Sometimes We Get Side Tracked - 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.)

This week was way good. On Monday we celebrated the birthday of our branch president's wife. It was way good cake. I am going to learn how to make it because it was just awesome. While at their house, this little Asian girl shows up and starts talking to us. We asked her name and she told us it was H**. I was completely amazed because we had been searching for her forever! She was an old investigator and we could never find her. Little did we know, she's really good friends with the Amdi´s. Crazy stuff! She was not very interested in meeting again, but it’s all good. One day :) Because it takes 20 minutes by car to get to their house, afterward we went home and went to bed. It was a good night.

Tuesday brought some service for J** again, haha! And then an appointment with T**. After that, we prepared for a party we are throwing for the branch.

Wednesday came around, and that's district meeting. A 2 hour train ride to Fredericia is always fun. When we got home we got ready for football with Coach. Again, the team and all the coaches really like us. With the way the bus schedule works, we had to leave an hour early and park our bikes at Coach's house. On our way back out the door, our neighbor noticed we were in gym clothes and asked what we were up to. After we explained, he asked if he could give us a lift to Coach's to pick up our bikes. That was awesome! He's a nice guy and actually invited us over for dinner on Wednesday this week. It’s funny we get more dinner appointments from investigators and people we meet than the members of our congregation. But that's serving in a branch.

Sometimes when me and Elder Wilsher are fixing bikes, we
get a little side tracked and this happens with our rubber gloves.

The car ride to Coach's was only 15 minutes, and five minutes to the indoor arena for football. We were not in clothes to proselyte, plus it was raining and dark outside. So we started to play a game on our way to the arena. We would stop and talk to people if we saw them on the way, but we were going to ride our bikes on the lowest gear possible. While riding Elder Wilsher said something that I had never heard in Utah before, but it might be a saying there as well. He was talking about wanting to get a better lock for his bike so it doesn’t get knicked. I asked why, if they knick it it's just a little bump. He explained that in England knicking it means it gets stolen. I had to laugh.

Well, we got to football. I brought my brace this time and they had me run some routes against the defense. It felt way good to play again. I only cut on my right foot, so no problems with the knee. But it was great. I have gotten almost all of my speed back and I can still catch, thankfully. Me and the quarter back were on fire. I didn’t drop a pass, and overall it helped the team because they got some good defensive looks. I really enjoyed it. Then we went home, had dinner, did some daily planning, and went to bed.

Thursday J** asked if we could come clean up the mess from digging. We did that and ended up cleaning his house as well because he is getting his house appraised. We only stayed for a little bit because we had some other things to do that day.

Later that day, we knocked some doors in Birk Centerpark, which is where the local university is located. It was awesome because the first set of apartments we knocked were almost all foreigners. We have an appointment with a girl from Madrid tonight, actually. I told her that Pili was from Spain, the Barcelona area, and her eyes lit up. So she wants to talk about Spain and the gospel...win/win for me.

We met with some really cool people and we are excited to go back and finish knocking the area a little bit. We actually gave away two Book of Mormons, and we are going back to give out two more in other languages. We even gave a book to a Danish girl as well.

Saturday Coach decided to take us out to dinner, so we went to this place called Bones. It's American style ribs. It was way good and way expensive, but he said we had to go. It was a great night. We enjoyed being with him and talked about funny family stories from all of our childhoods. We just had a good time talking about things that matter most to us.

Well, I find out Wednesday if I'll be transferred on Monday, so we will see. I hope I get to stay...I really do. I have some way sad news. Elder Fr** had to go home and have hip surgery. He was disappointed to have to leave, but it has to be done. It doesn't sound like he'll be able to return, but nobody knows for certain. Keep him in your prayers.

I love you all. Have a good one!

Med Kærlig Hilsen,

Ældste Madsen

Work Hard, Play Hard (February 24, 2014)

Transferred to Randers (March 10, 2014)