7.26.13

Hej!!!

 

I made It!!!!!!!!!! And I have no idea where to start... Denmark is AMAZING. The food is to die for. The pastries...... wow. I'm going to get so fat. And it feels sooooo good here! Its been sunny and 70 all week! Everything is just way too perfect for this to really be a mission!

 

I landed in Copenhagen around 11 am and then for the rest of the day we just got to go sight see in the city. I'll send a bunch of pictures from that. I only took about 300. Everything in københavn is just so crazy! All the buildings were super old and there were canals everywhere with castles and cathedrals and all of those things and it just blew my mind! We went to Vor Frue Kirke and saw the original Christus statue, which was super cool! We also went to Nyhavn which is the place that comes up first whenever you google pictures of Denmark. That was just unreal! Me trying to describe it doesn't even come close to how amazing Copenhagen is! I guess you will just have to see the pictures. I'm going to go through a memory card a week! But we just explored Copenhagen and then went back to the mission president's home for dinner and stayed there for the night, and then in the morning we went to the train station and went off to our area!

 

I wish you could see my area! We live in a city called Silkeborg and the area includes Silkeborg and about a 30ish km area around it. Holy cow! Seriously, this area is perfect. Totally worth the wait in Fresno. I had my fingers crossed the whole plane ride that I would be out in the countryside in a small town and this area is more than I could have ever hoped for! It's a really old small town up in the "mountains" (himmelbjerg, Denmark's highest point at 500 ft., is in my area!) of Jylland (the peninsula of Denmark) and it is just crazy beautiful! I can't even describe it. Look it up on google or something. It's built around a couple of lakes and is super foresty. Its supposed to be the prettiest city in Denmark. That's what all the Danes say at least. But I believe it! It's so amazing! It's a brand new area, so we are opening it up. We are starting from scratch and I couldn't be more excited about that!  The branch has been super excited to have us here. I was supposed to come here when I got out of the MTC, so they have just been waiting for me to get my visa. They all new about my visa situation and they were way excited when I got it because now they have missionaries! It's pretty fun. The whole time that I was waiting on my visa they would just work on our apartment to make it look nicer, so our apartment is suuuuper nice (its the white house in the second picture I attached). Its 100% brand new on the inside, and its inside this really old house on the edge of the lake. So our front yard is a lake... yeah. So great! Church yesterday was nuts. There are only 12 members of the branch!!! Can you believe that?! It's crazy! That's small even for Denamark! Yesterday we knew that our branch president (who isn't even from Silkeborg, they had to import him from Aarhus since there Aren't enough priesthood holders) would be out of town as well as a couple other people, so we were seriously prepared to be the only ones at church. Luckily a couple people showed up and a guy came down from Aarhus to fill the spot of the branch president so we had some other priesthood. It is going to be so much fun working here! I'm so excited! We spent the first couple of days just visiting the inactives, members, and knocking on doors just to kinda get aquainted with everything. We have a lot of work to do here! But I'm so excited for it! I still can't believe I'm in Denmark. Oh, and my companion's name is Ældste VanDenBerghe from Riverton. I almost forgot about him woops. I just have so much to tell everyone about and It's all just kinda a blur and it's kinda hard to type because the keyboard is different because its in Danish haha! I'll just have to try and get it in over the next couple weeks emails.

 

But I'm loving every second of it. Hopefully you can tell how excited I am! Everything is so fun! Even when I don't understand Danish (which is most of the time, everyone in Silkeborg speaks jusk, which is like super hick danish. It just sounds like mumbling with a bunch of S sounds thrown in. But its sick because that means that'll be what I will learn to speak!) its still great becasue I'm just so excited to be here!

 

Hope everyone is doing great and I hope you have an amazing week!

 

Jeg elsker jer! Dont miss 'em!

 

-Conner

 Our house is the little white one next to this lake.

 

7.15.13

Hola!

 

So guess what! I got transferred again! I got a call Saturday night and was told I was getting moved up to Atwater in the morning, so now I'm up in Atwater! Sorry for the lack of updates. It has been a crazy month. I have been transferred 3 times since the last time I wrote a big letter to everyone. So I'll try and get everything in!

