Thirty Day-in Training

The following was published on Sis O'Bryant's Cop-Den Mission blog, along with additional pictures: Thirty day in the land was Tues Sept 26- Thurs Sept 28th, with transfers on Mon Oct 2, 2017.

-The "thirty day in" the land meeting is to train these new missionaries and their companions on the most recent and effective trainings over the past year from Zone Conference.  There were 27 of us here.  The sisters had to spend the night with nearby sisters.  It was truly a full house!  

President and Sister O'Bryant and the assistants train on :  1) How to become a Preach My Gospel missionary 2) How to use time wisely 3) Faith to find 4) Cultural "No" 5) Boldness without overbearance 6) Becoming the message 7) Repentance 8) How to love your mission,  and more.  

It's a wonderful reminder for the trainers and very effective for the newer missionaries.
- Role Playing is extremely effective 
-After training, they change into their casual clothes and either, relax, play ping pong or basketball.  Oh, and of course, have snacks:)   
-The next morning comes early with traditional breakfast burritos.  

Can there ever be enough food for hungry disciples?  Thankfully, yes, usually ;D

-After more training, we travel to a nearby McDonalds.  

They expect us every 6 weeks and spoil us.  

-Back to more training...and snacks  until it's time for dinner.  

Today they chose chicken enchiladas, homemade refried beans, Mexican rice, chips and peach cobbler for dessert. 

-Here we are again for a traditional breakfast of baked french toast.  After all this eating, we pack up the leftovers and divide it up for those who want it. 

-After a few hours of training, we meet the "My Plan" group at the temple.  

Unfortunately, not all were in time for the picture, but they made it to the session.
- MTC group reunited!
-After the temple, we met in Copenhagen at the Fredriksberg building.  We have a traditional Dominos Pizza lunch with the "My Plan" group which consist of the most senior of our missionaries.  They share wise council on what the mission has taught them personally.  It is a wonderful sharing of experience and testimony.  
(Can you find "Waldo"?)
 

#PitchGreen

That is a beautiful description of this whole week, even though it came from only one day. It was an awesome week full of randomness and splits.

So first off, Monday was our Essentials P-day (You have a shorter Pday to use that time on another day of the week) so we could have a District Activity on Thursday. So we had three hours less time to do things. We emailed and basically just went shopping. But I wanted to go see some Genbru stores, which are like DI type thrift stores. As we drove to find one, Ældste Brown told me about the Houston Astros (his favorite MLB team) "clinching" their division for the first time since he was 4. He had one of his Astros hats sent to him for Christmas, but the mission van was broken into and all the presents for the missionaries were stolen, so he didn't get it. Meanwhile, we walked into the Genbru. We turned towards the clothing and I instantly saw this hat. Interestingly, Ældste Brown did not see the hat. It was a Houston Astros Game Day hat with their new logo (apparently it changed a couple years ago). I casually pointed it out to him and his face basically exploded with surprise. It was a perfect fit for him and it was only 20 kr. (about 3 dollars). The entire rest of the day he was super excited to simply wear his new hat. That was a strange testimony builder for me that Heavenly Father cares about the small details in our lives. There is no reason that a MLB team from Texas would have a hat in a second hand store in a small Danish town, let alone the fact that it was his perfect size. That was simply a small miracle for him. 

We also ate with Finn, Dorte, and Niels again. They said they would try to come to church again, but they ended up not being able to, again. But they're super amazing people and we're going to keep working with them. We have another dinner appointment with them tonight! :) It's basically a missionary's dream. Eating appointments every week with an awesome family that you get to teach! They just need to actually come to church and then they'll be much closer to being baptized.

Tuesday was extremely busy!! We had five appointments all in Viborg. So we basically bounced between Elna (I), Minna (M), Helle (I), Birgit (M), and Rune (LA). Elna is doing awesome though! She said in our visit that she knows she wants to be baptized some day, we're just trying to help her testimony of Christ. But we are hoping to have a baptismal date for her by this Friday. Minna is a member who can't come to church because of her health. She's a super sweet Danish lady who we took the sacrament to and Ældste Brown gave her a blessing (in Danish!) It was a really cool experience to participate and feel the Spirit even when I couldn't totally understand what was being said. Helle, Carl's daughter, is hilarious and awkward. She's very nice, but just doesn't really understand social things. We met with her and read from the Book of Mormon and she committed to try and read every day! We then went to Birgit's house for dinner. She gave us some really good lasagna and I was very happy that I could understand the entire conversation with her!! It was fabulous! It was fun to see the progress from the first visit we had with her where I could only understand a bit, but I'm already getting so much better with Danish! Rune was our last visit of the night. We talked with him about the importance of building our foundation on Christ (Helaman 5:12) and how we can do that. He understands that he needs to pray, read the scriptures, and come to church, we're just trying to get him motivated to do so.

