I was thinking it would be an easy cooking week because we had Fall Holliday this week, which meant no institute. But I managed to still cook—and the carrot cake was just the first of it. We had the Halls here for three nights this week as well as the Mogensen family who stayed in the apartment next door to ours. They were here for the annual stake youth temple trip—also in association with Fall Holliday. The kids are out of school, so it is the perfect time to spend two days in the temple. I thought they might all need breakfast before they went to the temple each day and maybe some dinner, so I planned a few meals, including making sweet rolls for breakfast. As it turned out, the Mogensen’s had brought a lot of food from home for breakfast and snacks, and the stake fed them lunch and dinner. So, my cooking efforts weren’t needed. But since I bought the food, I made a few of the things anyway. We just enjoyed them, and shared them with the Johnsons. Sister Johnson came to dinner for vegetable cheese soup on Thursday night. Her husband didn’t come because he wasn’t feeling well, but she took a bowl for him to eat later.
Our temple opened after being closed for two weeks. On Monday before the temple opened again, one of the temple missionaries’ father passed away. He and his wife flew home on Wednesday for a week. This left a vacancy among the ordinance workers. It was especially hard because this is the busiest week in the temple with all of the youth coming to the temple for baptisms—no school this week. The Århus Stake brought their youth on Tuesday and Wednesday, and our stake did baptisms on Thursday and Friday. It is also the first week with our new temple schedule—we will now offer an endowment session on Tuesday night. Previously, the temple was only open Wednesday through Saturday. We were called to come in on Wednesday to help, as well as our usual Friday shift this week. So, we worked from 3:00 until 9:00 both nights. Our Friday shift used to be from 2:00-10:00, so this is much better. It is amazing how much I missed the temple—which you all understand so well now that the Houston temple is closed. We are really very lucky to be missionaries in a city with a temple and be able to serve there each week. On Wednesday night I had a veil assignment where I helped three people go through the veil. I did it in Spanish, English and Danish. (I don’t do German and Swedish—yet). We are a very multi-lingual temple.
I played the piano in Primary again today. The children are getting ready to do the Primary program, so we are reviewing all the songs. I love hearing the songs sung in Danish and I can’t help but think that these songs are being sung all over the world in many, many languages. This is how children learn simple, yet important truths like we are trying to be like Jesus, we will go and do the things the Lord commands, and we should choose the right way and be happy. Tomas Kofod was in Primary today, and there was no mistaking his beautiful voice singing these sweet songs. It was pure heaven to my ears. We are now doing three singing times—one for junior primary, one for senior primary, and now one for the older nursery-aged children. Last week we had 3 children from the nursery. Today we only had one child, but I was grateful we sang with her, because it matters even for ‘the one.’ When the song leader asked the little girl what song she would like to sing, the girl said, “There is an Hour of Peace and Rest” (or the equivalent in Danish). That is not the typical song a three-year-old would request. And she didn’t sing a word, just listened as the song leader sang while I played. We found out that this is the song they sing as a family every night before they say family prayer. It has already made an impression on her. Music is very powerful.
I was asked to speak in church today. I spoke about journal writing as a way that I feel the spirit. My topic was how I feel the spirit in my life. I could have chosen any number of things to talk about—the temple, the scriptures, or listening to good music. But lately I have really felt the power of writing in my journal—taking the time to put other things aside and reflect upon the day. I think it is part of the quiet time we need to have in our life, which probably sounds like a pipe-dream for all of you busy moms and dads. When is there a quiet time? I don’t always find the time to write every day, but I try to make it up another time. There are spiritual impressions and feelings I have that would be forgotten if I didn’t write them down. I think it is a wonderful gift of the spirit to feel deeply. Every once in a great while, I get a glimpse of this gift and feel deeply of spiritual things.
It was nice to have an easier week—it is how our week would look without our language class and institute. They both occupy a lot of time in our week. We started working on the Christmas slide show for our December zone conference. We only have about 20 missionary parents who have responded, but it is enough to get started so we are not doing all 90 of the missionaries at the end. Things will be busy this week as I have something every night and a women’s conference on Saturday. And language classes start up again. It is nice to be busy.
Med kærlighed, Mom
Kære Familie Sunday, October 22, 2017
It was quite dark at 6:30 tonight. It seems to be coming on (the darkness) too quickly. When we change from Daylight Savings Time in a couple of weeks, it will be getting dark at 5:00. The weather is still quite nice however for jackets. We found a picture of ourselves from a year ago in Tivoli looking at the Halloween decorations. We had our warmest coats, hats, scarfs and gloves on. This week, we only had jackets!
Our SS lesson today was on welfare and self-reliance. We saw a video about the Netherlands Saints giving potatoes to their German enemies. It was quite touching, maybe because we are here so close.
Here are a couple of thoughts that I liked a lot.
“To become self-reliant, a person must work. Work is physical, mental, or spiritual effort. It is a basic source of happiness, self-worth, and prosperity. Through work, people accomplish many good things in their lives” (Church Handbook of Instructions, Book 2: Priesthood and Auxiliary Leaders [1998], 257).
Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve said, “Work is always a spiritual necessity even if, for some, work is not an economic necessity” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1998, 50; or Ensign, May 1998, 38).
Since I really don't have a desire to work for wages any longer (or least to punch a time clock for someone else), what kind of "work" can I do to fill this requirement of self-reliance? That’s an interesting thought that it will be fun to explore next year. Since you all have lawn services, maybe I should take that over and you can pay me instead? That may keep us off the welfare rolls as well.
