Monday, December 30, 2013

Dear wonderful Family (and friends)


Well family it was so wonderful to be able to skype you all and get the chance to talk to each of you. You are all amazing and it meant a lot to me to hear about your lives and see how much you are doing. You are all so talented and blow me away with your talents.
This past week was wonderful. I loved studying the birth of the Savior in the week where we have the opportunity to celebrate His birth. This week has been the darkest and rainiest and coldest week of my mission (weather wise) but it has been the warmest, brightest and most beautiful weeks I have had on my mission.

On the 24th, we went over to Lisbeth (a less active member who is slightly mentally handicapped) apartment because she called us asking if we could visit. So we decided to go over there and read Luke 2 with her and show her pictures of the Nativity. We asked her what she like about the picture and she said "everything, except that thing" She pointed to the manger. We asked her "why Lisbeth? Why don't you like that?" She told us "Because he should not have been born there, with all the animals and other things. He deserves to be in a castle." We asked her why again she thought that and she looked at us incredulously and said "because He is Jesus Christ! He should be in a castle". We then went on to talk about what Christ means to her and we looked at more pictures of His life and talked a lot about His Atonement and Resurrection and how much it would mean to her to be with her mother and cousin again. It was just a short visit though because we were going to be together with her later that night at the Bishop's house.

So after Lisbeth's house, we tried to go to the hospital to go singing but apparently we needed to have booked the hospital a month in advance to go caroling but that was okay because we had some good back up plans. We went out and stopped by a part member family. The wife is less active and has never ever let us into her apartment (because she tells us she doesn't want us over when her husband is over). Well her husband actually had been in the hospital for the past month but on Christmas Eve, he got permission to come home. So we went over there and buzzed up and she answered and we told her we wanted to sing to her. she said "My husband is home finally..." We thought she was going to tell us to go away, but then she continued "so come on up." She let us in and we sang to her and her husband. The Spirit was present and it was a miracle. I was so grateful to be able to meet her husband and to be the means of bringing the Spirit of Christ into their home on Christmas eve.

We stopped by an investigator but he was sleeping so he didn't answer. We were able to talk to two of his friends and sing Christmas carols to them and they loved that.

We had a Guds Tjeneste in the afternoon and there were so many less active families and non members visiting that day and so we had the opportunity to talk and to get to know a lot of them. So that was wonderful experience. It was great to see people focusing on the true meaning of Christmas.

After the service, Sister Tew and I biked in the cold rain to a nursing home to do some service. The man we had arranged it with told us that we could come at 3pm and that there would be some people we could just sit with and talk to and cheer them up. However, when we got there, everyone was napping. So we ended up just spending about an hour and a half helping the workers at the nursing home setting up the table and getting everything ready for their dinner that night. later, there were a few ladies we were able to sit with and talk to and we actually played some Christmas songs on the piano and sang for them. It was wonderful serving these beautiful daughters of God on a day when they were away from their families. Unfortunately we couldn't stay past 5pm because the Bishop was very clear that he wanted us at his house by 5.30pm. But it was still a wonderful experience volunteering and working with the workers at the nursing home.
Christmas Eve we ate with the Bishop and his family and we experienced a truly Danish Christmas. We ate the most typical danish food and it was delicious. Oh family, we are never going back to other Christmas foods. Sorry, it's only going to be danish food from now on, haha. But seriously, they made the most delicious food. And the bishop kept making eat and saying "come on, sister, is that really all you can eat?" and due to my competitiveness, I ended up stuffing myself to overflowing. But then we danced around the Christmas tree singing fun Jule sanger. den var virkelig sjov. And then we opened up gifts. and the ward here is amazing. The members gave gifts to the Bishop and his wife to make sure that we would have gifts to open up at their house that evening.
Then on Christmas day. We opened up gifts from home. Thank you so much family for everything! It was wonderful. I loved my gifts. We went to a members house and they own a jewelry supply shop here in Denmark and so their gift to Sister Tew and I was to get our ears pierced! and then pick out earrings. So, yup, I got my ears pierced and they allowed us to pick out whatever earrings we wanted from one of their best collections. That was cool.
Then on the 26th, the elders and us had lunch at a members house and so we tried getting there by cutting through a park but because it has rained so much here, the park was completely flooded so we couldn't walk on the path, so we ended up going off the path and trecking through a swamp and I pretty much destroyed my boots. But it was a good lunch with rugbrød and russisk salat and liver paste. Mmmm, I love liver paste now :)

Well I hope you all have an amazing new years and remember to make a goal this year centered on the gospel. I know that if you make a goal that revolves around the Savior, your year will be so wonderful and you will find peace and joy.
Love you all! Sister Diana Briscoe
Well, here are some pictures from this past week.
1. Sister Tew, Me and Lisbeth at the bishops home Christmas Eve
2. Me getting my ears pierced!


