Wednesday night dinner with senior missionaries: (L to R) Ron and Rosemarie Jenson, Nile and Debbie Hall and Karl and Karen Johnson
Tivoli Visit
Vor Frue Kirke on Christmas Eve with Copenhagen Boys Choir
Christmas Eve Dinner at Maja Borup-Andersen's home
Singing around the Christmas Tree, this lasted 30 minutes at least
Present opening with David and Marie Carr and Gismo Borup. I got slippers, jerky and chocolate. Mom got earings and a cute elf decoration.
Cute present idea, Gismo made one for each of her aunts and uncles, tags have birthdays under each month
Refugee Asylum with our donated clothes
Kære Familie Sunday, 24
December 2017
We have just returned from Vor Frue Kirke, the cathedral that
houses the Christus statue and the 12 Apostles.
We attended a 2:30 service that featured the Boys Choir of
Copenhagen. It was a spectacular
setting. There were large, lighted
Christmas trees on each side of the Christus and the church had standing room
only. In fact, we stood for the whole
service at the feet of one of the apostles.
We should have looked to see which one he was. The Danes attend church services 2 or 3 times
a year and Christmas is big for them. This choir was very nice (mom said they
had perfect pitch) but of course they sang in Danish and the songs were old
classical religious hymns, so not very interesting to a common listener.
(Imagine the background church music in the cathedral of The Sound of Music sung in Latin.)
There was also a priest in a gold robe and he did the usual singing
chant and then the choir would sing some alleluia’s or other responses after
him. The congregation also stood and sat
several times during the hour and I have never understood the purpose of that.
The people next to us (Danes) were sitting on their coats on the floor and they
seemed exasperated that they had to stand up. So, it was a very nice
experience, but we both enjoyed our own sacrament meeting more today. If my
weekly church experience was like this, then I think I would lose faith and
stop attending church as well. Our
3-hour block structure is so much more participatory and testimony building.
The big news this week is that we have a release date you can plan
around. We will be home on Wednesday,
May 2nd. Hurray! It gives us something to work towards as well
– something of a comforting knowledge.
For me, it is actually a rather frightening thought for a couple of
reasons. First, this mission will be
ending and we only have so little time to accomplish great things in. Then we
will return to real life, with no set plans.
Don’t get me wrong – we are anxious to come home and see everyone and get
back into your lives – as much as that is possible – but we realize you do
pretty well without us. Mom, I am sure will
get herself extremely over-programed, as that is what she does, but I look forward
to a lot of hours that I need to fill up with some good retirement stuff. I am still searching for my 3 hobbies that
don’t involve mom (my understanding of the primary requirement for a husband’s
retirement – so they don’t drive their wife crazy.) Our flights have not been
booked yet, but it appears that we leave here at 6:00 am and will arrive in
Houston around 1:30 pm.
I
could use your ideas on another thing. President O'Bryant called Saturday with
another assignment for us. The stake
here wants to bring some powerful, inspiring speakers in several times next
year to speak to the youth, YSA or adults. They will pay the travel costs to
get them here, but need to identity a potential list of speakers / workshop
leaders, and the right connections to invite them. We will be attending a stake meeting where
they will brainstorm these things. We
need to start our own list of either speakers or influential people we can
reach out to that may know some good people that should be on the
speaking/workshop list. I think we are talking about people like, Sherri Dew,
John Bytheway, Brad or Michael Wilcox, etc.
Who do you think should be on the list?
Who do you know who might know one of them and could be a connection for
us to reach out to?
So,
it is Christmas Eve here. No family
coming over, no chimes, or white elephant game, or Manger Scene reenactment, or
grandma’s presents and no good dinner with all our favorite foods. We will miss
all of that and are thinking of you. But
we are leaving shortly to go to a member’s home. She is one of the Institute teachers, Maja
Borup-Andersen. We actually don’t know
her that well and she would have never invited us, but our Gismo Borup is her
niece and Gismo’s family will be there tonight, so Gismo engineered an invite
for us so that we would not be home alone.
We expect good Danish food and it will be fun to be with young kids,
dance around the Christmas tree and do whatever else they do. One of us can report on the evening later on.
Our
part in the Zone Christmas Party / Conference went great this past
Thursday. Mom’s rolls were a hit as
always (she made 80 of them), the slide show was likely the most enjoyable thing
they did and it turned out really well.
They loved laughing at themselves in pictures and it was fun to see all
the different poses. We decided the best
pictures to use are 3 to 5-year-olds when there is a resemblance of their later
selves, a picture of sports, dance, music, etc. that shows something of their
talents, then something just before their mission (on top of a mountain, with a
truck, a pet, etc., we had a few sisters who found a Danish flag and had
themselves wrapped in it or lying on it – way cute) and finally a family
portrait.
