Hi Everyone,

 

      Thanks for the email mom, and I'm glad to hear things are going well. I'm kinda jealous of the crazy tree to tree adventure park dad went too, and I hope you still enjoy giving people shots ha ha, I know you used to. And ha ha mom I'll be fine in the winter, I've talked to a lot of missionaries that have weathered furious winters and barely any of them have ever bought boots, and they all have normal scarfs. I actually must have read your mind the other day though, because I did buy boots ha ha. They were around 70 dollars (400 kroner) so they were a bit expensive, but they're really nice and warm and they were on a great sale, and I only spent 100 dollars on a jacket instead of 400 like my packet said I should, so I can justify it ha ha. Lucky I bought those boots too, because I'm heading to the northern tip of Denmark! None of the visas came when they were supposed to, so I'm still in Roskilde right now, but last Thursday we got a call from president Sederholm telling us that almost all the visas had come. We're going to have all 6 missionaries we need in Roskilde, but he's actually sending me off to Fredikshavn, in North Jutland to finish up training Ældste Call, who is actually from Oregon just like me. I'm sad to leave the Roskilde ward and all the friends I've made, but I'm also really excited to go somewhere new and have a fresh start. Church was kinda hard saying goodbye to everyone, but I really am way excited. Our ward mission leaders wife Marriane is from Fredikshaven also so I've heard a lot of great things about it. Skagen is in my area too, and that's where the two seas meet and you can see a line where the waves crash together, so that's way cool. OK now I'll answer your questions, and I already answered 1 and 2 so I'll start with 3.

 

3. Yeah I'm eating some, but definitely not as many as I should. And no I'm not taking vitamin D yet. It's actually been decently sunny, it's just quite windy and cold. Supposedly it's supposed to go below freezing soon if it hasn't already at night. And we've actually had a ton of eating appointments lately, so I'm eating well, especially since everyone who can't finish their food just scoops it onto my plate and I eat it all (that actually happened at an eating appointment the other day hahaha). And we get 1500 kroner a month which is almost 300 dollars. It's over twice as much as you get in the states. So as long as we budget (foods pretty expensive) we're fine. We actually have extra this month so we're going to endless sushi ha ha.

4. Church was the best part of my week, just being able to say goodbye and be with all my great friends.

5. I honestly am very grateful to be going to Fredikshavn on Thursday. I had actually been praying to go somewhere new and begin again kind of. I love Roskilde and all the people, but being in the Taåstrup area and apartment just reminds me of the first two months of my mission and my wonderful training experience... So I was really praying and hoping to go, and just when I had given up I got the call from president. It just really strengthened my testimony that God knows us personally and he knows our needs and wants.

6. Hmm, I think it was just bearing my testimony of the savior to Charlotte with the Anderson Family. It was really wonderful, and the spirit was really strong.

 

Sorry I don't have time to write a long email right now, for some reason the computers we're on only give us half the time to email and I have to email President. Have a great week though!

 

Ældste Redd

 

 

Hey Everyone,

 

      Thanks for the picture dad, and ha ha yeah we're definitely starting to see some weather changes here in Denmark. It's been getting a lot colder quite quickly. it's supposed to get down to 3 degrees Celsius this week, and most nights it gets down into the low 40s i feel like. So yeah we definitely have jacket weather now ha ha. It's come quite suddenly too. Oh and I also got my razor in the mail, and it works extremely well. way better then anything I've ever used before, so thank you so much for sending that, it really helps a lot, oh and I found an old camera cord in the Roskilde Apartment that Works with my camera, so you don't have to worry about sending me an sd Card reader now. That's way cool that Aunt Adele came down though. I feel like I haven't seen Adele or Alex or Herb in forever. I'm glad that you had fun with aunt Adele though. That's way cool about our ward though, it sounds like before long they might have to split the ward if it keeps growing as fast as it is now. And actually I gave Brother Ilskow a Blessing in English, almost all Danes speak English, and they said they'd rather have us say it in English and know how to say everything, but I'm sure I'll have the opportunity to give plenty of blessings in Danish too.

        Zone conference was really good this past week though. I really enjoy gathering as a zone and seeing all of my friends, and listening to president Sederholm. President Sederholm is an amazing man, and pretty much every time he speaks I feel the spirit. He had actually just had a European mission conference with Ældste Oaks and Ældste Ballard in France. President Sederholm kinda laid down the law a bit with some of the mission rules like music and reading unapproved books. He pretty much just said only listen to hymns and EFY music, so no obscure Christian bands and stuff like that. Not going to lie I'm not too happy about that, but I'm willing to do what he says, even if others aren't. I'm really glad to be in this mission though, because we're not overly strict on Things, and there aren't tons of random rules not in the White handbook for our mission. It's a great mission and we have a great man leading it. President Sederholm also talked a lot about having the faith to find though.One thing that he always says that really hits me, is we believe in Christ, but do we believe Christ. We all know from the prophets and apostles that the time for the gathering of Israel is now, and we have also been told of the second harvest in Scandinavia and that there are more people prepared for the gospel than we could ever teach. The hard part is really keeping that in your heart after having doors slammed in your face and numberless nej taks. He focused a lot on praying to know where to go, rather than just going and knocking some random doors or talking to people in a random place. He then sent us all out into Copenhagen contacting people, whether we knew the city or not. Ældste Metcalf and I had a great time doing that, and while we didn't have anything spectacular happen we had a great time doing it. We did talk to a drunk guy for a while and give him a book of Mormon. We made good friends with him and he took a picture with (the Mormons ha ha) us, and told us to go out and drink and party for a day just to experience life ha ha. We got completely lost on our way back though, but we made it back eventually. It was a really good conference though, and I learned a lot from it, now I just have to learn to apply it.

      This week was kinda crazy to be honest though. We only had two normal work days in our area, but they we're pretty good. We painted a lot in the Roskilde Apartment and helped that get ready for when new missionaries come. Unfortunately though, we found out only three visas came this transfer, so we won't have new missionaries in our area yet. So if there's one thing you could pray and fast for to help, I would say pray and fast for visas to come. We have 18 missionaries waiting to come to Denmark right now, and we need them. So for now Ældste Metcalf and I are still together, but if even one visa comes Elder Metcalf will be training them (unless there a sister missionary of course), and I'll either be with someone else in Taåstrup or I'll get sent off somewhere else. We've heard that visas will probably come in a week or two though, so it will probably be sometime soon. So yeah this week has been a bit crazy, and we didn't have a whole lot of lessons. We did meet with Charlotte again this week though, and she came to church. She really is gaining a testimony and its amazing to see. She's really worried about the word of wisdom though, because she's tried to quit smoking before and had a really hard time. So if you want to pray for her too you could.

     Actually this week we went to Newkobing (South of Sjæland) for store splits. We had 8 missionaries go down there with the Newkøbing elders and we all went on splits with the members. It was really fun ha ha, we had to go up the night before, so it was kinda like a giant missionary sleep over in the Newkøbing apartment. We all had a great time getting to know each other and played a hilarious game called beenboozled with jellybeans. There are around 8 different colors, and there are a couple of each color, and some of each color are good flavors, but some are terrible ha ha. I ended up eating one flavored centipede, and another flavored canned dog food ha ha, they were terrible. Our splits the next day with members went really well too though. We got to know some of the great members down there, and we also had some good conversations and gave out some Book of Mormons. I think it helped strengthen the testimonies of some of the members, on how important member missionary work is, because we didn't have all that much success with about 20 people going out and knocking on doors, and they realized that the people we know are generally a lot more open and willing to talk about things like the church. It was a great experience though, and a great week. I hope all of you have a wonderful week, and that all is well at home. Jeg elsker jere!

 

-Ælste Redd

Harry potter sized spiders, moving back to tåstrup, and a whole lot of lessons

Hi Mom and Dad and everyone else,

     That's great to hear, I'm glad the Von Scheels sent you that. I was actually on splits in the Zone leaders area when we met with them. They're a super nice family, and they've actually got two sons out on missions right now. Ha ha I remember when you used to bribe me to smile too. Believe it or not I'm not always all that happy here though, but luckily I do know how to smile haha. I haven't gotten it yet, but I'll be at the mission home tomorrow for zone conference so I should find out. Thanks a ton for sending it. And Mom don't worry, I won't burn our apartment down, I mean, what's the worst that could happen, there are only two pyromaniac 19 year old boys with lighters and candles in pretty much every apartment in the mission hahahaha. You really don't have to worry though mom, we'll be fine. That's sad that the Grasley's are gone, it seems crazy to me to think they won't always be the house behind us with the gate in between. That will be a little deprressing when I get home. I'm glad Nick is excited to go on his mission though and that he's doing well. I'll be sure to shoot him an email. I'm really sad to here about Brother Newton though. That would be really hard. I'm honestly not sure if I could survive having to pour liquified food through my teeth to eat. How long does his jaw have to be like that? I honestly didn't know Brandon was in a bug infested apartment though. I haven't really gotten any emails from him. I emailed him while I was in the MTC, but if I remember right I didn't get anything back and I wasn't sure if I had the right email or not. I'm glad he got out of there though, and that he's doing better now. I'm happy to here things are going well in church and everything too, and make sure to tell Nick Newton to get well soon for me. That sounds extremely hard. I'll definitely keep him in my prayers. 

