Elder Teagan J. Pitcher ... Serving in the Copenhagen Denmark Mission
Elder Pitcher
"I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." (Phillipians 4:13)

Monday, December 30, 2013

December 30, 2013

I had a really awesome Christmas. The Kleins were an awesome family to be over at for Christmas Eve, and they really made us feel like we were part of the family. We spoke Danish for the most part, but made sure that we would speak english if we had to. Their kids were lots of fun too, all teenagers so I felt like a normal teen again. It was super 'hyggeligt'.

I love the Danish culture. Denmark is such a beautiful place too. The buildings and architecture here are just awesome.

We also had a good post Christmas. We went to 'C's (one of our investigators) with her crazy dog, and cats, and self, and we had sushi, and played card games with her daughter and with the assistants and the sisters, it was lots of fun.

We got done with singing all of our Christmas greetings to people, and overall it was really successful. People really enjoyed it.... for the most part, and there were a lot of good things that came out of it.

So, now to Dads gift.
Dave: Teagan and I exchanged 'service to others' as our Christmas gift and he said that he would give me the details of his gift today. I have already given him the details of my service gift, but this is Teagan's blog, so I'll not share it here. Suffice to say that it was special to both of us.

The day we went to the hospital to sing for 'K' was a day of miracles one right after the other.

To start, 'K' looked much better from what she did before, and she really seemed to enjoy our song which is a miracle enough, but that was just the beginning. While we were singing, I opened up the circle to make sure that the whole room could hear since there were three other older women and a nurse in the room.

The women all really appreciated it, and the nurse even asked us to come and sing to her coworkers after explaining that it was only their first day in the hospital on Christmas, we figured we could bring some Christmas cheer. She told us to meet her back there in an hour, so we went down to the lobby to wait, and while we were down there two more things happened!

Sister Hale asked an older women in the lobby if we could sing her and her daughter a Christmas song, and she said that would be great. She sang with us, and broke into tears midway through the song. Come to find out at the end of the classic Danish hymnal, that this women’s husband had just died and that was why she was in the hospital. The sisters left her with a card with our church address and phone number on it, as they thanked us again before leaving the hospital.

Then while we were sitting down in the lobby area a man came and sat across from me. I opened up to him and wished him a merry Christmas time in Danish, and he responded in english and said, 'yes, but I'm kind of tired' I was really confused but insisted on talking with him, and then asked in Danish what his name was, and the response, again in english was 'I ask myself that quite often' at this point I'm thinking this guy is absolutely nuts, and can see that even though he speaks Danish, there is no way he is going to speak it with me, so I broke into english and started talking with him and asked if he would like to hear a Christmas song.

He began talking about how he had been a model, and professional skier and just before I could ask him more, he said enough about me, and let’s get to the song.

We sang, he smiled, we finished, he thanked us and left. The man never went into a room in the hospital, just came in talked, listened, and left. It was the weirdest thing, but another part worth mentioning in this story.

Then we finally were able to meet up with the nurse again. She took us through the catacombs of the hospital to a little break room where all of the nurses were at. They were all extremely happy to have such a warm Christmas greeting seeing as how they had to work on the day of.

The assistants talked with her, and gave her a card. She will be meeting with the sisters next week, and hopefully she'll bring some of her coworkers as I invited her to do.

The day was just a day of Christmas miracles, and it all came from just one idea that Elder Francis and I had. I mean, nobody would pass up that kind of service opportunity as a missionary anyway, but it was special to me to see the direct effect of the service we decided to do. The Lord really does put people in our path when we just try to act.

Oh, and also, we had a bomb explode in front of our apartment two days ago. It was just like a tampered with firework that someone set in the little garbage can out in front of our apartment. Elder Francis and I were walking back to our apartment from an appointment at the church to pick up some things, and as we turned the corner to go to our little cove where the door to our apartment is we heard someone yell something up to one of the apartments in Danish, and then a HUGE boom, followed by a cloud of smoke.

As we slowly walked forward to assess what had just happened, chunks of plastic and the metal lid were still up in the air before finally hitting the ground as we walked on. We are lucky that we weren't right next to it when it went off. Luckily nobody was hurt. It looks like it was just some vandalism, except I did see a car speed off afterwards, but like I said, more likely than not, it was vandalism.

We saw a few other garbage cans in the area that reached the same fate so yeah ... Litter is everywhere down there now.

We went up to the office right after that and they were all freaking out, because they had heard it too, but I think they just kind of figured it wasn't a seemingly immediate threat to anyone, so we are ok.

Just a crazy story, hope nobody freaks out over me sending this. I'm totally safe, and like I said before, no damage done except for a little eardrum pressure, and one less place to throw my trash away, as if Denmark doesn't have enough garbage cans already.. geez.

Awesome week, lots of good appointments, and plenty of interesting people. I will try and get these pictures sent home here soon, maybe I can just make a quick trip to the office to get them sent home so I don't get too backed up.

I hope all is well, and it looks like you guys had a lot of fun on Christmas, even if you weren't doing what you typically do.

I love you guys so much!
Elder Pitcher