Kære Familie, 8 October 2017
We went to Gothenburg, Sweden on Saturday for the Nordic Area Institute training. We had representatives from Norway, Sweden, Finland, and, of course, Denmark. We attended this last year and came away with many good ideas plus a better understanding of what we need to be doing. While I still learned a lot this year, I felt that our role was to help the other senior couples who are new. We had five couples joining us via webcast in Finland (2), in Norway (2), and Sweden (1). They were all new, as was the couple in Gothenburg, the Kelleys. (We met them at Golden Days.) They hosted the event in their young adult center. The Yates and ourselves made up the other senior couples who were physically present. There were student council representatives from Copenhagen, Gothenburg, Oslo, and one from Helsinki. Plus, there were four CES directors—one from each of the countries. They presented the training. The nice part about the training is that it is all in English—the common language for all the countries. It was a 3 ½ hour drive from Copenhagen. The Yates came in the day before and spent the night with us. But for the return trip Saturday night, they continued to Fredericia after they dropped us off at 9:45, having to drive an additional 2 hours. Lunch was next to awful—Mongolian meatless stew, and two pasta salads with very odd combinations. But I was hungry, and knowing it would be the only meal of the day, I ate it.
One thing I learned from the training was to be grateful for the sweet situation where we now serve. There is a difference between a campus-based institute program and a ward/stake based institute program. Those that have a campus-based program have the added bonus of having a YSA center and a paid institute/CES director. I believe Sweden has two campus-based programs because they have two CES directors—one in Gothenburg and one in Stockholm. The other countries only have one. The campus based programs have a student council which consists of a chairman, one or two counselors, and a secretary. The stakes should also have a YSA organization with a male and female representative and an advisory couple. They work closely with a member of the stake presidency, the high counselor responsible for YSA, and a Stake RS counselor. The ward YSA committee is organized the same way except the members of the committee are a Bishop’s counselor, RS and Elder’s Quorum counselors, YSA representatives and ‘YSA parents’. Our institute council and the YSA representatives are one and the same. We hold a monthly meeting with the stake leaders I described above, with the addition of two people—the institute director and the mission president. One of our focuses is to train the wards and help them get their YSA committees functioning properly. It is a work in progress. I’m not sure it is much different than in the states, and certainly no different than in the other Nordic countries. Some wards are organized, but not really ‘functioning.’ Some wards are not even organized. We visited a ward today and held a training meeting after the block, but we were asked to make our training brief as the bishopric counselor had small children who were more than ready to go home. As a result, I don’t think we were very effective in giving them all the help we should have. We will follow-up with additional training via email.
The senior missionary couples who joined us via a webcast were all searching for direction. I felt a bit like they felt a year ago as we were still trying to identify our purpose (other than cooking). Part of the training included a ‘question and answer’ period where some of their concerns were resolved. We were happy to share our experiences with them. It really helps to understand the organization of the YSA program. I personally think the best thing we can do for the program is to let the YSA take ownership. We should encourage, help and provide support, but the best way to prepare these future leaders is to allow them to lead. We saw this firsthand this week as each institute group was given the assignment to prepare a power point slide introducing the members of our committee, sharing one success as well as a goal in progress for the training on Saturday. Dad wanted to take responsibility for this assignment—and he would have done a very good job, but I kept telling him to sit back and let our youth do it. He talked to them on Thursday to find out who would do the power point and learned that they had already prepared the presentation and sent it to the CES coordinator who would put them all together. I was very pleased with their presentation, even though it was different than we would have done. They definitely had the best presentation.
