the Karen Blixen museum, including her grave stone under a beach tree on the property
YSA dinner and fireside at the home of the Hentzens
Kære Familie Sunday, January 14, 2018
I thought I would start off this week by sharing the mission goals that the zones have just set. After all, that is the heart of missionary work – bringing souls to Christ. Sometimes, because of our assignment with the YSA, we are more focused on Institute, FHE, activities or food for the faithful and those we hope to make faithful. So, this is a good reminder that every member needs to be fully committed to sharing the gospel and sharing the joy found through obedience and repentance. President O’Bryant shared this perspective about our new mission goals. “It is going to take some hard work to get there. But when we started 2017, it seemed impossible to see 60 souls accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ (43 baptisms in 2016). The goal you set of 75 for 2018 seems a bit more realistic than last year’s goal……so I don’t doubt that through prayer and effort, it will happen.”
- New investigators Per Week: 80, 2 per companionship per week
- Investigators attending Sacrament Meeting per week: 40
- Number of Investigators with a baptismal date: 33
- Baptisms: 75
Then finally, the president shared this challenge. I think it is a good reminder for all of us of some key ingredients in our efforts to live the gospel. As I read the president’s letter tonight, my immediate thought was “this applies to us, as well as all members of the church”. Shouldn’t we pray every day to understand and use the atonement to better ourselves? Shouldn’t we prepare more faithfully to partake of the Sacrament every week with a focus on our need to repent? Shouldn’t we teach our lessons, whether they are to the YM or the Sisters or the Primary, with a focus on a Christ-centered lesson?
“Teaching: We will have to focus more on repentance than ever. We will have to understand it better, and teach it better. Instead of our lessons being “Restoration”, or “Plan of Salvation”, we will have to “Say nothing but repentance to this generation.” Yes, we will teach the restoration, but it must be done with repentance at the center. We will teach the Plan of Salvation, but it must all be done with repentance at the center. Remember, Christ came and atoned for our sins so that we could repent. “Repentance at the center” MEANS a Christ-centered lesson. Also recognize, that a “progressing investigator” is a “repenting investigator”. This must never be forgotten. We must continuously ask ourselves how we can help those whom we meet, understand the need for repentance in their lives.”
Changing topics to our FHE last Monday, 10 YSA were there. This is exam week for some, so we expected a lower turnout. Mom left early and went to the Center to practice the piano. Gismo texted me at 4:20 and asked if we could come up with activities around a BofM theme. Someone had fallen through for her. The spiritual thought was covered however. She then came back shortly with another text and said the refreshments had also just fallen through. We had leftover buns and drinks from New Years, so that was not a problem to throw something together. We had warmed up rolls with jam, Nutella or slices of chocolate (they love chocolate on warm buns), plus apple juice and chocolate milk. They will eat anything, but these were actually tasty and they were a happy group!
I had promised mom I would be at the center at 5:00 to prepare for our lesson, so I had literally just minutes to think of activities. I turned to the game list we received from the Region and picked 5 group games we could easily do with the materials we have on hand. I chose a variety that included Pictionary on the white board, lying on the floor for a competition race around everyone’s legs, the game of spoons, and lining up with eyes closed by height, first name, and birth month, also a game of heads and tails where you flip a coin to eliminate anyone who matches the coin flip with a hand on either their head or tail. They seemed to be a hit. One of the young ladies commented over refreshments that any activity will do, as long as they are fun and interactive. They just like to hang out together and the games just get them involved, laughing and talking. Mission accomplished on that score. Including a BofM theme was a bit more difficult, but we used BofM stories for the Pictionary game. They had to draw a scene, like the Tree of Life, or Samuel the Lamanite, with a blindfold on. One of the young ladies is an investigator and doesn’t know the BofM yet, so when she was at the board, we had them draw Moses receiving the 10 commandments on the mountain top with a burning bush. The other activities were just for fun.
On Wednesday, we picked up Gismo and Emma Østergaard at noon and took them to lunch at the Taastrup IKEA. IKEA seems like a strange place to have lunch but Gismo has been pushing for this for a while. She loves their food. The prices are a bargain and the food was surprisingly very good. I liked my salmon a lot. They then did some shopping for apartment needs for a little while. We were their transportation for the day (probably an ulterior motive behind the lunch invitation) but we had a good time with them. We dropped Gismo off at her apartment with the purchases and took Emma to the temple at 3:00 for her weekly shift. A lot of conversation was around the dating of the YSA. Gismo keeps herself in a position to know the dating activities of everyone and likes to play match maker when she can. Alexander Kjeldsen has a new girlfriend in Spain, which is one we had not heard about. He is there this week visiting her. There is only one date set that we know about, but the stars are lining up for at least 6 (maybe 7) weddings this year. That would be astronomical. I don’t think we have had any influence on these – unless it is just our example of the perfect marriage (lol). The matches are Scotland, Sweden, Sweden, Spain, Norway, Norway and Denmark. You can see that it is a very international scene. The country YSA conferences, such as Festinord and Golden Days, are very important for match making. There is another one, Arctic Party, in Oslo Norway at the end of this month. Some of our YSA will make their way there. They are advertising racing on skis pulled by caribou or motorcycles, ski jumping and sledding. Looks cold but fun!
