Mormon 9:18 - September 26, 2016

A fun church.

18 And who shall say that Jesus Christ did not do many mighty miracles? And there were many mighty miracles wrought by the hands of the apostles.

Everyone,

It has been a crazy week for us here in Randers. The phone has rang and buzzed way to many times. Several things happened with tickets to Århus and Elder Johansen that everything felt upside down.

Elder Erikson and Johansen

Monday I arrived, and Elder Johansen got called all day about his Visa. On Wednesday after district meeting he got emergency called to København to have a meeting at the US embasy. He got home on Thursday night tired and worn out from all of it. It wasn't hard for him, because all he did was sitt in the offices for three hours waiting for his five minute conversation (Are you mormon missionary going  to Provo? Yes. You are cleared for your visa.). He came back excited to go, but also a little sad that his time here will be ending soon.

I met almost all of our investigators this week. Elder Johansen and Elder Eriksen have been doing great work here. I am excited to continue helping these people.

Henrik is in his 30s. He says that he is Athiest, but is willing to listen to us. We had a wonderful lesson on Jesu Kristi Evangelium. You could see the Spirit working on him as we talked. He didn't have very many hard questions for us which my companions say is unusual.

Our apartment

Jens is an older man who lost his wife about 10 years ago. This was a second lesson with him, and we ended up teaching the Restoration. They taught him Frelsesplanen the first time because it applied to him. He seems like an interesting man because he doesn't want to have lessons every week. It will be something to work on with him.

I also met Brian. He is an anline referral. He travels to Utah quite often due to his job (Essential Oils). His co workers there introduced him to the gospel, and he has been taking lessons with missionaries here in Randers. He has a great knowledge about the gospel. The only thing is that he doesn't feel like he has the faith to become a member. It is always hard to hear that. Our lesson this week was the evidence of our faith with a focus on repentance. He was very quite during the lesson, but you could see him thinking about what we had said.

This week we had two member splits. The ward list is huge, and the members don't know who most of the people are. I went out with a young man named Joakim. Long story short, he served in the German Alpine Speaking Mission, and knows Grandma and Grandpa. He also said that his MTC teacher was Uncle Jake. it was a fun connection to make here.

Erik is one of the members that I have met here in Randers. He is very nice, and talks about all sorts of interesting things. During dinner he said that some people thought that his hobbies were weird. He collects stamps, and builds model trains. He got so excited when I calmly said that I do the same things. He took me to cupboard, and showed me the sets that he will build this winter. All of them are Model Z. These are the ones that are the smallest you can get. One of the boxes showed 200 Euros on it, so that was a little odd. He says that he is going to buy a car soon. The rumor is that he is really rich, or one of the three Nephites.

We were invited by the Bible Study here to go to a youth program at there church. It was approved last transfer,s o we tried it this week. It was interesting. Thirty minutes of singing to rock music, and then a great sermon afterwards by one of the youth. The commitment was invite someone to come. It isn't for their church, but we are already doing that.

Stake Conference was in Århus this week. This means that I won't meet the branch until week three of the transfer. The main speaker was from Norway. A member came up and asked if a Norsk or American accent was harder to understand. All the missionaries said Norsk, and all the members said American. He asked because one of the talks was given by an American. It was my favorite because it showed how much good you can do in five minutes.

That is a lot for this week. Elder Johansen is from Nykøbing Falster, Denmark. He will be leaving soon to go to the Provo Utah Mission. Elder Ericksen is from Morgan, Utah. They are both great companions, and I have learned lots from both of them already.

Elder Francis

PS. Everything is in red because I can't change it out of Danish here, so sorry is I have really bad spelling.