3. All the jewelry we were allowed to pick from (oh emmy, I wish you could have been there, you would have loved it!)

4. that is where the path to the members house should have been
5. this is the path we ended up taking, haha




Dearest Family and Friends,

First of all GOD JUL! (Merry Christmas!), I really hope this year you each get to spend time thinking of the true meaning of Christmas and the gifts that really matter. I have come to know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world and that He was born into this world in poverty and humility but that He will return in glory. Now is the time to prepare ourselves and the world for His second coming. What a marvelous time this is now to think of our Redeemer and to share His gospel with our friends and family. I know that reaching out to others in love will bring peace and joy and that more people than you can imagine will be ready to hear the Good News this week than any other week. I wish you all a wonderful Merry Christmas and I want to add my whitness to all the other ones that have come before me and will come after me, that I know, I know Christ is the Savior of the world and that He knows and cares for each of us personally. Come unto Christ, and you will find peace and rest.

Second of all, I want to tell about the many amazing miracles that have happened in this past week. Most of our time in the evening has been dedicated to carolling with the Elders, we carol from 5pm or 6pm to the rest of the night because the members just keep giving us referrals to sing to and danes always, ALWAYS invite you to give you some chocolate or candy or cookies and to talk for 10 or 15 minutes. I have seriously eaten so much chocolate this past week from caroling, it was ridiculous. But we have had some really good conversations with poeple about the church and about what we do as missionaries. So even though it's a different type of missionary work, it is still missionary work. And the members have gotten way involved. One member gave us 8 referrals to go sing to! and another member gave us four and after contacting one of her referrals (Hanne), Hanne referred us to her friend, Dorthe, and so we went and sang to Dorthe and Dorthe referred us to her friend and her daughter. So we have a little chain going.

Plus, caroling always results in many adventures. Like take yesterday for example. Yesterday started out cold but it wasn't raining yet so we thought "perfect, this will be great for caroling". and we had planned on getting a lot of members sung to and most of our referrals because we finally had bikes (both us and the elders). So our plan was to start caroling at 3pm and just do that until we finally finally were finished with this giant caroling project. Well, the elders showed up at 3 but sister tew and I were still trying to fix the many problems with her bike. So they show up and we're just out in our skirts and tights on the ground with bike grease all over our coats and then it starts to rain and rain and rain. So the elders were kind enough to hold their umbrellas over us as we struggled with the bike.but then they realized that they were making two sisters fix a bike so they made a switch spots so they could be gentlemen. It actually took an hour to fix her bike and by this point we're all pretty cold and wet. But we're all on bikes so we were going pretty fast, despite the raging wind and rain. We sang to one person and as we were all pedalling away, sister tew's bike broke...so we decided to show up to a member family who lived close by and see if we could plead a bike off of them for a few hours. We showed up and we all must have looked more pitiful than we thought because the members had this horrified look on their faces and they ushered us in quickly. So we stood there sopping wet in their entry way as the mom lectures us for being out in this weather. Then they refused to let us leave until we had all changed clothes into dry socks, boots, sweaters and rain jackets. They let us borrow a bike but it was too tall for Sister Tew so I rode it.

And once again we were off to carol and things were going really well and we were singing to a lot of people and having lots of success. Everyone we sang to was really grateful and told us to go sing to their neighbors and some of the members we went and sang to, decided to come join us as we sang to their neighbors and many people said "now I feel like Christmas is here" after we had sung to them. We were in an area with lots of people to sing to so we all locked up our bikes at one spot and walked from apartment building to apartment building to sing. Then we came back to the bikes and I reached in my pocket for the key to the member's bike and it wasn't there. frantically, I searched my pockets and my bag, dumping everything out and looking through it all. We used the flashlights on our phones and searched the area right by the bikes but we couldn't find it. So the Elders and us decided to split up and go looking for it. Sister Tew and I decided to pray and in the prayer I asked that the Lord help us find the key or help lead us to what He wanted us to be doing right then. So we searched for 20 more minutes...no luck. The Elders came back. Nothing. We decided that we could check this apartment building we had been in earlier to sing in but we all thought it was pretty unlikely that the key would be there. But we went back and Elder Christensen sees it before we walk in the entry way and says "hey I found it!". But right as he said it, a Danish woman, who was going into the building, looks at us all taken aback. We explain to her we were looking for the key and then Elder Christensen explains to her that we are out caroling and asks her if she would like to her a song. She agrees and we sing Jingle Bells. She tells us that it was so nice to hear us sing and that she got tears in her eyes from listening. I ask her if she would like to hear another one. She says yes. and we sing silent night. As soon as we started singing, we could feel the Spirit very strong and this time she cried openly and thanked us so much for our song. After we said goodbye to her, we offered a prayer of gratitude to be able to find that daughter of God who needed to feel His love that night.  The true miracle is that the key I had lost was in a place in that entry way where I definitely had not been standing. We all marvelled about how on earth the key could have ended up where it did, but the Lord works in mysterious ways and sometimes it takes Him helpnig us find a lost key to lead us to who He wants us to meet.

