If you would like to know more about why Diana believes in Jesus Christ and why she's serving in Denmark you can read about it at http://mormon.org/me/54TH/Diana.
There's also answer to a lot of questions people have about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as Mormons).
You can even find true faith promoting experiences from the lives of other members of the church whose circumstances may be similar to yours. Visit this website http://mormon.org/people/find?gender=&age=ðnicity=&text=
Monday, July 22, 2013
So this week has been a Little bit of a rough one. I should have suspected as much when it started off last P-Day right after emails when I broke my nose (see Photos below). Yup, I was using this Little workout thing, pretty much it's a rolling pin that you try to do push-ups with and I slipped and smashed my face into the ground and broke my nose. I looked like I had been mugged. It was pretty darn painful but I was just laughing the whole time cause I couldn't believe how clumsy I was.
Later that day our investigator burned us and didn't show to our appointment. Apparently she does not want to be a candidate for the Celestial Kingdom.
Then, after all of our plans had pretty much fallen apart last Monday, we were standing at our bikes by the bus stop, trying to decide what to do, when this Young man came up to us and started talking. He was a Little strange but we both thought "Oh, here is this poor lost soul that God has inspired to talk to us so we can help him out" and we got excited cause we had no one else to teach so we started talking to him about the Gospel. Then Things got weird and he started showing us a Picture on his phone of this girl kissing him on the cheek. "See," He said, "she kissed me like this" and then he kissed me on the cheek! We left right after. Needless to say, we're not going to be teaching him. It was weird.
We ended up giving our neighbor that is in love with all Things India a Book of Mormon. Then we talked about faith and asked if we could come back and share a scripture in the Book of Mormon that talked about faith and how it is like a seed (because she had told us it was like a seed and we thought she would enjoy reading Alma 32). She said yes, she would love that. So we set up a return appointment and went on our way. Then when we came home that night, she opened her window and was very excited to talk to us. "Sisters! I opened your book and it flipped right open to the story about the seed. It looks really good, I can't wait to read it." So that was a nice rewarding experience.
We also ended up teaching this rastafarian (spelling?) Christian man named Chris in the park. He is a former investigator and we called him up and he told us to meet him at the park. So we did and he was just there chilling out with a bunch of his friends, ranging from all different walks of life, Young, old. Danish, not Danish (that's about as much variation as you can get here) So we just taught about the Book of Mormon and it actually went really weird. It was just a neat experience because we were teaching this Group of rag-tag Europeans. But Chris is a cool guy. He wants to become a better father and he's very religious and believing in the Bible and he loves it when we read out of the Book of Mormon, now we just have to get him to have the motivation to read out of it for himself.
Sister Ripplinger and I also ended up teaching this lady from Ghana. She was super sweet, but it did not go as we expected. We expected a super easy lesson and that she would just accept everything we said. First off, we hardly got a Word in because she was so talkative. Secondly, she understoodm some Things really well, for example, she started talking about Gospel dispensations and how God always calls a prophet in every dispensation and so we showed her the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and she said she believed he could be a prophet and we got really excited. Then she started showing us on the internet a lot of other people she believed to be prophets and then she went off about those "prophets'" teachings, which mainly just consisted of how women are supposed to be servants to men and how woman are so weak and in no way equal to men. Sigh. We tried to explain but it's hard to tell someone what you believe and why when they will never let you say more than 3 Words.
Also, Sabrina is living in Odense! She's not in my Ward, but I saw her yesterday :) That was super fun. I felt like I was 15 Again, haha.
Well I love you all and remember patience in everything. Patience during times of trial will yield amazing Blessings. And also, be obedient. Even to the Little Things in life. Obedience to law is Liberty.
Søster Briscoe
Later that day our investigator burned us and didn't show to our appointment. Apparently she does not want to be a candidate for the Celestial Kingdom.
Then, after all of our plans had pretty much fallen apart last Monday, we were standing at our bikes by the bus stop, trying to decide what to do, when this Young man came up to us and started talking. He was a Little strange but we both thought "Oh, here is this poor lost soul that God has inspired to talk to us so we can help him out" and we got excited cause we had no one else to teach so we started talking to him about the Gospel. Then Things got weird and he started showing us a Picture on his phone of this girl kissing him on the cheek. "See," He said, "she kissed me like this" and then he kissed me on the cheek! We left right after. Needless to say, we're not going to be teaching him. It was weird.
