Strøget at Christmas
Christmas in Copenhagen on Stroget Vej
Lego window with scenes from Copenhagen
Dad with Lego stormtrooper
Christmas in Denmark
Senior Couples in the Christmas Market (Johnson's on the left, Mom, Jenson's on the right.)
Kære familie, 17 December 2017
I’ve thought a lot about retention the past few days. We learned that one of our YSA converts who was baptized last December has asked that her name be removed from church records and that she receive no contact from the church. This is a pretty drastic move. We have watched as Eline Holm’s activity since her baptism dwindled down to nothing. For someone so enthusiastic and excited about the church prior to her baptism, she has made a complete turn-around in her attitude toward the church. We have seen Eline twice in the last six months—once at birthday party in July for one of our YSA, and once a couple of months ago when she dropped in after institute to say hi. I know that several of our YSA girls have kept in touch and have invited her to some things. But in the end, it was Eline’s choice. I imagine there are many things that influenced her, such as: attending two different wards—the ward she lives in and the one where her former boyfriend lives, breaking up with her boyfriend and getting a new, non-member boyfriend, who eventually became her roommate—but all those things are just symptoms of the bigger problem. She needed what all new converts need: a calling, a friend, and continued nourishment in the gospel. She had friends in the church, but she wanted a boyfriend. She couldn’t find a way to combine her church friends and having a love-life. It was easy to get lost between the two wards—neither ward knew if she was attending the other one, so no one followed up when she didn’t come. As a result, she didn’t get a calling. And as she didn’t go to either ward, she also missed out on the nourishment of the gospel. She stopped coming to institute—this is the same girl who used to read the lessons prior to institute and outline them on Facebook.
Eline is not the only one we have lost. Another one is Jonas Larsen who was also baptized last December. We haven’t seen him since the summer when he attended institute a few times. He hasn’t been attending church and we heard that he now has a girlfriend. Pernilla (don’t know her last name) was baptized in September. She went on an extended vacation after her baptism and I don’t think she ever came back to church when she came home. She did, however, take up residency with her old boyfriend. How do we lose them as fast as we get them into the church? The missionaries are working so hard to meet their goal of 60 baptisms by the end of the year, but how many of those 60 people are still attending church? Fortunately, many of them are—like David Borcuti and Anja Johansen who are both preparing to go on a mission shortly after their 1-year-member mark. We can rejoice in those and, like President Hinckley said, feel sorrow for our failures.
We had the TFOT lesson #22 today—yes, we are a month behind. It was about how we can reach out to new converts and less actives. Basically, the job of retaining new converts and rescuing the less active fall to the members. It is a huge responsibility and requires much time and effort. I used to put the blame on the missionaries for those new converts who didn’t stay active. I complained that too often they baptized people who were not ready to become members of the church. But missionaries don’t often baptize people who are ready to be bishops and stake presidents a week later. Converts’ testimonies are just beginning—they have felt the burning of a testimony and need the companionship of the Holy Ghost to develop it further. It is a process. We have seen that with many of the new converts here. Some seem to jump in with both feet—they come to church, to all the activities; they read the scriptures and pray; they become embraced by the fellowship of the church. It is easy to fellowship converts who are outgoing and seek out friends. But there are also those who are making such a complete change to their lifestyle, their culture, their friends and associates that their progress is slow. It is much more difficult for them because they don’t come to church every week; they probably don’t read the scriptures regularly; and they don’t feel comfortable among the members yet. Those converts are much harder to reach. There were several comments in our RS class on having the right chemistry to become friends with someone. Many of the converts don’t fit the mold of what we would invite into our circle of friends. But as hard as that is sometimes, I also feel that we will miss opportunities and blessings if we don’t reach out to the unlikely friends. Would I ever have known a Mary Petrakovitz or a Raine Corliss? We would never have become friends if I had only looked at what we had in common or if it was a good fit for my circle of friends. I have been the one blessed by these friendships—and I could name countless others. We all need to do more—we need to do as Jesus would do if He were here. We just need to open our hearts and love unconditionally.