Our
week leading up to Christmas does not seem very exciting in hindsight. Christmas shopping was done – what little we
had to do – and there was not that much more going on besides the zone
conference. FHE on Monday was different
and good and cold. The plan was to meet at Nitivej chapel at 6:00 and then car
pool to a refugee camp that is located in Birkerød, about a 30-minute drive. Mark Pedersen has spearheaded a drive to
collect used clothes and had gotten a large pile of them. These were for the refugees. Then we were going to sing carols to the
residents.
The
plan kept changing on the fly as the evening progressed. First, we got a call to stop at a member’s
house to pick up more clothes and then the start time was moved back to
6:30. We also then had to swing by the
Center to get 3 bags of clothes from there and then drive to the camp. Everyone did not arrive until about 7:30. We
then found out that they would not let us sing without a prearranged program
that is approved in advance, so the caroling could not happen. They did accept
the clothes, however, and we captured a picture of our small group.
Since
the original plan was to carol and we didn't want to miss that opportunity, so we
went to 2 members’ homes in the vicinity and then they sent us to 2 more homes
of their neighbors, who they thought would appreciate our brand of Christmas
spirit. It was near freezing and we were very cold when we were done as we were
dressed to be indoors and not out. I
think for the first time, we did not have refreshments at an FHE as they told
us not to worry about it.
The
refugee camp deserves a comment. This is
the first time I have seen one, so I had no idea what to expect. They kept calling it an Asylum, I guess their
word for it, so that brought up a different sort of mental image. Of course, it was dark so we couldn’t see
that well, but the camp appeared to be a large compound of several buildings
with apartments. On the surface, it did not look to be much different than any
other group of apartment buildings, except that there was a chain link fence
around the whole thing with a gate, like a military compound entrance. We had to pass through a guard station to get
in. That gave me the feeling of a prison
compound and I wonder how much freedom they have to come and go? We did see a couple of Middle Eastern
appearing people who came and went while we were there and it looked like they
could just pass through a gate without passing through the guards. The ‘guards’ looked like people and not
military types. We were met inside by 2
men wearing Red Cross coats and they took our clothes donations. They seemed
nice and were somewhat apologetic that the rules would not let us sing to any
residents. I would like to know more
about how Denmark handles their refugees.
We have heard that the country monitors the numbers very closely and
they have a rather small number that they will take every year. One of the YSA said that the country works to
get them out of the Asylum within a couple of years and get them assimilated
into the country, I guess with language, jobs, etc.
Elder
and Sister Hall, from Bornholm, came in for Zone Conference Tuesday and stayed
with us 2 nights. They arrived around
dinner time and we spent the rest of the night eating and talking until around
10:00, when we all checked out for the night.
We are always compatible with the Halls and the 2 women can talk all
night, with Elder Hall contributing a lot. The Halls definitely want to escape
for a break with us, so part of our conversation was planning a road trip based
in Fredericia (Yates now empty apartment) from Monday, Jan 1st to Thursday, Jan
4th. We will have 3 nights and 2 1/2
days to see some parts of Jylland that we have not seen yet. The Halls want to be back for a stake meeting
he has on Thursday night and we can be back for our temple shift on Friday. Our
weather is not ideal for touring (cold, rainy, windy and dark) but we will make
the most of it and it should be a good chance to recharge our internal
batteries for the “run to the finish line”. This will be just after our all
night New Year’s Eve YSA party which will be at our apartment. We are looking forward to the fireworks war
zone again this year and it should be even more interesting as some of the
young adults will bring fireworks to shoot off over our lake. I asked David Carr tonight, how they afford
it. He said it is just something they
save for all year and it is a big deal.
One of his Christmas present requests to his parents, was for money for
fireworks!
The
Halls were with us all day Wednesday and they did not have any plans other than
to see some Christmas Markets. Mom's Danish class canceled once again (also on
Tuesday) - Anne Metta is sick but attendance has been low and since there is
not class on Friday, I suspect everyone enjoyed having a week free of
classes. So with that unexpected
freedom, we quickly planned to go together to Stroget and the Markets. We left around 10:00 and basically repeated
the strolling we did on Saturday with the Johnsons and Jensons. We mostly went in the same stores and saw the
same things. It was much less crowded
this time, however, than on the weekend when the streets were so packed it was
hard to move down the street.
