November 24

*He responded to a bunch of mom’s questions, and then gave us a recap of the week.

·         So how was your first full week in Fredericksburg? Well actually its Frederiksberg, there are a couple of different cities that are all spelt really similarly but it is great I love it so much, by far a large change from the quite town of Silkeborg and then Big city but I have really enjoyed it so far. We have less investigators but we work a lot more with less actives. The ward is over 400 but only 100ish come every week so we are going to focus on that as well as our investigators.

·         What is it like sharing an apartment with the AP's?  I got to say that I am really lucky so be in this apartment because I get to see 3 wonderful examples of great missionaries every day. They help me with language questions and gospel questions and they are some great friends. We get up and run every morning the 4 of us and have a lot of fun. The jokes have just started and I am glad that I am here for Christmas.

·         Do they mostly do mission business or do they get to do regular missionary work also? They have a lot of other things to do like numbers work and travel and transfers and meetings but they get to work a lot more then I originally thought. O and they have to take like a 3-4 day trip to Greenland every month, crazy right. But we are one strong unit here.

·         How is it going with the new companion? We are good friends already he is one hard working son of a gun and actually my same age. He came right out of high school and has been out almost a year and a half, crazy because we choose different paths but we both are working hard and having fun.

·         Did you know him before at all? Yea so I rode on a couple of long train rides before and got to know him a little and I had him on my list of dream companions along with the Assistant Elder Oackey and I get to live with both of them. Tons of Fun.

·         Are the people in Copenhagen more open to hearing the gospel? A lot more open, We have found like 5 potentials in the past week, I found like 2 in all three transfers in Silkeborg.

·         Can you understand them?  I get most of what they are saying but they talk about 3x faster then the other side and they have a funny accent, it is about the same as someone from Deep south moving north east but after a couple of days I could understand a lot more.

·         Can they understand you?  No, the first two lessons I taught not a word I spoke was understood by the investigator and less active because I have a heavy Jysk accent, like deep south Denmark hick accent. I have since been working every day to speak with a different accent and it has been working so far a huge difference in my Danish but I like it more people understand this accent it is like the most clear Danish you can speak.

·         Do you see the mission president more? Yea I have already seen him twice this week, and his wife twice as well, I love being able to see him, I love that man, he is one inspired guy.

·         How much daylight do you get?

·         Total we are talking 6-7 hours a day and all of that is covered with clouds and dark

·         When does the sun rise and set typically?
It is coming up like 10 and back down about 5
Are you using your bikes more or less?

·         We use our bikes to go everywhere, I was hopping we had bus passes but we don't on the plus side we havn't had a bike problem yet.
What kind of things are you going to be able to do on P days?

·         This week we are going to go to the temple, next week we are headed to a zone conference (christmas) then the next two weeks are sight seeing and shoping, then christmas and the last week hitting up christmas sales.
Do you still have that genealogy info we sent with you? I think so I have the big family tree thing but not much more then that.

So a short Recap os the week I have spent the first three days wondereing where I was and what I was doing and saying and then I started to find my groove and bearings, the Dialect here is so fun, I will try and hold onto it for the rest of my life, it is the proper danish kind of like British English, I like the way it sounds. We have had to opportunity to watch a baptism and to reactivate a member here. Sunday was the Primary Program and I got to pass the Sacrament to like 40 little kids on the stand, I loved it. I have started meeting people and making friend and it is so neat to run past the temple every morning I kind of feel like I am back in Provo but I am not strange. I get to see a lot more going on here just because there are so many people here. Sorry but running short on time today but know that I love yall

Yours Truly Æ Vance