Monday, October 16, 2017

"Slipperiest Fish in the Investigator Pool"

This week was super weird and busy with nothingness. The quote for the title comes from our area book describing Elna back in 2014 or 2015. That's basically describing all of our investigators for the past week exactly, so that's disappointing. Last Monday was mostly shopping for warmer clothes. Then we tried getting in touch with Elna to set a time for her baptismal interview the next day! She wouldn't respond to our texts or calls, so we showed up at her door. That's a very missionary-like thing to do. If you don't talk to them, they will find you. ;) They have eternal happiness ready for you after all, who doesn't want that?! She was home and we set a time for the next day.

So Tuesday we came back with the Zone Leaders, Ældster Smith and Pihl (which is actually spelled Peel in English). We waited out in the stairwell to the apartment and it was really cold. Ældste Pihl conducted the interview and decided that it would be best for her to wait. He gave us a few things to focus on with her which included an abortion situation that was kind of confusing on what actually happened. So we're now coordinating with President O'Bryant with her. We also had an appointment with Helle that afternoon, but she didn't show up to Carl's house. Then we picked up the Randers Elders for splits and went to Finn and Dorthe's house for dinner. We had an awesome lesson about the Stripling warriors and their mothers to answer Dorthe's question about women in the Book of Mormon, which led really well into committing them to read it every day! But they were really hesitant and almost defensive when we asked them. They said it wasn't the same reading it without us there, so we'll have to work on that. It was just kind of a rough day with all the investigators we have.

Wednesday was a day of finding! We went knocking in Viborg. It was way fun for me to work with Ældste Schaffer! He's a way fun, animated, and positive guy! But they had to leave that afternoon, afterwhich, Ældste Saviano and I came back to Skive and found two potential investigators. One is named Elvis! Well kind of... He's not actually named Elvis, but his name is super hard so everyone else calls him Elvis! He and his neighbor are from the Yugoslavia area so they didn't grow up with religion. Elvis is very curious why people have religion and he's quite interested. We're now trying to find them both a Serbian Book of Mormon so they can read it in their native tongue.

Thursday was Zone Conference day! It's always a super long day, but this time I couldn't sleep on the way there. We had some winter tires in our apartment and they didn't fit our car, so we drove them to Aarhus! Road Trip! We watched the sun rise over some lakes on our drive early in the morning. It was basically gorgeous! And the speed limits were great!! I got to drive 130 kilometers per hour! It was pretty cool even though that's basically 80 mph still. Ældste Saviano and I had some good conversations on the drive and we jammed to some awesome EFY and David Archuletta songs. (If you haven't heard David Archuletta's Son of Man with the Nashville Tribute Band, go listen to it! It's awesome!!)

Friday was supposed to be our perfect day. A perfect day for our mission is a goal to have 3 lessons (one with a member), 6 hours of finding or teaching, receive one referral, and a couple other things I can't remember. But we had all the hard stuff lined up and planned for the day! Then the Slippery Fish swam away. Our appointment with Elna fell through and a return appointment Ældste Saviano set up on Wednesday burned us as well. Luckily Helle wanted us to come earlier than planned to move her couch, so after eating a sack lunch and playing soccer with a lighter, we headed over there. The couch was insanely heavy, but Ældste Saviano is "large in stature" so it worked out quite well. We then had an awesome (unplanned) lesson with Helle focused on Repentance, which was our Zone Conference topic. We addressed her two main concerns with being baptized and set a baptismal date with her! It was awesome!! And Carl helped teach her as well!! It was the best part of the day, by far. Especially because we were then dropped by another potential that we were excited to work with.

Saturday was interesting. We had an appointment with Elna, but once we drove to Viborg, she was gone. So we had to drive home to organize some things with our district and have weekly planning. Then we were told we would be spending the night in Aarhus because of Stake Conference in Vejle the next morning, so we had to get things together for that. The we had an appointment with Rune Pedersen, back in Viborg. We had an awesome talk with him about why he wasn't active anymore. Ældste Saviano told him that the branch needed him there. Which is completely true. The missionaries have a big responsibility in keeping the branch together because we travel around the most, so we see the members often more than they see each other. Rune would make a stark difference in the dynamics of such an elder ward. It was a really spiritual experience. We're hoping to get Rune thinking about the priorities. We then traveled to Aarhus, by train this time. We had dinner and basically had a six man apartment for the evening with Ældste Smith, Pihl, Christensen Jr, and Campell. We also found out that Ældste Christensen was going home for medical reasons this week, so it was a farewell splits for him. I really look up to him too, so it's hard to see him leave. 

Sunday was extremely long. We took the train down to Vejle for an awesome Stake conference. Then there was a leadership meeting for the missionary leadership in Fredericia, so we went down there, and then came all the way back to Skive. We also missed breakfast, so we ate for the first time at 7 when we got back to Skive.

This Monday was awesome though!! But I'll tell you about our adventures in next week's email. It was a little weird because the Missionary Portal was down this morning, so we switched around our P-Day time, so that's why this email is later. But we had quite the adventure!

Spiritual Thought: Proverbs 3:5-6 has a footnote about acknowledging God. The footnote is about Trustworthiness. I thought that was interesting, but it really hit me that God is completely and perfectly trustworthy. If we put our trust in Him, He will always make the most of what we do.

Thanks for reading (or skimming)! Thanks for all your support!! Vi ses!

--
Ældste Bryant Jepsen

-A selfie on a bridge in Viborg
-We were waiting for a train in Struer, so we took pictures with this tower we found
-We played on a park in Viborg 
-I got a coat and it's quite hyggeligt! (cozy)






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