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

8.26.13

Hej!

Another great week in Silkeborg! This city is the best. We had another really fun week. I finally feel like I'm getting to the point where I can start to have a little bit of personality with the work because I'm getting a lot more comfortable and experimental with Danish. Haha That means that I've had a lot more fails, but its been really fun at the same time. And we are going to Himmelbjerg (Danmarks højeste bjerg/høj) today after emailing with Stephen and Frederick, those two guys that I talked about in last weeks email, and a couple people from our branch! So in a couple hours we will be on top of Denmark! All 500 feet of it haha. It'll be pretty darn fun.

Yesterday was another funny day at church. I feel like church as a missionary is always just super funny and crazy when you bring investigators. Anyways, all went super smooth. Frederick and Stephen were present and on time and it was a great sacrament meeting. The members were awesome again and invited them to come to Himmelbjerg with us today, and they were super friendly and great to Stephen and Frederick. But then, all the sudden my hand started gushing blood haha. I had no idea why, it just did. So I ran to the bathroom and was trying to make it stop. And then one of the older ladies noticed and kinda freaked out and then all the ladies were like oh nej Ældste Ludlow! I was trying to tell them I was OK, but they wouldn't really listen. So they came running up with all these bandages and ice and all sorts of things and grabbed my hand and started fixing it up haha. There were like 4 ladies just huddled around my hand it was pretty funny. But I was still bleeding pretty bad. so they like shoved my hand up in the air so it was above my heart and kept working on it. It bled for like 15 minutes and I was starting to get worried. But then all the sudden it stopped, and there isn't really even a mark on my hand, so I have no idea why it bled that much. But it was a pretty funny to watch them frantically try and fix me up. They are all just like our grandmas we love it. So yeah that made for an interesting day.

Other than that, no too much happened this week! Just a lot of the usual knocking and visiting people and asking for referrals, but it was still fun and I loved it all!

Hope all is going good with everyone! Have a great week! Love you!

-Conner

8.19.13

So the fælles spisning he writes about is translated as "common dining" but I believe it is an "open house" after church where members stay and chat/hang out and eat.  Sounds like he is happy and well.  He makes me smile.  Love you all!  Thanks for loving and supporting this kiddo!  Crysi PS  He loves letters.......did I already say that? :)

Hej!

I'm spoiled so bad here! The members treated us like kings this week. I don't think I have ever eaten as much as I ate this week! There are only 2 couples in our branch, and there rest are just single ladies, and so we have pretty much become their children I think. We baked all the members cookies on preparation day to say thanks for all they did with getting our apartment all fixed up, and when we gave them to the members they just gave us buckets of food in return haha. Holy cow! It was all so good! We have been running like crazy every morning so that we don't get too fat from it all. But I can't complain, it's pretty great! Denmark is the best.

So we had our first investigator in church yesterday! We were pretty stoked about that! Last Monday we were walking around on the gågade after emailing and we ran into this guy, Stephen, who had been baptized in Russia about a year ago and he had just moved to Silkeborg, so we set up a time to meet with him so we could tell him about where the church was and what he needed to do with his membership record and things. So on Thursday we went and met with him when his roommate, Frederick, came down while we were talking and was like "Hey are you the latter day saints?" And then he explained how he had a bunch of LDS friends back in Ghana and that he wanted to start coming to church with us!! Crazy right?! So yesterday we had the members pick them up and take them to church! And man were the members excited about that!  Holy Cow. It was a madhouse. Stephen and Fredrick got attacked! Everyone was doing everything they could to talk to them and introduce themselves, which was really funny because Frederick and Stephen are both from Ghana so they don't speak a lick of danish... so the members would try and communicate in their English and it was just funny to watch. Haha and I think that Fredrick got invited to be baptized like 20 times by all the members, but he said yes every time so I guess that is a pretty good sign! It was the perfect day for them to come to church too. We had fælles spisning after church and so Fredrick and Stephen were able to talk to everyone in the branch and have fun and I think that they started to feel really comfortable, which is exactly what you want to see happen when you bring people to church. So we are really proud of our branch right now! Frederick is super solid and really fun, so we couldn't be happier about that! So that is the highlight of this week for sure. Other than that it was just a lot of knocking and trying to find people to teach! So not too bad of a week!

Hope all is going good at home and that everyone had a great summer! Good luck with the start of school! And everyone make sure to tell my mom happy birthday on the 23rd! I love you all! Have a fantastisk week!

Don't miss em!

-Conner

8.12.13

Hej!!

We have an investigator!!!! 2 actually!!! It was a great week. We finally contacted a referral that president had given us, and it was awesome! Her name is Tina and she is super cool! She was excited to see us and she gave us this awesome cake to eat when we first got there, so that was a really good sign right off the bat! We talked to her for a while and just got to know her then taught a quick little restoration message, and then she talked about how she loved the eternal families part of our church! It was a super fun lesson, and after she asked us for our number so she could have us over for dinner next time we come to teach her!! So it went really well. She has been out of town for most of this week but I can't wait until we get to go teach her again because there is a ton of potential with her and her family. And danish food is realllllllllllllllllly good. You should have seen this feast we had on Friday with some members. I wish I would have taken pictures it was so good! And then on Wednesday we went to go visit this former investigator, Kim, and we knocked on his door and they opened it and invited us in without us even saying anything! We were definitely surprised by that. Kim went on to tell us how he watches BYUtv all day long and how he even watched the district!! (the missionary training videos haha). He then started talking about baptism and how he would like to start working towards that again! And all of this without us really even bringing anything up! So it was super cool and we were really pumped about that! We went back and visited him on Saturday to invite him to church and he said he didn't really feel like going though, so that was a bummer. But hopefully something will come out of it! So we have investigators finally! Now its getting real. 

