CHRISTmas in Denmark

Elder Swenson had a great Christmas in Denmark, and I would like to personally thank two families in particular who I know made it so nice for him: The Jensen family and the Paulsen family. Brother Jensen is the ward mission leader in the Ballerup ward, and Bishop Paulsen is the bishop. Both of these families opened up their homes and fed the missionaries well, several times I'm sure. I thank the Lord for their generosity and know they will be blessed! We were able to skype with Rusty for several hours, and it almost felt like he was with us while we were opening gifts. Elder Swenson will be transferred next week, a bittersweet move, as he has been in this area for ten months and has a few investigators that may be close to baptism.

This is Bishop  Paulsen and his cute family, and his companion, bottom left, and the two other missionaries he lives with.

Picking out a movie to watch at the Jensen's home.

Dinner time with the Jensen family!

L to R: His companion Elder V., an elder from Holland, Elder Swenson, an elder from WVC, the Jensens.

Relaxing and watching a movie at the Jensen's.

New Birthday Suit!

And a new birthday coat. Winter has arrived in Denmark. Rusty celebrated his 20th birthday by eating a stack of french toast, courtesy of his comp. Elder V. And the streets are decorated for the holidays!

Excerpts from his last letters:

November 12, 2012

So, the less-active member that we found in our areabook, M. has showed increasing interest in coming back to church.  Since that fireside we had, she's been to church every Sunday after. Yesterday, she had an interview with the Bishop and it sounds like she would like a calling and to bring both of her sons into the church who are 15 and 12.  The Bishop of course was freaking out excited to hear this.  After the interview he called us saying that he had offered our services to teach her and the sons twice a week until they're baptized.  He told us it's "one of the goldest" teaching situations you'll have on the mission.  It's just crazy to think that it started with just finding her name randomly in the areabook from her teaching records when she was investigating herself.  It will be a great contribution to the ward to bring two young men in, especially because there's a pretty big age gap which that will help fill. It's just been awesome to see her excitement in becoming active again. It's been perfect for the Ward, now she has visiting and home teachers. I think the thing that did it for her was just seeing how welcoming the ward is as a family. That's the awesome thing about our church.  When you're a member, you have hundreds of friends as a result, and they're always there for you. 

J. had his Word of Wisdom lesson last Saturday with us and the mission leader.  He took it well, and said he would quit the smoking and be baptized as soon as he feels for himself that Joseph Smith really was a prophet.  So, that's what it's going to come down to with him now is just helping him come to that.  Still very hopeful with him.  C. is right on the doorstep still.  He wants to be baptized, but won't set a date until he feels the wife is completely comfortable with it.  We gave him the number for the Elders in her area and invited him to have her call them to learn more.  We found a very positive new investigator named T. while we were knocking.  He listened to the story of Joseph Smith and we told him that the book was free to take and he said he'd love one, and told us to come back whenever.  The good thing is that he lives about 3 minutes from the church. 

November 19, 2012

It has almost been like an invisible barrier has been put between our cell phone and all of our investigators, including M. and the family.  It has been pretty stinky.  We were able to stop by M.'s last Tuesday though, with the new RM in the ward.  He clicked pretty good with the oldest son as they talked forever about video games.  It was good to see J. come out of the shell a little and to make friends with us.  We had the first teaching appointment set up for last Saturday, but she called an hour before and apologized that they wouldn't be able to make it home in time for the appointment.  Kind of stunk, but we'll hope for 2 more this week so we can get things going with them.  The president is really stressing on getting the people who are progressing focused on baptism now.  I think we'll be setting the two sons' baptismal date in the first visit if it goes well.  So hopefully by next Monday we'll have the good news for all of you!  It still will happen, the Bishop and Mission Leader have been with us on it, too.  C. and J. have fallen under the invisible radio-wave barrier, too.  No contact with them unfortunately.  It's been pretty frustrating, and R. has been just too busy to find time for us this past week.  We took our frustrations out on contacting this week, though.  We talked to tons of people and got some books out, so hopefully something will become of those.  It's really fun actually to go contacting when you're a little down.  We got burned yesterday by a man named T. right after church.  We had an appointment with him, but he didn't show up for it.  We decided to knock the area for an hour or so instead.  For VanDenBerghe and I it kind of gave us a little chip on our shoulders and as a result the contacting went great.  Instead of just leaving the door after hearing a "not interested", we were a little more pushy, or maybe persistent is a better word.  As a result, we got into some good conversations and doorstep lessons that otherwise wouldn't have happened.  Sometimes it just takes that to get you motivated even more.  I'm sure this week will be much better with getting a hold of people though.   People are just naturally flaky and hard to meet with, that's something we've come to learn almost too well being in Denmark. 