Ok Now I'll try my best to Answer your questions.

1. I'm not really sure what kind of details you want about our investigators. Do you want stories about visits, or just details about them? I generally tell you most of the good stories as they come. To be honest a few of the people we've been working with have kind of fallen through a bit. It's really sad to see, especially after we become such good friends with people and then something happens and things just don't work out. We're teaching a lot and having s decent amount of success for Denmark, but to be honest it's pretty depressing at times. I'll try to share at least one good story or two with you towards the end of my email though.

2. No, I'm not writing in my Journal every day. I was towards the beginning, but all my journal entries were pretty much, it was another day of misisonary work today... So I stopped doing that and now I try to write once or twice a week. I know I probably should write more, but I don't see the point in writing every day if your entries are just going to be pretty much meaningless, because going back and reading my journal, most of it was pretty meaningless ha ha.

3. I'm doing fine with the weather, it's starting to get a little bit colder, but the sun still comes out on a lot of days. I honestly haven't been taking any vitamin D yet, because I've been getting plenty of sun. I've been taking the multivitamins still though. 

4. I actually found some warm gloves in the roskilde apartment that someone else left behind. I seem to be good at finding stuff other misisonaries left ha ha. I've already found two nice scarfs, and gotten a really nice pair of pants and a pair of ecco shoes from my old companion ha ha. I haven't found a suit yet though, but mine right now is lasting fine, but i'm keeping my eyes out for deals on suits.

Now to just tell you about my week as a whole. We've had a pretty insane week to be honest. We haven't had any time to knock on doors (except for half an hour while waiting for a member who was late to our appointment) because we've just had so many lessons. We've just been driving around a ton to and from appointments. I think one of my favorite appointments was with Familien Ilskov in our ward for FHE. We went over and had dinner and then had a family home evening lesson with them. We talked about what we're thankful for and read some great scriptures and watched the mormon message "in the spirit of thaksgiving." It went really well and the spirit was really strong. Afterward Brother Ilskov asked us for a blessing because he was feeling sick and was going through a really tough time at work. I had the chance to give the blessing, and it was just a really good experience for me and hopefully for everyone else too. 

     We also had a really good appointment with Naja yesterday. She's from Bhutan, and is around 26 I think. We actually met in the church after church was over and had a lesson in the room with the baptisimal font in it. We just talked about the restoration and the spirit was really strong there. Hopefully she'll decide to read the book of Mormon. But yeah those were the two most memorable lessons for me this week. Sorry I'm running out of time and I still have to email president, or I'd tell you more. But we also moved from Roskilde to tåstrup this week because they're repainting the roskilde apartment before the sister missionaries come. We also cleaned the Roskilde apartment, and considering there have been missionaries living there for 16 years or so, that was a bit frightening, but we found lots of cool stuff. There also happen to a whole lot of scary gigantic spiders in that apartment. I turned on a light on Saturday and there was a spider a bit bigger then a half dollar coin right next to the lightswitch on the wall ha ha ha. That's probably the 4th one we've found in the past three weeks, so the sister missionaries are going to love it there. Things are good here in Roskilde though, but i feel like I'm probably getting transfered on the 25th, so I hope I go somewhere good. have a great week everyone!

Ældste Redd

Pretty good week and Chocolate Muesli

Thanks for the email Mom and Dad, and hi to anyone else who reads this ha ha,

 

      Thanks for telling me things about your mission too, I really like hearing things like that, that worked well for you. Oh and tell mom thank you for getting my driving record from the DMV. Oh and about the electric razor, yes I would really like one. I know the brand Philips Norelco works fine, but I don't care too much about the brand I mainly just want a basic razor with three blades just like yours dad ha ha. My old one broke somehow, and I bought a cheap one here but it kinda tears up my neck and irritates my face and doesn't do that great of a job of actually shaving my face ha ha. So I just want a basic one that will work. I think the best way to get one to me would be on amazon UK though. I think I told mom about it though. I'm glad everything's going well at home and that your getting massive amounts of fruit from our trees ha ha. Oh and I had to do a double take when I saw you had bought a brand new car! I didn't think you two would ever buy a brand new car ha ha. I'm glad things are good though. I'll answer all your questions now ha ha.

 

1. My week has been really good actually. We didn't have any transfers or changes yet and I'm starting to think that won't happen until the end of September (when actual transfers are) so that's a little strange because I feel a little bit like I'm in Limbo or something working in one area that was two before and that I know will split into three next transfer ha ha. So at the end of this transfer well have two sets of Elders in our ward and a set of sisters. So that will be really cool and we'll have a lot of missionaries to work here.

 

2. I think I'm eating pretty well. I've definitely lost some weight since getting to Denmark, but that's just because I'm not eating massive amounts of food at the MTC still. We were actually getting more eating appointments when there were four elders in our ward ha ha, this week we only had one person sign up, but we randomly had someone invite us over last night and someone else invited us for tonight, so that's really nice. I love eating appointments so much. Every one always tries to get us to eat tons too, so I do... ha ha. We don't exactly eat very healthy though, because when were cooking for ourselves we don't have time to make anything very healthy, and when we're at eating appointments, people tend to just give us massive amounts of meat ha ha. At home we always have Muesli for breakfast though (kinda like oatmeal but not cooked and extremely tasty. I bet mom would love the Dark chocolate Muesli). For lunch we generally make sandwiches or something like pasta or pølser (kinda like hotdogs but way better) or fried rice. And for dinner we generally make the same type of stuff as we do for lunch.

 

3. Yeah I payed 600 Kroners for a parking ticket and my companion gave me half of that back in cash. I also bought a bike for 1000 Kroners as well though (a bit less than 200 dollars) so that's why a lot of money has been used lately. The bike I bought is extremely nice for the price I got it for though (by Danish standards). It has nice street tires (ones actually a racing tire ha ha) and fenders and a good frame and it also has all the lights and things that you need for it to be legal to ride in the dark in Denmark. So that's pretty cool, and I'll be able to use that bike my whole mission. I don't use it now because I'm in a car area, but most areas in the mission are starting to use bikes, so it should be put to good use.

 

4. I actually haven't gotten anything from him unfortunately. How's he doing though, I haven't heard anything for awhile. Is he finished with his medical school?

 

Overall this week was really good though, we had a whole ton of appointments and taught some great lessons. I feel like we have two or three people in the Taåstrup area that should be baptized within the next six months or so. It's pretty amazing to see how the work is progressing. I think the hardest thing for us right now though is just getting people to come to church. We always think we'll have a bunch of people, but we generally have one or two at most if we have anyone. So that's the toughest thing for us I think. Hmm... I 'm trying to think of a good story to tell from this week, but I don't have anything too special. It was just a good week of missionary work and I feel like we did a lot of good things. We did catch a random toad while knocking on doors though. We kept him as a pet and named it Roger ha ha. We had a little habitat place for him in the window well, but somehow he escaped one day or maybe a bird came down and ate him or something :( ha ha it was fun though. The things missionaries do to stay entertained...  Things are good here though and I'm doing much better and starting to get accustomed with being a missionary now. I think the hardest part for me has just been that I feel alone a lot of the time. I have a good companion now that I'm friends with, but it's still hard. When you're so far away from home it's hard to feel like anyone cares about you at times, I know people do, but there are times like last night where you just think what am I doing here, and is there really a point to all this. I think the important thing is to develop a relationship with Heavenly father and Christ so that you don't feel alone though. The problem for me is I don't feel I have developed that relationship enough yet to not feel alone. I have a strong testimony of important things like the book of Mormon and I'm starting to learn to follow the spirit, but I just feel alone at times. I think part of that is probably Satan's doing all he can to make me feel that way and like I shouldn't be out here, but at times I really feel that way. But more of the time I'm happy and know why I'm here. So yeah, I'm not really sure what happened in that last bit of email, but things are great, and I'm looking forward to another great week in Denmark. Jeg elsker jere.