 

To start I got transferred to Selma the last week of June. Selma was really fun! My companion was Elder Lantz from Ephraim, UT! I got my first taste of biking and I actually really liked it! HOT, but I liked it! It gave us lots of opportunities to talk to people on the streets, and to ball it up with all the gansters. (That was one of my mission goals so I had to do it, sorry mom). The gansters were always my favorite people to talk to, even if it did get a little sketchy at times! They always opened up! Without fail! They would be hesitant at the beginning but as they started to feel the spirit they would always open up and start being happy. I love it when that happens. It's crazy what the spirit can do! We always are talking about it, but its so fun to see it actually happen. We baptized a 20 year old named Jonathan who had been an investigator for a long time, and that was really awesome! We were just the lucky elders to be there when he finally said yes to being baptized, we never really taught him any big lessons, just things to help him realize how baptism was important. But it was still a really cool experience and he was really fun to be with!

 

So after being in Selma for a week and a half I was put back into another trio at real transfers (July 3rd). My companions were the zone leaders in Fresno, Elder Larson and Elder Brown, and they were way too much fun to be with. We were over the YSA (Young Single Adults) ward in Fresno and it was a blast! Our apartment was right next to Fresno State and when we weren't teaching we were just talking to students who were walking around, and they were always really nice and fun to talk to about the gospel, because they were so easy to relate with. It was so great!! Snd I was in a movie! We had an investigator who is trying to become a movie director/producer. He hasn't made any big movies yet but he has one coming out soon that will be in theaters, so he was pretty excited about that. He came to FHE and made a movie with the YSA ward and we got to help out! He posted it on his website, I'm not sure what it is, but I'll put the link in my next email so you can all go watch it.

 

Then I got a call on Saturday and they had a missionary get emergency transferred so they took me out of the trio to replace him in Atwater! And that's where I am now! I don't have any stories for Atwater yet. But it seems like it will be a good area! I'm back in the Merced zone, so my old companions, Elder Thompson and Elder Rader are my zone leaders, so that will be pretty fun! And it's not as hot! So I definitely can't complain.

 

And I finally got a thing that makes it easier to get my pictures on a computer! So I have pictures! Hope all is going well with everyone! Thanks for the letters and the prayers for my visa! I still don't have any word on it, but hopefully it will come soon! I found a danish church video though so at least when I get to Denmark I will be able to say the things in that video--haha.

 

Love  you all and Miss you!

 

-Conner

 

These were my companions in Fresno. We wore matching ties everyday haha (YSA loved it)

6.13.13

Hej!

Man it is hot here! I'm so grateful we have a truck with AC! This was a fun week!  We were able to teach a lot of people. We are teaching a family named the Baker's and we committed them to be baptized on the 22nd of June!! It was awesome! We have barely even had to teach them. They were totally prepared. The family a single mom with 8 ( and only 1 is old enough to be baptized) kids, and they are way fun! The mom, Rhonda, is very religious and she has some personal religious beliefs that matched up pretty well with our church, so she is accepting it really well. They have a son named Jacob. He is 7 and turns 8 in October. He was really sad when we told him he would have to wait until he was 8 to be baptized.  Jacob and I are pretty tight and he is hilarious. He always runs up and talks to us and prays for us (the other day he prayed that we would be able to help him find a new bike), and invites us to come swimming with him and stuff. Hopefully I am still here when they all get baptized! It would be sad to leave before that. I love getting to know all of our investigators and working with them. All of our investigators are doing pretty good. We have a couple that could be baptized tomorrow if they could just quit smoking, so we are working with them on that and it seems like they are making good progress! We started teaching this other lady, Michelle, this week too. She said she had prayed about our church and that she got an answer that it was true, but it kinda freaked her out she is trying  to run from it. Sometimes I hate agency. But Michelle is opening up quite a bit and is getting more comfortable with everything, so we think we will be able to get her to church this week and set a date. Fingers crossed! Things get pretty crazy since I am with the zone leaders, so we are usually pretty busy, but it makes the time go by really fast! I get to call the other Danish missionaries during language studies, so I'm still able to study Danish and it sounds like visas are starting to come through, so I could be leaving soon! But if I have to stay for a while, that's ok. There is a great mission culture here and I really like it and am having a lot of fun and learning lots, even if its a little toasty! Well, have a good week everyone! 

