Update from Slagelse

Kære Familie,

 

Another week gone!  It's actually nice to have Christmas over because now we will be able to get back to a normal schedule.  It was great to talk to you the other day.  Next time it will be warm!!!!  (I hope)  So I decided that since I already talked to you and told you most of the stuff I was going to say in the email I'd tell you a few things about the mission.  First off, there are three areas in our District Slagelse, Nykøbing, and Bornholm.  If you look on a map, Bornholm is off to the east, its just a tiny Island.  Small branch and not very receptive to the gospel.  Anyway, for some reason they get a ton more snow than anybody else.  Here are a couple of stories from there Christmas week. 

 

So a couple of years ago, their Branch President found a deer on the side of the road (road kill).  For some morbid reason that no human mind can fathom, he went home cleaned and gutted it and then froze it.  Over the next couple of months it ended up in the Missionaries on Bornholms fridge.  So they had nobody offer to feed them for Christmas, so they took a deer leg out of the freezer and cooked it then ate it for Christmas dinner.  President Andersen has invited them to the Christmas party (they weren't before just cause its such a long trip) out of sheer pity.  Yeah, they're warriors!

 

Next they've been snowed in for several days so yesterday they called their Branch President (Road Kill Man) and asked if they could bless the Sacrament in their apartment.  They were allowed.  This is how it went.  Two glasses of water, two slices of bread, and Æ. Hebbert's shirt as the cloth covering.......we laughed for a long time at that.  The snow drifts outside their apartment are taller than they are.  Once again, they're warriors!

 

But yeah, we had a really quiet week.  Its seems like all the Danes do for Christmas is eat because that's all it feels like I have been doing!  This week we're going to Nykøbing for splits and København for New Years.  Miss ya'll and love you too! 

 

Æ. William Veach

 

Once again a big thanks to all those wonderful Danish people who are feeding my son!!  Even to Branch Presidents who clean and gut road kill to feed hungry missionaries!!  You are the greatest!!  The Mom

It was good to hear his voice!!!

So here is my best Christmas present from yesterday!!!  Thank you to Leo and his wife for having my son in their home for Christmas and allowing him to use their computer to call home!!

William on Skype Video call for Christmas!!  I love modern technology!

William is doing well and really likes Slagelse (the g is silent) and his companion Elder Mauler who is from Denver.  He says it is really cold!!  On the 24th it was 20 below 0 F when they got home at night - now that is cold even for William who loves the cold!!!  Everything seems to be going pretty well.  He is understanding more and more of the language and although the speaking is coming slower he is progressing every day.  He says his typical day is to get up between 630 and 7 and take a quick shower then study scriptures for an hour, a quick breakfast then companion study for an hour, then language study for an hour or two.  They leave the apartment around noon and are out until 9pm.  Some days they have appointments earlier in the morning so they skip language study and go to work.  The sun doesn't come up until 10am and goes down at 345pm so they are doing alot of their work in the dark.  William is loving the food and the members feed them multiple times a week.  Thank you to all of them from this mom!!  The kids really enjoyed seeing and talking to William again.  I think they are amazed at how much they miss him.  He got a box from Tim and Kerry (thanks to you both), but still has not gotten the box from us.  I will have to post about the saga of the box!!!  It is supposed to be at the mission home and he goes to Copenhagen on Wednesday so hopefully he will get it then.  He goes to Copenhagen about once a month for training and other people bring boxes as they come and go.  It takes about 12 days to get a letter to him via the mission home, but it is probably still better to send them there.  He could be transferred on a 24 hour notice, then mail would be lost in transit for a while.  Well, that is the bulk of the conversation.  William, of course, got a sports update from Jeff and Matthew and then our hour was over.  It was so good to talk to him and hear his voice and know that he is well.  We hope all of you will join with us in praying for his success and good health.  Happy Holidays to all!!

The Mom

Week 3 Update from Denmark

Kære Familie,

Another week gone!!!  Its been a wierd one again because we have had more trainings and so our week got thrown off a little bit and then the Zone Leaders came on splits on Thursday and Friday so that was also off normal stuff.....I don't think that I will have a normal mission experience until January, seeing as this week is Christmas (we've been asked not to tract 23-26) and next week we are in Copenhagen for three days.  Wooo.  So yeah I was the newest missionary at the Specialized Training this week.  Needless to say, I got picked on a lot.  Good thing I knew all the answers basically.   I'm already looking forward to February when the new missionaries come and I won't be the newbie anymore.   

