Sunday, February 3, 2013

Transferred! And the Herning Basketball Team

After ten months in Ballerup, Elder Swenson was transferred to Hammerum, Denmark. He is loving it there, even though it is very rural and there is only a small branch of about 15.


This is a pic of his last eating appt. in Ballerup!


Excerpts from January 21 letter:

A random funny story from this week.  We were out on the Herning strip, or Gågade just street contacting when a guy with his bike comes running up behind us and yells in English for us to stop!  Turns out he's an American man who is here as a coach for the Herning Hurricanes basketball team.  He spotted how tall I was, and knew that most missionaries were Americans.  Haha, he gave us a card with the address to the training facilities and asked us to come to their practices.

One of the highlights of this week was 9 Books given out, which lead the mission this week!  We were giving them out like candy, and at least 3 of the 9 are VERY potential.  I think the most promising one was last night after church when we were out knocking around the area where the married couple missionaries live in Herning.  We had had about 2 hours of straight up door slamming from angry old people until we decided to knock one door before calling it a night and eating dinner with the couple upstairs.  It was a man in his 20's, and was immediately interested.  He took a book, said he wants to read and learn more.  We were a little shocked at the response at first especially after being rejected the whole night until then.  He explained that he's lived several places in the world and has always wondered about things like this, and if there could be one true church.  Not only that, but he was very cool, and was surprised when we told him we weren't Danish!  Those compliments are always nice when they compliment our Danish and the fact that we're doing this tough work here.

Excerpts from January 28 letter:  

Thet practice with the Herning basketball team turned out to be tons of fun.  They just had a High School basketball gym opened with a couple courts and a bunch of people scrimmaging.  Most of the guys were HUGE, just giant Eastern Europeans, but not very skilled.  Just slow, fat and tall dudes.  It was alot of fun, though.  After, a member who drove us to the practice and back had a good conversation with the coach of the team who was an American. The member who drove us is actually from Odense, and is known for being pretty fiery.  It was pretty funny how he was talking to the coach, as he kept asking "why haven't you become a Mormon yet?  You've known the missionaries for years now!" And stuff like that.  It was a fun night, most of the players were from random places, Poland, Lithuania, and of course a few Danes.  

The appointments that we were able to set up this week were very good.  The best was for sure with T., a 27 year old Danish guy who grew up in a "broken family" as he called it, and has always been looking for something that he could believe in.  Has always believed that there is a God, but just wasn't sure on which religion he should join.  We knocked his door last week, and he immediately took a book and started talking.  This week was our first sit down lesson with him, and he took the Restoration lesson very well, and was excited to read.  I would say he's definitely one of the most positive people I've taught in my entire mission.  He's very humble and has the desire to find out for himself.  That's what gets us so excited about the situation.  He's in Germany skiing for the weekend, but we have another appointment this Saturday with him where we'll bring A., the new convert to be with for a member present.  I think his presence will be great at that lesson, and if everything goes well, we'll set a baptismal date with him!  Another great thing is that he lives just two floors under the married couple missionaries that live in his complex.  They would be willing to drive him to church, and I'm sure A. would be happy with doing the same.  Very excited about the situation, ZERO obstacles yet.  Excited about his progress so far.

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