Jeg elsker jer! 

-Conner

sorry for the lack of pictures, one of these days i will remember to bring my camera! 

5.27.13 Week 7

Hej! Hola? 

I'm in California! It has been a pretty fun week. And so nice to be out of the MTC. We flew into Fresno on this little plane that was almost all full of missionaries. There were 30 something of us going to Fresno, and only  like 5 other people that weren't missionaries. I felt kinda bad for them. They were getting bombarded by Books of Mormon!  No joke- I saw one guy get handed 4 Books of Mormon at once, and then when he said "no," he was offered like 8 pass along cards from different people. They left the plane pretty fast... Anyways, we landed and went straight to the mission office in Fresno, dropped off our bags, and went off to go contacting! I went with Elder Enslow! He went to Alta too, and he's been here in Fresno for about 5 months. So it was  fun to go with him. It wasn't near as bad as I thought it would be! Almost everyone we talked to at least believed in Christ, so it was easy to start talking and explain our church. We got a couple people that said we could come back, so I'd say it went well!

On Thursday I met my companions. Their names are Elder Rader and Elder Thompson, and they are zone leaders, so I'm kinda like a zone leader! haha JK not really.  But I do get to help out a little bit, so it's fun. Since I'm in a trio that means that as soon as my visa comes I can leave! So that's good. But our area is in Merced, which is a town about an hour north of Fresno, Kinda towards Yosemite. It's about the same size as Brigham City.  Our area is on the outskirts of town, a little slice of their ghetto, and a little town called Franklin. I really scored with this area. It's not near as desert-y as  I thought it would be. There are lots of trees and orchards and things everywhere, And it hasn't even been too hot. I love it. We live in the basement of this old couple named the Rowans. They are the greatest! They are so cute. They are maybe in their late 70's early 80's and are pretty fun. Brother Rowan goes with us sometimes to teach. He is great. So we have a ton of room in their basement with our own kitchen, fridge, all that good stuff. And...... we got a car!! Not only a car, a truck! A silver Colorado. It is awesome, and it's gonna be even better once it starts getting hotter. I get an hour each day to study Danish and I get to call the other Danish missionaries and this Danish lady in one of the wards to talk to them so I don't forget it. President Gelwix gave a blessing to all the danish missionaries that we wouldn't forget the language and that once we got to Denmark we would learn it even faster, so that was nice and made me feel a lot better. 

We had a baptism yesterday! It was awesome! It was a guy named Freddy, he was so excited to get baptized. I didn't really know him, because I'm new, but we got to meet with him a couple times throughout the week and he asked me to confirm him, so that'll be fun! We had an investigating family come to the baptism too! ( We had 6 investigator families at church, it was awesome) The husband of the family wants to get baptized pretty bad, but he has some word of wisdom issues that we are having some problems fixing. But after the baptism this guy ( Charlie) came running up to Freddy and shook his hand and was asking him how it felt and things, so hopefully that gives him some motivation to stop smoking and drinking. He will do it. I love getting to know all these families. It's so fun! I want them to get baptized so bad, It'll make them so happy! And it seems like they know that too, but they just can't quite get there. But we will do everything we can to help them out. I'm so excited to be out here and being a real missionary! I love every little part of it. Thanks for all the prayers for my visa! I really appreciate it. 

Jeg elsker jer!!