Man this week was so fun. On Friday we went to Kjellerop to contact a referral that we had received and to work out there for the day. The referral is for this lady that visited the U.S. and somehow visited winter quarters and was interested in learning more about our church! You should have seen where she lived.... holy cow! It was just out in the middle of nowhere and it was sooo pretty. To get there we just walked on this little road that wound through the hills and the fields and it was so cool! It's a good thing it was a fun walk because she wasn't home so it would have been quite the bummer if it wasn't a good walk. But we worked out in Kjellerop for the rest of the day and that was fun to work out in a little town like that! Yesterday we set off on this monster of a bike ride (40 KM) to a little town called Bording to visit a part member family. About halfway there we drove by this house and in the garage there was this massive Chevy truck and a 60's Chevelle and then an American flag! So of course we had to stop and say Hi! We knocked on the door and a guy walked up in this Miller lite jeans and we totally thought we had found an American! But then he said Hi to us in danish... and we were a little confused. Turns out this guy just has a massive crush on everything to do with America! It was pretty funny. We explained how we thought he was maybe american because of his cars and the flag and how hey! We come from America and he was really excited about that. I broke out a couple of pictures of America and he was just amazed, especially by the pictures of the Utah snow and us snowmobiling. He thought that was all just great! He thought it was great that we were from Utah because I guess Utah "has just the perfect weather to make your skin feel great!" He was super friendly and we had a ton of fun talking to him. His Girlfriend then came home with a box of some kind of danish bread and gave us some of that (again, it tasted so good!) and then we talked with both of them about how we are Mormon missionaries (she thought we were J dubs) and they said that once they get back from their trip (to America, of course) that we should come stop by and talk with them!! It was super fun, and I doubt that it was coincidence, so you best believe that we are going over there as soon as they get back!! How cool would it be if they ran into the church on their trip??? If anyone sees a couple of Danes in Texas ( Jared and Kyle) make sure to say hi!!! So those were some of the highlights of the week!

Hope everyone is doing great! I love you and miss you all! have a great week!

-Conner

Zone Champion at bowling. 177! . Whatup! 

8.5.13

Hej!

 

How is everyone doing? Things are going great here in Denmark! This week went by líke a blur! I think I have said that in every single on of my emails since I've been on my mission. There wasn't a ton of variety this week, just visiting inactives and knocking on doors!!  We figured that the members would be a good place to start with opening our area, so we got a ward list and made it a goal to visit every single member, inactive or less active. So that took up quite a bit of time from the week, just meeting with them. unfortunately, we didn't really get anything out of it... but that's ok! for the most part people just weren't interested in the church anymore and a ton of them had moved. Kinda a bummer, but nothing too bad. We only got through all the members in Silkeborg, so we still have to visit all the ones out in the little towns around Silkeborg (Which I am suuuuper stoked about because the danish countryside is amazing!) We did get a couple referrals from it though and we found a couple potential people to teach just by knocking the doors around the members, so it was still a success! Even if it wasn't too big of one. But yeah that pretty much sums up the week with what we did! Haha it was a lot better than it sounds I promise! Knocking doors was actually pretty fun. Especially when it was in all the little neighborhoods. And we did it so much that I was able to start to experiment with what I could say on my door approaches in Danish, so that was fun! There were a couple fails, but for the most part it worked pretty good! We are super excited for this area though. The members, even though there aren't very many, have been pretty excited about helping us, so we were able to get a couple referrals from them and are visiting them tonight! We know that its only a matter of time before we start to see things start to happen. Especially since the members are excited with the work. Anything can happen when the members are excited! We should see something start to change this week, so hopefully next weeks email will actually have some good stories about teaching people!

 

I still can't believe I'm in Denmark. Every time we go around a corner its something new and crazy and pretty. We got to go to a little branch activity (like 3 people showed up) this that was pretty fun! We went to a musuem of a tørv factory, and we got to walk a horse, so that was pretty cool! haha I don't know why but it was so exciting to walk a horse. That's what one of the pictures I attached was of, so I don't know what happened to the picture with the horse in it, so its just me. The second picture is just the Danish countryside and the last one is of a Danish playground. Pretty great!! I love everything I have seen in Denmark so far. It's all so great! Oh guess what! We talked to an American this week! It was weird. Danes are so much different! This guy was from Texas too, so It was definitely an interesting contrast. But yeah, it was a great week and I'm still loving every single second of it! It feels so great to be here and finally know that I can stay in my area and work and not have to worry about being transferred like it was in Fresno! Hopefully i don't have to worry about that at least... knock on wood!

 

Hope everyone has a good week!! Make the best of summer before school starts again! It's so great not having to worry about school starting again. I love you all and hope that everything is going fantastic back at home!

 

Med kærlig hilsen,

 

Conner

 

 

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.