I made homemade pizzas for Institute dinner this week. They actually tasted very good. I made a vegetarian, a supreme (with hamburger instead of sausage), ham and pineapple, pepperoni, and one gluten free pizza. I made 10 pizzas in all and only had two pieces left over for Dad’s lunch the next day. I didn’t want a heavy meal because we had an activity the following night which included a traditional Christmas Danish meal. I made that meal, too. I found out on Thursday night that I needed to shop for food. Two of the YSA girl came a little early and helped me, but neither of them knew what they were doing. So, it was a good opportunity for me to teach—cooking, as well as other life lessons. I was very grateful that I had recently made a flæskesteg dinner with Sister O’Bryant a few months ago. I also had her recipes. The dinner turned out very good, so I guess my efforts were a success. I did much better with the brune kartofler this time. We didn’t have the traditional risalamande for dessert (thank goodness) and the YSA opted to purchase an ice cream cake from our favorite ice cream store! It cost 470 kr ($74)— more than I spent on the rest of the meal. The cake fed 20 people, but still…. We played their version of white elephant and then sang every Christmas hymn in the hymnbook, included 5 or 6 Danish carols. I played the piano and did my best on the unfamiliar tunes. On a couple of the hymns (that had 6 or 7 verses) we started out slow and sang each verse a little faster. It was a good exercise in speed. The Danes must like to do this because I also played a song in Primary that way. The kids loved it. After the games, singing and dessert, the rest of the evening was spent visiting. Dad wanted to break out games, but the YSA’s were content to just talk. Most of them left around 10:00, but 8-10 stayed well past the time we wanted to leave. We talked to Jen Hardman (the U.S. volleyball player) for quite a while—about her life, about volleyball, about her experiences in Europe (she played for Switzerland last year), and about her future. She actually doesn’t know what she wants to do in the future. She thinks this will be her last year to play volleyball professionally and may opt to teach or coach volleyball. She knows she needs to go back for her master’s degree, but her heart is not in the study and hard work it will take. She talked to us because the other YSA group was talking Danish. Oh, they are good to talk to her in English during the activity, but she knows, like we know, that they prefer to converse in Danish. Jen and the other American, Miranda Bradshaw, have been invited to many social activities with the YSA outside of church activities, so the Danes are always good to include them. After she left, we finished the last of the dishes and left—it was 11:30. I heard that the YSA stayed at the center talking until about 1 a.m. The YSA leadership were among the group who had keys to lock up when they left.
We had a very tight schedule on Friday, so when the YSA’s asked me to do the shopping for the dinner, I knew something had to go. Dad really wanted to see Jen Hardman’s volleyball game. We hadn’t seen one yet and this was the last tournament of the year. It just so happened to fit our Friday schedule perfectly because we were not going to the temple this week, due to the YSA Christmas activity. But if I went to language class, then shopped, there was no way we would make the 1:00 game. Dad figured we would just skip the volleyball game, but I felt that it might be the only time we could go. So, I skipped the last hour of language class, did my shopping on the way home, and made it back home to get on the road to the game on time. Dad met me at the grocery store to carry all the heavy groceries---6 kilos of meat, 6 kilos of potatoes and then all the other stuff. We also got two gifts for the white elephant game and I wrapped them before I left. It is cold enough to leave all the groceries in the car, which is what we did when we went to the game. It meant a lot to Jen that we came, so I am very glad we did. Dad dropped me off at the center on the way home from the game just before I was to meet my helpers. He walked back much later after meeting a family at Tivoli just before our dinner.
On Saturday afternoon, we took a little time for ourselves. We went with the other Senior couples for a walk down Strøget—the walking street. It was cold, but we went in some shops here and there which helped us warm up. We strolled through two small outside Christmas markets and just enjoyed? the streets teeming with Christmas shoppers. I didn’t go so much to shop, but to get out of the house. After a couple of hours, the Jensons and Elder Johnson were too cold, so they took a bus back. We don’t have bus passes, so we just walked home, and Sister Johnson decided to join us. We meandered through the less crowded streets and it was a pleasant walk home at dusk (3:30).
I finished The Banner early this morning—one more thing to cross off the list. We have Zone Conference and Institute on Thursday. We will also have the Halls as house guests for a few days. My last language class is on Wednesday until after the new year. We actually have a little freedom for a couple of weeks (except New Year’s Eve). It will be nice to have a little break. We hope you will have time to Facetime during the holidays. Have a wonderful week!
