Louisiana Museum—view of the bay to Sweden (and modern art sculpture)
St. Nicolai Church altarpiece
Tveje Merløse church grave
Tveje Merløse church
Ledreborg Castle
Altarpiece for church where we saw the jazz concert (Elijah’s Church)
Dessert for New Year’s Eve—mousse with a drizzle of warm raspberry sauce, a dollop of cream and a mint leaf.
Other New Year's Eve pictures
Other New Year's Eve pictures
Kære familie, 5 January 2018
We have always been able to count on Sunday evening as our time to write letters—or on Monday as a back-up if we have an activity on Sunday night. But last weekend, our New Year’s Eve activity stole all our spare time from Saturday to Monday. Before that, we actually had some downtime (from missionary work) and if we had been smart, we would have written our letters then. We had 2 weeks off from FHE and Institute—but the three days we devoted to New Year’s made up for it.
Our Christmas Day was not too exciting until we visited with family. It was so nice to talk to each of you. We went for a walk earlier in the afternoon to see some Christmas displays in town that we had heard about. Even though it was cold, it was pleasant to get out for a bit. I was surprised at how many people were out on the street—especially Strøget (the walking street). I guess tourists come to see the city and that is what they do. Tivoli was in full operation and there were many small restaurants open and even a grocery store or two. The busses and trains were running as well. We did not take our usual way home and found ourselves by a church we had not noticed before—St. Peter’s Church. People were just coming to church for a 3 p.m. service. We learned later that this church serves the German parish in Copenhagen. This country is full of churches, but they rarely are full of people—it was nice to see people attending services on Christmas.
We had Christmas dinner with the Johnsons and the Jensons. We also had two sister missionaries who had just gotten off phone calls to home and a single non-member sister who attends the branch. Dinner was just ‘okay.’ I made two kinds of potatoes—mashed and brune kartofler and I made gløgg (or Danish wassail). We played a homemade version of ‘Balderdash,’ which got old for me pretty fast—I hate making up definitions that sound plausible. Then we played the white elephant game with dice like they do here in Denmark. None of the presents were worth stealing and we ended up not even getting a present (luck of the dice).
We decided to take advantage of some free-time to visit some sights. We had invited the Johnsons to go with us on Tuesday because the mission office was closed for the ‘second day of Christmas,’ but Elder Johnson was sick. The Jensons went to Bornholm for a few days as they had never been there, so we were on our own. We went to a modern art museum that had been recommended by some of our YSA. They said if nothing else, the architecture of the museum was worth the trip—and they were right about the ‘nothing else’ part. The Louisiana museum is located right on the coast north of Copenhagen and we had a nice view across the bay into Sweden. But the weather didn’t cooperate much. It had been raining and the wind made our ramble through the courtyard quite chilly. When we walked back to the car in the dark after our visit, the weather had turned rather nasty with rain and high winds. Unfortunately, we had to park about a kilometer away from the museum, so it was a cold walk. We some of the exhibits in the museum—the photography section was okay, but for the most part we do not enjoy modern art where body parts are painted randomly in a picture, or there is a big pile of dirt and with special lighting it becomes art. There was one small room (closet, really, because only 4 people could go in at a time) where all the walls and ceiling were mirrors and the floor was water (we stood on a small platform). There were over a hundred lights hanging from the ceiling which changed colors every few seconds. The reflection off the mirrors and water was very nice—and they call it art. But at least now we can check it off our curiosity list.
The best day was on Wednesday when we decided to go to Holbæk to see the Carl Bloch altarpiece in Saint Nikolai Church. Very nice and worth the trip. We then went to another older church (Tveje Merløse Kirke) which dates back to the Viking era. It reminded me of the old round churches in Bornholm. I was most interested in the little cemetery around the church where individual graves were decorated with pine boughs and budding hyacinths or tulips, as well as other Christmas decorations. It was very quaint and festive. Our final stop was Ledreborg Castle. The castle is a residence so there are no tours inside, but we could explore the grounds. There is a huge baroque garden that is probably more beautiful in the summer, but we could enjoy the picturesque landscape around the castle. We even saw deer in the surrounding forest. We came home early enough to enjoy a temple session where we could just be patrons.
On Thursday we attended a jazz concert at noon in a church near our home. We had not been able to visit this church as it is not open to visitors like so many other churches. I just happened to see a sign posted about the free concert. The church didn’t disappoint and neither did the concert. The jazz band was composed of a piano, a bass, and a flugelhorn. There was also a vocalist. The musicians were very good—they played some familiar Danish Christmas songs as well a song made popular by Louis Armstrong and Frank Sinatra, “What a Wonderful World,” which the vocalist sang in English. In between the songs, a female pastor spoke. There seemed to be about 50 people there, mostly our age, but they may have come for the brunch that was served after the concert—which we didn’t attend.
