Halvanden Uger til gå!

First things first, I have a week and a half until I am on a plane headed to the land of the Danes.  I'm honestly soooo excited and soooo terrified all at the same time.  But mostly excited.  We get our flight plans tomorrow, so I'll let you know the details of it next week!! 

This week was crazy, as all weeks in the MTC are.  My week started kinda down when I got super stressed about the language, differing opinions of those close to me, and just the gravity of missionary work in general.  That all changed when a sister in my district handed me a talk by Lawrence E. Corbridge called "The Fourth Missionary."  It changed my whole perspective on not only my mission, but my entire life.  I encourage you all to read it, but set aside a few hours because that talk/devo? is a good 24 pages long.  ABSOLUTELY WORTH THE READ.  It helped my see that I'm here because I chose to be here.  No one is forcing me to go on a mission, it's entirely my choice.  Because I chose to consecrate my time to the Lord, I have to do as much.  I need to stop worrying about my own wants and needs.  I need to stop dwelling on the fact that I'm not ready, that God doesn't want me here.  He absolutely does.  If He didn't, he would have told me as much.  I need to stop waiting until I actually get to Denmark and my "real" mission starts because HELLO I'm already here!! I told the Lord the I am willing to give myself, my WHOLE self, entirely to Him for 18 months and I will.  I will become "laser-focused" on His wants and His work.  I am going to pack away all of my worries for the future and make everyday happy and joyful and filled with His gospel.  For this short amount of time I will love harder than I ever have before, and serve the Lord with newfound strength.  My heart has been utterly given to Him, and I know that it is going to be a bright year and a half.  

On another note, tons and tons of general authorities have been meandering around campus for the past week due to the Mission President Seminar, so us undeserving missionaries were hoping quietly in our hearts that we would be able to hear from one at our Tuesday Devotional.  I'll get to that in a second.  First I want you to know how inspired I was that day.  I was absolutely and incandescently inspired.  It all started with my personal study.  One of my goals for my mission is to read the entire Book of Mormon in Danish (that was originally my goal for the MTC, but I got realistic). Since jeg kan ikke snakker Dansk, it's been taking me a VERY long time.  I only just got to 1 Nephi 11.  However, that turned out to be very monumental.  For the amateur scriptorian, 1 Nephi 11 is all about Nephi seeing what his father saw in the famous "Tree of Life" vision, the symbols, the prophesies, the whole deal.  I'm a very slow Danish reader so I really tried to understand the symbolism that the angel explained to Nephi and color-coded my scriptures as such.  This past Tuesday was the anniversary of the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, and we did have quite the devotional to honor it.  Elder Bednar (!!) spoke to us with 9 other apostles seated on the stand.  What a time to be a missionary!! And what did he talk about? "The Word" in relation to Lehi's vision (for extensive notes on the subject please see the pictures I uploaded of lots of writing on a whiteboard sans any living person).  What did I tell you? I was inspired.  My mind was blown and my spirit was fed the equivalent of Ghirardelli brownies.  It was far too short.  We had just been seated and before I knew it we were standing to see them out.  In that moment the gravity and importance of my situation hit me: these men have been called almost directly by God.  They are of equal or more significance and incredible as the apostles we read about in scripture.  And I got to be in the same room with them for an hour.  They saw my face (it was on the jumbo-tron during the choir's number of Praise to the Man).  I am so blessed.  After the devo my district had a super spiritual and super insightful discussion on Bednar's talk that made my soul soar.  I can't wait to tell the Danes about this incredible and wonderful gospel.  

Meget KÆRLIGHED, 

Søster Esplin
raya.esplin@myldsmail.net





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Here's to the Best

Image
Mom Note:   This is Raya's last email as a missionary.  She comes home on November 27th!  Her Homecoming will be Sunday, December 9th at 9am.  Please come hear her report and then join us at our home afterwards for some yummy food and to give Raya a big welcome home hug.  Thanks for supporting her in this work! November 19, 2018 Wow this has been the best adventure of my life.  I am forever grateful for your support and love and prayers.  They have been needed and they have been felt for these last 18 months.  I love you all more than words have the ability to describe.  Thanks for it all. Danish Word of the Week:  Vi ses.  See you. Danish Fun Fact: Denmark is the best country ever.  that's a fact. I have had the most incredible week.  I don't have time to write about the various events, but it was one for the books.  This is my last email as a missionary, and I just want to express how this has changed...
Read more

How to Win Friends and Influence Danes

Image
November 12, 2018 Danish Word of the Week: Syg.  Sick Danish Fun Fact: Christmas begins nov 1 in Denmark WOW what a week.  So much happened.  Too much.  This is going to be short because I have 0 time, but we're going to see how much I can get done.  I woke up on Tuesday and felt pretty sick (still), so we took the day easy.  Had some planning to do, had a few lessons, but we laid low.  We had a wonderfully hyggeligt eating appointment with one of the members in our branch.  She taught us how to make Frikadeller and showed us one of the most famous danish flute songs (taagen letter by Carl Nielsen), and it was so fun.  Food and flute, my 2 favorite things.  On Wednesday we went out to a little bitty town north of Viborg called Aalestrup because we received a self referral!! He is a really cool person.  He wants a change in his life and thinks that this could be it.  Super positive!! We also met with T, which went re...
Read more

Glæde Jul Folks!

Image
December 26, 2017 Danish word of the day: sjov. it means fun/funny. pronounced like the english ''show'' Danish fact of the week: Danish people love to sing This week was mega fun Monday was spent doing normal PDay activities, such as cleaning, buying groceries, emailing, and practicing for a musical number.  A very normal day that was still quite amusing.  Tuesday: Due to the fact that transfers are technically suposed to be on Christmas, we had what we call a ''mini transfer.'' We sent a batch of missionaries home and picked up 4 from the MTC today.  These new missionaries are going to wait in temporary areas until ''real'' transfers on the 27th.  One of them gets to stay with us! We picked her up today! We drove to the mission office in Copenhagen and waited there with other missionaries until President decided who would go where.  The entire process took about 2 houres.  But it was worth it because I love our baby.  Her name is Sø...
Read more