Food, food, food....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.

Hey Mor,

All is going great. There is a family here that loves to feed the missionaries every week. She is from Scotland and makes great food. We also have a lady that make us food every Saturday. She is just the sweetest old lady. She says that she does it because she is inviting Christ over to eat at her house, and her testimony is just so great. We actually had a dinner appointment last night, and it was with a lady who has been a member her whole life and a convert of 2 years. She is about 82 but looks 65, and he is 59.  It was so much fun. He was making jokes and we just had a great time. I guess Elder Wawro told everyone that I can eat a ton because every time I see someone in church or at their house to eat, they say, "Let’s make sure that Elder Madsen gets the most." I feel bad but they say it in a way playful tone. It's really fun.

Elder Brindley and Elder Madsen

Things are going great. This week as a district we decided to focus on teaching people about family history, since we have that as our focus for the month in the mission. We decided as a district to work on it, and we made a little competition out of it. It was righteous competition, but it ended up being really good. In total we taught 18 lessons between the four companionships, one of them being the senior couple. They got one, which was awesome because the senior couples don’t usually participate in these. It was cool to see how following what our mission president had asked us to do, and by making a goal to teach as much as we can using the method he taught us in our own districts, and now we have had some great success. This again strengthens my testimony of following your leaders and the revelation they receive. Well, through that teaching method we were able to find 2 more friends this week to teach. It was great. We also were able to start teaching a lady that had been dropped, and we went out talk to her and felt prompted to use family history. We now have an appointment with her tomorrow. She had a baptismal date at one point, and now we are hoping to get her to that point again. She is great.

Well we met with E** this week. He is the guy who is on date for the 12th of April. We met with him and he said that he didn’t think that the 12th  would work because he knows how important it is to go to church, and he can’t commit to coming every week by that time. So I jokingly said, "Well we could move it to the 10th." He just gave me a look like I was not understanding him, so I quickly explained that would be a great gift for my year mark in the mission, haha! He laughed and then we went on. So for right now he is trying to find a new date, which is fine. His love for the Holy Ghost is inspiring. He wants to have it so bad. But he knows and understands the gravity of baptism. He just has to get to a place in the future when he can come to church.

We then had a great opportunity to meet with a less active member of the church who is from China. He is way cool. He actually taught me some Chinese. I can almost write my name. I know how to write forest and huge fire in Mandarin. I love learning languages, especially one we don’t hear all the time in the U.S. No offence to Spanish; it’s just not as unique.

We have still been working with the less active members, inviting them to the branch conference next week. I would love to see Randers branch become a ward. It would be so cool to be a part of that.

While we were with the guy form China, he had a tone of questions about why we pay money to come out and live away from home, not be able to go on dates or use technology, and all that good stuff. All I could say to him was, "Why not? I have learned more in the time I have been out here about myself and about the Lord, His work, and how we all fit in His plan in this short time I have been on a mission than I did in my whole life back home." I told him that there is no way I could have learned this before, or just by going to college, and I definitely would not have been able to learn Danish. Then we talked about him and his work. He is very talented and his boss is a very wealthy man. He told us that his boss tells him that happiness comes through money and that, yes, people can be happy without it, but it’s always easier to be happy with money. He asked why is it that we don’t feel the same. I explained that we agree, there are some very nice perks that can come from money. We told him that we haven’t really heard of anyone being sad on a cruise. But then we told him the happiness that can come from the gospel, and read the scripture 2 Nephi 2 :25. We told him that is why we are here on earth; to experience joy. And I told him that the greatest joy for me in my life is my family and close friends. He then told us that Steve Jobs had a quote that he wrote on his death bed...something along the lines of all the fame and fortune of this world that he had accumulated meant nothing. It was his family that was the most important and that brought him the most joy. 

As we were closing up the lesson we asked him about his praying, and he said he hasn’t done it in a while. So we felt prompted to invite him to pray at least once a day and see if his day goes any smoother. Then we felt prompted to promise him the blessings of praying to our Father in Heaven in gratitude, so he accepted our challenge. It was a great appointment.

Well, Mom, I love you and hope that all goes well this week. I am very grateful for the love and support.

Med Kaerlig Hilsen,

AEldste Madsen

First Week in Randers (March 17, 2014)

The Rolling Fields of Randers (March 30, 2014)