We ended up giving our neighbor that is in love with all Things India a Book of Mormon. Then we talked about faith and asked if we could come back and share a scripture in the Book of Mormon that talked about faith and how it is like a seed (because she had told us it was like a seed and we thought she would enjoy reading Alma 32). She said yes, she would love that. So we set up a return appointment and went on our way. Then when we came home that night, she opened her window and was very excited to talk to us. "Sisters! I opened your book and it flipped right open to the story about the seed. It looks really good, I can't wait to read it." So that was a nice rewarding experience.
We also ended up teaching this rastafarian (spelling?) Christian man named Chris in the park. He is a former investigator and we called him up and he told us to meet him at the park. So we did and he was just there chilling out with a bunch of his friends, ranging from all different walks of life, Young, old. Danish, not Danish (that's about as much variation as you can get here) So we just taught about the Book of Mormon and it actually went really weird. It was just a neat experience because we were teaching this Group of rag-tag Europeans. But Chris is a cool guy. He wants to become a better father and he's very religious and believing in the Bible and he loves it when we read out of the Book of Mormon, now we just have to get him to have the motivation to read out of it for himself.
Sister Ripplinger and I also ended up teaching this lady from Ghana. She was super sweet, but it did not go as we expected. We expected a super easy lesson and that she would just accept everything we said. First off, we hardly got a Word in because she was so talkative. Secondly, she understoodm some Things really well, for example, she started talking about Gospel dispensations and how God always calls a prophet in every dispensation and so we showed her the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and she said she believed he could be a prophet and we got really excited. Then she started showing us on the internet a lot of other people she believed to be prophets and then she went off about those "prophets'" teachings, which mainly just consisted of how women are supposed to be servants to men and how woman are so weak and in no way equal to men. Sigh. We tried to explain but it's hard to tell someone what you believe and why when they will never let you say more than 3 Words.
Also, Sabrina is living in Odense! She's not in my Ward, but I saw her yesterday :) That was super fun. I felt like I was 15 Again, haha.
Well I love you all and remember patience in everything. Patience during times of trial will yield amazing Blessings. And also, be obedient. Even to the Little Things in life. Obedience to law is Liberty.
Søster Briscoe
Friday, July 19, 2013
Getting locked out = awesome Spiritual experience
Well really quick Family (I just have 20 minutes)
I got locked out of our Apartment this week. Sister Ripplinger and I were rushing around to get out and in our rush, we forgot our keys. Classic Sister Missionary move. Anyways, we were waiting around for the other sisters that live in the same Apartment when our neighbor opened her window and asked us what we were doing. We told her we were locked out and then she told us to just come wait in her Apartment. So we did. She had all this really cool Pictures from India and her house was just full of old neat furniture. Super comfy too. So we just sad around for two hours and listened to her tell story after story of amazing spiritual experience she's had and just listen to her lecture about faith and how faith in God is the most important thing a person could have. The spirit was way strong. I felt like I was sitting in a General Conference Session or something. She even tied in the principles of modesty. Then she reminded us that we really are servants of God and how we were sent here for a reason and it was to help bring the Danish people to God. She said that to us and it was awesome! She was super sweet. I have not met that many Danes with her strong of faith, especially non-members.
Oh and we found a new investigator on a bus. I started talking to her and asked her where she was from. Guess where? Guatemala. So we started speaking Spanish and she got so excited when we told here we're missionaries and she said she had so many questions about Jesus. So I'm teaching a Guatemalan lady in Denmark. Funny, right? Small World.
And then this African Lady contacted us. She is from Ghana. I love Africans. Anyways she invited us over and then invited herself to church and said " you must come to my house and teach me more about what you believe and then show me where your church is". So we just said "okay, name a time and place" So we're meeting with her this week.
Other than that, Things have been quiet. We talk to lots of people on the bus. Mostly Muslims. They are super sweet and very enthusiastic about their faith. They all try to convert us. So It's a fun Little game we all play.
Oh also, all the bus drivers know us now and are our friends.
That's all.
I love you all lots and hope all goes well this week for you!