Med kærlighed, Mom
Kære Familie Sunday, December 17, 2017
We have enjoyed the sights and feelings of Christmas this week. From strolling along Stroget, the walking/shopping street, and being part of mobs of people enjoying downtown Copenhagen at Christmas, to nice choir music in church to watching the Piano Guys #Light the World YouTube Concert tonight. We had 4 missionaries to dinner tonight and were able to show off our Christmas decorations finally to someone besides ourselves. Our little apartment looks quite nice and we had lighted candles to highlight it and make it very hyggelig.
Monday, we had FHE at the Hvridøvre Ice Rink, where we were last year. There were around 20 that came out on a wet, cold night. We had snow flurries at 7:00 when we arrived at the ice rink and at 9:30 when we left, we had the first snow of the season coming down. We had to clean the windshield of snow but the roads were just slushy. Neither of us tried to ice skate so it was cold standing and watching. I intended to catch up on reading your family letters but my phone died after about 30 minutes so it was sort of a long-protracted evening. The YSA had fun and we had several there that don't normally come out, so it was all good. Mom made oatmeal chocolate bars which they all enjoyed as a treat.
We had our monthly DVI meeting Wednesday with the stake. Only Jonathan came from the YSA Leadership (Gismo and Marie both had school projects they were working on) but our 3 Prst leaders were all there. Brother Andersen explained his goal of increasing Institute enrollment from abound 96 now to 120 by April. This includes the young married class as well as Slagelse and Bornholm. It will take a concentrated effort. [I find the definition of enrollment to be interesting. It seems that if a person attends one time, they are enrolled. I think there are many that need attention because they come very seldom and need encouragement to make Institute a priority.} Some ideas we discussed were:
- Using Frederiksberg ward on a trial basis to try a new approach
- Assigning at least the 2 ward YSA reps with companions (maybe more) to HT/VT inactive YSA's with a focused effort to bring them to Institute.
- Get the ward YSA committees more focused on inviting their youth to Institute
- Make our Outreach Committee responsible for working with the ward committees
The musical “The Book of Mormon” starts at Nu Theatre at the end of January. The stake and mission under Public Affairs are making plans to take advantage of this as a marketing opportunity for the real BofM. Pres Olsen suggested we look for ways to get the YSA involved as either support or directly involved with efforts after the shows. For instance, we could have some FHE's at our apartment (which conveniently is right across the street) so that they would be available to talk to people or hand out copies of the Book of Mormon after the shows. The play runs for 4 months so there will be lots of opportunities to be on the street and get facetime with attendees. At our Zone Conference this week, there is an hour set aside where the Area Director of Public Affairs will present ideas for having the missionaries work alongside church members to make contacts.
An interesting part of this, is that I think I have mentioned the YSA use Facebook extensively to contact each other and our events are posted every week. The stake has both an ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ Facebook page for YSA. The first one is used to post our stake sponsored events and the unofficial one is used for when they just want to organize group outings among themselves (Heh, I’m going to the beach this afternoon who wants to come along?). Well there was a posting this past week by one of the YM organizing a group to go with him to see the Book of Mormon musical in late January. It was on the unofficial page. It made me a little nervous, so I hesitantly brought it up in our DVI meeting, not sure how my concerns would fit in with the Danish culture – which is looser than ours. Pres Olsen jumped all over that and totally agreed with me that it was totally inappropriate to use a “church sponsored” media to promote the play. He said we can’t take away their agency or tell them they should not attend, but we certainly should be teaching proper principles and do not need to ‘involve’ the church, even so indirectly, in its promotion. He instructed Jonathan to go home and make sure that posting was taken down that very night and to call the young man and explain why this is not appropriate and why we will not use the Facebook page to sign people up to go with him. My belief in human kind and church standards was reinforced.
We also discussed budgets and decided that we have more to spend that what we currently are doing. This has always been a problem and no one has been able to tell us how much we have to spend on activities. They advance us funds whenever we need them and we have gone through maybe 15,000 kr this year, but we tend to keep a tight rein on things when it comes to extra activities and have been afraid to spend very much. Pres Olsen suggested that we help them develop a better budget for next year assuming that we get 7000 kr a quarter, which is the amount he believes the stake receives from the Area Office for the YSA. We know how much we have been spending out of our advances because we control those and we can estimate the cost of other activities on next year's calendar. We need to put that together this week and if the stake approves the amount, it will be easier for the new couple to slide in and know what the budget is.