It is week 42 at the temple (Fall holiday) and our stake YM/YW had baptisms on Thursday and Friday. That made the temple busier than normal with some leaders and guests attending initiatory and endowment sessions. I was in charge of Initiatories the first hour and we had 3 workers and 3 patrons, which is the first time I think we have been full when I have worked here. Elder Hall was here from Bornholm with his youth and he had 25 names and 2 temple workers had 20 between them. We started 20 minutes early with the goal of getting them all done. Hence, we worked about 1 hr. and 45 minutes straight, which can be very tiring. It wore 1 of the workers out who said he needed to rest and 1 of the patrons, but another brother wanted to do a few names while he waited for the next session, so we still had 3 patrons. Ultimately, we did 35 names – we didn’t quite get them all done. Mom reminded me later, that the Halls will be back in 2 weeks and it will take months to get all the endowments done, so there was no need to push so hard. We should have quit earlier before we were exhausted and the real joy of the work was taken out of the ordinances we were doing. It became a bit of an endurance session. Hopefully, the people we did the work for appreciate receiving an additional ordinance in the temple.
On the 2nd session, Mom and I were the leaders for the endowment session. This was the first Friday on the new schedule starting at 6:30 instead of 7:30 and I thought we would have above average attendance. Instead, there were 3 men and 5 women, so that was a bit of a disappointment. It was a good session though. We also came in Wednesday night this week and worked the evening session for McBride’s, a temple missionary couple. His father passed away and they have gone home for a week for the funeral arrangements. Our temple days now begin at 3:15 for prayer meeting and end around 9:00. The temple is trying new hours so there are only 2 sessions in the afternoon at 4:00 and 6:30. This is one less session and an hour earlier for the 2nd session than we are used to. The old schedule was sessions at 2:30, 5:00 and 7:30. Instead of starting prayer meeting at 1:45, we don't have to be there until 3:15. The shorter day will be nice we believe as our prior Friday nights were very long.
This week is the Fall Holiday (Efterårsferien) and our language school is closed. It has been nice to get that break but I have also felt guilty for not studying as much. The public schools are closed as well as most of the university classes. We did not plan either FHE or Institute for the week. The holiday had its beginnings to coincide with the annual potato harvest when all members of the family were needed in the fields. Of course, that is not necessary today, but the Holiday tradition has continued. Monday at 6:00, we walked to Tivoli with the Johnsons and Jensen’s and we looked at the October Halloween decorations that have just been put up. Really nice again. We had just 30 minutes to walk around with them before we had to get to the Center and open it for FHE. Several kids were waiting on us as we got there. The other 2 couples stayed around and spent longer in Tivoli. Maybe we will get back there this week. Originally, they announced there would not be FHE but that was changed part way through the day as some of the kids still wanted to get together. We had a total of 9 come out. We played several games around a table that were fun and then ate the leftover crepes with hot chocolate from Friday night. The first game was similar to our Christmas game of putting on clothes and attacking the wrapped package. Only this one used a knife and fork to open a Hershey’s candy bar that was wrapped with paper and then with scotch tape. Of course, you had to put on an apron, scarf and gloves before you could begin attacking the package with the utensils.
We have been in the apartment more than normal this week because of the lack of Danish classes and no Institute. We have used the time to start on the Christmas Devotional slide show and some other assignments we have. I do tend to get antsy after a day shut up inside, and mom can see that in me. A couple of times, I went for an extra walk or bike ride to get rid of energy and get some fresh air. Saturday, she humored me and we took an outing to see 2 museums that are on our ‘bucket list’. They are within walking distance near Christiansborg Palace and we were out from 1:30 to 5:30. We first spent about an hour at the Jewish Museum. We thought it would be a Holocaust type experience but it wasn't and was not worth the 120 kr we paid to get in. Instead, it was a history of Jews in Denmark and showed more antique collectible things and pictures than anything else. It was a very small collection. The most interesting thing was the inside architecture, which was done by someone renowned. The floors and walls were tilted at different angles so that it reminded me of the Old Fun house at Lagoon when we were children. I felt dizzy as we walked through the displays as the design somehow affects one’s equilibrium. On the other hand, the Naval History Museum we went to next was well worth the price of 130 kr. We weren't really going to go in but we walked by the entrance and a nice lady in a period costume sort of coaxed us into it. The price included a 1700's Russian Frigate sailing ship that was anchored in the harbor that we could go onboard to see firsthand. The ship is still sailed around Europe for exhibitions and it was pretty cool to see the masts, sails and the amount of rope they use. The sleeping quarters with hammocks up against the ceiling was not very enticing for life aboard an old vessel like that. It helped us to imagine the type of ships our ancestor immigrants may have sailed on, except this was a war ship with cannons. We could have spent at least another hour in the rest of the museum that had a huge 2nd floor with the history of Danish wars from 1500 to the present and lots of artifacts and displays. We barely scratched the surface of it. There was also a real-life area of the war in Afghanistan and Denmark's participation in it. They simulated the harsh climate with sand on the ground, bunkers, tents, machine guns, a blown-up vehicle that hit an IED, iPads that described some of the missions and testimonials of some of the soldiers. It was very interesting and we will try to return, maybe with the missionary couples next time. We both find the history of Denmark fascinating. It is filled with Denmark fighting for control of Norway and Sweden, with Germany, England or Napoleon thrown in occasionally. It was all over money, prestige and power. For such a small country, Denmark has a colorful history and it was for many hundreds of years, the dominating power in Scandinavia.
We just saw the Church announcement that missionary work will be changing with fewer missions and perhaps some smart phones. It will be interesting to see if those changes affect this mission and to what degree and whether any of it will come before we rotate home. As we have mentioned, the missionaries here are not authorized to use iPads so smart phones may have the same issues.
Love, Dad.
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