Fredericia Zone Conference March 2018

Pictures and captions taken from Sis O'Bryant's mission blog...

This Zone Conference was on The Plan f Salvation.  President trained on it for better understanding and the assistants trained on effectively teaching it.  It was a wonderful training!  The day begins with a meet and greet as they see many of missionaries not seen for months.

 Elder and Sister Fonnesbeck are the senior couple in charge of YSA, apartment up-keep and the lunch after Zone Conference.  We are grateful for them and they are loved by the missionaries.

 Ready to begin.

 The danish birthday song is an active one...

 Role playing is a very effective for preparing to teach.

 You can always observe when missionaries are busy at church:-)

 Lunch was delicious with honey baked ham, scalloped potatoes, corn, rolls and snicker ice cream bars

  Each year we have one conference where they can choose an activity afterward.  This zone chose indoor relay games.  Teams were chosen...

 Rock, Paper sizzors...

 Egg dropping games in the cold and wind...

 Emptying the Kleenex box the fastest

 Fastest consuming of a long licorice

 Find the "one" skittle

 Some took longer than others...lol

 Wrap the mummy

 Consume the cookie by wriggling it from nose to mouth...no hands!

Knocking over the water bottles...no hands

 Toss the ping pong ball into the glass

 These missionaries are remarkable.  They are working hard to become effective listeners and teachers.  Denmark is blessed by their presence in every way.  The members love and depend on them.  We love observing them become more Christ-like and we just love them...period.

"How Many Days Can You Focus"

Well this week has been above average, as always. About the same different things that we have go on every week and then only once in a while. Lots of normally weird and weirdly normal.

Monday was pretty relaxed. We sent Ældste Saviano off to Aarhus. Then we got Ældste Hunt later that day. (Ikke så meget andet.) We went to the guitar store to play around a bit, then we made some transfer goals. It was a pretty basic day of randomness. We also looked in a board game store, which was super nerdy and quite entertaining.

Tuesday began and ended pretty uneventfully. We knocked, gave out books, walked, and then biked. Then we took a second to admire the incredibly clear and beautiful weather!! Then we knocked, gave out another book, walked, and then biked home. That was basically the day. Not too much from that there. We talked to a guy who had all sorts of religious stuff around his house (except Mormon things!) but he didn't want to have more to do with it apparently.

Wednesday was about the same, but better! We taught a guy named Claus. He let us in, and is Lutheren. We taught the entire Restoration lesson and then he said he was only interested in learning where the Book of Mormon came from! And then didn't take a free one! But we got to play guitar with him, which was actually super cool! It was a good connection, just sadly didn't convince him to take more truth yet. We also went knocking a bit out on a road called Lykkegaardsvej because of some good inspiration. We found a Christian couple and a religion teacher that said to come back later, so that was fun! That evening, Ældste Hunt and Ældste Schaffer started randomly role playing as teenagers, so we just all became really weird. (#4mandoesthingstoyou)

Thursday was more on the lines of Tuesday. We didn't have anything planned, so it was a day of finding again. We talked to a guy on a bench that morning. Not too much else until we talked with another guy on the street forever! He was really theoretical but when we tried to get him more information, he turned it down because he wasn't really interested. That kind of thing happens strangely often.

Friday was great! We went knocking that morning and found a woman named Karmen from Romania. She had just had a really spiritual experience and was quite interested to learn more! She was excited to take a Book of Mormon and we're to get in contact with her after Påske (Easter). Then we had an interesting lesson with Finn. We wanted to teach the Plan of Salvation, but kind of got hung up on Adam and Eve. He agreed with everything, but not always the reasoning. It then turned into the most interesting Bible bash ever! He would disprove our doctrine with a scripture, we'd try to answer it, then he would back us up with another scripture which disproved the contrary argument. It was quite paradoxical. It was fun though.