Loving the Food... and Other Important Things

We have lots of gorgeous pictures of Denmark that Rusty sends home. We also have lots of funny pictures involving FOOD, glorious food. Except for one hamburger that looked gross, maybe some pickled beets on it or something?? Yuck. But the 2 lb. burger looked delish... and some of those pastries... mmmm.

Things are going well in Denmark! Lots of things happening with young people. We continue to pray for those that are investigating or looking for the truth. Here are some excerpts from recent letters:

SEPTEMBER 24:
Wow, it's been a great week here.  Lots going on—first, C. is totally holding his baptism date, and if anything it will be moved SOONER. He came to church yesterday and we  found out that some other members in the ward, D. and E. are from Nigeria, and know C.  When we found that out, it was pretty exciting. I think the fact that they're both from Nigeria and friends already could be perfect in helping him follow through with this Baptism.  But, the date is still set for October 20th, we're within 4 weeks now!

That same day we were knocking and met a woman from South America who had been taught by missionaries 4 years back but moved and lost contact. She has a book and wants us to come back!  We'll be stopping by with a member tomorrow night.  Another thing that was awesome was our lesson with a kid named J.  We met him knocking a couple weeks ago and gave him a book.  He's about 20, has lip rings and listens to metal music.  Wouldn't think he's be the most receptive to missionaries, until we got to know him.  He said he had been through a depression and ended up praying to God one time.  He said he got a strong prompting to investigate the different Christian sects until he found the right one.  We were way stoked to hear that, and showed him the Joseph Smith video.  I think he has a lot of potential, the spirit was definitely at that lesson.  He's going to read and pray, and we have him coming to the youth center tonight with us on top of that! His friend named Martin was actually there randomly for that lesson and sat in for it.  He gained interest as it went on and took a book after the lesson.  We got his number too.  This week was also the record week for books for me personally.  We gave out 7 books this week, which was amazing because we had tons of appointments at the same time.  

SEPTEMBER 17:
Lots of new things happening here, set a baptismal date, and we have two new part member families that we'll be teaching!  First, the Baptismal date!  His name is C. and he's a 28-ish year old man from Nigeria.  He majored in Accounting before coming here to get a master's degree and to work.  He's always been a christian, and e got into a conversation with a Jehovah's witness a couple weeks ago and he actually pulled the Book of Mormon out and asked them, "What makes you think that God wouldn't give us more scripture?"  We were pretty amazed he did that, at the time we had only been teaching him for a week.  We gave him a tour of the church building this last Saturday and sat down in the Baptismal room and taught the Plan of Salvation.  At the end, we just told him how we can follow Christ's example by being baptized and invited him to do it the 20th of October.

We've also started teaching two part member families.  The first is that American woman that has just married a less active member.  We have an appointment for this Thursday!  The other is a less active Mother that has a 15 year old son who isn't baptized.  She would like us to come and teach all of them. 

SEPTEMBER 10:
We were actually area of the week this week, had lots going on, 4 new investigators!  We just started this big complex that is designed for younger people in the college age group in Albertslund.  We've only knocked maybe 2 or 3 buildings so far, but have given out 4 books and have one of the people we met there coming to CUV tonight!  Way excited for that, CUV is a youth center in Copenhagen that we can invite our young investigators to to meet other members in the church and to just hang out a little.  I think for younger investigators, it's just the perfect set up.  They can come and meet tons of people in the church, make friends, and hopefully want to come to church after that.

