Week 1 Letter 4/18/13

Hello all!
Wow, what a week! I have learned so much this week about myself and about
the gospel. I learned that i absolutely hate skirts with a passion  but
there is nothing i can do about that for the next 18 months so i guess i'll
just have to get over that. I have grown so much in these past 8 days.
I have two companions since there are 5 of us in our district (or there
will be 5). We have one sister left over from the last transfer because she
had mono... what? haha Word to the wise: DO NOT SHARE TOOTHPASTE IN THE
MTC! haha My companions are Sister Rogers, who i met in New York when we
went to get my visa and who is from St. George, and Sister Hall who is from
DC. They are both amazing and so strong. We are all so different but we get
along with absolutely no problem. Maybe it's too early to say that though
haha It has only been a week. We work well together, though, which is
great. We have a lot of fun and learn a lot together. Sister Rogers is just
like Kirk. My fire friends will understand that, for everyone else, i will
explain. Everywhere we go with Kirk from North Tooele, he knows EVERYBODY!
haha We can not leave the station without losing Kirk because he found
someone to talk to and say hi. Most of the time it's not just one person he
finds and talks to. He always finds like 5 or 6! We always joke around with
each other and if we know someone, we have to laugh and say "You're just
like Kirk!" Well, everywhere we go, Sister Rogers knows someone. Usually
more than a few people too. It is insane!

I have seen a few people i know. I sometimes see Chance around. I've seen
Jeff Monson and a couple of kids from Stansbury. I saw Lauren Zabriskie,
which was cool, and i met Nathan's cousin's cousin. Small world :)

 I have seen the gift of tongues work first hand and i have experienced it
myself. We got here on Wednesday the 10th and on Thursday the 11th we
taught a lesson to an investigator... In Danish... We basically just copied
everything out of preach my gospel and a few other handy little books they
gave us to make a lesson about prayer. I think we pronounced everything ok
because it seemed like he understood everything we were saying, but at the
end when we asked a question (it was a yes or no question, by the way) he
went on and on and ON pa Danske (That means in Danish). We kind of just sat
there and stared at him while he was trying to talk to us. I'm sure we
looked like total idiots! haha by the end, though, we could piece together
what he said which, in my opinion, was pretty amazing. We were much better
prepared the next day and we understood most of what he said. THe only
problem is that we know so little that we cannot respond. It was really
neat, though, to go from knowing absolutely nothing to being able to get
the gist of what he was saying in just 24 hours.

We have one teacher that comes for about 3 hours 4 sometimes 5, days a
week. It's not a whole lot of instruction time, which is kind of hard,
especially since the other class has a teacher that comes just as much,
then they have another person come in who is faculty here that helps them
out with all their stuff . he hasn't shown up in our room once which is
frustrating because we're right next door and we need just as much help,
but whatever. Life is hard but that's what makes the easy times so worth
it.
We had two interesting lessons with Runne, our investigator. one lesson we
had worked so hard to put together and we went in all prepared and ready
for it. We went through the lesson and everything went great, until the
very end when we gave him a scripture and he got all confused. We didn't
understand that because we thought the scripture was pretty straight
forward, but whatever, teach the person not the lesson. We had him write
down all of his questions because we didn't understand the words he was
using. We got back to the class and translated everything and he asked us
what the scripture had to do with him. He thought it was quite gruesome and
violent. We gave him a scripture on the Holy Ghost so that made absolutely
no sense. We opened to the verse we had in our notes in our English
scriptures and what we read had nothing to do with the holy ghost haha We
had written down the wrong chapter so he read about war and a whole bunch
of gross stuff. Just so you all know, Moroni chapters 9 and 10 are very
different... haha
The second lesson we had went great! Rune went off on a tangent that had
nothing to do with what we had taught him and we understood everything he
said! It was great. We answered questions (it took a while since we had to
look everything up)but it felt great! Finally he was trying to tell us
something, but we had no idea. He started writing things on the board,
doing big hand gestures, walking around, everything. we were not
understanding anything. Finally, he asked if we listen to music, and we all
said yes. He started doing the Gangnem Style dance and song right in the
middle of our lesson! haha We had no idea how to react so we all busted up
laughing. He was trying to say style, like life style! haha It was the
funniest thing in the whole world! We understood everything after that, but
we were all laughing so hard we had to end it so we can pick it up
tomorrow. I will forever remember the day my investigator did the gangnem
style in our lesson... haha

On Tuesday this week we had Elder Scott come speak to us. It was the
neatest experience! He spoke to us about so many wonderful things. I took
at least four pages of notes on a 20 min talk. I think i might have carpul
tunnel now haha. He spoke with so much power and certainty. The spirit in
the room was palpable. He spoke about missionary work and about how all of
our calls are inspired and how we will never be called to do something we
cannot do. He said that God calls us to succeed. He said this same thing
over and over in his talk, each time it got more powerful. He talked about
the blessings the sisters will recieve because we had the choice to serve,
we were not commanded to serve a mission. At the end of his talk he said
that he felt inspired to give an apostolic blessing. My branch pres
explained to us after that an apostalic blessing is the same as having the
apostle place his hands on every individual's head to pronounce the
blessing. So basically, I, as well as every missionary in the mtc, recieved
a blessing from Elder Scott. How cool is that?! He said so many amazing and
wonderful things. We sang the closing hymn and before the prayer he got up
AGAIN to pronounce another blessing on us. He ended with saying that he
KNOWS that Christ lives because he KNOWS him. Think about that. Amazing.
The room was silent. I have never felt so much power in my entire life.
That blessing was an answer to so many of my prayers for the last few
months. I know that God loves each and every one of us individually. He has
sent me on my mission to Copenhagen Denmark for a reason. I will do
everything in my power to make Him proud and to fulfill my duty.

To answer a few questions, the food here is ok. I mean it's good, but after
a while it gets kind of old. It's like eating at Applebees every day, just
not quite as good. Maybe it's just me and my companions, but that's how we
see it. There is some pretty good cereal, though, that's always fun.

Danish is extremely hard but it's coming along. They don't like to say all
the letters in the words and a lot of the letters make different sounds for
absolutely no reason at all. It is quite strange. As of right now, the
letter d is my enemy. It can say "d", "l", "t" (more in the back of your
throat, like how we say mountain) and it can be just plain silent. Gah!
haha there is no reason or rhyme to this madness!It'll come though. It's
only been 1 week, i can't be perfect at it yet.

So one more funny story. My family and fire friends will appreciate this.
So, withthe fire dept we had a pager tone, and every time we heard it we
knew that's when we got to go out and save the day. The ambulance pager
tone would always come out first, though, so whenever we heard those tones,
we'd all stop and listen to see if it might be us. Well, the intercom beeps
before anyone can talk into it, and guess what noise it makes. It makes the
same, long tone as the Tooele ambulance. I go crazy every time! My heart
starts pounding and i get all excited, then i remember that it's not my
pager going off. Lame.

Well, i am doing great! I love the mtc and i love this gospel. It's amazing
to be here. Letters are gold so feel free to write as much as possible and
you can Dear Elder for free and it gets there the same day :) I want to
hear how everyone is doing and what's going on at home. Thanks for all the
support!

Jeg elsker dig!
Soster Handley (The o should have a slash through it)