Slagelse Report: 9 days to transfers

Kære Familie,

 

Hvordan har I det?  (How are you?)  I'm sorry to here that everybody's sick.  I'm back to normal so that's pretty nice!  This week was pretty quiet.  We went on splits to Nykøbing, which is basically the reject place of the mission.  Nobody likes it.  The branch has about 10 active.  There branch president is from Slagelse (two hours away!)!  Not alot of work is going on down there and alot think that they should just close the area for a little bit and put missionaries somewhere where the work can go forward.  I don't think that it will happen though because the missionaries are what keep the branch alive.  We also had some good meets with our investigator Cecelie.  Those were really positive. 

 

We're excited for transfers.  Not because we want to leave, just because it is cool to see who is going to get moved around.  Mauler and I started a "Transfer Madness" similar to March Madness where we fill out where we think the missionaries will go and then we created a scoring system.  We're trying to get the whole Sjælland zone in on it and it could be a lot of fun.  This week the 13 days of no sun streak was broken and it was sunny for a day and is now back to overcast.  It sucks just feeling tired all the time! 

 

One cool thing that I found out this week.  We have an investigator, well not really anymore, she was but kind of isn't interested, but she loves feeding the missionaries.  She's been doing it for about three years now.  Anyway, I think she's the coolest person in Slagelse.  Her husband died of cancer a couple years ago, and this past dinner appointment she told us some stories from his military career that I  thought were just awesome!!!!  Apparently, he was a member of the Danish army in 1940.  When the Germans invaded, he and his company were on the border and hadn't recieved any orders contrary to protecting their country.  Consequently, most of his buddies died before the government sent out the order not to oppose the Nazis.  Later in the 50's, he was the only Danish member of the French Foreign Legion that fought in Vietnam right before they left.  Sorry, but the history guru in me thought that was so cool!!!

 

A kind of funny thing happened this week with Æ. Mauler.  He is convinced that he cannot learn anymore Danish through English.  He says that it has plateued.  So this week he went and bought materials to learn German through Danish.  He said he heard somewhere that if you study a 3rd language from your 2nd, your 2nd becomes much better.  So what is my companion doing?  Learning German!!  So he was so giddy about this, after learning some the first day, he's in the bathroom and yells "Ich libe Mauler!!!!!!"  I thought it was hilarious.  So between transfers and Maulers' German I have had plenty of entertainment this week.  Hope things go better at home!  Love and miss ya tons.

 

Æ. William Veach

Slagese Report

Kære Familie,

 

How are things going?  This week has been really good.  We had a bunch of really good lessons and lots of success.  First the weekly report.  We had Zone Conference on Wednesday.  That was good.  I'm always amazed at how great of a teacher Pres. Andersen is!  He teaches from the scriptures and I always learn a ton so that was really good.  Afterwards, Mauler had a Leadership meeting the next day and I went on splits to Roskilde with Kambyl's cousin Æ. Larkin.  We actually had a lot of success.  We were able to make appointments with several people and taught four lessons before having to go back to Copenhagen.  There was one really positive girl from Germany who was really receptive.  Too bad all of this is for a different area, but oh well.  We came back on Thursday night and crashed! 

Here are some stories from this week that I sent to the mission president just so I don't have to retype them:

 

We were able to meet with one of our more positive investigators this week, Jack og Malene.  It had been a while because of the holidays and she had surgery, but we had a fantastic lesson.  We finished our lesson on the Plan of Salvation.  There was a really nerve racking part, when I made a comment to try and help them understand resurrection a little better.  They thought it was funny (maybe it was a little bit.  It was about how my Grandpa would have hair again when he was resurrected with his perfect body) and Malene laughed for about 3-5 minutes.  I was just kinda like ok.  But it helped because they were way more open and relaxed after that.  At the end of the lesson, Æ. Mauler and I showed pictures of our families and testified that we knew that we could live with them for eternity.  We then asked them what they thought of the opportunity to live with their families again and they both said that it sounded amazing.  The spirit was sooo strong.  We invited them to church, but they weren't able to make it.  We really want to meet with them this week.  We feel like they are so close to baptism! 

Nu har jeg en mirakel historie! (I put this in Google translate and it means, "Now I have a miracle story"  I think it is cool how William just switches languages without realizing it - a true miracle for him!!)  On Saturday, we decided to visit a bunch of people around Slagelse.  Unfortunately, some of them weren't home.  So we went to this student housing complex that had been banked about a year ago.  We decided that enough time had gone by that we could try it again.  We head over and decide to start at the top of the street, but for some reason we kinda of started in the middle of the first area.  I asked if we shouldn't just start at the beginning and Æ. Mauler (I think cause he was sick of walking) said to just start right there and then work our way around.  So we went up the stairs to the top and we chose the door til hojre (to the right).  We knocked on the door and someone opened.  It was this woman and we started talking at the door and she said that she had been contacted by missionaries before.  We asked a little bit of what she remembered and she said that she couldn't remember that much.  After talking for a little bit longer, she let us inside.  As we sat down we continued talking.  She said that she had come to church several times when she had investigated before and even attended a baptism!  She also said that she had never prayed with the previous missionaries.  We continued to talk about how she felt about her experience and answer her questions.  We talked about faith and how sometimes your faith has to be tried and then you will experience the full blessings that come.  She said she agreed with that.  I missed alot of other things she said, just because I didn't understand.  We invited her to read Alma 32 and then pray about it.  She said that she would do both!  We then agreed to come back the next week to see if she had any questions. 