The companionship is going great, Elder V. is just an awesome stud.  Super easy to be his trainer, he's up on time, cleans up, studies hard and works hard.  On top of that, he's a cool dude.  No complaints, I'm just loving life right now.  Something interesting, just in the 3 weeks of this transfer, I've notice the success going up in general.  The young people want to talk to us, people take books and we have people coming to CUV.  Not sure, be he might have the magic presence or something.  Still set on getting at least one baptism before I get out of this first area, and it's looking very possible now.  I think it would just be awesome to bring some new young people in the church.  Honestly, I think the majority of the church growth here will be with the youth.  They're actually talking alot in the papers here about a religious excitement that's underway with the younger people.  I've noticed it, surprising amounts of the youngsters are at least interested in having a religious chat.  On top of that, they actually want to learn. 

The gross one...

The good one!

Goofy guys

Chowing down

Rusty's companion from Riverton, Elder V.

Festinord! Rusty Plays in the Cathedral

This is the Church of Our Lady, the Cathedral of Copenhagen, where Rusty accompanied a young adult choir with 80 people from 26 countries singing "This is the Christ." Festinord is a Scandinavian young single adult conference that is held annually. You can see Rusty at the far right playing the piano. Too bad they didn't zoom up on him :) This statue of Christ is the original Christus by Bertel Thorvaldsen. 

Here is the outside view of the Cathedral. Will post another slideshow of the awesome pictures Rusty sends home. Denmark is such a truly beautiful place!

A Miracle Story

Elder Swenson wrote home about an awesome Miracle Story he had this month:

"We had our first "Miracle Story" in the companionship. It was really cool stuff. We had planned to bus over to an area named Grantofte, and were sitting waiting at the station for the bus to come. As we were waiting I noticed a random bus show up, number 143 heading to Albertslund. There's an area in that direction that we had recently started knocking as well named Topperne.  A random thought came to my mind to just head in that direction instead.  So we drove over there and got to the apartment complex.  As we got there, we weren't sure to start over from the beginning or continue from the last time.  We had knocked a couple buildings a few days prior without a knocking book, so there were some doors that had been skipped.  We finally decided to start over.  The first door knocked was a woman in her 40´s who immediately invited us in.  We came in the living room to find 4 other people already there seated.  We taught the entire family the first lesson and I had never seen a more positive and more interested group of people my entire mission.  As we got to know them in the conversation, I found that they had just moved from Sweden a year ago so that the whole family could live together.  They area all Christian in beliefs, but not sure on what church to join.  


Something very cool is that the mother had been thinking and praying about which church the family should join just before we knocked on her door.  Hard for me to believe that we weren't guided to her door that day.  We gave everyone in the family a book of mormon and they all were excited to read.  We met with them two days later (Last Friday) and watched the Restoration with them.  Unfortunately, the parents were gone that time so we didn't have everyone together, but they were able to see it later.  We have another appointment with the whole family set for Wednesday.  Very excited for them!  They didn't make it church yesterday, but already want to come next week.  I'll keep you posted with them.  I think we'll invite them to Baptism on Wednesday if all goes well.  Another awesome thing is that we gave out 9 books this week and almost 10.  The tenth is a Pakistani man that we'll stop by to give an English copy to.  He said he would be interested though.  It's exciting to see new people coming into our Investigator list, I know that's the way to Baptisms, so we're working on finding them!  The companionship has been a blast, I think we're almost too good of buds."


His miracle story was featured in the monthly mission newsletter.... Awesome stuff!!!

A New Companion and District Leader Assignment

This is the new district leader, Elder Swenson, with his new companion, Elder Christensen. Wait, seriously, this is his new OLD companion—his roommate from the MTC! Going from "greenie" to District Leader is quite a switch, but we know Elder Swenson is up to the task. "Who the Lord calls he qualifies."

Elder Christensen has three older brothers that all served in Denmark. AND, his grandma lives in Denmark, not far from where they are serving, as well as some other relatives. There is a reason missionaries are called to certain missions!

