Nov. 18:
Well, this week has gone completely different than as planned, but some good things have come out of it in spite of that. We had an awesome service opportunity this last week with a couple friends of a member in Vejle (S.) Elder Meacham and I met the wife, L. while we were at S.'s a couple weeks ago to get our hair cut, and she mentioned how there were things in their yard that needed to be cleaned up after the storm that came. So, we set up a time this last week to go over there with the Fredericia elders to help out! It turns out that they live a ways out in the country, and when we got there, there were trees that had completely fallen over due to the storm, a couple of them actually almost knocked the house down. We worked for a few good hours on chopping and piling them up, then ate some dinner with them. They were a super nice family, and we left them a plan of salvation pamphlet afterwards. At church yesterday, we gave S. a challenge to follow up on that next time she sees them, which she was of course all on board with! She told us that they're a very "open" Family when it comes to religion. They did say that there were more things that needed to be done in their house, as it's an older place with lots of renovating that needs to be done. So, we'll probably be back! Also on the service front, we'll be out to other friends of members tomorrow to help them paint the ENTIRE house on the inside.
On top of that, we went out Saturday with the Zone Leaders in their car to stop by all of the less active members that live long distances from our city, which are impossible to get to without a car. A couple were really nice and invited us back, F. and M. were two that we have an appointment with this Thursday. Very excited for that. R. unfortunately had to cancel this week because of exams :/ but will be meeting with us the for the next visit. But, she did say that she'd like to come to church after all of the exams are done with! There was a nice surprise that I heard last night from the Herning Elders, who are in our district now. One of the people that Elder Hansen and I knocked on up in Hosltebro showed up to church yesterday! Just to give you an idea of the journey she took, Holstebro is a 40 minute train ride to Herning, where you're dropped off at the station for another 20 minutes walking to church, but she made it anyways! She was a Russian woman, named T., who I had the chance to teach twice before transferring. Sounds like she has been reading the Book of Mormon and wants to start investigating more seriously now! Was very happy to hear about that. Another example of how you really don't know what will come out of all of these planted seeds!
Oct. 7:
So, my greenie is Elder M. from Layton. Way cool guy. Way big guy, haha. He played Left Tackle for the Layton High team, 6'3" and 265 pounds. Needless to say, we're the biggest companionship in the mission. We've already seen some scared faces on people when they open their door up to 2 giants in suits outside their door. It actually serves as a fun conversation starter, as we can usually fire off some jokes about being re-possessors or something.
We have met a couple very positive new investigators the past couple of days out contacting and door-knocking though. One is Kim, a man who new some Mormons Down in Sønderborg and has been interested in learning about the church for a while now. He gladly took a book and actually texted us his address! Good sign there. Tung did give us his email address, and we've been contacting him through that. Pretty soon we'll be on Facebook too! So we'll basically be able to teach him through that, possibly even on video chat.
Sep. 30:
Well, the biggest news from this week was TRANSFERS! So, the visa's for 15 of the waiting missionaries finally came, so the "real" transfers will go down this week. The good news is that I'll be staying in the Ward, probably until the end of the mission. But, my new "area" is going to be opening up Kolding and training! Super excited for that, it's going to help get things really going in the Ward with 3 sets of missionaries now. The ZL's will be in Fredericia still and will only work here, while me and the green man will work in Kolding and Haderslev. The Ward was super excited to hear about it. I'll be going from ZL duties to DL duties now, and the funny thing is that the district will just be the missionaries in the Ward.
Back in the old days of this mission when I first got here, the Districts would cover 3 or even 4 areas. Now with so many missionaries, we're starting to look more like a state-side mission. The 4th zone will be opening up in this mission on transfer day, too. Big things happening! I'll be hopping on a train to Copenhagen Wednesday night to pick up my 2nd greenie :) Really excited for the opportunity to train again. I don't think there's a better way to end a mission more focused and working harder. So, we had the chance to teach Tung all of 3 times in the space of 4 days before he headed back to Vietnam! At the last appointment, he accepted a Baptismal invitation, and said that if he gets an answer to his prayer he will be baptized! Unfortunately, there isn't any church presence in Vietnam yet, but we're hoping to come back to teach his wife who wasn't able to make it to any of our 3 lessons because of work.
