Hi Mom and Dad,
Sorry everything is so crazy
for you right now, but I'm glad you're surviving. Tell Laurel and Sage
hi for me. Everything's going fine for me in the MTC, and I'm kind of
into the groove of things. I'm starting to get a little bored though,
because we pretty much just do the same thing every day. Our schedule
did change though, and I kind of hate the new schedule, but I'm trying
to be positive. With the new schedule we have gym time at 6:25 in the
morning, and then we don't have breakfast until 8:45. I'm pretty hungry
by then haha. With thye new schedule we have about 8 or more hours of
class and studying on our own straight without any breaks besides lunch
and dinner, so it's really hard to focus for that long. We also have our
P-day and service day on the same day and tons of other people here
have P-day on Tuesday so its hard to find washers for our laundry and
computers to email on. I guess it could be a lot worse though, so I'm
trying to be optimistic, it's just hard to have our great schedule
change to something like this.
My Sunday was pretty good though. I love Sundays here. We
always have great priesthood meetings and sacrament meetings. for
sacrament meeting each week we have to prepare a three to five minute
talk, and then our branch presidency will call on 2-3 people randomely
during sacrement meeting to give their talk. My companion Elder Walsh
got called up this week. He hadn't prepared much, but he did a great
job. I was just grateful it wasn't me haha. Every Sunday night and
Tuesday night we have firesides. This Sunday we heard from Elder Allen
(he does something with the missionary department). He gave a wonderful
talk, and it was ridiculously funny at the same time. He pretty much
just told us, that even if we're discouraged or having a hard time and
missing people, just keep going. Our mission isn't meant to be easy. One
thing I really liked about what he said, is that if we wear the name of
Christ, on our nametags, it will be hard, and we will have suffering
and afflictions. We can't wear his name without going through trials.
I'm not sure if thatmade sense over email, but I liked it. He also read a
great scripture, in the BOM, where it says Ammon and his brothers were
discouraged on their mission to the lamanites, and thinking about
turning back, but when they were discouraged, they were comforted, and
continued on. I actually also said the opening prayer in that fireside
so I got to meet Elder allen afterward. He asked us where we were going
and we said Denmark, and he took us aside and told us "Don't let others
tell you you won't baptize much over there, as soon as you start to
think that, you won't. But if you do your best and believe you will
baptize, you will." I thought that was pretty cool that he went out of
his way to say that to us. I'm not sure if you've heard this yet, but we
were told that one of the apostles while he was in Denmark, told our
mission president, that the second harvest in Denmark was going to
happen soon, and it might even happen while our mission president was
there. I heard that when missionaries first went there about 80,000 were
converted and immigreated to the U.S. That same apostle said that the
second harvest would be much greatere than the first. I know I've been
told that the Denmark mission will be hard, and I'm sure it will be, but
things are starting to happen, and many more people are already
starting to join the church. The missionary work is increasing like
never before, and I believe we can truly make a difference there.
I've been pretty much just learning a lot of vocabulary and
how to construct sentences well in Danish lately. The hardest part is
you have to conjugate all the verbs and know if they're type 1, type 2,
or irregular, and then depending on if a noun is common or neuter, you
have to change the ending of the adjective your using, and so on and so
on haha. So it's pretty complex. I can definitely carry on a
conversation though, I'm just not very fast at speaking, and don't
always understand what people are saying to me. We actually had our
first TRC experience on Friday. The TRC is pretty much were we teach a
lesson to people we don't know who speak Danish. It was actually really
cool. I admit I didn't understand everything, but I feel like I
understood a decent amount. One of the people we talked to was sister
Whitesomething (haha I don't remember exactly), but she recognized me
last name, and it turns out she served a mission in Denmark at the same
time as Uncle Mike. So say hi to uncle Mike from her for me haha. There
was actually a nonmember investigator with her. She was a junior in high
school, foreign exchange student from Denmark. It was a pretty cool
experience getting to teach her. We think it went well haha, so
hopefully we didn't scare her off. So pretty much, Danish is hard, but I
feel like i'm getting it, and will be able to speak it well someday.
Thanks Mom, I would love to have those things, and I hope
everything gets less crazy for you once Rebecca and Erik get here. So
far the only people I've gotten letters from are you, Dad, Rebecca,
Katherine, Ashley, Sister Ekins, Brandon, and a late birthday card from
Grandma. I'm honestly fine with not getting a ton of mail though,
because it seems like my whole P-day is just scrambling to write
letters. I must admit I do love letters though, they really brighten my
day, so even if I can't reply to them, keep them coming my way. Tell Sister Ekins sorry I didn't reply to her letter yet. I'm really glad to
hear that dad's job is going so well too. Those lasers sound like a lot
of fun, and I have to admit I'm kinda jealous haha. Oh and I thought I
should let you know, my favorite word in Danish is Kakerlak. That means
Cockroach haha. I swear, I remember the most useless words, I already
know a bunch of crazy animal names and can tell people giant animals are
going to eat their heads and things like that, but can't remember what I
really need to learn haha. Oh and the Dutch and Icelanders left this
week. I sent you pictures of me with some of them. I have to say I'm
going to really miss them, but I'm happy they got their visas and that
they're out in the mission field now. haha before Elder Rudolph left I
stupidly carried him around on my back, and was in pain for the rest of
the day (he ways around 320 pounds and played football in college). It
was fun though, and I am really going to miss him. I can't think of
anything else to say for now besides, I hope everything is wonderful for
all of you're all always in my prayers. En stor kakerlak spise din arm
hahaha. Jeg elsker dig!
-Ældste Redd
