Revenge of the Pindsvin and Blitzy Madness

Halløj from the land of ferocious house pets! (But no, I still have not been bitten by a dog.)

This week was extremely motivating and really fun/exhausting! (Those usually tend to go together, for some fun reason.) First, as a shout out to a friend up in Frederikshavn: Zibar was baptized this past Saturday!! He's officially following Jesus Christ as a member of His church!! I'm super happy for him! (See picture below)

Monday was a day of adventure! We basically had nothing planned, so we were sitting in our apartment and then we decided to go on a road trip! So we biked out to Café Stryhns for famous Esbjerg ice cream and ate it on the beach in some hammocks! It was pretty fun! We then decided we'd knock a bit out there, which was an awesome idea! We talked to quite a few fun people, one of which is named Henning. He was weeding, but finished just as we came by so we couldn't help him. As we talked, he mentioned that he founded two Frikirke congregations in Esbjerg's area! We had a lot of doctrinal similarities, which was really fun! Anything he said, we could support and add more to it! He took a Mormons Bog and said he'd read in it if we really thought it would help him. (OF COURSE!) So that was super cool! We also stopped by the "Mennesker ved Havet" statue in Esbjerg, which is a landmark. It's very... artistic. It's cool, but we didn't spend too much time there.

Tuesday was the bomb!!! We had District Council with the AP's (Ældste Saviano and Ældste Thorngren) about Personal Revelation. There were some pretty big promises made, and a lot of commitments as well. Then we had Blitz Splits!! The Sisters took a car and headed out, while the other 6 missionaries all headed to an area and started knocking it down! (Not actually, it's just an expression.) I was with Ældste Saviano first, and we talked to a bunch of Muslims smoking weed, then met a super cool young mom who loved Mormons Bog, and then a grandma who also wanted to read it! And then to cap off the first half of splits, we found another hedgehog!! This is literally the second live hedgehog I've seen in Denmark, both of which were with Ældste Saviano! So we got some cool pictures with him. Then we all headed to a new area and knocked a bunch of houses. I was with Ældste Kofford, and we talked to a lot of nice people, but not many who would do more than take a card. There was a man named Torben, who's wife had met the Sisters and wanted them to come back, so we set up an appointent for them the next day! At the end of the day, there were 6 people who had been found and accepted an appointment for us to come back!! It was awesome!! That night in Coordination Meeting, we basically just gushed to Martin about how stoked we were. It was a great day. The Sønderborg Elders (Ældste Iverson and Ældste Kofford) then stayed the night with us because they were driving to Odense for Blitz Splits the next day, so we had an eventful evening.

Wednesday was exciting too!! The other Elders headed out, and we chose to stay back in our own area. It was a lot of finding for us that day. We did a lot of contacting and knocking. While we were out contacting, we met a man named Faris. He was happy to take a Mormons Bog and he set an appointment with us for Saturday! The rest of the day was super motivating getting text messages about the work going on in Odense, and just knowing everyone was out finding! (Also, the Sisters appointment with Torben and Henriette went really well!) It was just fun to be out working all together even if we weren't in the same place.

The party continued on Thursday! Sønderborg came back and stayed the night so we could have splits on Thursday! Ældste Kofford and I were out finding again! We met this man on the gågade who was from England. David, the man, grew up 30 minutes from where Ældste Kofford grew up!! That was super cool!! He was really open to learn and asked us quite a few questions! We then set up a time where we could actually meet and talk, but he's a busy guy so it's in a couple weeks. He's super cool though!! We then went out knocking all 4 of us (remnants of the Blitz Splits) where Ældste Jensen and Ældste Iverson found a lady who wanted to learn more, and Ældste Kofford and I gave out a couple books! It was great! It also rained a ton, which was pretty exciting.

Friday was a bit slower, but because of appointments. We met with Kaj again, which was the same as the last couple times. There's basically very little that we can actually do for him. But he gave Ældste Jensen some fancy cloggs, which he's stoked about. We also met with Thomas, who really wants to get baptized but we're waiting for permission to baptize him. He's currently reading through Mormons Bog, so we read and discussed it with him. He's incredible! We then went knocking for a while, which was fun! The last thing of the day was an appointment with a Jewish American named Jonathon. It was a weird apointment. He basically just wanted to talk with us and is reading the Book of Mormon, but just because he promised a friend that he would. He invited us to dinner this coming Friday and told us we had to have something to teach, so that should be better. That might be the last time we come.

Saturday started off with some good old soccer in the rain! It was really fun and really wet! We played with Niklas Kjær (a super cool return missionary), Steffan, and Nicolas (Steffan's friend and a professional curler!!). It was pretty exciting! And then Nicolas also mentioned we could try curling in a couple weeks!!! I'm super incredibly stoked for that! After that, our appointment with Faris was cancelled. We ate lunch with Steffan though, which was good. Then we had Weekly Planning and Finding and such. It was a fast day.

Sunday was also super fast. We had church, which was great! It was a homecoming (after 3 weeks) of Christopher Grabe. He's really cool too, just lives in Copenhagen now... We took the sacrament to Erik Houmborg, had some studies, got some food dropped off from the Grabe family. We also went out knocking, which was super weird!! We were in a little complex where we had just talked with a Satanist for a while, then a girl came down the steps so we contacted her, but she quickly shuffled back up and then told someone "there are missionaries out there" in perfect English!! (come to think about it, she had no idea what we said in Danish, so...) But the apartment building was packed with a bunch of young people that wouldn't pay us any attention, so that was sad. We also met an American girl studying to be a Ship Diver! That was cool! That was about all for the day. 