Thursday, I was determined to get into our mailbox. It has been 3 weeks since I broke our only key to it. We are expecting a package from the UK of refrigerator parts and I didn't want to miss it. The temple maintenance has told me 3 times they are working on getting a locksmith to come over, but it doesn't seem like it has a high priority. Since they own the apartment, they are responsible for its upkeep. I took the pliers and a screwdriver to it, and with only a little damage I was able to get the old lock off. The new one cost 279 kr but after bringing it home from the hardware store, I discovered it wasn't quite the right type I was looking for. Rather than returning it and looking in other stores, I made it work by bending the metal box a bit more. The adjustments I made are all inside the box so no one can see them. I think it will work fine. The fridge handles were in the mailbox so I am glad to get those. We have some sisters who broke the handle on their fridge. How does one do that?
For Institute, we made pizzas and a tossed salad. We started out with only 6 to eat but the numbers eventually got up for the class to 21 YSA plus 4 visitors plus 3 adults. Attendance has fallen off the last month with school finals going on. Maybe 16 ate dinner. Mom made 10 pizzas and all but a few slices were devoured.
The visitors were from Jylland, Finland and 2 from Germany and 3 of them needed translation, but they felt more comfortable with the group than with a missionary couple they did not know where they would have to contribute more in a language that still wasn't their first language. Hence, they stayed in class and 3 different people translated for them so the sound wouldn’t be as loud and disturbing. We did not teach again. We would have been in the kitchen for a class as the missionary preparation class has taken over the office where we used to teach.
Mom mentioned the volleyball game with Jen Chapman we went to watch on Friday. Jen's team was in the semi-finals of the season-end tournament. They lost in 3 straight games, but it was fun to watch and get out to do some sports again. Jen is the team captain and the setter and played the entire game. We were way impressed with how well she played. We also learned something more about how these teams are organized. They are considered ‘professional’ volleyball and play some teams from around Europe but most of their play is against other clubs from Denmark. Jen is a paid athlete, the same as Miranda was when we watched her play last year. Their only personal expense is food, as the team provides transportation, room and board and pays them enough salary that it is worth their while to be having this fun experience in Europe. Every team has maybe 3 paid athletes like this, most of them probably from the USA who have graduated from college and want to continue playing volleyball rather than getting real jobs (David editorial comment). The other players on the team do not get paid but have to pay something themselves to be on the team. Many of Jen’s teammates are still in high school, though they tend to be the bench sitters and don’t play that often in the games. Jen said the level of play is not as good as our colleges and her skills are actually decreasing a bit because the competition and her teammates play is not up to what she is used to.
I got a Messenger message from David Borcuti on Sunday. [Our Romanian convert who went home because he couldn’t get into a Danish University.] He sent me a copy of his Melchizedek Priesthood Ordination Certificate dated today. He was made an Elder. It must have been hot off the printer. I immediately sent him a message back. He responded that he is still working towards a mission at the first of the year. Those things combined tell me that he has been going to church and is still progressing. It is a wonderful feeling and I am happy for him. I wish he were here to attend the missionary preparation class with his Danish friends. That would be a good experience for him and I am sure Gismo will do a good job teaching it. The last couple of missionaries from this stake went out without the benefit of the class, so the DVI committee is making the effort to keep one running now. They couldn’t identify a teacher, however with Preach My Gospel experience who wasn’t already super busy in other callings, so Gismo stepped up and volunteered to teach this first session.
Here is a thought from our lesson this week based on Alma 24:30. This is so true and perhaps a warning to all of us.
A person who falls away from the Church after having been a member is typically “worse than [if] they had never known these things” (Alma 24:30). The Prophet Joseph Smith explained this position in a conversation with another member. A brother Isaac Behunin once told the Prophet Joseph Smith, “‘If I should leave this Church I would not do as those men have done: I would go to some remote place where Mormonism had never been heard of, settle down, and no one would ever learn that I knew anything about it.’
“The great Seer immediately replied: ‘Brother Behunin, you don’t know what you would do. No doubt these men once thought as you do. Before you joined this Church, you stood on neutral ground. When the gospel was preached, good and evil were set before you. You could choose either or neither. There were two opposite masters inviting you to serve them. When you joined this Church, you enlisted to serve God. When you did that you left the neutral ground, and you never can get back on to it. Should you forsake the Master you enlisted to serve, it will be by the instigation of the evil one, and you will follow his dictation and be his servant’” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith [2007], 324).
Love, Dad
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