(Key: I- Investigator  M-Member   LA- Less Active Member  ZL- Zone Leader)

Wednesday was a super cool day that is quite hard to explain. We had splits with the Zone Leaders here in Skive, but we basically had a service activity for Jimmi and Vivi (LA couple) to help them with their new store, but then they cancelled. So we ended up baking cookies for Finn and Dorte as the ZL's had personal study. Then Ældste Erickson and I went tracting, but it was different! We began with a prayer to specifically find someone who would listen and needed our message. Then he opened up to a scripture and read it. I felt like we would find a 20-30 year old guy in a black jacket over by a park, so we headed over that way. We headed out and knocked on two houses with the same number as the verse we had read. The first didn't answer, but the second was an older man, Johannes, who had a really interesting experience with death that was supportive of what we believe in the Spirit World. We taught him for 15 minutes in his (super nice) camper and then he took a Book of Mormon. We then walked to the park and sent the experience as a Miracle text (part of our Zone Goal for the transfer). While we were there, I told Ældste Erickson about the guy I thought we should find. Then as we left, a man who was 20-30's in a black jacket, was walking his dog was going up another path. I told Ældste Erickson that we were going to talk to him, so speedwalked to intercept him at the park entrance. He listened to us and took a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and gave us his number. We then went home and just had our minds blown about the amazing miracles we had just been a part of. It was a crazy day full of awesome miracles!!

Thursday was quite fun! We had District Meeting and our District Activity. The Activity consisted of Ældste Jamison (the best cook in the mission) making us lunch and then all of us playing random games and/or playing with paracord. The food was super good and then we played Speed UNO. It was awesome!! Ældste Jamison and I both won twice. Then I found a soccer ball and so Ældste Christensen (JR.) messed around with me upstairs. We also climbed in the attic of our apartment, which was super dusty and had an old Danish church chair, so that was exciting.

Friday was a Viborg and splits day. We visited Elna and she was at the same point but she committed to come to church on Sunday! Then we stopped by the Kvist family, who have a much needed break from all the crazy stuff going on in their family. So Brian is not being deported yet and Steen has officially been diagnosed with ADHD and Dyslexia so he can get more help in school. Then we came home and picked up the Herning Ældster for dinner and the evening. We played Bakari with the four of us, which is a weird board game in our closet. It was way fun!

Saturday was strait Greenie Fire. I was super nervous about working with Ældste Bailey because we're both trainees and have only had a month(ish) experience with Danish. But we street contacted and tracted very well and knew what everyone was saying!! We had one lady who was very nice even compliment us on how much we already knew. It wasn't the most productive finding block, but we were able to give a lot of people the opportunity and really test our Danish. And we came up with #PitchGreen because we're both newbies roaming the streets of Skive. After the Herning Ældster took off, Ældste Brown and I visited Viborg again. We tried stopping by Jakob (LA) at his apartment but he wasn't home. But I thought it was super cool that he literally lived in the same building as the Viborg Soccer Stadium!!! (really exciting pictures below) We then had dinner with Carl and Helle, which was quite delicious and really good! Helle asked some interesting questions as we ate and neither her nor her dad really care for small talk, so it was hilariously fun. (Definitely reminded me of Sister Alison Jepsen's comment that missionaries do awkward things all the time.) We invited her to church again, but she sadly said she couldn't come.