Well, I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful Christmas!

Love Søster Briscoe

Monday, December 9, 2013

Week 42 of the mission, In which we get trapped in Aarhus and I start my own catering business

Dear Family,

So this has been a surprising week. It started out with me and Sister Tew going on exchanges with the Sisters serving in Esbjerg and spending our Tuesday with them. that was fun and no surprises there. Just a nice normal day of typical missionary work here in DK.

However, Wednesday was a day full of terrible biking. Sister Tew and I were biking really fast to the train station when she hit a but and went flying off of her bike. Thank goodness she had a helmet on and gloves and a big coat so there was no damage but still, that wasn't a lot of fun. Then later Wednesday, we were biking in the dark (so at about 4pm) and we had lights on our bikes but this car that was to the side of the road did not look at all when pulling out because I was right along side his car and I was very blessed that I was able to quickly turn and swerve out of his way. I was also blessed there was no traffic coming the other way. Well, as I was swerving and trying not fall off, Sister Tew stops behind this driver and decides not to try to drive past him because he seemed like he didn't know what he was doing. Anyways, he starts backing up and actually hits her bike! Luckily she jumped off before he hit her. So ya, bad bike day.

Then Thursday morning we went up to Aarhus for zone conference and the plan was for us to have training in the morning, a big Christmas lunch and then so more training and then we would all see a movie (Ephriam's Rescue). So the morning went as planned but then at the beginning of lunch, the zone leaders come in and announce that there is a huge storm on it's way and that they trains and bridges are closing down in about 2 hours and so then everyone frantically started trying to figure out how to get home. However, even with our frantic last minute plans, Sister Tew and I, along with 4 other Sisters and 16 Elders got stuck and left in the church. All the other missionaries who tried to make it home got stuck in a town called Fredicia because a semi-truck get blown onto the train tracks.

But it was actually really fun getting stuck in the church. We were still able to watch Ephriam's Rescue and then we just played ping pong and cleaned the church really well and then had a little testimony meeting. It was lots of fun. Luckily, there are sisters living in Aarhus, so all of the sisters were able to cram into the apartment and spend the night there. The storm wasn't as terrible as we thought it was going to be so we were able to make it home Friday morning. All the missionaries made it back to their areas on Friday.

On Saturday, Sister Tew and I stopped by our investigator Ruth who is kind of on pause from seriously investigating the church because she wants time to prepare for her birthday party which is this Saturday. So we stopped over and aksed if there is anything we could do for her. Well, I've made some Danish pastries for her in the past and so she gave me this big bag of flour, sugar, margrine and told me she wanted me to make cupcakes for her party and make patries and make them look really good. So I'll do that during weekly planning on Friday. But I just had to laugh because I never thought that on my mission I would turn into a baker who got hired to make free food and treats for ward parties and baptisms and regular birthday parties as well. I'll send pictures of what I make. I'm not exactly sure what I'll bake because Ruth just gave me some supplies and told me "bake whatever you'd like". But we did offer to help and if this is the service she wants us to do, then I'm more than happy to help :)

I am very excited for Christmas and celebrating it here in Denmark. I'm very excited to give a gift of devoted service to the Savior this year. I hope each of you get the chance to sit down and think about the life of Christ and the significance of His birth to you personally. I've been reading the four gospels in the New Testament and really pondering about the miracles Christ peformed and why He is the greatest gift I've ever received in my life. I know that my Redeemer lives. I know that when we put Christ first on Christmas, we will have the most joyful day. I hope each of us finds a way to give a gift to Him on the day that the world celebrates His birth.

I love you all! Have a wonderful, Christ-filled week!