One of our YSA, Emma Petersen, received her Endowment Wednesday night and we arranged our schedule to join her. It is always nice to participate in milestone events of our YSA. Her sister and mom were beside her and it was wonderful to see the joy they had in sharing this experience together. Emma is going on a mission to Peru in February. I think we mentioned that before. She may be the first Dane to go to that country, where her paternal grandfather is from.
We enjoyed a small outing on Saturday – our date for the week. We are trying to put more emphasis on that even though we are together 24-7. We left at 1:30 for a short drive to the Karen Blixen museum, a famous Danish author (Out of Africa, among other books – made a movie in 1985 with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford). It is about a 30-minute drive north to Rungsted Kyst. It closed at 4:00 and we had just the right amount of time to visit the museum, which is her ancestral home, and wander the grounds around it just a bit. She set up a foundation just before she died in 1962, to own the home and acreage around it. The property is now a bird refuge and a museum. It is not large but had some excellent pictures and paintings that she painted and a good depiction about her life. We found it very interesting. She lived for 17 years in Nairobi, Kenya on a coffee plantation. The temperature outside was 2 degrees C with a nice wind, so we did not want to be outside very long. It is also facing the coast and we had a nice view of the sea, harbor and beach, and maybe the lights of Sweden in the distance.
In President Monson’s funeral, his daughter Ann Dibb, shared a statement that he would sometimes use after making a visit together, "I think we did some good today.” My own ‘great good’ this week was that I used Facebook and figured out how to set up a new private group for our My Plan lesson participants. I was able to add the 11 members to the group and send them a welcoming message with a summary of this week's lesson and the homework assignment that they should work on. Wow! I am coming of age in the technology world. I shudder to think about Twitter or Instagram. This is the first time I have done something like this in Facebook. I hope this works as an easy way to communicate with them.
Dad
Kære familie, 14 January 2018
We went to our ward YSA fireside tonight. We haven’t had a fireside for many months because something keeps coming up. We actually haven’t attended a fireside in our ward since June, when the former YSA parents were released. That fireside was well-attended—more than 25 YSA, which included some from outside our ward. Only 4 YSA attended tonight—quite a contrast. The fireside and dinner were hosted by our ward YSA parents who also invited their daughter and her husband as well as their 30+ single son. Including us, we were a group of 11. Dinner was simple—bacon/pesto pasta and bread with brownies for dessert. The daughter gave the spiritual message and talked about how we can react to our friends and acquaintances when they talk about The Book of Mormon musical. She then asked each of the YSA to share their feelings about the musical and how they might approach the subject or answer questions about the musical. There were various responses. The older son has seen the musical twice in London and was not offended. He just enjoyed it as entertainment—laughed at the jokes that poked fun of Mormon missionaries and thought that the final message was uplifting--that the missionaries did some good in their area and the people they taught were happier. One young man was definitely going to go see the musical because he loves South Park. Others were not going to see it but thought that having the musical playing here in Copenhagen would provide opportunities to talk about the church and the Book of Mormon. I like that approach. The stake is organizing people to be on the street outside the theater to hand out Books of Mormon, and others to man a call center to answer questions people may have. (Maybe there will be an advertisement in the playbill with a phone number to call for more information.) The play opens the end of the month, so we will see how it all plays out. Something that I noticed about our dinner/fireside tonight is that no one really speaks English. When they engage us in the conversation, they speak English and they will answer our questions, but the dinner conversation as well as the message and discussion afterwards were in Danish. It tells me that they expect us to follow and understand—or that they are most comfortable in their own language, which I totally understand. I followed some of the conversation but other times I was lost just because they speak so fast.
One of the YSA young men made dinner for Thursday night institute. He requested some help with the shopping so Dad met him at the grocery store down the street while I went straight to the center to practice the piano. He made a stir-fry dinner which required a lot of chopping of vegetables. It is difficult to make stir-fry for so many (we fed 26 people). I think that is why Mongolian stir-fry restaurants have the customers build their own dinner and then they are ‘stir-fried’ individually. Our kitchen in the center is just not equipped with the necessary stovetop, so after we filled the only two large fry pans we have, we realized that we needed to just put it all in our one big stock pot. I was in the kitchen helping for 2 hours—we ate ½ late. So even when I don’t make dinner, I am still very much involved. Dad helped chop up vegetables and then he set up all the tables for dinner. So we were both busy. It turned out well, tasted good, and there was not any left over.