 

Ældste Redd

A Parking Mishap and more

Hey Mom and Dad and everyone else,

 

Thanks for the letter and everything. I really like hearing all the stories and just how everything's going. It's kinda strange, I thought I'd be homesick and thinking of home a lot, but when I'm out as a missionary everyday I don't even have time to be homesick and miss everyone, but every P-day its really good to here how Things are and know that home will still be there in two years. I had a pretty good week this week. It started out pretty badly to be honest, but then it ended pretty well. I don't remember when it was, I think it might have been Wednesday, but we got a parking ticket for 600 Kroners (almost 100 dollars) just because we forgot to set a time thingy on the front of our window called a P-skiv. So we we're both pretty mad about that and then one of our really positive investigators that we thought could be baptized within the couple months stopped answering our texts and calls. And then we had no appointments because some other people couldn't meet. So we were a bit discouraged at the beginning of the week. But we actually ended up doing some really effective planning this week and we have more scheduled appointments this´coming week than I think I've ever had on my mission. So that's really exciting, and we're going to have an amazing week. We did have some good experiences this past week though. We had lots of time, so we ended up spending a lot of time contacting on the streets, knocking, and stopping by members that are less active. I think it was on Thursday, we we're out knocking on doors and having no success, and honestly pretty much no one seemed to be home. Then I saw a random apartment and thought, (or heard ha ha) we should try that one. So we went and knocked, and the third door we knocked on, before we had even said much the man invited us in. He and his friend that were there were both from Iran and one of them was Christian and the other said he was Humanist (Which is kind of Ironic because his name is Human ha ha). But One of them spoke a little bit of English and the other spoke a little bit of Danish, but neither of them spoke too well, but they told us there language was Persian, but that they'd both come to church 100%. Neither of them did unfortunately, but we were able to get them both Persian books of Mormon and went and visited one of them on Sunday after Church. We just talked to him and tried to communicate and be his friend. While we were there he opened up his new book of Mormon straight to 2nd Nephi 29 where it talks about there being more Words that God gives to his children than just in the Bible. I'm not sure if he understood a lot of what we said to him, but he just kept saying "this is a good book" in his nice broken Danish (it reminds me of when I first got here). So that was a really cool oplevulse and I was really glad that we were able to find them. We also met a really nice girl named Sophia while contacting this week, and I think if she reads Mormons bog she could really become an extremely positive investigator for us. So that was exciting too. Hmm... oh also we decided to try a new way of contacting this week. We just went to parks with lots of people and brought an American football and tried to look extremely American and passed the football a bit (ha ha people think Americans are really cool for some reason). We actually ended up playing catch with a bunch of immigrant kids for about 20 minutes and we just had a good time with them and getting to know them a little bit. It actually reminded me a lot of Africa for a little while. Next time we do that though we're going to have to try to find some older people to play though ha ha. I do think one thing that's really important to do as a missionary though is to just be nice and friendly to all the people we walk by and talk to. If we just act like robots that can only do missionary Work and talk about the gospel I feel like no one would ever want to talk to us. It's actually kind of crazy, here in Denmark there are a Whole lot of Jehovah's witnesses, but pretty much everyone hates them because they're rude when they talk to people and just don't act like they're there to be friends. Unfortunately we get mistaken for Jehovah's Witnesses a lot here, but when we tell them we're not, lots of people will get super relieved and be happy to talk to us for a little while. I feel like if you're not careful though, you could easily end up being the same way as them, and not realize that one of the most important Things about being a missionary is being a friend.

       I think that's about it for today, but I just want to say thank you for all the prayers and support and for everything you have all done for me. It means a lot, and now that I'm out here I regret not showing and expressing my thanks more often. I already feel like the person I am is changing a ton. I just feel happy almost all the time (sometimes not so much though ha ha, missionary work can be a bit depressing at times), and I feel like I'm beginning to be able to recognize the spirit more and realize that in life we really can't do everything. We have to trust in God and follow him, and if we do our best he will make up all the rest, and when you feel like you can't go on any longer he'll send you one of his tender mercies and you'll be able to carry on through the rough times.

     Haha I was going to try to end on that spiritual note, but I have to tell you a story ha ha. I remember when you were asking if I couldn't go into public parks or beaches because of topless women, and a few weeks ago we were on a train in the country and there was just a random farmer working in his field buck naked haha, so I think parks and beaches are the least of our worries haha. Denmark is a strange place. I'm having a great time though and I know that with God's help I'll always be fine, through the good and the bad, and anything that comes my way. Have a great week :)

 

Oh and no I didn't get transferred, I'm still in Roskilde with Ældste Metcalf having a great time. And the weather has been pretty good lately. It's starting to get a little chilly sometimes, and believe it or not a few trees are starting to have their leaves change colors already ha ha. I've heard from all the missionarys here that the winters are miserable though ha ha, but I'm kind of excited for winter. It'll be something new, a fun adventure in a country halfway across the world.

 

-Ældste Redd

A New Companion and New Apartment in Roskilde

Hi Mom and Dad and everyone else,

 

     I know he's a good person, just... yeah. Ha ha I'm doing great now though. I guess first I'll answer all your questions.

 

1. I actually only have one companion. I'm not sure how you thought I had two because I went back and read my email and I think it was pretty clearly said, but I only have one companion Ældste Metcalf and we're covering both of our areas. In two or three weeks we're going to get new companions though when the new missionaries get there visas. So once that happens Ældste Metcalf and I won't be together anymore and I'll be back in my old apartment in Tåstrup. Right now we live in the Roskilde apartment but we go to Taastrup every once in a while so I can check my mail then. I got the letters and pictures from the family reunion though and I really enjoyed them, so thanks a ton for that.

 

2. My companion Ældste Metcalf is from Salt Lake City Utah. Actually neither of us are senior companions though, because we've both been out for exactly the same time ha ha. Ældste Metcalf is really awesome though, he's a really hard worker and super funny. He's super spontaneous too which makes thing fun all the time. I'm a little worried I'm going to die in a car accident driving with him though, so you might want to send that driving record of mine sooner than later ha ha.

 

3. I'm still in the same area, it's just combined with one other area that is much larger so I have a lot more than what I had before. I'm going back to just my small area when more missionaries get to the mission though. I think after that I'll stay for another 4 to 10 Weeks, or possibly more, but I think it's going to become a zone leader area eventually so I doubt I'll be there for too long.

 

4. I didn't have any especially spiritual experiences this past week, but I've felt like I've had the spirit helping me a lot with Danish. I've been able to understand a lot more than I thought I could (it's still not all that much ha ha) this week and I've also been able to speak better than I thought I could as well. I actually gave a talk in church on Sunday (in Danish ha ha) and I was able to speak much better during the actual talk than I had when I practiced, and I think everyone understood me and I got lot's of compliments on my Danish and my talk afterwards. So that's been pretty cool to see. Hmm... I've had lots of funny experiences this week. Lets see, one funny one is while we were knocking in an area, some kids walked by and asked hvad lave i? (what are you doing), and we said we're missionaries and we talk to people about God, and a seven-ish year old girl just yelled well then F... you and they all took off running ha ha. Then when we were walking back to the car we saw them playing in a playground and when they saw us they ran away again, and we pretended to chase them for a little bit ha ha. I don't think a lot of people understand what American swear words mean though because little kids seem to use them a lot ha ha.

 

5. Well technically I'm not allowed to read that book because its not in the missionary library... but I read it ha ha. It was pretty good. There were some things that were really good in it but there were a few things that were a little ridiculous ha ha, but it was good.

 

6. Hmm... one thing that I think would be good to sent to me would be a pair of fairly good winter gloves that you can still do things in (not ski gloves, but leather or synthetic material would work). I've looked for gloves here and the only ones I've found weren't very good but they were over fifty dollars. how much does it cost you to send stuff though, because I guess it might be cheaper to buy them here even if they're expensive though. My feet are holding up fine though, and I really like the new socks you sent. My trainer actually left behind a pair of Ecco shoes that were too big for him, so I have two pairs of nice Ecco shoes now and they work great.

 

Thanks for everyone's letters and emails and support though. And tell Erik thanks for his as well in case I don't have time to reply. I'm doing way better now and I'm really having a blast with Ældste Metcalf. I feel like we're actually working hard now and we're having tons of fun and learning the language as well. So pretty much things are great. We've been teaching a lot of lessons to great people and helping out those that are less active. I'm going to send you some pictures now and figure some other things out too, so I hope I have time after to send more, but if not, have a great week.

 

-Ældste Redd

 

 

Short email- Changes coming

 I found out that for the time being I'm going to be serving with Ældste Metcalf and our two areas are combining. It's only for a few weeks though until the new missionaries visas get here and then Ældste Metcalf will train and I'll get an older companion from somewhere. I'm really excited to serve with Ældste Metcalf and I know well get along well. We're already good friends (we were in the MTC together) and he's a really fun person to be around. We both don't speak a ton of Danish Either, so that will be an adventure as well haha. I'm really excited for a change though. I've had a tough past two months, but I've done my best and I think better times are ahead. Now I'll finally try to answer all your questions.

1. Yes! I did get a package. I didn't think it was from the Young women though. I thought it had letters from a Sunday school class because some were from boys too. Haha, they were pretty much all the exact same and asked me if it was cold. They made me smile though. I also got two pairs of socks, some articles of faith cards, a little book called how to be an extraordinary missionary, and some candy. So that was great to get, and thanks for everything in it and say thanks to the other people that contributed to it for me.

2. Either a USB stick or CDs work fine I can play them both. Sorry though I actually have to go now, but I'll send you a better email next week.

I am a Legal Resident of Denmark Now!