Saturday was quite productive!! We had District Meeting that morning, which was good! We talked about faith. It's interesting to think that through faith, everything is decided. We receive blessings depending on the measure of our faith, and we are able to learn by faith, and we can see miracles by faith, etc. After, Christian came by again to finish the song. I had written some more lyrics, but our goal that day was to be totally done, which we did! He took a recording of Ældste Schaffer playing the guitar and me singing the song, so it's official. He also had to loan my camera to get a recording off, so I joked that he would take pictures of his new baby with it. Once home, we had a lesson with Rosa. We had to keep the pattern going, so we had new members again. This time it was Allan and Marianne Thomsen (our Ward Mission Leader and his wife). They were awesome! It was almost irritating! We told them our plan to teach the Plan of Salvation, and they ran with it! Marianne basically ended up teaching the whole thing and Allan bore testimony of his experience with praying about the Book of Mormon, which is what Rosa needs to do! It was incredible! Then they invited her to church, which she accepted, and they coordinated to drive her! We basically just showed up and drank hot chocolate. 

This Sunday was Ward Conference. Allan picked us and Rosa up and drove us all to church. Then she sat by Lise Kohr, who remembered her name and who she was. The Fredericia Elders taught a wonderful lesson about the Gift of the Holy Ghost and listening to it. And the Stake Presidency gave a combined lesson about inviting people to church and just seeing what it was about. It was actually really well put together for Rosa to come this week. She loved it! We were there for a while after eating food and waiting for Allan to finish a meeting, but even when we were about to leave she wanted to say goodbye to a couple people! It's just funny to see how comfortable she is already. We're making slow but steady progress with her. I also got my camera back from Christian. He didn't take any pictures of his kids, but he recorded a 12 minute long video of him playing his guitar with crazy effects! It was hilarious!! It describes him pretty well actually.

So it's been a pretty normal week, nothing too out of the ordinary. My spiritual thought for the week is this: Don't worry about things you can't control. The first week Rosa came to church, I was very stressed about making sure everything was perfect, and I got quite worried when she didn't sit by the member we'd asked or other small things. This week, I knew it wouldn't be perfect, so I prayed that she would have the experience she would need. It was incredible to see how much more I enjoyed church and that she also loved it. Often I feel like we (or just me) can get caught up in making sure everything is perfectly set to have a spiritual experience. But when it really comes down to it, if we just open our hearts and look for God's hand, we will be able to have the experience we need. It might not be the one we're expecting, but it is always for the best. This is how the title of the email fits in actually. It's the first line in the chorus to the song we wrote about the Sabbath. It truly is a day to focus on Christ.

I hope you all have a great week!! Have a good Påske!

--

Ældste Bryant Jepsen

- Ældste Schaffer and I found a fancy windmill!

- This is basically call nights for the Zone Leaders

- Krazy Glue! It was Kraaazzyy!! (Not actually, Ældste Schaffer just made sure I took a bunch of pictures, so I did.) 

- Here are the rest of the lyrics if anyone is interested

Kolding Another Direction

Well, transfer calls came this past week. And it's definitely something new!! For the first time ever, I'm staying with the same companion in the same area!! I'm actually really excited!! I'm really happy to be with Ældste Schaffer in Kolding, so it'll be awesome! :D

This week was also quite fantastic! 

Monday was pretty normal. We didn't do too much. We visited a guitar store and played around a bit with quite a few of them. That was fun! Then we took Ældste Jamison (his companion was at the language test, so he was there for the day) with us to a lesson with Lenamaia, the girl we met on Sunday that lives above a criminal. That was a really weird lesson. We basically just got to teach about prayer and reading the Book of Mormon. Her and her mother were quite talkative, and we had a lot of tangent conversations. Then after we sent Ældste Jamison off, Thomas Bornemann came and picked us up for an eating appointment!! It was wonderful!! We got to play a bit on their new baby grand piano, and just had a wonderful time with their family. The conversation included their children being deprived because they can't put too much butter on their bread (that's extremely danish), they aren't taken out of the country to music concerts, and that Jessica (the oldest daughter) doesn't actually need to make Joshua (17 yr old son) food because he could do it himself if he wanted. It was really fun! I love that family!

Tuesday was incredible! I got to go on splits with my step-father, Ældste Saviano! We were focusing on being bold that day, so in our contacting block we had let two people pass us. All he said was "Devil 2: Elders 1" and that set the tone for the next several hours. We never let someone pass unless we were trying to talk with another person. It was incredible! No potentials came from it, but it felt extremely effective. I really liked it. We had lunch and then all four of us went to Jens and Lone's house to give her a blessing. She asked me to give it to her, which went quite well. (No language problems at least) Once we got home and had some companion study, we biked out to stop by a referral, and then to knock. We biked out to a little sub-city called Dalby. It was super fun biking down some really long hills without hands! I would recommend it (but be careful). We had quite a few potentials from that area. Then that evening, we got a couple more good potentials from a twenty minute contacting session on the gågade. To celebrate, we made Peanut Butter cookies!

