Weeks 78 & 79; May 18, 2015 – Exploring Denmark!
The
last two weeks have been an adventure to say the least… We Skyped home for
Mother’s Day, we traveled a ton, and we even visited another country (with permission
of course)! Most importantly, I want to congratulate my cousin Dallin for
getting his mission call to the Dominican Republic! I am so thankful to
see him answer the call to serve... It's going to an absolutely amazing country
and he's going to be an awesome missionary!
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| Skyping home for Mother's Day |
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| Catching-up with Josh at 4:30 AM California time (1:30 PM in Sweden) |
Two weeks went by in a
blur! Early last week we traveled down to the resort city of Båstad. It's
one of the most beautiful cities I've ever visited in Sweden. It’s unique
because you can't find a single apartment in the city limits. We helped
tare out an old floor and then we ate Swedish pancakes and a mini-meatloaf dish
called Pan Biff (beef in a pan if you were wondering)... Swedish is a super
hard language, ha-ha!
It was getting close to
the end of the six-week transfer period and both of us were afraid we would be sent
to a new area, so we planned a temple trip. When you’re in Southern Sweden, you
can actually go to Denmark and visit the Mormon Temple there. We planned-out
every detail and it looked like it would be an amazing day, but there were a
few unforeseen surprises along the way!
We started out by taking
a ferry across the Baltic Sea at the narrowest point between Sweden and Denmark.
It was crazy to think that we were probably sailing over hundreds of sunken
ships. The small gap of water we were sailing across was the site of countless
navel conflicts between Sweden and Denmark over the years. Although, today
they are both renowned for their devotion to peace, Denmark and Sweden actually
are the undisputed record holders for having the most wars between two
nations...Ever. I still have no idea what they were actually fighting about and
it seemed like a semi-annual military campaign of some sort was their favorite
tradition. Now their old rivalry is long behind them and they celebrate their
unity and friendship by giving cheap ferry rides at the cost of $5 dollars
between the two countries!
We arrived in the beautiful
city of Helsingør, the former capitol of
Denmark, and the home of William Shakespeare’s famous play, Hamlet. We
ended-up taking a quick peak at Hamlet's castle, Krownborg (The crown castle)
and we took a small tour before catching our train to Copenhagen (actually
called Kopenhav, and pronounced Kopenhow. Danes never pronounce the end of a
word, which makes it really hard to understand). It was amazing! The
whole city was like a monument to the former military might of Denmark and it was
absolutely beautiful! We even found a giant statue of Thor under the basement!
Before
we left, we thought we'd try Danish Kebab, or at least the equivalent of
Shwarma, yes that meal that Tony Stark wanted to eat at the end of the Avengers
movie! It was probably the best thing I've ever eaten! It was like Kebab, but spicier
and way more flavorful! I'd come back to the nation of Denmark just to try
it again!!!
We
took a train to Copenhagen and spoke Danish with a lady the whole way
down. Swedish and Danish languages are very close cousins and we could
understand each other, but it was still pretty hard, ha-ha! Seriously, Denmark
is amazing, but they don’t enunciate their words very well!
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| The original Christus Statue at the Church of Our Lady |
Copenhagen
was awesome. We had an amazing experience on the way to the temple and we
got to stop inside Denmark’s famous Christus Cathedral and saw the original
sculpture of the statue of Christ commonly seen in LDS visitor’s
centers, it was breathtaking! I've been in a lot of old churches in Sweden, but
nothing like this. It was just a large plain room with giant statues of the Twelve
Apostles and Christ at the center. It was one of the most amazing things I've
ever seen!
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| Copenhagen Denmark LDS Temple |
Afterward,
we made our way to the Mormon Temple and to our dismay, it was locked! We thought
that we read the session time wrong, so we just decided to wait and pray that we'd
meet someone who could help us. We were greeted by a cheery Danish man
about 15 minutes later and he asked us what brought us to the temple. When
he realized we were from Sweden he seemed really surprised. We quickly realized
that we had picked the one week in the year that the Denmark Temple was closed for
cleaning and renovations. We were heart broken, but we had an amazing journey
down there and we had a great spiritual experience seeing the Kristus
statue. Although, it was not entirely what we had hoped for, it was still a
great experience. I hope we will have another opportunity to visit the temple in
the future!
So,
the next day we got our long-awaited transfer call, and I was expecting to
leave, but to our surprise we found out that we were both staying in Halmstad
for another six weeks! That’s pretty unusual for a companionship to stay
together for three months, but we both love this area and we are super excited to
stay here! We also found out that my MTC companion, Elder Brown, was coming
back to the District, so that was great to hear!
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| We Love Halmstad |
Last
week was great too! We taught a lot of lessons and Stefan took some great
steps. He's getting much more independent in his Book of Mormon reading and he’s
starting to understand the importance of living the gospel.
A big
highlight of the week was going on splits with Elder Lundquist, my old zone
leader from Hägersten. We had an amazing time. We started-out by walking two
miles to teach an amazing investigator named Magnus. We taught him about
tithing and he was completely accepting. I told him the story of some friends of
ours that were having a hard financial time, but they still decided to pay
their tithing. As a result, they saw the windows of heaven open and bless them.
He appreciated the message. Afterward, we had another great experience when we
tried a swing-by, but no one was home. So, we tracted through the building
and found an old investigator that had moved, but she was still interested. It
was amazing because she moved clear to the other side of town and we had no
idea where to find her! We know that it was inspired to knock on that door
and we hope she will accept the gospel now that she's meeting with the missionaries
again.
That
night was awesome! Elder Lundquist is one of the best song writers I've
ever met and he will probably be a famous musician. He likes a lot of the same
artists as me and he has a much deeper knowledge of music than I do. I brought
my guitar and he gave me a concert of the songs he had written. He was
fantastic and I learned so much about music just watching him and listening to
the stories about how he wrote every song!
Well,
I'm so excited to be staying in Halmstad! I’m having a wonderful time here!
Thank you so much for reading and I hope you have a great week!
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