The Small Things Matter Most‏

Hey yall! I am so glad to hear that things have been going good and that the first week of school was a success! I hope Cam and Lindsey have an amazing year of school this year! 

This week was just the bomb! Like seriously I have just been trying to soak up every second I have to be here in Denmark as a missionary. I have just been loving it here and loving the people so much! 

This week we got to go to Copenhagen again this time for Elder Gardners 1 month in the land meeting. It was way great! We got to go to the temple again which was awesome. It was just great to see so many missionaries again in Copenhagen because this transfer was just a huge transfer with a lot of changes and a lot of friends going home so it was good to see a lot of them while we were there. 

On Friday we got to bike like an hour out to this little town called Sæby to meet with some members and stop by some people out there. But then as soon as we were leaving my companion got a flat tire so we had to call the senior missionaries and have them pick us up. We had to take the bikes literally apart to get them and us to cram into this dinky little European car. Good times though. 

Probably the highlight of the week though was getting to go to this youth activity up here in Frederikshavn where tons of youth from all over the stake (Especially Aalborg and Odense) were there and we all just played beach volleyball with them. It was so much fun to be able to see so many members from my past areas. Such a blast! 

Yesterday I had to give a talk in Sacrament meeting so I thought Id just share a bit from that. Basically I talked about the small things in life and how they actually make the biggest difference. It is usually the small things from our childhood and things like that that we remember the most and take with us. The same goes with the small day to day decisions and things we do every day that really effect where we are going. There is this article actually that I thought was really good about making small 1% improvements in everything we do. This is the article: http://jamesclear.com/marginal-gains. Basically I started applying this to my life and started making little goals to try to improve and work more towards my bigger goals and where I wanted to go. Basically the moral of the story is that we dont need to bite off more than we can chew or try to make huge changes all at once. By making small 1% changes in everything we do, we can have huge improvements in reaching our goals, improving our attitudes and becoming better disciples of Jesus Christ and essentially become champions in our lives.

Love you guys a ton and I hope yall have another great week!

Meget kærlighed,

Ældste Pike

Let Your Light So Shine

Hey yall! Man I am way jealous yall got to go to San Diego. That looked so much fun! I am glad you guys all got to have a ton of fun. Thats also crazy that school is starting again. Seems like summer just started haha. 

So this week we had a pretty great week. We ended up going to Copenhagen for a mission wide conference with Elder Dyches. BUT the day before we went about half way and got to go on splits in Odense!! Woot Woot! It was so much fun being back in the old area again. I got to see a ton of members again as well as several investigators that I taught. We also got to meet with an investigator named Irene. Me and my companion Elder Howland knocked into her about 4 months ago and started teaching her and she ended up getting baptized on Saturday!! So it was just way fun to meet with her just days before her baptism and talk to her especially because I didnt get to go to the baptism on Saturday. The conference also went really well the next day and I really learned a lot. Plus, its just the bomb to get to hang out with all the homies from the mission. 

Then on Friday we were back in F-havn just doing our normal stop bys and such. We were riding our bikes to a little town just outside of the city when we happened to come across an old early 1700s manor house. We decided to go check it out and when we got up to it the front door was wide open! So naturally we walked in and took a little tour but it didnt take long to realize that this place was pretty sketch. People were difinitely living in it. So after making this realization we armed ourselves with large sticks and started breaching like every corner. We got like half way through the house (which was very interesting to see as well) when we walked up to the upstairs, peered up and saw a hobo lying in a hamoc!! It scared the ish out of us so we decided to just take off. :)

Despite the encounter with the hobo, I was able to settle down and reflect about a nice little scripture I read in Matthew 5:14-16: 

"Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, tat they may see your good works, and glorify your father which is in heaven."

I was thinking about how I could better let my own light shine for others. Of course there is doing what this scripture says and being an example, but I was thinking about how I could go about being more proactive but without looking like a tool. I decided that the best way was to just BE MYSELF. The same person around everyone. The past few months I have been working on talking to people not because I wanted their referrals or eating appointments or something out of it but because I genuinely care about them and want to be their friend. I have seen the most success with this by showing my personality and being myself around everyone all the time. This quote that I found has kinda been my motto the last few months and is always sitting on my desk:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Im gonna wrap this up cuz this is taking for days to write. I guess to sum up my goals for the last little bit it has been trying to overcome fears, being myself, and living up to my full potential. 

