The Christmas Season has Begun!!

"We also wrapped a bunch of copies of the Book of Mormon and have been passing them out as Christmas Presents! "

Why Hello everyone! It is great, as always, to read and reply to your emails! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I had as much of a Thanksgiving as I possibly could have [despite] not being in America and all.

Before I forget...Happy Birthday Mom!! Well, Happy Birthday tomorrow. I sent a postcard so I don't know when it's going to get there but know if it's not there tomorrow it should reach there within the next couple days!

I haven't had the chance to meet the new Temple President [who is the Uncle of the Ramsey Family in Utah] because I've only been to Copenhagen 3 times in my life...once when I got to Denmark, once when I took the language test, and once when I picked up Ældste Huffaker. So I haven't had any time to visit the temple or meet any members who live there!

I've actually been pretty warm, so you don't need to worry about me! The thermals really help out a ton! I'll let you know if I need anything else, but I believe I'll be good.

Progressing with Danish 
The language is coming along fine. Danish is a crazy hard language (the people here say the hardest besides Finnish or Chinese. Not sure if that's true...maybe they're just being prideful). It's so hard because the pronunciation is insane!! It's nothing like what's written and they use their throats for everything. They also don't have any rules so when you ask why they say something the way they do they usual will respond with I don't know. This must be the one mission in the world outside the United States where everyone there is fluent in English as well so when they hear you're not from here they will switch to English A TON!! It's so frustrating! Sometimes they think they're really good at English, but really they're really bad and it's really funny because I'll speak something Danish to them, they'll catch a hint of an accent, and then reply in some weird Danglish that I can't even understand! One time I knocked on a door and a man answered who heard my accent and so he yelled at me, "I'M NO INTERESTING!!" and slammed the door. I just started laughing and said to myself, "You're right, you are no interesting."

But Danish is coming along just fine. I understand almost everything now (except the other day a couple Danes started discussing politics and I had NO IDEA what they were saying) and I can say just about anything I want to in one way or another. Every day I see that there is still so much to learn, but I'm making quite a bit of progress daily!

I don't know when or if I'm getting transferred. I won't find out until around the 15th. I really hope I don't right before Christmas though!

Still in Randers and living on "Prince Christian Street"

This past week we had a lesson with an ex-member and the Senior Couple have been working with her, but they decided to invite us to go and teach about the Priesthood. I had met her one time before but we stay very long. Her room that she lives in was filled with smoke and it just felt dark and uncomfortable being in there. This past time though was completely different. It was like she was an entirely new person. The room didn't smell of smoke and she just looked so much happier. We had found out that she hadn't smoked at all for almost 2 weeks! She also surprised us with her knowledge of the Gospel and her strong faith she seems to be rekindling. It was truly amazing and remarkable to see.

Hope Precedes Faith

We also had a lesson with [an investigator] family at the Nielsens home. It was a fantastic lesson. It began as a Thanksgiving Dinner that Søster Nielsen prepared for us because she knew that it was the Thanksgiving season. We all had a good chat around the table and the Nielsens were really great about asking the [investigating family] a lot of good questions. We then went to the couches and the Nielsens asked me for the spiritual question of the night (the Nielsens like us to ask a spiritual question that we can discuss together whenever we visit). I didn't really know what I wanted to ask so I sat there thinking for a minute. Finally, I felt like I should ask,

 "What was the first block of faith which you made your foundation in your search for the truth?"

It was kind of a weird question and I felt a little uncomfortable asking it because Peter [one of the investigators] has been pretty adamant about telling us that he currently has no faith. The Nielsens both gave really great answers, and then it came to Peter. Peter first said he didn't know and so Søster Nielsen cut back in to keep it from being to awkward. I felt so dumb at that point in time for asking a question like that!

Then, after Søster Nielsen kind of made an end of her thought, Peter cut back in. He said that he currently did not feel like he had enough faith but what he did have was based on hope of there being something more, a purpose to this life, and a Great Creator. It was amazing! The rest of the night was discussing this hope and other such topics. It turned out to be a wonderful night and a wonderful blessing for us all.

Last night we got to go sing in the branch choir for a Baptist Church. They really appreciated us coming and we made a ton of friends. I could feel the Spirit really strongly while we were singing. Everybody was coming up to us and thanking us and asking us to come back another time to sing. We also got to pass out a bunch of fliers for our branch Christmas party for this next Saturday, so hopefully some of them show up!

We also wrapped a bunch of copies of the Book of Mormon and have been passing them out as Christmas Presents! That has been really fun and people are much more willing to except presents than just books.

Ya, well, that's all for this week. I love you all, hope you all have a fantastic week, and can't wait to hear from you again next week!

MKH,

Ældste Wawro