Benmark in Denmark - Elder Francis in the Denmark Copenhagen Mission: Psalms 144:15

15 Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord.

Everyone,

This has been a fun Christmas here in Denmark. Spending it here in Randers has been great because we are with members who we have really come to know and love.

We had Zone Conference in Århus this week. The Grinch came the night before and took 2/3 of all of the packages from the mission van. That was really sad. The stake president came to speak to all of us, and he found out about it. He then got pens for all of the Elders and the Sisters got ornaments. Even without all of the gifts it was still Christmas for us. We had some wonderful trainings about the coming year, and Sister O'Bryant showed us The Nativity. We watched "Finding Dory" before we all traveled home.

One of the best moments this week for me happened one dark cold night. We delivered cookies, cards, and homemade nativity sets to many of the members and investigators. It was so much fun to see their surprised faces, and you could tell that it meant something to them. We tried caroling to one member family (imagine a Christmas carol with only bass). It really brought the Spirit of Christmas for us.

The Jensen Family had us over for the 24th. They had us help make some of the food. We ate flæskesteg, a type of rice pudding, brun sauce, potatoes, duck, and brown potatoes. Christmas food is some of my favorite food here in Denmark. We danced around the tree, and then they opened their gifts. They gave each of us a really thin tie. It was a wonderful Christmas for us.

Sunday we had church, and the organist was gone. They asked me last week to play, so I practised all the songs they gave me. 10 minutes before the meeting started they changed all of the songs. Some of them were Danish Christmas songs which are really hard unless you know the melody before hand. I did my best, and the branch was thankful for my simple effort.