Med Kærlig Hilsen,
Søster Briscoe


Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Count your many blessings


Dear Family,

Wow, what a crazy week! I have just been travelling around and missing buses and trains left and right and one blessing I am counting is: members who are just amazing and see two sisters walking home in the dark cold rainy night with huge bags of dunas and stuff and just helping us out and giving us a lift in their car. That may or may not have happened twice this week because if a train is late, we miss the bus. If we miss the bus, we walk the 2 miles home. But thank goodness for good-hearted people who want to help us out :)

So we traveled to Vejle monday and spent the day there Tuesday on exchanges with Sister Ripplinger and Sister Henderson. It was really nice. Sister Ripplinger and I were together and we did some service and trying to teach people but we kept getting burned or people would forget our appointments. It reminded us of the good old days we spent in Odense in the beginning of our missions here in Denmark.

Wednesday was a normal day of missionary work for me and sister tew and then it was back to not normal and travelling around everywhere. Thursday was thanksgiving and sister tew and I made thanksgiving dinner for our district: Fried chicken, potatoes, and old salad and danish pancakes for dessert. the best missionary thanksgiving dinner anyone could hope for. Then Sister Tew and I traveled down to Copenhagen for the leadership council. We got to the mission home at about 8pm and arrived right as the Sederholms and their guests were finishing up a real thanksgiving meal. Guess who was there? Anne-maire and Mats and their family! It was great to see them and talk to them again and actually feel confident in speaking danish to them. i was able to enjoy some thanksgiving left overs that night and some pie as well. Well, all the leaders of the mission spent the night at the mission home and then I convinced sister tew to go running with me. So friday morning I went running in the forest right by our house and we found the rope swing and played on that for a while. Oh man, that brought back many awesome memories :) Remember family? Playing on that swing. Then we came back and I took a picture on our steps leading to our house (that too was a blessing this week, remembering you all and the great adventures we had in Denmark together)

After leadership council, Sister Sederholm prepared another thanksgiving feast (another wonderful blessing to eat homemade food!) and that was delicious. She is a wonderful woman and a fantastic cook. Then sister tew and I tried to get home. I say try because due to series of unfortunate events, like trains being hours late or getting on the wrong train, it took us 7 hours to get home! So we did most of our weekly planning on the train ride back.

And on Sunday during relief society, one of the sisters got up and got the elders and I thought "Okay, they must be doing some sort of presentation about missionary work and we sisters are not important enough", which was a bad attitude to have. The sisters then pulled out four giant wrapped christmas boxes and gave them to each of us. In denmark, they have Christmas count downs for every day of the month until the 24. So 24 gifts and in our boxes from the relief society, we have 25 gifts! (huge blessing) One for each day leading up to christmas and then one for christmas day because they remembered that americans celebrate it on the 25th of december. We were all so surprised and super happy.













The members here are great! I love them. We also had a Christmas concert sunday night and a lot of members brought their friend and Sister Tew and I had a chance to talk to all of the visitors. and now we are also going to be bringing several non members who were at the concert copies of the book of mormon and joy to the world dvds as well. It was a very spiritual and great concert, with a really sweet script along with it. It was fun to be a part of it and to help support the ward that way. I realized now that I'm not here in Horsens to try to force the members into helping me with my missionary work, but that I really am here to support the Horsens members in the missionary work they are already doing. I am a laborer in their vineyard.

And our investigators here are great as well. We just recently got a new investigator. Her name is Ruth and she is this lady from Ghana that I met on the bus my second day in Horsens. I have talked to her a few times on the bus and talked about God and what I do as a missionary and she told me about her life and then one time she really opened up and told me about stresses from work, family life and moving to a new apartment. So I told her "call us for service and we'll come help you move". And so two weeks later, she called! (another blessing here) And we went and served her and gave her a Book of Mormon wrapped in Christmas wrapping and now she is investigating the church. But she is super sweet and we are invited to her birthday party, which I am way excited for because she is a professional cake maker :) She is way sweet and nice. She's like my African mother I feel like. and she actually sad she could be my mom too.

And another investigator Solveig made me and Sister Tew and the Elders Christmas decorations because she told us "you don't have any family here and so I want to be your family". Sadly, she'll be in India the whole month of December but the decorations she made were way beautiful (and another blessing). She also gave me and sister tew huge things of chocolate...which I don't need by any means but as a wise brother advised me "when it comes to being healthy, it's mind over matter".

And Michael is home! That is so wonderful, keep him busy, tell him you love him and give him a hug... :) give him a compliment: Michael has brown hair.

Well, I love you all so much and you are all blessings in my life :)

Knus, Søster Briscoe