Hey Everyone,

 

Thanks, this week was even better too. Yeah it is pretty funny, although I really don't eat that much, I guess I can just eat large quantities and I eat more on average than other people. I've lost about 6 pounds since getting here though, so I can't be eating too much haha. Yeah it was pretty crazy that they lost all that info, but I got my cards today so I am now a legal resident of Denmark, so I'm pretty happy about that. And well, I've been in quite a few public parks and to a beach or two, and I've never seen that, and no one here says missionaries can't go to public parks. My companion did tell me in some areas they were in they saw people doing that though, but I guess it was unavoidable to see that, so depending on where I go in Denmark I might have to get good at checking the time on my watch haha. I haven't seen two many Danes soaking in the sunshine to be honest, but then again I'm kind of in a small town area and I don't spend too much time in public parks. There are a lot of really grossly tan Danes in the summertime though, and there are tanning salons everywhere. I'm glad the family reunion went well too. It sounds like it was pretty fun. And I look forward to those letters and I'll definitely email James too. I'm surprised uncle Mike beat Dad in sock wrestling too,  getting old eh... haha.

OK now I'll answer the questions of the week.

1. My companion is leaving the area on the 15th of August. He's spending a week all over Denmark with his family then before heading out.

2. We haven't had anything much happen. We talk to her and we're definitely friends, but its not like she wants to be taught the lessons. We're planning on inviting her to church this week though.

3. Hmm... good question. I'll give you two good experiences I had this week. The first was I think on Tuesday. We were in Hedehusene and had tried to meet with some people there and had knocked previously for an hour or two, and we were both pretty tired. we still had 45 minutes before we needed to go home though. Neither of us really wanted to do much more especially if it involved knocking on doors, but I felt like we should go knock an apartment building I saw in the distance... so we did. One of the first doors we knocked on belonged to an older lady named Lyna. It so happens that she had been to an LDS church a few times before and even met with a senior missionary couple for a while. She agreed to meet with us this week and we have an appointment on Thursday. So that was a good experience for me. When we were tired and kinda just wanted to go home, I followed a prompting and kept working hard, and we found someone to meet with that has a lot of potential.

    I think my other good experience of the week was I went on companionship exchange with Ældste Strong. We just had a really good time. We didn't have tons of missionary work success, but I just had a lot of fun, which I unfortunately haven't had in awhile. I think that's why I've had a hard time some weeks honestly, my companion and I don't talk much or have fun. But I'm doing my best and some days are still great. I'm glad to be here though, and I'm excited for the coming weeks.

4. Hahaha we went to a conveyor belt sushi place and you pay a set price and then you get to eat as much as you want. So we had a little extra money for the month and went there.

5. Yep. From what I've heard it's extremely easy though. The only reason they have it is because there are a bunch of immigrants that come to Denmark never even try to learn Danish and can't communicate well. So its pretty much just to prevent that from happening.

6. Not really anything specific right now no.

 

I do still have the name brother Bigelow gave me though, but I'd have to be in that part of Denmark to contact them. I was thinking about giving it to the office as a referral, but I thought brother Bigelow míght want me specifically to contact her. Oh and another random thing. Have you heard about all the changes they mad recently for the missionary dress code? The most annoying thing is we're no longer allowed to use backpacks. We have to by shoulder bags. I bought one for 10 dollars at a Genbrug (Danish thrift shop) but wearing it at all even when I have very little in it kills my shoulder haha, so I'm a bit annoyed at that change. We can also wear lighter colors of pants like khakis now, so that's kinda sweet. There are a decent number of changes though, so you should look them up sometime. I think that's it for now though. Have a great week.

 

-Ældste Redd

Wonderful Week and Good Danish Families

Hey Mom and Dad and everyone else,

 

     I had a wonderful week this week in Denmark. Not only did I just have a good time teaching and meeting people, but it was also super sunny this week. It got up to about 90 degrees on Sunday, and it's also been extremely humid lately, so I've been burning up haha. This week we had three eating appointments three days in a row though, so that was absolutely wonderful. On Monday we had aftensmal (Dinner) with familien Koch, and we shared a good spiritual thought with them. There cousins were there so it was a little crazy´, but it was pretty fun. Then on Tuesday Elder Wright and I met with Vikas in the morning, but he forgot we were coming so there were a bunch of people sleeping in his apartment, but he still invited us in and gave us a drink (I guess its a tradition that Indian people won't let you leave without giving you something to drink haha). But then we headed to Tune and after a while had an eating appointment with familien Dalsgård. The Roskilde Elders were there too, and also two of their investigators Kim and Samantha. So we had a great time playing with there kids and eating and we actually had a really great lesson with Kim (in Denmark Kim is a boys name) and Samantha afterward. I didn't understand everything that happened in the lesson, but I do know that we were able to answer their questions and that the spirit was there, and afterward Samantha asked Elder Strong for a priesthood blessing. So that was really cool, and we have high hopes for them. They've been to church about 5 times too, and they are very nice people.

     On Wednesday we had District møde in the morning and then we went with the other elders to a conveyor belt sushi place for lunch, and this time I ate 40 plates of Sushi hahaha. I've already somehow gained the reputation of being the biggest eater in the mission and when I meet other Elders for the first time I generally get, "You're the guy that eats a ton right" hahaha. I think my companion must be spreading rumors or something. After that we went and tried to talk some people we met before though and then we went to dinner with our neighbor and her son and daughter in law. It went super well, and we had a great time. We're not really teaching her the lessons or anything, and she's made it a point that she wants to stay with the Dansk folke kirke, but she and her son and daughter and law asked a whole ton of questions about the church and seem very interested. For now we'll keep being their friends and inviting them to things though, and someday I really wouldn't be surprised if it makes a difference. Our neighbor wants to teach me Danish too, the problem is we have to have another man when we visit her because shes a single woman. So hopefully we'll be able to figure something out for that, because the more we meet the better, because every time we meet some question seems to be brought up about the church.

     Oh and we also went to the Høje tåstrup kommune (government building place) this week too to see if I would ever get my residence card thing that they were supposedly working on, and it turns out they had forgotten all about me and lost all records of me even though they had literally taken about three different copies of my passport and visa (yeah, terribly run government systems haha). So we had to figure that all out and hopefully I'll be legal before long and they'll figure it out this time. We're going to go back and check this week though haha.

     I think the only other crazy thing that happened this week is we went with Vikas on Saturday night to an Indian temple place so he could show us a little about his beliefs. It was pretty interesting and we got to wear bandanas and walk around a guy in a turban reading from a holy book. Then they took us downstairs and we all sat on mats and ate some epic Indian food that was super good. It was pretty cool, although very strange, and I didn't understand a whole lot of what was going on, so I hope I didn't disrespect anyone or their religion in any way. Vikas gave us some metal bracelet things afterward that protect against bad dreams and evil spirits too, so now I can prove I was there haha. It was pretty crazy though, and we ended up getting home late because of it, but it was a good experience. Vikas actually had to go back to India on Sunday too because his visa is expired, but hopefully he'll make it back to Denmark someday, but before he left we talked to his friend who we gave a book of Mormon to, and he wants to meet with us in three weeks when he gets back from vacation. So we think something good will come of it, and maybe Vikas will meet members of our church in India that he can communicate better with too (its pretty hard to understand him).  Overall though this week was pretty great, and I had a great time. I'm starting to get better at looking for the good in everything and trusting in the Lord to help us and build us up when times are hard. I'm really loving it here, and I wish to all of you a wonderful week. 

 

-Ældste Redd

 

Meeting with Man from India, Good Food and a Lost Wallet

Hey Everyone,

 

This week has been much better. I didn't even get sick haha. I don't feel like I've really done anything amazing, but I've at least just helped some people and been a friend to them. I've also eaten a bunch of random wild cherries that were randomly growing next to the path we were walking on. They were quite delicious haha. My companion and I have been able to talk a lot too and he shared with me how he felt at the beginning of his mission, and it was very similar to how I feel sometimes and I think most missionaries go through the same thing like Dad told me about in his email. I guess I'll just start from the beginning of my week now though.

     On Tuesday we met with a man from India named Vikas, and he and his friends actually made us some super good Indian food (haha are you jealous Katherine). We had a really good time with Vikas and his friends and gave them some Hindi Mormons boger. I don't think Vikas is actually super interested in the church, but he really needs friends and wanted to meet with us, but you never know, maybe some day he really will become interested. We had an awesome dinner with them though and even though we couldn't understand everything they said (their not super skilled in English or Danish) we had a great time with them. We may have accidentally drunk some obscure type of Indian tea though haha... oops and afterwards my stomach was killing me and I felt like I might explode haha. That was pretty great though, and actually last night we went back to Vikas's house and helped him write an appeal to some Immigration office in good English, because I guess his visa renewal was denied so he has to go back to India soon. Haha it was pretty interesting though and I think he might be working illegally here, but at least hes aloud to be in Denmark right now haha. But I'm glad we were able to help edit it for him, because there's no way the Immigration office would have understood that letter if we hadn't helped him.

