9.23.14

From: "Conner Ludlow" <conner.ludlow@myldsmail.net>

Hej!

 

We had a great week! And the best part is that it wasn't only a great week, but it also set up this week really well. We found 2 new investigators. The first is Elliot, and I guess we can't really say we found him, it was all the members! He is dancing in the same group as some Americans that are in our branch for a couple months, and they became friends and started to have bible studies together. Then, Brandon and Vashti invited him to church and he came! He was interested to learning and he even came with some questions for us missionaries. Vashti came up and talked to me after church and said that he was interested in taking the lessons to learn more, and asked if we would teach him! So on Tuesday we are having dinner with Brandon, Vashti, and Elliot at Ole and Linda Donatis home (Members in our branch. Our danish grandparents they call themselves) and after, we will teach him the first lesson. We are really excited for that!

 

We also found a new investigator named Lisa. She is a single lady in maybe her 60s and lives in Sejs. We contacted a referral in Sejs a couple weeks back and then knocked around the referral, and that is when we first ran into Lisa. She was really nice and showed us some paintings she had made of Christ and told us about her religious background, and then we talked about what we do is missionaries and gave her a Mormons Bog, which she said she was interested in to read.  She said we could come back anytime. So we went back to Sejs this week to meet with her and she was still just as open! We sat down with her and answered some questions she had about what sacrament meeting was like and also about Mormons Bog and she was actually really interested in our sacrament meeting.  So we invited her to that and then set up an appointment to go and read the Book of Mormon with her since she has a little bit of trouble with the scripture language. We were also able to commit an old former named Kim to take the lessons again, and we were able to meet with our other investigator named Kim as well. So it was a good week!

 

Haha- it was a way fun week to end the transfer. Me and Æ. VDB survived transfers, but we could get moved mid transfer when new missionaries come when they get their visas. So we'll see! I can't believe the transfer is already over! It's nuts. I've been in Denmark longer than Fresno now! It sure doesn't feel that way. These last couple months went way fast. The weather has been perfect here, the people have been really fun and we have found more open people lately, so things are going great! 

 

I love you all! Don't miss em!

-Conner

9.17.13

Hej!

 

It was a pretty great week! We had a couple of really cool stories.

 

First, we have been trying to reactivate a girl named Ami Williamsen. She's 15 and the daughter of one of our branch members, Pam. She is really busy with a bunch of dance stuff and has almost no free time, so it has been hard to find a time to meet. But on Thursday the thought just popped into our heads during planning that we should go and visit Ami on Friday night. So we did that. And she was home! She told us how we were lucky that we had come over at that time, because the wasn't supposed to be free that night, but a couple things had fallen in place so she had some time off. Not only was it perfect timing to find her at home, but at that time they also needed help moving some boxes to their attic, since Pam and her husband have troubles lifting heavy things sometimes, and Ami wasn't really strong enough. So we were able to help them out with that and then sit down and talk with Ami. We were talking about how she likes to write songs and we got her to commit to writing a church song that she could perform in sacrament and we could help her out with the piano. She was really excited about that and told us that should work.  She would clear up her schedule to get some time to make it to church the next couple of weeks. We also talked about missionary work with her, since she had lots of questions about what it was like to be a missionary, and she started to get excited and actually gave us a referral of one of her friends! It was awesome! We are really excited about all the things that happened that night!

 