My spiritual thought comes from President Olsen who shared a quote from President Eyring. It's super inspirational for me. It really makes me want to purify my motivation and do everything I can. Please read it and ponder what you can be doing. It's awesome!

"I must go till He comes, give till I drop, preach till I know, and work till He stops me. And when He returns for His own, He will have no problem recognizing me. My banner will be Clear."

Have a wonderful week everyone!!

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Ældste Bryant Jepsen

- Zibar's Baptism day: Ældste Ellis, Zibar, Erik Toft, and Ældste Wright

- The White Men of Esbjerg (as missionaries call them)

- A fuzzy little hedgehog friend (it's honestly not very prickly but not actually fuzzy either) 
- Our rainy day Soccer group

Stake Conference's Hyggelighed

This week was capped off by the incredible gathering of saints across Jylland and Fyn for Stake Conference! I also realized that this is my fourth Stake Conference on the mission, and I'll only have one more... (Also, disclaimer: "hyggelighed" is not actually a Danish word. It's just fun to say!)

Monday was pretty normal. We did a bunch of normal P-day stuff, including buying some cheap socks, getting Ældste Jensen's guitar repaired, and emailing. We then met with a former member named Kim Asmussen. He's really nice and wants to be rebaptized, so that's cool! He's mom made him promise that he would take his records out and not join as long as she was alive. So kind of awkward situation, so we're figuring out what we can do there. He likes us though! Other than that, we went contacting. We also had kebabs that evening, which was super good!

Tuesday was really wet too! We tried some contacting, but there weren't too many people that wanted to talk in the rain. So we went knocking! And may have accidentally knocked into a member, who is the Stake Patriarch... It was super funny. He basically opened the door and said "come in, see if you can convert us!" So we shared an impromptu spiritual thought with them and then headed on our way. That night, we had Coordination Meeting at Martin's house. It was really fun. Good stuff! Then we biked home in the dark to eat our calzones!

Wednesday was Zone Conference! So we headed to Fredericia! It was super fun going back to the church again! The entire conference was about Being One in Christ. It introduced more frequent Blitz Splits, which means more missionaries come to an area and just go to work for a couple hours in that area. (We have Blitz Splits coming to Esbjerg this coming Tuesday.) We also talked a lot about how we can be more unified as missionaries and with members. It was really good! President and Sister Olsen drove the Sisters and us home, which was fun! Once we got home, we did some contacting! We met one young girl named Kamille, who wasn't very religious but was open to trying! She talked to us for quite a while and took a Mormons Bog! We're still trying to get in contact with her. (Why do people give out their emails?!)

Thursday was pretty random. We went contacting, met a lady named Rose who took a Book of Mormon. We also went knocking, where we talked the longest with a young Jehovah Witness dad. He was super nice and let us explain, but didn't want to test Mormons Bog. So he gave us some soda when we left instead. We ate dinner at a member's house. He's named Jens Ole Byskov. He told us a bunch of stories of going to other countries and basically adopting people! One young 13 yr old he met in Nepal, Jens paid for him to learn English, got him interested in the church, brought him to visit Denmark where the ward then payed for his mission to India, and now he is working in Nepal and has baptized two of his siblings! That's just one story, but it's super cool! 

Friday was long. We did some knocking in a kollegium (or young housing/dorms) which turned out to be international student housing! So we did everything in English!! It was super weird!! We got quite a few fun conversations and a lot of super nice people! We also ate with Kaj. We thought it would be more time effective to eat as well, so we could use time later. However, it was in vain. We basically helped him cook all the food, then had a short lesson before we ate. It took a really long time.

Saturday was a day of finding! We went contacting and knocking in a variety of places. We also checked out some places to knock next Tuesday for Blitz Splits. It was a pretty uneventful day. We also had weekly planning, which was fine.

Sunday was super though!! We drove to Aarhus with the Kjær family: Lars (dad), Marianne (mom), and Natasha (daughter). It was pretty fun! Then I got to see a ton of people that I know!! About 80% of the mission was there, along with members from Skive, Fredericia, and Frederikshavn!! It was incredibly fun saying hi to everyone!! It was also really nice to see that people remembered me! I talked quite a bit with Kurt and Arne Holm Larsen (Frederikshavn) and then Joshua Bornemann (Fredericia) chased me down to say hi too! It was super fun! Stake Conference is basically the most hyggeligt thing on the planet! After we got home, we did some contacting and knocking, so it was a good day!!

My spiritual thought comes from Stake Conference. The visiting Area 70 (I don't remember his name) talked about Jarius when Christ was on his way to heal his daughter, but was then interrupted by another woman who was healed. He discussed that often, we feel like we're entitled to have the "first ticket" or to see results sooner than others. He testified that the Lord does remember and keep His promises as we are patient and worthy. It was also said that hard times are to come, but as we hold to the covenants that we've made, we are assured that Christ will save us and God will exalt us! It was a really powerful statement, which is completely true. As we do what we're asked, all we need to do is trust that the Lord will fulfill His promises.

Thanks for tuning in! We'll see you all next week for the next episode of Mission Denmark! 

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Ældste Bryant Jepsen

-There was some medieval festival when we had to look up some addresses at the library... Needless to say, we couldn't do anything effectively there, but it was fun to see!

- We also took some pictures of our church building for pass-along cards. We're definitely using this one. ;)