There is a huge difference between the campus-based senior missionary assignments like ours and those who serve in areas where there are only ward institute programs—and the biggest difference is the numbers as well as the organization. Our friends, the Yates, serve three different ward programs. They live in Fredericia and help the institute program there. Brother Yates teaches institute each week in Danish and Sister Yates prepares a meal. The attendance is 3-5 YSA plus 2-4 missionaries. They also attend the Odense institute about ½ hour away to the east on a different night each week. This is a 2-ward combined program of about 12-18 YSA. The wards provide the institute teachers as well as someone to cook the meal. There are 8 missionaries serving in this area. They take turns attending institute so there are 4 missionaries each week. The program here seems to be better organized, but they still don’t have two representatives from each ward in place. The Yates go to support, but have no other responsibilities. And then they go to Esbjerg once a week, which is an hour west of them. This is on a Friday night and is just an activity night. The Yates provide refreshments and plan an activity for 3-6 YSA, plus a few missionaries. There is an institute class on another night, but it is supported by the ward in Esbjerg. Most of the other senior missionaries via the webcast serve in just one ward area. I am amazed at the efforts the church makes to rescue the YSA’s. The senior missionary couples do what the ward resources are not able to do. I see the value in having a steady, consistent presence which the senior missionaries provide. Ideally, each ward should support its own program—be self-reliant, but as I visit some of these small wards, I can see the difficulty in finding people who can give the consistent presence that is needed. Most people in these wards already have 2-3 callings, plus jobs and families, etc. The woman who serves as the YSA advisor in Slagelse, for example, also teaches RS twice a month, and probably has an additional calling as well.
The primary responsibility for the YSA committee—no matter what level—is to shepherd the YSA. A big part of that is the rescue effort. We are to IDENTIFY the YSA’s in our ward, FIND them, INVITE them to activities, to church and to institute, TEACH them the gospel, and SERVE them. This is the formula for rescuing in any area of the church. There is much work to be done in all our wards as we have over 200 YSA on the church records and only know half of them. Even fewer of them are actively involved in the church. Sister Ronneberg (YSA parent) has four children who fall in the YSA age-group. Only one of them is active and he lives in Copenhagen so attends institute with our group. So many of them stay active through the mutual years and then drift away—not so different from other areas of the church. That means that as parents we have the overwhelming responsibility to teach our children in their youth. Their testimonies need to be developed during Primary and YM/YW so that they can stand on their own when they leave home. That is not easy. As parents, we can do all we can do and there is still no guarantee. That darn agency! I am grateful for your faithfulness and strong testimonies of the gospel—and I give you all the credit as I have watched you do those things to keep yourselves strong in the church. I pray for you as parents that you can teach and guide your children in the same way towards their own testimonies.
It was nice to have an easier week after some very busy weeks—with Golden Days and General Conference. We watched the Sunday afternoon session of conference on Monday night at FHE, and have spent the rest of the week listening to all the talks again. On Tuesday, I helped Sister O’Bryant prepare a meal for the 17 new missionaries who arrived that day. We fed 21 people, including the O’Bryants and the AP’s. Sister O’Bryant always prepares a traditional Danish meal of fleskesteg, frikadeller, brune kartofler, potatoes and sauce (gravy), rødkål (pickled red cabbage), and layer kage (layer cake). She needed help preparing for that many people. I peeled over 10 lbs. of potatoes, cracked 75 eggs for the breakfast burritos and made the brune kartofler. We spent the whole afternoon preparing the meal. It was fun to see the missionaries arrive—all green and ready to serve. I am always impressed with the strength of these missionaries. I didn’t stay for dinner, but went home to spend another hour preparing dinner for us, before running to IKEA to get some things that a set of sisters requested for their apartment. With the transfers on Monday, there came some requests for items not found in their apartments. We had to purchase a rug, a new vacuum, cleaning supplies, etc. It seems the ‘new’ sister has a higher cleaning standard than the previous ones. I am happy to see that.
We helped one of our youth prepare the meal for institute—there was a lot of chopping of vegetables. When we arrived, Gismo as already there working. I noticed a beautiful bouquet of lilies on the table. She said they were for me. I have enjoyed them all week! I was so busy helping to prepare the meal, that I didn’t get a chance to make the brownies for our dessert like I had planned. I managed to do it during the hour that the meal was being consumed, but even that was not easy. Many of the youth chose to congregate in the kitchen and visit while they ate their dinner. It was difficult to find space to make two batches of brownies and I felt like I was tripping over everyone. I should have made them at home, but they all enjoyed the warm brownies later with ice cream and homemade hot fudge.
