A mission is a ride man, an absolute ride.

Splits with Nielson

Hej from your boy Ældste Mod!

This week we had good experiences, bad experiences, and weird people experiences. I'm gonna start with the good so that my mom will feel better about this email.

We were out street contacting on Thursday and on the way home and we saw this girl eyeing us a little (not that unusual tbh). She kinda ran up to us and asked if we were the missionaries. We were like, "Uh, yeah." She then told us that her family had moved from Chile a while ago and she was a member but hadn't been to church in about 15 years. She said that she had been thinking a lot about coming back because she missed it. We were her "sign" from God to come back. So we were happy to give her a church tour and all of that. She was sick on Sunday but is planning on attending soon!

One of the weird sculptures

This week we had a small reunion for our 30 days in Denmark.... (more like 24-ish days in, but that's chill). We got to stay in the mission home and have a nice reunion with my boys Ældste Cook, Jaursch, Jensen and Moore. I mean it was sooo awesome. I see Cook and Moore 2-3 times a week, but it felt just like old times! We got to go through the Temple and just kinda learn and chill together. Sooo fun! I also hit my 2 month mark on the mish. Feeling good hahah. 

I went on splits with my guy Ældste Nielson in Taastrup. Good guy. We saw a dude with an accordion that is friends with the missionaries and just says "good dag good dag good dag" every time we pass him. We also saw some whack sculptures. Taastrup is a crazy place.

Now to the learning experiences... (being positive is key, right?) :)

The temple was actually a little rough because I could not understand at all what was happening... because ya know, Danish. It was kinda just a discouraging moment but the spirit is the same as the US so I guess the church is still true in Denmark. ;) Danish is exhausting because you exert so much energy to try and understand and then speak back. Tough times but that's alright. 

Now to the weird people we talked to on the street:

We talked to a dude who had a dope but kinda gross beard. He looked like a legit viking. We talked to him for a decent bit until he told us he was an anarchist and that he and some of his friends burned down some cult church a while ago.... Let's just say he didn't get a card with the church address on it.

We talked to another guy. He was kinda just playing around and then told us he was a Satanist and that we should probably hate him. Kinda funny. I cracked a smile, not gonna lie. Convo ended real quick after we told him we didn't care, we just wanted to spread the gospel. He wasn't so interested in giving up Satanism. 

Yeah that's what I got for you today.

Hav det godt!

-Ældste Mod

The castle where the queen stays

Some way good street art. Hahaha!

Week 3 in the land of the not as free but still free

On the beach with Ældste Madsen in Denmark with
Sweden in the background. Cool!

Hey, what's up everyone? It's ya boy Ældste Mod back at it again. Not a ton of time to write today because Denmark is dope, so please bear with me. Excuse the short email. Not much has happened this week besides a whole lotta nej tak to the message of happiness this week. We still have high spirits though because General Conference! How awesome was that? I got 3 days of it so you can say that the different time zones are a blessing. I love how positive the messages were. I also loved how many apostles spoke about love. I challenge you all this week to show your love to someone in need of it. Don't be afraid! Be a friend to everyone.

My thoughts this week consisted of how similar yet different America is from Denmark. Love 'em both though.

Ya boy dead after biking

Some dope stuff this week: went on overnight splits in a place called Amager (right next to Copenhagen) with my friend Ældste Madsen and got to see the beach! Granted it was like 45ish outside and with windchill like 35... Still dope. I got to see Sweden just across the way so shout out to my boys over in Sweden and my sister Erin. That also meant I had to bike there and back on completely flat land. Then we got to go across a big bridge into some crazy bike traffic. Let's just say my legs hurt. Like bad.

I also got to see some museums and viking stuff downtown so holla at that dope stuff. I'm doing well! It's getting cold out here, but it's not too bad yet. Start expecting a marshmallow Mod in my 363828 layers.

Love y'all! Have a good week.

-Ældste Mod

First chocolate that I bought in Denmark

Tate decided he must give this a try! He wasn't a fan.

Our Conference setup. Don't worry, we watched the other
3 sessions with members.

You know what they say about more raindrops on the nametag...

Tate in front of the Copenhagen temple

I can't believe it is already Monday again! Mission time goes by so fast! (but also slow hahah) Kinda weird but another week out here in København! I never know what to put in these emails and I also never know what to put as the subject so just bear with me. Maybe the gift of tongues will kick in through creativity?? Probs not but that's chill.

This week was fun because we have been talking with people and teaching them, and we invited them to a HUGE stake party thing called Generations. Because we had friends that went, we got to go too! Not for the dance :'( but we got some good food and got to talk to a lot of people and interested friends! How about that!

We had Zone Conference this week and that was way fun to meet the other people in Sjælland (aka the smaller island by Sweden). Lots of good stuff but mostly just new rules and all that. Lots of fun though!!

I had my first overnight split in this place called Amager with another Ældste named Ældste Farr! It was fun to talk to him more and be out of Frederiksberg, but I like my area. I miss the fatherly wisdom that Ældste Friedbaum gives me hahahah. Lots of street contacting like usual in Amager and I FINALLY HAD MY FIRST DANISH PASTRY!!! Money in the bank let me tell ya. Way good... then I had to bike back to Frederiksberg which was not so fun. I am still alive, but hardly.

Sundays are soooo weird here. Fast Sunday combined with being new to a country and not understanding anything kinda makes it rough, but the members are so nice to have us over for dinners and all that during the week. I feel bad because I can't really help with the spiritual thoughts and lessons but it will come!!

We've done lots of contacting out in the rain and wind. Fun, but sometimes just the worst because no one is outside and if they are, they don't want to stop and talk in the rain... me neither tbh... It is alright though because I love the rain! If you know what my caption means... shoutout to you.

This week we went on member splits and wanted to try something new... well the member did because she did it on her mission... We walked around for 2 hours with a frying pan... using the line "What is your favorite food to make in a frying pan?" They would tell us, then we would drop a "Well that sounds good, but we know something that has made us happier." Toss a Mormons Bog in that pan and bam! conversion! JkJk but we did give away a BOM and a few cards because of it! The Lord works in mysterious ways I guess...

Danish is coming little by little. It's hard for me because of how much I want to be fluent and so I compare myself to the best Danish speakers. Not a good thing but I guess it's motivation! I can understand most of the missionary Danish but not so much the native Danes. They speak SO FREAKING FAST! København has the fastest speaking Danes in the country so I guess that makes sense. They just slur their words together. Good week though! Love you all!!

-Ældste Mod

Tate recreated a picture his dad took here. Love it!