Meeting Russia

So this week has been quite an exciting and eventful one. it started out fairly normal with just a few appointments here and there with stop by's and contacting everyone in between. we are working closely with this part member family. The mom and the 18 year old son are members of the church but the 9 year old daughter isn't. The mom and the boy are less active but the little girl loves church and wants so badly to come every week. She is so sweet. They are originally from Columbia and so in their house, they speak a constant blend of Danish, English, and Spanish. it's fun. Also, their apartment is just covered in bright paintings of columbia and plants and also two parrots flying around. And the other day, the big parrot, pancho, decided he wanted to eat my tag so he flew at me and landed on my shoulder and tried to eat my tag. It was fun. He stayed on there for 20 minutes. I felt like a pirate. The sweet 9 year old daughter though was able to come to a ward activity and that was lots of fun. We played stacking cups together.

Then Wednesday and Thursday, Sister Tew and I were travelling all around the country again. We did training in south Jylland in Fredercia and training in north Jylland in Aarhus. it's fun cause we get lots of time on the trains and get to know lots of different parts of the country.

Thursday night we were back in Horsens, trying to stop by an investigator from Ghana that we had not seen for a while. we wanted to check up on her and see if she had done her reading and what she thought of it. It was actually around 8pm and the bike ride out to her apartment complex was quite the adventure. The wind was blowing so hard that sometimes Sister Tew and I were just pedaling in place and not going anywhere or the wind would literally push us to the left and the right without our control. We prayed our investigator would be home because otherwise we wouldn't know what to do for the last hour of the night. We had a few back up plans but they would require more biking and that was something we did exactly have a strong desire to do. So we buzz up to our investigator but she was not home. So I start looking around to see if there was anything we could do in this area while we were here. I see a man in the shadows of the doorway close to another apartment building, his hood up, smoking a cigarette. I thought "hmm, we could go contact him." I looked at Sister Tew. "don't you think we aught to go contact that man, who is ready for the Gospel?" I asked her. She raised her eyebrows and said "if you really want to." "Well, yes, I do." So I march on off up to him and say "Hej, vi er missionærer fra Jesu kristi Kirke..." But he cuts me off and says "I don't speak danish. do you speak english?" So I tell him "ya, actually english is our first language." But before I get the chance to explain who we are in English he asks if we are mormons and I tell him yes. He then goes on to explain that he is orginally from Bulgaria but had just spent the past 10 years living in....Salt Lake City! He told us that he has sort of met with missionaries off and on and so we invite him to meet with us and come to church. He said that of course he would come to church. we offered to walk with him but he said no, that he'd find his way.

So Sunday rolls around and I'm just hoping and hoping that he'll come and so after our early morning coordination meeting, I stick my head out the doors and see him, waiting a little bit outside of the parking lot. I pretty much run out to meet him and we talk a little bit before we go in. He told us "this will be the very first time I've ever walked into a Mormon church." 10 years in Salt Lake and the first time he ever attends a latter day saint service is when he meets the sister missionaries in Horsens Denmark! The Lord truly has a plan in everything. He stayed for all 3 hours and told us that if he doesn't work on sundays, he'll be in church with us. We also arranged a danish class for him and us and the elders every day so we could help him learn danish faster. So we had our first danish class with him today actually and it went really well. He is a little reserved about learning the gospel but really wants our help with danish. But all our Danish language material is about the gospel...so we're teaching him the gospel anyways. Like today we learned how to say "jeg er en missionær" (I am a missionary) and "jeg er guds barn" (I am a child of God). He thinks it's all quite funny, so that's good. It was a fun class and he is a really nice and open guy. I'm just surprised sometimes about how the Lord works. That He prepares people in Utah for 10 years and then sends them around the world to Denmark, where they finally will be ready to meet with the missionaries and come to church.

Also this past Saturday, one of my investigators in Odense was baptized! Isabella :) I actually was blessed enough to be able to attend and actually, her family, who are all non-members, live in Horsens and they were so kind enough to drive Sister Tew and I all the way down to Odesne. That was great because we were able to talk to them and get to know them and so hopefully we'll see them again this week. But Odense was wonderful because I saw Isabella get baptized and I was able to see Nynne and her son Jonathan again. That was amazing. Love them so much.

We also found a great new family of investigators. A mom and dad and 10 year old girl. They are super sweet and open and I'm excited to see what happens there.

Well here are some pictures from my life this past week.

I love you all! Have an amazing week!

Oh also, we went on exchanges and the sisters that came up were my "daughter" and "granddaughter" Sister Ripplinger and Sister Henderson. So this is a little "posterity" picture for you all.

The Disciple of Christ Mission

Dear Family,

So this past week was new years and for all of you who are familiar with a Danish new year celebration, you know that the whole night sky was just lit with fireworks for several hours as the danes set off all their crazy fireworks. We were allowed to be out at a member's home from 6pm to 1am as long as the drove us home. We have some wonderful members here who invited us over and we were able to celebrate the new year with them along with a lot of food and candy and fireworks. It was a very exciting new year and a fun time to be with the members here who just mean so much to me.

The first day of the year, we were all assigned by President Sederholm to stay inside and deep clean our apartment utnil 6pm and then go out and work from 6pm to the rest of the night. So now sister tew and I have the cleanest apartment I could every asked for. It's beautiful. Both she and I are clean freaks so hopefully our little apartment will stay as clean as it is right now for a good long while.

The rest of this week was just spent as we normally spent it. We visited a lot of less active members. I used "I have to use the restroom" as a big excuse for getting into their houses. but it worked and we were able to sit down and teach a little bit and get to know them as well.

Then we street contacted a lot of people. We've been running into a lot of Spainards recently so I've been using Spanish quite a bit and that's cool. It's actually a goal of mine to read el libro de mormon this year. I have certainly used a lot more spanish than i expected since being on my mission. And thankfully the Lord helps me remember how to bear my testimony in spanish or pray in spanish.

On Thursday and Friday, Sister Tew and I were in Copenhagen for a very large leadership council. All the zone leaders and district leaders and sister training leaders (well, there are only four STLs) were there and President introduced our official mission motto: we are part of the Denmark  Copenhagen Mission but we are now going to refer to our mission scripture 3 nephi 5:13, which says "Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of Him to declare His word among His people that they might have everlasting life."So president wants us to refer to the mission as the Disciple of Christ Mission. So that was very inspiring and uplifting. After the meeting, we were all able to go to the temple. The temple truly is the Lord's house and He resides there and peace and comfort and guidance will come to those who worthily enter into His house and earnestly seek Him. I am so grateful to live in these last days when the blessings of the temple are available on the earth again.

Also, I have a lot of new years resolutions so I hopefully will become a different person this year, a "new creature in Christ". I hope that each of you takes the time to ponder how you can come closer to your Heavenly Father and your Savior this new year. I know that making a Christ-centered resolution will bring much joy and happiness.

I love you all very much and pray for you daily!

Love Diana