The Band is Back Together!

This week was full of cool stuff! 

Monday, we went sight seeing, basically. We visited Rosenborg Slot, the Marble Church, the Little Mermaid, and Kastellet (the Citadel). All before 1 in the afternoon! It was pretty cool! I really like biking around in København, but sometimes I feel like one way streets should be marked better for cyclists. (Definitely ended up walking on the sidewalk a couple times.) The Marble Church was super pretty, and probably my favorite. We also did some good contacting and called as many people (or potential friends) as we could within an hour. So that was pretty good!

Tuesday included a lot of finding, which was pretty uneventful. We knocked a single street and got some very mixed reviews of extremely strong and rude atheists and then their neighbor is a paid singer in the Danske Folke Kirke, who loves Jesus. It was exciting! We also ate with the Loftus/Pedersen family!! They're super cool! They consist of Anthony Loftus (American pilot), Mona Pedersen (Danish mother), Caleb (American, 15), Rebecca (Danish, 13), and Hannah (Danish, 12). The kids are super cool! They basically are just best friends to the missionaries, so it's super fun! Sadly, they have a(n annoying) standing rule that missionaries are not allowed in the kitchen, whatsoever! So we'll see how far we can push that. 

On Wednesday, everything happened. We had District Council where the Zone Leaders (Ældste Haruch and Ældste Steffensen) and the STL's (Søster Tanner and Søster Peel) "visited" our District! They trained us about bein Disciples of Christ with a connection to being a consecrated missionary. T'was really good! But then they all left and only four of us ate lunch together afterwards. On our way home, we stopped by Mia. She's a Catholic lady who loves the church and has been coming consistently for over 14 years, but isn't baptized. She lives in Frederiksberg, but only comes to Amager, so we get to work with her. We just stopped in to make an appointment, and she was really happy to see us. Then we biked as fast as possible to come late to a doctor's appointment where Ældste Throckmorton was told nothing was wrong with his ankle. (Super anticlimactic and not very helpful) But we can get him into Physical Therapy if he wants. We had some time, so we went contacting and a man stopped us! His name is Mo, and he's been taught by missionaries beforehand. He's pretty cool and said to give him a call some other time. Then we stopped by Bob. It was another weird experience, but not for the same reason. Bob was home, and let us in. He explained that though he has been reading two pages in the Book of Mormon every day (that's awesome!) he's questionable about the horses recorded because science says there weren't horses in the Americas. But Bob is a resourceful man (or at least has a lot of different sources) so his theory is that if the horses cannot be proven, the Book of Mormon a scriptural record either of a people (1) who lived in a infrared dimension like the 2 meter long amoebas exist everywhere  and sometimes are mistaken for aliens because they randomly eat an entire cow or (2) the people lived underground as described in the Hollow Earth Theory, which is inside of/underneath Mt. Shasta or the Antarctic Poles. Let's just say, we did some testifying, said we'd try to get an answer for him, and laughed a bit. That evening we also had a meeting for Mads' AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) group. They came and ate dinner, then we had Grenspræsident Henrik Olsen and Præsident Jesper Paulsen (from the Stake) speak to them. It was super good! They had a lot of good questions and the Spirit was definitely there to testify to them! We had quite a few take Mormons Bog and say they'd come to church!

Thursday was pretty mundane. We basically went finding and attempted preparing a lesson for the youth with the new Come Follow Me program. 

Friday, we were on splits! We biked in to Frederiksberg where I picked up Ældste Wright, and then we biked back to Amager. We then prepared for a lesson with a Romanian man, Niclas, who called and said he was too busy with work. So we contacted and then did some stop by's. We stopped by a man named Mathias, who is a young student living in Lufthavnsparken. He was happy to see us and invited us to walk and talk with him. So we did! He asked about our relation to God, prophets, etc. After some good analogies like the Spirit speaking in German, he said he didn't want to have too much to think about so he would leave us at the next corner. Then we realized that we had no idea where we were. We had walked quite briskly for about 40 minutes and it took us an hour and 15 minutes to find where we were and eventually walk, just as briskly, all the way back. Then we biked home. 

Saturday, we started by eating some pastries at Lagkagehuset and then biking back to Frederiksberg to switch companions. (We can't let the cousins have too much fun together.) Then Ældste Throckmorton and I did some Weekly Planning, contacting, and lesson planning. Not a very eventful Groundhog Day, sadly.

Sunday was cool! We had very few people at church, so our Sunday School class was only Rebecca and Caleb. It was pretty good. Afterwards, we biked down to Dragør where we stopped by Stig! Stig is a doctor who has knows basically everything there is to know about the church because he was taught about 15 years ago and still keeps up to date. He's son, Andreas, let us in and we talked with him for a while. Andreas is 22 and studying to be a priest in the Danske Folke Kirke, but basically knows missionaries because he grew up having them over fairly often. Stig basically told us that he wants to be a member of the church, but has some questions about Mormons Bog and can't see what is different with it and the Bible. (Gets everything he needs from the Bible kind of deal.) But he asked us if we'd come back and start teaching him, so we're excited! Their family is super cool!!

I sadly do not have time for a long spiritual thought, but we watched the Face2Face for Young Adults with Elder Cook and a couple historians (Kate and Matt?) which is super good!! So watch that and it will answer some concerns and questions! I really enjoyed it and felt like it was inspiring!

I hope you all have a wonderful week and you had a great Groundhog Day!!

--

Ældste Bryant Jepsen

- Our apartment in Amager
- Nyhavn is basically the Google Image version of Denmark

- Rosenborg Castle where they keep the crown jewels and such

- The Little Mermaid

- Sverige! We biked along the coast and saw Sweden in the distance!
- The Marble Kirken
- The Kastellet (or Citadel, one of the best preserved fortresses)
- Lego Store København

- I was flossing my teeth and Ældste Throckmorton took a very dramatic picture