You are Awesome

August 13, 2018

Danish Word of the Week: fedt - means ''fat'' but Danish people use it like we use ''cool'' hahah

Danish Fun Fact: There is a statue on the coast of Copenhagen named ''Kristina'' which is a statue about the Church!! OUR church! Underneath her are the names of Danish converts that left for the states when the first missionaries got to Denmark.  More on this later.  

So this week was incredible, but such is the case with every week.  

Monday was great.  We had a nice, chill pday.  We then went to a members for a family home evening with our friends Koosha and Niloufar! We had a spiritual thought about fiathe and ate some fruit pie.  Koosha and Niloufar are the cutest couple.  Niloufar is BEAUTIFUL and Koosha is really cool.  They bought us mugs! They are matching mugs that say ''sister'' on them, so that is adorable.  

Tuesday - Sometimes life gives you lemons and your nicely planned day goes out the window.  We had 4 appointments scheduled for today so we were running a tight ship already.  We ran downstairs to hop on our bikes and low and behold... MY TIRE IS FLAT! so we pump it up real quick  and go.  We get about halfway to our destination and I notice that my bike is clunking, so we hop off and pump it up again and hop back on.  5 minutes later, it's flat again.  For the rest of our journey we bike 5 minutes, pump my tire for a minute, bike, pump, bike, pump, and bike until we finally get to our lesson.  We showed up to our lesson half an hour late, but it ended up being totally okay.  We met with this wonderful woman named Liliana from Albania.  It was a great appointment and we are coming back next week! We took the train back to Lyngby and walked 20 min home.  We were pretty sure that my tube had a hole so we ran upstairs to discover that our apartment does NOT have tube patches, like we'd originally thought.  So after eating some lunch (we were hungry, okay?)and cooking some æbleskiver we walked 20 min back down by the Lyngby train station to a store where you can buy cheap tube patches, which the store did not have.  So we settled on some self-adheisive patches instead and got to work on the bike.  We found a grassy patch across from the mall and took apart my bike.  People walked passed us and a few expressed to us that they were very impressed with us fixing our own bikes in skirts and dresses.  We patched the tube, put the bike back together, the patch fell off, so we did the process again.  No luck.  We ended up just leaving our bikes and walked up the crazy big hill to DTU campus. Took us another 20 minutes.  There, we met with Koosha and Niloufar, and our bishop came too.  We brought him so that he could get to know the people that we are working with.  We had a great lesson about the gospel of Jesus Christ and we brought them the æbleskiver to thank them for the mugs that they bought us.  Bishop also stayed for our appointment with Koo, whom we taught the restoration to.  Koo is doing wonderfully.  He said that the CDs we gave him were so beautiful that he almost cried. After these appointments (and one that we had to cancel), the office elders came to our rescue with REAL tube patches and nice bike tools.  Shortly afterward, my bike with in tip top condition.  Boy are bikes our best buddies.  

Wednesday - We brought bishop with us (again) to teach Kim the law of tithing, and it went fabulously.  Kim was very open and willing to pay tithing! woot woot! It is also Søster Calame's 9 month mark, so we naturally got a pastry to celebrate.  After a lesson with our dear Lene, we had dinner with an American family!! Their kids are SO. CUTE. They showed us gymnastics and played the ukulele, and just entertained us the whole night.  It was great.

Thursday - Had a great district meeting, helped some members paint their wall, and did some knocking.  Søster Calame and I have been extremely tired lately (despite getting to bed early and waking up on time), but we pushed through our exhaustion and found some pretty cool and potential people! So we are excited about that.  One guy in particular we found is named Christoffer.  He claims to be an atheist, but is an active seeker of God.  We had a good conversation with him and ended up telling him our Zodiac Signs (since Søster Calame and I have the same birthday we are both sagittarius) and he told us the many meanings behind such things.  It was pretty funny and he is excited to read the Book of Mormon.  

Friday - We met with this really cool guy we met a few weeks ago.  He is from Canada and is studying his PhD here.  Our lesson was very interesting.  We had originally planned to talk about the Plan of Salvation which still happened, in a way.  He is very concerned for the future of man-kind and also excited.  We listened to his dreams of eventually reaching a higher level of intelligence, one beyond that which we have now, and us creating our perfect bodies. So we tried to teach him about how that will happen to not only future generations, but us here right now.  We tried to help him understand his divine identity as a son and heir of our Father in Heaven, which I guess is a little deep for a first lesson, but I think that it actually helped him.  I feel like that is what he needed.  He is very determined to read the Book of Mormon and I am confident that he will recognize the Spirit as he reads.  We also met with Koo which was wonderful, as always.  Later that night, just before we began making dinner, we called some members to try to find a ride to church for one of our less-actives.  We called this one member named Bent and he said that he wasn't going to be there on sunday, but invited us out for some ice cream instead.  His wife is not a member, so we thought that this would be a wonderful missionary opportunity.  We readily agreed.  After getting into their car they basically kidnapped us (in the most fun and loving way) and took us to see the Kristina statue aforementioned.  It was really cool to not only see a Danish monument about our church, but also to see the names of so many converts.  It was a very special experience.  The ice cream afterwards was also very special.  

Saturday - was great.  Lots of planning, lots of planning.  

Sunday - Koo and Kim came to church! Kim came wearing the white shirt and tie that we bought him. Also, LENE CAME!!! She hasn't come to church in the year and a half that she has lived here in Lyngby, so this was quite a feat.  It was a great church meeting.  Later that night we were out knocking when we came to a door with a doormat that said, ''come in, we are awesome!'' so when the lady opened the door I said, ''You are Awesome!!'' We all laughed about that for a little bit.  we had our conversation and before she closed the door I said, ''don't forget: you are awesome.''

Which brings me to my little thought for this week.  We are awesome.  The gospel is awesome.  Being a missionary is awesome.  I could keep going with the awesome things I am and the awesome things I see around me.  I think that I really needed to see that doormat to be reminded of the awesome-ness of life.  Don't forget: you are awesome.  

Tak for alt og ha' en god uge! 

MKH, Søster Esplin

raya.esplin@myldsmail.net