Sunday was very stressful for me. It was the first talk I've ever given in Danish. Luckily our branch is literally the least intimidating branch ever. They're all just loving grandparents that are so proud of anything you do. (I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but we also bless the sacrament every week.) I had about a half page of scriptures and thoughts written down because I hadn't had much preparation time that week. I found out that I was the closing speaker... So that was terrifying. I had 25 minutes to fill at the end of the meeting with my half page of notes. And that was where it became like Christ feeding the 5,000. My meager preparation was what I was able to do in between the other missionary work I had that week. It wasn't very much, but I spoke for the full time I was given. It was a topic that I personally wanted to learn more about and that I wanted to share, and because I had that desire and I had done what I could, I was able to see the blessings of that. I spoke how about how Christ is our light when we are surrounded by darkness, and how we are called to be the light for those who are also overtaken by the darkness of the world. It was a powerful testimony to me that we will have our tongues loosed as we share the gospel, even if it's with members. I did have some problems with my Danish, but my message came across clearly and just how I wanted it to. Another blessing from Sunday was that Elna came to church!! She loved the meetings and stayed the full two hours!! (We only have two hours of church, by the way) She said she had a really good experience and even gave one of the members a ride home after! It was just a great day!!

Then after such a spiritually wonderful day, Ældste Brown and I began planning how to make a Danish Mission board game! It'll be super complicated and probably really difficult to make, but I'm super excited to work on it in the hour we have every evening. It'll be all the rage here in Skive for sure. ;)

Thanks for all your support and wonderful letters! Let me know if you have any question, comments, or random jokes! Look for ways that the Lord is a Light in your life and how you can be a light to others who don't have the same knowledge of this incredible gospel that you have! 

-- 

Ældste Bryant Jepsen

-Our District singing Primary songs
- Ældste Erickson posing as Captain Moroni (I think, I'm not actually sure at this point, it was just funny to see) 
-Greenie Splits Selfie (#GreenieFire #PitchGreen #NotBamboozeredByOldLadies) 
-Viborg Soccer Stadium (I was really excited, can you tell?) 
-A really dramatic dock in Viborg (You might see the Viborg Domekirke to the left, it looks a bit like Notre Dame) 

 

"We're adults-- well, kind of...Depends on the day, but we're trying to be!"

This week's title comes from Ældste Eriksen in our District Meeting, and it describes missionaries perfectly! It's basically hilarious how accurate it is and you'll see that throughout my weekly email.

Last Monday was basically the best day ever. By far the best day in the field we've had since I've been here. I did not know that P-day's could be so effective. We had our normal routine of emailing and such, and then we had a break from our P-day activities and went to teach a lady named Henrietta. It was a little annoying having it in the middle of the day, but that's what missionaries do: Bug people until they realize they could be happier in life. So we taught her and it went quite well! She doesn't think praying should happen every day though, just when you really mean it. So we'll work on that, especially because you say a ton of prayers as a missionary and you really mean every single one. But she wants to learn more and we set another appointment-ish with her. She said we could come back at a certain time to set an appointment. Then we resumed P-day! That evening, we had an eating appointment with two non-members, Finn and Dorte, that had met missionaries 30 years ago and loved them. They are awesome! They're hilarious and very open. They fed us some very good food and kept trying to feed us more. As we were eating, their son Niels came in! So he joined us! Dorte also gave me quite a few pep talks about making sure I opened my mouth and didn't let a new language get in the way of talking. It was quite funny. We taught them all the Restoration and they were happy to have us back today for another eating appointment!! They're awesome!! They also invited us for Christmas dinner already, so if I'm still in Skive around Christmas, I already have an appointment set up!

Tuesday continued the eating with investigators! We drove out to meet with Mitzie, who is the mother of a member and she's investigated the church for a really long time. So long, in fact that she has started a binder of the missionaries that come and visit her, because she loves missionaries. She's quite a character. She basically refuses to read the Book of Mormon because she's worried that she'll know it's true and become a member. I'm not sure why that's so scary for her though, because she likes the church and the members. We'll keep whittling that down though. Ældste Brown became instant friends with her and we tease her about being baptized. She's also obsessed with Elvis Presley. We found her house because she had Elvis Presley BLVD by her driveway! Then she had an Elvis picture over her window, twenty records of his in her kitchen, wore an Elvis shirt, and anywhere you looked had at least 4 pictures of Elvis or Elvis related things. It was hilarious!

Wednesday was the slow day for us and not too much happened. I did meet Elna though! She lives in Viborg and has been investigating the church for a long time as well! She's a super sweet lady who has two kids but just gave up twins for adoption because she can't take care of them on her own. She was happy to see us and was very kind and loving! We talked with her about the Plan of Salvation and set another appointment for Friday. We then visited Carl, a member, who had two guests over. One of them was his daughter, Helle, who wanted to read the Book of Mormon with us and then set an appointment for Friday too! 