    Then on Wednesday we had our quarterly interviews with president Sederholm. That was a good experience and he mainly focused for us on having the faith to find people. We had great talks with him and I can tell he really cares about us and was inspired to put us in this area together, even if we don't really know why ourselves yet. He actually promised us though that we would be able to find someone to teach that day after our interviews. So we were both pretty excited and went out expecting to find someone and we were super positive. We went to Hedehusene and went by and tried contacting a bunch of old potentials the missionaries had met in March. All of them either weren't home or just said nej tak and shut the door, or someone else that didn't recognize us answered. So that was disappointing, but then to make matters worse, my companion realized his wallet wasn't in his pocket. So we spent the next three hours or so retracing our steps and searching for his wallet, because his wallet had all his MSF (missionary support fund for food and stuff) in it and it also had our Rejsekort (our transportation card thing for getting off and on buses and trains) with a bunch of our travel money on it. We actually never found it, and by the time we finished looking it was time to go home. So not going to lie, that was pretty much the worst day ever. We were super positive and president promised us that we'd find someone, but then we pretty much just ended up searching for a wallet that we never found.

    On Thursday, we went and helped an old British handicapped guy in our ward clean up his dog poop (we do it every week) and bought him some butter. He has two giant German shepherds one of which is completely insane because it never sees people and when we come its tail starts wagging and it thinks its tail is a demon or something and just tries to attack it the whole time. We helped him though and then we went to try to meet an 80 year old lady on our ward list, but after walking a really long way we just found that Mohammed lived there now. Not going to lie they're terrible at home teaching in Denmark, so to be honest no one ever visited or knew that old lady. It's really kinda sad. But then we decided to make cookies for our neighbor because she hurt her knee and couldn't leave her apartment for a few days, so we went and did that and did some weekly planning as well.

    On Friday we decided we were kinda out of options and until we thought of some other creative way to find we needed to knock. So we decided to go knock what we call Gettoville Tåstrup. It's pretty much the most getto place in our area, and if there were ever to be shootings in Denmark, that would probably be one of the top places. I think I heard there were something like over 100 languages spoken in those apartments haha. But we went and knocked for awhile, but after maybe an hour or two, we had literally only talked to maybe four people, one of which had slammed the door on her face because she thought we were the immigration police (her daughter opened the door and apologized haha). A lot of little kids and immigrants think we're the police for some reason. So eventually we figured knocking on Friday night wasn't going to work. So we went back and gave the cookies we made to our neighbor and we actually ended up talking to her for about an hour and a half, and She's reading the Book of Mormon now, and we're eating dinner with her and her son on Wednesday. So that's honestly really awesome and I'm super excited for that.

      Saturday we played soccer in the morning with a bunch of youth in the ward and had a great time (although I now have two huge blisters on my feet haha (don't worry I'll survive). We went and set up an appointment with a less active in our ward and tried to contact other people too and we also found a bunch of cherry and plum trees and had a feast. On our way home we bought a super good pastry too. And on Sunday we actually found out we have eating appointments this week, and they finally told everyone that we're allowed to be invited to anyones home in our ward, because we're there to help and get to know everyone not just the few people that live in our area. So I'm excited for this week and I had a pretty good week too. Thanks for all the nice emails and everything you've sent me too. Have a wonderful week.

 

Ældste Redd

Still Sick and Still in Taastrup

Hey Everyone,

 

      Sorry you were all worried about me mom, and dad. I was fine, I got over being sick after two days and it definitely wasn't dehydration. I admit I probably don't drink quite enough here because there aren't water fountains anywhere, and they charge a stupid amount for water. But when I'm at my apartment I drink a ton, and whenever we go to members houses they offer us stuff to drink. But I could tell it wasn't dehydration. I got sick this week too though, and it was a much worse disease. I had a super sore throat was super tired and had a major headache and tons of congestion. My companion said when he first came to Denmark he got sick 3 or 4 times in the first couple months too, so I guess its not that unusual. I was so sick of being sick that I just went out and worked anyway though. I'm glad I did too, because we were able to meet with some members that we hadn't met yet. We did end up running about a third of a mile to catch a bus though, and that made me feel terrible enough that I had to stay in the next day. I feel fine now though I just have a little bit of a cough and sound like batman when I clear my throat. To be honest this week has kind of sucked though. We literally have no investigators and I don't feel like I'm doing anything of worth here. My companion is super mad and frustrated with how they set up our area too and he says it's the worst area situation he's ever been in. I guess the ward mission leader helped pick how the area is, but we really don't have very many active members at all in our area and just things aren't working out so good for us. I honestly have no desire to email right now either, I'm sorry. I'm just kinda frustrated and don't want to rant about how crappy our week has been. So I'm sorry if my email is short. don't worry about me though, I'm not thinking about wanting to come home or anything, and I think part of the reason president Sederholm might have been inspired to send me here is because I feel like you'd literally have to chop all my arms and legs off to make me leave my mission haha. We actually had a meeting with him and I told him how discouraged I was and he told me that earlier that day he had felt inspired to share the story of Aaron, Ammon's brother, with me. When Aaron went to preach to the Lamanites, he was rejected and cast out of the first city he visited, and he was thrown into prison at the second city he visited. After that he had great success though. Hearing president say that kind of scared the halibut out of me, because if there's one thing I've learned so far on my mission it's that mission presidents are inspired men and receive lots of revelation. So I'm hoping that wasn't a literal story for me. I think what it means though is that I'm going to face a lot of discouragement and hard times, and I need to be patient and push through all of that before I have the better times. So I hope things work out eventually and I'm trying to stay optimistic, but it's pretty hard.

       I haven't gotten a suit yet, because I'm looking for deals. I could get an H and M one for about 100 dollars, but the H&M ones that are that cheap don't fit me very well so I'm trying to find a sale. And not going to lie I'm never going to get my suit dry cleaned here because it costs about $100 to get it dry cleaned. I only wear my suit to zone conference and to church on Sunday though so I really should be fine. The biggest problem I'm going to have is not growing out of my suit pants haha. I did buy a nice winter coat for today for about $100 today though, so that was good. You can just send the package to the mission office though. It's not too far away from where I am so that should be fine. I'm pretty sure I'm going to stay in this area though because my companion is going home and I'll be the only one that knows this area. I guess maybe this area will get changed though, so I think it would be best if you just send it to the mission office. I'm sorry, but that's all I want to email about for now. So have a great week.

 

Ældste Redd

Sick and a Bit Discouraged

Hey everyone,

 

    I had another great week in Denmark, except I was pretty sick half the time. honestly I was kind of sick since last P-day but I went out and tried to work my best on Tuesday and Wednesday anyway, but on Ønsdag I was really nauseous and light headed and honestly felt like I was going to just keel over while we were walking haha. So finally I decided I should probably stay in on Thursday and rest. I really don't like staying in though, because I don't feel like I'm here too sleep and I want to do my best to go out and help people, but I needed to get better in order to do that. So I ended up sleeping probably 18-20 hours a day for two days straight, and then I finally felt mostly better. So it took awhile and was kinda miserable, but by now I feel pretty much better, still a little off, but mostly better. I managed to lose about 6 pounds in those couple days though, so now I'm about to the same weight I was before I started my mission.
     So honestly, we didn't get a whole ton done this week, and the days we were working no one was ever home. It's pretty strange to be honest, in July the nicest month of the year in Denmark, Everyone and I really mean pretty much everyone, goes on a three or four week vacation and they all disappear. So it's really hard to find people right now, but we'll do our best and I'm sure we'll find someone. We've been trying our best to work with the members to do missionary work lately, and that's how my companion has had the most success on his mission, but we've begun to realize, we have very few active people in our area. We have a few great really strong families, but most of the other active members in our ward are in the other Elders area. So were trying to find all the less active members and get them back. We're starting to have to spend more and more time knocking doors and contacting people though now, so that's kind of hard, because we really just want to be teaching and helping people, but if we have no one to teach, we'd better find them.

     Sunday was a great day though, we had a baptismal service for an eight year old in our ward. The family wanted to keep it small, so most of the people there were family members, but I kind of liked it that way and there was a special spirit there. It was absolutely wonderful, and Ældste Metcalf got to perform the baptism. it went super well, and I know everyone could feel the spirit in that room. After that the day was over and we actually stayed the night in Copenhagen with the Elders and Assistants to the President so we could stay in Copenhagen on P-DAY. That was super fun and it was great to see people and get to know some of the other Elders better. Copenhagen was awesome too. I bought two sweet skinny ties and we got to see some awesome things like ginormous Danish churches and the Queens palace. I took lots of pictures two so I'll send some later. I saw the Christus statue too. I have to go now though so have a great week. Jeg elsker jere.

 

-Ældste Redd

On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 6:37 PM, Benjamin Redd <benjamin.redd@myldsmail.net> wrote:
So sorry if this email is really lame, we didn't have much time to email today and the library closes in half an hour now. On normal p days we get up and study for two hours and then we have from 10am to 6pm to do everything. We go to some washers and dryers in our apartment complex to do our clothes and we come to the local library in Tåstrup to email and we get two hours to email. We generally buy food at a store close to our house called NETTO too.   Sorry if I forget to answer any of your questions, I just need to tell you about the week cause I'm running out of time.