Now comes the real miracle.  When we got home I started looking for the record for her because she said that she had been taught multiple times and come to church.  I went through the old area book 3 times and could not find her anywhere.  Finally I pulled open the new book with the more recent investigators and I found her.  Æ. Mauler had put her on a list of possible past investigators we could visit because she had been really positive before.  She had been an investigator from the summer of 2008!  As I continued reading it, it talked about all of her lessons, of course, but the reason she was dropped was because she said that she had no desire to hear anymore about the church.  Apparently, two other sets of missionaries had tried to find her and just stop by, but she had moved and changed her phone number, and we found her by banking a basically random door.  I really learned from this experience, that sometimes the people you least expect to hear your message, may be some of your most receptive ones and to listen to the spirit when finding people.  I also learned the importance of following up with past investigators because you never know if something has changed in their life, that might make them more eager to learn about Jesus Christ's restored gospel.  Tak for alledu har gjort!  Tak for din tjeneste!  (Thanks for all you've done!  Thank you for your service!)

-Æ. Veach

 

Hope everything is going well.  Things are good here.  The snow is almost gone and transfers are coming up.  Its exciting talking about where everybody might go!  I love and miss you tons!  Vi Ses! (We meet!)

 

William

Slagese Report

Kære Familie,

 

The snow is starting to melt!  Of course, the last time that happened it snowed again so I'm not holding my breath about seeing green grass much longer.  This week was probably the worst and slowest week of the whole mission (excluding week 1 in the MTC).  We had P-Day, that was fun, but got news last minute that we had to go to Århus (3ish hours away) on Tuesday for a new missionary meeting.  So we didn't get home that day until 6pm.  The next day we had some visits, but I woke up and felt disgusting.  So we ended the day early and I came home to recoup.  Needless to say, it turned into a three day cold which found us stuck in our apartment (Sister Andersen's orders!).  On Thursday though, we had to go to Roskilde for my first interviews.  That was ok.  There is some mission drama brewing (not with me) so Pres didn't spend that long with me and I had nothing to whine about so it was short and sweet.  We spent a couple hours Friday, Saturday and Sunday trying to visit people, but everybody was either busy or not home.  It's ok, this week is going to be better! 

 

Yesterday, like a good missionary, I went to church.......and gave a talk.  It was interesting.  My first one på Dansk!  I basically just wrote it down and read it.  Much safer then going off notes in this situation. I don't know but some people must have gotten the impression that since I can semi read scriptures from the pulpit that I am now fluent.  One lady comes up to me after the meeting and butts Mauler out of the way and starts speaking rapid fire Danish at me.  Apparently, she was telling me to tell her husband, who was in a meeting, that she was leaving with the kids.  As she was walking away, I looked at Mauler and another member and was like, Why and what was she talking to me!?  It was kinda funny.  We also gave one of our investigators The Testaments because she was sick.   She is one step away from baptism, she is just afraid to tell her Dad about it.  So after we dropped it off we were pumped.  We're like, she's going to feel the spirit and talk to her dad tonight!!!!  We got a text from her the next day.  She hadn't even made it 20 min into the movie before she fell asleep!  Ugh!!!

 

Hope everything is going well.  This week will be better.  I'm feeling better and we're pumped and ready to go to work.  Hope all is well at home!  Jeg elsker jer! 

 

Æ. William Veach

First 2011 Report

Kære Familie,

This was a long, fun, completely unproductive week!  First, we went to Nykøbing for splits Tuesday night and were gone until Saturday around 2pm.  The splits were OK.  We stayed at the ZLs Wed and Thurs night.  Thursday was the Sjælland Christmas activity.  That was alot of fun.  We played games, had spiritual thoughts from leadership and ate (shocker, thats all the Danes seem to do).  The next day was the Nytårsfest!  That was also fun.  At around 6pm, the Queen addressed the whole nation and we watched that.  She had awesome Danish, if only the whole country spoke like that.  It was really cool because she didn't talk about normal political stuff, but more moral stuff like how we had to help one another.  I hadn't heard a political address like that before.  THEN!!!!!  We got permission to watch Toy Story 3 just for that night!  It was also a lot of fun.  All through the night, the people of Copenhagen shoot off their own fireworks.  Everybody is doing it and it's really cool to see.  We went up to the balcony of the senior couple's apartment and watched.  It looked cool, but I think the Fourth of July looks much better.  Anyway, the exciting part of the night was when the wind caught one of the fireworks shot next to our building and it went off right above all of our heads.  Several sparks fell in our little crowd and one of the missionaries has got a nice little burn on his nose by his eye (the angels are on our side!).  Then it was home to collapse and celebrate the coming of 2011! 

Yeah, not a lot of missionary work this week, but alot of fun still.  We're looking forward to the new week of work, although I just found out that we're going to Århus tomorrow for some reason so we'll see.  Can I just say that I miss the U.S. so much?  This one was a weird one that I have been thinking about this week for some reason.  I miss being able to drive and understand people.  Yeah, I can't remember all the thoughts I had on it so that will have to suffice.  Thanks for your Christmas package!  I got that the other day!  Love and miss ya tons!!

Æ. William Veach

This is a pic of some of my favorite missionaries right before 2011.

L to R: Æ. Ence (my brother, trained by same guy), Æ. Steed, Æ. Meyer, Æ. Poulsen (front), Æ. Mauler, Æ. Camp and I forgot that guys name, the redhead!  The Mom is slightly prejudiced, but she thinks the redhead is the cutest one of all!!!!