Thursday was District Meeting day! We talked about Christ walking on water and how we need to get out of the boat in our missionary work so that we can walk on the water and come closer to Christ. It was super cool! Søster Peterson also gave us permission to buy gummy bears, because she did that on a hard day and they found an investigator. We then brought Ældster Christensen and Christensen back to Skive for splits! They are not the same person, but have the same name so we also call them Senior and Junior. (Which could also be confusing because Æ. Christensen Senior is actually younger than Æ. Christensen Junior!) I was with Ældste Christensen Senior and we went to Viborg! We visited the Kvist family and met Brian (Ana's brother who is being deported this week) and Steen (Ana's son/Jacob's little brother)! Neither of them really talked to us though. We're trying to be friends with Steen so he won't avoid coming to church with us. But Ana and Jacob both committed to come to church. And they get a ride with another less active, Leslie, so she would get to come too! Then all four of the missionaries visited Rune. He was very kind and we had an awesome meeting with him! He basically testified himself that the Book of Mormon is amazing because he thought he'd gotten everything he could from it until he prayed and then read! It was awesome! Hopefully we can get him coming back to church soon too!

Friday was the pinnacle of randomness. We first split up to try and print the tickets for the Christensen Ældster so they could get home, but they hadn't gotten the email from the ZL's. So Ældste Christensen Sr. and I went street contacting and found some potentials. Then after lunch we went to Viborg to teach Elna and Helle. We talked to Elna about how the Plan of Salvation can bless us in our life and how through Christ we can be strengthened in our trials. She was very accepting and said she would try to come to church! Meanwhile Ældster Brown and Christensen Jr. helped Helle move a couch out the window because it wouldn't fit through the door, and then committed her to come to church too!! We basically spent the rest of the day trying to get the Christensen Ældster back to Aarhus. We couldn't find anywhere to print their tickets so we decided to stop at a candy store to buy some gummy bears! Because that was now legal for us! ;) We drove back to skive with a bunch of "gummy" candy that all turned out to be rock hard. It was hilariously fun! We also found some jelly beans that taste the exact same way that church cleaning supplies smell, so that was quite nasty. Then we sent the Ældster off and visited Karsten who had Jeppe over, and they both said they'd come to church!

Saturday was a really slow day because I just really wanted to go to church the next day! We also didn't have too much time and the potentials we visited weren't interested.

Sunday finally rolled around! That morning we got several texts from people saying they couldn't come to church for whatever reason. It knocked out Mitzie, Elna, and Finn. We stopped by Karsten's on our walk to the church and he wouldn't answer the door or his phone, which we could hear ringing inside his apartment. I then anxiously watched the door as we talked to the members. Finally Helle and Carl showed up! She was the only investigator that actually came who we had talked to that week. It was kind of depressing, but she had a really good experience and Ældste Brown casually asked her what she thought of being baptized. And she was really positive about it! She said she wasn't ready yet, but maybe sometime! It was great! We also had a random guy walk in for Sacrament meeting who was taught by missionaries last year! So we got in contact with him and he wants to learn more! We then spent the rest of our day driving to Jimmi and Vivi's house. They're a young less active couple who are going through a really hard time. They love missionaries and usually feed them every week, but they've been going through some legal complexities (with their kids who the government took and they really want them back) lately that was stressful for them. But they're incredible nice people and I loved talking and being with them! We were able to talk to them about how Christ can comfort us because he's felt exactly what we're going through. 

So that's my spiritual thought for the week, Christ really can comfort you! We all go through really hard things, and so many people know Christ can help people, but not too many people realize that Christ can truly help them personally!! He truly loves You! He wants to help you in any way he can! The application of His Atonement in our lives can truly bring us an enormous amount of hope and joy! It's amazing!! So try and use that for yourself, even in small frustrations or stress because Christ really does care about everything you're doing! 

Thank you all for your support! Have a wonderful week! Hej hej!

--

Ældste Bryant Jepsen

-Cruesli is amazing! That's basically chocolate granola and it is heavenly!
- A weird Wall of Smoke we drove through but looked cool! 
-Some dinner selfies! (healthy broccoli included!) 

 

Every Day Full of Potential(s)

This week has been almost entirely following up with previous or potential investigators with conferences along with it! It's crazy!

