October 20

A Miracle followed by another Miracle

So this week is an account of Gods’ hand in the work in Silkeborg.

It begins one rainy day, well almost every day it rains here but yea it was raining and we sat there in companionship study preparing to go and contact a referral that we had received the night before. We planned the bus route and we would have a hour in this little city to contact them. We biked to the bus station and waited for our bus. It came, we hopped on and we continued our journey for the next twenty minutes down a little road in a straight line. We got off the bus and found the house in a matter of minutes, knocked on the door and the answer was a very firm No. Ok so there was 45 minutes before the next bus came and that entire town had been knocked two months before. So Elder Nielsen asked aloud, “so now what do we do?”, and at that precise moment a man in a car drove up and opened the door and asked if we were Mormons. We said yea and he said get in. Without arguing we all slid in and started talking to him, glad to get out of the rain, he recounted his trip all around the US when he was a teenager and told us about the many friendly people that helped him during his time there. He told us that he was not interested at all in the church but that he might invite us over to eat dinner to start repaying some of the kindness that was given to him over 30 years before. Well he took us back to Silkeborg and dropped us of, a crazy experience. Immediately after that we went to a less actives home to talk with her and help her get back to church. She has been meeting with missionaries for over 6 years and had only recently come to church at all. She read about 5 verses in the scriptures and started asking some incredible questions. We discussed some of the things that were on her mind and at the end of the lesson she asked for a blessing from me. Leaving that appointment was probably in my top five of all time strongest points in my life where I could feel the Holly Ghost. The following day she was at church and she participated in the classes after as well. Back to Back Miracles!

It is crazy just how much the Lord helps us out here in the field sometimes, there is just no other explanation. I love you all so much, have a good week

Love GV

October 13

Monday the Crazy Day, So last Monday I sent an email about transfers and my new companions and that is where I am going to start off...

We went straight to work after emailing we had the opportunity to do service for an investigator, she is the one who makes us really good meals when we work hard enough for her. Well we worked hard enough, there are three of us and we tried to move an 800lbs counter top out of this house for her and I came out dripping sweat head to toe and breathing heavy, we got the counter about half way out and we had to give up because we just didn't have the man power (I can feel myself getting weaker but I am about 184lbs know and ripped from Danish food). 

The following Day we had 3 lessons which is uncommonly high for us and it went great. Wed. Thrs.& Fri. All of the lessons we planned were canceled and three investigators dropped us (they do not want to meet again). Well to put it like this it sucked!!! But we started to search in some new areas for people to teach and I hope that this will be fruitful. Our normal working day includes stopping by people who are interested hoping they will schedule a lesson (we try first to call them but many don't answer their phones ever and then we have scheduled appointments and knocking, street contacting, and service. There has not been too much in terms of excitement in the work in the last two or three weeks but we have been trying to get the juices flowing. 

Thursday we had District meeting and I am the oldest one in the District so I am referred to as king of the District and I am also no longer the youngest missionary there either because the Sister in Horsens is training a new missionary, exciting, and it is a good reminder of how far my Danish has come in the last 3 Months really it is crazy the progress.

Well Saturday and Sunday were a little more like normal with the companionship falling into a routine and a flow, I think that a little more time and we will be able to flip this area upside down and teach all the single women in Silkeborg (because we no longer have to worry about a third man)

The interesting thing that I studied this week was actually about the fall of Adam and Eve, What I concluded was that the fall came from the word of wisdom. The word of Wisdom gives us counsel about our personal physical temples and God gave Adam and Eve similar counsel in the Garden. Their bodies were in an immortal state and they could only partake of certain things to continue in this state. Well when they partook of something of the world the fruit of the knowledge of good and Evil it changed their state to a continually deteriorating state that we have inherited as human beings. It is important today to follow the word of wisdom because it gives us a way to maintain our physical temples in a manner that the holy spirit can dwell with us, if we are not respecting out physical temples we will not have the holy presence of the spirit at all times. To put it like this to feel the Holy Ghost while drunk would be difficult not only because your senses are all dulled but your body is also being attacked by harmful substances. I have a strong testimony of the Word of Wisdom and that it was given to us in these latter days to help us stay strong in the Gospel and in the world of changing values. God gave it to us because he loves us and we should show our love for god by following his Counsel.

Well that is that for this week Love you All

GV

October 6

Wow there is just so much to cover.

Splits, Zone Conference, Zone Activity, General Conference and Transfers O man

So we had splits here in Silkeborg this time and I was working with Elder Bateman he is a really funny kid who loves to crack jokes, we get along great and we stopped by a list of like 30 people and nobody answered the door. I had a blast and we ended up taking a couple of pictures that look really awesome.

Zone conference was great, it always is great but before this last one I was able to talk with president in an interview, he truly is a man of God and we talked about my training and about Silkeborg and a couple of questions I had in terms of procedure and other stuff but I felt great after. After the training we had a zone activity and that meant soccer, capture the flag and ultimate. I had so much fun just running around for the first time in months man I miss playing sports with friends but the days after I was so sore holy cow.

Well we got calls about tranfers and I was told I was going to be part of a trio and that one of them was going to be my old companion from the MTC elder Neilson, I laughed because he is very easy for me to get along with and we should keep each other sane. The other is elder Sullivan who is new to me I haven't heard much about him because he has spent all his time on Sheland.

