Danish Diaries Episode 14: The Garden Wars

HELLO HELLO HELLO!! It's me, Raya, back again at the computer with more adventures to tell you of.  Get settled in with popcorn and a pillow pet because there is lots to tell this week.

Our week was so great!! It started out on Tuesday by going west to the coastal city of Hvide Sande to visit a new member couple that moved into our branch.  On the way back we passed through a little city called Ringkøbing which is now my new favorite city in Denmark.  It's right on the coast.  It smells like the ocean, the houses are colorful and cute, and it's quaint and quiet.  I love it.  We stopped to take a few pictures by the water.  Later that day we went to stop by a potential investigator and while he was home, he told us he wasn't ready nor willing to hear our message anymore so that put our spirits down a bit but we were determined to not lose faith.  The next day we made enchiladas which really bolstered our attitude and kept pushing forward.  We met with a new convert who actually lives in Scotland for school.  She's Danish and was here visiting her family when she met the missionaries and got baptized only a few weeks before I got here. She was here again for a short visit and went to the temple for the first time to do baptisms for the dead! She's a cute girl and found 25 family names to bring with her.  Seeing how the gospel has changed her life recharged our batteries to go out and find more people like her.  And we did.  

That same day we only had a few minutes in between other activities to knock doors, so we knocked an apartment building right across the street from our own apartment and found 2 new investigators! One of them is an old man who apparently had seen us walk by a couple of times and wondered who we were.  He actually has some LDS family that moved to Utah and was way open to talk more! We ended our day in a lesson with a young investigator we found the last week.  It went super well and he wants us to come back.  Blessings of keeping the faith. 

And because of our strong faith and sturdy spirits, the Lord blessed us with 2 more investigators on Friday.  The streets of Herning were overcome with college students living up their last few moments of freedom before university started the next week, but we were still lead to souls ready and waiting to hear the gospel.  Friday was actually just an amazing day, because we also went over to Aarhus for a baptism! Not one of our investigators, but it was an investigator that Søster Acosta had taught when she served in Aarhus almost 18 months ago.  It was really beautiful.  To cap off our dejlig (wonderful) day, we traveled through corn fields, rolling hills, and pig farms to eat with a member couple in our branch.  They're American (woot woot) and have lived in Denmark for 18 months.  All of their kids are grown up and now they live in this picturesque part of Denmark with a big house and no neighbors.  We ate jalapeno pizza and taught a recent convert.  It was a wonderful and spiritually filled lesson that ended with us going out into the fairytale-like yard and plucking plumbs.

We've also just started to teach English Classes! We had exactly 1 student show up on Saturday.  It was one of our Eritrean friends.  He's a champ.  We played fodbold afterwards and it was a good time.  We then traveled far far away on Judea's plains to do some service for a fabulous lady in our branch.  We weeded her garden and found all sorts of creepy crawly things.  There were slugs as fat as my big toe, spiders on their webs that killed their prey with grace I've never witnessed before, and even a huge real life frog.  I felt like a character in a Hans Christian Andersen story (fun fact - he's Danish).  The sun was out which made it abnormally warm but such a blessing.  Being in that wonderful garden makes me want to have a garden some day.  I think I would really like it! In the summertime I could be out tending my cute little garden while listening to audiobooks.  It sounds absolutely lovely.  And so Danish.  

That basically sums up my week in a toadstool (to get the joke see my pictures).  It was joyful and filled with miracles, miracles that wouldn't have occurred had we lost our faith.  Faith is so crucial but also sometimes so easy to neglect, so my spiritual tidbit this week is to invite you to think about faith and find ways to nurture and care for it, just like the Danish people do with their gardens.  In Alma 32, Alma compares faith unto a little seed.  He invites us to experiment upon his words and try to grow this seed by feasting upon the words of Christ and praying unto the Lord our God with all the energy of heart.  If we do not cast this seed out by our unbelief it will begin to Swell in our hearts, Enlarge our souls, Enlighten our understanding, and be most Delicious.  Alma 32 is just an all around phenomenal chapter that I think you all should read.  Faith is important and can easily dwindle without the proper nourishment it needs, and I hope that reading about how much faith has helped me this week has inspired you to want to see similar miracles in your day to day lives :)

Jeg elsker jer så meget og har en fantastisk uge! 

Søster Esplin

raya.esplin@myldsmail.net