-Conner

5.17.13 Extra news!

So we had a surprise last night when the phone rang and it was Conner!  Words can not say how awesome it was to hear his voice!  Sweet Hannah broke into tears!  He was not being disobedient though, he was calling to tell us that their visas did not come.  So he is being temporarily reassigned to the Fresno, CA mission.  Which is exciting for him because the mission president is the guy Forever Strong (a movie Conner LOVED) is about AND it also includes Modesto, which is where Paul's Dad's family is from.  A few o' our Ludlows in Modesto still.  If you haven't seen the movie, come over and we will all watch it tonight in Conner's honor!  Anyway, he will leave the MTC and his beloved companion, Elder Metcalf, on Wednesday.

I'm also including a letter from Elder Metcalf's Mom, who I've been talking to a little as we swap pictures.  Actually, she is the one sending them to me, I don't have any to share for her so I just send her son junk food.  Conner has never been into pictures.  Thought it would be great to get some insight since Conner is a man of few words....

Love you all and thanks for your love and support!  Please keep praying for his visa to come!  It could be 6 to 12 weeks!  

Crysi

From Elder Metcalf's Mom:

Crysi--

So great to hear from you! Yes, I have lots of pics, I'll send them from my computer when I get home later tonight.

Max loves Elder Ludlow! He tells us that your son is the most fantastic missionary in the MTC and he lucked out! I think they're working hard & having a blast! Max has fun at whatever he does, he's the life of the party. 

I'm not sure on the visas but we've been praying they come so our missionaries can leave on Monday. I'm also praying for the group of Danish missionaries before them who are waiting in Tennessee for visas. 

I wondered where Max got the cool stationary?! He's used it to write little notes to our kids and me. You're so nice!

You may have heard, but our family has had a tough tragedy since Max left. Three weeks ago his uncle committed suicide. We immediately flew to Phoenix to try to console his wife & get his body moved home. Max was especially close to his uncle Matt because they were golf buddies. We got permission from the MTC president for Max's grandpa to go to Provo & tell him in person. It was shocking and sad for Max! Which is why we're especially grateful that Max was blessed with such a strong and kind MTC companion! Max says they'll be friends long after the mission. Thanks for raising such an outstanding son!  

With love,

Metcalf's Mom

5.7.13 Week 4

Hej!

13 days left!!! crazy right? I can't believe I have already been here for a month. Time is really starting to go fast now. We will find out our travel plans on Thursday!!! Hopefully my visa comes... the people from the last group still haven't gotten theirs. But if we have to get reassigned that's ok! There's a reason for everything so whatever happens it'll be great.

This was a fun week. I'm not sure if it's because we have been at the MTC for a while now and our brains are starting to go to mush, but it seemed like every little thing was funny this week. For devotional on Sunday Chad Lewis (tight end for the Eagles) came and talked to us. He is a stud. I have never heard a talk like his before haha. He pretty much talked to us like it was right before a football game, and it was super funny. But it definitely got his point across! He gave us a pep talk for our missions, so it was really fun and it definitely worked.

I can't wait to get to Denmark! This week in TRC, which is where we teach volunteers that come to the MTC (in Dansk). They are usually members or RM's from Denmark, but this time Metcalf and I taught a Danish foreign exchange student who wasn't a member! It was cool! The lesson we had prepared was for a member, because that's what we thought we would have, so we kinda had to change it up on the spot. We didn't even know if we could get the point across in danish, but we just went for it. Turns out that we had met her before. She had come on a tour of the MTC and came up to talk to us because we were the Danish missionaries. Haha, we had her teach us some Danish slang, which she thought was hilarious. So we brought this up in our lesson to break the ice and it worked really well! We shared a quick little scripture on prayer and why it is important that we pray, and I think it went really well! It was fun to teach for reals, where we had to make sure that we were explaining things completely and bringing the spirit, because she wasn't a member and so far we had just taught members. But the spirit was there so strong and she responded great and was answering questions. So yeah! Pretty fun! Things like that just make me really excited to get out into the field.

Other than that it was a pretty routine week! We had an "english fast" on Saturday, and it was crazy how well we could actually communicate in danish! So things are going well! Well, Next time I email I will probably know if I'm going to Denmark soon or not!

Jeg elsker jer!

-Conner

4.29.13

 Missionary Bowling Association??

 Cleaning Check Time!