Yesterday we had a guest Christmas service in church.  The goal was to get all the members to invite nonmember friends.  We've also been handing out invitations around town like they were candy.  Anyway the grand total from all of our work..........7.  Only one of them was one of our 8 investigators we've got going and he is awesome!!!!  He comes from New Jersey so every time he talks its like angels are singing to me.  His daughter was baptized in the summer and she is way solid too.  Ex.  She called Mauler yesterday and asked if it was ok to help her friend move on the Sabbath.   So the guest service was a little bit of a dud, but we actually got more to come than alot of the stake.  One other lady that came is technically not an investigator but a former one.  She is also waaaay cool.  She was taught by the missionaries about 4 yrs ago but never really was interested, but she loves the missionaries and so she feeds us every week.  Her food is like the best that we have all week!!!  But anyway she didn't think that she was going to make it, because her son was coming in later and her car got totalled last week so we weren't that optimistic.  Lo and behold here she comes trekking through the snow right before Sacrament meeting.  She had walked the 3 or 4 some odd kilometers to get to the church.  Yeah hun er sej!!!!!! 

It is still way cold!!!!  Its been snowing the past couple days and look here it goes again.  Another thing that wears on the mind is the sun.  Up at around nine (unless its snowing then it doesn't come up at all) and down at a little before 4!  It sucks super!!!  We are going around for like four hours in the dark everyday!  The good news is that the shortest day is tomorrow and then it will start getting lighter again.  That'll feel like its taking a while though.  So yeah, just a fun little info thing I decided to share all the things we've been doing in our apartment. 

1. The tub was plugged when we got here, used like 8 bottles of drain cleaner and a plunger to clean it.

2. We tried to bake cookies for members on Christmas.  We didn't have a scale so we got like a box of tin foil and did a balancing scale using an object with the correct weight on one side and measuring our ingredients on the other.............we bought a scale the next day.

3. I couldn't find tape so I put something on the wall with sticky side of sticky notes.

4. We got sick of just waking up to the alarm clock so I, me, myself am the music alarm clock.  When the alarm goes off in the morning I turn on my MP3 and iHome to get things rolling.......

5. No dryers, clothes went on the heaters in our apartments.

Anyway, looking forward to talking to you this week.  Love you tons!!!!

Ældste William Veach

More Pics from the MTC

William loved going to the temple each week in the MTC!

This one really needs no caption - sheer beauty!!

The MTC Danish district.

William with one of his MTC teachers and I am sorry I don't know his name.

Some pics from the MTC

Wow - this makes a mom's heart happy!!!

Other missionaries going to Denmark.  At least they know where it is on the map!!!

A sign of hard working missionaries.

William with the Danish flag at the MTC.

Second Week in Denmark

Kære familie,

 

Week 2 in the bag.  I think I'm going to have to start nixing the week count cause that will get old and depressing after a while.  So yeah this week went by way fast.  Probably because we were only home for about half of it.  On Tuesday we went up to Roskilde and stayed with the Borries's cousin Æ. Larkin so that we'd have an easy ride into Copenhagen for Zone Conference the next day.  After Zone Conference we went to Nykøbing for splits and had a dinner appt at 5.  We were so tired by the time we got back we went to bed at aroung 830.  We reported our numbers for last week yesterday and they were quite pitiful.  We also started baking cookies to take to all the member families for Christmas.  They are just plain old American chocolate chip cookies and several people have asked for the recipe.  Yeah, somebody needs to get out more!  This week we have to deliver to the rest of the members, but there are so many left and so little time that I don't think we are going to get to all of them.  We've got the Zone Leader's coming for splits on Thurday to Friday so we can double our work load for a while.  We have the coolest zl's, Æ. Meyer and Steed.  Yeah they're awesome. 

 

This week we challenged three people to baptism and they all accepted!!!!  This upcoming week we could get two or three more so things are going great on one end!  Two of the three are a couple.  The mom is from Greenland and the dad is from Uganda and they have two kids.  It would be awesome if we could get all of them to join the church.  When we went, the mom Malina, said that she'd only read 13 chapters in 1 Nephi!!!  We were like that's AWESOME!!!!!  Mauler on the way out was like, well she's read more than me in the past few days.  So yeah they look really promising.  The other one has a husband that is really against it so we are not as optimistic.  Apparently, she already had a baptism planned and her husband found out and canceled the whole thing.  I think that has been one of my biggest shocks coming here.  You here stories of people who are against the church but when you actually see it, its totally different than you expected.  One lady last night made us talk in the kitchen with the door closed because she was afraid her husband would hear and come and beat her.  Ok that was a little intense. 

 

This week I dunno what happened but everything just seemed to come a lot easier with the language.  Not so much speaking it but I felt like I was able to understand alot more when people were talking.  I still have a hard time but I feel like the Lord is blessing me a little bit so that I can communicate better with them.  Also food is amazing here!!!!  I think I already said that, but it is so true.  Yesterday we had Ris og Grød and it  tasted like one of the best things ever!!!!  Yeah we still haven't gone to a bakery yet but when we do that is going to be amazing. 

 

Well thats it for this week.  Hope all is going well.  All the snow is almost gone so thats nice.  Love you all and miss you too.  Almost Christmas!!!

