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

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

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

Enabling Power of the Atonement.

So I've been thinking a lot about the Atonement and how really that's all we need to teach as missionaries. Because if we really effectively teach the Atonement, everything else will come naturally for our investigators. If we understand the Atonement, we want to repent. We want to do everything possible to grow closer to Christ, including making and keeping sacred convenants with Him. Covenants like baptism.

Also, the Enabling power of the Atonement is amazing because it gives us strength to hlep us accomplish things we could have never thought possible...like trying to train a new missionary after being in the country 2 weeks....It is hard, but I've learned that through Christ's Atonement, I can do all things, including effectively training and helping Sister Ripplinger become the missionary she wants to become. She is so enthusiastic and it's wonderful. She wants to work hard and I just am pretty much helping her with the language, she has everything else down as a missionary. She's patient too, which is good cause I do not know what I'm doing.

I gave a talk in church this past Sunday...it was about "Bloom where you're planted" ;) haha just kidding. It was about missionary work, so basically I just talked about the Atonement.

So I got my first "daughter" as they say here on the mission. Her name is Sister Ripplinger, she is from Utah. Everyone is from Utah...seriously, I'm the only missionary on the whole island of Fyn that is not from Utah.

Also, I went knocking for the first time since I've been in Denmark and that was exciting. I was so nervous but it was the only thing that Sister Ripplinger and I could think to do because we are starting fresh in this area and have zero investigators....zip. So she's like "let's go a-knocking." So we did and no one was answering the doors. not a surprise. But I told her "the next door we knock on, the person will say 'maybe' to the Gospel but then one day you and I will come back and they'll say 'yes' to being baptized" So we knocked on the next door and a young man named Anders answered. We pretty much taught him the first lesson and I stumbled and bumbled through it but the spirit was really strong. He took a book of mormon and we'll check up on him this week and get him on date for baptism.

Also, we did manage to find one investigator since Sister Ripplinger came last Thursday. We got this Danish man interested in hearing more about our religion. We approached him in a park and he was super open, especially by danish standards and we have a return appointment with him so we'll see how that goes. We're going to fast for him to feel the truthfulness of our message and fasting works. It truly does.

other than that, we are just trying to put all our faith and efforts into finding people. And visiting members and trying to get to know who they are and then showing them that we are serious missionaries so they'll want to give us referrals.

Anyways, that's my life right now. Here's a picture of me and Sister Ripplinger. With the light behind us, we look like very angelic missionaires, haha.

Also a picture of the train I took to get to transfers to pick up Sister Ripplinger. I was so happy to get on that train. It brought back lots of memories.

Love you all!

Søster Briscoe

Welcome home Sister Briscoe... to Denmark!

Jylland (Jutland) Zone Training

Søster Nuttall (1st companion) and Søster Briscoe (classic Diana)

Søster Sederholm, Søster Ripplinger (new comp just arrived), Søster Briscoe, Præsident Sederholm

Classic Diana

By the way... you're training

So I had already suspected that I would be a trainer quickly after getting to Denmark but I did not expect it after 10 days! Geez! I am still a bumbling greenie. I know how to get to 3 places in Odense.  The grocery store, the train station and church. Other than that, I completely lost. Anyways, I will get my first "daughter" this Wednesday. So on Wednesday and Thursday I'll be in Copenhagen picking up my kid and taking them around street contacting and pretending to know what I'm doing when in reality I don't have a clue. Then it'll be bak to Odense and into a new area for us. She's in for  treat that sister is. haha, hopefully she'll be patient with me and we'll all figure out this mission thing together.

This week has been pretty quiet, just preparing for 2 new sisters to come to Odense and trying to find out where everything is.

Oh I did meet an awesome African man on the train who is a new investigator now. We were just talking and explaining the gospel in a casual way and he said "I would like for you to come over and meet with me and talk to me more about this Gospel" yes, africans are awesome. He gave us chocolates too. Super cool guy.

We're also teaching this really sweet Muslim girl named Aisha. She is super open and really searching for God too. We just have to make sure everything is okay with the family situation before we teach her seriously. Her dad actually has a copy of the Book of Mormon.

Oh and I met this Russian family who I love. I complimented the wife on her earrings and she tried to give them to me. She doesnt speak any danish but her husband was translating for her and said that she told him that I just had this light about me and they wanted me to come visit. So I told them me and my companion would bring them  gift. We got them copies of the book of mormon in Russian and we'll give them to them this Saturday.

They weather is fantastic here! Sunny, no rain. I'm getting a tan though. It's awesome. Biking around is hard but I like it

Also, missionaries are so popular with the members here, everyone loves missionaries. And we get fed like queens and kings. It's a good thing I do bike and walk a ton or I would get so fat. Danish bakeries....oh they are my weakness, and flødeboller and Haribo gummies, the star mix of course.

Well, I love it here. I love being a missionary and having the honor and blessing of wearing my Savior's name over my heart. But remember, you don't have to hve a little black tag on your coat to be a missionary. Paint a missionary tag on your heart and share this wonderful gospel!

I love you all!

Søster Diana Briscoe

Denmark!

So I am now in Denmark. What a crazy past 5 days it has been. I got a call from President Nilsen at 11pm this past tuesday and he said that I would leave for Denmark Thursday morning. I got into Denmark around 2pm Friday during the day. and surprise! they lost my luggage...all of it...including the carry-on they made me check when I was in Columbus.

Anyways, I'll get my luggage this Wednesday (fingers crossed). But we got to the mission office, they gave us a little orientation and then they sent us off with a more experienced sister to street contact danes. let me tell you, danes hate people stopping them on the street...imagine that...anyways, I ran into Mads Frost and that was funny.

June 1st I met my companion, Sister Nuttall  (from Shelley Idaho) and assigned to my first area. Odense on the beautiful Island of Fyn. It is so exciting to be in danmark again. I say every day that it is the best day of my life. I feel like I'm in a H.C. Andersen Fairytale. It's so green and beautfiul here.

Yesterday was my first Sunday in Denmark. It was also fat and testimoney meeting and I was told, not asked, told in front of the whole congregation that I would be starting the testimonies. I think I surprised them with my danish. In fact I know I did cause they all came up to me and I had a lot of explaining to do.

In Odense, there is a family friend (Roberto Arriaga) who is from Barcelona who was a ward missionary when Dad was a missionary. He's awesome. He and his family had all the missionaries (me and sister Nuttall and Elder Nordfelt and Elder Child) over for dinner after church.

The members of the wards here are amazing. They are so strong and helpful and want to share the gospel. It's just hard cause danes are such a private people. They do not like discussing religion with anyone, especially two random girls from america.

I'm teaching a lady in Spanish here which is pretty funny. We found her at the train station and that was awesome. It's been a wild past couple days and I have stories and pictures but not enough time to write or attach pictures. Next week I will.


Jeg elsker alle jer!
 Søster Briscoe