For General conference we had to go to AAhrus and we watched with a lot of other people Saturday night. It was actually the Saturday Morning session. We stayed with the zone leaders that night and the next day we watched priesthood at the church. That morning we ate with a member and I made a fast friend, there is something about getting along with older women I must have inherited dads ability to just make friends with them. So after that we went to another members’ house to watch the next two sessions and eat dinner. I was confused as to why we didn't watch it at the church but then as I was talking with the member it became apparent that she needed a blessing and she knew that it was me who needed to give it to her. Well it was a crazy powerful blessing and we called it a night. The next morning was transfers and it is crazy, so I picked up my first companion that morning and the other came in about noon. We loaded them both up onto a train and road into Silkeborg, We chatted and then took a bus to drop off their bags and came to the library to email y’all. Well hopefully we will get to know one another a little better on as the week goes on but there is a lot of weight on me because they don't know the city or the people who we meet with so I will carry everything for a little while. That just means a lot of stress but I can take it. I hope you all have a good week and know that I love you all so much

Love

GV

I also took on two eating challenges this week. One was the chocolate triangle. It is a giant pastry and most missionaries can’t eat it all before giving up because it is too rich. I ate the whole thing and part of another missionaries because he couldn't finish his and then some more of another because I was still hungry. The pastries are good but not that good, I expected something mind blowing, it is just ok but  mom’s cheese cake still beats it. The other was a super hot pepper that was supposed to be super painful to eat. Two missionaries tried before me and they both cried like babies. I was number three and my eyes began to water but I held it together for the win. It was great fun this week I just have to remember to have fun with it every day and not get to serious.

I also had the opportunity to talk with a member about life for a little amount of time. There are many blessings that we are given as members of the chruch and the  knowledge that we can see our family again after death is so comforting that this week I just wanted to give you all my testimony of Gods plan for us and although there are trials put in our lives they are there for reasons. We are given comfort in God’s plan because we know what will happen after this life on earth is over but it also gives me comfort while tough things happen in life. It is going to be alright if we have to suffer for a little amount of time because in the long run our sufferings are so little compared to Christ’s and we will be able to look back and see our sufferings with the growth that comes from them. Always keep your head up and looking at the future.

Love

GV

September 29

So this week’s letter will have three parts The long Walk, The long Talk and the New Start

The Long Walk- So there was this address in our area book and the record was great, well she had 4 lessons and wanted to be baptized and that was where it had ended about a year ago nothing else so we prepped for a long haul bike ride to visit her. We made it to her house in 1 hour and 45 minutes that was booking it was about 45 kilometers but it was a gravel road, the path was anywhere from 2 inches wide to 2 feet wide depending on the part of the path and it was a straight shot for bikes between these two cities. As I said it was great time going there but on the way back we made it about 5 kilometers on the path when my comp blew out his back tire again and we started to walk. In total it took about 4 hours to walk home and the rest of the day to fix his bike. On the plus side there were some really nice people I got to give directions to and some others that stopped and tried to help us pump up the tire but it wouldn't hold any air. Nobody was interested in hearing about our church though.

The Long Talk- So this past Sunday I gave my second talk, this one was a full 20 minutes long and man it was a struggle. The first 10 minutes or so it was just fine everyone could follow along and I was doing ok and then there were some big words in the scripture and I felt like I struggled the rest of the talk, everyone told me that I did great but they do that even if you didn't so I don't trust them on that. Well the good news is that I can give a long talk in Danish and it did do something for someone in the audience. There is a less active in our branch that hasn't come since she had been baptized 6 years ago that we convinced to come. We walked with her to church and sat with her. After Church we walked with her home and I talked with her about what she liked and missed about church and she opened up and told me why she was baptized and why she stopped coming to church. We sat down talked a little about faith (that is what my talk was on) and I pulled out Mark 9 They story of the father and the son. The son has an evil spirit and the father pleads with the apostles to cast it out and they can’t, he then pleads to Jesus to help in any way and Jesus asks about his faith. He immediately responds with his faith and asks for help with his disbelief. We set out a plan to help her come again to church and to work towards going to the temple in about a year. She was so excited that she went right inside and started to read the BOM again. 

The New Start- So there was a man that we knocked into about a month ago and he is in no way shape or form going to convert, that is what he tells us about 12 times a lesson but he always invites us to come back and talk with him again the next week. Yesterday we talked with him a little about baptism and being able to repent, a fresh start. He told us that he is interested in learning more about that but that he can't be converted by us. I quickly came back that we don't convert anybody, he responded with another comment like well then I guess you are crappy missionaries then. I said that it is not my job to convert him but to help him learn the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Holly Ghost will testify to him and then he will convert himself. He said that’s what they all say and laughed. He is one of my favorite people to visit because he has a great sense of humor and loves motorcycles. He finds it funny that I love them as well and he never thought a church man could love motorcycles as much as he does. I told him about an I’m a Mormon video on the website about some old men who ride bikes all the time and help people. 

My personal study is some of my favorite time in the day because I can learn more about the questions I or my investigators have and strengthen my testimony. I hope that I can send back some things that will help ya'll in your lives. There is just so much that happens in a week that it is a little difficult to write it all. 

Love

AEldste Vance