February 11, 2013

It was a decent week this last one. Not the highest success but still on top of it. Zone Conference on Tirsdag was a highlight of mine. All of it seems very spirit led. Once again all the review of the Mission Conference was very insightful. The constant theme of having faith as an action to find, goal setting and planning have been good reminders of our focus at the moment. We are still not perfect at it and it's a constant experiment to see how it works and how we can maximize its power. And of course being happy. I absolutely love it when the leadership say things that through applying principals we learn, I can feel in their words that our goals are 100% possible to achieve. Big mission changing goals. That excitement really starts to build up in me, and I feel like I'm 10 feet tall and nothing can stop me! We've got the Lord on our side and so nothing is impossible. Like what Æ. Kearon said, ''We are here to prepare the world for the Saviors return. We can and we must.'' So thats a super inspiring and powerful statement. The spirit was very there. The week as far as work goes was ok. We reached our 'other lessons' goal which is totally exciting! A lot of finding was done. All day contacting down the Amagerbro. If we reached our goal, then that must mean it was inspired and we did what we planned to accomplish, at least in that aspect. We did ask the branch president to pray to receive inspiration for what we can do to best help the branch and as we were doing service at the church, he said that 3 names of less actives had come to mind for us to work with. So we are going to focus on those this coming week. Don't know how yet. Not even sure what to say. But this is what he's been inspired to tell us, so we are going for it, with faith that we will succeed. This is the Lords errand. We joined the members in a cleaning out of our church building, and in getting rid of old stuff, like broken chairs and old cabinets. We also went through all the old Spejder (scout) basement stuff. I was very impressed at how much stuff they had and how well run the program was set up. You would have been proud dad. They had a woodshop right there, so there were lots of little projects made out. Swords, walking sticks, little replicas of things you could build with wood and rope. Lots of little troop flags and odd pieces of wood all around. Even an old pinewood derby car set. (They were going to throw it away, so we snagged it on the way out. ;-) ) It looked like a lot of fun, and I liked the concept of a Scout... fort you could say? Hut? Base? Something like that, where all the equipment could be stored. There was even a little pioneer handcart they'd made at one point. So that was fun seeing all the history. So I guess that was most of our week. I'm sure there are tons of other details in there, but for now it suits me. Håb du har det godt! Ældste T. Christensen

February 4, 2013

Hej ho! This week had a lot of success and in the middle status stuff. Whatever that means. Tirsdag was one of the highlight days. We were able to meet with a man who had been found on splits. He was extremely open to our message of the restoration and the spirit was there testifying of truth. He had lots of great questions and just an ideal teaching situation. He specifically told us that he'd been to other churches but said that they had an empty feeling to them. (Makes sense eh?) So he really can notice the spirit in it. Oddly, he didn't want to meet again right after our appointment (Like in the next week) but asked for a month. Æ. Singleton talked him down to 2 weeks. He's just one of those positive people that we hope we don't lose and fall through the cracks because of lack of contact. We were able to meet with our næsten baptismal date. (We've been actually spelling their name wrong the entire time we found out this week.) We finished up dealing some of the commandments, so he's technically all covered in that. Still in his kinda 2nd thoughts stage but when we meet with him in this upcoming week on fridag, I think we'll be able to tie up loose ends and re-set the date, this time much sooner. Mission Conference... Wow, that was cool. It's really fantastic that I know almost all of the missionaries there, all like old friends. Small missions are fun because we know everybody. It's also super fascinating to see the politics of it. Small town mindset according to Æ. Singleton. But anyway. Elder Kearon was also great to see and listen to.  There were many themes that I thought very interesting and I hope that somewhere in my notes that I can re-read and re-gleam some additional revelation. I enjoyed his theme about being happy. Thats something that really impresses on me because thats something I really enjoy being. Happy! I enjoy spreading happiness to the world. So his encouragement to be happy and ways to be it and why and how it will affect you in day to day mission work and contacting was great to hear. If there is one thing I know I can do, it's be happy with a smile on my face as I go finding day to day. Make people wonder, ''why are they so happy?''  Another thing that also impressed me is how well he remembers some of the missionaries that he's worked with. There was the one missionary that exercised the incredible faith and asked him to give them a street name and they would get a baptism. Then they made a goal to double the branch size, and both of those goals were fulfilled. Æ. Kearon could remember that Elders full name with striking accuracy. I was moved and in my heart, it ached as I wanted to be that missionary one day to a branch or ward like that. Oddly that has been on my mind a LOT lately. Moving my actions from a ordinary missionary to an extraordinary missionary. Be someone who drastically changes the branch or ward for the better, whether that is through getting members active in mission work or baptizing a jillion people or just being someone who cares. Thats the someone I want to be now. Make a difference or impression in someone's life. I know what I want to be. Now I just need to make a plan to get there. I also very much enjoyed Sister Sedarholm's talk about people who we never seem to see again or who never seem to go anywhere. To bear ones testimony and have the spirit leave a spiritual footprint on their heart. When someone feels the spirit, I don't think they ever truly forget it. To think that we are still making a difference in lives, even if they reject or are uninterested later. That the spirit is not being wasted on people. Just gotta bear testimony frequently and with conviction to bring in the spirit where ever we go. Ok, so just a few odd little stories I ran into this week. A ladies plastic bag got caught in the metro door one evening. The metro had freaked out so it wasn't leaving and people were trying to pry to door open so it would all resume. After we went to help, the problem was solved as the system reset itself. *phew*! We currently have an super incredible investigator right now, who's having problems reading the book of Mormon. Why you might ask? Because he keeps giving his copy to other friends who really needs it. The man is doing better member missionary work and he's not even a member! He also literally knows everyone and we've been trying to get referrals out of him, but he talks way fast, and I think breaths though his nose so he doesn't need to stop for breath, so it's impossible to jump in and ask. As I walked away from the appointment, my head was spinning with thousand mile an hour Danish and took several minutes to slow down again. So weird. Oh and our næsten baptismal date served us some hot chocolate at our appointment. I don't think Danes really know how to make it though, because all it was a chocolate bar melted into a cup. You could still feel the chunks in your mouth and turned your teeth brown. Liquefied Hershey bar. Nice. It's the thought that counts though. So anyway, for the most part that was this week for me and its impressions. I hope to exercise some greater faith and help the spirit knock somebody's socks off. (In a good way of course.)  Exercise faith as power and change what is. Bestest wishes from Amager! Æ. T. Christensen