The temple is closed for two weeks so we enjoyed our free Friday afternoon by spending time with the Yates. They visited the Rosenborg Castle in the morning while we were at Danish class, and then we joined them in the afternoon to see Amalienborg Castle. We also went to dinner then enjoyed watching Elder Hales funeral together. And that’s our week!
We hope you all have a wonderful week. No pictures again this week. What’s with that? I will have to do better.
Med kærlighed, Mom
Kære Familie Sunday, October 8, 2017
A letter written on Sunday evening? Unheard of in the past few weeks for me. Today has been a more normal Sunday again, but I have just “wasted” 40 minutes reading about the Astros first two playoff game wins and the Utah football loss. What a great time to be in Houston for the Astros. I bet the town is going crazy with baseball fever. Anyone going to the home games? I expect a little inside commentary that I can’t get from the internet. Utah should still do well but the PAC 12 is a tough league.
We were back in the HC speaking rotation today and drove an hour to Slagelse this morning where we both spoke. Our talks were both only 5 minutes, so 10 with translation. You can’t say very much in that short of time. I chose to talk about revelation and built it around 3 scriptures. The first was Amos 8:11-12 (a famine for the word of God), Ether 6:3 (so we would not cross the great waters in darkness) and 1 Ne 16: 10, 29 (Liahona contained writings that were changed from time to time according to the faith and diligence paid to them). I suggested that rather than a famine for the word of God, we have a feast with so much opportunity to receive divine direction to help us pass through this life. The different “Liahona’s” we have available to us today include conferences, church magazines, world-wide devotionals, face to face broadcasts and BYU podcasts. They are only useful to us however, if we pay heed to them and take the time to study the word of God so freely given to us.
We held a short training meeting after the block with members of the ward YSA committee, but it was not one of our better ones. They asked us to keep it short as 2 of the women had small children in their arms and they wanted to get home. The HC started it off in Danish so we didn’t know what he said and I was afraid of repeating anything with our limited time as he said he was going to introduce the purpose and organization of the committee (that is essentially half of what we cover in most cases.) Hopefully, it was helpful to them. At the least, we got some contact information for a new advisor couple and 2 new YSA reps. It appears like they are just organizing again. We are going to try to offer more support to them. They moved their Institute from Wed to Thurs so that makes it almost impossible to visit them but they do hold FHE twice a month on a Tues night, so we can join them for some of those. There were about 40 people in Sacrament meeting today so that is a pretty small ward by any standards. Their list of YSA’s had about 20 names, far less than the 100+ of a ward in the center of Copenhagen. Another opportunity we identified, is that one of our missionaries in Iceland has just come home and he is from a small branch in southern Sjaelland. We have 1 YSA there now with him but will discuss some outreach to him.
Thursday night we had 2 students for our English Institute. Our Swiss student was there and we had a non-member guest come. He is a Chinese exchange student here working on a MBA at the Copenhagen Business School. We deviated from our planned lesson material quite a bit to present an introduction to the BofM, the Plan of Salvation, and then got into the planned lesson on the Atonement from 2 Nephi 9. The lesson was more awkward than I would have liked but at least mom and I had the same impressions to talk about the Plan of Salvation and the BofM.
Song Chau comes from Shanghai. He was baptized a Protestant in 2011 and told us he was an agnostic before that. Most of the country is not religious. The government has killed faith and even Buddhism is not practiced by very many. I hope to have the opportunity to learn more about his conversion story to Christianity. Perhaps his path is still continuing and he will listen to the missionaries. He gave me his phone number and said the missionaries could call him. It seems he first met the church in Germany through a work colleague. That friend in some way put him touch with one of our YSA’s when he moved here and Morten invited him to come to our institute. They met for the first time at institute. Song Chau came on his own. That takes some courage and real interest! I invited him to come next week and he asked me about Sunday worship services. Then he said that perhaps because they are in Danish, he will just start with these weekday things. The missionaries came to dinner tonight and we could give them this referral! Exciting. I hope he will come to FHE tomorrow and we can see this continue.
