Week 30: Thinking in Danish

Splits with Natasja 🤗
Guys, I'm having a crisis bigger than the corona virus outbreak: I am forgetting English words! :0 I was called upon last minute to translate during sacrament meeting and I found myself thinking in Danish first and using the simplest English vocabulary I could spit out. One time, I heard the word "åbenbaring" and legitimately thought, "What was that word in English again?" After about 5 seconds of scrambling to remember the word I said "vision" instead of "revelation" cause I had no time to lose. I mean, they basically mean the same thing and I didn't want to get caught too far behind the speaker. Vi chiller bare (we're chilling)!

Last week, Præsident Olsen told me to #takecharge over Roskilde since Brown was moved to Århus and upgraded to ZL (I'm still scheming that man as AP one day). It's been an interesting experience showing an older missionary around the city and acting as a "tour guide", so to speak. What makes it even more interesting is that I'm showing my first trainer around. I still remember the first 5 weeks of my mission. Ældste Ogden and I spent that time together in Rødovre and I followed him around with no clue what in the world was happening. I also vividly recall that I was very dependent on Ogden, almost like a dog to its owner. I'm glad that I've grown at least a little bit over the last 6 months to the point that I no longer need a leash. That's a relief for both of us! :D

I'm proud to say that we have accomplished a few good things this week. We met with three people, we went finding for about 20 hours, we walked/biked around most of the city, we cleaned our musty apartment again, I converted Ogden to Bagels to Eat, and Jensen and Peterson (our true kings, or APs) joined us for free ice cream at Paradis. Besides the trivial events, a lot of miracles happened this week so let's get started, shall we? 

Natasja came out with us to contact people on the streets this week! Before we started walking around, we challenged her to write her testimony on a blank page in the beginning of The Book of Mormon and share it with a random person in the space of 2 hours. She put in a lot of diligent effort to hand it out to no avail. :( Keeping the spirits high, we changed the challenge from sharing it with a random person to an interested friend. After sacrament meeting, Natasja quickly ran over to us and giddily told us that she accomplished the task. She had been having a normal chat with her friend, Anatasia, and somehow the topic of conversation lead to the Church. She asked to have something to read about our religion and Natasja pulled out her handy dandy Book of Mormon. No that's what I call a good local missionary! #boom  

I had the Christian hymn "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" stuck in my head all week because we had a lesson with a man named Emmanuel. He had been invited to be baptized two years ago in Taastrup and suddenly moved away and lost contact with the missionaries. Præsident Peterson, Copenhagen's Stake President, and I came knocking on his door during the blitz splits a month ago and we were finally able to meet with him! It took some patience, but here we are. Ogden and I reviewed the Restoration with Emmanuel because he only remembered a few things about it. We also answered a bunch of questions that he had about the history of the Church. It was amazing to see how curious he was! We invited him to think about more questions and promised to answer them to the best of our ability during our next lesson. 

We also met with Mathilde to discuss baptism and the Holy Ghost in more detail. Our discussion went really well! We shared a lot of scriptures describing the purpose of baptism and the role of the Holy Ghost in our lives. We also asked her some questions to see her understanding. She opened up about her love for the gospel and how peaceful she feels in the church building. She also feels that something has changed inside her ever since Brown and I met her on the streets our first week in Roskilde, nearly 6 months ago. Eventually, the Spirit prompted me to invite her to baptism on March 28th. Mathilde told us that she would pray about it and talk to others about the decision. We made sure to let her know that this is a special choice and that we would not intervene with her or put any pressure on her. It is totally between her and the Lord, which we respect completely.   

To conclude, I thought to share a powerful call to live our religion. In a BYU speech titled "Israel, Israel, God Is Calling", Elder Jeffrey R. Holland talked about three lessons learned from three separate experiences. There was one experience with an accompanying lesson that I wanted to talk about. There was a young man, a returned missionary, who was on a basketball team in Utah. He transferred to another school in Utah because he thought he could offer more on that team. Turns out, he returned to play against his former team and his former coach said during a close game, “What is going on here? You are the hometown boy who has made good. These are your people. These are your friends. Aren't most of these people members of your church?”

Elder Holland goes on to talk about what happened after this game. He said, "The day after that game, when there was some public reckoning and a call to repentance over the incident, one young man said, in effect: 'Listen. We are talking about basketball here, not Sunday School. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. We pay good money to see these games. We can act the way we want. We check our religion at the door.' 'We check our religion at the door'? Lesson number one for the establishment of Zion in the 21st century: You never 'check your religion at the door.' Not ever. My young friends, that kind of discipleship cannot be—it is not discipleship at all. As the prophet Alma has taught the young women of the Church to declare every week in their Young Women theme, we are 'to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in,' not just some of the time, in a few places, or when our team has a big lead." 

Brothers and sisters, are we living the gospel at all times? Are we keeping the commandments and striving to be like Jesus always or just when it's convenient? I testify that as we live the gospel always we will be strengthened and blessed by God. Heavenly Father expects great things from us and we can only achieve them as we put all our effort into following the footsteps of the Savior in every moment of our lives. Let's ALWAYS follow Him, not just sometimes. Also, I invite everyone reading to find unique ways to #HearHim so that we can follow Him even better.

Skab en god uge,
Ældste Moore 

P.S. Happy 75th birthday to Grandma Sandy!! You are a powerful example to me and our entire family and I'm grateful for your influence in my life!! I can't wait to talk to you!!
P.P.S. Congrats to Kaylee for getting into BYUH!! I'm so proud of you, sis!! Keep fostering the aloha spirit for me!! Also, great job Hadley for shining in Frozen as Anna!! Now that's the Moore legacy!! Yo Mollie, keep rocking those glasses and blowing us away with your cello!! Music rocks!! :) 

Selfie in front of mural
Nice mural
Paradis 🍦