 

Æ. William Veach

First Week in Denmark

I apologize that these are late in being posted.   Clarissa and I have been in Europe for her senior trip for 2 weeks and I didn't take a laptop.  We had a great time and no we didn't go to Denmark to see William - although it was very tempting.  He is totally right though the weather there is freezing cold!!!  The Mom

 

Hej Familie!!!

 

So I made it to Denmark safely as you can guess from the email that you are now reading.  So much has happened I guess I'll start at the beginning.  After 15 hours of traveling time we got to København (Copenhagen) at aroung nine on Tuesday morning.  The assisstants, Ældster Pullan and Holladay and Præsident Andersen were waiting after we got our bags.  After the airport, the assisstants took us to the mission office to chill for about 15 min. until we went out again.  Pullan and Holladay took us on a tour of Copenhagen, where we saw some of  the culture and went to the church that has the original Christus statue.  It was way cool.  There are also statues of all the twelve apostles except for Judas Iscariot who is replaced by Paul.  After that we had a Danish fast food lunch, that was fun and then we went contacting by the harbor that was nerve racking!   But we did it and handed out some pass along cards and then went back to the office to get an orientation and be interviewed by Præsident Andersen.  He is a way awesome guy!!!  I guess you already saw a picture of him but yeah so after the interview we went back  to the airport to pick up our Iceland comrades that flew in later than us.  From there we went to the mission home to have dinner and crash and burn for the night.  Søster Andersen made a fantastic meal and then we had a short testimony meeting and went to bed.  (We still don't know where we're serving or who we're serving with by this point)  In the morning we wake up, take a shower, get dressed and eat breakfast and then go the Nittivej Chapel behind the temple.  FINALLY!!!!  We were finding out what we really wanted to know!!!!  So yeah he called us up one by one and told us where we were going.  Ældste Tolman went to Randers, Ældste Feil to Århus, Ældste Bailey to Esbjerg and me to Slagelse!  Its a really small town on Sjælland (Zealand), on the west coast of the Island if you look it up.  My trainer is Ældste Mauler.  He's from Colorado and has been out about 15 months.  I'm his second trainee so he sorta knows what he's doing. 

 

We left almost immediatley after meeting our trainers.  Before I could unpack we were out the door again.  At night we did some tracting and like any senior companion would Mauler gave me the first door.  With alot of his help we were able to get in with this guy from Mexico, yeah he didn't even speak Danish!!!  Not bad for a first contact.  The guy is way weird but we're teaching him again tonight so we'll see what happens.  I've eaten with two member families so far.  No make that three.  So far the food has been good but the conversation not so much since I can hardly understand Danish and especially legit Danish!!!  But its coming along and already I'm starting to understand more and more.  Church was only about 50 people if that and almost all of them were old people.   The most interesting part was that they couldn't pronounce my name!  In Danish SOME of the time not all, the 'V' makes and 'w' sound and they don't have a 'ch' to speak of, so they kept pronouncing it 'Weesh', I just shook my head.  I must have told people and corrected my name a thousand times just in the three hours of church.  One guy was like, >Weesh, like weesh-craft......< no not at all. 

 

So yeah there was a ton of snow when I got here last week and it hasn't let up at all!!!!   The wind is terrible and we have to walk to alot of our appointments!!!  Weather.com might say that Utah is colder but I've been in both in the last week and I can tell you now that Denmark is so much colder than Utah right now!!!!  The snow is making me really tired, for some reason.   Every time we get on the bus I fall asleep.  Not on purpose, it just happens!  The food is amazing.  Even the store bought bread tastes as good as some of the expensive bread in the states.  AHHH!!! its just all so good!!! 

 

So when they had the temple open house six years ago, alot of nonmembers came and were asked to right down their thoughts and they might be visited later.  I add that because they just started doing them so we went and helped the Copenhagen district the other day with theirs.  It was like a giant splits thing.  I don't know how it happened but I ended up with Præsident Andersen!!!!  I was like uh.....are you sure.  But it was actually a really good experience.  We placed a bunch of Book of Mormons and got two new investigators.  One of the ladies we taught was a Muslim from Bosnia that had fled the country before it got bad.  It was way cool to talk to her.  I have come to love immigrant Danish because it is so much clearer than regular!

 

Well thats about all.  I have to write a letter to the mission president now, so I'll just say that I love you all.  Hope you're having a good Holiday prep.  Things are going very well here.  Hope its the same with you.  Email coming next week!!!!  Jeg Elsker jer!!! Love you all!!!!

 

-Ældste William Veach

William Arrived Safely

William arrived safely in Copenhagen on Tuesday morning.  Here is a picture with the other Danish missionaries and President Jens Andersen.  This mother is very grateful to a mission president who understands that moms need to know their sons are safe.