Bunker Down for the Rain and Cold

This week was crazy, basically. We were all over the place the whole week, including yesterday which was supposed to be P-day.

Last Monday, Ældste Saviano and I decided to take a road trip to see some cool WWII bunkers up in Hanstholm. It was an hour long drive up to the northern most tip of our area, but it was way cool! The bunkers were all cement and pitch dark, so all the pictures are solely lit by my camera flash, which we used as a makeshift flashlight. Luckily the phone also had a little flashlight, so we didn't walk into too many walls or anything. That evening, we went tracting and we found two past investigators that were happy to talk with us. We weren't able to make another appointment with them yet though.

Tuesday was a very long and seemingly unproductive day. It started off very well though. We made banana bread (and chocolate) muffins and took them over to Karsten for his birthday! He let us right in and we talked with him and Jeppe. And Karsten clarified that he just wasn't feeling well last Saturday and he was still alright meeting with us, but he's still having Word of Wisdom problems so he isn't ready for baptism yet. We're still trying to work on his desire to quit. The rest of the day was just stop by's and finding. Then later that evening we were walking to the church for our language study and we talked to a girl named Anne. She's 21 and is a teacher, but only on Fridays. She was very interested and made an appointment with us for the next day! We were super excited about it and then started to frantically think of who we could have come as well so we would have a third man with us.

Wednesday rolled around quickly and was mostly consumed by our appointment with Anne. We were able to get a hold of Adam Jensen, a man in our ward, and he was willing to come from Struer (about an hour train ride away) to be a part of the lesson in the church. We planned, texted Anne to clarify, and picked Adam up from the station. Then as we were waiting in the church, Anne texted and said her Grandma was just taken to the hospital so she wanted to be with her family. That was probably the most awkward outcome we could have had. Anne did say that she wanted to meet another time, but we had to then tell Adam that she had cancelled. So that was really rough. Luckily, we had an incredibly prepared investigator who we met with later. His name is Ariath (air-ee-at) and he's an African who was raised in Denmark and speaks Arabic, Danish, and English. He also has a Book of Mormon in all three of those languages! Our meeting with him was actually kind of awkward because he already believed in everything we were planning on teaching him!! It was awesome!! It ended with him committing to read the entire Book of Mormon before our next appointment with him!! Sadly, our next appointment is in a month, which means I may or may not still be in Skive for it. But I'm excited to see him progress towards baptism!!

Thursday was a very relaxed day and it kind of bugged me actually. We visited Karsten but we couldn't get any commitment from him and he basically just avoided talking about religious topics of any sort. Then we tried some visits to our investigators and some tracting. We also were in charge of the little Family History Center that day, but it ended up just being Ældste Saviano and I there for two and a half hours. Our most productive thing was an eating appointment with the Korsgaards and visiting Ingefred afterwards. They're all members and were very happy to see us, so that was good!

Friday was a good day though. We had District Meeting in Herning, so we drove down there. We had the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders for training this time and it was awesome!! We discussed the difference of being a guide and a teacher. We, as missionaries, want to be the guide for the agent (investigator) to learn and discover what they need to know in the gospel. We are there to guide them through that change in their life in whichever direction they truly need to go. I thought it was a very profound and wonderful training! It made me think and change how I taught lessons. (story on Saturday about that) We then had splits with Ældster Jamison and Bailey in Herning. So we contacted for a couple hours on the Gågade, had dinner, and studied the language. With all the comradery of four missionaries included, of course.

Saturday was incredible. By far my favorite day of this week. (Sacrament Meeting not included) We were in Herning that morning, which included their English class and their Sport activity. The English class was kind of a joke because it was two guys, Hamid and Abdul, who could communicate with relative ease through English, but it is still helpful for them. It was way fun for the eight missionaries there though, because we had four Elders and the four Sisters from Hammerum. Then we played soccer for sport!! There was much debate on whether we should or not because it was raining and cold (hence the emails title), but I was a very strong advocate that soccer was definitely worth it. :) Hamid and Abdul came along as well! They're very good at soccer too! It kind of ended up being Ældste Saviano and I against those two. It was very exciting! We had some way cool goals and assists. The Sisters also got a lot of motivation from Hamid and Abdul about actually trying to shoot. Luckily, Søster Jex (on our team) was quite motivated and was happy to score as many times as Ældste Saviano and I could get her the ball. It was super fun!! It rained for most of the time we were there, but I barely noticed. I was very happy just being able to run up and down the field playing soccer. It was also the second time I've used my cleats in Denmark. :) Then we headed home from Herning to get to Viborg on time for an appointment with Rune. It was a decent lesson, but he wouldn't commit to coming to church. We then stopped by Helle to see if she was home. And she was! She let us in and we talked to her for a good half hour! We didn't have anything planned for her, so we just asked why she didn't want to be baptized. Then we had a powerful discussion about the Gift of the Holy Ghost and the Word of Wisdom. She really likes the Spirit, but drinks coffee very often so she doesn't think she could be baptized. I felt prompted to ask her whether she would rather have the Holy Ghost or drink coffee, and after some thought, she answered that she would rather feel the Spirit!! It was so exciting!! The Spirit testified so strongly to her that it was right, and she even said that she was feeling the Spirit!! It was the best part of the day for me. It will be hard to work through it with her, but she has the vision and the desire! We just need to keep it kindled.