Wednesday was also a good boldness day. Ældste Schaffer and I ran into Lenamaia and she asked us to come earlier than the appointment we had set, so we set one for Saturday. We went off to Finn Clausen where we just read from the Book of Mormon with him. He wasn't wanting to do anything with it, so we probably won't be going back. But we stopped by a family and the son translated that the dad wanted us to come back tomorrow! So that was exciting. We then had a lesson with Rosa! It was kind of attempted to confront the situation of what the Book of Mormon being true meant. But she kind of took everything as a generic Christian vibe, but she still really wants to come to church again. She also explained what church was to a handful of her Apostalic friends. It was pretty good though. After, Ældste Schaffer was having some bike troubles. One thing led to another, and we ended up playing some street soccer with some kids!!! It was awesome!! My dress shoes have never been more useful!! It was so fun! I have not played soccer for too long. That evening, we also made music by random slapping noises. I was writing in my journal and then we all just conversed and began slapping our thighs and such. Welcome to the 4-man, I guess. It was hilarious.

On Thursday, we celebrated Christian peoples. Basically, only two things happened. We visited the family that we stopped by on Wednesday, and it was amazing! The family consists of a father (Elias-Protestant), mother (Rola-Orthadox), and two kids (Hanna ~13 and Ibriam ~10). They are all Christian but have different faiths, so they already tolerate difference. Elias has family who is LDS because a lot of them live in the US, so he also speaks Californian English! The lesson was basically a super long Restoration that we taught in English and he translated to Arabic! Then he told us we could teach his kids and his wife (we just need a translator for his wife) and that we were welcome to come eat, visit, or anything at any time! They are just an awesome family! I'm really excited to keep teaching them!! Also that evening, the Assistants showed up to eat our food and stay the night because they were doing trainings for District Meetings. So that was pretty fun!

Friday was interesting. We had a good District Meeting about Progressing Investigators! Then the AP's gave a training about the Easter initiative "Always There" (Altid der). It was fun! We all ate lunch and then headed home. Ældste Schaffer and I rode bikes through the wind to Kenn! It was actually a really good lesson! We talked about Christ and who He is. Kenn is a very spiritual man, he just doesn't believe in God. Then we had to work to bike downhill because of the wind. It was really annoying. We also had ice cream as part of the new Transfer Call night tradition. (It started this transfer)

Saturday was really weird. We got calls at about 10, which was stressful and bugged our planning. We found that I'm staying with Ældste Schaffer, but Ældste Saviano was being replaced with Ældste Hunt. Then we went out and did some knocking and tried stopping by Lenamaia. Sadly, she wasn't home and her mom said that she thought we were coming over on Friday. And we haven't been able to talk to them since, so we hope they're alright. Then we left for Aarhus for an adult session of Stake Conference! We got home super late (10) so we just hit the sack after that.

Sunday was more Stake Conference!! We got a ride with Allan, our Ward Mission Leader. It was pretty fun. I got to talk with Stephanie Trapp Nielsen, who I met on splits in Aarhus my first transfer, and she remembered who I was! It was really cool! I also got to talk a bit with Verner Korsgaard from Skive, but he didn't have much time. We finally got home after talking with a bunch of people and having a long drive. That evening was crazy with calling other missionaries. It was pretty fun!

My spiritual thought for the week comes from Stake Conference. There was a talk about trusting the Lord through hard times. A lady had lost her job but then decided to start her own business, where everything just fell into place and she had exactly the right people to help her out. It really is a reminder that the Lord really does watch out for us. It was also awesome for me to see that people really do notice the good you do. Just being recognized at Stake Conference was really fun. Being recognized for good is even better!

I hope you all have a wonderful week! 

--

Ældste Bryant Jepsen

- Ældste Saviano and I found a cute little church, Dalby Kirke

- Ældste Schaffer fixing his bike!

- We played soccer! Guess who the missionaries are! ;)

- I decided I wanted to transfer with Ældste Saviano (I'm going to miss having him around)

- Piggy backs in the 4-man! Weird, just like normal