Love, Søster Briscoe
I got locked out of our Apartment this week. Sister Ripplinger and I were rushing around to get out and in our rush, we forgot our keys. Classic Sister Missionary move. Anyways, we were waiting around for the other sisters that live in the same Apartment when our neighbor opened her window and asked us what we were doing. We told her we were locked out and then she told us to just come wait in her Apartment. So we did. She had all this really cool Pictures from India and her house was just full of old neat furniture. Super comfy too. So we just sad around for two hours and listened to her tell story after story of amazing spiritual experience she's had and just listen to her lecture about faith and how faith in God is the most important thing a person could have. The spirit was way strong. I felt like I was sitting in a General Conference Session or something. She even tied in the principles of modesty. Then she reminded us that we really are servants of God and how we were sent here for a reason and it was to help bring the Danish people to God. She said that to us and it was awesome! She was super sweet. I have not met that many Danes with her strong of faith, especially non-members.
Oh and we found a new investigator on a bus. I started talking to her and asked her where she was from. Guess where? Guatemala. So we started speaking Spanish and she got so excited when we told here we're missionaries and she said she had so many questions about Jesus. So I'm teaching a Guatemalan lady in Denmark. Funny, right? Small World.
And then this African Lady contacted us. She is from Ghana. I love Africans. Anyways she invited us over and then invited herself to church and said " you must come to my house and teach me more about what you believe and then show me where your church is". So we just said "okay, name a time and place" So we're meeting with her this week.
Other than that, Things have been quiet. We talk to lots of people on the bus. Mostly Muslims. They are super sweet and very enthusiastic about their faith. They all try to convert us. So It's a fun Little game we all play.
Oh also, all the bus drivers know us now and are our friends.
That's all.
I love you all lots and hope all goes well this week for you!
Love, Søster Briscoe
Monday, July 8, 2013
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
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!
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
The Singing Sisters in Odense (July 1)
That is what Søster Ripplinger and I want to be known as here. We have this Old guitar that Søs R plays and I sing. We've been singing "Come thou Font" for about every spiritual thought or message we have with members and then we talk about Blessings with them and how the Gospel brings Blessings and how we need to share that with others. It's been working really well and we love it cause we get to sing. And now we sing every where we go. While we're biking Down teh main road, while we walk to appointments, and as we wait for the bus. Everywhere.
But the guitar does present a problem when we try to bike Places. But we have come up with a system that Works alright. We use my bike Lock to chain the guitar around my backpack and we set it Down in the basket behind my seat and then chain me up to it. So we look a Little odd biking around with the guitar like that but hey, we're creative. and we like to sing. Plus, people are so much more friendly when we have the guitar. We can it the Power of the Guitar because they smile and wave and sometimes, just sometimes, they talk to us. Also, we are getting permission so we can perform on the main walking street here in Odense and sing church songs and hand out pamphlets and copies of the Book of Mormon to people. i love the fact that I get the chance to share the Gospel through music.
Funny stories from this week. We ate a ton of super delicious food at this dinner appointment and so i felt really fat afterwards and then we were waiting for the bus and trying to talk to this lady from the Czech Republic who didn't speak much English or Danish. She wasn't too happy to talk to us so we awkwardly stood in silence for a bit until she suddenly smiled and patted my stomach and asked "Baby?" I told her it was a Food Baby. But that was a wake-up call for me. Now I am going to be on a strict healthy diet and really doing my morning crunches. Haha, but it was a funny experience.
Also, I met an Italian man who said he was Caltholic and believed in aliens. He went on for a while about his theories about how aliens were giants and dinosaurs used to be thier pets. I told him I have a Brother in Italy who likes aliens. He got really excited and now wants to meet Michael.
Oh, Also, I saw Dane! Dane Christensen that is. My Old Danish teacher from BYU. We were walking to the Senior couples house when I saw this man waving and beckoning us towards him. I was thinking "hmm, this is weird. And he looks like Dane". Well, it was Dane. We sang Danish kid songs and he hopped around and danced. It was funny. It's odd cause I'm teaching some of his former investigators. Small World.
Well, I saw the missionary broadcast this past Sunday and it was wonderful. It made me want to be a better missionary and help people find ways they can do missionary Work on their own. Wouldn't it be great if we didn't have any full time missionaries? if we, as members of Christ's church, really did our part and shared the Gospel in Word and deed, we would not have to have full time missionaries. We could all just study the scriptures and apply it to our lives and then naturally share the gospel we love so much.
I love you all! Thanks for being great examples to me!
Love Sister Briscoe
But the guitar does present a problem when we try to bike Places. But we have come up with a system that Works alright. We use my bike Lock to chain the guitar around my backpack and we set it Down in the basket behind my seat and then chain me up to it. So we look a Little odd biking around with the guitar like that but hey, we're creative. and we like to sing. Plus, people are so much more friendly when we have the guitar. We can it the Power of the Guitar because they smile and wave and sometimes, just sometimes, they talk to us. Also, we are getting permission so we can perform on the main walking street here in Odense and sing church songs and hand out pamphlets and copies of the Book of Mormon to people. i love the fact that I get the chance to share the Gospel through music.