Another highlight of the week was when we visited a referral that had never been contacted.  We had found him in the area book that lived all the way out in Gjern (that was a way cool city). We went out there, just to find out that the person the referral was for wasn't home. But as we were walking away from the house a guy drove in on his lawnmower and he turned out to be the referrals dad, "Tex". We talked to him for a little bit and then he invited us into his house to show us a little art museum that he had made in one of the wings of his house (it was a pretty big house, a really old danish farm house.) It was sweet. He then started talking to us about how he had a Book of Mormon and had actually read through it a long time ago when he was in his twenties! He had always been interested in ancient civilizations and loved reading religious texts because they talked about Egypt and all of that stuff, so he had bought a Book of Mormon to read! So we sat down and answered all of his questions that he had had about the book and also about our church, and then we got to tell the Joseph Smith story and it was an amazing lesson! He was really nice and open, and all the things we said actually made pretty good sense to him! He gave us his number and told us to call him and make an appointment where we could come back and talk more! So we were really excited about that! The old referrals turned out towork well for us this week. We visited another one that hadn't been completely contacted as well. He is a 19 year old named Nicolai and he was super fun. He was really lively and just fun to talk to, It was funny that we were the same age. He let us in right away and told us how he loved learning about religion and that was why he had requested a Mormons bog. So we gave it to him and then he straight up asked, "so how did this book come to be?" That made for an easy transition into the restoration lesson haha. We told him about the restoration and prophets and then he asked "So how do you know this is true?" It was funny because he was pretty much just feeding to the flow of the lesson with his questions! So we told him how we came to know that it was true for ourselves, and then read the promise in Moroni that he could get the same answer that we have gotten if he reads and prays about it, and committed him to try the promise out. It was awesome! We told him how one of the things we do as missionaries is have little discussions about our church about what we believe and offered to come and tell him more, and he said yes! So contacting those old referrals turned out to be really good for us this week in Silkeborg! We are really excited about the work this week.

 

Hope everyone had a fantastic week! I'm doing great here and loving every second of it! I love you all!

 

Dont miss em!

 

-Conner

 

Pictures: skipping rocks and some kind of modern art thing.

9.2.13

HEJ!

 

So sorry for the rushed email last week...I totally ran out of time and had to hurry and throw one together before the computer kicked me out. I was hoping to get more in than just my hand bleeding, but that was all I got to. And I sent that email with seriously only 1 second left on the computer. But I have more time this week. Which is great because it was a fun week!!

 

Himmelbjerg last Monday was way fun! You could see forever from the top of it, even though it was only 500 feet tall. It only took about 15 minutes to hike down and then up it again haha. The parking lot was actually on top of the mountain. But it was still really fun! And incredibly beautiful. We had a blast. Our whole branch came and also Stephen, so it was a really good time! We also got to go to a little town called Gammel Ry. Gammel means old, and it was definitely fitting for this town. It was pretty small and just super old. Like sheep everywhere and the old danish houses with the grass roofs and bright colors and an old church and... a windmill! It was pretty much exactly what I had expected rural Denmark to be like. So we had a really good time there. We visited (or tried, they had moved) a couple of less active members and a couple of former investigators. Then we had to wait about 2 hours for the bus (only 2 buses come a day) so we went and knocked doors in the neighborhood around the windmill, that was super fun. The people there were nice. none of them were really open to the gospel, but they would sit and talk with us instead of just saying nej, tak and shutting the door. It was unreal knocking in that town though. It felt like I was in a movie or something, everything was just sooo old. And the people had some crazy danish jusk accents haha. I wish you all could hear these jusk accents. They are so funny. It pretty much sounds like mumbling with an s sound every now and then. But I can understand it now! Which is great. The work just keeps getting more and more fun with the more that I understand! I love it.

 

So highlight of Sunday: We have this inactive named Katharine. She was baptized 6 years ago and hasn't come to church since. Missionaries (including us) are always working on her because she is pretty fun and gives you hope that she will come, but then she doesn't. So our branch president had told us that maybe it was time to cut down the visits with her because they just weren't working. But we decided to visit her one last time. So we went and did service with her on Saturday and got her to commit to come to church. We told her about how we were doing a musical number in church (haha yeah we did a musical number) so she had to at least come to see that, and we also told her that we would ride our bikes to church with her in the morning. So we showed up at her house before church and.... She came!! We were so stoked! We got to church and the members were so surprised and they all invited her to come sit next to them and they were tickling her back during sacrament and totally excited about her coming back. One member even offered to give her a ride to church every week and Katharine said yes! After she told us how great she felt now that she had gone to church again and that she couldn't wait for next week!! awesome right? We were really excited for her. Hopefully she keeps coming! Frederick was in århus yesterday so he couldn't come to church, but he is still doing good and progressing, but not much new news with him. He's getting pretty busy with school so hopefully that doesn't get in the way!

 

So those were the highlights of the week! Pretty darn good. Silkeborg is still the best. The work is starting to pick up so we are getting more lessons in and it's great! I love it here! Hope all is going well with every one! Have a fantastic week! I love you all!

 

-Conner