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

January 28, 2013

January 28, 2013     This past week has been one of fascination and quite frankly miracles. Work-wise, it can be summed up quite easily. Almost all of our appointments cancelled and we were literally forced to go for the hard grinding finding ALL week. Our potential investigator pool and other people we are working with it small and shallow right now, and so we were determined to build it up. But that is where the successes and miracles came in. But I'll get to that.     Wasn't able to meet with our baptismal date this week, but he did come to church. Had a good conversation with him and it seems he's doing great! Just that hiccup thing with the date. Our mission-wide conference is this next Friday, (yes!) with Elder Keron, but because he's in the area, they are also having a leadership training and so they booked the church all day Lørdag, so... that's really annoying. But anyway, I'm sure our date will get there!     But yea know, speaking of faith and goal setting, that has come to be our theme for the week, and I can't even express how cool it has been. I'm not even sure what it was this week to spark it. Maybe District meeting. But Æ. Singleton and I began doing real, focused, dedicated and most importantly, spirit guided planning sessions and goal settings. We started really trying to excercise our faith that the Lord would help us reach our goals and give us success. Where our average was once 1 or 2 books a week, and a scattering of lessons, it exploded into great success. We gave away 11 BOMs and taught many other great lessons. Contact info and everything. So what changed? Our excercise of faith in the Lord and what we were doing, and through that, goals. It seems to my understanding that making a goal is sort of like making a deal with the Lord. We want this Lord. We'll do x, y and z all day at these times if you will help us reach that. It can sound dumb in some contexts and perhaps not hit the goal exactly like we thought. We also have to do our very best and make smart plans and stuff. But to several of our daily numbers we were focusing on, we hit them solid and so my testimony of this aspect of the work is growing. Desire is one of the aspects of faith and as PMG says, Goals reflect the desires of our heart. I have a (growing) testimony of making spirit bekrafted goals. Getting specific is also important to it all. The whole thing just makes me super excited!     There has been a lot of street contacting and knocking. In the cold and in the dark. It seems to be a reoccurring theme each week, but I seriously almost froze my toes of the other night. The only thing that kept my hands alive was the hand warmers Æ. Peterson (the bald) left in our apartment. A few fun stories to tell. First of all, we walked a TONNNN this week. One of the days, we unfolded our route and it literally spanned almost the entire length of the island of Amager. I'm putting some hard miles on my shoes now. Getting good at contacting. We are also doing some good house knocking. They have some very ornate and rich houses in our area. One night, while out knocking, we approached this locked gate, with a buzz box. We buzzed it and suddenly a pair of lights flashed on to illuminate my face for the camera. It was loud and shocking. I expected to talk to the guy though the box, but he buzzed us in. Wasn't interested unfortunately. High tech security system though. Anyway, partway through the week, we started running out of books to give out so we had to swing by the office to grab more. After chatting with the office Ægtepar, we found President at his desk stewing over his I pad. (It is ridiculous how common they are getting.) He greeted us warmly and told us that he was looking at the incoming missionary list. They just added 2 more elders to the may group. That puts the may group at 17... 9 sisters, 7 elders.... I'd be amazed if they don't kill each other in the MTC. Those rooms are not very big and they don't have entire buildings dedicated to one language like Spanish... It will be fun to see what happens...     One of the highest notes of the whole week is that while knocking we found a family. (I think.) The whole situation was amazing but I'm a little skeptical still. I'm still waiting for the follow up to see if they will still be interested next time. But wow we were pumped that night. What we thought was going to be long days of grinding unsuccess, we exercised some faith in planning and the Lord and had a startling amount of success! All very exciting!     We have Mission Conference on the 1st of February and I'm excited for that! It will be good to be spiritually ready for it. It will be a time for great and powerful revelation. I really hope I'm ready to maximize the experience and get the most out of it. That, and I hope I won't be in total awe so I forget to take good notes or something, ha-ha!