July 1, 2013- Taastrup, Denmark

Dear, Mom, Dad, Family, and everyone else

Wow, yeah its definitely a lot warmer there than here. I'd say the highest it's gotten here for the past two weeks is maybe 70 degrees. Most days its been a lot colder though and its been raining almost every day as well haha. My companion says last summer was way warmer though and its really weird that its so cold. Hopefully we get some sun eventually though. And  your selling the car and renting out the basement haha, sounds like things will be a lot different by the time I get back. Hopefully you'll still live in Oregon  (you'd better not move to Costa Rica or anything crazy like that). 

     Denmark is really pretty great though, and I'm really loving it here. I'm feeling sick again today though, and my head isn't working extremely well so this email might not be quite as good as previous ones. Haha no, I think the family just felt sorry for us because we were new and had no eating appointments, so they invited us over. This week we only have one eating appointment though :(. So I'm not sure if we will continue eating super well because there honestly aren't a whole ton of active members in our area to feed us. And I haven't started eating any less yet, so I'm pretty much always starving still, but I'll survive haha. This past Sunday I didn't get quite as worn out though. I admit I still didn't really understand anything,  but I didn't feel like I had been hit by a truck just because I had tried to understand and listen for three hours like last Sunday. Don't worry though, I'll keep doing my best with the language. I'm definitely learning to speak it better, but the main problem is, every time a Dane comes up and starts speaking lightning fast I just stare at them blankly and have absolutely no clue what in the world they just said haha.

     Dang, thats really scary about what happened to Grandma. I'll keep her in my prayers. Make sure to keep me updated on that. How's Cousin max doing by the way? And it sounds like Alex didn't have a fun time getting home. There are plenty of dishonest people out there that are perfectly happy to mess up peoples lives if they get something out of it, luckily there are plenty of amazing people as well though :). Oh by the way is Alex engaged to Sara yet? 

    Other than the people I told you about in previous emails we don't have any other investigators. We've been working with some less actives though, and especially after that broadcast we're really trying to help the member missionary work expand. And I really loved that broadcast. I felt the spirit very strongly, and I know it was an inspired message that was shared. I'm excited that we'll be able to use media things such as face book, and that we'll be able to use I pads for things (its really hard to find places in Denmark with a map), but most of all I was excited about how much they talked about member missionary work. I feel bad about how terrible of a member missionary I was back at home, but I know I'll be a much better one when I do get home. I really feel like every member should watch that broadcast, and if everyone would just take it to heart, the work of the lord would progress at an amazing rate. A challenge that we've been giving to members in our area, is to pray every morning for a missionary experience that day. We also ask them to be prepared, and always have a book of Mormon that you can give them in your bag or in your car, so that if the opportunity presents itself you'll be ready to share the gospel. I would like to leave that same challenge to all of you. I feel like if every one did that it would change a lot, because honestly as missionaries, we can knock on doors all day, and have nothing come of it, but if the members are able to help find those that are ready the work can change so much for the better. That's awesome to hear about Drew and all my other friends on missions. Could you actually send me Drew's email if they're giving that out? I don't think I'll have time to write much to him, but I might send him a note and a funny picture haha. Oh and I also got a letter from Brother Dyer this week. Tell him thanks a ton for me, it was great to hear from him and I'll try to reply, but considering how much we have to do every P day it might take me a couple weeks to finish it.

    Yeah it seems crazy that I've been out three months already. It definitely doesn't seem like that long to me. I didn't have any especially awesome experiences this week, but it was still a pretty good week. Elder Metcalf and I went on Splits for a day, and we both came into the mission at the same time and were in the MTC together, so neither of us can really understand Danish haha. We were able to have a great day though. We talked to a lot of people on the street and found a lot of potential investigators that we'll hopefully get to talk to later, and we were able to get an appointment with someone who is less active, and we also helped get a less active to church. So I'd say it was a successful day, especially since we were able to speak a decent amount of Danish. Luckily where we were there were lots of African and Muslim immigrants though so a decent number couldn't speak Danish but knew English. I think I'm going to leave my email at that for today because I have a massive headache, but I hope you all have a fantastic week and jeg håber at I skal ikke blive mad for en stor Kakerlak. Jeg Elsker Jere!

-Ældste Redd

Benjamin Redd <benjamin.redd@myldsmail.net>	Jul 1
to me

Hey Mom,

Hopefully that helps. Oh and regarding the package I would still like a few conference talks in Danish and English, if you want to send them. Also I figure if your going to send a package you might just want to send any Christmas present kind of stuff with it just because I know its going to be kind of expensive. Also if you have extra room in the package i would love it if you could sent me my nice gray jean type pants and my black skinny tie haha only if there's room though (my one pair of jeans here got paint on them doing service). I really would love a package though. I love getting things in the mail. You might want to just send it to the mission office though because I'm not sure how they deliver packages here, and I'm only about half an hour away from the office by train so its not too hard for us to pick stuff like that up. I would really really really love a package though (hint hint hint :D) and I've also been told that Danish children will love you if you give them American candy so if you have room for a pack of star bursts some Danish kids will probably be really happy. I love you mom! and if I didn't say it in my last email tell dad Happy really late fathers day for me. You two have pretty much made me the person I am today, and I will be forever grateful for the wonderful family I grew up in. Have a wonderful week!

-Ældste Redd

Crazy Drunk Man, Soccer, Lots of Rain, and Marzipan Ice Cream

Hey Everyone!

The weather is pretty good in Denmark, I'm pretty sure its a bit colder than Oregon, considering I think it gets down to about 50 or 60 degrees most days at times. There also seems to be a random torrential downpour of rain at least once a day haha. It's pretty beautiful though, there are lots of trees and its really green kind of like Oregon. Haha I know they do burn a bunch of big bonfires, but I think here its on the 22nd. I unfortunately didn't get to see any though because I was at an appointment. I did help some people in our ward help clean out a forested area for service and we built a giant bonfire that I think they were planning on burning then. I'm glad to hear you had a good week though, and that things are a bit more relaxed now. I must admit I'm pretty jealous of all the fruit you're harvesting from the garden though. I actually haven't seen the broadcast for all the missionaries yet either. It wasn't at a good time for us here in Denmark, so they recorded it and we're watching it next Sunday night. I'm pretty excited for it though. I can't believe Trevor is leaving already too. It seems crazy how fast everyone is leaving to me. It sounds like the farewell went great though, and I'm pretty excited for him. That's awesome that you got a letter from Elder Kawamura too. He was a pretty great companion. He's been keeping me updated on how things are going in my old area too. There have already been two baptisms since I left. I got one picture that you attached to this email, so if you sent more I didn't get them. I'm glad Rebecca and Erik are all moved in now, but that air conditioning doesn't sound to fun. I'm actually going to have to send them an email today, because someone in my ward was on his mission at the same time as Erik in Finland and actually knows him a bit. I figure with the Memory card reader you can just send that at the same time as when you send anything for Christmas if you still want to send anything after hearing the prices haha. I can use my camera cord stuff for now, just a memory card reader would be better because that way I don't have to download all my pictures onto a computer every time, and I don't think I could find one here very easily. But just remember, if you do want to send anything for Christmas the office said to send it by September or October because the postage system gets really backed up at that time of year. and Don't send like beef Jerky or Soda, because they hate high fructose corn syrup here and they hate jerky and make you pay a huge tax to get your package if it has that stuff in it haha. over all I would just say don't send me anything besides for like Christmas though, because postage is really expensive. And I actually really love handwritten letters from people. I just hate writing handwritten letters myself haha. OK I think I've answered all the questions now so now I'll tell you about my week.

      First I got sick this week haha, so one of my days I literally slept all day long. I guess a lot of new missionaries get sick when they first get here, and they wont rest and then get really sick and can't work for a week, so my companion made me stay in and sleep and after a day I was pretty much fine again. I'm not sure if the thermometer I have works very well though because it said my temperature was 96.5 which I thought was odd haha. But other than that my week was awesome. We had a good experience with a man from the Philippines named Gilbert Gallo, or Sunshine as he prefers haha. He's pretty much explored all religions and has his own belief system. He's been meeting with the missionaries and still been searching for other religions for probably 30 years or so, and he has a lot of strange questions. At first when we met him he seemed kind of hostile and was telling us weird things like something Joseph Smith said about people living in the moon haha, but eventually we just told him, we can't answer every question, you just have to read and pray to find the truth of our church. The spirit ended up being really strong though and we have high hopes for him now.

     This week we also had three dinner appointments with the Anderson Family. They have a 23 year old son named Joakim and a 19 year old daughter Cecilia. Joakim is a return missionary and has been a huge help to us already, and is always willing to help us out when we need someone to go to appointments with us. It was great to have dinner with all of them though, and we've made great friends with them, not to mention the dinner was amazing. The third dinner appointment with them we actually brought our next door neighbor with us. We met her while we were doing our laundry, and shes really interested in doing family history, and it so happens that the Andersons are really good at family history. So we invited her along and had a great time with her and the Andersons. Because of how kind and awesome they are I honestly wouldn't be surprised if she becomes interested in the church too.

