Dear Family and Friends,
Oh my word, this week has been amazing. Can I just tell you all how much I love life? I love life. This time I have spent on my mission has been the best time in my life. And I love being able to tell other people that. They always seem so surprised. They ask me how I like being a missionary or what it's like to have so many rules and I can always answer honestly when I say that I absolutely love it and It's been the best time of my life so far. Then people ask me why and I have the chance to explain to them the joys the gospel brings and the happiness it brings into my life and the joy I get when I see the gospel blessing other people. I love being able to just explain that to people and this past week has been full of opportunities to do that.
We've been meeting a lot of young adults recently (because of the university close by) and we seem to running into many many Romanians. Like the other day, the Elders met a Romanian student who has read the Book of Mormon several times and the Bible many many times and he is really committed to try to "explain religion out of existence" as he puts it. We met with him at institute and he wasn't super interested in staying but sister Orgill and I convinced him to stay because we knew if he stayed, he would have a good time. So he stayed and he did have a good time and lightened up and saw that we, mormons were regular people.
Then just the night after, Sister Orgill was on splits and ran into 2 romanians who knew the romanian the elders had met. In fact, one of them was his roommate. So we invited all of them to come to church and guess what? they all came :) the elders investigators and ours. And after church, they invited us over to eat Romanian food later that night at their place. So we went and we met their other roommate and ate some traditional Romanian food. We ate pork and some stuff that was made of sheep cheese and special corn flour. Also, they made us American pancakes for dessert. It was awesome and we didn't argue once, we just had the chance to explain to them the joy we felt as missionaries and the wonderful joy the gospel brings into our lives and they were really respectful and interested. They even wanted us to stay and play a game after dinner. Sadly we didn't have time but they are definitely interested in coming to institute and church again. So that was very exciting.
Things are all going well in regards to getting Kaj's baptism ready. Sister Orgill and I cleaned out the font and that was fun. It has not been used in quite a long time so when we turned on the water, rust came out of the pipe but it was red so that was creepy. but it's all good now. Nice and clean and ready to be used this Saturday.
Also, Amanda May got her call to Denmark! what in the world? Crazy. The Lord loves me so much :) She'll love it here. It's the best mission in the world.
Other than that, things are picking up lots in Horsens, tons to do and I've started learning Romanian, haha. The Lord is leading us to the elect every day and it's so exciting to see.
I'll send lots of pictures of my life now.
Romanian style dinner :)
Monday, February 24, 2014
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Dear family and amazing friends,
This
week has been such a great one. It has just been full of happiness and
joy because I've been able to see the people that mean so much to me
here in Horsens make amazing strides in coming closer to Christ.
The
best experience we had this week was with one of our investigators who
is the young man we met about a month ago (the one who had lived in Salt
Lake city for like 10 years but didn't have good experiences with
mormons). He came to church yesterday for his fourth sunday and then
after church, we went to dinner with him at a member's house. On our way
to dinner, were were walking and talking with him and he asked us how
the "preaching of the gospel was going" and I told him "Great! How is
the gospel going in your life?" He told me that it was going good and
that he had made a new years resolution to give up coffee, drinking and
smoking. That really surprised me because I remember him telling me when
I first met him that he would not give those things up. I asked him why
and what had changed and he todl me that it was because of spending
time with the missionaries and coming to church and meeting people who
barely knew him and yet were so nice to him that had changed his mind
and his heart. He said that he wanted to be closer to Christ and have
more of Christ's light in his life. He then told us that he had already
given up cursing because he wanted his thoughts to be purer. He talked
about his desire to prove himself to God and his desire to serve other
people. It really was one of the best moments of my mission so far and
it made me so happy to see this huge change in this young man's life and
even in his countance.
Sister
Orgill and I have been very blessed this past week to find many of the
Lord's elect here in Horsens. We stopped by one of our investigators but
she wasn't home so we decided to knock the apartment complex. The very
last door we knocked, a young mother answered. She is from Poland and
speaks limited Danish. So we told her we had a book in Polish we wanted
to give to her and we set up a return appointment and came back with a
polish book of mormon and restoration pamphlet. Most of the lesson we
had with her when we returned was just us pointing to a section and
asking her to read it but the spirit was very strong and later her
husband and 6 year old son came home and we had the chance to teach them
because her husband speaks english. It was a great experience to show
me that the Spirit speaks to people in their own language and will help
others understand the things we cannot explain about the Gospel.
And
things are just going so well with our older investigator who is
getting ready to be baptized very soon. I'm very excited for him because
he will be the first person in my mission that I have found, been
through the whole teaching proccess and then seen baptized. Everyone
else I've taught, I get transferred right before they're baptized but
not this time. Anyways, he is awesome and a great example to me.
Miralces
happen every day. Remember that. Just open your eyes to them and you'll
be surprised at how much the Lord blesses you and how many miracles
happen every day. As a missionary, every person who smiles back at you
is a miracle :)
I love you all!
Søster Briscoe
Sunday, January 19, 2014
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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