Written by
Elder Kolby Madsen, serving in the Denmark Copenhagen Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, speaking Danish.
Mor!
Hey, that’s great to hear that Maren had a great time going through the
temple, and I am happy that she had people from both sides of the family and
the ward to back her up.
I got your package and it's sitting on our couch. We don’t have a
Christmas tree this year. Elder Ogden wants to buy one, but I don’t want to spend money on something that we will use for one day and let it be. Anyway, we will be finding out about transfers in a little bit. I will just add it to the email or send a new one.
Sorry it's later than usual. The sisters (female missionaries) have to email first and they come from another area. Elder Metcalf just sent me an email, and we got our travel plans for home already. So the tickets have been purchased. I can't believe they buy them so early. We have so much time left.
Well, this week was great. We had some great things happen. We talked about the temple with Ma** and it went well. She wants to go to the temple and do dåb for de død in the near future, so that’s great. We are excited for that. She has been doing so well. I am really hopping to not get transferred. We find out today, so I will send a quick email after I find out about that. Anyway, good stuff.
Yesterday was the shortest day of the year. It’s so crazy that the sun just comes up for a whopping 5 hours and then it goes down again. It's funny though, because of all the rain, you just never really see the sun due to cloud coverage. I love it here. It’s the best.
We started a new thing this week and hope we can keep it going. We had
Family Home Evening with Ma** and her two daughters, and we invited the young single adults in the ward to come too. We had a ton of fun. Definitely something that we are going to keep up. The ward is really involving Ma** in things and it's great to see. She shared her testimony about trials in our guest class. She talked about how the Lord came through and blessed her right after she had her twins because they had no money and they had no idea how they were going to pay for food. People pulled through and everything worked out. Thanks to experiences like that, she has found a new faith in Christ. Because of that experience, she was looking for the truth and she found it!. The
church is true!!
Since I have been here, I have met with many people. One of them is a young man named Jo**. He is great. He's about 25 years old and went less active right before I got here. We started working with him and he said he was ready to come back, but he never really did. We never stopped working with him, and one day we needed a
member to come with us to teach Ma** (because she is a single lady). We called Jo** out of the blue because we felt impressed, and he said he would love to go but he just had a headache. We told him that if he did this with a willing heart, his headaches would be lessened. So he said okay. We picked him up 20 minutes later... no headache.
Our appointment went very well. Jo** expressed some great feelings he had about teaching. Then the next day he came to her baptism. After the baptism he was singing with some of the members of the ward, in preparation for the Christmas concert we had yesterday. Last Sunday, Jo** said he could not come to church because his migraine was way bad. He wanted to receive the
sacrament, so we brought it to him (with permission of course from the
bishop). While we were there, he expressed that he had been praying and has been really confused about what to do with his life. He said he was actually talking to one of the sisters we serve with about school, and she said she has plans to something or another after her mission. In that instant, he felt deeply impressed to serve a
mission. We were with our
ward mission leader (his
home teacher) and he said, "Jo**, if this really is a desire of your heart and it is God’s will, let’s do it. I am inviting you to come to church every week. It’s going to be extremely hard. The devil will work on you and make you feel sick. But, as you push through, you will be able to come and you will be able to submit your missionary application."
Jo** said he would, and he was in church yesterday. He talked to the bishop and now he gets his assignment next week. And he came and taught with us again. He is so great. He is super excited to serve a mission. He will be great. He has made a full 180 degree change. He writes us every morning to tell us about his personal study, even before we wake up, haha! He is great!
It’s been a great week. We also heard from one of our friends who has been taught by the missionaries for over seven years (dubbed "eternigator"). He said that he has one question about the
Book of Mormon. He said that if we can answer it, that would solve most of his problems. He asked, we answered, and then two days later he asked the bishop for a
priesthood blessing. He told the bishop that he wants to learn more about the
priesthood authority, and that he feels like it's missing from his life! way good!
We have some great things going on. Two of four recent converts want to go to the temple to do
baptisms for the dead, and some good things happening with Jo** and G**. Anyway, great week. I love you and we will talk on Thursday!
Merry Christmas!
Glædelig Jul!
Ældste Madsen
Come Unto Christ (December 15, 2014)
Jule Gaver (December 29, 2014)
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| Elder Ogden's study chair....the fourth chair Elder Madsen has broken.... |
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| AND...the toilet....greeeaaat! |