The
Halls bought us lunch at Max Burger around noon and it was one of the better
burgers we have had here in Denmark. For
the evening, we planned a dinner with Johnsons and Jensons at 6:00 followed by
a Christmas movie. Mom cooked a ham, funeral
potatoes and brownie rolls. There was mint
chocolate ice cream and homemade chocolate sauce for dessert. Mom did all the dinner for this one, so she
cooks even when we don’t have a YSA event.
The
Halls picked the movie and we watched "A Christmas Story", which we
have not seen before. It was another old
one and was only maybe a B movie, with not too much in it to make it a
Christmas movie, other than it is about a 9-yr. old boy who wants a BB gun for
Christmas. It was a pleasant evening, at
least for the men. Mom spent most of the
movie making her rolls for zone conference.
Well,
enough for this week. I am looking
forward to Facetiming all of you on Christmas.
I hope you have a wonderful day.
Love, Dad.
Kære familie, 25
December 2017
As we drove home from our Christmas Eve (Jul aften)
celebration last night at 11 p.m., I realized that those in Houston were just
getting together. I could picture what
you were doing—the food, the Christmas pageant, the chimes, the musical
performances, the gift giving—and the love.
I suspect it was similar in Arizona for Lindsey and Derrick (or will be
today, depending on their Christmas traditions). It hit me that the real tradition is love—it doesn’t matter what we do. What matters is the love that binds us
together and the love of God, exemplified in His Son, that binds us for
eternity. I hope everything went well and that you all
have a joyous Christmas.
I am so sorry we were unavailable to Face Time
yesterday. We left shortly after 5:00 to
go to the Borup-Andersen’s home. Bishop
Borup-Andersen is the bishop of the Gladsaxe 1st Ward. We really don’t know him very well, but his
wife, Maja, teaches our institute lessons every other week, so we see her
frequently. The real reason we were
invited to spend Christmas Eve with them is because of Gismo Borup. She arranged everything. Bishop Borup-Andersen is her uncle—her
mother’s brother. So, they were hosting
Christmas Eve this year for the extended family, which included his family and
his two sister’s families. There were 10
children—all of them teenagers or older.
Gismo and her two cousins, Marie and David Carl, are all in YSA with us
so we knew them very well. A widow in
the ward was also invited which rounded out our group to 19 people. We had the traditional dinner of fleskesteg, duck,
two gravies, pickled red cabbage, brown potatoes and regular potatoes, potato
chips. and risalamande for dessert, and, untraditionally, we also had my pecan
pie. Everyone seemed to love the pecan
pie which surprised me. While we were
eating our first helpings, more potatoes were boiling for the second round of
food. Everyone went back to fill their
plates a second and third time. The
Danes love their Christmas dinners. But
I suppose it is just like we love our turkey dinners.
After dinner, they passed out homemade song books with the
lyrics of favorite Christmas songs. Many
of them were Danish hymns that I recognized, but there were some fun songs,
too. The Christmas tree was moved to the
middle of the floor so we could circle around it. We held hands and ‘danced’ around the tree
while we sang. Most of the songs had 10
verses—even the hymns. We would change
directions every third or fourth verse so we didn’t get dizzy. I had to look at my song book for the words, and
most of the tunes were unfamiliar to me.
It was difficult to even hear
a tune from the other singers as the teenage boys were just loud and didn’t
seem to have much of a musical ear.
They didn’t want to sing the hymns, but wanted to go straight to the fun
songs. I guess there is one song they
sing right before opening gifts—that is the song they wanted to sing. They were good sports to participate as this
part of the evening went on for more than ½ hour. The last song probably had 15 verses and for
this song we danced around the whole house, holding hands. It was a long train as we pulled each other
through every room, singing at the top of our lungs.
Then came the gift-giving.
There was a mountain of presents under the tree. When the children were young, Julemand came
to deliver the presents, but now they are just wrapped under the tree. The teenage boys were particularly excited
and tore through their gifts. I was
impressed with the simplicity of the gifts—many of which were homemade. David, our YSA, gave each of the men a small
bag of beef jerky which he had made.
Another young woman gave Gismo a simple Christmas ornament she had
made. She was so excited to give it to
Gismo and watched as she opened it, waiting to hear how much she liked it. It was the perfect example of how it is
really the gift-giving that brings us
the most joy. The gifts were very
simple—nothing extravagant. Marie, our
other YSA, got an eyelash curler, which she said was the only really wish she
had for Christmas. She also got new bed
sheets, a fleece blanket, and a movie.
Gismo got flour, sugar, and oats for her apartment—and she was thrilled. (I think there was a price limit on how much
you could spend on gifts to each other.)