     Oh and I think I told you a little bit about it last week, but every Saturday we play soccer. This week we had some awesome members invite their friends and we had a great time with them. I actually scored another goal too haha. I'm definitely going to have to buy soccer cleats hear though because I was sliding everywhere. Soccer cleats are one of the few things that are cheaper here though because soccer is so popular haha. But while we were waiting for a bus on our way to soccer there was a crazy drunk guy by us. He yelled a lot of incoherent stuff and punched a metal pole hard enough to dent it. I'm guessing his hand doesn't feel too great now though haha.

     I admit Sundays here are really hard though. Three hours of trying to understand a language that you can't understand is pretty exhausting. I felt like I was going to pass out be the end, but after church we had a great dinner with famielien Thyssel. I ended up eating two shish kabobs, 5 pølser (kinda like hotdogs but better), and a bunch of other stuff including Marzipan Ice cream. It was so good, and we had some great conversations with them. Actually Eric Thyssel is from Sweden, and he served his mission in Finland with min Bror Erik Wiglama. He said he never served with him, but he was companions with someone in Erik's MTC group and definitely met Erik a few times. Small world right haha, I thought that was pretty cool though, and he remembered Erik being pretty funny. Hopefully the fact that their both named Eric/Erik didn't confuse you too much.

     Overall I'm just having a wonderful time here though. The missionary work is really progressing, the members are great, and Denmark is flipping amazing. I'm having a great time and believe it or not I'm starting to understand a little  more Danish and I'm starting to speak it better too, even if I can't necessarily pronounce it right haha. Have a wonderful week everyone. Jeg Elsker jere.

-Ælste Rødd

June 17, 2013- Settling into the Mission Routine

Dear Mom, Dad, and everyone else,

It's great to hear from you again. Denmark is really awesome, and I'm still doing great. I'm glad that everything's finally calming down for you and you have a bit of time to recover. It sounds like you've been having some insane past few months. I'm really sad to hear about what happened to T, and don't worry I'll be careful. First off I'll answer your questions haha.

1. I think that the whole address is Taastrup Hovedgade 8, 1tv, 2630, Taastrup. I think the HP 2630 is the postal code, but you might want to try to check online to make sure that's the postal code just in case. I also know that if you send letters to the mission office they'll forward them to me, but packages they wont forward, they'll just keep them there for us.

2. So my whole area isn't just Taastrup. Taastrup is just where my apartment is. Here's a list of the cities my area has. Taastrup, Høje Taastrup, Hedehusne, Ishøj, Greve, and Karlslund. So we've got a pretty big area, but it's actually one of the smallest if not the smallest in the Denmark mission. So most of the time we have to take the bus or train to get to places, but if we stay in Taastrup or Høje Taastrup we use our bikes. We do a whole lot of walking too haha, I'll tell you a good story about that in a little. haha sorry I keep adding things to the list, but when you do send the package could you try to find a waterproof rain cover for my backpack that you could send too. I found out that that will be extremely useful for me, and I know they sell those at most sporting goods stores in Oregon. And I'll try to send you some pictures today, but I honestly haven't taken any of just the cities I'm in. It's pretty much just roads with houses, and so I haven't taken any pictures yet. I'll try to start taking some though haha.

3. Our week has been pretty hectic to be honest. When we first got here we were given a three year old ward list and a map from 2008 haha. So we've kinda been guessing on a lot of things, but just yesterday we got a new map and a new ward list, so that will help a lot. We've visited most of the big cities in our area now though, and we kind of know the general directions of things. We have the buses and trains figured out though. We actually share our ward with the Roskilde Elders though, and so our ward is kind of split between us and them. Our actual church building is in Roskilde so it takes about 45 minutes just for us to get to the church on the bus. A lot of our members are even farther away too, and because many people in Denmark don't own cars, it's even harder to get to church for them. It seems like the farther away the people are from the church, the more there are that are inactive. I'd say we have about 60 people in our specific area though that go to our ward. I think only about 20 of them are active though, so we have a lot of work to do. All the active members that we've met are super nice though, and we've been making good friends with them.

4. Haha thankfully my companion doesn't prank me quite as bad haha. He's really nice though, and he knows a lot more than I do haha. He's great at Danish too, and I can actually almost always understand what he says in Danish. For most of his mission he served in Jutland, and his last area was Harhus. I know he did a bunch of great work there, and he and his companion, made a big difference. He also like to cook haha which is awesome, considering I don't really like too. Umm... he's pretty awesome though, and he's way better at soccer than I am thats for sure. We've been having some good times together though, and we get along great. 

5. I think I'm good on recipes. I'm eating alright though, even if we don't get fed much. Stuff is pretty expensive here though, so we kind of have to be careful about how much food we buy. We make awesome pizza Quesedilas and generally have rice or pasta with some other stuff for dinner. I admit I've already lost over 5 pounds since the MTC, but that's just because I haven't been eating massive amounts of food for every meal haha. We have good bread too that we eat a lot of, and I've also been drinking tons of milk here haha. I'll be fine though, as long as I have snacks in my backpack. The biking is fine too. We don't go too far, so honestly its easy compared to Oregon. Thanks for transferring that money. I figure I'm going to look for a good sale before I get my suit, but I would guess within the next couple of months. Honestly right now we only wear our suits on Sundays though, so I should be fine for the time being. I did buy a pair of pants and 6 ties though. The pants here are all much slimmer, so most of my pants are considered super baggy here, so I'm going to keep my eyes out for good deals. And I got all the ties at a little thrift shop for really cheap, and they're all skinny ties haha so I fit in a little better now. I'm also going to keep a lookout for good shoes at the thrift shops, because I admit my Eccos are way better for walking, and my companion found some at a thrift shop for about 8 dollars that are in perfect condition. So I'm just going to look for deals on things.

So... now to the funny stories of the week. So I guess in Denmark during the middle of the summer, there are frequent random torrential downpours in which every rain cloud in the world decides to gather over Denmark and obliterate anything below them with water haha. My companion and I experienced this on Saturday. We were in the city of Greve where it was about a 2 Kilometer walk to any members house. Luckily we were meeting a family in the safety of their home when the first wave of water hit haha. They were kind enough to give us a ride back to the train station afterwards. Me loving the rain as much as I do, told my companion we should go to someone elses house too though. I had a raincoat and he had an umbrella, and the rain had slowed a bit so I figured we'd be fine. Boy was I wrong haha. So we headed out and walked two or three Kilometers to the Thyssels house. When we were maybe halfway there it just started down pouring again though. I've never seen it rain nearly as hard in Oregon, and thats saying a lot. and of course the wind was blowing the rain sideways too haha. I had a raincoat on, but that didn't cover my pants. So by the time we got there, one half of us was sopping wet, while the other half was dry. We were just praying they hadn't moved since our three year old ward list was made haha. Luckily they hadn't and they let us in, and gave us some juice and chocolate and we got to know them really well. They're a super nice family, and the husband is actually the first counselor in the Bishopric, and asked me to bear my testimony in sacrament meeting haha. But we had a great time getting to know them, and we left a great spiritual thought. So even if we had to brave the insanity of a Danish thunderstorm, it paid off in the end, and we made some great friends. My companion might have a bit of a cold from it though haha, oops.

I'd say another great experience we had this week was meeting Bente. Bente is a nice lady in our ward who's a single mom and has two extremely energetic kids. She was baptized into the church a year ago, and she hasn't been making it to church for the past two months. So we went over and met her on Tuesday, but the third man that we were going to bring, couldn't come last minute so we could only set up another appointment, but it turns out that the next day was her Birthday, and my companions birthday. So we set up an appointment for the next day, on the condition that we make a cake haha. So I made a cake the next day out of brownie mix and Nutella frosting (it was actually surprisingly good), and then we brought it on the bus and train to Bente's house. haha It was a sunny day and the nutella was melting everywhere, and we got some pretty weird looks from everyone around us. Two random guys dressed up and carrying a cake around isn't something yo0u see everyday here I guess. haha that's something funny about the Danish people, They'll just stare straight at you even if you look back at them, and they dont really stop until you wave at them or something, and they realize they've been creepily staring at you for the past two minutes haha. But we got to Benta's, and our member friend came too this time, and we had an awesome time talking and eating cake, although her son Taj (he's extremely energetic) tried to kill my companion with a plastic light saber. He handed my companion one of his light sabers and then just started pounding it mercilessly with his own light saber. I was really surprised my companion got out of that appointment without a black eye hahaha. But once all the festivities were over, we had a great lesson about how important church was, and our member friend Michael said just what needed to be said, and the spirit was very strong. Bente said she'd start coming back to church too. I admit, she wasn't there on Sunday, but we'll keep working with her. She definitely has a testimony and wants to come back, but she does have a hard life and needs help getting back, so we're going to do our best to help in anyway we can.

I think that's all I have time for now, but I'll try to keep you updated well. I'm really loving it here and I love being a missionary. Oh and sorry if I use terrible grammar and spelling. I've noticed in my journal entries that the longer I'm here, the worse my English gets haha.

