Monday, September 17, 2018

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! 

--
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. ;)








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