July 27, 2015

Well... Here's my week :)

I*M TRAINING FOR MY LAST TRANSFER!! That was unexpected. 

Elder Brindley is off to Skive, and I'll train a newby.  I'm in KBH waiting for my trainee, and hanging out with Elder Lawless, and his trainee Elder Bishopp until Wednesday.    

Training was a very happy experience before, and I'm excited to help a new missionary gain a fresh view of Danish missionary life.  I have some goals to help me with keeping my focus in the right place, and I plan on making this the best transfer that my new trainee could possibly have. 

I'm focusing on the Christ like attribute of virtue, with specific relation to how accountable I'm being to myself.  I don't want to feel like I wasted any of my time here in the last transfer of my mission.  I'm excited to see a change in myself, not just my new trainee. 

This week we had an awesome experience with a man on a train on the way back from splits in Fredericia.  I asked why on earth he had a vacuum cleaner with him, and from there we talked for an hour straight about the church, and how he had lost contact with the missionaries before, and would like to talk more about the restoration and the plan of salvation another time.  We got his info and will be meeting with him again soon. 

I've had a lot of good experiences talking with people today, and even on the train ride in to Copenhagen when things were crowded and hectic, I still had the chance to talk with a young woman that ended up being on the way to the U.S. to study and start fresh, from the way she put it.  She was really grateful for the Book of Mormon I gave her, and seemed excited to read it during her 12 hour flight :)  Hopefully she'll follow the resources she has back to the missionaries in Denver.  Super nice girl, and it took just two seconds of looking outward instead of inward to make a difference and help someone come closer to Christ.  I LOVE being a missionary.  

Love you both!

Ældste Pitcher

July 20, 2015

Hej Mor og Far! 

I had a pretty great week, let me tell you about it :)

Over the course of this last week we've started to see some gradual improvements with the way the work is going here.  We're finding a lot more potentials, our fireside this last week was a huge success, zone training gave us a great renewed focus on finding, and the overall morale of the district is awesome.  Not to mention the other two companionships had stellar weeks with how much they were teaching.  They are a group of hard workers.  

Earlier this week we had an appointment with a young Greenlandic woman named 'P'.  The Seden Elders gave us her information, and apparently she had had a pretty rough past and was looking to change her life.  We taught her this week and after the first lesson we invited her to be baptized on the 15th of August, and she accepted!  

We focused a lot on how the message would bring her hope, and I could tell she really felt the spirit.  As it would turn out, she lives in the other Odense ward's area, so we made sure to introduce her to the sisters in the other ward at the fireside, and they are working with her now.  She also came to church, and it sounds like she's being taken care of, so we'll pray that all continues to go well, and hopefully we'll have our newest Greenlandic member here in a few weeks!  

This week in church was really great as well.  We had such a large guest class that we ended up moving into a bigger room.  A few weeks ago we challenged our recent convert 'XC' to bring a friend to a church activity, and after coming to one young adult activity, her friend also came to church, and brought another friend with!  

The first friend got to be close with the sisters at the young adult activity, and she'll be working with them.  The other friend is named 'R', he's from Latvia, and he had some good questions about the church after I helped translate for him in sacrament meeting.  He gave us all of his info, and gave us a time to stop by this week.  We have been pretty happy about the way that this week turned out.

I miss you lots!  Then again there are a lot of days where I can't stand the thought of coming home... Just know that I love you all in any case :) 

Have a great week!

Ældste Pitcher

July 13, 2015

Hey Ma and Pa!

Here's how things are going.  We've had a fairly good week as far as getting out to service, and pushing people to help us with our fireside goes. 

Elder Brindley and I feel like this week's numbers weren't a very good reflection of the work that was actually put into it.  We both have been a little tired from splitting and stacking wood (a service project we did three times this week) :)  

Beautiful Danish street.

With that said, we're grateful for the chances we do get to serve, and we are planning in time this week for a better variety of activities so that we can find ourselves being engaged in more than just a few ways. 

We also have our 'Meet the Mormons' film evening in the church.  We are really excited for this, and both wards have been working hard to find friends to come with.  A great deal of this week has been dedicated to inviting members to bring a family member or friend with, and from what we can already see we should have a good turnout. 

One woman we contacted on the street yesterday told us that one of our good member friends Jonathan had already invited her!  It was exciting for us to see that our idea had already reached out that far. 

On to some more interesting news.  'J' is moving back to Helsingør!  She moved back in with 'L' yesterday.  She said last week that they had been talking about it and I guess they both realized the grass wasn't really greener. 

'J' has also had a revival in her testimony from all of the support that she has received, and in her last message to all the missionaries she let us know that she really felt it was all true, she was just having a rough time.  Keep them in your prayers! 

Got a bit rained on ...

One last fun experience.  We were on the way to buy some new brake pads for my bike earlier this week (because I was grinding metal) when we rode by some people that looked like they were moving.  I felt impressed to stop and offer our service, and they politely said thanks but no thanks, however, one man said 'you all believe in Joseph Smith right?' after we told them we were missionaries from the Mormon church.  We said 'yes! One and the same.', and then as he started heading back inside he said it was a shame we wouldn't be around for a while, he was curious.  Like music to my ears :)  He isn't really believing, but he would like to hear more.  We gave him a Book of Mormon, and an invite to our fireside this week. 

He's a total hipster so he didn't have a phone to call him on, just an email, but we're really hoping that his curiosity pushes him a little bit.  We've written to him, and I'll be sure to let you know if we get a response.  

I'm loving being a missionary :)

Love you both!

Ældste Pitcher

July 6, 2015

Hey Ma and Dad... ;)

This week was lots of fun.  We got around to a lot of different stuff and I feel like we're pretty close to having an explosion in this area pretty soon.  It takes forever for these computers to add pics so I'll get right into it. 

Working backwards from what I can remember, we had 'JM' with us in church yesterday. Our very friendly amputee investigator. He's been missing his left leg for years, but that hasn't kept him from having a cheery attitude, at least since I've known him. It was his first time in church, and already a few of the members seemed to hit it off with him pretty easily. We have a few appointments set up for throughout the week, and we're looking forward to his furthering progression.

Saturday we were on splits with the Seden Elders, and Elder Vance lined up our day in Seden so that we were hopping from one appointment to the next. The Seden Elders have some pretty high goals right now, and from what I've seen with Elder Vance's work ethic, I think there's a good chance they can reach them.

I also conducted 'ND's baptismal interview that evening. He's ready to go! He's going to be an awesome member, and it seems like he's getting good support from the ward. They are already making space for him, and looking for a calling and home teachers so that he can hit the ground running.

This ward is awesome! From what I've seen, they're one of the more coordinated units that I've served in since being on my mission.

Other than that, our finding efforts have been producing more new potential friends, and Elder Brindley and I are still loving the time that we are having together. We've always been good friends, so it's been nice already having a good teaching balance, and having kind of sixth sense for how your companion reacts to situations.

I feel very blessed to be serving in Odense. I love being a district leader, and the group here is awesome. I count all of them as close friends, and they are all hard workers.

Loves and stuff!

Ældste Pitcher