From his last letter:
Well, my world has been flipped officially. I went from basically being treated like a greenie to being DL. The first week hasn't been too bad though, I picked up Elder Christensen at the train station Wednesday morning and went straight to work after that. The first couple days were definitely a little rough because of very few appointments, which left us to knocking and stop-by work. It gave me a taste of what some of the areas are like in this mission. In Ballerup, we're super lucky to have as many appointments as we do. ... It was nice to see some results from our efforts though, we have 3 new investigators that we will be teaching this week and 2 that have been picked back up that we hadn't been teaching lately.  Actually we have 4 teaching appointments and an eating appointments set for just this Tuesday, so we're pretty well set for the week.  All of the new people are very positive so far, so very excited to teach all of them.  


It hasn't been too stressful of a workload as a District Leader, just a little extra work at the end of each day calling people.  We're having a District Meeting this Friday, which will be a good time.  Basically in those you just set some goals and help each other out with investigator problems.  That's pretty crazy how hot it's been up there, the past two days we've actually been freezing here!  Yesterday walking home from church I was seeing my own breath.  It was dumping rain all day, which made for a fun time walking around knocking doors.  It was crazy to go on splits with DJ, who's Elder Christensen's older brother. 


I love the bakeries up here.  Everything is super fresh and rich.  The language is still the usual up and down.  Some days I feel like a professional, and other's I feel downright retarded.  It's funny how it is in learning another language, it's the exact same with other missionaries.  But I've been working my butt off at it, that's for sure.  I have a little notebook that I always have on me.  If I ever see a word I don't know I'll write it in their and review it whenever I'm on a bus or something.  So that way I know a bunch of random words people don't expect me to know.  I would say the hardest part of it is taking new words and actually using them when you speak.  I'll hear them used and know what they mean, but it's a whole different thing when you have to have them at your disposal when you speak. 


So, unfortunately we don't have a baptismal date right now.  But the top two guys that we've been working with will hopefully have another this week.  Right now, I'm more excited about the new investigators.  I think if we get a baptism in this area, it will be more likely to come from somebody newer than one of these people we've been teaching forever.  We still work with them though.  It's been a new experience taking the lead in lessons. It's forced me to learn the lessons better and learn how to be smoother in teaching. I've had some good practice just this last week though, we've taught 2 first lessons right at people's doorsteps and both times it went surprisingly well.  I got to go to another baptism this last Saturday.  A lady from Madagasgar was baptized.  It was super inspiring to hear the stories and talks about how she was found and how the spirit worked on her.  It always gives us motivation to keep looking for people like that in our own areas.  Hopefully one of these new people we teach will be able to feel it.  So, that's pretty much it, it's going well.  It could always be better, but I won't complain. We've had good enough success to keep us motivated, and we won't have anymore unless we earn it out there.  Thanks for all the letters. 


Love you all, and have a bombing week!
Ældste Swenson

Transfers and Plans

Great letter from our Elder today! We found out that transfers are taking place in two weeks. BUT, Elder Swenson will stay where he is, only his companion and the other two elders in their apartment are being transferred. Elder Christensen, his companion from the MTC, is being transferred into Elder Swenson's area and they will be companions once again! The exciting news is that Elder Swenson will be Senior Companion, and the two of them will be responsible for their entire area. I know they will live up to the task! I think it is both humbling and flattering for Elder Swenson knowing his mission president has the confidence in him to entrust such a great responsibility.

The other exciting news is that he gets to play a piano solo this Sunday for a fireside where Elder Marlin K. Jensen will be presiding. We met Elder Jensen several years ago when he came to our Stake Conference. Great man! So humble and sincere, a true man of the Lord. I hope Rusty will get to meet and talk with him personally. I'm also thrilled Rusty decided to play my personal favorite, "If You Could Hie to Kolob." I'd give my left foot to be there! I love hearing him play this piece and I know it will touch the hearts of many. I hope he uses this opportunity to talk to people about what they felt when they heard it, so he can let them know it is the Spirit of our Heavenly Father. And then they will want to feel it more and know more about the gospel.

P.S. Above is a photo of Rusty and his beloved Kebab... and his favorite chocolate milk drink!