Sunday was also pretty good. It was Daylight Savings so we got to sleep in an extra hour! We had a family visit from Belarus. They talked to us quite a bit because the kids were excited to talk to people who know "American." They were fun though! We also had Weekly Planning where we accidentally had a little campfire from a candle. We also noticed that it starts getting dark at four in the afternoon! It's crazy!

This Monday was a really weird day, which is why today is our P-day. Ældste Saviano had his Danish language test in Copenhagen (along with the rest of those who came in his MTC group) so I was on 'splits' with Ældste Throckmorton who would also be companion-less. But we were in Aarhus, where neither of us serve. So we basically just walked around the city for hours until we met with the Zone Leaders, but it was their P-day still. So we went shopping and then they left. We then decided to walk to the church, and on our way we found a free little side table. So we grabbed the table and walked it to the Aarhus South Elders' apartment! Then they took pity on us and fed us dinner. We left them with a spiritual thought and walked back to the station to meet our companions. Ældste Saviano and I finally got home to Skive at 11:15! It was a super long and crazy day! So that's why today is our P-day. :) 

Today was also good! But I'll talk about today next week, just to keep you guys coming back to check on my. ;) Have a wonderful week!! Remember to follow the Spirit, because it will tell you all things which you should do!

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Ældste Bryant Jepsen

-Seeing cool WWII bunkers up in Hanstholm last Pday

(northern most part of our area) 
-Ældste Saviano and I in some really dark bunkers 
(I couldn't see my camera until the flash went off)

-Ældste Saviano and I in a bunker we could see in!
-Our artistic photo on railroad tracks... 
-Ældste Throckmorton and I on 'splits' while our companions take a Danish language test in Copenhagen 
-Ældste Throckmorton and I tried on some fancy fedoras. We make them look pretty good. 
-The Zone Leaders and us trying on some normal European style jackets, of course.

The Bell Towers of Notre Viborg

This week has been pretty interesting. I kind of left you all on a cliffhanger from last week, so I'll start with that. It was actually a pretty cool day! We started early getting our groceries and came to email but the Missionary Portal was down, so we couldn't access our accounts. We then had a Ward Mission Coordination meeting in Viborg with lunch, so we just went to Viborg early. We used our afternoon to do some proselyting there and met with Willy Nysom (Vill-oo New-some) who is our Ward Mission Leader. After the meeting, we did some shopping/browsing on the Viborg Gågade. There were some volunteers talking about 3rd World hunger, so we talked to them and we ate flavored worms together! That was fun! We also got to go in the Viborg Domkirke which is the main church in the city. It's also where the Danish King was coordinated for a long time. It's way pretty and super cool! The bell tower was sadly closed, but I asked if we could go up anyway. The lady working there gave us five minutes to run up and then come back because they were closing. So we sprinted up a lot of circular staircases and ladders to the top! It was really cool! Kind of squishy, but exciting nonetheless! We then had a pretty relaxed day after that and not much happened. That's where I took the most pictures too, so look for those at the bottom! :)

Tuesday was pretty good. We had an appointment with Helle but she cancelled with us and said she didn't want to be baptized. Our only contact with her is through Carl, so it's hard for us to get a hold of her. She has a private phone number so we can't call her, so Carl calls her for us and it just gets complicated a lot of the time. So that was the big thing from Tuesday. We also had splits with the Zone Leaders so we took the train to Viborg, got some Cocio's (which are amazingly delicious chocolate milks), and spent the night there.

Wednesday was spent in Aarhus. I was with Ældste Smith again, which surprised me, but it was awesome! We had a lot of really deep conversations about understanding other people, how you can explain to them the actual experiences of your mission, and a lot of other different things. We taught one of their investigators named Sten who loves reading the Book of Mormon and it was great!! We focused on Repentance and he loved seeing the stories and applications of it!! We also found a lady named Julia in a park who we talked with for a half hour. She believes that people give credit to God for things that they do themselves, but she was very open to talk and was interested in learning more!! I hope they see her in church soon. She'd be a very positive investigator. We then ate dinner and headed back to Skive to hit the sack. It was a really cool day which was very full of thinking.