As we prepared the institute dinner, we had quite a bit of time to talk to Gismo, our YSA vice president. She is such a kind and motivated leader. She takes her calling very seriously and is concerned about the young adults. She spoke a bit about her close friends and their love interests and dating. It was obvious that these pain her as she wants so much to be married but she is also loyal to her friends and is happy that they are happy. She also has empathy for Lea since her boyfriend broke up with her on the first night of Golden Days and she has been unhappy since then. The YM is a Swede and was in our training yesterday. My mission was to chastise him and inform him that he broke a young girl’s heart. (Of course, I did not live up to my charge!) Lea is one of our best though, so it is his loss.
Most of our companionships in the mission are training right now. We have moved from a very mature mission to very young one and some of the trainers have only been out themselves for 7-9 months. I notice it occasionally when the language skills of the senior companion are not as good as one would expect? Our new missionaries are amazing however. We had one to dinner tonight who arrived this week. He seems so mature and ready to go to work. I did not get a sense for his Danish skills but I know they arrive speaking better than we do now. I don’t pay that much attention to our statistics but I sense a trend of slowing down. Our mission goal is 60 baptisms and we are at 50, so 5 ahead of the trend line. There are 23 investigators with baptism dates. I think the Lord will bless us to meet the goal, but the number of new investigators and those attending church is falling. Hence, I think the youthfulness of the mission is having some impact on the ability to find new investigators. We have a zone conference this Tuesday and I suspect the training will be recycling back to some of the basic skills that missionaries need. I wonder if that is frustrating to a mission president? He trains and teaches and sees his missionaries get quite adept and then they go home in small groups and he has to start all over again with the training. I don’t think it gets passed on as much as one would hope it does.
I was also thinking this week about the cost of a convert. Our quota is 80-90 missionaries in the mission. They get 60 or less converts a year. Think of the resources that are supporting those missionaries. I think my French mission had similar numbers back when I served and I know that this mission has not changed that much since the senior missionaries served here. We literally hunt for 1 in a family and 2 in a city and each convert must be priceless to the Lord. How sad that we cannot retain more of them once they have found the light of the gospel. Satan is very effective at his work.
Friday, our scheduled day kept changing. The temple is closed for 2 weeks so we had a “free” afternoon. The Yates drove over in the morning went to Rosenberg Palace while we were in our language class. We met them at 1:30 at Amaliensborg Palace and toured the same museum that we saw with Steph and Ali. We had hoped to see another one as well that we have not seen but the tour tickets for English were all sold out. We then did an early dinner and then came home and watched Elder Robert D. Hales funeral live. It was fun to participate in the celebration of his great life and do some additional reading about him. Saturday, we drove with the Yates up to a Nordic Council training meeting for CES missionaries and the YSA leaders in Gøteborg, Sweden. Mom is covering that in her letter. It was a nice change of pace to get out and see the Fall changing colors in Sweden and mix with some very good discussion and training on what we all are doing. I will just share a few thoughts I had from listening to missionaries across the region. Challenges across the cities appear to be the same: Small #'s coming out, YSA traveling up to an hour to get to some locations. Stakes and wards are not providing them with budgets for meals or activities. Missionary couples are taking a lead in visiting and trying to create a "tipping point" where the YSA will want to come because of the fellowship and instruction. Most of the programs are city centric because of the distances between them so they would like to have stake or multi-location activities but these are hard to pull together due to cost and distance. FHE's are sometimes better attended than Institute lessons. Another challenge is getting the graduating 17 yr. olds to come and get involved.
We feel so blessed that our program seems light years ahead of many of these struggles. The issues are there but we have budget, very supportive stake leaders, strong youth leadership and a great core of YSA who love to be together. It seems like our focus for the rest of our mission can focus more on the outlying wards and on activation. One of the themes of the training was, “Invite All, but See the One.” There is always more work to be done.
Love to all. Dad.
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