There were some bigger gifts, too, as Gismo and her two sisters got
tickets to a music concert featuring their favorite rock singer. Gismo had made a birthday plaque for each
family. It was a simple board which she
had painted and then written the family name across the middle. Then she printed the months in the year along
the bottom of the plaque and attached a ring below, to which she hung a circle
of wood with the name of the person who had a birthday that month. Some months had 3 or 4 wooden circles
dangling down, and some months had 9 circles.
It included extended family as well.
The circles were not all the same size and when I asked her where she
got the wooden circles, she said she just cut a branch from a tree that seemed
the right size and then she used a saw to slice off the circles—like cutting a
cucumber. We would have just gone to the
craft store to buy things like that. I
admire their ingenuity and the thought and time that went into the gifts.
I think we were the only one of the senior couples who was
invited out for Christmas Eve. (All the
young missionaries had an invitation to a member’s home.) But for many Americans, Christmas Eve is not
a big celebration and I think the senior couples just spent it at home. Our hostess asked me what traditions we have
for Christmas and I said that our family also has our bigger celebration on
Christmas Eve because of our German influence.
We haven’t carried down any of the other German traditions like special
food, decorating the tree on Christmas Eve, and dancing around it, but that
night has always been the family gathering.
Christmas Day was more low-key—a time for playing with new toys from
Santa and playing games. Of course, when
we lived in Utah, we spent a good part of Christmas Day with the Shurtliff
family, like many of you do with in-laws. We had a big Christmas dinner, opened gifts,
and played games. For most Americans, Christmas Day is the
holiday. That is why the senior
missionaries are getting together today for Christmas dinner and ‘parlor
games.’ We will have one set of
missionaries with us as well as an unbaptized ward member from the Amager
Branch. But for me it has always been
Christmas Eve that holds the magic. It
is the one tradition we have retained from our European ancestors. I hope you all had a magical Christmas Eve.
We had a successful Zone Conference this week. The first part was training by the AP’s on
church tours and goal setting. Then we had the public affairs director come
and talk to us about the Book of Mormon
musical which opens the end of January. He
shared that the musical provides a simplified and untrustworthy picture of one
part of the church's teachings. The
missionaries in the musical are portrayed as gullible and catty optimists who
are worldly and vulgar. The musical uses
terrible language and takes the name of the Lord in vain. But despite all that, it also puts the Book of Mormon into the spotlight and is
an opportunity to talk to people and share who we are and what we believe. The premise is that the musical can entertain
the public for an evening, but the Book
of Mormon as scripture will always change people’s lives and bring them
closer to Christ. Here are the things
that we can do:
1.
Pray to have a missionary experience
2.
Invite people to see for themselves who we
are. We can invite them personally, but
also through the internet and social media by checking out the church website.
3.
Role play in our families (and as missionaries)
how we will respond to questions, so we are not caught off guard. They may be simple questions like ‘what is
the Book of Mormon?’ and ‘why does the church have missionaries?’ We don’t want to comment on the musical
performance or take a defensive position or come across as rude. We need to be positive.
4.
Be ready to share a Book of Mormon with those who want one. Share how the book helps us every day to come
closer to God and Christ.
5.
Invite friends and family to church and to FHE.
6.
Refer to the church official statements.
He cautioned the missionaries about ‘speaking for the
church’ if they get questions from the media.
They should refer the media to the public affairs office where they are
prepared to deal with the media. Missionaries
can instead bear their testimony about the Book of Mormon and how it changes
lives. President O’Bryant suggested that
they answer ‘the question they should have been asked.’
President O’Bryant then gave a message about peace. He asked the missionaries to define peace and
most of the answers had to do with world peace and no war, but the peace he
talked about was the peace we can have within.
The Holy Ghost is a source of peace and it is what the Savior gave us
when He died. Peace is also a lack of
contention in our homes and in our lives.
When the Savior visited the Americas after His resurrection, He spoke to
the people (3 Nephi 11) and declared who He was and expounded on His purpose as
Savior and the atonement. He then talked
about baptism—essentially, He gave the first principles and ordinances of the
Gospel. Before he spoke more of His
doctrine, He talked about disputations and said, ‘he that hath the spirit of
contention is not of me.’ President
O’Bryant said that contention destroys peace and referred to several scriptures
about peace. We certainly search for
peace during this Christmas time. We can
do that when we rid ourselves and our homes of contention. The angels sang “Glory to God in the highest
and on earth peace, good will towards men.” Christ is called “The Prince of Peace.” He said, “These things I have spoken unto
you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation:
but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” And, “Peace I leave with you,
my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not
your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” Truly the gift of His Son is Heavenly Fathers
gift of peace to the earth. We can find
that peace when we invite Christ into our lives.
Have a wonderful Christmas Day and a good week.
Med kælighed,
Mom
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