So nothing too exciting happened this week until we reached Thursday. The good old fourth of July. All 8 missionaries in Odense went to this member's house for dinner and (much to our suprise) games on the 4th of July. So it's this Danish man and his 5 children who absolutley LOVE the U.S. and invited us over so they could have some real Americans. They refused to speak Danish to us and there were American flags everywhere and they declared their home "American soil" for the day. Also, all their outfits were red, white or blue...I felt bad because I wasn't that patriotic.

 Well, anyways, Ken (the dad) grilled up so much meat...We must have eaten several cows...lots of chickens, and a couple pigs (sorry Michael, cover your eyes and don't look at the photo) and then we had smore's and snebrød. Oh and ken also imported A&W root beer from the US just for us missionaries.

Then he had all these little games and activities planned out for us to do. We split up Boys against girls. One of them was archery, sack races, fear factor, etc. I got volunteered for the fear factor activity. We were to be blind folded and then eat what he gave us as fast as we could. Well the first thing I had to eat was the really strong salty black licorce. Like the really strong awful stuff. But I beat the Elder I was against. The second thing we were to eat was a spoonful of cinnimon. So I totally won in that too. So take that everyone, I did the cinnimon challenge!

So 4th of July was awesome. And we had so much left over meat and he was about to throw it out and I said "heck no, we will take it" So us sisters got lots of meat which is nice because meat is so expensive here!

Then things got quiet again. Just knocking on doors, street contacting, and trying desperately to find out where all of the former investigators have moved to and where all the less active members live because I swear, ALL of them have moved!

Sister Ripplinger and I are still carrying the guitar with us everywhere and people love it. The less actives that we do find are so much more willing to let us in when we have a guitar. Like the other day, after our dinner appointment (with the sweetest Danish couple ever) we went to visit these two part member families. The only info we had was their address and the fact that previous missionaries thought they were not interested. Well we stop by the first family, talk for a while, sing a song get a dinner appointment set up and they send us away with ice cream. The second family we stop by, sing a song, and they feed us fresh strawberries and cream. So if we ever are hungry we've figured out a good solution: Sing a sweet song + smile at less actives = they end up feeding you.

Then Saturday was great because we went over to one of our investigator's home (we only have like 2 investigators). Well, one of them is named Iulia, from Romania. She is 23 and has only seriously been investigating the church for about a month. We had an amazing lesson with her on the priesthood and it's power and what it means to us. Sister Ripplinger shared some great experiences with recieving priesthood blessings then we talked about how Iulia could know for herself if the priesthoood really was on the earth again. And then we invited her to be baptized once she finds out for herself and she said yes! We set a date for the 17th of August. So we are really very excited for that.

yesterday at church I had a fun time in sacrament meeting because this adorable 5 year old boy named Oskar came and sat by me. He asks the funniest questions. Well yesterday he was asking me if sister Ripplinger and I were family and I told him now and then he asked if we were married and I told him no. Then he asked me about 5 times who I was married too. I told him over and over that I wasn't married, but he simply could not accept that. Then he was convinced that I must be married to one of the Elders. Then he asked why my hair was long and then he poked my teeth and asked me some questions about why I smile so much.

Oh and I have a really awesome testimony on the power of prayer! The other day, Sister Ripplinger and I were riding the bus (which I am having a hard time re-learing the bus system here in Denmark) and a man got on but didn't have enough money to pay for it so he asked us for 5 more kroner. And neither of us had any cash on us. At all. I frantically searched through my entire backpack and couldn't any change. So then I said a quick prayer to help me find some to help this man and then I opened a pocket I had just searched and there was 5 kroner in it. We gave it to him and then taught him about the Atonement for the bus ride. It was delightful. He was muslim and not interested in meeting again but really nice to us. It was just a good testimony building experience about prayer.

Well I love you all and I hope that you all recieve answers to the prayers you are praying this week! Remember "whatsoever you ask the Father in the Name of Christ, which is right, believing you shall recieve, it shall be given unto you"


Sister Briscoe