Thursday was our first district meeting in Herning and our district activity!! We drive for district meeting now, so we left with enough time to get there and buy some pumpkins. We all met at the Herning church and had an awesome training about studies and questions. We discussed how asking and searching for answers to questions make our studies much more effective. After the meeting, we carved pumpkins!! It was way fun! Some people changed shirts for it, but most of us were just in church clothes. We have some really fun pictures from it, and we had a great time with each other. Sadly, Denmark does not have good pumpkins, so basically all of them have already been thrown away. We then took the Herning Elders home with us for splits. It was also a gorgeous drive back to Skive. We took some country roads that had a lot of trees with different color leaves. And I saw my very first Stop sign in the country, so that was cool! We also had an eating appointment with Birgit Andersen and the Herning Elders! It was a blast! She's way funny and we enjoyed it a lot!

Friday we were on splits with the Herning Elders. We spent most of the time in Viborg. Ældster Saviano and Bailey met with Elna while Ældste Jamison and I went tracting. We weren't able to find anyone, sadly. Ældste Saviano also filled me in with Elna's situation on abortion and how we should continue pressing forward with her. We came back to Skive and witnessed a house fire get put out as we ate lunch, so that was intense. No one was hurt and it doesn't look like much was damaged, so that was good! Once we dropped the Herning Elders off to go home, we watched a broadcast for the Europe Area from Sunday. Elder Ballard spoke about miracles and how they are still a big part in the missionary effort today. It was really cool and very true! Friday was also my 100th day as a missionary, so I made some cheesy 100 glasses of course!

Saturday was a very hard day for us though. We haven't been able to find any new investigators, so we fasted that we would be able to find those who are truly prepared for the message of the gospel. At the very beginning of the day, Karsten texted us before 6:30 and asked if he could come running with us!! We actually haven't been running, but we did that day! We got up super quickly and ran for 20 minutes with him. He enjoyed it and even asked if we were planning on coming by later as well!! It was an awesome start to the day and we were very excited!! Then after we had studies, he sent us a long text and told us not to visit anymore. He said he didn't want to be a Mormon and we could have our books back. That was crushing for me. He's been so close to his baptism so many times and something always comes up to ruin it. So we decided we'd wait to contact him later in the day so hopefully he had time to reconsider. We went tracting and talked to as many people on the street as we could. Basically the only profitable thing that happened was helping Carl mop his floors. So at least we could be of some help to him. We also talked to a girl walking past our church. She's studying Spanish at the Skive College (we think that's where) and was happy to talk to us and took a Mormons Bog! It was a small tender mercy to show that we are doing our best and the investigators will come eventually. We asked Karsten if we could come visit him, but he never responded and we haven't heard anything from him since.

Sunday was also quite rough though. We didn't have any investigators in church even after inviting and reminding all of them. We spent another couple hours trying to find investigators with no avail. We stopped by Elvis but he had guests so he told us to come another day. We had one man home who said he was sick but was reading the Book of Mormon, so we gave him a Restoration pamphlet to read as well and we're going back later. We were knocking an apartment building and I didn't feel right about it. So we went to another area and knocked into a previous investigator who had lost contact with the missionaries a long time ago. He was happy to have us back, but didn't seem too interested in actually changing his life, so we'll see how that goes down. Basically it was a day to learn patience and how to listen to the Spirit, which was a very valuable lesson for me.

It's been kind of rough this week, but it's set up to be a great week next week! We also learned that Viborg is going to open as an area soon, so we won't be working with anyone there after that. We're kind of in an awkward limbo in deciding where to work because of that, so we're trying to get that worked out. 

My spiritual thought for the week is Alma 26:22. It reminds me a lot of James 1:5, and it also gives some things we can work on as we wait for an answer! It shows how God wants to give us knowledge and help us out, we just need to be willing, open, and living in a way that he can talk to us! I'm trying to work on that more as a missionary.

I apologize this email was a bit jumbled and rushed. We're headed off for some P-day adventures. Thanks for the support and love! 

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Ældste Bryant Jepsen

-Us in the Viborg Domkirke

-Walking up the Tower spiral stairs

-New hair cut and style

-Some good carving pictures

-Our district Pumpkins! (Guess which is mine! I shared with Ældste Saviano)

-Ældste Jamison and I took pictures with a lot of smoke!

-My 100th day glasses!