Week 38: Blessings And Curses

May 31, 2020

Week 38: Blessings And Curses

TENNIS 🎾

Don't panic! I know that the inclusion of curses in the title could be alarming, but they were greatly outnumbered by blessings this week. The only curses we experienced were the not-so-nice words found in the comments of furious Danes on our posts in certain Facebook groups. The blessings included an arrival of a familiar face to Odense, a well-fought series of foosball games between the Odense Elders, a service project in the country for a hilarious member, an in-person sacrament meeting with a wonderful friend, a delivery of Mormons Bog to a man studying literature, and an assembly of 5 total possible friends from our finding efforts. Not too shabby!

K, so who's that familiar face that I mentioned? Gabby, I mean ældste Møller, was dropped off at the Odense church by the kings themselves, AP Peterson and AP Kresge. He severed our trio and took Jensen as his companion. He ought to be grateful for being placed with him because if I lived with the dude, I would non-stop tease him for those many times that he didn't show up to our organized splits. I guess living close to me was a reasonable enough punishment. Hehe.. Seeing Møller in missionary attire and flashing a nametag was rather odd since I could never imagine witnessing that scene while serving in Roskilde's ward. He was assigned to South Africa, so I thought he'd go off to the South Africa MTC and I wouldn't see him again - but NOPE. His own home became his MTC and Denmark became his training ground. I guess I needed to learn something from this cool guy and I failed to do so during my 6 months in the City of Kings. I was lucky to be given another shot in the City of H.C. Andersen. Here we go.

Both the Odense 1 Elders (Jensen & Møller) and the Odense 2 Elders (me & Leland) played a popular game throughout the week. We played many rounds of foosball and Odense 1 continuously wrecked us. They beat us to a pulp and whipped us into shape. We got good practice in, however, and eventually found their kryptonite. With little time left before we had to head home (close to 9pm), Leland and I learned how to block Møller, the master of foosball. We were down 6-8 with little to no hope and then we grinded to tie the game up at 9-9. The atmosphere of the room suddenly intensified as we battled back-and-forth, taking sneaky passes and having lucky blocks. Finally, the ball came on the offensive side of the table. I hit the ball around like a madman until the exact moment I could launch it in the goal. WE WON!! It was the first time I'd ever beat Møller (trust me, I tried before with no luck). Maybe that was what I needed after all - a win in foosball over the cool guy.

To celebrate Møller's arrival, we took him to King of Kebab, played a few rounds of tennis, and visited some sweet viking graveyards. We all agreed that we should start playing board games and card games together more often in the evening, so that'll be implemented soon. We were going to take the Odense 1 Elders along with us to a planned service project, but the person who needed help told us that it would only require two Elders to complete. Leland drove us out to the Danish countryside, where we parked right next to a 300-year-old house. We knocked on the door and a viking specimen, the well-spoken-of Claus, came out. He had us take filled trash bags that were lying around outside and throw them into a trailer. He then took us to a dumpsite and we disposed of the garbage. We returned to a more difficult task: moving a chewed-up couch and a nasty mattress out of the house and into the trailer. I found myself in very awkward positions and bearing most of the weight while taking these suckers out, but boy did it feel good to throw them into the furniture container at the dump! Claus was talking basically the whole time and played a little prank on me by making me think that dog food was candy. Should've seen that coming. :/ Thankfully, he made up for it by buying us Cocios (chocolate milk) and flæskesteg sandwiches (roast pork sandwich). That was quite the adventure!

We also had an in-person sacrament meeting for the first time in forever! The only difference was it had to be kept under 10 people and we barely fit in that number with 9 people. The Esbjerg sisters (Montgomery & Paras), the Sønderborg sisters (Duckworth & Peterson), the Odense Elders, and Andrea were the participants. It was so special to play hymns, administer the sacrament, and bear simple testimony of Jesus Christ. Andrea thanked us and let us know that the meeting brought him closer to Christ. He was so happy that he wanted to video call us the next day to talk about it and teach us some Italian as well. One of the biggest joys as a missionary is to see people choose to draw nearer unto God themselves, whether they are already on their way or they just started. Andrea was touched by our effort to organize a mini sacrament meeting for him and 5 previous strangers were positively influenced by our invitation to learn more about the Savior and our offer to give away a free Book of Mormon. Many made some harsh comments and some of our posts got taken down, but that didn't matter in the end because miracles still happened. I hadn't really seen much come out of Facebook Finding before, so this was a huge eye-opener for me. It reminded me that there was still hope all this time. There were people being prepared and we had to search diligently to find them.

That actually brings me to my spiritual thought. I thought a lot about the following scripture in Mosiah 23:21-22: "Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith. Nevertheless - whosoever putteth his trust in him the same shall be lifted up at the last day.." I definitely needed some chastisement. I was losing hope in what I saw as impossible, but it was clearly possible all along. Patience and faith through Christ were the key to finding people. God tested those attributes that I thought I had and He showed me how much I truly need to improve those characteristics. I decided to put my trust in Christ and that made all the difference. He makes the impossible possible. He lets us experience both tremendous blessings and character-building curses. I love Him for that and I love you all for the support you give me. God is so good!

Make a great week,

Ældste Moore