"We have been shanghaied!" "what does that even mean?" "I don't know it just means we've been tricked!"

Dear Family og venner, 

I speak really bad danglish now. Seriously, the other day I was reading something in english and I switched the word hjælpe for help. Søster Ripa just grinnede. I also was speaking english and switched the word "ham" in for the word "him" so I said "Well, we will just talk to ham later". So when I come home and say weird things, just be patient. 

So this week was a really good week. We were able to see our friend Joakim, who is the Swedish ballroom dancer a couple times this week and that was neat. We went over to bring him lunch (cause he's been terrible about eating, so we decided to make him some lunch and bring it to him) and then he invited us to go on a walk this past saturday with him through this really cool forest. I love danish forests. So beautiful. So green. We had a really good chat about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Joakim impresses me because he just understands the gospel so well and is so open to trying things that scare him, like coming to church or praying beccuase he says he knows it will help him become a better person. 

We met with our friend Ashley, he reminds me a lot of Dad and Matt. He could definitely fit in at a Briscoe Family reunion, I'll tell you that, despite the fact that he is from England and doesn't look like any Briscoes that I know of. But he is studying engineering and loves puns. So many puns. All the time. He's great. 

We also went out to a place called Odder to visit Vibeke. Vibeke was baptized April 2013 and she is just so sweet. She always spoils us missionaries by making us food or buying us cake or ice cream. She is just incredibley sweet and kind. She lives out in a tiny little....hold op...i can't remember what is called in english....well in danish, it's a landsby...tiny little city, town, but smaller than that. Oh well, you know what I mean. It's called højby and she's right by the ocean. It's a gorgeous place. 

We also started teaching this young man from Nigeria named Jerry. He is so neat. Super open and super interested in learning about the gospel. Very intelligent too. He's studying here in Denmark and we just started talking to him on the street and then we met with him this pastthursday and had a really good conversation with him about church and the Prophet Joseph Smith. 

Then on Sunday, we were doing a musical number in church with a guitar (don't worry we checked with the bishop and he was okay with it) and I was really nervous and sounded awful on my little solo part but oh well. Sådan er livet bare. 

Well, that's about all that happened this week that I have time to describe. Sorry for the short letter. One day, I'll show you all picutres and tell exciting stories in hopefully understandable english. 

Love you all! have a great week! Go enjoy summer and be friends with lots of people :)

 

Diana

 

 

Us and our friend Joakim

 Sister Ripa and I in the middle of no where

 Sister Ripa and I and our friend

Lots of love

Dearest Family,

I don't know why I titled my email "lots of love" because the love I felt this week wasn't much stronger than the love I feel pretty much every week as a missionary. It's funny because coming on a mission, you just love people, everyone. Including your neighbor who spills smelly fish all over the stairs and you slip on the fish slim and smell like gross fish in your appointment. But still, you love them and you bring them cookies. If you want to be better at loving people no matter what, become a missionary or just become a disciple of Christ or a good person, whatever you'd like.

Oh I forgot to tell you about a neat experience that happened this past sunday (not yesterday but the sunday  before). So President and Sister Sederholm were visiting and speaking in Sacrament Meeting and President was speaking and I was sitting with David and Sister Ripa and some of our other friends who were visiting. And I was busy writing notes down from what President was saying so I wasn't looking at him when all of the sudden I hear him say "Now Sister Briscoe didn't know I was going to do this but Sister Briscoe, can you come up here please". and my head just jerked up and he repeated "Come on up" So I am came on up and I was super nervous, like my heart was beating super fast and my palms were sweating. and he says "Sister Briscoe is going to relate to you all how the church got started and the story of Joseph Smith" and then he sits down and I just start teaching the first lesson in front of everyone. It was actually really neat though because as soon as I started teaching and testifying about Joseph Smith's story my nerves were immediately gone. Afterwards David asked me if me and President had planned that because he thought it looked like I had something already prepared and I told him "no, it was the Holy Ghost who helped me". Hopefully that made an impact on him.

Anyways, this past week has been great. Sister Ripa and I have just been enjoying life. We helped our friend MaiBritt move into her new apartment and then she had her baby on Friday! That was exciting. Also, when we were helping MaiBritt move, we met her neighbor who was this really really nice older gentleman and we started talking to him and he opened up a little about his life and some of the hard things he's seen so we gave him a Book of Mormon and he started crying out of gratitude.

Also, there is this friend of ours named Ana, that the elders are teaching and she got baptized this saturday! That was a really really wonderful experinece. the feeling of peace and happiness and love on that day was very strong. It was great to see Ana make that very special covenant and promise between her and God. She's a great example to me.

And I embarrassed one friend we met with. His name is Pavel and he's from Estonia. He's a really nice guy but he got way embarrassed when we met with him in the park and then I saw the Elders across the park so I yelled "Elders! Elders!" and just waved at them. Apparently you are not supposed to flag people down in public and Pavel had to walk away and pretend like he didn't know me. We caught up to him though and were able to teach him about the plan of salvation.

We were also able to meet with our Swedish friend Joakim. He's awesome and he learns so fast. He also told us more about his awesome life as a professional ballroom dancer. It sounds pretty intense to have a dancing career. "I wanna dance with you Fran!" (anyone get that movie reference?)

Well, life is good. It's the best. The weather is great. Sometimes it rains a ton and sister ripa and I look like we've been out swimming but other than that, can't complain.

I love you all! have a great week! Go do some selfless service :)

Love, Diana

Quick update on my life

Hey everyone! Hej Alle Sammen!

Livet er bare godt. Jeg elsker det.

So this week has been really awesome. Just a great week all around. What happened that made it so good? well, we were with our friend David again and that is always fun. He actually came with us to an appointment that we had with a couple of Jehovah's Whitnesses. We didn't mean for him to come with us. We had an appointment with him at a member's house at 11.30 but an appointment with the JWs at 10.30. Well david decided that he would just show up an hour earlier to our appointment at the member's house (because he thought we were meeting the member an hour before or something) and we all showed up at the same bus stop and said "ah, what the heck, if the JWs can help David believe in God, that'll be just fine" So he came along with us. The JWs just ignored him though and talked to us the whole time, trying to get us to bible bash but we refused and told them our danish wasn't good enough and then left. Afterwards David was joking around and saying, "you just need to throw out scriptures like they do. Alma 2! Nephi 3!"

We also had a great dinner with Ashley and the Elders and the sweetest woman here named Eva, who loves squirrels. Her house is full of them, not live ones, by the way. just decorative squirrels. Sometimes older danes decorate their homes with animals, but like it's a theme. like hedgehogs in one house, mice in another. It's very interesting. love it.

Oh also this week we had an awesome experience. We had had one of "those days" where everything was going wrong and stuff was hard and we left the apartment after dinner and I just said a silent prayer in my heart and said "Heavenly Father, please, I'm tired of these atheist guys we meet with, can you please send us someone nice and open?" So the thought popped into my mind "it would be great to find a nice, open, young woman." So we stopped by a couple people, who weren't home and there was this woman sitting oustide drinking some wine and I thought "her, I have to talk to her" So i went up and asked her about the music she was listening to and pretty soon, we were sitting down with her just telling her everything about the church and it was great. She actually told me some things I really needed to hear. She was so encouraging and it was just a great experience. We took a picture with her (i'll send it next week) and we are definitely going to keep in touch, cause she's moving to Austria...or she did move. but we got each others information and we'll keep in contact with her.

Well, Sorry it's so short. I ran out of time.

love you all!

Knus. Diana