So last Monday and Tuesday, we had splits in Herning with Ældster Jamison and Bailey. It was fun to be with Ældste Bailey again, it was just like the MTC, except really not at all the same... Yea! It was great though! They have a pretty big apartment and two sets of bunk beds, so that's fancy! We went to a place called Burger Shack for lunch and it was super good! Random comment: The soda here is different. The Orange Fanta has a lot more of an orange juice taste but with a soda texture. It's hard to explain, but a most missionaries like it better. It's pretty good, I just don't drink soda much. But after lunch, Ældste Jamison and I biked out to Gellerup (gal-air-up) to some apartment buildings. We first got an appointment with a former investigator set up and then we started knocking the rest of the doors. A lot of people weren't home, but we met a member that didn't know where the church was! It was awesome! We were able to help them figure out where to go, so hopefully they'll start coming again! They had just moved from Copenhagen so they didn't know the area. 

We also knocked into a Muslim man who wasn't very keen on letting us in, so we continued knocking. But as we were a couple doors over, he came out and told us to come back in. It was weird, but we went in and sat down with him. Ældste Jamison started telling him about the Book of Mormon but then he interrupted. He had quite a few questions about how many religions we had studied and why we were telling people their religion was wrong and they needed to change. Luckily Ældste Jamison could understand everything he said, so he explained that our purpose as missionaries is to invite others to have the same happiness and comfort that we've felt by being a part of this church. We do respect everyone who is a part of any religion that encourages them to love others and makes them a better person. Through our conversation with him we found that he had read the Book of Mormon three times and respected our beliefs, he just didn't understand what we were trying to do as missionaries. It was amazing to me how the Spirit left as he complained to us, but gradually began to return as we explained the message of hope and love that the gospel is for everyone. Once we left, he said he respected us as missionaries and liked that we were out trying to help people come closer to God. So that was exciting!

On Wednesday, Ældste Brown and I were working in Viborg, which is the biggest city in our area. We haven't been able to get out there before because we didn't have our car. We had a meeting with our Ward (Branch?) Mission Leader and then ate lunch with him and his wife. They're super nice and it was fun talking with them! His had some interesting fishing stories too. Once he caught a 1937 World War II rifle, and then he actually showed it to us! It was super crazy! Then we met with some of the Kvist family, who are less actives. Jacob (20 year old son) and Ana (Jacob's mother) were super nice! It was great to talk to them and they said they wanted to come to church, they just have to coordinate with each other. Jacob lives down the street and his little brother would only come to church if Jacob does as well. So hopefully we'll see them this coming Sunday! :) We met with another Less Active, named Rune. He's a super cool guy in his late 20's. He has a huge collection of Legos that he was more than happy to show us. (I was also more than happy to see all of them.) It was super cool! He had a Lego room where everything was built and displayed. But he said he needed to find a dog-sitter before he came to church because he doesn't want to leave his dog alone at home for so long.

Thursday entirely Zone Conference. We saw a ton of missionaries and we had 6 of our MTC group reunited! It was funny to see how much everyone has already changed. We learned a lot about how Christ taught as he traveled and taught for the understanding of others. Then we waited for hours to have a short interview with President and Sister O'Bryant. They both asked me if I knew the Madsens (a family from my home ward) because they were visiting Denmark at the time. But I never got to see them because they were just in Copenhagen.

Then Friday we found a lot of people in the morning that we set appointments with! Sadly, our appointment with Mølle (the man we found last Sunday evening by driving to a random street) fell through and he said he didn't want to meet with us. That was quite disappointing for me, so we went and got ice cream. Saturday was about the same. We followed up with a lot of potential investigators and got some appointments for next week. 

But Sunday was quite different. It was Stake Conference in Aarhus. They have it in a concert hall by the museum, which was a super cool room! I had some trouble with one talk in Danish, but understood all the others. Probably because half of them were given in English and translated to Danish though. ;) I also got to talk to some people in Danish after at a Stake lunch activity! I was quite happy I could actually hold a conversation! Later that evening we stopped by Karsten's new apartment. Surprisingly, he was home! Even more exciting, we committed him to a new baptismal date! We're going to be working a lot more closely with him and on more a frequent basis so he can be prepared. 

That's my week though! A lot more focus on finding people that are prepared for the gospel. I hope that we're able to see the progress of some other investigators soon! I'm loving Skive though! Life is great!

--

Ældste Bryant Jepsen

- On the train 
-Herning Burger Shack 
-Pretty Denmark Sunset 
- On the road 
- My desk and dinner 
-I decorated my first planner with a cool picture from the Liahona