Week 11: Whacky Great Week

October 28, 2019

Week 11: Whacky Great Week

Roskildes Domkirke

Hejsa familie og venner! This week has been nuts and there´s definitely a lot to do and see around Roskilde. Don ́t get me wrong, the type of whacky I´m implying in the title is hilarious and makes the mission so enjoyable! There´s a whole bunch of crazy stories that I´ll be telling along with spiritual experiences - both of which will BLOW YOUR MIND!! Buckle up folks cause this is about to become the wildest ride in the wilderness!

After leaving behind a district of eight elders that always saw each other, I never thought I´d be able to be around others that often again but I was wrong! Ældste Brown and I work with Ældste Walton and Ældste Jensen, the assistants to President, very often and I LOVE it because now I have the opportunity to get to know them beyond the formalities. They are goofs and they always crack us up and look out for us! Walton is a swift striker (soccer) and Jensen is a gnarly skater. They both know how to put in work but have fun at the same time. They´re professionals at getting baptisms (they already have a person on date) so I´m learning as much as I can from them because I don´t know what to expect after this last transfer. I´m just acting as a sponge at this point and absorbing as much information as physically possible! These bros know what they´re doing and doing it well. They also have a close relationship with the ward so that´s very helpful for us.

The Roskilde ward is a missionary powerhouse! There have been six baptisms in this ward in the last month and they all came from member referrals. People are dying to get out on splits with us and eager to help as best they can. All the young men came up to us right after sacrament meeting and asked when they could come out with us next. The leaders have shown willingness to contact and knock doors with us every single week. About ten people came up to Ældste Brown and I during church to introduce themselves and welcome us to the area. We already have four eating appointments scheduled for this upcoming week and at least five people planning to go on splits with us. I also believe that there are eight missionaries out serving missions from this ward. This is the spot! From what I´ve witnessed so far, I honestly believe that the Roskilde ward is the missionary training center of Denmark. The hype is real here and I´m gonna continue contributing with my greenie fire, as missionaries like to call it.

Okay, now that I´ve done a bunch of describing the people and ward let´s move on to the fun part. Here are some interesting stories from the week!

Story #1: So, Walton and Jensen had previously been invited to attend a young woman named Natasha´s Bible study group before the transfer and they decided to bring us along last minute. There were two of Natasha´s friends - Emilie and some other guy (I sadly forgot his name) - there as well and we had a good discussion based on the story of the Prodigal Son. The beginning was a little awkward because Emilie started with a prayer and we opened our eyes to discover that the three others still had their eyes closed. I think they were expecting me to go next since I was sitting to the right of Emilie because they stayed still with their eyes closed for about five minutes. Finally, Natasha - who was sitting to her left - said a prayer and they opened their eyes. We read the story in the New Testament together, watched a video on it, and discussed how it could apply to our own lives in small groups. Emilie switched with Ældste Jensen to mix up the groups and she was in between me and Ældste Walton. Our talk was going really good, until I noticed that Emilie was staring at me even when Walton was speaking. It was a little weird but I guess I can blame my parents for that!

Story #2: Ældste Brown and I were just strolling down the gå gade (a street dedicated to only walking), as we normally do now, and we came across a homeless man dressed in cargo pants with green paint all over his shirt. We initiated a conversation with him before we realized that our decision would be a mistake. He noticed that our Danish is terrible and immediately switched the conversation over to English. He then proceeded to tell us that he was going to patent a discovery he made that would prove Albert Einstein´s theory of special relativity wrong. He also claimed to have found a method to use sea salt to eliminate the earth´s waste so that the environment would be better than it ever was before. We pretended to be interested and asked when this invention would be made available to the public. He simply stated, "You´ll see." Of course he had to make it even more strange with a little chuckle at the end.

Story #3: Ældste Brown and I were in the basement of the library about to go up the stairs when another homeless man with a huge hiking backpack stopped us. He told us that we needed to be informed about something. He showed us a short quote that stated Free Masons at the 30th to 33rd degree serve a different god than those below the 29th degree. He said that this proved that Free Masons worship Satan and are taking over the world. Since we wanted to be friendly, we pretended to be interested, just as the homeless man in the second story. We asked what he was going to do about it. He said that he would tell the entire world. He told us to take a picture of the quotation he had printed out and show it to as many people as we could. Before we had the chance to, he changed his mind and told us to not take a picture of it anymore because the Illuminati is watching us through our phone cameras. He then concluded by saying, "This is a conspiracy fact, not a conspiracy theory. Be warned!" Hmm...

Along with all the craziness, we did hand out a Mormons Bog and have two lessons this week. We found an old man on the gå gade that showed some interest in learning about our church. He asked us a bunch of questions about why we´ve come to Denmark and where the church is and the history behind it. We explained the short history of the Book of Mormon, gave him our contact information, handed him a Mormons Bog, and invited him to sacrament meeting. We saw him again at the same place the next day and he told us how impressed he is with our desire to work so hard. He promised to come to church but didn´t show up. The day after that, I saw him riding a bike near that area. I thought it was pretty cool that we saw him three days in a row! Hopefully we´ll see him again so we can try to set an appointment with him!

The first lesson, we taught a man named Benjamin in the library. His story is so cool! He took lessons with the missionaries before and didn´t put in a ton of work. He called the Sister missionaries, who were previously here, after some time and told them that he wanted to try the lessons again and put in the work this time. Brown and I have taken over from there! We taught him about the Restoration and asked if he had any questions. He gave us a lot of them and we were able to answer them all! He told us that he´s usually a very skeptical person but everything we told him made sense. That´s pretty miraculous! We´ll be messaging him a specific chapter every night because he wants to put in more work. The second lesson, we taught a man named Ruune in his home. He has been taking lessons for a while and we went started off from where the Sister left off at the Word of Widsom. We also read 2 Nephi 4 with him and told him to read and pray every day. We´ll be reading every night with him over the phone and reminding him to pray.

Whelp, that´s about it for this week folks! Sorry that I just barely got everyone officially on the email list. Now it´s fixed! I hope that everyone makes this week great! Thanks for all the love and support. Remember that the Lord has a plan for you and is always leading you, maybe even sometimes to a few odd interactions to make you laugh. God´s hand is evident. All you gotta do is look!

Jeg elsker jer højt,

Ældste Moore