We had our usual temple service on Friday and there were definitely more patrons than we had the previous week, but it was still slow. I think it is always like this during the holidays for any temple. I spent the morning creating a budget for our stake YSA for 2018. The budget has always been a bit fuzzy for our group. We get 3000 kr. put into our bank account and when it is gone, we turn in receipts for how the money is spent, and then we get 3000 kr. more. We were originally told that the 3000 kr. should last about 3 months, but we are finding that with all the activities (meals) it only lasts about 2 months. We asked for our 5th advance early in December. A lot depends on how much we get for our institute dinners. If everyone pays 20 kr., we should break even (that is about 500 kr./dinner for 25 people), but that rarely happens. Some meals are less than 500 kr., but some are more. So, we usually end up using 100-150 kr. from the stake each week. Sometimes we have some really big expenditures, like spending over 1000 kr. on our Christmas activity. Anyway, because I keep the running spreadsheet of our expenditures, I thought I was in the best position to make up a tentative budget so the YSA and the stake could see where the money goes. I want the YSA leadership to use my budget as a means to plan—I want them to have the final say.
Sister O’Bryant was asked to play an organ or piano solo at our stake classical music fireside in a few weeks. She didn’t want to play alone so she asked me if I wanted to play a piano/organ duet. The song we are going to play is “The Lord’s Prayer,” and it will take some work on my part. I spent some time Saturday morning—just practicing the last two pages. The runs are not easy, and my copy of the music isn’t the best. It is a copy from the other pianist who played with Sister O’Bryant in her home ward, so it has all her markings—some of which are helpful, but mostly it just makes a very messy piece of music. I will definitely have to spend the next two weeks in concentrated practice.
We had dinner plans with the O’Bryants on the Saturday before New Year’s—they called us and invited us to go to dinner. We, in turn, invited them to go to Tivoli after dinner to see the fireworks. Our season pass expired at the end of December and I have never been inside Tivoli to see the fireworks. We have watched them from our apartment lots of times, but it isn’t quite the same. At first President said they could go because they have a strict rule for the missionaries to not watch any fireworks on New Year’s Eve, but when he realized that he had his date wrong—this was December 30th, not 31st, he said they would love to see Tivoli. They had not been inside to see all the decorations. It was another wet night which meant that we were sloshing through the mud and trying to avoid puddles, but it was still fun—and cold, but we all dressed for the weather, so we were fine.
If we hadn’t already made plans with the O’Bryants, we would have spent all of Saturday (after my practicing) decorating for our New Year’s Eve activity. The YSA were very pleased when they saw the mission apartment and quickly changed the vision for the activity. They would now do everything in one location where before they were going to eat at the Nitivej chapel (the one close to the temple) and come over to our apartment around 10 p.m. for fireworks, dancing, and visiting. Now we could eliminate the travel. They moved all the furniture out of the main room (couches, coffee table, cabinets, etc.) and put them in the bedrooms. We brought over the tables from the center and managed to get enough chairs to seat 50 people. It was tight, but doable. The decorations were quite nice, but required a lot of work. I applaud Gismo Borup and her friends for making this a lovely evening. Each YSA paid 100 kr. to participate so there was plenty of money for a very nice meal and decorations. (The meal was a 3-course-meal with a salmon starter, beef main course, and chocolate mousse for dessert. It was all presented with a flare! The dinner lasted for almost 3 hours—we visited, played some games in between, all while we waited for the next course to be served. But what else were we to do on Sunday evening? We still had to keep the Sabbath Day holy.) We were surprised at the turnout and were adding people at the last minute, including 4 American brothers who were visiting Denmark with their parents. I’m sure we had more than 50 people pass through during the night as some came later just in time for the fireworks. I would say it was a huge success if it were not for the YSA who did not go home. I don’t understand—is this a cultural thing or just YSA? It would never occur to me to just lay down on someone’s couch or bed and fall asleep…. Somehow I made it through the night and next day on very little sleep (less than 4 hours). There was so much cleaning to do that it kept us busy most of the day on Monday. The YSA were good about cleaning up, but there was some extra cleaning that I felt I needed to do—like mop the floor in the temple apartment and clean the bathroom thoroughly—both of which had not been done in a long time. I wonder how often the temple apartment gets cleaned? Then I wanted to do the cleaning in our apartment, take the tree down, and get things ready for Hall’s visit. We still have lots of boxes and things we borrowed from the center that need to be returned, but I left it until after our ‘vacation.’ It will get done now.
One last thought—I thoroughly enjoyed our walk around the Ledreborg Castle and the gardens. It was a step back in time. We had this little spot of nature to ourselves as we were the only ones visiting at that time. We have been reading about Korihor and how Alma bore testimony to refute Korihor’s claims. Alma tells Korihor, “The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it.” I truly felt that as I reveled in the beauties of nature. All things do denote that there is a God and I was witness to it that day.
Med kærlighed, Mom
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