Love you guys tons! I hope you have a great week especially starting school today! 

Meget kærlighed,

Ældste Pike

Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear‏

This week was actually really slow as far as teaching investigators and stuff. But we are moving our focus from just knocking and contacting all day everyday to just really focusing on stopping by members and strengthening them. We did get to go to Århus again this week though. On Thursday we were on splits down there with the zone leaders which was a lot of fun. I always learn a ton from them. Then we spent the night and went to a zone training and afterwards had a zone activity which was just a blast to hang with everyone again. 

Other than that nothing to out of the ordinary. Some things that Ive been working on though is just letting the mission change me to what the Lord would have me be. For some reason before my mission I just assumed that when you head out that all a sudden my testimony would just get a gazillion times stronger, that I would just automatically love the Danish people, and basically I would just become this amazing RM without having to put much effort, like it would just come. But one thing Ive learned since Ive been out longer is that all these things take effort on my part. I am still a normal person. Unless I do something about getting a stronger testimony, or praying to love the people more, and developing those great life skills and christlike attributes, I will literally remain the same person I was when I left. The great thing about serving a mission is that you can see a glimpse of your divine potential, and what amazing possibilites await. But for me it is also scary. It is weird to say but its scary for me to be great. With great power comes great responsibility as peter parkers uncle would put it. But the last few weeks 1 John 4:18 has become my motivation:

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love."

So ya, thats been my thoughts the last couple days or so. Have another great week yall! 

Love,

Ældste Pike

Investigators in church! whaaa!!‏

Hey everyone! Thanks for the great emails this week it was a lot of fun to read and hear how things are going and everything! 

So as far as the work has been going basically, its about as slow as cold molasses right now but the people who we are teaching its going really well. We got 7 investigators in church yesterday which was literally a miracle!  By far the most investigators Ive ever gotten in church on one sunday. We also had a ton of visitors in church including 2 big american military families on vacation from Germany so that was way awesome. We had almost 80 people in church which is like twice as big as it usually is! It was awesome!

Me and Elder Gardner are also getting along great! Im sure Im learning a lot more from him than he is from me. We have also just been having a blast despite how slow the work has been lately so thats always fun. We are also made it a companionship goal to get way good at cooking so we're gonna start baking good food for the members (to get in with the ward of course) and even better food for us :)

On Thursday we had a district activity up in Skagen which was a blast. We went up to the point where the two oceans meet and walked out in it, it was just so trippy. There was also all these German WW2 bunkers all over and it was way neat. I seriously wanted to like airsoft there so bad. 

So ya thats about it for this week. I did just decided about 20 minutes ago that I actually need to be more obedient in working out in the mornings after I heard how tall Cameron is now. Im gonna have to get working out again and git swole cuz if Cam passes me up... thatd be unacceptable. haha

Meget Kærlighed,
Ældste Pike

Hectic Travels

Hey everyone! So this week has been a ton of fun. Me and Ældste Gardner are getting along great! He comes from Mesa Arizona, is the youngest of 7 siblings, (his older Brother served here in F-havn 5 years ago) and likes to play volleyball. He came literally right out of high school and so he is 18 (born in '97!  #feelingold) But ya we are getting along really well and I have already learned so much from him. Honestly he came like so prepared and ready to go he could almost be training me haha.

It was pretty hektic coming back home from Copenhagen on Wednesday. So we had our ticket but for some reason the office or somebody screwed up somewhere with elder Gardners discount Card for train tickets (called a wild Card) and so we ended up getting kicked off the train. So we ended up making a bunch of phones calls and finally just had to buy an entirely new ticket and catch the Next train. Not to big of problems other than we got home way stinkin late.

Other than that nothing to report on. This transfer is only 5 weeks though instead of 6 and because we will be going on splits in Aalborg this week, Århus for splits and zone training NeXT, week, then Copenhagen NeXT week for a mission conference and then finally Copenhagen Again for our 1 month meeting, We will literally be out of our area for like 25% of the transfer! Crazy!

Anyway, thats about it from me! Hakuna matata yall!

Ældste Pike