Love

        Ældste Redd

Denmark at Last- Assigned to Taastrup, Just Outside of Copenhagen

Hey mom and Dad and everyone else,

 

I'm doing great here in Denmark! I figure first things first, I'll answer all your questions.

1. My trip to Denmark was pretty good. I admit it was really long, but I was actually able to sleep quite a bit during the flights so it wasn't too bad. oh and by the way the Danish keyboard is a bit different and I cant figure out how to use an apostrophe so sorry about that. I think my first impression of Denmark was wow its really flat haha. but I'm already starting to love it here, and to be honest it kinda reminds me of home. Its really green and beautiful and there are lots of awesome trees.

2. My companion is Elder Jared Wright. He's from Georgia, but while he was on his mission his family moved to California, so he'll probably go there after his mission. He went to a year of BYU kinda like me too. He only has two months left of his mission though, so I'm going to be his last companion. Danish is going fairly well though. I'm actually able to understand most of the other missionaries when they speak in Danish. The problem is, the people speak so fast I can't really understand. I'll get it eventually though. and I've been trying to speak Danish whenever I'm outside our apartment, so I speak it quite a bit.

3. My mailing address is Taastrup Hovedgade 8, 1tv Taastrup Denmark.Hopefully you can understand that, I honestly can't say I do myself. But if it's very expensive don't worry too much about sending stuff. I also know they said if you want to send Christmas presents you should send them in September or October too, just because so many people send stuff at that time of year that it takes pretty much forever.

4. Honestly my first week has been kind of insane. I'm really jet lagged and tired, and they lost my suitcases when I first got here. So I was wearing the same stuff for about four days before I finally got my suitcases haha. I think I probably smelled pretty bad. The first two days I spent with some Elders that worked close to my area, because my companion was giving one last zone training in Jutland (he was a zone leader there). So my companion and I are opening a brand new area here in Taastrup. Taastrup is close to Roskjila if you want to find it on a map, and its fairly close to Copenhagen. The problem is, we really don't know much at all about our area, and we're sharing our ward with two other elders, so its hard to know which people are in our area or not, and we don't have a car so we use bikes and public transportation. So pretty much we're just trying to get organized and figure out our area still. my companion has a strong testimony of member missionary work to, so we really want to get to know all the members and get them excited about the missionary work.

      I'm really enjoying my experience though, and I've already had some pretty good food. I think my favorite thing that I've eaten so far was a kebab. It was like a middle eastern wrap type of thing, and it tasted amazing. I also really like the muesli with yogurt in the mornings, and I discovered I can drink Danish milk! so I'm really excited about that. Honestly I just love all the food. They don't put nearly as much junk in the food, and things like candy and popsicles don't have food coloring in them, so they're actually the color they should be haha. And honestly everything just tastes great. The members don't feed us too often, but I've already had two eating appointments. They weren't really traditional Danish food, but they were really good. At one we ate a yellow curry, and at another we had spaghetti with meat sauce haha. The people here are awesome though and they're really friendly, I just wish I could understand them haha. And my first week at church was actually stake conference. It was broadcasted from Sweden, and Elder Ballard was there. It was pretty cool, but it was all translated into Danish so I only understood a little bit. and there were some technical difficulties so it cut out early, but it was good, I just wish we could have met everyone in our ward.

5. Sorry Dad, but none yet haha.

6. Haha Oregon seems a long ways away to me now. It really was a great experience though and I'm glad I went there, even if it was just for two weeks. My second to last day we actually had a baptism for Elizabeth. I actually got to assist with the baptism too because her back was messed up and we wanted to make sure she was alright. So that was an amazing last experience to have while I was there. We also had a baptismal date set for Andrea Kid, and it was great to see how excited she was about the gospel. I really just loved seeing the happiness people receive from the gospel and how much it changes there lives. I also was great friends with my companion and my zone leaders and I really had a good time with them. I'm not really sure what else to say about Oregon besides, it was a great experience that I was glad to have, and I think I helped at least a few people.

 

I'm glad everything's going well for you and I guess we can be jet lagged together, because I still am haha. I like your idea about preach my gospel too. Members really do make a huge difference with missionary work too though, and if you have any friends that might be interested, just share a little about our church. And if investigators come to church, be friends to them. I realized how much of a difference that makes while I was in Oregon. Oh and if you could just make sure there's plenty of money on my card that would be awesome. I might be buying a bike, and I'll be buying a suit sometime too. Also it turns out no one wears normal ties in Denmark, and you don't look at all professional unless your wearing a skinny tie haha so I'll probably buy some ties too. my companion knows where to get all the deals though, I guess they have thrift shops in Denmark :D. He has the same exact Ecco brand shoes as me that he got in a thrift shop for 10 dollars haha, so I should be able to find some good deals. I'll keep you all in my prayers. Jeg elsker jere.

 

Elder Redd

 

Central Point, Oregon and Teaching the Gospel

Dear Mom and Dad,

Thanks for the Email, and I'm glad to hear everything's still going well there.Thanks for all the questions too. I guess I'll start with that.

1. I don't think you need to bring my bike down, because I'm all the way down in Central Point Oregon (right by Medford), and that would be a long drive. We have a car, but we're only allowed to drive 200 miles a month, so we pretty much have to bike everywhere, and then we use the car to go to Wal-Mart to get groceries on P-day. So I guess we're supposed to just use our bikes so the members can see that we're out working. It seems kind of weird to me though, because it takes about 40 minutes to bike to some of the farther places in our area, so we can't get nearly as much done when we're only on bikes.

2. I think I'm good on rain gear, because it doesn't rain too much down here, but if you want to send something you could send just a cheap pair of waterproof pants that I could slip over my slacks when I'm biking through the rain, because I get pretty whet when that happens.

3. Actually they don't let us use Ipods in this mission for some reason, so I don't think that would work. Everything has to be on a CD. If you have time, I would absolutely love a copy of the vocal point CD too, because I'm not allowed to listen to it when it's on my ipod.

4. None of the other Danish speakers are with me. I think they're within about a half hour driving distance from me, but I'm not sure exactly where.

5. Church went great. I met a bunch of members and two of our investigators came to church, so that was good.

6.My companion is from Tokyo, Japan. He's been out in the mission field for a whole year, and to be honest I think he speaks really good English. Sometimes when we're talking to people they don't understand everything he says because of his accent, but I can understand him fine. I asked him if he wanted anything and he jokingly said he you could send him a plane ticket to Japan haha. Don't worry he was joking haha.

7. Umm, my eating is going fine. I generally eat cereal, yogurt, a banana and a protein shake for breakfast. Then for lunch I make a sandwich or make pasta roni or macaroni, sometimes I eat rice with some cool spices my companion has though. Then we have a dinner appointment pretty much every night, so we get at least one good meal a day.

8. Yep we have one pretty much every night.

9. No, I actually had no clue there was an earthquake. Where was it and how big was it?

10. Yep, I'm still wearing my Danish nametag.

11. So on a typical day we generally have around 2 or three appointments with investigators set up, but it seems like at least half of them  cancel at the last minute. So we generally have at least one good appointment a day. Then we generally try to go to some other investigators or potential investigators houses to see them. It takes a lot of our time each day just to bike everywhere though honestly. Most days we end up tracting for at least around an hour also. We also visit a lot of less active people too.

       By the way, my address is, 226 8th St. Central Point OR 97502. If you send stuff to the mission office they'll forward it to me too though. It would be great if you would post that address on Facebook or something. So now I'll just tell you how everything's been going for me. The first day I got here I was really tired from flying and everything, and then we had a really long training in Eugene that was pretty good. Our mission president is really nice and we all got to talk to him, and then we all found out who our companions would be and then we drove three hours to Medford. I randomly started feeling super sick and threw up in a paper bag in the car haha, and then to make things worse, we didn't get back until about 11:40 at night, so we didn't get much sleep either. So the next day I still wasn't feeling very good, but luckily we had the car that day or else I might have died. I honestly don't remember what happened that day very well, but I'm sure it could have been worse. The next day I know we taught a lesson to some inactives, but as I recall all of our appointments got dropped, so I was definitely a bit discouraged. Then we went tracting and had someone yell at us and tell us we don't believe in Christ and we should throw away the Book of Mormon. So by then I was really discouraged. Then we met Andrea though. She had requested a book of Mormon online, so we went to deliver it. Her Dad was a member of the church and it's just an amazing story how well she's been prepared to recieve the gospel. We've already taught her the first two lessons now, and she came to church and started making friends, and we have a baptisimal date set for June7th when her Dad is driving down. So her Dad is going to be able to baptize her into the church. So now everytime I'm feeling discouraged I just think of her, and all the happiness the gospel has bringing her, and I don't feel so bad anymore. I'm just thankful that I was able to be one of the people to meet her. I admit my mission is really hard and discouraging at times already, but I'm really starting to feel love for the people and I'm really enjoying my mission. I hope everything keeps going well for you. I'll be keeping you in my thoughts and prayers.

Love,

          Elder Redd