Funny stories from this week. We ate a ton of super delicious food at this dinner appointment and so i felt really fat afterwards and then we were waiting for the bus and trying to talk to this lady from the Czech Republic who didn't speak much English or Danish. She wasn't too happy to talk to us so we awkwardly stood in silence for a bit until she suddenly smiled and patted my stomach and asked "Baby?" I told her it was a Food Baby. But that was a wake-up call for me. Now I am going to be on a strict healthy diet and really doing my morning crunches. Haha, but it was a funny experience.
Also, I met an Italian man who said he was Caltholic and believed in aliens. He went on for a while about his theories about how aliens were giants and dinosaurs used to be thier pets. I told him I have a Brother in Italy who likes aliens. He got really excited and now wants to meet Michael.
Oh, Also, I saw Dane! Dane Christensen that is. My Old Danish teacher from BYU. We were walking to the Senior couples house when I saw this man waving and beckoning us towards him. I was thinking "hmm, this is weird. And he looks like Dane". Well, it was Dane. We sang Danish kid songs and he hopped around and danced. It was funny. It's odd cause I'm teaching some of his former investigators. Small World.
Well, I saw the missionary broadcast this past Sunday and it was wonderful. It made me want to be a better missionary and help people find ways they can do missionary Work on their own. Wouldn't it be great if we didn't have any full time missionaries? if we, as members of Christ's church, really did our part and shared the Gospel in Word and deed, we would not have to have full time missionaries. We could all just study the scriptures and apply it to our lives and then naturally share the gospel we love so much.
I love you all! Thanks for being great examples to me!
Love Sister Briscoe
Short letter June 24
This week has been really good. I'm starting to figure out the streets of Odense and that is a big relief. Now I just have to figure out the bus system. And busses here aren't DBS, they are their own fancy Fyn bus system. Sister Ripplinger and I spent about 1 hour trying to figure out how to get around using the bus and we had about 5 Danes offer to help us. We must have looked pretty desperate cause Danes never offer to help anyone but they did. Two of them were drunk so they weren't too much of a help but they were very sweet. Drunks in Denmark are so nice. They are always wanting to talk to missionaries and set up return appointments...too bad that they really don't like it when you actually sho up to the return appointment.
Romanians here are our most solid investigators/potential investigators. We're teaching an awesome investigator named Iulia from Romania. I love her already. The Atonement is going to be a big thing for her.
Yesterday was Skt. Hans Aften. We burned a witch at the senior couples house, it was fun. No pictures though cause my camera died.
Today is Sister Ripplinger's bday. We are going to celebrate by going to a Danish bakery and eating a ton of food.
Oh, the other day we ran into this awesome muslim man who is open to hearing the gospel. Super open. We said a prayer with him and that was awesome and then he said a prayer for us in Arabic and then in English and he said we could add whatever we wanted so I asked him to bless my little sister who was starting college. So emmy, you were blessed by an Arab man here in Denmark. You're bound to succeed at BYU now ;) haha
Well, not much else has happened. Sorry this is so short today. There are a lot of people at the library and I couldn't reserve a computer for very long. But I love you and pray for you a ton!
Much love,
Søster Diana Briscoe
Romanians here are our most solid investigators/potential investigators. We're teaching an awesome investigator named Iulia from Romania. I love her already. The Atonement is going to be a big thing for her.
Yesterday was Skt. Hans Aften. We burned a witch at the senior couples house, it was fun. No pictures though cause my camera died.
Today is Sister Ripplinger's bday. We are going to celebrate by going to a Danish bakery and eating a ton of food.
Oh, the other day we ran into this awesome muslim man who is open to hearing the gospel. Super open. We said a prayer with him and that was awesome and then he said a prayer for us in Arabic and then in English and he said we could add whatever we wanted so I asked him to bless my little sister who was starting college. So emmy, you were blessed by an Arab man here in Denmark. You're bound to succeed at BYU now ;) haha
Well, not much else has happened. Sorry this is so short today. There are a lot of people at the library and I couldn't reserve a computer for very long. But I love you and pray for you a ton!
Much love,
Søster Diana Briscoe
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