God Has a Plan - Elder Kolby Madsen

Written by Elder Kolby Madsen, serving in the Denmark Copenhagen Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, speaking Danish.

(Note to reader: Some names are omitted for privacy. Clicking on highlighted words will link to additional information. Clicking on photos will enlarge them.)

This week has been different. We didn’t have as many teaching opportunities as others, but it’s all good. We had a great zone training this week about effective studies. I was happy to learn that I have a ton to improve on to make my studies more effective and use that time to the fullest.

Elders Wilsher and Madsen
Denmark Copenhagen Mission

We had a great opportunity to visit the family who moved in right above us. Last Saturday we came home from a couple of "stop-bys" (no one was home) to eat food and figure out the rest of our day. While sitting there eating, we heard a knock at the door and it was a family moving in upstairs. They asked if it was our car that was parked out front. We said no and began to clean up dinner. After that Elder Wilsher suggested we see if they needed help, and they did. We had a lot of good chats with them, and found out that the guy is actually family to one of our less active members. He was born into the church, but his mom is no longer a member and he fell away as well. They thanked us for the great help and said that they would like to feed us. We could not decline food! So we gave them our number and they know where we live, so we just went on our way.

Tuesday night we were getting ready to go meet with Coach, and we were fixing up our bikes because of some mishaps from last week... ;)  While doing this, the girl from upstairs said that she would like us to come over on Wednesday night for dinner. We were open, so we did. It was great Danish meatballs (Frikideller). We answered their questions and talked about everything. It was way fun. They are very nice and they always say hi to us when they see us. It's not the usual Danish culture to do that, but it feels like they care and it helps. We are trying to meet with them some more, just to see if the girl is interested in learning more about the church.

We were not able to visit T** this week due to him being a little sick, so we gave him some scriptures to read over the phone, and he said he would. Then he called and said he has some questions, which is way good. We are excited to meet with him tomorrow.

On Thursday J** called and, yes, he needed help with his house. We nicknamed it the house of missionaries because we are the ones who build it, haha! Anyway, we went over and it was great. Then he told us he has another big project planned. We were very anxious to hear what it could possibly be, and then the word "dig" came out of his mouth. I laughed...THEN he said that he wants his ceiling to be a meter higher in the basement! You can't just pick up a house, so he wants us to dig down a meter all throughout his entire basement. This is when I stopped laughing because I realized he was serious. So, I told him we will be over Thursday morning :) We plan to bring the Kolding elders on splits that morning. Four missionaries, twice the work...oh yeah!

The highest point in Herning. The lake reminded me
of Daybreak (Oquirrh) Lake.

Friday came around and we had a long biking day to see one of our referrals. It was okay. We found a cool lake, so we snapped some pictures. Then we went on and talked to them. They said that they are Pentecostal and are not interested in learning about our church. But it's all good. They took a card, so sometime in the future things will happen. After that we went home, and by this time the day was gone.

We had some good times riding though, looking for people to talk to. The hard part about this week was that all of Denmark has the seventh week of the year to go on holiday, which means people just don’t work and they don’t do anything but stay home and relax. And they don’t really go outside, which stinks. It's all good now...because it's over.

I am excited for this week. We tried to set up an appointment with C**, but she was gone all week. I'm not sure how because she doesn’t have a car, but she wants to meet this week.

We also had a great meeting with Coach again. He wanted to talk about gays and the church. I think he just does it because it's a controversial subject in the world :) He already knows the stand of the church. It's always just hard to get the subject changed after that.

It was, in all, a great week. A less active family has come to church twice in a row, which is good. They both served missions for the church, and their niece is in Lindsey's mission. They are way nice and funny. They've lived in Utah, Florida, and now Denmark. It's always fun to speak with them.

This week I have had a little bit of an internal struggle, really trying to do the Lord's will. It's been a little rough figuring it out. Through study and prayer, I have received the same answer over and over again. This is not my work. No matter how bad I want things to go my way, it won’t change the fact that people have their own agency, or the fact that God has a plan for people. It's His plan in His time and His way, not mine. I just need to submit to his will and push forward. I would like to challenge ya´ll to do the same. Move forward with a good attitude and do the Father's will. Life is always easier when we do what is asked of us.

Med Kærlig Hilsen,

Ældste Madsen

Hit by a Car (February 10, 2014)

Work Hard, Play Hard! (February 24, 2014)