We are getting about 29-30 people out for institute each week. One of the draws for institute is the Mission Preparation class that is being taught simultaneously in center office. About half of those attending are taking the Mission Prep class. This is the first time it has been taught since we have been here. It is nice to see so many of the young YSA wanting to attend and prepare for missions. There are two YSA’s with mission calls who are attending. The other half of the group attends the regular institute lesson—including 3 investigators this week and 2 missionaries. I like Brother Andersen’s (teacher) approach to the class as he begins by dividing the class into 3 groups and asking them to find the ‘pearls’ from the scripture block we are covering that week. This gets everyone involved looking through the scriptures for something that stands out to them. Then he asks each group to share one ‘pearl’ and what special message it taught. His lessons are very discussion-oriented, and he always gets plenty of comments—even from the 3 investigators. But what’s not to love about the lessons in the Book of Mormon? Every chapter seems to be packed with important principles and doctrines. This week it was Korihor, the Zoramites, and the discourse on faith, repentance, and the Atonement. What ‘pearls’ did you find in your scripture reading this week? I like these verses about prayer Alma 34:17-27, 39. They remind us that we need to be continually in the attitude of prayer—throughout our day, in the minute details of our life, whenever we need divine guidance and support, or even to express gratitude and love.
I am slowly learning my duet for next Sunday. I practiced everyday this week, except Friday—at least an hour but most often more, as my time would permit. I practiced with Sister O’Bryant on Monday—it was very rough as she knew her part well and I didn’t. We will get together again tomorrow and hopefully it will go much better. She has the advantage of having performed this piece many times. I love the song and sing it in my mind throughout the day. I have been practicing at the center which means a lot of walking. Usually I have Dad drop me off after we have been some place and then I walk home when I am finished. Yesterday, I walked both ways. It has been a cold week. Last night when I walked home, the city thermometer read -2˚. I am grateful for a warm coat, but especially for a warm scarf which really makes a difference (and warm socks, and warm gloves, and warm boots, etc. etc.….)
It was a slow night at the temple again this week—and we had very few sister workers. One temple missionary couple went home last week, so that made a difference. We had a total of 15 patrons for the two endowment sessions, which included several temple workers. We had to supply ordinance workers for the prayer circle in each session. There was one couple who came too late to make the session and did initiatory instead, so that kept us busy in initiatory. The coordinators of our shift last week live in Sweden. They coordinate once or twice a month. I learned that this sister just found out a few days ago that she has cancer cells in her blood. Further tests were done, but she hasn’t heard back on the results, which should tell her where the cancer is located. In November 2016 she had surgery to remove her uterus where the doctors had discovered cancer. She had chemo-therapy and radiation and thought that she was cancer free. But she has recently experienced some pain in her abdomen and a visit to the doctor confirmed the cancer’s return. She was obviously worried about it and says she can’t help but think the worst. She says she only sleeps about every other night—during the nights she lays awake she plans her funeral. “What else do you do when you can’t sleep?’ she said. She says that the gospel is what gets her through and she will continue to serve wherever the Lord calls her. “I’m kind of curious about what’s on the ‘other side,’” she said. I admire her courage and her faith. We never know what trials we will be given to experience in this life.
We decided to split up the lesson preparation for the week—this week I taught “My Plan” and Dad prepared the institute lesson (which he didn’t teach) and next week we will switch. We only had 3 people come to our first meeting with “My Plan”—we had invited 5-6 others. Some had indicated that they would be there and then didn’t show. Others were out-of-town. Despite the low numbers, I felt that our meeting went well. The course is set up like the other self-reliance courses—it is a group discussion with a facilitator. I was the facilitator, but I would really like the group to function on their own as much as possible. I wanted to introduce the course and the way it works. The class members introduced themselves—where they served on the mission, how long ago, and what they were doing. (One has been home from her mission 4 years, another 2 ½ years and the other 6 months.) I then asked them why they thought the Stake Presidency would want them to take this course and how it might be helpful to them. It is really a course about self-reliance—setting goals and planning your future. It is now available on Gospel Library so accessing the material will not be difficult. Of course, it is only available in English. I really see the wisdom of teaching these Danish saints in their own language despite their excellent command of English. But we will work through it the best we can. The success of the program will be determined by what the class members put into it—like anything in life. One thing I like about the program is that at the end of the discussion they are to choose an ‘action partner’ (in this case they all chose each other). They are to check on each other during the week (accountability and support) and also share what they learned with friends, parents, etc. If they do those things, as well as keep their commitments, then they will benefit greatly.
Med kærlighed, Mom
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